Week off!

Yes! Today is the first day of my week off. Hurrah! I'm sitting here in front of my PC with, oddly, KISS FM on (rather unlike me) but it's jogging me through the morning.

I had intended to spend lots of time this week writing. Remember that 'novel'?

Trouble is that on Friday afternoon at work the pain started. The G-word. Arthritic hell. My right arm started to really hurt. So I've stoppped myself from using the PC all weekend ... packed my arm in ice, took my sick-making drugs that keep me tied to the house for 2 days or more ... and I think I stopped it from becoming a massive attack. It's barely swolen but hurts.

I've stopped. But I'm really anxious that I now might not be able to write as I'd wanted to this week. I've been on the PC now for 20 minutes and keep checking to see if the pain is getting worse.

I've turned KISS off now and onto the far mor respectable tones of Today on Radio 4.

Gosh, Blunkett is on. Wait a sec. He's talking about the headlined 'pending labour party civil war' ... and that the leadership acknowledges the dismay felt by last week's local council election results. Interesting that he's been wheeled out as if he's a cabinet member ... he's no more than a back-bencher now. But he's a Blairite and an old stager.

Being a news junkie, and someone fascinated in the cut and thrhust of politics and the characters involved, I'm quite pleased I've got this week off because some real interesting politics could be starting to unfold this week. Tony Blair has a meeting with his MPs this evening where he'll be addressing the whole issue of his timetable to leave'.

Labour does need renewal, as Gordon Brown put it yesterday on Sunday AM. When I think back to 1992 and how Neil Kinnock lost that election. I was gutted. I signed up as a member of the Labour Party at the time. I was a member for about 3 or 4 years. Scarily my membership forms seemed to follow me round the country as I moved from house to house around that time. I have no idea how they did that. Even had knocks on the door about my membership! But anyway, I feel rather liberal through and through ... but beginning to realise more and more that you can't always just throw money at problems. Creativity and other structures need to be part of an overall solution, too. I hope that doesn't turn me into a Tory ... I do worry sometimes. They say you turn into a Tory as you get older ... I look at Tony Benn as my hero though, he's kept the faith, kind of.

God don't ya just love Rabbi Lionel Blue? He's a man who could give me faith. (he was just on Thought for the Day). Listen to him.