did you see? dept

The weather has been beautiful today. It is perhaps a little early to call it an "Indian summer" (I think you need at least a week of much-better-than-average weather for that), but it is predicted to get even warmer towards the end of the week so we can only hope. It will at least compensate a little for the very disappointing June, July and most of August Britain and indeed much of northern Europe has had to endure this year.

I deployed the good conditions to tidy up my father-in-law's back yard. In a physically draining process that lasted more than 2 hours, I filled 12 black sacks with builder's rubble and other general crap, as well as an Audi's bootfull of cuttings from the shrubs that line the area and were threatening to bar access to the space completely. I promised my wife that, even if I hadn't done the job well enough to satisfy your average obsessional neurotic, she would at least be able to see a difference. She'd bloody well better...

COMMENT

Last night there were 2 exceptionally fine pieces of TV journalism. The first, on Channel 4, entitled "The Wonderful World Of Tony Blair", showed how the Quartet's "Special Envoy to the Middle East" has been occupying his time. Oh, he's been very discreet, working behind the scenes to advance the peace process is what he'd tell you; so discreet indeed thao he's made no observable difference to the lives of ordinary Palestinian people. But he has managed to broker a couple of deals which have been highly lucrarive to the American "superbank" JP Morgan, who (and obviously there is NO connection) just happen to pay Mr Blair £2 million a year as a consultant. Hmm.

Then over on BBC 1, "Panorama" showed a horrifying little film about Syria's "Spring", though by now it is heading rapidly towards being a winter of discontent (sorry). The details have confirmed all our worst fears, as we saw a large group of mostly young men advance on the troops from the ultra-loyalist 4th division, armed, not with weapons but with camera-phones.
"These are our guns!" they chanted.
"The truth!"
The soldiers opened up with their fully automatic weapons in a quite incredible fusilade. In moments, forty of the young men lay dead. Their deaths were not wholly in vain however: the images they captured with their phones have now gone around the World, showing up Assad's murderous regime for what it is.