I weary of the incessant sordid and maladroit behaviour collectively heralded by the Labour politicians as (TARAN TARAAR sound effect of a trumpet) running the country. Running it where exactly? But before I get completely jaded and continue this post as yet another expostulation on the rank stupidity abounding in government, I had to attend a retirement function today.

Well I felt obliged to go. It was a long drive (at least 70 miles away). Therefore although I knew champagne would flow like the crystal streams they say flow in hell (sorry I got carried away by a lyric there) I knew sensibly it would be best not to drink and imbibe as they say. And then there are the guests. Not that many people I knew very well. I'm not a good mixer either. It would be working the room really and that's something I gave up (along with smoking) along time ago. Well you know what they say............."nothing is ever as good or as bad as you think".

The guest of honour is a lady of astounding strength, character, fortitude and quite literally a life-enhancer. She founded a school for profoundly disadvantaged and severely special needs children 18 years ago. These children have been cast-aside by a society that apes the shennigans of our illustrious government. And an education system that would not want to contemplate that not every child can be integrated into a main stream education system.

It was her day. The unsung heroine. I looked on with pride, respect, admiration. It was an emotionally charged and uplifting tribute to somebody that in my opinion should have been given a damehood. Isn't that a lady knight? Or maybe not. What does it mean if Cliff Richard can be knighted? Summer holiday!!!! And any tosser that clamours to get into an Orwellian TV house gets acres of coverage in the daily dabloids.

Oh I know this isn't an original point of view but then nothing really is................

God bless the unsung hero/heroines

I wanted to play on blog this evening. Not really inspired to write anything. Just visit friends and post a comment or two. Trouble is the blogs are sloooooooooooooooow, verily I say unto you.

So sloooooooooooooooooooooooow in fact that I have made some cheese whilst attempting to post a comment. It started off as milk (in a jug and everything) but by the time I successfully posted a comment it was a finely matured Kin' ell. From the vales of Frustrationshire. Had a chat with the cows whilst it past your eyes. Pull the udder one.

Sorry, I'll get my virtual cardie and watch the television instead.

After extreme ironing came extreme Easter.

Extreme for the amount of alcohol consumed. All fun and frivolity. A weekend get together with top friends in bacchanalian, bucolic splendour. The smell of horse manure, chicken shit and waxy daffodils. The joyful peal of church bells on Sunday morning. Which incidentally always reminds of Vivian (a la Young Ones fame - aka Ade Edmondson) skriking: ...."shut up you bastards!"

The booze and party atmoshpere prevailed from the Good Friday afternoon. Sunny garden, rose wine and friends laughing. Music, dinner and then dancing in the diningroom. Conveniently forget the abrasive, intrusive telephone call to a mate at 1.30am. Banging on about this and that and adamant that he should listen. Very drunk and still feelig drunk the following day - Saturday. Drink more at lunchtime. Bag of chips sitting on a bench outside the Baptist church. No more food that day and more drinking. But really that wasn't too bad.

It was Easter Sunday. Good intentions on a bracing country walk fell by the wayside, when we stopped in the pub. Red wine, footie on tele - Liverpool v Blackburn. Raising our glasses to the solid line of traffic outside the pub window, heading for the first car boot sale of the season. Fools!

There was a capon to cook for a late Easter lunch so we headed back to the house, invited the neighbours round for a glass of wine and drank some more. The mateus rose was depleted so my friends and I volunteered to buy a bottle at the Londis store. Wow! Three bottles for £10. Right let's have them then. Before heading home, we walked to the Red Lion (rose clinking in the carrier bags) just for 1. Not much more remembered after that. Apparently we ordered a bottle of red between three. Drank up and walked home with the three for £10 offer still clanking in the bag. Got back, cranked up the music and drank some more. Neither my friends nor I remembered sitting down to this by now tardy lunch.......later outside, we have lit the brazier and are drinking more wine, the liquors have come out. No, I've had enough and weave my way to bed. It was only about 15 minutes later that the commotion started. A dull thud, hysterical cries and extemely bad language. Voices, an ambulance arrives and more hysterical sobbing and abusive language.

The Easter break has well and truly arrived. My friend had fallen down the stairs. From the very top to the very bottom. Einaar! Ouch! And broken her arm very badly. She is still in hospital as I write this. I shall be going back to Bucolia to play matron whilst she recovers.

Did she get any Easter eggs (I've since fretted)?

A Nestle's Kit-Kat? "Have a break - have a wrist-cast." Sorry hun!

After two international weeks of gadding the globe I have been forced to renew my acquaintance with the ironing. Now I know many bloggers detest posts on laundry but many others will sympathise - think Noel Edmonds pacing the floor on Deal or No Deal. Do you think he really gives a toss about those boxes? Or the contestant gulping his way through the contents of his question mark mug? Absolutely not. He's wondering if his ironing has been done when he gets home. All those shirts you see. And not your polyester and cotton shite neither. Thomas Pinks with double cuffs and collar stiffners. He might look all Harry Casual on TV but ladies just think how long his hair must take to blow dry.

And so on to my ironing. Today I will be mainly ironing Thomas Pinks - finest twill.

Bang goes my easter break. Not so, however, if the ironing board hits the deck first!

POST SCRIPT: I've approached the ironing casket. I may be sometime, and rapidly losing the twill to live.

I'm not really a foreign correspondent, although I have been offered a position with that serious broadsheet Globe Gobblers. Don't worry if you have never heard of them - you soon will.

And so on to other news. I have just returned from Paris. This trip filled me with a sulky sort of resignation. I have never been before and was prepared for the worst. Especially the Parisians - perhaps the epitome of parody, Pythonesque style? Secretly I wanted to mash (quelle horreur, a la tete) anyone who gave me a dismissive shrug of their Parisian shoulder pads. And so, with this Anglo-French attitude of bonhomie, first stop - the Left Bank or Rive Gauche.

The Place de Pantheon outside Les Grandes Hommes bijoux hotel. After relinquishing our baggage, we headed to Notre Dame and La Place De Vosges. This square is very Nottinghill/Hampstead Sunday cafe society. All honey coloured stone, open windows wafting filter coffee, and jewel green grass. Victor Hugo had a house in this square. But maybe Liberace had one too! Bought some amazing pastries (eat your tart out "Greggs" the bakers) at a side street boulangerie and headed back to the Left Bank for an amazing feather steak and frites. Served on wooden chopping boards which had been outlawed by health and safety regulations in this country as far back as Neville Chamberlain and his white paper, I believe.

If you really want to get a complimentary high tea, shop at the real Chanel Boutique at la Place de Vendome!!!They will even serve you Earl Grey. If you want to get your wadge out and pay for something, you are ushered into an anti-room. No vulgar payment methods on display to its clients s'il vous-plait.

Had to vist le tour Eiffel. The queue for the lifts is excrutiating. But worth it? Still numbed by the easterly wind to reach a conclusion on that one yet. Truly magnificent structure all the same especially at night. On the hour it gives more bling than a giant sparkler (the firework sort). Fizzing, blue, crackling lights.

I found the people friendly and polite. The city fascinating for the uber-ostentation of its architecture. Their driving/traffic system chaotic and incomprehensible.

But I was totally impressed with their taxi drivers. Why?

Well.................this is true:

A Paris cabbie will leap out of his seat, take your luggage, placing it firmly in the boot and open the door for you to climb in - FORMIDABLE!

A London cabbie pulls up with a (more-than-my-job's-worth) gob-on. Smirks whilst you struggle to lift your baggage. Asks me what roads are best out to North West London and then uses the "c" word to his mate on his blue tooth, crochet-hook, hands free system. Now I don't mind the "c" word as long as I'm using it. I do mind when I'm paying somebody £42 cab fare for the privilege - UN-BLOODY-BELIEVABLE!

(the view from my hotel window)

If the truth be told I have never really been a fan of all things American. They probably don't lose too much sleep over that opinion neither. Although I'm sure like most of you that own a television, we have grown up on a diet of American TV programmes. From Top Cat to the Odd Couple and Kojak and more recently Friends and Sex and the City. Then there's the movies from Saturday Night Fever to Ghostbusters.

The skyline of Manhattan has pervaded our living-rooms for 'kin years! So much so that I had to see it in the granite so to speak. I wanted to see the Chrysler building. I wanted to wander the streets in the shadows and crane my neck upwards to see the sun slinking between the slim fingers of concrete. The older sky-scrapers are magnificent architecturally. Buildings built in the early part of the 20th century are decorated with gargoyles, cupolas and turrets. Roof top water tanks being disguised as spires and other fanciful structures. Looking at these buildings gave me a rush of adrenalin rather like a mountain does when I know I'm going to get to the top.

Then there are clean streets. Yes clean streets! Polite yet unobsequious service in the restaurants and shops. Cheap cab fares and police everywhere. And not just patrolling in cars. Most of them were on foot, on street corners and outside subways. Their patrol cars read "courtesy, professionalism, respect".

Shakespeare said "comparisons are odious". But after living in London for the last 18 years I cannot help but compare these two cities and find London sadly lacking. It's dirty, expensive and unable to provide satisfactory services be they tourist and leisure activities or essentials like policing and transport.

So after my trip I ask myself one question: What is the point of Ken Livingstone?