I was going to try and put together a lengthy post as a document of Dr Nick Smith MP for Nelson, and the saga of his battle with the Family Court.

After looking through the weekend news and the commentary from all the pundits it seems to be pretty much a waste of time. All that needs to be said has gone. If I could vote for the man, I probably would.

If I could be bothered - which at the moment is unlikely.

We were looking to go north to mow the lawn this weekend. Then Shirley took a fall on Tuesday evening while assisting at the International Hockey tournament down at Lloyd Elsmore Park. That shook her fairly badly, only bumps and bruises and a couple of stitches in the nog but some of the bruises are still coming out.

So, no trip north. A wise decision seeing that we spent a (comparatively) short while in the car this afternoon and she was quite stiff after.

What to talk about? The weather? The past two weeks have been fantastic. The next week is looking good. In between? Saturday - chore day perfect. Sunday - flying day someone left the door open. Souwesters at 30 up to 50 (knots, not kph). Sat on the beachfront (in the car) this afternoon for a bit watching the sailboarders on the estuary at Bucklands.

Welcome to Jasper Michael Renner Allen.

As always fate has to toss a down against the up. A 'Net acquiantance whom I know as "Retusaf" has been taken very poorly (cause unknown but probably age related) suddenly with a most serious prognosis. So, I have (his wife's e-mail has done the rounds very quickly) sent my wishes to him, his wife and family.

I am having a quiet chuckle at the moment over a joke ( I don't have many, and very very few are original...) that occurred to me while posting a "contribution" to a BB in a galaxy far far away...

I am a fan of Terry Pratchett, his Discworld novels, and his other novels. He has that dry quirky sense of fun that I like.

I was sitting on the loo (known in the family in the as the "library" for reasons that will be apparent) and the cover of his "Men at Arms" caught my eye. Well rather a detail did.

One of the recurring characters is a troll by name of Detritus and I was sitting there staring at this picture and I suddenly realised that the book was upside down, but that the face of Detritus still made sense. It was a little like the paradigm change between the old hag and the beautiful girl.

But Pratchett's trolls was the starting point of the little, abbreviated wisecrack that came to mind while I was writing. In another of his books ([i]Night Watch[/i]), Pratchett writes a whole subplot on the topic of trolls, silicaceous life forms, and the effect of superconductivity on their mental function. It is a great sequence, starting with Detritus learning to count, first in binary, then in octal, then learning how to convert octal to decimal. The subplot finishes with Detritus locked in a "pork futures warehouse" writing increasingly abstruse mathematical equations in the frost on the walls, ending with an enigmatic "=" where he froze solid.

So, there is the basis for my pune on the "troll", in the debate that this BB had developing.

"Trolls are silicaceous life forms. Their mental functions work best when temperatures are below 100K. That is also why they tend to become incoherent and dysfunctional when the resulting debate, or they personally, gets heated."

Yeah yeah I know it is not all that funny but its the best my sense (wierd or wired, never worked that out) of humour got.

Isn't "writers block" a terrible thing!

Noted - the retirement of Alistair Cooke - doyen journalist and commentator. Oh, how I wish!!!