I don't really know what to write at the moment. I'm having a particularly great time right now, spending as much of it with Cath as I can and we are having lots of fun. But it sounds a bit smug to be going about that on the blog, hence the radio silence.

We did have a lovely weekend over the bank holiday. I managed my second game of cricket of the year with considerably more success than the first. We won! I was scandlously given out to a woefull LBW decision, but then again luck had been on my side whilst bowling. I got 4 wickets (all clean bowled) but a lot of that was due to a slightly dodgy pitch. It was a great day out in Abinger Hammer as it always is but I was shocked to realise we've been playing there for 10 years!

After the game I went to meet up with Cath for our mini-break in Walthamstow. Cath is a proud E17 resident and I can see why she likes it. There was certainly plenty to do, we played a bit of tennis on Sunday, went for a walk and then a charming dinner with her neighbours. On Monday we went into town and enjoyed the good weather. We managed to do both Tate Britain and Tate Modern thanks to the Tate Boat which was fun. At Tate Britain we saw the Joshua Reynolds exhibition which was welcomingly uncrowded. I can't stand crowded galleries - you never get to see anything. I enjoyed it but I have to declare that in the 18th Century Blur v Oasis debate I think I'm a Gainsborough man (with maybe a vote for Allan Ramsay as Pulp). I was also thrilled to see Anthony Gormley's powerful pile of toast, sorry, I mean powerful work of art: bed. Apparently he ate his own volume in toast to make it. How 'bout that? Another contribution to that age old debate - is it art or is it breakfast? Thanks Tony - you did it so we don't have to....

Liverpool 3 - A.C. Milan 3 (After extra time: Liverpool win 3-2 on penalties)

It was the last NSN of the season on Monday night. I thought we went out with a bit of a bang: big audience (woo!) and a really tight show (yay!). The feedback was good, and I'm sure I saw the actor who played Nathan Barley on Channel 4 in the audience. Not that that means anything in particular. But anyhow - the feedback. The thing I hear the most is people who say they normally hate improv but they really liked our show. Need to punch that up into a quote for next season's posters...

It was Dad's 87th birthday on Friday. Pretty good going eh? I thought the wide range of birthday cards he received reflected his catholic tastes and wide array of friends and family - an overflowing coffee cup, a picture of the QE2, even a fearsome dagger from Colin Dexter, author of Inspector Morse. Can you guess which is mine?

One of the benefits of my advanced age is that I am now no longer of an age where people want to flog me stuff. Nobody thinks 35 is a cool demographic. I'm certainly not 18-24. Nor am I even 25-34. No, I am 35 and I don't need to worry about what's cool or not anymore.

So how am I benefiting from this new-found liberation from the fickle fortunes of fashion? Well, I'm listening to a lot of Status Quo. How more liberated can you get?

Cath has confirmed that we are an item. Woo hoo!

Well, what a great birthday weekend.

On Saturday I was in Oxford with Dad who's birthday present to me was a new mattress for my sofa-bed futon. The last had got rather lumpy and unpleasant but the new one is sheer decadance and luxury incarnate. So if anyone wants to come stay the accomodation offering round mine has got a lot better. I came back to London on Saturday afternoon to pick said mattress up, lash it to the roof of the Micra and then chug back to the Bush. Now then, does anyone want a secondhand futon mattress? Don't believe everything you hear about it being lumpy and unpleasant.

That evening, by happy coincidence, a reunion of my housemates from Fernie had been arranged. It turned out to be my 35th birthday, and Amy (honorary O'Sullivan's resident) was turning 25 on Sunday. Double whammy. I was offered the chance to make all the arrangements and thus a night out in Shepherds Bush was arranged. Drinks in the Vesbar, tasty Ruby Murray across the road in the Ajanta Tandoori, then round the corner to poncy bar/pub The Defector's Weld (sic). It was the first time we had all got together for over a year: Mike, Andy, Deke, Corrine, Amy and Ali - thank you.

On Sunday I had arranged my birthday party. I thought that with the number of people I know who have had kids the best thing to do would be to have a child friendly do in the daytime. So I did do and it was a top do too. The weather was capricious: it didn't rain but clouds came and went and one minute it was lovely and warm the next decidedly cold. In other words, classic conditions for the Great British Picnic. We all met by the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens and ate and talked and played with the kids. I loved it! And I even managed to get both my god-daughters together in the same place at the same time..


Many thanks to everyone who turned up - and the nice messages from those who couldn't make it


So then - mates, cakes, pressies, the great outdoors. Could it get any better? Well yes, it turned out it could...

You see I had invited a girl along to the picnic. Someone I've just met and like rather a lot. By the end of the picnic I liked her even more. We then went to a cafe in South Kensington for some warming coffee, then a pub, then dinner at mine. I made her my Chorizo Risotto, told her I thought she was great and found out she thought the same about me. Blimey.

Her name is Cath and I think you could say that we are now an item.

:)

= 35.

Happy birthday to me! I'm half way there...

So then, the votes are counted, the rosettes discarded and the swingometer has swung its last. What did we get?

Somehow our crazy and unrepresentative electoral system gave us what I and I think a lot of other people wanted - Labour back in with a reduced majority. Is this Adam Smith's Invisible Hand at work or is this Genesis's Invisible Touch? Whatever it was congratulations to my friend Liam Byrne for holding on to Birmingham Hodge Hill, I'm glad he wasn't a casualty.

The Tories did do better than expected and most troublingly they did better against the Lib-Dems. I can see the next election the Lib-Dem/Backdoor theory really could happen. It happened to the south of me in Hammersmith and Fulham: leftie vote split between Lib-dem and Labour ergo new Tory MP - what a nightmare scenario. Still in the next election the People's Republic of Shepherds Bush will be part of Hammersmith and Fulham and I look forward to voting for Gordon Brown/Labour and letting the Tory spend more time with his family (or someone else's - you know how these Tories are).

The Lib-Dems did well but not well enough. The BNP didn't do that well but did better than I'd like.

As always the true election night highlights were Peter Snow's graphics - his swingometer, election battlefields, first-past-the-post thingy are becoming more and more elaborate that it must take the finest minds at TV Centre a good 4 years to think up what's next. It's becoming so close to The Day Today that I half expect Brant, the physical cartoonist, to be called on to illustrate matters in his own way soon. But you can't go wrong in the avuncular care of David Dimbleby all night - what a powerhouse.

Other highlights for me included the 59% swing away from Labour in Aneurin Bevin's old seat of Bleanau Gwent towards an independent ex-Labour councillor pissed off that the Party had foisted an all-woman shortlist on them. I don't know what to make of this - I think we should do what we can to advance the cause of woman in parliament and it does sound like reactionary old men not liking the sound of it. But part of me thinks it's great that they stuck it to the Man (Labour big wigs) for telling them what to do.

Lowlight was probably George Galloway beating Oona King in Bethnal Green and Bow. I've always been a fan of hers and I just don't get George Galloway, I certainly can't warm to him. He always seems so impressed by himself. I'd like to see if his record in parliament this time around is any better than before where he seldom voted or attended any debates as MP for Glasgow Kelvin.

Up with the lark to do my civic duty this morning before work. And my local polling station, Miles Coverdale Primary School, must be the only polling station in the country nearly named after a member of Whitesnake. Smart.

I love a good vote. I love meeting the volunteers, love studying the ballot paper, love those chunky pencils on a string. My heartbeat definately goes up when I'm standing there in the polling booth but my main pre-occupation is not putting the X in the wrong box: I check about five times that I've lined everything up correctly. I also like seeing where the candidates live. I noted with disdain that the Tory didn't even live in the constituency, he was off in SW18; what's that - Earlsfield? Wimbledon?. So that's one bit of immigration I am happy to control. And despite my reticence over double first names Gary Malcolm our Lib-Dem candidate got my vote. I do believe that Labour's priorities are my priorities, but that's also true of the Lib-Dems and they don't support ID cards or making our armed forces an adjunct of an insane US foreign policy. I don't believe that Blair lied to us about the existence of WMD, I think he lied over the fact that WMD were really the issue. They were a fig-leaf for our support for America's pre-emptive strike logic. I remember at the time watching and thinking that sometime soon Tony is going to say to George W something along the lines "Hey George... I'm a pretty straight guy... so, come on... you know how friends don't let friends drink and drive...well, I think you've had enough unipolar supremacy...". But he didn't, he legitimised Bush and lost my vote.

I'm so hoping to be proved wrong but I think the Tories will do better than people say. Not because a vote for the Lib-dems is a vote for the Tories but because the way our electoral system works, nationwide opinion polls don't really matter. There's only a couple of hundred thousand voters that really make a difference and if they are thinking what Michael Howard is thinking (SHUDDER) they might do well. But then that's Tory thinking - I am right and the rest are scum, so I will try not to go there. Billy Bragg said it best:

I kept the faith and I kept voting
Not for the iron fist but for the helping hand
For theirs is a land with a wall around it
And mine is a faith in my fellow man
...
Sweet moderation
Heart of this nation
Desert us not, we are
Between the wars

Do you remember back in the day when I was one of life's winners? Well the trophy has come round to mine at last and I've put it in a place of honour...

Fascinating article by Martin Jaques on football, racism and a muli-racial society in the Observer's sports blog.

It was a busy weekend but plenty fun. And I failed to take any photos at all so I shall have to paint pictures with wurdz.

Friday and I was back in Oxford doing the Dad thing. He's doing OK but not particularly enjoying himself. But he could be doing an awful lot worse and he perseveres. I have noticed that he is quite wheezy now when he breathes/speaks but that comes and goes. At least he loves Snooker and the Embassy World Championships were on this weekend providing hours of continuous coverage if you flick between the Beeb and Eurosport. Now we Johnstons are all big O'Sullivan fans so we were sorry to see him go out. Poor Ronnie - he's way troubled! Still, Dad loves to root for the underdog so a 150-1 outsider winning it is even better.

On Saturday I headed across to see my Uncle Andy in Suffolk. It was great to see him and my cousins all of whom I haven't seen nearly enough in the last few years. I saw Willo and Julia for the first time since their wedding and got to meet their son Nat for the first time. I also got to catch up with Alio and Dom and their daughter Jessica. It felt like reconnecting with the family at large and what with lovely weather, rural calm, friendly dogs, locally caught Lobster and Andy's fresh Tarte Tatin it all made for a lovely weekend.

I headed back to London on Sunday afternoon for the penultimate NSN show. I wasn't sure if the holiday weekend would help with our audience or not. As it is it's hard to say - we got about 15 people, which is a bit better than last time, but not great. But they were lively and it was another good show. We welcomed back Jamie Reid to the crew and the comic stylings of Ewen Macintosh - fresh back from shooting a new show for Channel 4 in L.A. And speaking to some of the audience afterwards it turned out that they were honest to goodness punters who came along because they saw the listing in Time Out. So the word is spreading.

Then on Monday it was another sunny day and in true Spring-is-here-style I got down to cleaning my bike and doing it up a bit. I bought a new set of handlebars in a final attempt to make my bike more comfortable to ride. With them attached and some further jiggery pokery I think it is a bit better now.

One weird thing happened over the weekend. I kept getting rung by MORI, the opinion poll people. "Oh good" I thought - the chance to shape the world with the benefit of my erudite opinions. No such luck - they were doing some research about transport in West London. Must be something to do with "the Tram" only I don't know anything about "the Tram" but what the heck. Anyway it came to naught as I didn't fit their demographic profile. Twice. The first time they rang they asked my age and I told them. They then told me that they were looking for people aged 16-25 but "Can we call you back tomorrow?". I said, with a certain incredulity "You can, but I'll be the same age tomorrow". However they told me that they might have different targets that day. So indeed someone did ring me again and asked the same questions. When I told her I was 34 she told me that they were looking for people aged 16-25 but "Can we call you back tomorrow?". I gave her the same hillarious gag and we left it at that. Funny old business.