Penknives were originally used to sharpen quill pens. In 1810, the Bank of England bought a year's supply of 1.5 million quill pens - five pens per clerk per day.

The reason I was thinking about penknives is that a few days ago Benedict Brogan blogged, Not pen-knives, surely in which he comments on Ken Jones of the Association of Chief Police Officers apparently saying, "what good reason would young people have to carry even a penknife?" What's it all coming to?

A Labour government that got serious about weaning its bureaucracy and clients off dependency on the citizen's money would find itself popular again.

In Moray public administration, education & health account for the employment of 1 in 3 ^[PDF] of all economically active people. What on earth are they doing all day?

I ate

? Saut?ed Foie Gras with Buttered Poached Guinea Fowl, Celeriac Mousse, Apple and Tarragon Salad

? Fillet of Halibut with Lemon Pomme Mousseline, Brown Shrimps and Asparagus

? Apple Tart Tatin with Spiced Apple Jelly and Vanilla Ice Cream

and my dining companions and I shared a cheese plate.

It was really a lovely evening; nice ambience, great cuisine and the best company. It makes me smile to think of it. I love that place! The Palm Court bar upstairs does a wicked 'Mojito Royale' as well.

what would happen if a Minister, faced with the demand for an immediate comment on the Today programme, replied ?I don?t know, I?ll think about that?. Would John Humphrys explode ?

We applaud government show-offs who can demonstrate their rapid and witty responses whereas in real life I want Ministers with sound judgement, personal integrity and sense of good purpose.

I find myself often disengaged from politics because it is impossible to understand what reasoning lies beneath a menacing line, e.g. "the threat of seperation".

Anyway, the Miliband vids follow. Watch them.

Any recommendations on new good food places? I heard that the Jools Holland jazz place is supposed to be good, and I've been keen to eat at the Kitchin for a while. Any up and comers anyone can recommend?

In particular apps which seemingly randomly send out messages on your behalf and apps that don't even work half the time aren't good news.

They need to tighten up the controls, make it easier to understand what an app can or can't do on your behalf and they need to provide app hosting, or have some way to guarantee an app maker can handle the traffic.

1. VoIP. Solid built in VoIP functionality. I've got it set up to automatically connect to my two SIP accounts when I'm in range of my home wi-fi and for incoming it seems to work flawlessly. Outgoing my only gripe is that i'd like to be able to select which SIP account to dial-out on at the time of calling but haven't figured out yet how to do that.


2. Wi-fi. Handy for very quick queries, e.g. checking how to translate a word using google translate or just for checking what wifi access is available. Not as good a range as my laptop, but a very handy tool to have.


3. GPS. Lots of people seem to be complaining that they can't get the GPS to work. Mine does, but can be very slow to initially "get a lock" on the satellites or whatever it is they do. I haven't yet paid for the navigation voice functionality, but probably will at some point.


4. Camera. It's 5mp and boasts a Carl Zeiss 2.8/5.6 autofocusing lens. There is a bit of a lag between hitting the shutter button and the shutter opening which renders it a little crap for capturing spontaneous moments, but the picture quality is good and for general purpose non inspired photo taking it is ideal. Lots of functionality to control ISO, white balance etc. I haven't used the video functionality yet, but it is supposed to be 30fps at 640x480 which should be good enough.


5. Music. I've only got a couple of songs on it, primarily because I don't want to be using the phone when not necessary to preserve battery life. Stereo speakers are good though, and louder than you'd think. Interface seems intuitive enough.


6. Battery. Hmmm. I guess it works hard and so deserves to get fed every night. More than 20 hours is unachievable for me, and if I've been using it heavily the life is perhaps half that. Charges quickly though, and I usually only have to charge it once daily at night.


7. S60 OS. Good range of programs I can add, e.g. Putty combined with some bash scripts generally lets me rescue any server situations as soon as they happen. Only real complaint is that the OS seems a little sluggish sometimes, and probably once every two days it just hangs completely.

Tucked away in the Customs Regulations section is this:

"Items and articles belonging to religions other than Islam are also prohibited. These may include Bibles, crucifixes, statues, carvings, items with religious symbols such as the Star of David, and others."

The last time was a couple of years ago at Sandwood Bay in the western highlands of Scotland. It rained, it was a 5 mile walk to even get to the beach, there were, lets say, ample midges, it was deeply uncomfortable and what food we were able to cook on some crappy little stove was, not to put too fine a point on it, shit. And then, in the morning the sun shone, the tent magnified the heat of the sun making a 7am rise compulsory. At which point I discover that midges are early risers also.

Clubbing, as I'm sure I will have mentioned, is my idea of a perfect nightmare. Too many people (most of whom I assume by their complicity in the clubbing thing aren't my kind of people anyway), too loud to converse, too expensive, too much bad music. Too, too, too much.

I am struggling to understand why I thought it would be a good idea to go camping and clubbing in Annecy tonight.

• I am missing the Edinburgh Festivals for the first time in probably 4 or 5 years. That sucks.
• Does anyone have any pointers for me on self-discipline. That would be useful.
• I'm going to Edinburgh, Elgin and Fort William for a few weeks in September. I'm very much looking forward to it.
• Liam just told me this post was melo-dramatic. FWIW, I think that is melo-dramatic.

Anyway, for a while there it was looking a little worrying with talk of a snow crisis in the Alps. The good news is that over the last few days there has been significant snowfall putting to rest immediate concerns. I went up boarding before Christmas for one day but did some damage to my board through little stones creeping through the thin snow cover - yesterday however was a whole other story with plentiful snow on and off piste. A little more is forecast in Les Arcs tomorrow morning.

Bourg itself is a pretty small traditional town; the shops close for long lunches and Sundays are pretty dead. There are a couple of bars which can be fun, a cinema (in French of course) and not a lot else! Though even going for coffee and trying to read the newspaper is fun in its own way. Life here is slow, but slow is pretty good so far.

A view from yesterday looking across the valley from Les Arcs

Well, I presume my body and mind were staging a protest when last night they conspired to make me dream of drinking Tennents. You wouldn't believe me if I told you how good it was.

Reliable sources (MSN Astro Center) suggest this is explained thusly;

Alcohol (Beer, Wine, Liquor)

Dreaming of drinking beer, wine, etc., in moderation, under happy circumstances?with friends, at a party, etc.?indicates that success lies ahead. However, in any dream of alcohol, there is always the underlying warning that excesses can lead to trouble.

I think that I agree with Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur that burning flags is a uniquely provocative act. Shahid Malik also makes the point that very small numbers of extremists often do this to hijack peaceful demonstrations.

Seriously. At this point it would be expected I suppose that one would try to justify and back up one's opinion. I feel that would be almost redundant as I actually can't think of a single good reason for introducing flag burning legislation. Apart from the unenforceability of such legislation and practical issues like what counts as a flag, surely such legislation would simply promote the flag to a pedestal which would make more successful any affected protest. These people have too much time on their hands.

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