Close on ten million people watched the Dr Who season finale on Saturday. Paul Groves was one of the lucky ones. He was at Lichfield Cathedral watching the wonderful Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.

But Grovesy, like me, thought the Time Lord stuff was a huge disappointment.

The Lichfield Festival sure isn't. The Ukes are the stars of the whole thing as far as I'm concerned (we couldn't get tickets!). Can I just point you towards the Garrick Theatre this Thursday when a little known Indian silent film from 1928 is being screened.

Hottest day of the year ... two sports days, one for each grandchild, handily one am, one pm, both ordeals to a grandfather with a sun allergy barely dealt with by a giant straw hat and a flagon of Factor 50 - and (no, don't laugh) a clutch of Christmas communications through the post and via email.

I laughed heartily at the Health and Safety aspects of the infant schools sports, where 'javelin throwing' turned out to be launching a giant dart made of sponge into the wind to see how far it would go - it was simply too light to actually 'throw'. They'd have been better off hurling a cricket ball, but that was probably far too dangerous.

The huge performance project down at Goodrich Castle at Ross-on-Wye which I wrote about back in May and which can be seen at http://blogs.birminghampost.net/lifestyle/2008/05/forbidden-fruitful.html
has been proceeding apace with director Helen Parlor (above) and her team getting ready for the big day in a couple of weeks. Here's a picture blog of rehearsals, workshops etc

The city council have said that whatever the result of English Heritage's attempt to get The Central Library listed, they still intend to knock it down. It's nice to have city planners with vision, but it's important to disagree when we think they're wrong. I do here.

This post is a slightly re-worked version of this one from Birmingham: It's Not Shit, as much as I don't like crossposting I think Josh in the comments there makes an important point about The Birmingham Post being where this debate is taking place. Sorry for the very rough 'artist's impression'.

Quite a few people have raised objections, which the council have decided not listen to, but so far I don't think anyone has voiced an opinion on what should be done instead.

One of the main arguments against keeping the library is that the whole 'paradise' development cuts one side of the city centre off from the other. People do see the divide as an effort to cross, the council is always keen to have events and focus in Centenary Square and these can be sparsely attended on occasion. It's a valid point, but knocking down the library and placing another building in its place (very probably one the public will have no occasion to use) won't solve that.

The council want to be able to see the Town Hall, they think the library cramps it -- but the beauty of the library is similarly cramped by truly horrible buildings.

So, lets open it up -- and knock every bit of Paradise Circus apart from the library down.

I don't take this blogging thing too seriously - that's part of its attraction, unlike the 24/7 sweat of the last staff job I had, which was great, but extremely hard graft and which left the life-work balance tipping very much one way ... which translates as your work becomes your life (and then you die ... prematurely).

But serious or not, I must own up to waiting to see what my old friend/colleague Grovesy - aka Paul Groves, aka Shouty Villager (?), aka a certain model maker (?) - has to say about Dr Who developments. I trust his instincts, even if he has an unhealthy obsession with The Apprentice - we all have weak spots - and he is a serious cyclist, which has got to be weighed in his favour against the Sugar rush.

I am really grateful to replacement Turkish goalkeeper Rustu. No, you're not in the wrong section - sport is still that green-labelled bit where they talk about Bob Dylan lyrics (good collection of them in today's Guardian by the way).

I am as interested in goalkeepers as I am in typewriters, both slight obsessions. Last night against Croatia in some big tournament which we aren't playing in, the idiot 35-year-old ran out for a suicide tackle, leaving his goal empty and Croatia scored with less than a minute of extra time to play.

Amazingly, the keeper then made a huge clearance into the Croatian penalty area from which Turkey equalised with the last kick of the game.

You can easily imagine the hopelessly amiable Palin, bumbling though life painlessly overachieving in all of his chosen fields, as well as the feeling of inadequacy it also inspires you a little that nice guys don't have to finish last. Especially if they don't consider they're racing anyone.

I'm glad I read it thirty or so years after the event though, imagine how wearing it would be to read Palin's blog each day or worse hear about every effortless triumph on twitter.

This chap, one George Lamb, is said to be the most annoying person on radio. Complaints about BBC station Music6 have gone through the roof since he started DJ duties there. But he's also won an award as best radio newcomer.

Apparently he's been on the box doing various presenting chores, but I've never seen him. He's floated around that strange metropolitan sub-celebrity world where people do promotion work, act as agents, generally know people. He used to manage Lily Allen, for instance.

He is, in fact, one of a rather large and growing number of people, events, bands etc who for me might as well live inside a black hole, another universe. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but certain things just don't make it on to my radar.

Apart from journalism, I have not been able to get my fingers to the keyboard since Arch was born two years ago. I have been totally fulfilled in some ways but parched in another way - parched of words.

Next week will be different. I am on holiday - and I'm not going anywhere other than my study. Arch will be off doing things with his dad and I will be alone. The computer screen will be my sea, the keyboard the sand, the mouse my sangria.

I'll blog again when I get back in the week starting 7 July. I will be drunk on words, bronzed by my thoughts, sharing my snaps of the country from which I've returned.

Before you start thinking "But I thought she was supposed to be a young professional?", I am fully aware that I probably lower the average listener age by at least a decade, but for those of you not yet hooked I would urge you to tune in and listen before you mock. It is my broadcast news provider of choice, and would be a hot contender for my luxury, were I ever to be invited to be on Desert Island Discs.

However, even I have been struggling with Radio 4 recently. They've been running an extended series of programmes around 1968, including 1968 - Day by Day which has been compiled and hosted by the eminent broadcaster and former Managing Director of the Barbican Centre in London, Sir John Tusa.

Being born in 1972, it's hardly surprising that I didn't 'get' 1968, and I felt it was a bit of an own goal for Radio 4 which is trying to lower its listenership to include 30-somethings. Why, then, run a series of reminiscences which are most likely only of interest to those aged 55+?

I am still a toddler deep inside. Here I am with a great and worthy event to bring to the world's attention, an opportunity I truly relish, and all I can think about is wasting time with a little ballerina who twirls madly every time I tease her with my right index finger.

Right, before someone reports me for something sinister I'll hasten to add it's all quite harmless - but great fun.

With the Birmingham International Dance Festival proving such a huge hit - and Fiona Ferguson kept us all hooked with her great blogs on this site - I thought there'd be a ready readership out there for more dance doings.

I think it's something to do with the bus being the middle ground, not the romantic freedom of the car, nor the regimented closeness of the long distance train. Buses are always just that one step up from Shank's pony, and bus stops don't get names so there's isn't even a Mornington Crescent type game to play.

We didn't have a car when I was a kid, and for one reason or another I'm just not bothered by them, trains were always expensive (they were competing with the fabled 2p fares on the bus, remember) and still to me seem a middle class way of travelling I'm not totally comfortable with. So buses are where it's at for me culturally, not that I get aroused by a shapely MCW Metrobus or even a Gardner engined Daimler Fleetline (I am however quietly obsessed with the 11 route, the local network in general and harbour fine memories of the tracline 65).

The interweb, of course, is nothing if not home to the nichest of niche content so, along with the bus-spotting and the tiny sites I've made that track people using twitter on the bus, there is something genuinely interesting and bus-related happening.

Fascinating popular cultural congruities during a short break to wrap up the half term holiday - putting the winner of Britain's Got Talent (that's George Armstrong) and Florence Nightingale (that's her on the right) in the same section of the elitist swamp that passes for my brain.

Jodie and Jessie are there as well, along with Old Grapefruit Face (my pet name for Lord Lloyd Webber) and a Victorian do-gooding tea magnate.

Right, I'll take this slowly and perhaps you'll eventually get my point.

The adventure takes place in London. With the daunting task of helping shepherd a major school trip there in the offing, Son of Sid, as a friend calls my daughter, takes the chance to check out the Florence Nightingale Museum at St Thomas's Hospital as we're staying within easy walking distance (hotel write-up follows in our Travel blogs).

Lots of debate over a literature exam at Cambridge in which final year students were asked to compare an Amy Winehouse lyric to a poem by Sir Walter Raleigh.

I can vividly recall the horror and/or amusement of commentators and critics in the late 60s when it became known that the words of Bob Dylan (right) songs were being subjected to academic analysis and postgrads were doing MAs and doctorates based on his work and cultural significance.

So, the first stupendous series of Mad Men is behind us. Several shelves-worth of Golden Globes and Baftas are just waiting.

The series-closing expression on the face of Don Draper as he sat at the foot of the stairs in his empty, expensive house was heart-stopping, at once tragic and hilarious, like a Hamlet played by Buster Keaton scripted by Tennessee Williams accompanied by the high, lonesome sound of a bitter Bob Dylan ballad all about love, whatever that is, in the words of Highgrove's most famous tree-hugger.