Please visit Blue Butterfly and lend her your support.

One of my plans for this year is to windsurf more. Otherphil is pretty serious but our last outing in West Wittering really scared us both! There were two problems; the conditions were silly, and we weren't clever enough to spot that, and neither of us were fit enough.

In particular, my left leg was very weak so that lifting it out of the water and onto the board in readiness for each water-start attempt was very tiring! See Leg Trouble.

Commuter-James has promised to go cycling with me, but we haven't been able to put it together since it was mentioned. On the offchance, I e-mail Otherphil on Thursday and thought the idea of blasting up and down some steep hills was a great idea! He collected me at 10 today and we went to Holmbury Hill which has some wicked sections; quite technical, especially for a mountain biking newbie like me.

F**k was the wind was bitter and my knees were a horrible, mottled pink and blue! Still, we got out, and the plan is underway.

The countdown to my fortieth birthday has started, and I'm wondering whether to attempt a (windsurfing) loop before October. I've only tried it once before and twisted my ankle badly... Is this something I need to do? Not sure. Is my 40th a big deal? Not really. I don't feel as though my life is half over. In some ways I feel like it's only just begun.

The sleeper has woken!

Oh...the TVR hasn't sold yet which is disappointing, but summer approaches and hopefully demand will increase as the snow-flurries die down. Right now I don't se any other way I will be able to afford to take the family skiing in Feb next year.

Time heals, or so the saying goes. And some might think that we should let bygones be bygones. "That all happened a long time ago," or "Surely the Germans and the Austrians have all been harangued for long enough about their madness in the Second World War."

But to think like that is to miss the point and whether or not you think it's right or wrong that David Irving serve time for denying that the Holocaust ever existed, you must understand that we must never, ever, ever forget.

You see the reason we must tell our children this story, and make sure they tell their children is not about the SS or the Germans or the gas chambers and it's not even got anything to do with the Jews. The reason we have to tell the story is to show what humans are capable of doing! It's a tragic and heart-rending fact that we are separated from our primeval and more savage, distant ancestry by a cigarette-paper's thick veneer of 'humanity' that breaks down all too often.

Our own brutal greed and fear of 'other folk' sleeps like a powerful serpent in its lair, ready to raise its head in a venemous frenzy. Witness the ethnic cleansing carried out by white settlers in North America, witness the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Witness Stalin's brutal purges on his very own people. Witness the Killing Fields of Cambodia. See on film the aftermath of Saddam's retribution in Halabjah where Kurdish fathers, mothers, children and babies lie bloated and poison-flensed in the streets of their own town and weep until your stomach aches with anguish.

These are the things we civilized humans are capable of, so unless we teach our children that we, yes we, not just Germans or Austrians or Communist Cambodians could do these things, they will not learn to hate these things and watch themselves more closely.

In a bizarre way, David Irving has helped to keep the subject fresh in our minds, although I for one certainly won't be sending money to help support his appeal process!

OK, here's a nomination for the Tate Modern. My 4 year old daughter and I did this today. We think it's top art!

Anyone wishing to purchase the digital rights to our original image may do so for 12,000.UKP.

As you may know, I'm trying to sell my car and registered an advert on Autotrader. Not long afterwards, I got a badly written e-mail from "Mr Albert Robinson" who signed off at the end of the e-mail as "Mr. Albert". Immediately suspicious. In addition, the purchase involved an overpayment from an intermediary from which I was to forward the difference using a Western Union money transfer.

I checked the internet and sure enough, loads of sites described this scam. Nevertheless, I decided to respond and see what would happen, determined not to part with any money. In the end I managed to waste quite a bit of the scammer's time e-mailing and his associate even sent me a cheque for 13,500.UKP.

In case you don't know how this one works, the Nigerians (and apparently it's always the Nigerians) send you a cheque which you bank. Part of the deal involves you sending the difference between the asking price and the cheque to the 'buyer' (in my case 4,500.UKP. When you get the cheque, you are put under HUGE pressure to send a sum of money as soon as possible because of hardships endured by the 3rd party, interest, demarrage (shipboard storage to you and me), all total nonsense and nothing to do with you, the seller. The aim is to get you to transfer money before your bank inform you that the cheque is void and remove the balance from your account!

Happily, someone I know works in a division of HM police forces and I was able to forward the e-mails and the cheque to them. Apparently there are so many people running these scams that there is almost nothing wothwhile that they can do...

So the message here is...be on your guard!

1. Genuine buyers will want to see the car before buying.
2. Genuine buyers will never voluteer more money than the asking price.
3. Anything involving Western Union is suspect.
4. Anyone signing themselves as "Mr. Albert" at the bottom of an e-mail is bogus.

GAH! DOH! Blast and bother!

After a hard day at work, I felt really pleased with myself yesterday for working through the pile of paperwork that I had been doing my best to ignore for weeks. You known...bills, bank statements, credit card statements, invitations to get new credit cards...that kind of thing.

D was filling in forms for renewing her passport and pointed out that mine was due to expire in June.
"Oh don't worry," I said, "I'll sort that when we get back from Venice."

I clapped my hand to my mounth as I realised that the secret destination for our long weekend away was blown. Oooh I was cross with myself and still am.

Stupid? Yeah...and then some!

I should be sitting on a train on my way to London, but it's all gone wrong. I meant to catch an early train this morning to catch up with some work.

1st, the chain came off my bike.

2nd, once the chain was repaired, I realised I didn't have my train ticket.

GAAHHH! I went back into the house and hunted for about 10 minutes for my ticket before I finally found it, exactly where I'd first looked! Obviously I missed my train.

Let's hope this isn't an omen for rest of the day...

With Valentine's day looming, I went looking for lingerie, unusually not for myself but for D. The shop assistant was very sweet and was convinced that I would buy something racy. Sadly she does not know D like I know her. D would see this as a frivolous gift of utterly impractical clothing. Well, yes, I agree. I can see that a red, lace-trimmed basque with suspenders and stockings is entirely impractical as an item of everyday clothing to anyone but a hooker, but surely it would be serving the entirely practical purpose of putting some spice into our sex-life! The assistant's enthusiasm didn't rub off on me and I walked out without buying anything.

Is it wrong for me, after 13 years of marriage and 16 years together to want some variety in the bedroom? Perhaps I should be content with turning the lights out, a little bit of cuddling and then the usual routine. The trouble is, I'm just not made that way. Firstly, I'm a man, which means that my perception of the world is strongly driven by visual processing, so I want the light on. Secondly, I abhor routine and anything 'basic' when I could choose deviation (I use that word with caution) from the norm and extras.

Here's an illustration of how different D and I are. Chips. How do you eat chips? When we get fish and chips or pie and chips, I put salt, and vinegar, and either ketchup or curry sauce or mayonnaise on my chips. D? Well, she just has plain chips with nothing added. I suppose that I am satisfying to her in the way that plain chips are also enough for her. Me? I'm looking forward to another 40 years of married life, but I could sure use some sauce.

Following on from my last post, and using an idea that Blue Butterfly gave me, I decided to recruit your help for a shortlist of charities our children would help us to pick from.

My current shortlist is:

Helping Humans
The Red Cross (ICRC)
Medecin Sans Frontieres
Children in Need (because CJ suggested it)

Helping Animals and/or Environment
Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF)
Greenpeace

Please suggest away...

In Charity Promise, I promised to start giving regularly to charity by the end of January 2006.

I have FAILED, FAILED, FAILED! Damn it.

To make amends, I will immediately donate £10 to any UK registered or well-known charity suggested in the 1st response to this post. Over to you reader...

I will renew the promise, this time to set something up by the end of Feb. My excuse for the delay is that I want to involve my children in the decision and that probably means drawing up a short-list of sensible charities. As worthy as the Royal Society for the Under-Pampered Poodles is, I want to make sure my eldest daughter can't nominate it.

End of Febuary. Hold me to it!

The doctor is going to suck through his teeth, shaking his head at me and he'll point at the X-ray showing the damaged remains of my liver.

It was Mr.DMs fault I'll claim. He and Mr.PT took me to a pub in Leeds and forced me, very much against my will (..ahem..) to drink lots of beer with them.

Sigh...but I know it's no good blaming them. D asked me only last week "How come you're always one of the last ones in the pub at the end of the night?"

Is it because that's when people start to open up and really talk about themselves? Is it because I don't want to give them the opportunity to talk about me behind my back? Is it because I want to be one of the gang?

Whatever the reason is, it's always good fun, until the morning after that is! Today I'm fine. I hope DM & PT are still talking to me after last night's truth and reconciliation session...I've got a thick hide and I always make the mistake of thinking that other people have too. Ah well...thanks for your company lads.