Wave of Mutilation

My, my, my. I believe I am honest in saying that I am not a person who revels in the misfortunes of others, but in the case of Tom Cruise, well he was cruising for a bruising and yet - whoever thought he'd actually get it? What a plonker. He has it all and in spite of everything. He has been in some films which were good in spite of him. He has played the romantic lead despite looking like a ferret on speed. But the sad fact is, he believes his own hype, a legend in his own eyes. He'll get through this, he's a white, male celeb - hell, even the black ones can get away with murder or kiddie-fiddling.

Whilst I am on the subject of complete tosspots, a man in Britain has made, well if not the newspapers, then at least the Sun, by assaulting and battering his girlfriend because of his own inadequacies. That's not news! I hear you say. Well in this case it is rather, because the cause of his rage was his lack of a fully functioning penis. His lady friend failed to purchase him a pump for said organ, so he hospitalised her in a brutal attack and took his anger onto the ward. He was given three years and four months. I can think of a more appropriate punishment for him.
On the other hand, if this had happened in some countries, the girlfriend would probably have been publicly hanged.

I can remember being very excited indeed at news that the Pixies were reforming. We had been to see Frank Black at the Wedgewood rooms in Southsea, the equivalent of having a legend in your own living room. But it seems you can flog a dead horse, but you can't make it stand back up and neigh. The reunion tour was a disaster, the crew filming it, unskilled in the ways of the master - or even a rock band. It's a shame, but it doesn't matter. Sometimes a legend is short and spectacular, never forgotten but never repeatable.

It's a strange, strange thing to see someone in Politics talking sense, especially about everyone's whipping boy, education. Or perhaps that's a little unfair, as a teacher, I did feel listened to under Tony Blair's government. This article however is uncanny, someone must have been positively eavesdropping. It starts badly, 'Schools must tackle Discipline' is the headline, so you think you're going to get the usual teacher-bashing tripe, but au contraire, it is in fact about giving teachers back authority.
"The whole business of children turning round to teachers and saying 'you haven't got the right to touch me' is knocked on the head firmly and squarely by this bill" God bless you Jim Knight, you might actually get people back into teaching, even staying. This is so on the right track.

In more serious matters, I read my stars every morning. I haven't really ever determined who is my favourite astrologer, so I just read the one that comes into my Inbox. Unlike others, I don't say, 'pshaw, what a load of bird-poo,' no, I always believe whatever they say. However....for some time I have been noticing that they are a week out of date. So, for example, what my stars said for yesterday actually happened last Tuesday and so on. This undermines my astrological belief system. After all, even I could write a retrospective horoscope. Perhaps the stars just need to catch up, or I need to slow down. Or maybe 'they' are right, it's all nonsense anyway...or is it?