Catching Up, The People of Abu Dhabi and Cold Callers

I have always liked the phrases After the Lord Mayor's Show and hoisted by his own petard to mention just two. Today was certainly an occasion for the former. Yesterday was such a busy and buzzy day in the village that today was always going to be something of a comedown and a day catching up on all my promotional stuff like placing yesterday's information and photos on my village web site at www.hethersett.org.uk, sending off thank you e-mails and photographs to individuals and supporters of the events and putting details on the new Archant iwitness24 web site.

So a day tied to my desk while England showed some sense of normality in the second test match against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi which reminds me of that awful Flintstones joke about the people of Dubai not liking the Flintstones whereas the people of Aba Dhabi Do - seriously strange.

For the first time in my life I have agreed with something said by professional footballer Joey Barton. I may have mentioned him before. He's in trouble again for tweeting and has just received another letter of warning from the dinosaurs at the Football Association. His crime this time was simply tweeting what he thought the results of matches involving Manchester United and Manchester City would be at the weekend. The kind of comments passed by millions every weekend. Problem is the FA think by telling us who he thinks will win Mr Barton could be compromising or having some affect on the outcome of the games - I don't think I've ever heard anything so ridiculous.

I seem to be the subject of regular cold calls - three in consecutive days from people wanting me to take part in surveys. They all come from India and start with the words "I am not trying to sell you anything." Well indirectly of course they aren't. But once they pass your details and contact numbers on to various other organisations I just know I would be subjected to rude hard sell once again. I'm afraid I told this morning's caller to p--s off. I really do view this as an intrusion in my privacy and it's particularly annoying when I'm in the middle of some quite intricate work that needs considerable concentration.