15th February:

At the Brit music awards last night Oasis were presented with an award for outstanding contribution to music. Which is slightly puzzling given that they haven't knocked out a decent tune since about 1994. Even if they have knocked out a few tabloid photographers.

Liam (he's the oafish younger one as opposed to the older, quieter one with all the talent) has one of those unfortunate faces that, to quote my dear departed Grandmother, you would never tire of slapping. Some people may derive satisfaction from seeing their favourite pop stars get drunk, get lairy, grope a waitress and lamp the paparazzi on their way out of the building, but your congenial host prefers his musical deities to be slightly more articulate and reflective.

Towards the end of his all-too-brief career, Hendrix really played the guitar. He had given up setting fire to them or smashing them against amps - he just wanted to play and be known for his musicianship rather than his showmanship.

If you don't have anything interesting to say, say nothing.

14th February:

Well, it was always going to happen, wasn't it? British business has finally realised that we, the great unwashed, simply do not like calling customer service helplines and ending up in Bombay. This is not some form of xenophobic comment, I hasten to add. Those lovely people in Bombay are only trying to do their jobs as best they can within the parameters laid down for them by middle-managers in Basingstoke - the real culprits in all of this and the proper targets for our ire. Personal experience of foreign call centres suggests that they are fine if you have a routine enquiry, but the moment you ask a slightly more exotic question that is not covered by the on-screen script you hit a dead-end and get referred to a UK number. It's a half-way house where the employees in India are not given the authority or expertise to do the full job and so end up doing more damage than good.

The Chinese government has stated that it wants China's economy to move in the next 10 to 15 years from being based around manufacturing to being based around science and innovation. Which ironically means that manufacturing will come back to Europe (Poland and Romania, probably) and Britain will still be a nation of shopkeepers.

It's an obvious point, but i'll make it anyway. You can cut costs but not at the expense of customer service - you'll get found out and quite rightly so.

12th February:

When you become a parent for the first time, someone sneaks into your bedroom at night and flicks a switch in your head. The change is irreversible, and there is not a single thing you can do about it. Fortunately, however, you adapt very quickly to the new parameters and have no time to mourn the passing of the person you used to be. You are too busy assembling a Young Einstein playmat with one hand whilst holding the phone in the other hand at the same time as rocking the baby to sleep with your foot. And they say men cannot multi-task...

At some point during the first 4 to 6 weeks, the combination of work responsibilities and sleep-deprivation will drive you into the spare room. Any guilt you may feel at temporarily abandoning your role as father and provider will vanish at 7am the next morning when you awake feeling refreshed and remarkably normal. Resist the temptation, however, to suggest making this a more permanent arrangement - this will seriously diminish any chance you had of ever having sex again. Which was not large to begin with.

It's also worth noting that you should bite your tongue and refrain from mentioning how busy you are at work when the baby wakes up at 3am and starts making noises that curl the edges of the bedroom wallpaper. At times like this, sympathy is rarer than hen's teeth and anything derrogatory that happens to spill forth from your weary lips will invariably give birth to a resentment that smoulders under the duvet for several hours before rushing out to bite you on the bottom at breakfast time.

Oh, and never fart loudly and then blame the baby. They always know it was you.

2nd February:

Since the dawn of time, man's most primeval insitinct has been to reproduce and propagate the species. Although whether our caveman ancestors ever came home after a hard day of mammoth-bashing to find their mewling offspring full of colic and their partners exhausted and still in their pyjamas remains undocumented. On the blind curve that is parenthood, nothing is more sure - at some point or another, probably at some ungodly hour of the morning, you will look at your child and think "why on earth did I do that?". And then, nanoseconds later, you will feel like an awful parent and bad human being for having allowed the thought to enter your head. It's ok. Everyone does it.

In other news, a headline on the BBC news web site proclaims "humans to blame for climate change". Nothing to see here.