For many years, I have flitted between a plethora of different blogging platforms mainly out of curiosity, boredom, frustration or occasionally sheer bloody mindedness. I have lost draft posts in WordPress, Tumblr, Posterous and Habari due to network glitches, browser crashes, my own stupidity and a broken AutoSave plugin. One night in a lonely hotel room, the realisation suddenly dawned on me that my frustration with all of these blogging platforms was that I spent a lot of time in the post editor and none of the post editors did what I wanted. ...

Chatting with a good friend over dinner last night, he recounted how his son ambushed him late one Sunday night with some economics homework that he’d somehow manage to overlook and which simply had to be submitted the following morning. Annoyed, and after dispensing a severe bollocking, he reluctantly sat down and gave his son some lengthy help with the complex and thorny topic of ‘How does monetary policy affect the economy ?’ ...

These are indeed exciting times in the Brightside household: Norma Jeane will be taking part in the 125th Lawn Tennis Championships to be held at Wimbledon between 20 June and 3 July. Her precise role isn’t known yet but may include ‘Waiting On (Silver Service)’ - fawning over loud, overbearing sales people out on a corporate jolly, ‘Bar staff’ (serving jugs of Pimms to middle aged Daily Mail readers) or tantalisingly, ‘Courtesy car driver’ (ferrying a morose Andy Murray around). This represents a rapid promotion from her initial placement two years ago, where she started out on ‘Litter collection surrounding courts 10 and 11’ before being promoted to ‘Housekeeping duties’ or, as she so eloquently put it - ‘Cleaning the bogs’. Norma will be visiting Holloway prison in April. She claims this is part of her District Nursing course but I have my doubts. She seems to be watching a lot of those legal dramas recently and taking copious notes. Norman Junior III is recuperating from fracturing his right arm for the second time. Note to self - any activity containing the word ‘roller’ that takes place on a concrete road is potentially hazardous. He is soldiering on quite well and only needs assistance with his socks. He has subsequently changed his XBox nickname to ‘OneArmedBandit’ and is experimenting using his toes to manipulate the controller. I had a brush with West Midlands traffic police last week in Solihull after daring to consult a old fashioned map while driving. After 15 minutes of being patronised by a fascist pig and being forced to beg and scrape on bended knee, I managed to escape with a verbal warning instead of the threatened ‘6 point penalty for careless driving’. However, I am still puzzling over the ‘correct’ answer to the copper’s deep, probing question: ‘Sir, please could you tell me why were you travelling at 25 miles per hour in a 30 zone ?’

When I heard that Arsenal were busy making plans for their injured and oh so inspirational captain, Cesc Fabregas, to hoist the trophy aloft and end 6 barren years without a sniff of a trophy, I had a horrible feeling it might end that way. Can you imagine the suspended United captain, a grey suited Roy Keane, doing that back in 1999 ? Can you even imagine Ferguson even contemplating that option for just a second ? No. Neither can I.

Sarah Baskerville is a civil servant who works for the Department of Transport in London. Back in November, there was a minor storm in a teacup when the Daily Mail caught Sarah caught posting the shocking revelation to Twitter that she ‘Had a hangover’ whilst at work. In addition, she occasionally had the temerity to dare to question Government policy. Unless you are a Daily Mail reader, none of this is very newsworthy. I suspect the vast majority of people with a Twitter account have posted inane drivel along the lines of ‘At work. Hungover. Need coffee’. ...