I just learnt this morning that where I study Japanese just so happens to be the same school which Radio 1's Tim Westwood and Beth Orton attended...and a nearby school has educated such people as Martin Bell and Selina Scott, but surely not at the same time!
...now there's a Sunday bonus!

...more than one in 10 (11 per cent) young people would drop out of education or training to be on TV.

When YouGov pollsters asked 777 teenagers aged between 16 and 19 about their futures, one in six (16 per cent) said they would forgo a career for fame.

This week just passed, a survey, (above), revealed that a significant number of our younger population now seek fame more than anything else, which draws the question; what rules people's lives now...surely not the head anymore?
I'm still battling between the belief that British society is happier, or unhappier than before...because when I left England it was in the very last throes of Thatcherism, and upon my return, ushering-in Blairism...worlds apart as a nation.

One point I must say, is that intervening decade, when I was living in continental Europe and the far-east, Britain must have found some way of enjoying itself, of letting-go more than it had done before, perhaps as a reaction to life itself, (rather like the gin-soaked days of Thomas Rowlandson's ( 1756-1827), sketches; such is their need to free themselves of life's restrictions, pressures...perhaps?

To me, it seems these days, that the British can really enjoy themselves, possibly more than most other continental nations, for better or worse, and I look upon this 'development' positively, though there are some extreme cases, cul-de-sac's if you like, and I do not need to elaborate on that do I! There is an element which is disdainful, granted, and that goes for all walks of life, throughout every corner of the earth, for sure.
And yet the British people are said to be reserved?? Well, not anymore.

We are people of the world living on this island, yet we have been blessed with something that has lived for centuries; under the hardest of times, most repressed of circumstances, comes the brightest star from within...I believe we are experiencing more intrusion upon our private lives than ever before, more fear and uncertainty than at any time since at least the early eighties, and yet, the stars shine brighter than ever...just we all see different stars very differently.
I'm quite sure that the star you and I see, is far removed from the star(s) that dominate(s) John Leslie Prescott - the Deputy Prime Minister's world.

What is your wish for happiness...for a better career, happier family unit, or pure stardom at the expense of all else?

Through great tempest of winde being at the southwest, which began the 15. of January, and continued till the 26. of the same, Philip King of Castile and his wife were weatherdriven, and landed at Falmouth in England, as they were passing on the 11. of January out of Flanders toward Spaine.
-Stow, January 15th, 1506