The excellent blog by Guy Fawkes has reported that no fewer than 472 BBC staff were hanging on the telephone 10 days ago to discuss its coverage of the upcoming US party conventions. Fawkes suggests that this happens because there is no serious budget control, no profit motive and unlimited access to funds courtesy of a feudal taxation system to the benefit of the broadcasting barons.

Like the millions squandered on the foul mouthed Ross this latest wastage of licence fees are the seeds for the eventual demise of the BBC. They are their own worst enemy and make it very difficult for traditional supporters of the BBC and public service media to continue their support and argue against the right wing views of the good Mr Fawkes.

I was involved in a discussion recently about red and grey squirrels and whether the latter as intruders should be culled. It seemed to me that the grey squirrel and its place in the UK is reminiscent and a metaphor for all the collective xenophobic instincts about Johnny Foreigner.

Just returned from a visit to Ireland to attend a wedding and stay with my in-laws. Thoroughly enjoyable few days particularly as my brother in law is recovering from a serious cancer. The wedding party at the bride's parents house was all I have come to expect in Ireland. Great hospitality - the mussels had been caught and cooked that day and the accompanying Chateauneuf Du Pape (I enjoy a good red wine with mussels) was superb. Ireland is beginning to have the economic jitters the UK is experiencing but it has not so far destroyed the Irish enthusiasm and ability to party.

The rate of inflation is expected to have risen above 3% when the figures for May are released by the Bank of England later today. This would force the Bank's Governor to write to the Chancellor explaining why the rate is above the target of 2%

The figure of 2% like many other targets of this Government is a figure plucked out of the deep blue sky. It is preposterous to think that if inflation in the rest of the world increases that somehow the United Kingdom will not be affected because the former Chancellor in his great wisdom has decreed that it should not rise above 2%. The consequential act of the Governor writing to the Chancellor is as meaningless as the subjects of King Canute explaining why the tide did not obey His Majesty's instruction.

What is required, and I have argued this since the figure of 2% was first introduced, is that the target should be the average inflation rate of a basket of similar currencies. It is madness to introduce measures to maintain a 2% rate when the rest of the world is inflating at a much greater level.

There was a letter in the Times this week pointing out that the USA has a population of just over 300 million people and 100 Senators in their Upper House. In the UK we have 740 Peers, when we have a population of just over 60 million. Using the US standard we should need 20, not 740, in a reformed House of Lords.

Yet another glaring example of our capacity to over govern and waste money.

A return to blogging after a less than totally successful sojourn in France and a longish period of helping (or as some might say hindering) the recovery of Maura from a bad fracture of the tibia and fibia which had to be reset on her return. We stayed at an old presbytery in the South West of France at a place called Bournac next to a Cemetery and I have in mind to write up my diary about the experience. It will be entitled 'The curse of Bournac'.