Thank you to James and Cosimo (below) for taking me on a Grand Tour of the South East in August.

me in the cathedral, underneath the octagon

yes - it really does say 'an unhappy death occasioned by the kick of a horse'

King's College Chapel

Grantchester is still one of my favourite locations for afternoon tea. And the Orchard Tea Gardens thankfully haven't changed much since I used to go in the 1980s.

Grantchester was made famous by the poet Rupert Brooke (The Old Vicarage Grantchester, 1912) and his friends, who called themselves the Neo-Pagans - Virginia Woolf, EM Forster, Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, Maynard Keynes and Augustus John.

Yet stands the clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?

No. Scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream actually.

Cosimo took this one

Rupert Brooke

Bournemouth resembled Barbados at points, thanks to the bursts of sun which punctuated the showers.

In the evening, we popped over to Sandbanks near Poole, which has been dubbed 'Britain's answer to Palm Beach'. It's the fourth most expensive place to live in the world, after Central London, Manhattan and Moscow. The bay was lovely - spectral yachts at dusk. But the houses were a bit OTT and looked like they'd been designed by a deranged WAG.

It was my first visit to Lavenham in Suffolk. One of the richest villages in medieval England, it has half-timber houses, pargetted walls, odd carvings, antique shops and tea rooms. Scenes from Harry Potter were filmed here. And there's a great teddy bear shop (selling Steiff bears) and tapestry gallery, where I bought a cushion with a rabbit on it.

welcome sign - no, really

Blythburgh Church in Suffolk is always good value for a folksy forage. I'm very partial to angels and it has a splendiferous flock.

I also love the story of Black Shuck - a demon dog from these parts, which possibly inspired The Hound of the Baskervilles.

In 1577, it allegedly went berserk in the nave and savaged several parishioners, before scampering spookily out of the north door, leaving weird scorch marks as it fled.

It was my first visit and it lasted all of five hours, but James managed to drive right round the island. I liked the rural villages with their multi-coloured stone cottages and odd scarecrows, and the south where we stopped off at the wild and rugged Compton Beach.

The Needles at dusk

Compton - surfers, groovy pebbles, dinosaur footprints, blahdiblah

I was too dizzy to go down the steep wooden steps to the beach

Portsmouth at night, from the ferry crossing the Solent

I took this, honestly, even though it looks like I've scanned one of those picturesque-style postcards

near Saffron Walden - not far from here

And so the Grand Tour ends and the summer becomes yet another scrapbook.

I was intrigued to walk past this wet pigeon, sheltering in a pub doorway in Shoreditch the other day. I'm still not sure whether it had been caught in a downpour or had a pint poured over its head. Anyway - it seemed perfectly happy. Perhaps it was a bit tipsy.

Duart Castle

Och hello. I'm now back with my wee sleekit beastie after a trip to the Highlands.

I was in Bristol yesterday.

Then London.

As I write, I'm in Hertford.

This afternoon it's Chester.

Tonight, I'll be in a cottage in a tiny village in North Wales.

Tomorrow afternoon - off to the BBC in Llandaff (to interview people in America).

Thursday - back to England.

Friday - interviewing on location in Wandsworth.

Saturday - in a TV studio in Pimlico.

Sunday - Bristol again, or possibly Chepstow.

So now you know why I'm not inflicting many witterings on you at the moment.

Boll's being looked after by her Aunt H, who's kindly house-sitting. The Boll is very philosophical about my perigrinations and not at all huffy like some cats.

Normality (of sorts) will be resumed next week.

I took the new high-speed train down to Kent the other day, for a seaside saunter with friends Fran and Sarah. We had a delicious lunch at the Michelin-starred Sportsman in Seasalter. My choice was pickled herrings, followed by chicken with truffle sauce, then chocolate mousse with salted caramel.

After declaring lunch 'divine' (no other word would do), we headed for the charming old town of Whitstable, famed for its oysters.

I like an old-school shingle beach and Whitstable has a very picturesque one. We sat on a bench and watched the locals disporting themselves, including a nun eating fish and chips.

I popped to Ely today (with my friend Fran the Fantabulous Foody) to attend the annual Ely Eel Day - a new tradition that's only been going for a couple of years.

Ely used to be an island before the Fens were drained. And 'Ely' means 'Eel Island' because there used to be so many of them lurking in the spooky bogs surrounding the tiny city.

It's still dominated by the cathedral, known as the Ship of the Fens, which they started building in the 11th century.

We followed a parade of eels, then mooched around the gardens near the river where there were some quirky stalls and an area set aside for eel throwing. Not real eels, you'll be pleased to know.

There was an interesting wildlife section too, with live eels and various other Fenny critters.

We then had an excellent lunch in the gardens of the lovely Peacocks Tea Room

The famous Octagon - built in the 1320s when the original tower collapsed.

The saints in the Lady Chapel were all beheaded in 1539 during the dissolution. But their attendant demons still survive, skulking troll-like under the plinths.

Prelates on parade.

Local children, taking their pet eel for a walk.

Typical Fenland folk carousing in their inimitable fashion.

We came face-to-face with several eels (in a tank thankfully). One of them was 20. You can age them by the size of their ears. They can live to be 40 and one legendary eel reached 84. It was a gereelatric. Sadly, there's been a 95% decline in European eels in the last three decades, so they're officially 'critically endangered'.

Having been terrified of crayfish for years, I'm pleased to report I had an uneventful encounter with this one. It's a signal crayfish - an American species which is threatening our poor European ones. It wasn't exactly cuddly, and would have looked very much at home on a Dr Who set, but it scared me less than I'd expected.

Cute cobs near the cathedral.

Fran impersonating an eel, with startling accuracy.

Spar in Playa del Ingles Gran Canaria

There I was, innocently purchasing a few slices of jamón asado on holiday, when I spotted a Flemish painting lurking behind the chorizos.

It was no less than Air, from The Four Elements by Joachim Beuckelaer.

I like the idea of artworks in supermarkets - Titians in Tescos, Warhols in Waitrose, Lowrys in Lidl ...

Thank you to Paul for leaving a mini cactus in the house to greet me when I got home. It now lives in my cat egg-cup.

¡Hola! ¿Que tal? I'm back from Gran Canaria. It was a fun holiday, despite the exchange rate of one Euro per pound and the fact that Playa del Ingles didn't have a Playa.

The miles of coral sand dunes were still there. But the beach itself had practically disappeared. This was caused by a huge storm in February - the same one that hit Madeira. But there are plans to restore the sand soon.

It was actually very windy when we arrived, as you can see from this pic.

I took these photos on our daily walk from the villa to the beach.

For the first few days, I was concerned about the non-appearance of Pedro the one-eyed cat, who's been a regular garden visitor for years. But then I found him asleep next to a cactus. He's getting on a bit and even scraggier than he was, but he still seems pretty perky and appeared to recognise me.

the ginger villa cat, walking past a Mother-in-Law

One of my Canarian housemates was my Italian pal Cosimo. This proved linguistically confusing when we went to a German restaurant. He ordered in Italian, James ordered in English and I ordered in German, lapsing into Spanish by mistake.

I actually learnt as much Italian as I did Español. My first discovery was the word for 'bum bag' (or 'fanny pack' as they oddly call it in the USA). Being metaphorically-minded, the Italians call it a 'marsupial'.

One day we saw someone with a lazy eye. Cosimo informed me the Italians refer to this condition as 'one eye on the pizza, the other on the beer.'

Then the conversation turned to rainbows. Apparently, when a rainbow appears, the Italians say 'The fox is getting married.' Why? Because rainbows are rare. And so are fox marriages.

I then pointed at a bulbous cactus in the villa garden. 'I bet you don't know the Italian term for that,' I said.

'Yes,' he replied. 'That's easy. We call that a Mother-in-Law.'

the seed pod tree in the villa garden

An odd thing happened the other day. The cleaner and the gardener started pointing up at a tree and talking in an animated Spanish fashion, firing syllables left, right and centre in a frightening guttural accent.

At first, I thought they were going to kill the dove in the tree and eat it. But then the gardener reappeared with an implement ... and cut off the long, dark, bosky seed pods.

At that point, the cleaner grabbed them and ran round the garden like a maniac, cackling and shaking them like maracas. 'Carnival!' she screamed. 'Ahora!' At which point, she brandished a seed pod in my direction and I waved it politely in an English sort of way.

The carnival kicked off that evening, with fireworks and a parade so camp it made Priscilla Queen of the Desert look like Wallander. Sadly, we missed the finale, which apparently consists of the 'rescue of the sardine', the 'reading of the sardine's will', the 'funeral procession of the sardine' and the 'burial of the sardine'. This is apparently an ancient Spanish ritual.

'Dear sardine,' wail the locals. 'Why have you left us, the poor orphans?'

Goya's Burial of the Sardine

There were some very friendly doves in the garden this year. I fed them with muesli every afternoon and they perched on my hand to eat it.

My computer just rebooted without warning and deleted a whole pile of stuff.

Imagine if humans did that. Just rebooted spontaneously and shut down during meetings or whatever. I guess it could be useful. You could sometimes pretend to have a reboot when you lose track of something or get bored.

Recently, there've been lots of exciting reboots at the BBC. For some reaon, they've happened to me just before programmes or during courses which need Powerpoint. But I've thankfully not been caught out live, which happened to BBC Radio newsreader Alison Roper.

The redoubtable Roper was forced to read the headlines from her mobile phone the other day, after the BBC computer system collapsed just as she was about to go on air.

So - she whipped out her iPhone and read the headlines from an email sent to her handset instead.

The words were reasonably clear on my iPhone screen. But I tried tipping the phone sideways so that the writing becomes bigger and then I lost the whole sentence. You need to read ahead all the time when you are reading out news.

I had to tip it back to the right position and just scroll through very quickly with my finger, hoping to God I didn't do something accidentally. My heart was in my mouth but you have to take a deep breath and plunge in.

I hope she gets a Sony Award.

I was on the tube the other day, studiously avoiding eye contact, when I espied the latest Plusnet Broadband advert for the London area. I instantly knew it was a London-based ad from the picture.

And then I suddenly realised that London's no longer signposted, in adverts and films, by double-decker buses or Big Ben.

The new signifiers of the capital are both less than a decade old - the London Eye (1999) and the Gherkin (2004).

I've just discovered the fabulous Daily Squee

As the Squee people put it -

Daily Squee is a cuteness factory. Readers submit and vote on pictures of their pets and animals they barely know, and our highly trained cuteologists will find the cutest ones and put them on the front page for your squeezing pleasure.

It definitely gets a gold star from Peacockshock.

Here's an exclusive clip of Nick Griffin on Question Time which you may find disturbing(ly funny).

I was at Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk today, with my friends the Ps. Apart from almost getting stuck in a priest hole, I enjoyed the trip.

We were intrigued by one of the portraits - of an old servant with tired eyes and a sensible bonnet. Apparently, pictures of servants are pretty rare.

I also enjoyed walking on a 'nightingale floor' - where the floorboards are deliberately designed to creak to warn of intruders.

Good coffee and walnut cake too.

I went on a Grand Tour at the weekend, with friends James (London James that is) and Cosimo (I only know one Cosimo). We went through ten counties in two days, focusing on Wiltshire, Dorset and then Suffolk - returning to Hertford at night.

Stonehenge was our first destination. When we arrived, it was pretty sunny. But then, a murder of crows descended on the stones, the sky clouded over and the whole place turned distinctly spooky. In English folklore, crows are the spirits of the dead.

James, looking suitably mysterious, driving past Stonehenge on our way to Dorset

After Stonehenge, we popped over to Shaftesbury in Dorset for afternoon tea and a walk up Gold Hill - made famous by the 1973 Hovis advert.

angels in the architecture

Cosimo and James

the most clichéd pic I've ever taken, but I still like it

that famous ad

Peacockshock - as good for you today as it’s always been

We also spent a day in Aldeburgh - one of my favourite places - on the coast of Suffolk. After a fish pie and pint of Adnams at the Cross Keys Inn, we strolled along the blustery shingle beach to the Martello Tower and then had tea and cakes in a cafe full of upper-crust old ladies.

Aldeburgh was home to Benjamin Britten, John Piper and Laurence van der Post, who wrote in a tower on the beach.

You can still buy fresh fish in ramshackle huts on the beach, and there are very few signs of the 21st century.

James and me, fending off Napoleon at the Martello Tower

I wonder whether a shrimp lives there

The Moot Hall

Thanks for asking when I'm on Radio 4 next. After taking a bit of time off over the summer, I'm now recording stuff again and I'll be presenting two quirky half hour features in November. One of them involves Hertford - and Knebworth too. I'll keep you posted.

Aldeburgh in Suffolk

Tuscany

Continuing this occasional series, here's a pic of a place I like.

We're having a few days off (at home - why go away?) See you soon.

I just had a look at some international coverage of the Great Heatwave of 2009, and they clearly think it's hilarious.

I was particularly shocked by an Australian newspaper (it's winter there - 26°) which accused us of being pathetic and whinging. This is typical of Antipodeans, who have nothing better to do than stroke kangaroos and go up at the end of sentences.

But the author did concede -

'In the Poms' defence, most public transport and workplaces in the country are only set up to accommodate for the standard conditions: cold and miserable.'

ABC (Australia)

The National (Gulf States)

I went to the hotel reception this morning and announced:

'I'd like to log out please.'

'Pardon?' asked the polite, besuited yoof.

'I'd like to log out of the hotel please,' I replied. 'Here's my key. Room 109'.

'I'm sorry?'

This process went on in a loop for some time until I eventually realised what I'd said.

I have now logged out of the hotel and I'm about to log myself, by plane, back onto the England server, plugging myself into my Hertford USB, rebooting Bollinger's food bowl and uploading a nice M&S dinner while downloading Big Brother.

Hello again from Glasgow.

I do like the new Scottish word for thank you. It's basically 'cheers', but 'cheers' with an obvious Scottish accent, so it comes out as 'chee-orsh'. It even rhymes with 'seahorse'.

I'm still in Glasgow and had to take a taxi home today.

'Is your hotel an ochafrackledittpallattlefrittollop?' asked my driver.

'Mmm' I replied.

'It's prookalassaprattlefecchan isn't it?' he then asked.

'Mmm' I replied.

He then went on his radio and announced, 'I'm innatopplechickenlicken.'

I know that's what he said, because he kept saying it.

After we arrived and I gave him a tip to compensate for any faux pas I'd committed in response to his questions, he said, 'Rookenfupple - ochafoocafootlewochatweeterfecklesllokinfuttlefacklefech' and drove off.

the arrow's pointing at my room

My hotel's a TV star. Every time I turn on BBC TV news and they do a local opt ('and now the news where you are...') my hotel's sitting there in the background, waving at its mum. It's just down the river from the BBC and next to a trendy bridge, which is why it's in the shot I guess. It did occur to me that it might be a pre-recorded VT, but then I watched the cars going over the bridge and they were in synch with the TV versions. I'm slightly worried that HD viewers can actually see me as I slob around my room in a semi-naturist state, eating room service chips and accidentally slipping bottles of hotel shampoo into my bag.

BBC Pacific Quay Glasgow - a pic I took this evening

I'm in Glasgow. It's 10pm and it's hot and sunny. Really hot. Ibiza hot. The wooden-decked terrace outside my Dutch-looking hotel is full of preppy professionals drinking Cabernet. The insect-like metallic buildings and bridges are gleaming in the sunset. The only reminders of the old days are a 1931 crane that looks like a Gormley sculpture and the cobbles with rusty rails embedded in them. If some old docker from the 1920s came back to life, he'd think spaceships had landed and aliens had colonised the Clyde.

Hello. I'm now back from Belfast (Friday) and Banbury (Saturday) and am flying off this afternoon to Glasgow (Tuesday, Thursday, Friday) and Edinburgh (Wednesday). Back (back) on Friday (Friday). Then it's Middlesbrough and Manchester. But then I'm in Hertford for the whole of July, which will be a great boon.

As you may know, I'm very excited by my first ever rhododendron, which has finally flowered. It was visited by lots of bees yesterday. But they'd better be careful, because rhododendrons contain toxins which allegedly produce hallucinogenic 'mad honey'. The maenads used it to induce their ravings. Xenophon's army went loopy after eating it. And the amazonian Queen Olga of medieval Kiev gave mad honey to invading Russians, then killed them once they'd gone into a hallucinatory stupor.

a bee on my rhododendron

Mum and Dad have now flown back up north. Boll and I will miss them.

My parents are here this week, which is why I've not been online very much. I did give them a quick peep at the computer earlier though. They now know what Google is, but still insist on calling the internet 'the website'.

When I lived in a touristy part of the West End, we had a roof garden. I used to take mugs of tea up there. And, every now and then, I took great delight in dropping a teabag over the wall so it would land on a tourist's head way down below. I found this very funny. I was very young at the time.

I once cut a radio station off the air, resulting in five minutes of silence during a Saturday morning breakfast show. I didn't notice because I was listening to studio output rather than station output by mistake. No listeners phoned in to complain. And no-one at the station seemed to notice either.

I once played third trombone in an orchestra and we were performing a modern, atonal piece I'll call 'Enigmatica' in a cathedral. The composer himself was conducting. I hated it and found it impossible, and so I just made random blurting noises. I sounded like an elephant having a fit. He had no idea it was totally random and kept complimenting me on my playing.

Last weekend, I was surprised to see an OK magazine 'tribute issue' to 'Jade Goody 1981 - 2009', including 'Jade's last words'. I was surprised because she was still alive.

I assumed she'd pre-agreed her last words with Max Clifford and had them emailed to the OK obit team. But apparently that wasn't the case and the Goodys (Goodies?) were a bit upset.

I was intrigued about what this week's headline would be, but wasn't disappointed.

The nation mourns the loss of its brightest star declares OK, signifying a return to 100% accuracy and journalistic integrity. After all, the entire nation is in mourning. And Jade was our brightest star without any doubt.

Actually - like many - I do feel sad about Jade's death. Interesting - I just called her 'Jade', minus surname, as if I knew her. I clearly had a parasocial relationship with her. Who didn't? I also feel sad because no-one wants to die at 27.

And, despite her various faux pas and lack of conventional education, I was impressed by her undoubted ability to use the media. Arguably, they used her more. But she seemed happy with the deal. And you can't blame her for flaunting her demise if it really was in order to make money for her sons' future.

So - well done Jade. As for OK, well, I may just have to defect to Hello or Heat.

God förmiddag.

This time yesterday, I was on a jetty on a frozen lake in Stockholm. I've just been on a lightning trip to Sweden to record interviews for a Radio 4 documentary which is going out in a few weeks' time. After doing the recordings, we managed to grab a couple of hours in Gamla Stan, the old town, where I had pickled herrings for lunch.

Hejdå!

me, on a frozen lake

Mårten Trotzigs Gränd - the narrowest street in Sweden

my lunch in Stockholm - pickled herrings with dill on rye bread - one of my all-time favourite snacks

Um - Tweet. Please note that Peacockshock has a new feature, thanks to Franklin the wondrous internet elf of Essex. It's a Twitterfeed, to the right of the page, just below the lovely Bolly in her Burberry hat.

I've been tweeting a lot on Twitter this week, as I've been on the move and running round London with my BlackBerry. I suspect it's something to do with feeling isolated during a very peripatetic few days and needing some kind of affirmation and connection with a virtual village.

That probably explains why so many artistes and celebs do it - notably Stephen Fry, who recently tweeted to the world while stuck in a lift.

His view on the tweeting mania that's producing 2.5 million tweets a day -

I love how Twitter confirms my all-too-often assaulted belief that most humans are kind, curious, knowledgeable, tolerant and funny. The absurd constraints of the 140-character tweet seem oddly to bring out the best in wit, insight and observation.

A lot of my friends tweet.

Loz - a famous composer and genius - is currently tweeting very wittily about writing his new musical.

Typical Loztweets -

finishing off the new version of setting the 5 eBay values. 'We believe everybody's basically good'

this evening's job- a beat track with sounds of pinging glass and sampled swedish singers

distracted by a song for Akiko the performance artist inspired by the Osaka Expo theme tune

He lives in Manchester. Such things are normal there.

Meanwhile in deepest Hove, my psychologist friend Aric has been accused this week of arguing that Twitter can make you ill

He's been all over the press and caused outrage and much ruffling of plumage among the twittering classes. I'm about to phone him about it and will report back.

If you're not familiar with Twitter (bless - how quaint you must be), here's a quick guide to the language of the Twittersphere -

Twitterhood - the group of people who elect to see your tweets

Re-Tweet - someone sends you a tweet that you like so you re-tweet it on your account for your followers to read

Twoosh - this occurs when you make a tweet of exactly 140 characters

Twitpic - an application that enables you to take a picture on your mobile then zip it straight to all your followers via Twitter

Tweet-up - when Twitterers arrange to meet face-to-face, and presumably are so busy tweeting about it that they completely ignore each other

I've just been for a walk along the river. Every single person I saw had either a dog or a camera with them. I had a camera, because I don't have a dog. I've noticed that most cameras nowadays have little straps you put round your wrist - a bit like dogs' leads. What's that all about?

What's certain is that it's sociably unacceptable to go for a walk in 2009 without a camera or a dog.

Boll and I have become addicted to twitter and can't stop tweeting. Nightmare.

I took this pic of Broadcasting House on my mobile this week. I'm working in BH and surrounding buildings most of the time at the moment, and I'm rather fond of the cranes which perform a slow dance from dawn till dusk. Every morning, they assume a different pose. Sometimes, they look as if they're actually holding the building up.

Boll and I are disappointed that President Obama is getting a White House puppy rather than a kitten. But at least he's not planning on inaugurating an alligator.

President John Adams had one. It lived in a bathroom. According to some reports, he used it to frighten guests he didn't like. And he had a dog called Satan.

Benjamin Harrison had two oppossums called Mr Protection and Mr Reciprocity - and a goat called Mr Whiskers.

Calvin Coolidge had two lions, a wallaby, a pygmy hippo, a goose called Enoch, a bear, and a Duiker (very small antelope).

And Theodore Roosevelt kept a badger.

Boll and I feel that President Obama should adopt a llama. But he probably won't.

Hurrah.

Congratulations to Chesley B Sullenberger III. In his honour, I'm going to name my next garden plant after him. As you may know, my larger plants are all named after celebrities - notably my olive tree Nana Mouskouri.

I'm assuming MacDonalds are already producing a Mac Chesley B Sullen Burger.

One naturally feels sorry for the goose which caused the crash, but it no doubt died very quickly.

It's somewhat alarming that a successful landing on water is so unlikely that it's become a news story. But air travel is still by far the safest form. You're more likely to be killed by lightning.

There's a one in 12.5 million chance of being killed on a UK plane. This compares to a one in 10 million chance of being killed by a lightning strike.

And sitting at the back of the plane is safer than sitting at the front.

www.isitchristmas.com

I love iGoogle and the tea house homepage, featuring a sweet squirrel type thing, is now permanently on my PC. It changes throughout the day and night as the squirrel type creature goes about his activities and is visited by various sweet ducks, cranes, grasshoppers, glow-worms and even spirits...

I've returned from my Royal Progress, having spent the last three days with lots of (frighteningly) young BBC producers in a 17th century hunting lodge in Suffolk.

The Boll and I are spending today just hanging out at home. Boll's currently asleep in her new fluffy bed. I'm on my second mug of coffee. It's cold outside but nice and cosy in here. Perfect.

November has been ridiculous. I've been in Newcastle, Leeds, Wales, Bristol, London, Cambridge and various other far-flung and exotic places. I've stayed everywhere from a Premier Inn by a motorway to a boutique hotel with a comlimentary decanter of port by my bed.

The other day, when I was in Bristol, I seriously thought I was in Cardiff for several minutes and frightened my taxi driver by asking him whether he liked living in Wales.

I'm now off to Suffolk for a couple of days, but then I'm back in Hertford for several weeks. Hurrah.

Bolly's been fine about this and, unlike a typical cat, isn't remotely huffy when I get home. My friend H has been kindly staying over to deputise as La Boll's personal assistant.

Well done to my friend Wilhelm, who runs Katalogue. He's just back from the Oscar Niemeyer Museum in Brazil, where he's been curating a highly successful exhibition called Katalogue XXL. Wilhelm's a brilliant curator and I'd recommend anything he does.

Wilhelm, preparing for XXL

Oscar Niemeyer Museum

photo from Katalogue XXL, by Niels Alpert

It's the year 2008 and this is Peacockshock's 2008th posting. How very exciting.

I've always been fascinated by Iceland and occasionally check out Icelandic websites. Today, I had a look at Reykjavik Vinviour which is a bit like Time Out, and this was the gloomy, saga-style message on the homepage, which kind of says it all about the so-called Credit Crunch.

Skeleton Economy

The Icelandic economy has crashed. The government has nationalised all three of the major banks in Iceland and most Icelandic financial institutions are bankrupt. The global credit crisis has hit Iceland like a natural disaster. During a two-week period, our economy was wiped out and this has left us in ruins.

I'm watching Channel 4 News. John Snow has just told me the economy is in a Death Spiral. What next? It's all very depresssing. Keep your pecker up and have a nice weekend.

an admin person and his admin dog at Zen Internet

A big thank you to Zen Internet for reassuring me that I'm THE Ian Peacock.

I've recently been getting emails from them demanding overdue payments. But I've never used Zen in my life. I thought it was a type of Buddhism.

So I phoned up yesterday to be informed by a person in the north that I'm THE Ian Peacock.

They've accidentally been emailing me thinking I'm the OTHER Ian Peacock. He lives in a village in Oxfordshire. I now have his phone number and may occasionally call him to remind him that he's definitely the OTHER one and not to get ideas above his station.

an admin person at the BBC

Meanwhile, my company hasn't been allowed to invoice the BBC for over a month. This is because, before you're allowed to invoice the BBC, their lovely admin elves have to give you a magic number from a computer.

But they've stopped giving me the mystic numbers. That's because 'someone has been on holiday'. They've also, according to an email yesterday, 'had a problem with the system'.

So that's all fine then. It's only money. I'm an artiste. For me, broadcasting is an act of random kindness and senseless beauty.

This brings me to the East Herts Council Refuse and Recycling Department. About a year ago, they generously gave me two (two – why two?) vast wheely bins for garden waste, which I dutifully filled with leaves and things, like you do.

But they forgot to warn me that they were just for decorative purposes. They've never collected them.

And now they're full. So I phoned up yesterday and was instantly given a six figure reference number.

According to the nice admin man, I was never meant to get them and nobody knew they were there. I pointed out that, as mistakes go, it was a good one, being rather ecofriendly. But he didn't seem to understand that.

'You're not meant to have them,' he sighed. 'Are you a flat?'

'No, I'm a house,' I replied.

Apparently this was the wrong reply and seemed to throw him because he had no record of my garden existing.

'How do you maintain your driveway?' he asked in his most mysterious and gnomic voice.

'Well, I brush it and so on,' I retorted.

'You don't pay anyone to do it? You don't pay a service charge?' he asked.

'No,' said I.

'Well, that's very unusual,' he informed me. 'Are you sure? You actually look after the garden yourself?'.

'Yes,' I said.

The matter is now being investigated and I have a new reference number.

Thank goodness it's September. Can't stand August. I've never liked it.

I was thinking about what it feels like to be old the other day. And I realised that you've become old when you only like the tunes you already know.

'It's very proud for London. Very proud for myself,' squeaked David Beckham ungrammatically.

Becks had come to Beijing to kick a football in a stilted fashion from the top of a London bus. He was joined by Leona Lewis - without doubt the dullest person in the UK - looking frightened on top of a pole, and an elderly gentleman who was once in a rock band. Meanwhile, inane 'street' dancers thrashed around randomly with umbrellas.

The bus then turned into a sort of privet hedge, as they played a horrific dance remix of Greensleeves.

The Chinese should have awarded the whole shambles an Olympic gold medal for synchronised stereotyping and then invaded the bus, depriving its occupants of all human rights - especially the right to mess up on stage for eight minutes in front of a worldwide audience of billions.

Enter Boris, with his hands in his pockets, getting tangled up in the Olympic flag and doing a comedy salute.

It was seriously disturbing. If you watched Mary Poppins while suffering from the latter stages of dementia, this is undoubtedly the sort of thing you'd experience.

As Chinanews so eloquently put it:

A big red double-decker bus ran into the Bird Nest and moved around the Stadium. A long guitarist rose through the stage and there was a pause.

Quite.

'Why am I always on a plane or a fast train?' as Rufus Wainwright once asked. I've been all over the country over the last few days - London, Newcastle, Glasgow, blah blah blah, blahdiblahblah. But I'm finally at home today - all day - with the Boll, and rain outside, and the Olympics on TV.

I'm cross with Nature. Last night, I decided to water the plants. And, as I was pootling with my watering can, something landed on my head. It was a poo.

I was somewhat taken aback as I couldn't see any birds. But then I heard the distant twittering of swallows and realised there was a bunch of the little b*****s flying around about a mile up in the sky. They'd clearly taken great pains to aim directly at me. It was pure swallow malice.

I then retired to shampoo my head and .... it started raining, rendering my sprinklings completely pointless.

Nature hates me. I hate Nature.

I was in/on Primrose Hill yesterday. If you're not familiar, it's a posh residential area on a hill, where lots of celebs live, with a fabulous view over London.

I googled Primrose Hill afterwards for some photos and stumbled on a splendid website.

It features Cuddly Bear from Harpenden in Hertfordshire, who travels the world and makes sure he gets photographed wherever he goes.

Cuddly Bear on Primrose Hill

gratuitous cat pic - airline ad from the 1950s

It always amuses me when airline cabin crew get bored and start playing up. Last night, when we landed, our camp trolley-dolly announced -

'Please refrain from smoking until within a smoking area outside the terminal building. We appreciate your patience as WE HAVEN'T HAD A SMOKE SINCE 11AM AND WE'RE DESPERATE.'

He then added -

'Please remember to take all your belongings with you. You know - children, husbands, that sort of thing.'

Torrres and Motson

Congratulations to Fernando Torres on a fantastic goal, clinching Euro 2008 for Spain.

Sad news that it was John Motson's last international commentary though. I just love Motson's voice and think he should join the RSC on his retirement, playing all of Shakespeare's heroes.

I also like the fact that, after 37 years of broadcasting, he still steadfastly refuses to pronounce foreign names in a totally foreign way. There was a classic during the final, as he introduced a pop singer he'd clearly never heard of.

'And now the Euro 2008 song, performed by Enreek Ingleessiass.'

The Queen

I like the Queen. Regardless of whether you're a royalist or not, you've got to admire her. She can't help being the Queen. She didn't choose to be. And she makes a jolly good job of it.

This week, I heard the best Queen story ever. Apparently, even at the age of 82, she likes dancing to Abba. Recently, they played Dancing Queen at a post-dinner dance at Windsor.

She was on the floor and everybody said, 'My goodness, there's the Dancing Queen.'

She was then overheard saying, 'I always try to dance when this song comes on because I am the Queen and I like to dance.'

gratuitous photo of corgis

I was in a newsagents the other day.

Just as I was was about to buy my copy of the Radio Times, a stately and pious-looking gentleman wearing a turban sidled in and stood next to me scanning the shelves. He was furtively scouring every section as if urgently searching for a particular mag. And his gaze kept straying to the top shelf.

Being of a curious bent, I just had to stay and find out what he was after. It was clearly some kind of specialist porn.

'ARE YOU LOOKING FOR ANYTHING IN PARTICULAR?' asked the assistant after a few minutes.

'Yes,' he replied, as I looked on aghast. He had a meek, mild-mannered voice and a Birmingham accent.

'Do you have any magazines about trucks?'

I forgot where I was on Wednesday night. I was actually in Birmingham, in the rather pleasing Novotel (four stars, nice food) but it looked very much like lots of other hotel rooms. For a minute or so, I seriously thought I was in Glasgow.

It's all been a bit manic over the last few weeks. I was cat-sitting in Essex. Then I was in London yesterday. Tomorrow I'm in Cambridge. Monday I'm in the wilds of Norfolk (on the BBC Springwatch nature reserve - no magpies I hope).

But I'm at home today with the Boll. I love being at home. The older I get, the more I just want to be here in Hertford. We're going to pootle around and then watch Eurovision.

I spent yesterday pootling around Soho and Covent Garden, where I encountered two of my relatives - placed there by New York floral designer Preston Bailey.

Preston Bailey and friend

I was deeply shocked the other day when a friend from the south admitted she'd never heard of Alnwick in Northumberland.

Alnwick is considered one of the most picturesque towns in the UK. It has an imposing medieval castle (the second biggest inhabited castle in the UK, after Windsor). It was home to the Percy family, including Hotspur. It featured as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films. And Alnwick was recently declared the 'best place to live in Britain' by Country Life magazine.

So there.

I received an odd email this morning and wasn't sure whether it was spam or not, so I opened it. It announced

Grand Duke of All Russia Valery Kubarev Big Kubensky (Flavy Valery
Cubara - Jacob Constantine XV) declares the World Gathering descendants
of the Byzantium Emperors, Vikings, Rurik's (Monomachos), Hashemite's,
son of Buddha Rahula, Confucius from dynasty Duke Yansheng, Genghis
Khan, daughters of Miuko from Japan, Incas from America. All of us are
lineal descendants of the God-Father Cub.

Anxious to discover whether I was descended from the God-Father Cub, I visited Big Kubensky's website and was informed that

Jesus Christ Zlatoust has decided to resemble the God-Father, the space navigator and Russian Varyag, Kubera-Cub. Zlatoust has chosen to itself seven wives and also has left the seven dynasties on the Earth, conducting started from him and Virgin Maria. Here these dynasties… Jesus Christ's all descendants it is possible to name Zlatoust’ or on Byzantium like – Nazareth’s.

Could someone please explain?

I love it. It's the ultimate man bites dog story.

According to The Prison Officers Association, prisoners love prison and would rather stay inside than escape. This is because they can easily get hold of drugs, mobile phones (cell phones surely?) and sex.

Apparently, one dealer regularly broke into a prison in Yorkshire by using a ladder to get into the cell windows. But none of the inmates ever bothered using the ladder to escape.

I can hear it now: 'I sentence you to three years in the real world, with no access to prison for good behaviour.'

I've not been peacockshocking for a few days. This is because I've been all over the place - geographically, not mentally.

Last week I was media training at a famous thinktank in St James's, London. Can't tell you which one. Chatham House rule applies.

Then I flew up to Glasgow to do TV training with some teens.

I was then back in London to train political journalists in Westminster in the noble art of humiliating MPs.

And that was followed by a TV training day at a leading muesli company.

No peace for the wicked. Sometimes I ask myself, quoting Rufus Wainwright, 'why am I always on a plane or a fast train?' But I love it really. In an odd way.

And I'm actually in Hertford all week next week - so you can expect more homely observations from the Peacock nest.

Breaking News. Vietnam has launched a crackdown on hamsters. From today, anyone caught in possession of a hamster will be fined 30 million dong (£1000). This is because pet hamsters are being smuggled in from Thailand without going through quarantine.

Government official Nguyen Thanh Son said, 'People should see how dangerous the hamsters in Vietnam really are.'

I'll keep you posted on this. Otherwise - I sugest you watch Sky News. They're sure to be providing 24-hour coverage.

Conwy Castle

I've just got back from the most distant corner of north west Wales. It too six hours to get there. The train journey took me down the spooky shoreline at dusk, and through a tunnel under the 13th century Conwy Castle.

My destination was the BBC in Bangor - where 46% of the people speak Welsh and the other 54% seem to be students from England.

The BBC's Light Entertainment Department moved to Broadcasting House Bangor during the Second World War to escape the bombs, and many episodes of ITMA were recorded there.

The Beatles also visited the town in the 60s, to meet the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He wasn't Welsh. He just lived there for a while.

I stayed in nearby Caernarfon, at the Celtic Royal, which was excellent and had a good swimming pool. You can see Anglesey from Caernarfon and I was surprised at how close it was. Apparently, you can just about walk to the island when the tide's out.

Hello. How are you? I've been preposterously busy, which is why I haven't poked my peacock beak through your screen over the last week. And now I'm off to north Wales for the BBC. Nice hotel by the looks of it, in Caernarfon. It's all go. But I'll be back soon.

I watched Almodóvar's All About My Mother yesterday and rather liked the line - 'The more you become like what you have dreamed for yourself, the more authentic you are.'

Men are rubbish in supermarkets. I recently burbled on about the random way they stack their baskets. Now, I've noticed a new and equally annoying tendency - 'shopping by mobile'.

'Hello, it's me,' said a hassled-looking 40-something yesterday in Tesco. 'I'm by the Chicken Kievs. But there are lots and lots of them. Which Kiev did you want in particular? OK. I'll list them. There's......'

Why the phone? Why did his wife (he looked like he had a wife) stay at home when she knew precisely which Kiev she wanted? Can't these people shop together? Don't they have nannies?

Women are sadly no better. Increasing numbers of them appear to have developed acute 'Checkout Vagueness Syndrome'.

There was a spectacular example of it today in Waitrose. It was time for the woman in front of me to pay. And she must have spent at least three minutes twitting about in her purse for the right credit card which she could have located while in the queue.

Then she took a geological age to pack her bags, moving her prawns from bag to bag between three bags for no apparent reason. Then she realised she hadn't put her card back and did that in slow motion.

It was like watching a winning football team slowly nudging and pingling the ball round the field to fill time until the ref blows the whistle.

And then she stood there. Just stood there, staring into the middle distance. What was she doing? Silently reciting The Iliad to herself?

Meanwhile, the poor check-out boy had already started scanning my Special K with Red Berries and had nowhere to put it. We just exchanged glances and raised eyebrows.

After about a minute of vague staring, she put her gloves on with meticulous slowness and idled out like she was strolling down a beach in the Maldives.

Supermarket ditherers are a blight on our society and ought to be publicly hanged in Tesco carparks.

Here are a few photos of my recent trip to Gran Can. As you can see, it was pretty hot. At one point last year, it was so hot (52°C) that the picturesque plastic chairs on our villa patio melted. Nice to be back in the crisp and chilly UK, with condensation streaming down the windows in the morning.

me on the beach

during my orange phase

after I turned black thanks to the sun and the mysterious powers of Piz Buin

one of the resident villa cats

James, Me, Jhon (correct spelling - from Colombia), Cristian (ditto) and Holly in a beach café

Hello. I'm back. Bolly seems pleased to see me too. Thankfully, she isn't prone to huffs like other cats, though she is hiding in a drawer this evening.

My holiday photos are in Cambridge for various complicated reasons, but they'll be arriving here tomorrow so I can bore you into a dangerous comatose state with a tedious slideshow.

The trip to Grand Canary was fun. The only tense moment was when I tried to explain what a badger was to a German and a Dutch person. This proved impossible in words, so I had to draw one. But they thought it was a cow. Whatever you do - please don't ever attempt to explain a badger to a continental.

I'm off to Gran Canaria today - staying less than five minutes away from the dunes in the photo. Feel free to seethe with envy.

I call it 'Gran Canaria' but I note that The Times still insists on 'Grand Canary' on the rare occasions it gets into the news.

I rather like the idea of a grand canary (as in 'snobbish parakeet' or 'pretentious budgerigar') and thought it was just The Times that insisted on the anglicised name. But - when I got my insurance documents yesterday - there it was again. Directline insist on Grand Canaries too.

In fact, the Canaries have nothing to do with small yellow birds whatsoever. They were named the Insula Canaria - canine islands - because they were once populated by hordes of frightening dogs.

That's why there are two dogs on the Canary Islands coat of arms. There's also a type of dog called a Canary Mastiff.

So - I'm off to Big Dog for a few days. Hasta luego. See you when I get back.

the dunes at Playa del Ingles (pic taken by me last time I was there)

Canary Islands coat of arms

a canary mastiff

some grand canaries

dog (middle of pic, with person in orange) and cat (slightly to right) playing peepo on train

I was on a train with Boll the other day. And Boll wasn't alone. The carriage was alarmingly full of cats and dogs. Bolls was asleep in her box. But there was a rather noisy and curious Siamese kitten across the aisle running around on a lead. And a pointy-eared dog sitting ominously near to it.

As Bolly slept, they played cat and mouse (so to speak) for several hours - peeping out at each other and amusing the bored passengers.

It's good to know that boxer Amir Khan trains at London's Peacock Gym, where Bolly the cat works part-time as a personal trainer.

I watched Amir winning last night - all 72 seconds of it.

That means - for the fans who paid £160 for a ticket - one second cost £2.20

Let's hope Amir spends it all down at the Peacock.

Call me old-fashioned, but if I was pretending to be dead, I wouldn’t agree to have my photo taken, clearly still alive, smiling in a jolly fashion with my ‘bereaved’ partner, and give permission for it to be emblazoned on a property website for the entire world to see.

And - if I was involved in a con trick and wanted to appear innocent - I wouldn’t relocate mysteriously to central America.

And if I was going to pretend to return to society after five years of amnesia, having conned an insurance company, I wouldn’t show up just six weeks after my partner had run off abroad with the insurance cash.

Do not approach this bear in any circumstances. He is dangerous. Police in Sudan say he is an infidel and is known to advocate blasphemy and idolatry.

The suspect is 10 inches tall and fluffy, with a large head and cute paws.

I've long been a huge fan of Andre Jordan's internet doodles. And now you can have your very own book full of them.

Hello. I'm back from foreign parts.

Hello from the BBC’s Inverness newsroom, where we’re chasing a story about Radio 1 DJ Pete Tong. He’s being flown up here at 11pm on Friday night in a private jet and Inverness Airport is being opened up specially for him. This is so he can play a late-night set at a local nightclub.

Inverness is the fastest-growing city in the UK and has a huge new community of 8000 migrant Poles. They even have their own delicatessen and there are rumours of a Polish language radio station.

Famous residents include Macbeth, the Loch Ness Monster (just down the road from here) and lots of dolphins, in the Moray Firth.

Some of the locals speak Gaelic, but most speak English and are considered to have the clearest diction in the UK.

Inverness is also the subject of one of the best headlines ever, referring to the trouncing of Celtic by local team Inverness Caledonian Thistle (aka ‘Caley’) – ‘Super Caley go ballistic, Celtic are atrocious.’

Hello. Are you still there? Good.

Are you sure you're there? Really? Excellent.

I'm not entirely sure where I am. I've not disappeared. I'm just having an insanely frantic month. Mum and Dad came to stay after I got back from Scotland. Now they've headed back up north and I'm off to Scotland again for another BBC week in the Highlands.

Bye. Off to Gatwick. Or is it Heathrow?

I walked down Oxford Street this morning at 8.30, from Oxford Circus to Bond Street. A ten minute stroll, during which I encountered -

A young vicar with dreadlocks, barking 'yes mate' repeatedly into his mobile.

Four topless male models posing with Selfridges bags for a photoshoot (it was very cold).

An elderly baglady in front of a department store, gazing with rapt attention at a Christmas display of singing teddybears.

I've spent a lot of time at Inverness Airport recently and - in my considered opinion - the security staff are insane.

Why do they insist on scanning my passport? Why do they frisk me like maniacs every time I go near them?

A few weeks ago, I observed a teenager going through security eating chips. There were three chips left in his cardboard box. Three. They made him put them through the scanner.

And I know someone whose granny was forced to remove her hat in case it was concealing weapons of mass destruction.

The granny in question is 92 and in a wheelchair.

me in Inverness

Hello. I'm now back home with the Boll after a week at the BBC in the Highlands.

I was very sad to hear about Ned Sherrin's death today. I knew Ned and worked with him when I was a reporter on Radio 4's Loose Ends. He was a lovely chap - very witty and generous - and I'll miss seeing him around BH and listening to him on the radio.

photo I took of Ned
while recording in
Edinburgh

I'm appearing (in a somewhat odd context) on Radio 4's 40th Birthday programme at the weekend. It's followed by a comedy special with Radio 4 regular Stephen Fry and Matt Lucas (Little Britain was on Radio 4 before TV).

Genius. A site dedicated to stuff on cats

British troops are finally withdrawing from Basra. It's cost us £80 million a month to be there. Almost 170 British soldiers have been killed - not to mention tens of thousands of Iraqis. And - according to the Lancet - the people of Iraq are now 58 times more likely to die a violent death than they were before the invasion.

It's good to know that the latest hurricane has the grand and cat-related name of Felix. Hurricane Dean upset me greatly. I couldn't take it seriously. What next? Hurricane Darren? Hurricane Paige?

It's quite a business naming hurricanes. There's an approved list every year, but some names aren't revived. Betsy, Agnes and Hattie have been 'retired' - sacked for bad behaviour.

There's never been a hurricane called Ian. But there was a disappointing tropical cyclone called Ian in 1992.

I hit the coast of Australia but just pootled around a bit before running out of energy. Plus ça change...

My next door neighbours went to Clacton on Sea today - to a 'no dogs allowed' beach. But, despite the restriction, they noticed a large fluffy creature on a lead running round a deckchair and occasionally taking a drink from its water bowl. On closer inspection, it turned out to be ... a rabbit.

Hi (Sawadee Crap). I'm now back from Bangkok, where I was doing TV interviews with diplomats at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Being August, it was the rainy season, but the sun was pretty fierce most mornings. Temperatures hovered, as usual, around 33° C and I had to wear a suit and tie. Marvelous.

One of the highlights was a 12-course Chinese banquet hosted by one of the ambassadors, with shark's fin soup, abalone snails and a whole suckling pig.

I learnt a few new Thai phrases this time, such as: 'yin dee don rap zu studio' - welcome to the studio.

Kop Kun Crap.

the view from my 16th floor bedroom - over the hotel pool (6th floor) and the rarely-used helipad (10th floor) where the staff played football most evenings

We spent our one day off in a rainforest visiting a traditional 'homestay' house on stilts.

It was made of ancient teak. Because teak trees are so wide, it only had seven floorboards.

In the evening, we took a trip down the river which the house was on. The river was allegedly haunted and had spirit houses (mini temples on stilts) for the local ghosts.

This stretch of river was also famous for fireflies. Our mysterious guide seemed to know exactly where they lived. Most of the fireflies flashed on and off completely in synch. But some hadn't quite managed the art of synchronised flashing and lit up in sequence like a Mexican wave.

Our boatman also shone his torch up to the top of the trees so we could see the egrets sleeping.

It was quite cool on the river - plummeting to a mere 30°C by 10pm.

setting sail

an old lady on her way home from the floating market

deserted house on the haunted river

As a souvenir of this year's Bangkok expedition, I bought a Thai notebook. As you can see from the photo, the cover contains some classic lines, such as -

Have fun and make your original one!

365 days' recollection life design.

A drawing. Become a greatest artist someday.

The others. Keep precious memories in this notebook. Keep it with you whenever you go.

Artbo. Everythey.

Monday - Inverness
Tuesday - London
Wednesday - Newcastle
Thursday - Hertford
Friday - Amsterdam
Saturday - Bangkok

As you can see, I'm having a rather busy week. Bolly's having a short summer break with my parents. I'll report back when I return from Thailand where I'm doing TV things.

As I write, I'm on hold to BT again, listening to the jolly BT mantra: 'Thank you for holding. We are very busy at the moment and apologise for the delay'. I hope the voiceover thesp who recorded this gets repeat fees.

I also hope the resident on-hold BT saxophonist gets decent royalties. The poor creature must have dangerously chapped lips.

Since reluctantly 'coming back' to BT three days ago (in order to get a Sky phone package) I've been kept on hold for a total of one hour and 57 minutes. I've had my middle name mysteriously changed so that my BT details don't match my bank details. They've set up a direct debit for £41 a month instead of the promised £11. And the woman I phoned this morning at 9am (after a 27 minute wait) greeted me with a cheery 'good afternoon'.

Apparently the £41 cock-up happened 'because we use computers'.

And they apparently misheard me when I spelt out my middle initial (saying, very clearly, 'G' as in 'God' ).

Sorry BT. That must because I mumble so unintelligibly. Being a radio presenter and voice trainer, I must admit I do find it hard to get my words out.

I'm still on hold. The reason I'm phoning again is that Billings were able to correct my middle initial, but I have to phone Accounts separately to alter it, as they're on a different system.

It's good to talk.

I've just spent a week in a village called Braemar in the Scottish Highlands. It's where they have the annual Braemar Gathering (Highland Games attended by the Queen). The area's known as Royal Deeside because Queen Victoria fell in love with it and lived in a cottage in the grounds of Balmoral Castle when she was an old lady.

We also visited Aberdeen where I was impressed by the Parisian-style university area, the botanical gardens and the phenomenal precision of the local accent. Everyone sounded like an elocution teacher.

I didn't see any deer, but I did see a few highland cows and, at one point, a llama. I've no idea what it was doing on a rainswept moor surrounded by sheep. But it was definitely a llama and I was entirely sober when I saw it.

I also met an old man in Ballater who had a chihuahua up his jumper and a spaniel in a pram. He explained that the spaniel was elderly and only had three legs.

Balmoral Castle grounds were picturesque, but the castle itself was a bit bourgeois. The patio had crazy paving. I stole a royal pine cone while I was there and hereby apologise to Her Majesty.

Balmoral

view from my hotel room

the old man of Ballater

The Queen, realising one of her pine cones is missing

I'm now on facebook because everybody is, so you have to be. It's a bit more user-friendly than myspace and I like the minimalist design. The names of some of the groups are rather amusing too. Purely because of their names, I'm thinking of joining the groups called:

The drunken text appreciation society

People who always have to spell their names for other people

and

If you can't differentiate between 'you're' and 'your', you deserve to die

Various acquaintances (mostly male ones in the media, for some odd reason) have recently taken to starting their emails with 'Ian, hi' as opposed to 'Hi Ian'.

Then I was in Caffè Nero this morning, and the guy in front of me said, 'Thanks, yes' when asked if he wanted cinnamon on his latte.

Ian, hi?

Thanks, yes?

Heavens to Betsy. The young are ruining our language.

arrow photos

Peacockshock has now successfully migrated to its new perch (ie. server) and full plumage is now resumed.

My professional site ianpeacock.com has been redesigned, with new studio photos and clickable sound snippets. You can hear me reporting on Japanese English, having an argument with Dr Laura Schlessinger and trying to get the British public to show off. The site was designed by the wondrous frankweb

Me, trying to look mean and moody, on ianpeacock.com

Gosh. What a week. Peacockshock has spent the last few days migrating to a new server. The migration is now almost complete. Full plumage will resume soon.

Hello. My name's IBM, but sometimes it's Ham.

For some odd reason, my predictive texting system seems to think 'IBM' and 'Ham' are more popular words than 'Ian' and who am I to doubt it? But I find it odd (and a touch Dan Brown) that my phone writes 'nun' instead of 'mum'.

Sometimes, a so-called 'textonym' is actually an antonym, as in 'reject' which comes up as 'select'. And 'Newham' (a part of East London not renowned for its glamour) renames itself on my phone as 'Mexico'.

I also like
'barmaid' - 'carnage'
'Smirnoff' - 'poisoned'
'kiss' - 'lips'
'home' - 'good'
and 'cock' - no, don't go there unless you're 100% unshockable.

Now, in a fabulous Saussurian twist, yoofs and students are using the first options suggested by texting instead of the words themselves. 'Book' now means 'cool' (and has even made it into a Streets track) and students in Cardiff apparently call the Welsh capital 'Barehed'.

They now have predictive text-offs in the US, where they have to type words like 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' and everyday phrases such as 'The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera serrasalmus and pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world.'

The 2007 international predictive texter of the year is a teenager called Morgan Pozgar - a name which itself reads like a terrible texting mistake.

CUL8R

Is it me, or is TV news writing getting worse and filling up with more and more redundant words?

This morning, we were informed that, in a 'pre-planned operation' (pre-planned??? - surely 'planned' will do), a man was 'arrested by police' (by police??? - good to know it was by the police and not by a horse or a chaffinch).

As they say in TV news circles - 'thank you very much indeed for that' (ie thank you).

Here are my favourite lyrics from this year's entries.

Russia

Artist - Serebro
Title - Song Number One

Oh, don't call me funny bunny.
I'll blow your money, money.
I'll get you to my bad ass spinning for you.
Gotta tease you nasty guy
So take it don't be shy.
Put your cherry on my cake
And taste my cherry pie.

Bulgaria

Artists - Elitsa Todorova and Stoyan Yankoulov
Title - Water

There's a young lad coming from the village
Mitra-lassiee, Mitra-lass.
Walking by his side is a wild young pony
Mitra-lassiee, Mitra-lass.
See him walking there!
Hear him singing Eeeeee!

Czech Republic

Artist - Kabat
Title - Little Lady

Her den is there by the railway.
She collects coins from fountains
And puts them on the tracks.
She's building a temple, a tin bridge.
The first guest is coming over
So at least his legs won't hurt.

Ukraine

Artist - Verka Serdyuchka
Title - Dancing Lasha Tumbai

Hello everybody!
My name is Verka Serdyuchka!
Me English don't understand!
Let's speak Dance!
Seven, seven, ai lyu lyu!
Seven, seven, one, two!
Seven, seven, ai lyu lyu!
One, two, three!

United Kingdom

Artist - Scooch
Title - Flying The Flag

Ba-ba-da, Ba-ba-da,
Ba-da-da-ba, ba-da,
Duty free madam?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

full Scooch lyrics

A newsreader has just announced that Tony Blair has announced that he's going to announce - tomorrow - that he's going to resign.

A nice artist with the surname Griffin emailed me the other day about some photos of microbes on Peacockshock and I meant to reply, but I deleted the email by mistake (I plead paint fumes). So I'd be grateful if the artist named Griffin could email me again. Thank you.

The Essex Girl with laryngitis at Virgin Media has just told me that her system is down.

I was phoning her because a Virgin Media engineer called my answerphone this morning to say I hadn't answered the door. That was because I was in London. I'd cancelled him, via a woman in India, but she clearly hadn't told him.

Earlier this evening, I spoke to a strangulated and barely intelligible Glaswegian person in one of Virgin Media's geographically-diverse call centres. This was to complain that I couldn't get TV on Demand. He said his system was down and put me through to Virgin's 'technical team' who still appear to be part of NTL according to their answerphone. After their answerphone informed me of this, the line went dead.

I may be defecting to Sky very soon. Can't think why.

I got myself into a Branson Pickle this morning after losing my Virgin Media Broadband connection yet again. I've now got it back, after writhing around behind the TV and fiddling randomly with cables. I felt like Jacques Cousteau being eaten by a squid.

Virgin's solution was to put me through to India, then Wales, and to arrange for an engineer to come out ... next Tuesday.

The call centre people were perfectly nice. But why, why, why, oh why does their automatic voice person sound like a gibbon being tortured? When there are so many out-of-work actors with pleasing Rada-type voices, why do call centres use these whining voiceover creatures desperately trying to sound like your best pal? Do they have a special breeding centre for them in Essex?

Perhaps Virgin could offer Moira Stuart a job. I'd be perfectly happy to be told to 'hold for seven minutes due to call volume' if it was Moira at the other end.

Long live Moira.

I've just returned from the fabulous Jolyons Hotel - opposite the Opera House in Cardiff Bay. It's a trendy-but-cosy boutique hotel, with a cool bar, log fires, only six rooms and very friendly staff. And my room was a mere £89 for B&B. You get a caffetiere in your room with real filter coffee. And the Dr Who actors stay there too, which makes it even better.

Cardiff Opera House

my room

People used to call me 'son' or 'young man' or 'pet' (in the north). Then they started calling me 'mate' in the street, 'sir' in the posher shops.

I was once even addressed as 'geezer' by a tattooed Cockney in Gran Canaria.

But today, a young man called me 'governor'. Governor? What next? Old boy? Old stick? Grandad?

The Endless Senseless Interactive Book aims to become the longest webpage ever. The idea is that you go to the page and just write anything you want to, without thinking about it too much. It's essentially a collective piece of automatic writing.

I haven't written anything yet, but intend to, perhaps after a few glasses of wine.

I'm also tempted to place Bollinger on my keyboard to see what happens.

In fact, I'm going to do so now.

cccccc```v#

That's what she wrote. I'm now going to put it into the Endless Senseless Interactive Book. This is very exciting.

I've just entered Boll's great literary work. Go to the Endless Senseless Interactive Book now and put 'bollinger' in your 'find' thingy.

I went ice-skating at Somerset House yesterday with my godson Ben and his family.

I spent most of the hour clinging for dear life to the edge, occasionally teetering a few inches out and flailing around randomly, as hordes of smug toddlers sped past.

I did get better though, and eventually managed one whole width of the rink without holding onto anything.

Hello. I'm back from Wales. I stayed in a place called the Future Inn in Cardiff Bay, where they film Dr Who. John Barrowman lives round the corner. It was a nice hotel, for that sort of hotel, but the technology left me sore afraid.

When I arrived, I had a peep at the bathroom (as you do) and discovered it was impressively hi-tech with a thermostatic bath, but no loo.

I was literally apoplectic. Then I discovered the loo, hidden behind the door.

I then switched on the flat-screen TV, which was a PC with internet access as well. It was also probably a Corby Trouser Press and Teasmaid. 'Good evening Mrs Medha Kamal' said the caption on the screen. I've since googled Mrs Kamal and she doesn't exist. Who is she? Is she something to do with Torchwood?

Then I decided to have a bath. But I set the thermostat wrongly, believing it to be a tap, and then I couldn't work the plug. By bedtime ('Canadian Sized Bed' - two double beds - why?) I felt very, very old.

Is it like this all the time when you're 90?

It's frosty this morning. What a relief. This is the correct weather for England.

At goodgifts, you can buy comfort cats for old people, chilli hedges to stop elephants squashing villages, and ... protection services for penguins. You can also buy an entire farm for someone in Rwanda for £25,000 if you're feeling very rich.

My favourite gift is a chicken bank. Apparently chickens are accepted as currency in some parts of the world, where doctors accept 'payment by fowl'.

My parents got me a herd of goats in Bolivia last year. I often wonder how they're doing and what their names are.

So - Donald Rumsfeld is Bush's latest casualty. I must admit I'll miss Donald's Wittgensteinian podium pronouncements to the press. Here are some of my favourites (which filled me with shock and awe):

'I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than the past. I think the past was not predictable when it started.'

'I don't know what I said, but I know what I think, and, well, I assume it's what I said.'

'There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know.'

Hola. I'm back from Spain, where we were celebrating Mum's birthday.

I still can't believe Mum's 80. She plays golf several times a week, goes swimming, never fails to beat me at Scrabble and completes most of her Sudokus in about three seconds. And she's constantly off on jaunts to far-flung places like Russia and Estonia.

It was a very relaxing week. Temperatures averaged at about 26° on the coast - a bit hotter inland. We visited the Alhambra in Granada, went yacht-shopping, paddled in search of pebbles for one of Mum's artistic fridge-magnet creations, did 57 crosswords and ate preposterous amounts of food.

I also read the excellent Driving Over Lemons which is all about Andalucia.

Me in the Mediterranean

Mum and Dad

My room overlooked the sea, which was pretty rough when we arrived.

Great literary works in a bookshop in Granada

I'm frantically swotting up on my dodgy broken Spanish this weekend, as I'm off to Andalucia next week to celebrate Mum's 80th.

I'm also trying to think up a surprise of some sort, inspired by Matthew Parris's mum's 80th party. That also, by coincidence, took place in Spain.

Mrs Parris used to be an actress and loves Shakespeare. So they arranged for a bunch of actors to do a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream, with his mother playing Titania.

"I need elevation, up in the branches," she said. So her Spanish son-in-law (a builder) fetched his JCB, filled the scoop with flowers, put her in it and lifted her into the air as she asked: "What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?"

I love that story. But I'm not sure Mum would be terribly happy about performing Shakespeare in a JCB scoop. I have a feeling she'd prefer a nice cake and a cup of tea.

As you may know, I was mystified by the picture on my first ever postcard from Siberia. I was pretty sure it was a scene from a gay bar in Omsk or somewhere. But no. Amina has kindly emailed the following explanation -

A rough translation says something like: Throw away your moneybox - get a bankbook! It rhymes in Russian and reads phonetically: Bros Koobeeshkoo! Zavyedee Sbyerkneezhkoo!

Spasibo Amina!

I've just received a postcard from Siberia, from my friend Aric who's gone there on holiday. I'm not sure what the picture represents but I suspect it may be the cover of the Omsk edition of Gay Times.

Hi. I'm now back from the south coast of Gran Canaria. It was muy bien. The villa was on the edge of a mini-desert of sand dunes and had a resident cat called Pedro. It also had air con thankfully, as it was 44° degrees when we arrived and didn't make it below 25.

Photo I took the of the dunes near the villa

Me and my Pedro

Pedro on the patio

Me

Faro (lighthouse) Maspalomas

My trendy beach towel

Dressed for dinner

I'm off to a villa in the Canary Islands for a few weeks. Ciao. Have fun. See you when I get back.

I phoned a 'business support centre' yesterday. In case you've not encountered these abominations, business support centres are offices full of very thick people, usually in the north, who are paid vast sums to delay payments from large organisations to smaller ones (such as my company).

For several months, I've been badgering a large organisation about invoice 025, zero two five, which kept going missing.

After yet another bewildering conversation with a confused youth who denied my entire existence, I suggested he could find me by looking up a previous invoice which had been miraculously paid. It was 018, zero one eight.

"Sorry. We have no record of that. It can't have been paid."

At that point, I had a flash of inspiration. "Why not try inputting '018' without the leading zero?"

He inputted '18' and '25' without zeros, and both invoices showed up.

'Isn't that preposterous?' I fulminated.

'No,' he replied. 'Our system always gets rid of the leading zero.'

I do not, I repeat, NOT have jet lag. I may have been exhausted, grumpy and disorientated for three days. I may have accidentally set fire to a tea-towel last night, causing a terrible kerfuffle over my stainless steel hobs. But I do not have jet lag. I never, I repeat NEVER get it.

My condition is, in fact, delayed-onset air rage, caused, I suspect, by turbulence over the Mouths of the Irrawaddy.

So just shut up and go away.

Here's an interesting story I heard in Thailand.

The 2004 tsunami killed hundreds of thousands, but spared the Moken tribe in the south. There are about 3000 Moken, known as 'sea gypsies', living on the Andaman coast, in huts and wooden houseboats. But only one of them was killed by the wave. The rest managed to head inland before disaster struck.

The Moken are an ancient tribe who worship their ancestors and local spirits, and are very much in touch with nature and the sea. The theory is that they predicted the tsunami by observing unusual patterns in waves, and crabs and lobsters behaving oddly. An elderly shaman also claimed his ancestors warned him of danger a few hours beforehand.

Anthropogist Jacques Ivanoff has lived with them and wasn't surprised at their escape. "They read nature's signals: the silence, the receding of the water, the colour of the sea," he said. "They have collective memory of the multiple rolls of a tsunami. They knew the second wave was the killer, so they had time to escape before it came."

The Thai authorities are now consulting the Moken to help with their tsunami prediction plans.

But they've not been entirely happy with offers of money. Apparently, that makes the spirits of ther ancestors angry. According to their creation myth, they're meant to be poor and to remain outsiders.

Why am I always preceded at the checkout by a halfwit who leaves one handle of his wire basket across the middle, so I have to move the handle aside before I can put my basket inside it? I say 'his' because it's usually a man.

Why do some people wait till the very last minute to get their money out, and count it penny by penny for about a month?

And why do the till assistants (if they deign to speak) always say: 'That'll be 15.99 then.'

'Then'??? Why 'then'????? The 'then' is utterly pointless. It makes me unspeakably angry.

Hello. I'm back.

I'm heading home today. Will I be allowed hand luggage? Will they frisk my straw hat? Is England still there or has it been bombed to oblivion by teenagers from High Wycombe?

It's the evening of Mothers' Day today here in Thailand - falling on August 12th because it's the Queen's birthday. She's 74.

There are huge photos of her all over Bangkok, and most Thai people are wearing blue or gold polo shirts in her honour.

We had dinner al fresco tonight, on the top deck of a huge river boat. After cruising up the Chao Phraya river, we moored outside the illuminated Royal Palace. There was a firework display in honour of queen Sikirit and all the diners on the boat stood up, faced the palace, lit candles and sang traditional Thai songs.

Everyone seemed genuinely, innocently excited about the Queen. There was absolutely none of the cynicism which seems obligatory in the UK. I found myself wondering whether they'd been somehow culturally brainwashed, but I guess we're all culturally brainwashed in our own way.

I wandered round Bangkok's oldest Buddhist temple today. Wat Po was founded in the 17th century and has over a thousand images of the Buddha, including the golden statue below, which is bigger than my house.

I seem to have caused a great stir by including a photo of myself in a suit. Well - it's real and not photoshopped onto me, as has been suggested by various stunned friends.

Hello again from Thailand. We went past the King's palace tonight and the guards let us down the drive and over the moat to look at the lights.

My morning lift

In the studio

King Bhumibol and Tong Daeng

Hello again from Thailand. King Bhumibol is celebrating 60 years on the throne this year, so everyone's wearing yellow polo shirts and wristbands in his honour. His dog Tong Daeng is a celebrity - a sort of Thai Beckham. He has his own brand of t-shirt and a best-selling biography. The King adopted Tong Daeng when he was a stray. He's mad about animals and recently set up a special swimming pool for disabled dogs.

Bangkok Street Dogs

View from my hotel room

Hello. I'm in Bangkok for a week, giving television training to Thai ambassadors whose names I can't pronounce. Today's group included Mrs Prasattongosoth, Miss Supanimitwisetkul and Mrs Pooppornanake.

I've got worldwide travel insurance again, after a year of being stuck in the UK thanks to being ill in 2005.

And where am I off to for the BBC in August? Somewhere nice and cool like Iceland?

No. Thailand. Bangkok. At the height of the monsoon season. Guaranteed 100% humidity, thunder, flooding and preposterously-high temperatures.

Actually, I'm looking forward to it as I love Thailand whatever the weather.

You can expect Peacockshock to be a bit more international over the next few months.

Hello. I'm back from the Highlands and have been reunited with my wee sleekit beastie Bollinger. Here's a photo I took of Loch Lomond.

I'm off to Scotland for a short break. Back next week.

Once upon a time, a scorpion needed to cross a river. But he couldn't swim.

Then along came a frog and the scorpion had an idea.

"Please could you give me a lift across the river on your back?" he asked the frog.

But the frog was suspicious. "How do I know that you won't try to kill me?" he asked the scorpion.

"Because," the scorpion replied, "if I tried to kill you, I'd die too - because I can't swim."

This made sense. So the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. The scorpion hopped onto his back, and off they swam.

But - halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting, followed by deadening numbness.

"You idiot!" croaked the frog, "Now we'll both die. Why on earth did you do that?"

The scorpion shrugged and said, "Sorry mate. Couldn't help it. This is the Middle East."

I spent yesterday evening having drinks at Soho House and decided to join in order to stalk celebrities and pretend to be famous. After all, that's the only reason I decided to work in the media in the first place.

So I looked up the joining info today, and there's a waiting list of several thousand, with a new policy of favouring people under 27.

This is wrong. All twentysomethings ever do is text each other and have silly randomly-spiked hairstyles and wear scruffy flared trousers half way down their bottoms. They are an abomination and are hereby banned from this website.

George Michael has just listed Abba's 'The Day Before You Came' in his iTunes celebrity playlist, adding the comment: 'Why does nobody know this track?' Good point Georgios. It's Abba's best song. I'm not alone in thinking that. I once had an Abba conversation with Mark Lawson and he agreed. And, if I'm not mistaken, my friend Matt once said he liked it too, and Matt's a huge George Michael fan. Odd. Here are the lyrics -

I must have left my house at eight, because I always do.
My train, I'm certain, left the station just when it was due.
I must have read the morning paper going into town.
And having gotten through the editorial, no doubt I must have frowned.

I must have made my desk around a quarter after nine,
With letters to be read, and heaps of papers waiting to be signed.
I must have gone to lunch at half past twelve or so -
The usual place, the usual bunch.

And still on top of this I'm pretty sure it must have rained,
The day before you came.

I must have lit my seventh cigarette at half past two
And at the time I never even noticed I was blue.
I must have kept on dragging through the business of the day
Without really knowing anything, I hid a part of me away.

At five I must have left. There's no exception to the rule.
A matter of routine, I've done it ever since I finished school.
The train back home again -
Undoubtedly I must have read the evening paper then.

Oh yes, I'm sure my life was well within its usual frame,
The day before you came.

I must have opened my front door at eight oclock or so
And stopped along the way to buy some Chinese food to go.
I'm sure I had my dinner watching something on TV.
There's not, I think, a single episode of Dallas that I didn't see.

I must have gone to bed around a quarter after ten.
I need a lot of sleep, and so I like to be in bed by then.
I must have read a while -
The latest one by Marilyn French or something in that style.

It's funny, but I had no sense of living without aim,
The day before you came.

And, turning out the light,
I must have yawned and cuddled up for yet another night,
And rattling on the roof I must have heard the sound of rain -
The day before you came.

A shop in Hertford

I'm not presenting on the radio at the moment and people keep asking me why. Well, at the risk of sounding like Alan Partridge, I'm pursuing other projects for a while, such as setting up my own media consultancy and writing. I will be doing more programmes, but probably not till 2007.

Why not have a go on the political compass? All you have to do is fill in a questionnaire and they place you on a political graph. I'm apparently a left-leaning libertarian. I was placed next to the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela.

Sumer is icumen in. Lhude sing cuccu etc.

You can tell, because of the following traditional harbingers:

- it's pouring down

- there's a drought (one of those wet droughts)

and

- you can't find a cuckoo for love nor money

Other signs that summer's arrived:

- if the weather's unusually hot or unusually cold, or unusually wet or dry, or unusually changeable, or just a bit peculiar, everyone blames global warming

- if we've just had two or three warm days, people say "so - that was the summer" and think this is witty

- people get bored and have riots

and

- odd things happen in places like Darlington

As you know, Peacockshock features a weekly pin-up animal.

This week's pin-up is the Prescott - an unsightly and sometimes violent parasite which cohabits with a creature called the 'Blair' and feeds on plankton known as 'tax payers.'

Related creatures include the 'Greater Big-Eared Clarke' and the 'Lesser Heckled Hewitt'.

The Prescott has a bloated appearance and lives to a great age. It propels itself with the assistance of organisms known as 'jags'.

It has two mates, but keeps them apart. Mate A is known as the 'Pauline' (Paulinus Hairdoensis). Mate B is known as the 'Tracy' (Secretarias Westminsterus Tartinabula Horribilis).

The Prescott is pursued by deadly predators known as 'journalists'

I recieved spams this morning from Melody Wiltsy, Bicycle Beloved, Novelty Pullets and Microscopy Sock. I wish them well.

Ipswich Tree (left) and Lord Of The Rings Tree (right)

I was recently strolling through Christchurch Park in Ipswich (very nice - big manor house with pleasing grounds) and noticed some spooky wizened trees which bore an uncanny resemblance to the talking ones in the Lord Of the Rings films.

One of the Ipswich trees

Orlando Bloom reclining in an elf-like fashion, against a Lord of the Rings tree

I was in Birmingham last week.

I stayed in a Thistle and emerged feeling like I'd sat on one.

When I arrived, having requested a non-smoking room, they sent me to a smoking one which had seen better days and had hairs in the bath of dubious anatomical provenance.

So I traipsed down to reception to demand a room fit for human habitation. The one they gave me wasn't large enough to swing an amoeba in, but it was marginally better than a cardboard box under a railway bridge, so I decided to put up with it.

Breakfast was interesting. There was an inspirational lecture about healthy wholegrain food on the menu. But could I find any muesli or skimmed milk? No. Perhaps it was concealed by the Frosties and Cocopops.

I eventually opted for Rice Crispies, which I consumed to the delightful sound of Abba's Greatest Hits, performed on panpipes by a clinically-depressed session musician.

I liked this comment by lawyer Clive Stafford Smith in the Sunday Times magazine:

"We are all better than the worst 15 minutes of our lives."

I'm a big supporter of charity events such as the forthcoming Red Nose Day, but I must confess I'm not so sure about politicians jumping on the bandwaggon. I suspect I wasn't alone in feeling ambivalent about yesterday's announcement that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown will be recording this year's Red Nose Day single - an updated dance version of 'Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better', produced by Basement Jaxx. I'll probably download it as it's in a good cause, and I guess it will inevitably go to number one, but surely politicians should learn from George Galloway's BB fiasco and just get on with the job.

I was interviewed by The Guardian about business hotels the other day, and they kindly printed a large chunk of my rant.

As you'll be aware, Google China now operates within Chinese censorship rules. At one point, it was even censoring the word 'Essex' as it has 'sex' in it (one could argue that Essex itself should be censored globally, but that would be cruel).

If you search for 'Tianamen Square' on normal Google, you get pix of tanks and atrocities. Search on Google China and you get pretty tourist photos. Of course you can bypass the Great Firewall by deliberately misspelling stuff.

But the big question is: has Peacockshock got through the censors? Yes it has, as you can see. While investigating my little blog's Chinese presence, I also bizarrely found references to Peacockshock on foxhunting sites, encyclopaedias and even the delightful All Things Zombie, quoted on several occasions by Dead Slayer. Thank you Dead Slayer (can you slay the dead? I can't claim to know the answer to that one).

I also found a link to Peacockshock on Ask Watson Hertford - an excellent guide to things to do in Ye Olde Hertford Towne.

I'm pleased to report that I've now returned from my dangerous expedition in search of a Euromillions ticket, and I was not crushed by a reptile.

I'm about to go out into the cold to buy a Euromillions lottery ticket. This is pointless and stupid. I have a 1 in 76 million chance of winning. I have a much greater chance of:

being murdered (1 in 18,000)

accidentally strangling myself in bed (1 in 841,914)

giving birth to quintuplets (1 in 55,000,000 - OK...I'm male, but you know what I mean)

drowning in the bath (1 in 685,000)

being considered possessed by Satan (1 in 7,000)

becoming a saint (1 in 20,000,000) or

being crushed by a reptile (1 in 8,880,000)

Get Skype. It's extremely easy and quick to download (I managed it all by myself, without getting confused) and you get free, high-quality calls - and conference calls - to anywhere in the world.

The Duchess of Cornwall

The so-called Duchess of Cornwall turned up at a school yesterday with a hideous dangling thing (no not Prince Charles). The dangling thing in question was a cape made out of rabbit furs.

I feel sorry for her really. Not only is she inept and profoundly ugly, but she's clearly too dense to realise that we're in the 21st Century and wearing fur, especially in a school, is a bit of a no-no.

It's illegal to produce rabbit fur here, so twits like Camilla have it imported from countries where rabbits are bred specifically to be killed for their fur, and cruelly imprisoned in tiny cages.

Oh well - she only costs the taxpayer £566,000 a year, so we have no right to complain really.

And it is always possible that she is in fact a reptile.

David Icke, the former BBC sports presenter, has claimed this week that the Royal Family are "bloodsucking alien lizards". Icke claims the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and George W Bush are shape-shifters who drink human blood to look like us.

Apparently, a race of half-human, half-alien creatures has infiltrated all the world's top power positions.

Now you know why your boss acts like that.

Apologies for a slight ruffling of Peacockshock's plumage which you may have experienced over the last few days.

This was due to a turbulent site migration, during which Peacockshock tried to fly in two directions at once, like an ornithological quantum particle.

But Peacockshock has now pulled itself together and landed in the correct location where it's currently preening itself and making loud squawking noises.

Stand by. Peacockshock is about to 'be migrated' to an exciting new server. That means I'll disappear for a few days. But I'll return, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, very soon.

Lunches has just emailed me again.

Lunches is one of the many preposterously-named fictional spammers who send me hundreds of emails a day. At least I hope they're fictional. If they're not, their parents must have either been French surrealists or Dickens scholars - possibly both.

Many of the spam names I'm getting at the moment are obviously Jewish, and I'm intrigued by the conspiracy theory that this is a sinister plot to discredit Jewish people.

But most spam names are apparently the result of Bayesian algorithms, used by spammers to generate names which bypass firewalls and filters. And, as many spammers don't have English as their first language, they don't recognise the Dickensian ridiculousness of the resulting appellations.

I've now started collecting them, specialising in the ones with initials in the middle. Here are some of my favourites - all genuine:

Lunches J Anorak

Irrigation K Downturn

Chrysler Q Dalmatian

Debugger O Revises

Immortalise R Hypermarket

Pharmacist T Hairpieces

Obtaining C Lagoons

Pelee M Typesets

and...

Hydraulicking A Sleezes

This is what IT people call, evocatively, a "downtime notification". At some point over the next few days, Peacockshock will disappear, then rise again like a resplendant phoenix, looking exactly the same. This is because my all-knowing web warlock needs to migrate me. I have no idea what this means. But he's the Harry Potter of HTML. It would be deeply foolish to ignore him.

Visit Frank The Web Genius and marvel at his wonders.

More than half of the people of Iceland believe in elves.

Me in my Scottish Home

Yet another BBC person asked me yesterday how I was enjoying life in Scotland. It appears that an urban myth is circulating that I now live there. This is probably because I spent six months in Newcastle a couple of years ago and they think it's north of the border.

Anyway - just to make it quite clear:
I LIVE IN HERTFORD, HERTFORDSHIRE, HOME COUNTIES, JUST A FEW MILES NORTH OF LONDON, ENGLAND.

Hertford does have an Edinburgh Woollen Mill and I do have three wee sleekit beasties and I did once see a Scotty Dog on Fore Street, but that's where the Scottish connections stop.

I LIKE SCOTLAND.

BUT I DON'T LIVE THERE.

Just when I thought life couldn't get any odder, I found myself last night walking a sausage dog called Sushi (with a mini-spotlight on his lead) around the Inns of Court in London.

I was visiting my friend Daire, who's a barrister and lives in the Inns, next to the Temple Church which was the headquarters of the Knights Templar and is in the Da Vinci Code. Her neighbours are all barristers and judges.

It was fun. The Inns of Court are rather like an Oxbridge college, with lots of quads, gardens, fountains and ancient buildings. And Sushi's very nice - not remotely litigious.

Some Dachshunds

Inns of Court

Sign Banning Dachshunds (not in the Inns of Court)

Image courtesy of despair.inc

All the best for 2006 from all of us (Ian, Bolly, Mo and Flo) here at Peacockshock x

Boll and I are about to set off up north for Christmas. She's a very good traveller and normally sleeps all the way on the train. The next door neighbours will be looking after the rabbits. They used to have a house rabbit who slept in a small hammock under the bed. Boll likes visiting my parents as she knows them and also recognises the house. Have a lovely Christmas. More from Peacockshock from 30th.

I've just received my first ever postcard from Burkina Faso. It's from Aric, who's in West Africa, studying the behavioural traits of the people of Bobo-Dioulasso and Ouagadougou.

Aric at The Talk Consultancy

I was excited to learn that a new mammal has been discovered in Borneo. I rather like the fact that it's probably been around for millions of years but we've only just noticed it. I also like the fact that it's confused zoologists. It looks a bit like a lemur, but it can't be, as they don't live there. And it's a bit like a viverrid, but it's the size of a cat, with fox-like fur. I feel it ought to be named a 'Thatch' in honour of Carol Thatcher.

Here are some sites I like:

Cheer Sanjeev up (skip intro)

Play your own Indian music

Van Gogh's Starry Night photomosaic

EW Barton-Wright's tips on self-defence with a walking stick

Dogs dressed as bees ("the premier online repository for pictures of dogs in bee costumes")

Frightening genius toddler plays xylophone

Blair stalks Bush stalks Blair

Have fun with a bloody finger

Atmospheric photos (such as the spooky trees below, by Guillermo Morgana)

Apologies for a slight lack of prolificness this week. My attention has briefly migrated in the direction of a secret project. But all will be revealed soon. And loads of new things are due to be hatched imminently on Peacockshock, where they'll emerge like resplendent peachicks.

I like these two cats, who sit on either side of the doorway in a fashion shop on Marylebone High Street.

I was sad to learn that 'the world's ugliest dog' died this week. 'Poor David Gest,' I thought. 'That marriage to Liza Minnelli must have been just too much.'

Then I realised the story was about Sam, from Santa Barbara California - voted the world's ugliest dog for several years running. He was put to sleep at the age of 15, alongside his favourite teddy bear.

I actually think Sam, a rescue dog, was rather sweet. He even slept in his owner's bed. And he was apparently very affectionate. I wish him well in his new heavenly kennel.

I just received an email from someone allegedly called "Hallmark F Snoopy".

A photo I took the other day while on a stroll near Regents Park

A nice pineapple finial I discovered the other day on Portland Place

I spent the weekend staying with friends in Ipswich and discovered some odd facts while I was there. Ipswich was the home town of Cardinal Wolsey, Constable, Gainsborough and the cartoonist Giles. There's a statue of Giles's grumpy granny outside Costa Café. Brian Cant (Trumpton, Playschool, Playaway) lives there. And John Peel lived nearby. Ipswich Town FC (The Tractor Boys) had two world-famous managers - Sir Alf Ramsey and Sir Bobby Robson. And Jungle music, aka Drum'n'Bass, originated in the town. Ipswich now has a posh marina with yuppy apartments, wine bars and hotels. And some interesting street names...

Photo I took at Ipswich Marina

To hear me rabbiting on about my walking stick on Radio 4, just go to Home Truths and click on me. You can also see a photo of Bolly, who's possibly the most high-profile cat on BBC Online. I'm in Ipswich this weekend. Back in Hertford early next week.

I'm in Wikipedia, therefore I am (to quote Wikidescartes). If you're very very very wikibored, just click here.

I was in Ely yesterday (see pix below). We visited Peacock's Tearoom at 65 Waterside, where I had excellent pumpkin and ginger soup with a freshly-baked cheese scone, followed by home-made coffee cake. The tearoom was tastefully chintzy and had a garden and lots of books about tea. I'd thoroughly recommend it.

We then wandered round the cathedral, where they were having a harvest weekend, including live bees (in a hive), hens and chickens. Known as the 'Ship of the Fens', it towers over the flat landscape and can be seen ten miles away. It has a famous octagonal 'lantern tower' and Lady Chapel with a seven second echo and statue of the Virgin Mary looking a bit like Charlie Dimmock.

Ely was an island for centuries - and possibly will be again before long, thanks to global warming. It was first settled in 673 by a queen called St Ethelreda who built an abbey there. Hereward The Wake used it to defend himself against William the Conquerer. And Oliver Cromwell lived there too. The old bishop's palace is now possibly the most picturesque old people's home in England.

After a trip to a splendid chocolate shop, we hit Starbucks (yes - Ely now has one) and I pondered wistfully on how much bigger Ely seemed than the last time I was there in the 80s. I used to visit it when I was a student and a presenter at Radio Cambridgeshire.

Then we set off for Sam and Michael's in Soham for Brazilian lime cocktails, a fantastic dinner and a late-night trampolining session in the garden which confused the cat but was good fun. I couldn't stand up due to the dizziness thing, so I trampolined horizontally. Here are some pix of Ely...

Me

'The Octagon'

Next week is National Meetings Week 2005. To celebrate it, I'll be holding a 24 hour Powerpoint presentation in a boring voice. I do hope you'll be joining me. Refreshments will be served after the first 15 hours.

I'm having a few days off in Suffolk. See you when I get back.

It's...
two weeks since the hurricane
two months since 7/7
four years since 9/11
eight years since Princess Diana...

Blahdiblahdiblah etc etc etc.

After all these events, reporters throughout the world concluded their pieces by saying: "things will never be the same again."

But they are the same again. That's the problem

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Having found an interesting-looking Japanese website, I decided to try the Google 'translate this page' function. This is what it came up with:

Zero mountain persistent demand. Discussion rainwater instance house publication. Gun toe news. Course wool wave. Circumferance in the thorn gambler disturbance. The resources circulating elder brother nation while the internal organs plan propulsion. My love was started with scribbling. From American mountain valley innumerable difficulties our freshwater fishes.

I've just received spam emails from

Chastity Barnacle

Doris Contreras

and...

Laetitia Looney

I was in Cambridge today for the first time in three years and it was good to be back. We pootled round bookshops, discovered the brilliant Rainbow Cafe opposite Kings (fantastic organic chocolate and chestnut cake) and ended the day at Browns. Cambridge isn't at its leafy autumnal best on Saturday afternoons in August. It was very crowded. And I was slightly taken aback by all the Starbucks and Borders. But the colleges and the Cam still look the same, thank goodness, and there are still lots of frail elderly bicycles with wicker baskets.

I used to do lots of voxpops (street interviews with the public) but I haven't for a while. So yesterday's voxpop in Soho came as a bit of a shock. All the traditions still apply: old ladies in hats and gay men are good value, goths are rubbish, couples fight, American women over fifty ask to see your id card, and you always accidentally vox a famous person (yesterday's was Paul Gambaccini). But, a year after doing my last voxpop, there are now three new phenomena:

(1) There are twice as many police sirens (they play havoc with editing).

(2) The best talkers are, without exception, on their mobiles, so can't really be interrupted.

(3) The very best talkers are all listening to loud music on their iPods and leave one ear attached if you interview them. This is deepy disconcerting as you end up being more curious about what they're listening to than what they're saying.

I also interviewed novelist Beryl Bainbridge yesterday, for my new series on creativity (Tue 23rd, 11am) and can exclusively reveal that: (1) she's virtually given up smoking and (2) she's currently looking after a guinea pig.

The number of blogs on the internet has doubled since March, according to a new survey by weblog search engine Technorati. There are over 14 million of them now. That means 80 thousand are launched per day - one a second.

However only 50% of blogs are 'active' (updated in the last 90 days), only 13% are updated once a week or more. And I'm afraid they don't exactly have huge audiences. Only 2% of Americans who go online actually read blogs.

Quite right too. They're narcissistic, trivial and pointless and ought to be banned, along with that internet thing.

Guardian Article

It was a hoax. Like me, you probably got the email saying you could phone 112 on your mobile on the London Underground and get through to 999. Not true. Mobiles don't work on the underground parts of the Tube. But 112 does get you through to 999 and its equivalents wherever you are in Europe, providing you already have a signal. As for typing the acronym ICE (In Case of Emergency) into your mobile and adding a number for the emergency services to call (a friend or family member), that's a genuine campaign. You can even have several ICES. Excellent idea.

BBC Report on 112

Here are some Buddhist quotations I came across in a book:

Let us try to recognise the precious nature of each day.

Do not encumber your mind with useless thoughts. What good does it do to brood on the past or anticipate the future? Remain in the simplicity of the present moment.

We do not become angry with the stick that hits us, but with the one who wields the stick. But the one who wields the stick is impelled by hatred, so what we should truly hate is hatred itself.

There is nothing clever about not being happy.

From Buddhist Offerings 365 Days Thames and Hudson

Without exception, these sites are fantastic...

Old Caravan Catalogues Gorgeous seventies caravans and their delighted owners...

Best Pop/Electro Video Ever Stylish video from one of the coolest bands in Europe...

Terrible Album Covers You can hear the lovely songs too...

International Subway Portraits Portraits secretly drawn of characters on underground trains, from London to Brazil...

Live, Hand-Written Clock This has to be seen to be believed. It's very cool...

Rude Airport Announcements Listen to airport announcers who've been tricked into saying rude things...

Slang Dictionary Excellent slang dictionary (beware - some naughty words)...

Post A Secret Confession site for deep dark secrets (mostly real I think) - fascinating...

American Tourists Things American travellers say...

Push The Button Just press where it says press...

I'm not a record producer. But if I were, I'd be flying off to Moldova this week to sign the drum-beating granny from their Eurovision entry.

Her brief but moving appearance reduced me to tears.

The Moldovan entry, performed by the inspired Zdob si Zdub, was entitled Bunica Bate Toba (Granny Beats The Drum) but tragically only came 6th.

Phd students are already allegedly clamouring to write theses on the lyrics, which have been compared to the works of TS Eliot, Phillip Larkin and Seamus Heaney:

I love so much doba making boom-bo.
Now get your body moving, just follow the tune.
It’s a real magic- big mama play her drum-a.
She’s flying into trance like an Indian shaman.
Who is the Beatles? Who is Peter Pan?
Who is the gypsy Hendrix?
She don’t care, that misses L.
I smile, I cry when I see that crazy baba.
Dizzy tempo, dizzy let’s go my music-mama.
Granny beats the drum-a.
Granny beats it hard.
Granny beats the drum-a with the mallet in the big house.

To watch Zdob si Zdub's classic performance, go to the BBC's Eurovision Site

Zdob si Zdub Site

Overheard this morning on BBC World Service news: "A cow bomb has exploded in Iraq."

The names of my email spammers are getting more preposterous by the minute. So, as an exciting convalescent activity, I've taken to saving my favourite spam names and inventing characters for them. One day, I might use them in a novel. I've recently received emails from:

Maxwell Potts (retired bank manager, living in sleepy Oxfordshire village)
Jeffrey Meadows (embittered failed novelist)
Evan Ponce (elderly gay cat groomer living in Norfolk)
Guadeloupe Hickey (trustafarian arts producer for small indy TV company)
Odis H Pugh (dangerously insane Southern Baptist preacher) and
Rigoberto Wolf (predatory anti-hero in atrocious romantic novel)

I'm becoming a huge fan of a blog called A Beautiful Revolution by Andre who is very witty, a brilliant photographer and currently madly in love with a girl who works in a coffee shop (but there is a bit of colourful language now and then, so be warned if you're easily offended)

The names of my spammers are getting more and more ridiculous. I've just had an email from someone in Latvia or somewhere purporting to be called 'Ward Crump'. This is clearly not a name belonging to a real human being. To me 'ward crump' sounds like a dialect term for MRSA - possibly from Norfolk or Somerset ("I think I've got a touch of the ward crumps, doctor"). I also vaguely recall a nineteenth century novel called Timothy Crump's Ward ('ward' as in 'adopted child'). But I can't believe that Crump the spammer was aware of this. It's all very very odd.

Just click here, then move your mouse around the teddy bears. You'll be captivated. I was on it for about an hour last night.

My sources tell me that Peacockshock is getting increasing numbers of hits per day. So I've decided to pull in the lad sector and boost my audience by going a bit more FHM. After checking out the most popular Google image searches via Zeitgeist, here are some hot new pix of...Jordan, Madonna and the lovely Paris Hilton.....

I suggested in a previous entry that "Augustine Fish" was very probably a made-up name. But I was wrong. Mr Augustine Fish (aka Fyshe) was born circa 1530 in a place called Great Bowden. His wife was called Henrietta Fish. Another Augustine Fish (no relation) graduated from Cornell University in 1890 and became dean of the New York State College of Veterinary Medicine. He was quite a big Fish in a relatively big pool and is the most recent Augustine Fish I can locate.

Clean Your PC Screen now! It's safe. It doesn't delete anything. Just cleans your screen, very sweetly.

You simply must go to Sillydude now and try the Mindbender Quiz in the centre of the screen.

Experience Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address via a thrilling Powerpoint Presentation.

To trace the popularity of your name over the years on a very groovy graph, visit the fabulous Babynamewizard and launch the Namevoyager.

Write an original essay on any subject under the sun, by typing any old word into the Essay Generator.

I get a lot of spam. My spam count is very high. So I've blocked lots of words (like "size", "length" and "mortgage") from my inbox. This means I get no emails at all, but it keeps me happy. Of course, the spammers have now cottoned on and taken to mis-spelling words deliberately ("give your pratner more pleasur with a biggre morgtage"). But I still don't get why they all give themselves such ridiculous names. I just checked some deleted ones (as you do) and found a mortgage offer from "Augustine Fish".

My favourite news story of 2005 (so far)...
A 100 year-old tortoise has adopted a baby hippopotamus in Kenya. Owen the hippo, aged one, was swept into the Indian Ocean by the recent tsunami, then forced back to shore. Rangers rescued the traumatised orphan and took him to Lafarge Wildlife Sanctuary in Mombassa, where he made friends with an elderly male tortoise, believing him to be his mother. Owen and his tortoise 'mummy' now live, eat, sleep and swim together.

View From BBC Office

I visited the BBC's Portsmouth office this week in Gun Wharf and was very impressed by the view over the Solent.