Pieces of a Man Think it. Do it. Be it. Embellish.

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Here's the source of the dead wasps that I've been picking up all summer. Sam our builder located them in the eaves while doing some work up there. Him and his lad have been happy enough painting in the vicinity of them the last few days as they've been doing the weatherboards, but he's probably pushing his luck thinking he can tackle them himself, as he claims. He reckons he's going to knock them down into a bag or something. Mad as a brush.

Here's Monty, the new addition to our family as a present for Yani. He's been hiding behind the cooker since he got here and also gave us a scare thinking that he'd got trapped under the floorboards in the attic, but now he seems to be coming out of his shell. He's even chilled enough this afternoon to have a kip on a chair in the kitchen with the kids about.

I think Yani's had her last birthday party chez nous. All her little friends came round yesterday and it was two hours of absolute mayhem.

First of all were the tantrums during the dressing-up game. There were more princesses than there were princess costumes and it started to turn ugly. Oscar was also sugared out of his head early on and a few of the little girlies felt the wrath of his cold pirate steel.

They had fun with the writing on the wall and everything was going well with the musical chairs until it got down to the last few chairs. Then certain little angels refused to lose and gripped onto the chairs for dear life, refusing all bribes and inducements to bow out gracefully. When the parents started to arrive to pick up their kids, I felt the same joy they must have experienced at the relief of the Siege of Mafeking.

Last night we cancelled plans to go to the cinema and instead just lay down in a darkened room.

Yani was 6 on Wednesday and here she is with her ice cream, meringue and cream birthday cake. We had a party today for all her little friends in the neighbourhood. Well, it was three mini-parties, really; girls in the front room playing make-up games, boys in the middle room with trucks and superheroes, mums out back with tea and cakes.

Picture from a couple of weeks ago of the kids all dressed up on the first day of term, Oti wearing his uniform for the first time. A fortnight on and he seems to be settling in well, behaving nicely in class and even doing PE, which was something he had to avoid last year. Early days, but it looks promising. He seems to have grown up into a little boy over the summer.

Interesting article showing an early transistor radio in 1954 that bears remarkable similarities to the design of the iPod, even the colours. Mmmm... (Also from yesterday: Interview with Steve Jobs.)

Since Manchester's Filmworks shamefully abandoned their weekend kid's special showings, it's been hard to do regular cinema treats with Yani and Oscar, as I'd like. However, Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle may be about to sail to the rescue this weekend (if I can find the Billy Crystal dubbed version instead of the subtitled Japanese).

Hayao Miyazaki is the 64-year-old Japanese animation genius whose mastery of the form has, through a piquant turn of fate, come to its full flowering just as his craft is on the verge of becoming forever obsolete. I came relatively late to his rich, kaleidoscopic fantasies, having been baffled but intrigued by his Princess Mononoke, and then utterly bowled over by his great movie Spirited Away. Howl's Moving Castle has worked its charm on me as well: a floatingly delightful fairytale with its heart set on repealing the law of gravity.

The film is based on a book by someone called Diana Wynne Jones, I notice, surely a relative of Delia's chain smoking spouse, Michael?

The recent story about the stranded divers came along with perfect timing to provide some publicity for a new invention - the shark-repellent suit. Apparently it generates a mild force field around the wearer during normal swimming, but the increased energy of swimming like hell when you see a shark actually increases the voltage. Clever, and energy-efficient.

Six days after buying it, I see the screen on my new and very cheap Virgin Mobile phone is faulty. As with the previous BT Mobile deal and it's woeful customer service, it once again proves that you get what you pay for. Maybe this very useful guide called 'What to do when your PC goes wrong' will come in handy, since it covers quite a bit of consumer protection basics;

Goods must be fit for purpose, including any purpose you specifically mention to the seller. Fit for purpose is a great phrase - always use it, as it oftens triggers escalation to the next level of service. They must also be "of reasonable quality" which is another great phrase to quote at people.

I think the phone may have started to fall to pieces as a result of being wedged up against the keys in my pocket, but if a mobile phone can't withstand be carried in your pocket, it's probably fair to wonder whether it was ever fit for purpose.

Funny picture from JT (Japan Tobacco) that I saw on the web. It was initially thought to have an anti-smoking purpose, but subsequent discussion revealed that this isn't actually the case;

Adriaan Tijsseling says, "This is actually NOT an anti-smoking campaign. JT just promotes proper smoking behavior and is one of the biggest tabacco companies in Japan. They're scum."

Greg Lara says, "JT is owned by the Japanese government. (They are a major shareholder.) That would seem to present a conflict of interest, if the number one job of government is to ensure the safety of the populace."

Could this be the inspiration for "I was working as waitress in a cocktail bar..."? This was taken by my colleague Mike today; the former bar is now a PC room at Hallam's Psalter Lane campus, which used to be Sheffield Art College.

This is a great idea, and easy to do - flyposting speech bubbles and inviting comments from the public. Brilliant.

I printed 50,000 of these speech bubble stickers. I place them on top of movie posters, ads and signs all over New York City. Passers are invited to fill them in. I go back and photograph the results.

My faith never waivered, not for a second. Who's the pride of Anglia?

Interesting article in the Guardian looks at falling attendances in football this season and speculates about why it's happenign. The comparison with Europe (like many other cost-of-living comparisons) is startling;

In the summer, Juventus signed Patrick Vieira from Arsenal and Woking signed Clint Davies, a goalkeeper, from Perth. It costs more to watch the Aussie stop the shots in a Conference game in Surrey than it does to watch the World Cup winning Frenchman at the Stadio delle Alpi. Woking £14 a seat, Juventus £13.80. Explain that.

Here are some other prices: Real Madrid €20, Valencia €18, Roma is €15, Juventus €20 for league games and €30 for the Champions League - less than half of what it cost to watch Chelsea v West Brom reserves last month.

I wonder how much I'd pay to be at Portman Road today for the East Anglian Derby. Not much probably, such is the foreboding this morning. Last time we played the Scum away we went top and stayed there for the rest of the season. Today we're going bottom if we lose, and let's just hope the rest of the analogy doesn't also apply.

One of the salt-in-the-wound side effects of our disastrous start to this season is that we no longer merit a proper write up in any of the papers. We just get a couple of sentences in the 'round-up' section, and even those are about the victorious opposition (so modest in the games so far that they, too, fall short of paragraph status).

Watching us scrape to our first win against Plymouth on Saturday I thought we looked so average it took me back to Tranmere circa 2000, booing Iwan Roberts from the terraces. Last night doesn't sound much better from the little mentioned in the press. Bring back the cricket.

A band of eco-vigilantes is taking a firm but gentle stand against fast-growing SUV sales in France and Europe by deflating the tires on gas guzzlers in a protest against conspicuous waste.

We don't want SUVs to be seen as a sign of wealth, but something that is associated with an imbecile.

The only legal risk they face are civil lawsuits by the SUV owners, who would have to prove property damage in a French civil court, the spokesman said.

Launch of the new Berliner Guardian today - described as 'shrunken' and 'less forbidding' on the Today programme - and it's been interesting reading in the preview edition about the design of the new Egyptian font and other issues that they've been tackling over the last year.

More interesting from a content point of view, however, is the recent launch of their new Been There website. This is basically a Wiki built on their travel brand which enables pooling of travel tips and experience, searchable in the usual ways, particularly by location. It's an obvious application of the technology, but with their mature audience it could really become an excellent resource. Will be worth a shot if our trip to Amsterdam ever happens.

On the anniversary of 9/11 it's well worth reading this counter-argument to the media account of Katrina aftermath. It proposes that disaster calls authority into question so the powers-that-be attempt to create a narrative of human behavior that calls for greater authority. (Strangely, this was written just prior to Katrina, but a post-script has been added.)

Many official disaster-preparedness scenarios presume that human beings are prone to panic and in need of policing ... this is the necessary precondition for John Wayne, Harrison Ford, or one of their shovel-jawed brethren to save the day and focus the narrative ... But the authorities are too few and too centralized to respond to the dispersed and numerous emergencies of a disaster ... instead, the people classified as victims generally do what can be done to save themselves and one another. In doing so, they discover not only the potential power of civil society but also the fragility of existing structures of authority.

This year's holiday took us over on the ferry and down to the Loire Valley. We spent the first week at Camping d'Etang, a small independent version of Eurocamps where they put the tent up for you and fill it with bed, fridge and other comforts. Very comfy. Best thing about it was other English girls of Yani's age on the site, so she got her first taste of independence and was able to wander off to the play area with her friends while we chilled in the pool and around the tent.

Over the road from the campsite was a river path into the town of Brissac-Quince. Like most French places in the summer it seemed to be deserted, but it was a lovely walk there and back and it was fun wandering around in the fields of maize.

Bang next to the campsite was the amazing Parc des Loisirs, best described as a DIY fun park where they've taken a field and knocked together some bargain basement homemade attractions for kids like rusty pedaloes on a pond, weary ponies giving rides and dodgy homemade circus bikes with oval wheels. The kids LOVED it, and at about three quid to keep them happy all day, we weren't too unhappy either. Some of the action; Yani and little friend tackling a rope bridge, Oscar's 108th toboggan ride and Jo being a kid again.

After several days lounging in and around the campsite we ventured out into the countryside to check out the River Loire. We found a nice spot on the banks between Saumur and Angers to set up our barbecue and after a while a fisherman stopped by set up his stall out in the river. Yani waded out and joined him and soon caught several tiddlers. It was brilliant to watch. On the way back to the campsite we took the backroads through the vineyards, stopping several times to test this year's crop.

At the start of the second week we drove down to La Rochelle to check out Ile de Re on word of mouth. It proved to be an excellent decision. It's a small island just off the coast that is largely salt marshes, cycle paths and beaches, a place where most of the tourists seemed to be French (always a good sign).

The first morning there, like everyone else, we hired bikes. They have a great contraption at all the hire shops called a remorque which is basically a rickshaw for kids/dogs/luggage. The kids decided to call it their royal coach and had a great time sitting in there waving to everyone as we toured the island, stopping only to get amazing pecan vanilla ice cream.

Right at the north end of the island there was a lighthouse called Phare des Baleines where we parked ourselves for a picnic in the sand dunes and stroll on the beach. At about 4pm the tide went right out and revealed a huge expanse of rock pools. The kids were amused all evening chasing crabs around while we watched the sunset over the Bay of Biscay.

We split up the trip home over several days, staying in the cheap and cheerful Formula 1 motels for a couple of nights and spending the day at Disney, as promised to the kids every day for the last 6 months. It was a brilliant day; overcast and cool, not too busy. Here are some of the hightlights;

• Oscar gives it everything at the sword in the stone

• Jo, Yani and Dumbo

• Oscar blown away by the Pirates of the Caribbean

• Miles and Yani speed up the teacup ride, Jo sits opposite in a whirl

• Closing time at the Magic Kingdom

Last picture is the kids on the Boulogne-Dover ferry. The blur in the foreground is Oscar, who wouldn't stand still for one second for a pirate pose.

Yani on the beach in Mallorca in 2002 and again last week in France;

This NASA QuickTime movie shows 24 hours of air traffic over continental U.S.A. It's a hefty 13 MB download (.mov) but if you want to watch America waking up in commuter flights across the timezones and traffic flowing out over the Atlantic, then it's worth it. I find it (sadly) mesmerizing.

Kanye West hit the headlines recently with his criticism of George Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina;

I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family it says they are looting if you see a white family it says they are looking for food. We already realize a lot of the people that could help are at war now fighting another way and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us. George Bush doesn't care about black people!

Now there's a remix of his track Goldigger (mp3), too;

Five days in this motherfucking attic
I can't use the cellphone I keep getting static
Swam to the store, tryin' to look for food
Corner store's kinda flooded so I broke my way through
Got what I could but before I got through
News say the police shot a black man trying to loot

I feel like the parent who's gone away for the weekend and come back to find the house totally trashed by the kids. Just two weeks away in France and I come back to 3 defeats on the bounce at Southampton, Leeds and Stoke.