This pic isn’t nearly as spectacular as last night’s pic but I couldn’t face the thought of setting fire to these lovely objects so you get a conventional studio shot instead. Last night, I was taking my photo when my little sister rang with progress on my Mum’s health….Mum has been away on holiday (with Dad of course) and was taken ill on Monday and had to have an ambulance called out to her in Holland. It’s been a bit (to put it mildly) of a worry for us both.

When I’d heard the good news, I put her off quickly by telling her I was in the middle of my photo shoot and I was setting fire to roses – she laughed but this morning she looked at the photo while on the phone to me and loved it. I must say, I regard it as one of my best, most imaginative pics (whatever can be said about the rant that went with it). It had just the right note of irreverence don’t you think?

This cruet was given to me by my friend Hughie, who bought it for me as a 40th birthday gift. It’s here to represent the blue of the Tory party and the silver spoon of their roots.

OK, OK I know, I ranted yesterday and as my wonderful pal Colin pointed out, I chose selectively the points I ranted about and he does have a point about the minimum wage legislation. As for public transport – here it is still crap so maybe Londoners get a better deal than the rest of us. Colin didn’t mention (and could have done) that there are actually some people in the Labour Party who are decent, honest people too – Estelle Morris certainly seems to be one, although I’m saddened to see she won’t be standing in this election.

Anyway, I thought it only fair to point out at this stage that I’m not declaring my allegiance to the Tories from my rant of yesterday. Quite the reverse.

I am deeply ashamed to report that I voted Tory…..once! Last election in fact. Why did I commit this heinous crime? Because I wanted someone (anyone) to put up some sort of opposition to Bliar and his crones. In our area that meant voting Tory. So I did.

This is though, as surely as anything, the party in melt-down who can’t find themselves a leader that any normal human being would trust or admire. Their quick succession of Leaders is evidence to that. In fact tonight, on the PM news on R4 on the way home from work, they interviewed a recent one who I’d completely forgotten had existed (even though he’s a Spurs fan apparently)….he made a big impact then.

What’s so worrying about this lot is that as the Labour Party has moved to the right, the Conservatives have gone further rightwards still. Their desire to set the UK off on its own (clamping down on immigration, asylum and Europe are all favourite themes) is terrifying. I was driving through my beloved Southall the other day on the way home from a meeting and to my disgust saw Tory posters all over the place banging on about immigration being out of control. In a London suburb that’s somewhere around 95% non-European in population that seems somewhat(?!) insensitive and more than a little inflammatory even though they proclaim loudly that they are not racists.

They don’t stand a snowball in hell’s chance of winning this election (thankfully) and they have used some downright duplicitous means to generate support for their campaign. I know of a couple of examples of people being told outright lies to persuade them to canvas for the party. I suspect that there will be another Party Leadership election held by them some time this year, when the dust settles on the General Election.

I was planning to talk about the Lib Dems tomorrow night but frankly I can’t be bothered with worrying about this election any longer and I don’t share either Stewart or Guest’s views that they make the most sense so today’s is my last rant on the subject.

I still don’t know what to do on Election Day, as Gail said yesterday, people died to give us the right to vote and that isn’t to be taken lightly. BUT until we get PR (proportional representation) in this country, I still believe a vote for anyone other than the candidates of the big parties is a wasted vote. Depressing Huh?

Last year I was reporting my rebellion against time and two years ago one of the men in my life was being athletic!