Blogwatch

Inspector Sands and Willie Lupin open up a debate on Trevor Phillips's contention that parts of Britain are "sleepwalking toward apartheid".

Elsewhere...

Alan lists his idiosyncracies - this one in particular strikes a chord with yours truly: "The correct way to remove the foil from the lid of a coffee jar is as follows. You take the sharp bit at the leftmost edge of your right thumbnail and pierce through the lid immediately adjacent to the lip. You then move this thumbnail around the inside edge of the lip in a clockwise direction, using your left hand to rotate the jar as necessary, cutting away the foil as you go until you have cut out a perfect disk of foil the exact size of the opening and there is no foil protruding over the lip to impede the smooth entry and exit of the tea-spoon".

Jonathan is astounded at the news that Mr Cantankerous aka Mark E Smith is set to read the results on BBC1's 'Final Score' in November.

Jason is not amused by the latest live appearance of Smith's transatlantic counterpart, Anton Newcombe of The Brian Jonestown Massacre - "Of course with Anton you always get more for your money, or less, depending on your point of view. Last night, if you paid for songs, you got none. If you paid for Anton's predictable and sad antics, well then your money was wisely spent".

Bongo Vongo details a grisly pigeon murder - "As I approached the shops, guilt-laden, I concluded that this was either a suicidal pigeon or that it had forgotten how to fly or perhaps it was ill and just wanted to get to the other side of the road. There was a zebra crossing just up the road but it would be stupid of me to expect the pigeon to use that - how would it have reached the button?" (actually, if it was accidental, that would make it pigeon manslaughter, wouldn't it?)

Lady Muck also recounts encounters with wildlife, in her case mice - "I can't bring myself to hate mice. Mice and I share a height problem and hair colour. But when they start living in your bedroom floorboards, it's hard to feel sisterly".

JonnyB takes umbrage at being told he's an unreconstructed "old man" - "the thing about me not being a new man is almost libellous, as here I am, househusbanding away, the newest of new men that there can possibly be. When my other half, the LTLP, gets home, I will have her dinner ready for her if I don't go to the pub, and the place will be spick and span because I have paid the cleaner. And when was the last time she defragmented the hard drive, then. Eh?"