I’ve just had to make a very expensive insurance claim, thanks to an Autism-induced incident involving a large glass of wine and an old Apple Powerbook G4 laptop computer.

And the insurance company has delivered a replacement – a MacBookPro with all the whistles and bells. It is better, faster, stronger and shinier than my old Mac.

But they have missed the point.

Your own laptop, with its scratches, dents and faded bits where you rest your wrists when you touch-type, is as personal as your toothbrush multiplied by your underpants. It has several GigaBytes of silly, pointless and unnecessarily saved files and post-it notes that any sensible person would just throw away.

And after nearly 20 years of being able to carefully transfer files from an old computer to a new one, all the perks of finally, for the first time in my life getting a brand new computer all to myself just don’t wash.

I know. I’m ungrateful.

First, read this.

Now, where do you think the problem is?

It was revealed today that Little Madam has a new ‘gentleman friend.’ A very nice young man – but, unlike her classmates, they aren’t “into snogging or anything like that.” Apparently they are “just good friends.”

Tiny Flirt was very interested in that topic of conversation, so I asked him if he had a girlfriend.

“Just three today,” he answered.

My boss is a very clever guy (obviously – he gave me my job) and has started a fascinating new project.

He has discovered some new technology that is currently being marketed to executives in the USA for monitoring and controlling stress levels. In essence, they plug themselves into one of a variety of hand-held machines or PCs which monitor their cardiovascular performance for stress indicators.

My boss’ stroke of genius is this: if we plug kids with Autism into these machines, we can spot the triggers for their breakdowns (or not, as we discovered this week – see ASDFriendly for more details.) So we have started the process of trying them out.

However, while being trained in using the machines it was discovered that I have a particular problem with stress levels (there’s a surprise, given the details of my illnesses over the past few years) and it seems that I caused some serious worry among colleagues. So they sent me home with one of the pocket-sized devices to help me learn about my personal stressors and good relaxation opportunities. I’ve been plugged into it for a couple of hours now.

And Darling Wifey thinks it’s funny to try to turn all of the lights red on the machine. Right now (and I mean right now) she is describing some obscenely skimpy underwear to me. The machine is trying to call NHS Direct on my behalf.

Nobody knows how much I suffer.

I’ve just read Busyknitter’s blog entry on the local elections, and thought it was a good idea to do my own.

Labour
For: actually, this is very difficult to answer. I grew up thinking ‘education and health first‘ and when I heard TB shouting, “Education, Education, Education” and “24 hours to save the NHS” all those years ago I was delighted. But no: all the extra money has been wasted, all of the reforms have concentrated on changes only in the classroom or the hospital waiting room, and the bureaucracies in both sectors, which were always full of self-important causes of problems rather than the invisible administrators that they should be, have multiplied exponentially. Administrators do not educate or heal.

Against: like I said to the party canvasser at my door last week, TB lied and ignored public opinion to take us to war. And no, the fact that this is a local election doesn’t make a scrap of difference – he is their leader. The entire party is pussy-whipped by Bliar. And don’t even start me on pensions.

Tory
For: Green. And that phrase that Lord Snooty said on the Today programme the other week: “rolling back the frontiers of government.” I don’t need legislation to tell me how to be a responsible citizen. And as for what they are standing for at the moment (as Busyknitter was wondering,) that seems to be the way with postmodern politics: it’s about concepts, intentions and ideals rather than plans and solutions. It worked for TB 10 years ago

Against: reading on the ballot paper that the candidate lives in a castle.

Respect
For: The candidate was born, grew up, lived and worked in the Ward.

Against: His photograph makes him look like Reggie Kray.

Lib Dem
For: They have never struck me as being slaves to any ideal other than the examination of every problem from First Principles onwards – and I have always been a fan of that process.

Against: They have made the most amazing cock-up of running the council here that you can imagine. One of my classes at school could have done better – and I teach special needs.