The HDD on my MacBook Pro isn’t quite as big as I thought it was.

The spare space was filled up by a piddling 6,500 high resolution photographs.

When I picked the kids up from school this evening, I was in a pretty foul mood.

I had just had a long conversation with Darling Wifey during which "dawning realisation" happened: a job I volunteered for at work turns out to be one that will involve a couple of weeks of all-nighters. Not a fun thing to discover.

So the poor kids, who charged across the school grounds shrieking "Daddy!" when they saw me, were rewarded for their playfulness with a snarl and Radio 4 at full volume.

However, by the time I had listened to the news of Boredom Frown being stabbed in the back by yet more of his own Party Faithful, I was feeling a lot more cheerful. It also occurred to me that picking up the kids and singing Sponge Bob Square Pants in the car on the way home was one of the high points of my life - so I cheered up and started chatting nicely with them.

Darling Wifey phoned again, asking me to pop into the supermarket on the way home and, wracked with guilt for my Grumpy parenting, I told the kids I would buy them treats. Little Madam chose two books, Little Nutter found two train DVDs in a bargain bucket, and Tiny Flirt nearly wet himself with excitement when I said he could have a chart DVD. What followed was an almost embarrassing outpouring of daddy-adoration that lasted until the moment we walked in through the front door.

Since then, our home has been creepily silent. The kids just vanished and haven’t bothered us since.

Guilt is good.

Three months after we started, including visiting dealerships for every major car manufacturer in the area, after ordering and then cancelling a perfectly good Volvo estate, after test driving damn near everything available within budget, after agonising about choices from the unbelievably mumsy (another MPV) to the ridiculously impractical (a 2+2 convertible) Darling Wifey has finally chosen and ordered a car.

I approve of the car. It’s one of the better models (in my opinion) made by Audi.

But her reason for choosing this particular car?

It is available in a colour that matches her new Radley handbag.

The first thing that all this made me think of was this . Obviously, NTNON would have had a field day… except that I reckon the main reason there is so little satire these days is the fact that public figures are now not only far more ridiculous than satirists can portray them, but they are also inured to the effects of satire.

But that is a digression. I was in the corner shop this morning and saw the tabloid headline, "The day freedom Got Spanked ," and all I could think of was, "Whose bloody freedom? "

Surely if freedom means anything, then it means that aged perverts can hire consenting adults for a spot of kinky rumpy-pumpy behind closed doors without a newspaper most famed for its topless teenage models getting all sanctimonious about it?

I have to say that however pervy Mosley’s activities were (and, yes, shameful, too. Just email me your favourite adjectives) if this High Court ruling does anything to reduce the amount of smut-grubbing in our tabloids, then it is A Good Thing.

Exam season is upon us once again, and Darling Wifey has a huge sack of students’ papers to mark along with a team of other examiners to supervise.

This year, however, public exam administration entered the computer age, and the old system of NCR papers and phone calls has been replaced by a live system, via the internet, of computerised record keeping. This being a government funded activity they have opted for a PC-based single platform programme.

Darling Wifey needed to borrow a PC.

It is now two years since we last had a PC up and running in this house, and 24 months of Mac use tends to spoil a guy. I had completely forgotten what PCs were like - and have just had a timely reminder in the brand new laptop that Darling Wifey has kindly been lent for her exam administration. Let’s do a proper review.

The model: a Compaq 6720s. We had high hopes for this machine, as we bought our first computer just after getting married in 1993, and it was a Compaq Contura Aero - a fine little machine. This one, however, is flimsy, with all the build quality of a sandwich box. And the screen flickers. Not a good sign in a brand new machine, and certainly not sharing the utterly solid build quality of a MacBookPro.

Signing on. We have a wireless network controlled by browser access from my laptop. The network found the Compaq and I granted it access without any problem. The laptop found the network. All good so far. But where is the Internet? Good question.

Actually, signing on to the Internet was relatively simple - there was nothing actually wrong - I just hadn’t selected the right connectivity options. But as reminders go of the simplicity of Mac use, this was a stark one. Connecting an Apple Mac to the Internet via our network takes two clicks: connecting the PC took 45 minutes, an excessive amount of swearing, and a downloaded troubleshooting guide to home wireless networks just to work out what the connectivity options should be, and how to change them.

The printer. Our network is designed to run on Windows, not Mac OS, but Mac OS adapts to it without any difficulty. Our printer is a Windows printer. We put the two together, and can print from any Mac in the house. It never, ever occured to me that this was difficult.

Until, that is, I used the “Find Network Printer” Wizard on a PC.

When you turn a Mac on in this house it asks you if you want to connect to our home network. If you say ‘yes’ and give it the right password, then our network printer is automatically made available to you. The Wizard scanned for the printer, but couldn’t find it. It was given the network URL for the printer, but nothing came of it. The IP location followed - but still the printer could not be found.

In the end I downloaded a printer driver and plugged the laptop in with a cable (remember cables? Houses used to be covered with them in the 20th century.)

Total elapsed time spent troubleshooting: 90 minutes.

Total time computer used: 180 minutes.

Conclusion: PCs are a complete and utter waste of time.

One of the best things about t’Internet is being able to read newspapers from around the world. I avidly devour rags like the English version of Asharq al-Awsat, The Australian and Le Monde diplomatique.

And I love the New York Times. I’ve just been reading Eric Asimov, a dining & wine correspondent, on the delights of English bitters. I was nodding my head as I read, thinking, "Yes, this is an American with taste, education and an appreciation of the finer things in life."

And then my eyes hit this grotesquery:

"It’s imperative to keep them refrigerated"

Georges Clemenceau was right. America has, indeed, passed from barbarism to decadence without passing through civilisation.

Refrigerated bitter. The rest of the world is right to hate the bastards.

BBC report on the Institute for Policy Research recommendation.

In the best traditions of Yes, Minister, I think I see an opportunity for a quid pro quo.

Yes, the government may abolish my six week summer holiday, if it can compensate me for the loss of the one perk that makes my job tolerable in the following ways:

1. If my students don’t make progress, I face disciplinary action and potentially the sack - so I would like the power to remove those students who deliberately jeopardise the education of their classmates and defy their teachers.
2. If the government must set targets, could it please consult someone who knows a little bit about education first? For example, a basic grasp of the difference between “insure” and “ensure” would help. An understanding of the difference between information and knowledge would be even better.
3. Please stop retraining me five times a year. If the government can’t do this, please could it stop using materials and philosophies that it told me to forget five years ago.
4. Just once, I would like to be able to introduce and pursue a new initiative, stick with it for long enough to give it a fair chance, and then review it to see if it worked. I’m getting tired of watching them all fizzle out while we all jump aboard the bandwagon for the latest idea. And frankly, it makes the government look like it has the attention span of a blonde teenage goldfish.
5. If the government wants to blame me (and my colleagues) for juvenile delinquency, then I would appreciate the powers to do something about it.
6. Grade inflation. It happens. It happens because the government made it happen. Simple example: Physics O Level 1985: “Explain how nuclear power stations generate electricity.” Physics GCSE 2005: “Are nuclear power stations an ethical way to tackle global warming?” If you can’t see the problem with that, then you are part of the problem.
7. Would someone like to explain how English, maths, science, religious education, citizenship, PE and PSHE can all have at least 20% of curriculum time each?
8. I’d like my weekends off, thanks.
9. If you want to overwork teaching staff so much that 1/3 of teachers are trying to find alternative employment and 1/10 are off sick in the last weeks before the summer holiday, then put your hands up and accept that you are doing something wrong.

Anyone who has written an Action Plan knows how effective they can be - and how important those Winnie-the-Pooh-style capital letters are. Once written, the Action Plan (if I may paraphrase Bill Shankly) is not just a matter of life and death; it’s much more important than that.

Except people are beginning to realise something that the philosophers spotted many years ago: a target culture creates something called a paradigm shift.

Imagine a spider diagram - and at the centre is your purpose, your raison d’etre. All around the outside edge of the spider graph are your activities, their results and effects. These are the indicators. It doesn’t matter what your activity is - that’s how spider graphs work. The purpose of the activity, which drives everything else, is at the centre while the effects are around the edge.

Targets don’t measure purposes. They measure effects.

And purposes are the least efficient way of achieving effects known to man. There is always a short cut.

A good example is in the news today.

When you create a target, the purpose of the activity moves, it shifts from the centre to the periphery. It changes into a pursuit of incidental progress, and the most basic point of the activity is the first casualty.

The first effect of setting a target is to miss the point.

The temperature in the back garden right now is 22 degrees celsius, and the air is filled with the sound of birdsong and church bells (probably not the Minster - I reckon it is St Wilfrid’s.)

Right now, Darling Wifey and I should be out there, sharing a bottle of wine and flirtatious conversation.

But no. I am washing & ironing school uniforms after an "accident" when Tiny Flirt was having too much fun in the playground to remember where the toilet was, trying to coax Little Nutter into bed, and drinking cranberry juice because slashing our alcohol intake from 7 to 2 nights per week means that I am now sleeping better, waking up fresher, and hurting a lot less when I exercise.

Is this what it feels like to be a sensible, middle-aged git? I’m not even 40 yet and I am being reliable, responsible, health-conscious and just like my dad.

"Nobody was permitted to see the Emperor of China, and the question was, What is the length of the Emperor of China’s nose? To find out, you go all over the country asking people what they think the length of the Emperor of China’s nose is, and you average it. And that would be very "accurate" because you averaged so many people. " (Quote by Richard Feynman)

Feynman was making a comment about ‘judging books by their covers’ - and all that the metaphor implies. And it is a damned good point.

To conclude my argument, another quote (this time Alexander Pope)

A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring;

For shallow draughts intoxicate the brain

And drinking largely sobers us again.