Time to play fair

OK, so MPs have been outed again playing fast and loose with their expenses and maximising their take-home by defining their domestic arrangements in any way that suits. Perhaps, in these most cynical of times, we should not be surprised that the Home Secretary would include a claim for a bath-plug (cost 88p) and some dodgy porn for her husband, in an attempt to max-out her £23,000 per year allowance for her second home, (which is, in fact her first or 'real home' if we accept that she doesn't really spend most nights sleeping on her sister's couch).

Don't get me wrong, I believe in public service and I appreciate the effort of everyone who puts themselves in the firing-line to deliver difficult public-sector jobs. By and large, I've always found public sector workers to be 'in it' for all the right reasons, and doing thankless work for much less pay than their private sector counterparts. But appearing to be relatively clean in comparison to reckless 'snout-in-trough-not-my-problem' investment bankers just isn't good enough.

I work in the charity sector, where we accept all of the 'private sector' risks that competition brings, but we face those risks with a set of ethics and an openness to public scrutiny that is unrivalled by colleagues in other walks of life. If city bankers had to account for their businesses like I have to present charity accounts, we wouldn't all be having to bail them out with our grand-children's inheritance. If a Labour Home Secretary looks like she's on the take, is it any wonder that the likes of Fred Goodwin show no remorse in getting away with being bad businessmen and still expecting us to provide them with the comfortable old age that they've denied to millions of others?

Seems simple. Run your business like it was a charity and manage your investments as sustainably as you would tend your allotment.

Spring at last

This weekend, Plot 28 was filled with the sights, sounds and smells of spring. The sunshine on Saturday afforded me my first opportunity this year to get my dibber out and I didn't waste my chance. It does an allotmenteers heart the power of good to see his dibber glinting in the early spring sunshine. Thanks to Chris and Elly's stirling efforts at Christmas, I can safely assert that I now have the biggest dibber to be found anywhere in the County.

I wasted no time in planting two beds with onions, shallots and garlic and then I passed a happy afternoon preparing a new trench for the raspberry canes that should be with me this weekend. Sunday was given over to mulching; a strenuous and solitary job, but none the less enjoyable for it. Plot 28 will be filling-up thick and fast in coming weeks and I'll keep you up to date with my progress.

For those of you suffering a twinge of dibber-envy, remember this; it's not the size of your dibber, it's how you fill the hole. Happy dibbing.

A conspiracy of plots?

In a comment on an earlier post, my good Antipodean friend Nick Galvin has alerted me to the fact that I have competition in the Plot 28 world. An alternative flagrant claim to the Plot 28 brand can be found at www.dougmartin.co.uk You may want to pay a visit to the competition, but I wouldn't advise it; I've been and it's about as interesting as watching your borlotti beans grow. (Sorry Doug).

There are dark forces at work here, because a Blospot site of the same name used to exist, but like an overgrown and forgotten allotment, has long since been abandoned. Perhaps this was just Doug up to his old tricks again, but could it have been another conspirator who is still out there harbouring delusions of a claim to my birthright?

If that wasn't enough to convince you of the existence of an unsettling underground movement, there is an even more shocking piece of evidence. Go to www.plot28.com and you'll discover that someone has ill-advisedly made a bad Spanish movie of the same name. The film's themes? Unnerving coincidences, subterfuge and illegal claims to the property of others. Spooky, eh?

It's never too late

The Italians never fail to amaze and surprise. Falling onto the welcome mat this morning came a letter from the Municipal Police in Florence, advising me of my failure to observe a traffic restriction in downtown Florence...in August 2007. Apparently, it's going to cost me 108 euros to clear my name. For anyone who has had the dubious pleasure of driving in Florence, my discretion will come as no great shock. Before you can enter moving traffic, you must first shake a 6 to start. Any attempt to move around the city requires you to recreate the chase scene from the Italian Job. That's why I don't doubt that I could easily have contravened some sneaky Italian law and the Florentines must be congratulated for the technology that has captured my transgression; pity the same technology hasn't been used to let me know about it in the intervening 18 months. Opening the post from now on is going to be a much more exciting experience. I wonder if they've discovered the time I went the wrong way down a one-way-street in Corsica in 2002? What about that freak rickshaw incident in Bali in 2005? Anyway, it doesn't pay to be bitter about these things. One thing's for sure though, I'm definitely going to be shouting for the Welsh against the Azzuri in today's rugby. Unless they've uncovered the time I double parked in Rhyll last year...

Not-so-comic Relief

OK, so it's Red Nose Day again. I know it makes me sound like an old killjoy, but it's probably the least funny day on the calendar. Everywhere there are people straining to be amusing and force-laughing at folks in their pyjamas. Don't get me wrong, I totally get the need for national children's charity appeals (for two years in the 90s Comic Relief even paid my wages) but must we insist that we are entertained before we will part with our cash? And another thing, they must get rid of the whole red nose theme. The only people associated with red noses (apart from alcoholics) are clowns. Laurel and Hardy were funny. Clowns are just a little sinister.

Exercising evangelists

In the gym this morning I met an american evangelist. She was reading a book that promoted the idea of 'choosing to be chaste'. I couldn't help thinking that there is little wonder that the church has no point of contact with young people. Perhaps that's the solution to our teenage pregnancy problem; find God, stop having fun, go to the gym to work out your frustration.

New to this blogging lark

Maybe it's a sign of middle age that I should decide that I need to share my thoughts on a blog site. I'm not sure of my motivation and I don't really care to analyse it too much. I just really want to find a better way to stay in touch with my friends than a round of mindless posts on Facebook. Anyway, the blogging will let me upload photos and videos to entertain my mates and excruciate my family. As I work on this thing, let me know what you think.