Rather than writing anything else today (I can’t really write the rant against CaMoron I’d like to, as he didn’t really hand us the self-damning testimony we’d all have liked yesterday) let me just wish my mum a happy birthday. As I keep saying, I don’t see mum much these days, except on skype; she and dad were and are wonderful parents, and I do miss them, just as any child of a loving home will inevitably miss the securities and certainties of his youth once he goes out into the world. But time passes, and I am independent and free, making my own way in this maelstrom. I have my own life and my own family. And yet it still feels good to call ‘home’, to Skype my parents, to see them sitting at the same kitchen table I sat at for so many years, sipping tea from the same huge cups they have always used, and to know that they will always be there, at the other end of a webcam.

Happy birthday Mum!