And that usually includes me and I – like 99.9% of humans – am a selfish bastard.

So my initial reaction to the current postal strikes was one of “oh for the love of Camelot, do you have to? Can’t you just go into arbitration and sort it out between you?”

I have, however, rather come round to the CWU’s way of thinking. Not least because it’s the Royal Mail management and Lord “of Darkness” Mandelson who are refusing to go to ACAS so I can see why the balance has tipped.

Plus, the Conservatives have pledged to privatise the Royal Mail should they come into power and since everything they are I am not, I can’t support the changes suggested in that area. And more to the point I believe Royal Management are manipulating the figures and are, essentially, a bunch of lying bastards. This article here rather illustrates why.

So no, I think the Royal Mail management should be sacked and replaced and the system left in public hands with workers treated fairly. The Royal Mail is too important to be fucked up like this, and there’s never been a single public-turned-private institution that I’ve ever had satisfactory dealings with. Private companies don’t really understand public services.

Now by an astonishing coincidence I am reading Terry Pratchett’s “Going Postal” at the moment, and it’s proving to have some remarkable parallels – not least of which is Lord Vetinari’s comment about the service which has become a joke.

“Unfortunately the Post Office came to be seen not as a system for moving the mail efficiently, to the benefit and profit of all, but as a money box. And so it collapsed, losing both mail and money. A lesson for all of us perhaps.”

Echoes a bit doesn’t it?

Jan Moir has come up trumps really, even by the Mail’s usual standards. Her article here is an astonishingly vicious, ill-informed and gossipy slab of outright prejudice. She’s really raised the bar for them – how they’ll keep it up is beyond me.

I dunno… it never ceases to amaze me how much gossip, speculation and innuendo pass off as fodder for newspapers these days. Amazes and saddens.

Still, at least the ever-reliable Enemies of Reason and The Daily Quail (worth bookmarking, btw) have risen to the occasion and exposed the writer for the tatty little spite-vendor she really is.

If only we had ducking stools instead of blogs, eh?

A tape has apparently been leaked of Dustin having sex with his boyfriend and Perez dutifully posted it on his webshite.

Now my reaction was pretty much “oh, damnit those are hot pics”. I’d thought DLB was a bit cute before, it now turns out that he’s not only really rather buff but also has hot sex too.

But it seems that some of his fellow campaigners for gay equality are having a pop because the fact that he’s having unprotected sex with his boyfriend is not helpful to the cause.

I’ll be honest. I’m not sure that a cause which says two grown men can’t make their own decisions as to what they do in a long term relationship is a cause worth following, really.

Oh… hang on…

Thing is I’ve always seen Katie Price as this rather ignorant, domineering, sharp-tongued, bullying harpy and Peter Andre as a bit of a well-meaning lunkhead. So I always felt rather sorry for him whenever I saw the two of them together, but ultimately thought: well, if you’re happy, you’re happy, but I don’t see how.

So if it’s all true and he has finally got fed up with her it does seem that something has pushed his IQ up several points and for that I feel a sort of paternal glow towards him.

I just want to ruffle his hair and go “good on you improving yourself”.

Aww. They grow up so fast don’t they?

Harriet, it really is fine, love. We don’t want you to be Prime Minister either. Because, frankly – and I mean this in a loving way – you’re really awful.

Maybe not quite as awful as Wacky Jacqui Smith or Hazel Bleary Blears, but you are still, somehow, redolent of a dominatrix let loose in Whitehall who is then determined not to let anyone get up to what she used to.

Something about the cabinet at the moment rather puts me in mind of a flock of vultures just waiting patiently for the roadkill to stop twitching.

Not only was I temporarily sat next to by someone who was the spitting image of Rob Shearman – noted author and Doctor Who writer extraordinaire, responsible for “Dalek” amongst other works – but the bus was otherwise relatively empty and the streets were clear and the journey through London Bridge and Bank remarkably swift.

So I was vaguely amused to discover that the front page of lacklustre free-mag City AM proclaimed the words “G20: City Under Siege”.

Okay, it may all kick off later on but at the moment it’s all oddly quiet and the main difference is an increase in the wearing of denim and Converse.

Update 1201: Young Mark headed out about lunchtime and found a fairly peaceful protest down Moorgate. One of the protesters was wielding a banner stating “Resistance is Fertile” which I think is a marvellous sentiment.

Moorgate Protest

Update 1451: Okay… that was a bit underwhelming. Just went for my lunchtime PowerMince and found distressing scenes of peace and quiet everywhere.

A few more police, admittedly, and a few closed stores, but the streets comparatively empty. Even Liverpool Street, where earlier the UBS building was besieged with protesters, had reverted to the sort of levels of population you’d expect in the dead of night. And the Climate Camp at Bishopsgate seemed terribly good humoured.

Yet still the Evening Standard proclaims in big bold letters: “Anarchists in Battle for the City”.

Er… not really, guys. The most terrifying spectacle I saw was a rather ill-dressed young man whose skin had the colour and texture of a dollop of B&Q emulsion.

Ladies and gentlemen: we have had some snow.

It’s the thing I find most bizarre about the British psyche. For all our obsession with the weather, when it actually happens we seem to get taken completely by surprise.

It’s suddenly raining a lot? Gridlock occurs on the roads and incidents of eye injury through stupidly big golf-umbrellas increase. The sun’s been out for more than three days? Everyone suffers from collective heatstroke. It’s a bit icy? Drivers suddenly crawl to a halt and start doing stupid manoeuvres.

And as for snow… well. Here we are. Bugger Gaza and Davos, this is where it’s at!

Really, in the grand scheme of things, there ain’t that much. I’ve been to Berlin and Pottsdam in January and had to contend with more snow than this, Boston and Mississauga too. They routinely put up with snow which is deeper and more persistent than this and yet somehow their infrastructures and their psyches keep going on as normal.

For us though, the minute it’s not just a bit grey and mizzley then complete shutdown occurs. Especially if anything happens outside 9-5 on the normal working day.

So far, two of us have made it into the office. I had to walk from Streatham to Brixton to do it (luckily I had access to what were at the time the only working tubes) and I sure as hell won’t be doing that again, but it’s staggering considering that the roads are largely passable that even buses have given up!

But I’ve been to Berlin twice and loved it. And the more I get to know about Germany and its citizens the more I like them. They’re a very forward-looking people, and very tolerant – although this tolerance apparently doesn’t extend to Scientology, which is banned (so frankly I love them all the more).

I’ve even gone as far as watching extracts of Verbotene Liebe, the Das Erste version of Sons and Daughters. It’s gained a certain amount of international attention of late due to the gay couple Christian and Olli being amongst the hottest, sweetest and above all best acted gay couple on primetime telly. (And for a change, they get some. They’re not neutered and sexless like most TV gays.)

Admitedly it’s a good job someone’s been doing some fairly free translations for the subtitles, but I’ve been drawn into the story like you wouldn’t believe. Even to the point I want to watch whole episodes of the show from now on if I could just find them!

So I’ve been digging out the language aids. Getting some tuition podcasts, ripping Chris’ NLP German course to iTunes and flicking through my Lonely Planet phrasebook – a little book with a huge amount of humour to be had.

It contains, for example, German translations of the following phrases in its romance section:

• I’d rather not.
• Your ego is out of control
• That was weird

And my absolute favourite:

• Before this goes any further, I must be upfront. I’m an accountant.

Either the compiler of this volume has a very dry sense of humour, or they had a lousy time in Germany last time they were there…

Now Andrew Sach’s daughter has seen fit to blab to that ever present spectre at the feast, the DailyHateMail, about Ross returning to the screen:

“Ross is reacting to the public hype rather than to my family. He’s ridiculing people’s reaction to the radio broadcast and the BBC for its censorship of him.”

Well, frankly I can’t blame him. The public hype was by far the most embarrassing thing about the whole affair and should rightly be lampooned.

Although it probably suits neither Kate Sachs nor the HateMail to remember this, Ross apologised to Sachs before the whole affair went as overboard as it did.

The only person who has come out of it at all well has been Sachs himself – even though the sudden appearance of his family in the press (as a result of Ross’ return) smacks of a distinct lack of dignity.

Dear Lord. Fame-Vultures to a man (or woman).

I mean… for comparison you should have seen the Clapham one. My God it was shite!

But alas my visit was not to be. As I neared the threshold I saw with a slight tug in my heart that the queue for the tills looped back and forth twice and vanished in the back of the store.

My fellow man’s appetite for cheap tat really does surprise me sometimes.