5:30am is a special time of morning that Mrs M and I usually choose to sleep through. Seeing the sun rise over the park we look over is great, but seeing the back of my eyelids is even better. So imagine the joy and happiness this morning when PB decided 5:30am was a great time to announce she was awake. Instantly JC was awake too and that was it. Hense it is now about 9am and feels like the middle of the afternoon. At times like this you think about the whole point of children. I was going to shut them up by telling them the story of their respective births, until I came across this story. I realised they were well off compared to some.

"I was going from the toilet to my chair and ended up on the floor," she said. "Then I heard these gurgling noises."

"I noticed in the toilet, there was something in there," he said. "I said, 'Oh my God! There's a baby in there! I can't believe it!"

A hosptial seems so clinical and hygenic in comparison. Even in this case it seems amazing that it never occured to anyone that the rapid exapnsion in her stomach size was not due to the Atkins diet going wrong. The poor kid is in line a big shock when he gets told the story of his birth.

Even more unusual while waiting for the Disneyland bus this morning I noticed something in the lobby of the hotel across the road. With a couple of minutes to spare (mostly because I missed the earlier bus) I wandered across and was staring at a Formula 1 McLaren. No reason why it should be there, but it just is. This is the same hotel that has a priceless art collection including a Monet and museum quality Chinese artwork.

Just applied for another credit card over the net. Hong Kong is great. You can pay your tax via credit card. Link it to an air miles program and you can pay your tax and at least get some frequent flyer points out of it. They even try and make paying tax less odious.

Finally, I went to the shop last night, and I was in there for about 5 minutes. When I came out there was a police officer writing a parking ticket. I went up to him and begged, "Come on, please, how about giving a man a break?" He ignored me and continued writing the ticket. So I called him a biro-sucking d**khead. He glared at me and started writing another ticket for worn tyres on the hunk of junk. So I called him a piece of horse manure. He finished the second ticket and put it on the windscreen with the first.

Then he started writing a third ticket! This went on for about 20
minutes...The more I abused him, the more infringement notices he
wrote.

I didn't care. My car was parked around the corner.