Jolly Interesting Stuff™

Something dawned on me this morning. And it wasn't that I should stop drinking so much tea. (Mrs Jolly Interesting Stuff told me that on Monday). It was that I am never going to be able to update this blog again. Not meaningfully anyway. Around about this time last year I was knocking out about 15 posts a month. How many did I write in April 2010? Zero. Zilch. Nought. Nout. Less than one. Given that I promised in my last post that I was going to go back to posting more regularly I think we can tag this as a #leefail. It's not that I don't want to post stuff, I do. I really do. It's just that every bloody idea I have these days I end up turning into a 7 Reasons post. Which, while I am on the subject, has a new advert.

But that was this morning. This afternoon, something else dawned on me. There is still hope. I was watching Dave and Nick laughing about in the garden and for whatever reason I felt a profound sense of optimism. I am now going to alienate all two of my readers, but I have something to say. I like David Cameron. I like Nick Clegg. I don't necessarily agree with all their political beliefs, but as people, as men, I like them. To me they are nice men. But they are also very different nice men. Very different nice men who are going to try and work together for the greater good. Yes, you can laugh. Yes, you can be cynical. You can believe that they have made a pact for their own self-worth. The fact is, I disagree. But that's because I am not a cynic. And I don't believe in pre-judgment. I believe in hope. And if hope is a coalition, then I believe in it. I believe it can work.

And that leads me nicely back to my point. I believe Jolly Interesting Stuff and 7 Reasons can work together. It just so happens that I have always seen Jolly Interesting Stuff as the Conservative Party and 7 Reasons as the Liberal Democrats. So what I propose is this. A coalition. I will be Prime Minister and have the good looking wife. The majority of my time will be spent here. In the Jolly Interesting Stuff rose garden. Which incidentally looks a lot like my bedroom. Occasionally I will pop over to 7 Reasons and contribute there, but, in the main, the responsibility for that site will be that of my deputy. That's Marc Fearns. Marc will also start writing for Jolly Interesting Stuff. This does of course mean the Fearns blog is left out in the cold. But as it's made in Yorkshire it'll be used to that. I did discuss the other option with myself - me writing for Marc - but I looked at myself in the mirror and felt so uninspired. Marc writing for me is so much better. We can do something with this arrangement. This is the only way that Jolly Interesting Stuff can be the strong, stable blog the internet so desperately needs. I'll let you know how my discussions with Marc go. Or you could just watch the news.

Whoever switched Gordon Brown's iPod to shuffle mode needs to be shot. There it was, backstage, all set up and ready to play The Beatles' I Am The Walrus at the end of the Prime Minister's Labour Conference speech, when someone came along and fiddled with it. If I was Gordon Brown and someone came along and fiddled with my iPod I would be furious. (Though that may have more to do with the fact that I had just discovered I was Gordon Brown than anything else). But I digress. I know someone fiddled with Gordon Brown's iPod because who, in their right mind, would play Moving On Up by M People as they walked off the stage having just tried - and failed - to save their job? Anyone with ears - and Gordon Brown has two - knows that the lyrics to that song start with the following:

If the first two lines aren't enough to convince you that it's a bad choice of song, it goes on to reference Peter Mandelson. You just wouldn't play this song if you had a full deck. It's incredibly poor planning from Brown. Where was his iPod security guard? If you fail to prepare Gordon, you prepare to fail. You failed.

You just watch David Cameron next week. He won't make such a schoolboy error (and nor should he being an Eton boy). I guarantee he'll have planned for such an eventuality. He'll have gone out, bought a new iPod, wiped the sample songs and then uploaded his one song. The one song he wants, as he stands on that stage, taking the applause and cutting some shapes. Effiel 65's Blue.