You've got to admire their optimism

To Instow beach yesterday afternoon with the dog and while I accept it was a pleasant enough day it was hardly scorchio. So imagine my surprise - as they say in certain publications' readers' letters pages - when I spotted people just lying on the beach. Admittedly they were fully clothed, but it was obviously premeditated because they were on blankets. I have to say I do respect the British holidaymakers' boundless hope that things won't be too bad. No doubt they are all saying to each other "mustn't grumble".

Our would-be leaders are another bunch showing apparently inexhaustible optimism. They continue to prance around the country convinced of their right to our vote.  Of course this approach went seriously wrong for Gordon Brown when he managed to suggest that a random old lady was a bigot. Fleet Street's finest are now in meltdown about a "turning point" in the election which has doomed Labour's chances of gaining power. They may be right about Labour's chances, but I'm not so sure an unwise comment is necessarily what will do it. However, much of journalism turns on being able to create the general from the specific. One incident becomes an example for everything.

In any case, I'd be surprised if politicians didn't spend a lot of time slagging us off behind our backs. Let's face it, the electorate must be an awful nuisance for most politicians. I'm sure we, the voters, just simply don't understand the pressures and difficulties of being a talking arse. Having to go out and secure people's votes must be an awful chore, so much so that Peter Mandelson manages to occupy one of the most powerful roles in British politics and yet he's unelected. And the piles of festering ordure standing in my constituency seem to be adopting a policy of keeping a very low profile presumably in the hope that we'll inadvertently vote for them without first discovering that it would be more pleasant to get the clap than spend an hour in their company. Anyway, mustn't grumble.

Spit or swallows

Really that should say spit and swallows, but I like to get smutty where I can. So, the spit comes from walking on Instow beach this morning - early, before the rain came - and finding a huge dog turd on what was otherwise pristine sand. It made me want to spit in an uncharacteristic rage against my fellow dog owners. How stupid are they? I was walking my dog and yes, she unloaded on the beach, but it can only have been there for seconds before I swooped with the little tie-handle bag and scooped the still warm dog eggs off the sand. (Sorry if you're eating as you read this, but really it's not as bad as it sounds, just don't breathe in while you're doing it.)

But as a result of spotting Dog Poop Mountain on the beach my walk was marred somewhat as I fulminated against the stupidity, idleness and thoughtlessness of those people who let their dogs loose to drop their turds wherever they will without following behind their pet to pick up. Dirty, dirty, dirty. Don't blame the dog, blame the owner. Also, to a lesser extent, blame local councils which have the power to fine dog owners who do not clear up after their animals, but rarely use it. A law which is not enforced doesn't really count. Drivers with mobiles jammed against their ears while negotiating traffic prove that point.

I walked up the beach conducting an internal dialogue with myself about selfish dog owners and whether I should pick up the offending excrement as I walked back along to my car. The "in-my-head" jury was coming down very firmly on the side of "Sod it, leave it, it's not your responsibility." But then I happened to glance up and there, flying about 20ft above the water's edge, were three or maybe four swallows. They'd come back from Africa to Britain, where, let's face it, the weather was not being the most welcoming, and while, as the saying tells us, one swallow does not a summer make (nor do three or four, by the way) it's certainly a cheering sight. Therefore, I reasoned that if they could make the effort to come all the way back to the UK, I could overcome my aversion to picking up someone else's dog's massive turd. Which I did, even though it weighed a ton. (Yes, I know that's ridiculous exaggeration, but you should have seen it. It had it's own stinky micro-climate.) So well done swallows, you cheered me up and made me do something positive. That must be some money in the karma bank acccount, surely?

Odd-shaped balls and that. . .

I went to a rugby match the other night. Rugby, the game which it is humorously suggested is played by men with odd-shaped balls, is something of a no-go area for me. I don't know much about it, I don't know the rules and I don't understand why sometimes they do one thing and sometimes they do another. Also, and this is a big, and somewhat prejudiced also, I don't much like some (a lot?) of the people who follow rugby. They do seem to be either a bit Hooray Henry-ish or knuckle-draggers who revel in their ability to do revolting things while drinking. However, I went to this match because it was a charity event organised by a colleague and I felt it was the least I could do to support it. And I have to admit I was glad I went. It was well-supported, raised a lot of money for the chosen charity, the Chris King Memorial Fund, and the rain held-off. The Hooray Henrys and knuckle draggers were there, but possibly not as offensive as I expected them to be from my lofty position of not going to rugby matches. Is this a victory for a more open-minded approach?

There has been a lot said following the death of Test umpire Dave Shepherd and there's nothing much that I can add. My contact with him followed on from being a former customer of the family post office in Instow where I used to get newspapers. Years after that link ceased to be, if I ever saw Dave and his brother, Bill, out and about they would always stop to chat. Nice blokes, and my condolences go out to Dave's family and friends.

By the way, I'm not a regular watcher of EastEnders, but is there anyone else who finds it confusing to see Gavin's dad, Michael, from Gavin and Stacey, suddenly converted to East End baddie Archie? Somehow it doesn't seem right.