The parents of Madeline McCann have made a DVD of their tragically missing daughter, blasting out Simple Minds' excrutiatingly Don't You Forget About Me as the camera scans in on her slightly damaged eye. Madeline has become a marketing tool. You can buy the DVD. Buy the single. Get an endorsement from Beckham or Ronaldo. I agree - if there's a way to bring your daughter back then do it. But not only did they leave her alone, but now they are playing Simple Minds at us. My sympathy is running incredibly low.
But Andrew Collins says all this far better on his blog ...
mainly cos its hard to rhyme "double Dutch" with "skag-riddled dock whore". Then there's "Great" Grimsby itself. Europe's food town. I snapped tonight's main picture outside Grimsby Magistrates Court, which is on Grime Street. Well, London's got its Beak Street ... Everywhere there's grown men on kids BMXs and signs proclaiming FISH! in 2000 point Arial.
In preparation for our trip to Peru, now just 10 days away, we took a weekend stay in the heart of Swaledale to practice hill-walking, dealing with strange climates and weird cultures so far removed from our own in Hull. The weirdest culture of all is that most people appear to walk around with sticks, that they sometimes wave at you for invading their land. We also learnt the golden rule which is to treat most ramblers with caution, as they have cold, dead eyes, and are nowhere near as jovial as Ewen Macoll's song I'm A Rambler. That aside, we saw some stunning sights from our hotel in Low Dale, even if the roads to it are all subsiding and following crazy contours. On Saturday, we went up to Teesdale for an encounter with High Force, Britain's tallest waterfall, and the amazing implausible swing bridge that divides the Penine Way from the Coast-to-Coast walk. And today was spent in Reeth, before a scenic drive was cruelly interrupted by Catterick, and the bizarrely named Gaza Barracks.
What better way to mark an anniversary than a 10-mile training walk through the mean streets of Hull? Our blister inducing walk took in the old cemeteries in Castle Street and the spooky 18th century Bank Side one, where the graves have been eradicated by trees, vandals, smelting factories and the road to B and Q. The sun came out as we reached East Park and we lolled about under beautiful trees. Went past the lottery-winning New Cleveland and found it reassuringly tawdry. And swung past swing bridges dividing east and west on streets deserted.
Listening: Grinderman
Was prompted to vote yesterday by the fact we officially ran out of money - there's nothing like impending poverty to get you across and make a vote for change. And it seemed to work; cos upon my return from the polling station we found £3 in cash under the sofa ("there's money in chairs," as Tracey Emin's gran used to say). There was no end of campaign literature posted through Club Loz's letterbox, together with the usual Kleenexe and Pizza nonsense. But weirdly, on the "wrong" side of Prinny Ave where Dee lives, she received just one leaflet - for the BNP. Another very fine reason to get out there and vote. Heard a great interview between Jim Naughty, Labour Party chairman Hazel Blears and Nick Robinson on radio 4 on the drive into work, with the continually ridiculous Blears insisting Labour can take the positives out of a dismal election showing, in the face of point-after-point being made by Robbo and Nochts. Same old, same old.
Listening: Elliot Smith - New Moon
Countdown: Two weeks, six days til South America.
