This brightened my - somewhat weary - Sunday:

it was unsurprising that the MPs began with a rendition of D:Ream’s Things Can Only Get Better — the anthem for new Labour’s 1997 election campaign

The occasion was the MP Lyn Brown’s hen do, the location was a karaoke bar in the city, and in attendance were several prominent ministers:

Balls and Cooper performed a duet of Endless Love, the ballad once recorded by Luther Vandross and Mariah Carey

and, inevitably:

The highlight, a version of Big Spender, was led by Chris Bryant, a parliamentary aide to Harriet Harman, the Labour deputy leader.

In 2008 I’d like to see…

1. The Chancellor commit £4 billion to halve child poverty by 2010 in the Budget
2. Labour consistently up in the polls, Ken winning again in London, and the feelgood factor back as through a few bright new ideas, good policies, quietly dropping some duff ones, no clangers and discipline we remind the country why they’ve trusted us for a decade
3. An outright Labour majority on Oxford City Council when we go to bed early in the morning of Friday 2 May
4. The last residents living in Orlit houses on Rose Hill moving into the wonderful newly-built houses, as Taylor Wimpey get stuck in and start building; a new Fresh Start primary school on our estate; crime continuing to fall; and the youth club opening for longer hours
5. A Democrat about to take over at the White House, with a pledge to raise the federal rate of the minimum wage and finally get around to creating universal healthcare
6. A liberalisation of abortion law, to enable women to access abortion on demand; a significant narrowing of the gender pay gap; increased funding for rape crisis centres
7. Hundreds of new houses built in Oxford, hundreds of thousands nationally, and increased regulation to target profiteering and unscrupulous landlords
8. Finally, and more frivolously: for my family, Crystal Palace regaining their rightful place in the Premiership, and, for my adopted home town, Oxford United back in the Football League.

What would you like to see in 2008?

Almost exactly this time last year, I was sitting on the top deck of the Oxford Tube travelling to spend Christmas with my family, not enjoying tuneless Christmas carols from the front seat. This year, I am happy to report, there is less singing on the top deck of the Oxford Tube, but still free wifi. Happy Christmas.

Recent hiatus is a result of moving house and being without broadband at home. Broadband coming on Friday, so hope to be properly back online then.

The following sentence was one I wrote about a year and a half ago:

The way that you access teenage parents to do research like this is through the agencies that support them (e.g. LEA specialist teenage mums’ schools, Sure Start Plus, voluntary organisations like YWCA and Barnardo’s).

Apparently, according to the style guide of the Guardian and my workplace’s corporate style, I should now write:

The way that you access teenage parents to do research like this is through the agencies that support them (eg LEA specialist teenage mums’ schools, Sure Start Plus, voluntary organisations like YWCA and Barnardo’s).

Horrible, isn’t it? That poor “eg”, with no full points. I was most upset to learn that this is now deemed correct.

I think I’m with the University of St Andrew’s on this; they give gratifyingly full guidance:

No full stops or spaces between or after letters, except at end of sentence. (e.g. UK not U.K.) Degree abbreviations (MLitt, BSc) do not have full stops except in formal documents like Regulations and Course Catalogue entries (e.g. M.Litt., B.Sc.). [...]
(Exception to first point above) When abbreviating Latin use full stops between or after (’c.’, ‘i.e.’ or ‘e.g.’) (when only single example is given, use ‘for example’ rather than e.g.).

I have been tickled, over the past week or so, by the suggestion that my friend, former councillor Muir, previously of a nearby parish, was behind that dastardly notion that we should abolish Christmas, in his wonkish guise. Here he is, defending his position (and with a very flattering photo) over at Comment is Free. I believe that the listeners of Talksport have a campaign to send Rick Christmas cards; any readers of this blog wanting to communicate with Rick on the subject of Christmas, identity or cohesion are, I’m sure, welcome to send him Yule-themed cards care of IPPR, 30 - 32 Southampton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 7RA. I’ve picked out a cute one of a kitten with tinsel round its neck…

I have a job, which I like very much. But jdc did a quiz to find out what sort of job he should do, and posted his answers, so I thought I’d do it too.
Here’s my top ten occupations:

1.Probation / parole officer
2.Industrial-organizational psychologist
3.Human resources specialist
4.Foreign service officer
5.Association manager
6.Rehabilitation counselor
7.Politician
8.Lobbyist
9. Corporate / commercial lawyer
10. Psychologist

What is it about my profile that always brings up law enforcement roles at the top of the list? I clearly remember seventeen year-old me being distinctly perturbed when the mid-nineties clunking careers database suggested that my ideal occupation was to be a prison officer… If you’re interested, what I actually do is a mix of 8, 30 (communications specialist), and 32 (public policy analyst) in one half of my life, with a bit of 7 thrown in during evenings and weekends.

Hello readers - are there any of you left? Extraordinarily busy at the moment, unaccountably. Thought August was supposed to be a quiet time of year… Anyway, readers might like to wish my lovely co-councillor Mr Turner a happy 30th birthday. What good news to celebrate it too: it appears that the government is riding to our rescue on the matter of the massive homes shortage in Oxford:

The Oxford Mail has been told a top-level report due to be published next week would recommend a fundamental review of the Green Belt - particularly around Oxford - as the county is singled out for development.
Whitehall is tipped to suggest a 10 per cent increase on already-proposed housebuilding targets in the region over the next 20 years [...] in Oxfordshire, the Government wants to see 9,440 extra homes built on top of the already-proposed 47,200, sources said.

Wonderful news. Anyway, here’s a dreadful photo of me and Ed to keep you amused.

I’m sure the unknown author of “the Insider” in the Oxford Mail is sharpening their pencil to feature the return fixture of Blogger Bance’s junket to Budapest (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, see here); I hasten to point out that this trip was entirely under my own steam, powered by my own cash, and accounts for another lengthy absence from posting.

As might be expected from a trip the driving force behind which was Cllr Turner, there were trains and provincial cities galore. From touchdown at Budapest Ferihegy, we caught a bus and a train to Szeged, a university city in the far south of Hungary. The palatial Hotel Izabella was home for two nights while we explored, ate ice cream, got an unseasonal tan and sampled the Hungarian national poleaxer, Unicum. The highlight of Szeged was undoubtedly the wonderful synagogue, decorated in gold and blue with a huge dome, though the boys may argue for JATEKLUB, a Szegedi Purple Turtle with a licence til 4am…

From Szeged, a four-hour trip across the great plains (very flat; occasional deer) took us to the north-eastern city of Debrecen, and the austere Soviet-era Hotel Debrecen. The highlight of our first night was a resturant entered through a huge jar, where Colin sampled the renowned local delicacy of bread spread with lard. After a visit to the thermal baths on Friday, the team was bolstered by the arrival of the iron-lived Dr Joe. We just about made the train to Budapest after celebrating his arrival.

In Budapest itself, we stayed in two flats near another beautiful synagogue. Our arrival was enlivened by the letting agent’s insistence on demonstrating how to use door keys, taps, windows and blinds, and by her warning to my male companions to beware of beautiful girls wishing to part them from their cash in disreputable bars. Four days in Budapest was ample time to visit the Statue Park, site of forty Communist memorials brought together after the restoration of democracy in the early 90s; sample a range of Hungarian wines; visit another thermal bath; be seneraded by a gypsy band in a tourist restaurant. Time also allowed a return visit to the Great Market Hall, where Russian dolls in the likeness of world leaders may still be purchased as I noted last July. Unfortunately closer inspection revealed the artist to have unpleasant and unsavoury politics: Osama Bin Laden opens to reveal Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat (!) and Hitler in ever decreasing sizes - obviously a set of “great murderers the world has known”! - and Bill Clinton contains Monica Lewinsky, Gennifer Flowers and Hillary Clinton, with the tiniest doll being not a doll at all, but a cigar…

After having completely misjudged the weather, I arrived home on Tuesday night with a tan and an unworn overcoat. Unfortunately I’d failed to book Wednesday off work, which is how I come to be writing this from a hotel in Glasgow after a second aeroplane trip in less than 24 hours. Oh well. I may see my home tomorrow.

Since I last posted, there has been a major change in my life - leaving YWCA, where I’ve worked in two roles for the last four and a half years. I’ve just home from the third day of my new job, having taken a week off to collect my thoughts and see the beautiful city of Rome. Thanks to everyone that’s been in contact to wish me luck, and hello to all my new colleagues who didn’t hesitate to let me know that they’d found my online home! (As if my server logs wouldn’t have told me anyway…)

Update, Thursday 8 March: The ever-lovely Giles decided to have a dig at me for not updating this blog for two and a half whole weeks in his ever-fascinating Oxford Mail Insider colum today. Promise I didn’t know that when I started blogging again last night!