Shake Rattle and a Roll and Butter

I'm on a train to Norwich. I've done this before and I feel seasick every time. It's a swayer you see. A bone-juddering, head-spinning swayer of a train that takes no prisoners. At least there's Norwich at the other end. It's my last supply teaching of the term so I shall be expecting well chosen gifts from grateful pupils and parents.

Well the O2 backstage is becoming my second home; the Eagles' salad bar with Christine McVie last week, a tasteless apricot and oat cookie with the Pythons this (not their catering btw). The show last night was great fun, a huge production. It had to be that big to fill the O2 and by the second half they were loosening up and enjoying themselves. The old films were well chosen and Lumberjack, Parrot, (poll-winning) Argument and Cheese Shop were obvious highlights. I was less enamoured with the singers and dancers who tended to make me think I was back in 1973 with all the embarrassment that can sometimes go with that. I mean there are only so many suspenders a man can take in in any one evening I find. It won't have converted anyone but if you're in the tribe anyway, it was an evening to relish. Oh and Michael Palin is by some way the best actor of the bunch.

So today sees the welcome return to the show of the great Michael Morpurgo. He's edited a book of WWI stories called Always Remembered. It's a selection of writers, broadcasters, actors etc telling of family stories from the Great War and I'm one of them. It's not a history book in the traditional sense but an extraordinary read, full of cameos that will stay with you a long time. Speaking of which...

Today's Confession is quite a tale. It's quite unlike anything I've read before and I've held on to it until today for reasons that will become obvious. Hope you like!

And oldies! Yes we're back! And it's THROWING A SICKIE tunes please. Apparently we take more days off for sickness/shopping and sunbathing than any other nation. 7 a year apparently. It's all rubbish of course but songs please!

And if there is a train back from Norwich, I'll be on it.

5 it is.