Alastair Campbell resigns to spend more time with his publisher. About time too.

“Umm… Hang on… Ummm…” the operator said, a sound of scuffling papers in the background.
*20 seconds passes*
“What about now?” I ask.
“No, hold on…”
And so began my first ever call to 999, the emergency services. It was a little scary – I had no idea what to expect. “Ambulance”, I barked, and was duly put through to the appropriate department. During the first half a minute of my report of a car crash at Hindhead crossroads, she was apparently “tidying up a bit”. By the end of the conversation, she must have had the tidiest desk in the office – the envy of all her colleagues. Meanwhile, a car was steaming in some bushes, rammed up against a tree, with a young woman looking dazed and confused. She was lucky to be still conscious. Still, as long as the operator’s desk was tidy…
And I’ve STILL managed to get to work on time. An absolute miracle…

The Boris Johnson Fan Club – Purely on the strength of the Have I Got News For You, I shall be joining immediately.

Kellywatch: The excellent HangingDay comes up with two salient points over the last couple of days: firstly that Andrew McKinley, the reviled Labour MP who publicly and brusquely “interrogated” David Kelly before his death, is actually rather a good egg. Look at HangingDay’s account of McKinley’s appearance at the Hutton Inquiry – he comes across remarkably well, a very underreported fact of today’s papers.
And the second, VERY well-noticed point, centres on the former MI6 chief’s rather too staunch defence of Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell – as the Telegraph said, you could “almost hear the sound of ranks being closed”. In his veiled attack of the BBC, Scarlett disputed Andrew Gilligan’s assertions, and managed to reveal that there were actually no missiles in Iraq at all. Read it all here.
Oooh, I feel very political today…

So, finally you get an update on last weekend. It was actually a very musical one – on Friday night, as Michelle swanned around at a hen night, I went to a nice little bar in Guildford, Jo Clarks, with Nick and Sarah. We watched my good friend Simon Broadhurst play with Michael Taylor. They played one of my favourite songs – “standing in line, marking time – waiting for the welfare dime“, and I was frankly in awe of them. I was in awe again two days later, at the Cranley Hotel on Open Mike night. Sparky, the resident Open Miker, was backed up by Jac and Shaun H, and it was a very good night.
And here I am, back in the five-day working stretch, and looking forward to a wedding on Saturday. Not mine, I hasten to add. Talking of weddings, a little announcement was made…

An interesting, but slightly geeky article by The Sunday Times about the latest wave of computer viruses – The Email Timebomb

Kellywatch: I’m still plumping for a conspiracy on this one. And so are the people over at OfficialSpin (here’s their article on it). The Independent reveals the lengths to which Dr Kelly was gagged, and the autopsy results STILL haven’t been released, over a full month after the event…

Dyke to open up BBC archive – the BBC must have archives stretching back decades! Also discussed here at MetaFilter, and also here at the ever-wonderful HangingDay. Now I can finally catch up on all those Fingermouse episodes I missed…

Phill Punter was an old friend who turned into a new enemy. I still remember his phone call to me 4 years ago, when I proudly launched one of my first wibbler.com designs. “I’m getting a professional to design my site, it’ll be much better than yours.” He was like that. So a Phill Punter website was launched, essentially a design nightmare. And then a redesign, which was much better. But still, that phonecall niggles in the back of my mind – why did he need to tell me that, especially when it wasn’t true? The psychological assessment could go on for a while, but no matter. It’s water under the bridge.
It’s with great pleasure I bring you: www.phillpunter.co.uk. But what’s that you say? Website unavailable? Due to a breach of Terms and Conditions? Oh dear…

A worthy campaign – Ban Middle Lane Morons.