Just Taking The Piss

So what do you usually talk to your hairdresser about while he/she’s cutting your hair? Let’s think....holidays (pretty standard)....the weather (it usually comes up before holidays - the desire for some sun).....maybe house renovations, which invariably leads onto the topic of husbands.....and their DIY skills, or perhaps their lack thereof. But what about discussing our husbands’ toilet habits.... that’s a bit off-side, isn’t it.... or is it? It turns out my hairdresser’s husband is pretty much on target, or at least his aim is...because she insists he sits down to pee, and he obliges! B says “That’s one ‘whipped’ man!”......but I’ve done some ‘indepth investigations’ (I Googled “Men Sitting Down To Pee”) and I can reveal that it’s a fairly common ‘peenomenon’.

Forget the age-old ‘seat-up versus seat-down’ debate between the genders, apparently an increasing number of women are now asking their men to sit down when they ‘point Percy at the porcelain/siphon the python/get out the one-eyed trouser snake/strain their tatters/wring out the sponge/empty the hairy plums/water the horses/go where the big knobs hang out/shake hands with the wife's best friend/drain the dragon/ring the rattlesnake/unbutton the mutton/take a leak’. Even in these good new days of equality and chore-sharing, women are still more likely to be the ones that clean the bathroom...and we’re weary of wiping up wayward weewee (now say that last bit 20 times, fast).

Japanese men, in particular, are not afraid to admit they’re ‘dudes who pee like a lady’ (with apologies to Steve Tyler). A survey conducted in 2007 by Western-style toilet manufacturer Matsushita Electric Works found that around 40% of adult Japanese men sit down to empty their bladders...almost three times the number recorded in 1999.




Astonishingly, the statistics are even higher for the Germans, a population already renowned for having more than a healthy interest in the contents of their toilet bowls. There, men are being shamed into sitting to urinate by a little gadget called Spuk, or ‘Spook’. Attached to the underside of the toilet seat, Spuk quietly endures sitting visitors.....but anyone trying to lift the seat and attempt to stand and urinate (known as ‘Stehpinkeln’) should be prepared for the ghost’s unrelenting wrath.

“Hey, stand-peeing is not allowed here and will be punished with fines, so if you don’t want any trouble, you’d best sit down,” one of the devices orders in a voice impersonating the former German leader, Chancellor Gerhard Schroder. Other versions start roaring like a lion or try to persuade stubborn customers with the soothing voice of a female flight attendant. “We welcome you aboard Never Come Back Airlines,” the voice says. “We’d like to ask our male passengers in particular to sit down, buckle up and refrain from smoking.”


Patentwert, the manufacturers of Spuk, say they are ready to direct their gadgets at the British market. Their prototype English-speaking ‘WC ghost’, says in an American drawl:
“Don’t you go wetting this floor cowboy, you never know who’s behind you. So sit down, get your water pistol in the bowl where it belongs. Ha, ha, ha.”

Patentwert also plan to copy the voice of the Queen....perhaps to say something along the lines of: “Kindly be seated. One does not want one’s bottom wetted with one other’s weewee”. Indeed ma’am....that would be an ‘anus horriblis’.


Avoiding the ‘splash factor’, though, is not the only reason some Swedish women are pressurising their men to take a seat. A feminist group at Stockholm University is campaigning to ban all urinals from campus, “because a man standing up to urinate is deemed to be triumphing in his masculinity, and by extension, degrading women." Their argument is that “if women can't do it, then men shouldn't either”. Personally, I think they’ve missed a trick...thanks to the Shewee, we girls can now write our names in the snow as well as any lad. Invented by 28-year-old New Zealander, and James Dyson Award winner, Samantha Fountain, the portable urinating device is ergonomically-designed and (most importantly) dishwasher-safe. The 'suction' of the Shewee’s fit to ladies’ 'bits' has been likened to that of Dyson’s vacuum cleaners....let’s just hope that’s an exaggerated description of its leak-proof seal.


No more sitting on less than desirable public toilet seats, peeing onto our shoes as we attempt to hover over squat toilets, and baring our bums in the public eye or...and here I write from personal experience....straight back onto stinging nettles!

Ladies, it’s time to stand up and… pee!

Red Sky At Night

I love taking photographs of sunsets, but find it quite challenging to capture their essence. Here are some of my better attempts....

Santa Monica Beach, California

Taken from an aeroplane, on a flight from Cork to London

The same flight, taken a few minutes later

Fihalhohi, The Maldives

Fihalhohi, The Maldives
Fihalhohi, The Maldives
Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco

Alcatraz Island, near San Francisco

Golden Gate Bridge
View from Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco

Neighbour's garden

Red Sky At Night

View from our house

'Sunset' by Kate Bush
Could be honeycomb
In a sea of honey
A sky of honey
Whose shadow, long and low
Is slipping out of wet clothes?
And changes into
The most beautiful
Iridescent blue

Who knows who wrote that song of Summer
That blackbirds sing at dusk
This is a song of colour
Where sands sing in crimson, red and rust
Then climb into bed and turn to dust

Every sleepy light
Must say goodbye
Today before it dies
In a sea of honey
A sky of honey
Keep us close to your heart
So if the skies turn dark
We may live on in
Comets and stars

Who knows who wrote that song of Summer
That blackbirds sing at dusk
This is a song of colour
Where sands sing in crimson, red and rust
Then climb into bed and turn to dust
Who knows who wrote that song of Summer
That blackbirds sing at dusk
This is a song of colour
Where sands sing in crimson, red and rust
Then climb into bed and turn to dust

Chorus :
Oh sing of summer and a sunset
And sing for us, so that we may remember
The day writes the words right across the sky
They all go all the way up to the top of the night

A Transylvanian Tale

Recently, B and I spent a few days in Romania....mainly in Transylvania, which was really picturesque in the snow, if a tad nippy at around minus 9°C. Romania only joined the EU in 2007, and has yet to cause a blip on the mass tourism radar. The infrastructure still leaves something to be desired, but the beautiful mountains and forests, fairy-tale castles, and medieval towns and churches of this East European country provide plenty for visitors to see and do.

We travelled as part of a small, organised group - there were 14 of us in total – and we’ve been finding this to be a relatively stress-free way of touring, usually in the company of fairly like-minded and easy going people. After a three and a half hour flight from Heathrow, we were met at Bucharest airport by Christy, our local tour guide and knower of all things remotely Romanian. We immediately drove north for about two hours to the Transylvanian village of Moeciu, which would be our base for the next three days. Our accommodation was a family-run guesthouse...fairly spartan in appearance, a bit like a ski chalet, but VERY warm, and the host was excellent, with a great sense of humour. It was late by the time we arrived and we were grateful for the hot dinner provided...a sour (but tasty) vegetable soup, followed by a pork, beef and sausage stew and apple strudel....washed down with generous quantities of homemade wine and țuică (a clear brandy, about 40% proof and typically made from plums, apples or pears). A shot of țuică is traditionally drunk in Romania before every meal, as it is reputed to increase appetite. Not being a fan of beverages that burn the living daylights out of the back of your throat while quite possibly conferring permanent liver damage, I gave it a fairly wide berth...but there were some members of the group who developed a taste for the fire-water and were happily lugging it down before, during and after meals.

The next day (New Year’s Eve) we drove to nearby Sinaia to visit Peles Castle, which resembles a Bavarian Schloss, richly decorated with stained glass, ebony and mother of pearl, and houses an impressive collection of weapons and coats of armour. Adjacent to Peles is Pelisor Castle, with its Art Deco and Art Nouveau interior.

Peles Castle

The day was rounded off with a countryside ramble in the snow to a ski base that afforded panoramic views of the surrounding mountains. After that bracing walk in subzero temperatures, we were glad to get back to the guest house, where, as a special New Year’s Eve touch, our host had lit an enormous bonfire outside and now invited us to join him by the flames for snacks and mulled tuică (warmed with sugar and pepper, and very drinkable....so drinkable, in fact, that I had two large glasses and was soon very full of festive cheer).

Glowing from the fire (that burnt from within), we staggered inside to get dressed up for the New Year’s festivities. This started with a meal around 9 p.m. that stretched until almost midnight, and comprised several courses of bread, cheeses and spreads, soup, lamb mince in cabbage parcels with sour cream, and assorted cakes. The wine and tuică were flowing freely and everyone was getting along famously, considering we had only known each other 24 hours. Just before midnight, the host asked everyone to get their coats and join him outside, where we toasted 2009 with champagne...teeth chattering as it was now a fresh minus 16°C out there... and watched the fairly spectacular displays of fireworks breaking over the neighbouring villages. Back in the warmth, someone had the bright (and no doubt tuică-fuelled) idea that we should all stay up till 2 a.m. to see in the UK’s New Year too....

After a late breakfast the next morning, we set off to meet a local forestry dude/resident expert in large carnivores who would be taking us on a forest walk...he soon arrived, complete with gun, and clearly looking as though he’d been enjoying a bit of tuică himself the night before. Romania's notorious dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, who ruled for 25 years before the collapse of Communism, outlawed bear-hunting for all but himself and his friends. As a result, when Ceausescu was toppled and executed in 1989, the country's forests were teeming with brown bears, wolves and lynxes.

Forest Walk

We trekked through a thick, dark forest in dense snow, stopping frequently for the forester to point out signs of animal activity and regale us with tales of tourists being attacked by bears....there was no need to panic, though, as apparently it was almost always their own dumb ass fault [Here Mr Bear! Smile for the camera.... oh, look at the cute littl’ baby bears with their mommy bear....can I stroke one? Shall we give them some sandwiches... no you can't have THAT one!] It was also reassuring to hear that it was highly unlikely that we would ever get mauled by wolves....I probably heard too many fairy stories as a child, but I have always been nervous of ‘big bad wolves’....and I was convinced that I’d been hearing them howling demonically in the woods near the guesthouse the previous two nights (well, to be fair, not so much the second, but that was perhaps thanks to a deeper sleep induced by the mulled tuică-wine-champagne-more wine combo).

We learnt that, today, there are an estimated 5,500 brown bears in Romania, and that population is growing by 10%, or about 500 bears, every year. Consequently, Romania is one of the very few countries in Europe that permits limited bear-hunting during seasons that span half the year. In exchange for this rare hunting privilege, hunters pay a licence fee of between $15,000 and $25,000 per bear, depending on its size, which has been good for the tourist industry, and has brought badly needed revenues to this poor country's coffers. But the hunting policy hasn't produced adequate results. Romania allows just over 300 bear licences each year, which isn't enough to keep the population in control, and the bears are increasingly descending from the Carpathian Mountains and raiding local towns in an effort to find food. This has led to a series of unfortunate encounters between humans and bears....

Luckily, however, the only bears we encountered that day were the stuffed and mounted ones on the walls of the game restaurant where we later had lunch...and, of course, the medallions of bear on B’s plate. Sensitive vegetarians look away now...he is gradually working his way down the edibles on Noah’s list, and has so far munched crocodile, frog (legs), escargot, kangaroo, goat, horse, wild boar, springbok, kudu, ostrich, pigeon, pheasant, guinea fowl.... and now bear. Apparently the taste of the meat that day was ‘bearable’.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the medieval city of Brasov...most attractions were closed for the holiday, but we ogled the outside of the magnificent gothic Black Church and the orthodox St Nicolas Church, explored the icy cobbled streets and watched locals skating on outdoor rinks.

The Black Church, Brasov

The next day it was time to say good bye to our wonderful guesthouse host and head back to Bucharest, via Bran castle. It was a gloomy day...snow was starting to fall, and the castle, perched atop a rocky peak, was looking every bit the ‘Dracula’s Lair’ described in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel.

Bran Castle

In truth, Bram Stoker never came near Transylvania...and the real ‘Dracula’, the 15th century Wallachian prince, Vlad Tepes, better known as Vlad the Impaler, did not reside at Bran. Although never accused of vampirism, his methods of execution....spread-eagled victims were bound and a stake hammered up their rectum, then raised aloft and left to die in agony....quickly earned him a certain notoriety. Romantic myths dispelled, it is still a fascinating castle to visit and contains some unusual artefacts, including a menu inscribed with Winston Churchill’s handwriting, drafting the divvying up of Eastern Europe with Stalin post World War 2...in the process, 90% of Romania fell under Soviet control.

'Vlad The Impaler'

The drive back to Bucharest took far longer than expected. Thanks to a horrendous traffic jam that highlighted the current inadequacies of the Romanian roads, we only got into the city by nightfall. However, our ‘ever-cool and collected’ guide did his best to still show us the main sights, notably Ceausescu’s excessive palace (now the Palace of Parliament) and Revolution Square, which is dominated by a monument known locally as 'The Potato On A Stick' and pays homage to the impaling of Communism during the most dramatic and bloodiest of all the revolutions that took place during the dismantling of the ‘Iron Curtain’.

Ceausescu’s Palace

"Potato On A Stick" Monument

There was not much time to relish the luxury of our boutique hotel - a lengthy group dinner and the walking tour of Bucharest afterwards meant we only got to bed in the early hours of the morning. We had to be up before sunrise to catch our early flight back to the UK.

All in all, it was a great way to spend New Year, in a fascinating and much underrated country.

Drive Like An Egyptian

Around this time last year, B and I spent a week in Egypt. It was a last-minute decision to go away somewhere warm and sunny, a quick holiday before I started my new job. We planned on spending most of the time snorkelling, so picked a Red Sea resort called El Gouna, 14 miles north of Hurghada. Also known as the 'Venice of the Red Sea' the self-contained town stretches along 6 miles of coastline, and spreads onto several nearby islands. It comprises luxury hotels, a golf course, marina and Down Town shopping complex with some good restaurants and shops.

We landed late at Hurghada Airport, and after getting through the “Visa Auction”... yes, everything is negotiable in Egypt and there were at least 5 different visa salesmen vying for our custom in different currencies.... we were herded onto our tour operator’s bus and onto El Gouna and our hotel, the Mövenpick. The hotel itself seemed enormous.....the staff used a golf cart to get us and our luggage from reception to our oversized room, but it was difficult to get a proper impression of anything in the darkness. Exhausted from the flight, we went straight to sleep. When I woke up the next morning and pulled back the thick curtains...WOW! Blinding sunlight seared my eyeballs at first but then gradually I could focus on the beautiful turquoise of the Red Sea under the bluest sky......

The view from our room

We spent the first day exploring the resort, and decided to go snorkelling on the second. It was a bit disappointing to learn that this would involve getting a boat out to the reef with the dive school (no good snorkelling straight off the hotel jetty), and that the water was decidedly icy (the dudes at the dive school recommended 5 mm full length wetsuits at a minimum).


Hmmm, wetsuits...possibly one of the things I detest most on this planet.... yes, I can appreciate their purpose...but it’s getting into the darn things that has me huffing, puffing, squirming, panting and cursing every chocolate bar and potato crisp I’ve ever eaten. Despite asking for a L A R G E one, I was handed one that would have been too small for Kate Moss. Only after I’d made a huge spectacle of myself trying to squeeze my blubber into a too-tight suit, the dive school dude stopped smirking in the background and relinquished an appropriately ‘Fit For Wide Ass’ one.


Finally, after these exertions to get kitted up, we set off at great speed across the water for about 45 minutes....just at the point I was wondering if the guys were in fact pirates/kidnappers and we were being taken out to open sea and would have to pay an enormous random to get back, we slowed and dropped anchor at a reef, alongside a fishing boat. Unfortunately, the lack of controls on fishing mean that the fish were quite sparse....at least in that part of the Red Sea. Perhaps we’d been spoilt by snorkelling in the Maldives, where, thanks to their strict fishing policy (no nets allowed), the tropical waters teem with marine life. Half an hour in the water and we’d had enough. Despite the accursed wetsuits, our legs were cramping from the coldness, and we gratefully flopped back onto the boat, chilled to the bone. Back on the shore we decided that snorkelling was not going to be the focus of this holiday....so, onto Plan B: temples and tombs. We’d hoped to do a day trip to Cairo during the week, but now succumbed to the sales patter of our local tour rep and booked an excursion to Luxor too.

Since the terrorist attack at the Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor in 1997, and up until December 2008,the Egyptian government made coach parties travel in armed convoys in the Nile Valley. This meant we were picked up at our hotel 5 a.m. to make it to the Safaga assembly point in time to join the 7 a.m. convoy to Luxor. There were already at least 200 other coaches lined up when we arrived at Safaga, and by the time we departed, our trusty armed tourist policeman on board, we were probably one of over 300. The road down to Luxor is interspersed with security check-points, through which the buses have to travel in single file. Between checkpoints, however, a bizarre desert road rally ensued, with each driver vying to be the one in front by the next checkpoint. The rocky mountains around Safaga began to give way to sandy hills, and by late morning we were getting close to the fertile Nile Valley.

Along the Sagada-Qina highway

We passed through the town of Qina, built along canals of the Nile. All other traffic in the town was held to a standstill, side roads were barricaded closed and fronted by an armed guard, to allow the uninterrupted passage of the convoy.

Canals of Qina

Once we reached central Luxor, the convoy split up and we began our whirlwind tour of tombs, temples and tat-selling tourist traps. After a whip through three tombs in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes and an ‘unexpected’ visit to an alabaster workshop, we arrived at the Temple of Hatshepsut, impressive in its stunning setting at the foot of a sheer limestone cliff-face.

Temple of Hatshepsut

Then it was down to the banks of the River Nile for the brief crossing by boat, from the West to the East (or from Death to Life for the Ancient Egyptians)....and onto the spectacular Temple of Karnak, with its solemn Avenue of Sphinxes, towering lotus flower columns and glassy Sacred Lake.

Boats on the banks of the Nile

Karnak Temple

By now it was late evening, and time to rejoin the Luxor to Safaga Rally. It was well past midnight before we were dropped back at our hotel and we spent the next day semi-comatose in sun loungers, trying to recharge our batteries for Cairo.

As it turned out, the day in Cairo was a far more relaxing experience than the Luxor expedition...although the driving was just as white-knuckled and frequent-sharp-intake-of-breath inducing! Forget the biblical plagues....Cairo has its own modern-day problems, in the form of horrendous traffic jams! We were picked up from Cairo airport by our guide for the day and were pretty quickly in the thick of it, heading towards the Egyptian Museum. The sheer volume of traffic in Africa’s largest city has resulted in five lanes of traffic occupying three-lane highways...giving a whole new meaning to the concept of “leaving a safety gap”. We witnessed several dodgem-car style incidents where drivers wacked into each other, then simply waved their apologies and carried on driving... typically, the cars are so old and decrepit that another dent or two is not going to make much difference.


We could have spent a week in the Egyptian Museum, but only had two hours... enough time to see the most significant finds, including Tutankhamun’s treasure and the odd mummified human, cat, snake, crocodile and so on. After an early lunch at the Cairo Hard Rock Cafe, we were on the slow road to Giza via the obligatory papyrus shop, where we were parted with our money. Giza is probably the poorest suburb of Cairo, not much better than a shanty town, with the pyramids providing a dramatic backdrop. I have always wanted to see the pyramids and sphinx in person, and they are a great sight... photographs did not give the true impression of just how massive they are, and I find it impossible to fathom how the Ancient Egyptians built them without the technologies we have today.

Pyramids at Giza

There was just time for a quick trip to the ‘City of the Dead’, the Northern Cemetery of the city. As early as the 14th century, the homeless starting occupying the tombs, living side-by-side with the dead. The cemetery has become an fully-established community, and is even rumoured to be getting broadband this year.


This is just a taste of all there is to see in this amazing country....I really hope go back one day.

January 20th, 1974

On this day, 35 years ago, I entered this world....what was happening at the time?

I was born in Zimbabwe, which at that time was called Rhodesia with Ian Smith as Prime Minister. At the time, civil war, known as the ‘Bush War’ by White Rhodesians and as the ‘Second Chimurenga’ (or 'rebellion' in Shona) to supporters of the Front for the Liberation of Zimbabwe, was ongoing and would culminate in the creation of the Republic of Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe in 1980.

South of the Limpopo River, Prime Minister Balthazar Johannes Vorster (better known as John Voster) was following white public opinion in South Africa by supporting Rhodesia publicly, but was unwilling to alienate important political allies in the United States by extending diplomatic recognition. Later that year, he would pressurise Ian Smith to accept in principle that white minority rule could not continue indefinitely.Nelson Mandela had already been incarcerated at Robben Island Prison, off Cape Town, for 10 years.


On the other side of the Victoria Falls, Kenneth Kaunda ruled Zambia as a one-party state, while Seretse Khama was the first president of a democratic Botswana. The Front for the Liberation of Mozambique were mounting their guerrilla campaign against Portuguese rule, and would take control of the territory by April that year, gaining independence from Portugal the following June.

Internationally, the Cold War was simmering away, the ‘Iron Curtain’ was firmly in place and there was an East and a West Germany. Leonid Brezhnev was leader of the USSR (which comprised 15 'union republics') and Richard Nixon was in the White House. In just over a week’s time, Nixon campaign aide, Herbert Porter, would plead guilty to the charge of lying to the FBI during the early stages of the Watergate investigation. Nixon’s resignation would follow 8 months later.Mao Zedong was Chairman of the Communist Party in China.

The United States had withdrawn from Vietnam the previous year, but fighting still continued between the communist North and the government of South Vietnam. Two days earlier (18th January), Egypt and Israel had signed an armistice agreement officially ending their 1973 war. The agreement became known as Sinai I because it was signed in the Sinai peninsula and involved Israel’s occupation of that strategic desert. Sinai I had been achieved after a heavily publicised week of shuttling between the two countries by US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who for his efforts was hailed in the media as the 'Superman of diplomacy'. It was only later that American taxpayers would learn that Sinai I laid the groundwork for the start of unprecedented massive aid to Israel by the United States, which continues to this day.

British Prime Minister, Edward Heath, still had two months’ tenancy on Number 10 Downing Street, before Harold Wilson (Labour) would move in for his second term. A fortnight earlier, the Conservative Government had introduced The Three-Day Week to conserve electricity during industrial action by coal miners.

Conflict (‘The Troubles’) was ongoing between elements of Northern Ireland's nationalist community (principally Roman Catholic) who wanted Northern Ireland to be politically reunited with the rest of Ireland, and the unionist community (principally Protestant) who wanted it to remain part of the United Kingdom.

Trousers made from about four square miles of fabric (typically polyester - the new staple fibre) had begun making an appearance, together with massive shirt collars, so big that you glided if you fell over. Platforms were everywhere, but had not yet reached the heady heights of 1975, when, to be 'hip', at least 2 inch soles and 5 inch heels were required.While the 'No Style' hairstyle was the barnet of choice, the mullet was already popular, due in part to the influence of David Bowie, who wore the haircut circa 1972-1973.

'The Sting' (Paul Newman and Robert Redford) and the original 'The Exorcist' were showing in US cinemas, and Peter Benchley's novel, 'Jaws', had just been published (16th January).

The New Seekers were top of the UK singles’ chart with their second biggest hit, 'You Won't Find Another Fool Like Me'. Towards the end of 1971, the group had recorded an adaptation of the Coca-Cola jingle, ‘I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke’. Reworked as ‘I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing’, the song became a worldwide success.

The top selling album that week was ‘Sladest’ by glam rock group Slade.Meanwhile, in the US, Al Wilson’s ‘Show And Tell’ was the #1 single, and Jim Croce’s ‘You Don't Mess Around With Jim’, first released in 1972, was in its second week at the top of the album chart. Renewed interest had been sparked in Jim Croce’s albums following his premature death in a small commercial plane crash in September 1973. He is probably best remembered for the songs ‘Bad, Bad Leroy Brown’ and ‘Time in a Bottle’, both #1 hits in 1973.

'Time In A Bottle' by Jim Croce (written for his unborn son):

If I could save time in a bottle

The first thing that I'd like to do

Is to save every day 'til eternity passes away

Just to spend them with you.

If I could make days last forever

If words could make wishes come true

I'd save every day like a treasure and then

Again I would spend them with you.

But there never seems to be enough time

To do the things you want to do

Once you find themI've looked around enough to know

That you're the one I want to go thru time with.

If I had a box just for wishes

And dreams that had never come true

The box would be empty except for the mem'ry of how

They were answered by you.

But there never seems to be enough time

To do the things you want to do

Once you find them

I've looked around enough to know

That you're the one I want to go thru time with.

Dear Mr President

Please live up to our expectations.

Yours truly

The World

RIP Tony Hart (1925-2009)

Tony Hart, the television artist whose career spanned almost fifty years and whose work inspired millions of children to take up art, died today at the age of 83. He was most famous for fronting children's art shows including ‘Take Hart’ and ‘Hart Beat’.

I can remember watching ‘Take Hart’ on a black and white TV as a child... and I loved the animated clay character Morph, who lived in a pencil box. Morph's little stories involved him creating artwork, stumbling upon strange artefacts and generally getting himself in a muddle. He never talked to us or Tony, rather he gabbled in some speeded-up goobledygook, but the clarity of the animation and direction of action meant that we could read his body language, so he always made sense.

Bye George!

It's time to bid farewell to Geedubbya....but before that, here are some of his finest moments:

"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." [Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002]

"And I, unfortunately, have been to too many disasters as president." [discussing flooding in the Midwest, Washington, D.C., June 17, 2008]

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." [Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004]

"Your eminence, you're looking good." [to Pope Benedict XVI, using the title for Catholic cardinals, rather than addressing him as "your holiness," Rome, June 13, 2008]

"Thank you, your Holiness. Awesome speech." [to Pope Benedict, Washington, D.C., April 15, 2008]

"They misunderestimated me." [Nov. 6, 2000]

"One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures." [Jan. 3, 2000]

"Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?" [Jan. 11, 2000]

"It would be a mistake for the United States Senate to allow any kind of human cloning to come out of that chamber." [no doubt drawing on his deep understanding of the scientific principles behind Stem Cell Research, Washington, D.C., April 10, 2002]

"I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office." [Washington, D.C., May 12, 2008]

"Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter." [parting words to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy at his final G-8 Summit, punching the air and grinning widely as the two leaders looked on in shock, Rusutsu, Japan, July 10, 2008]