Incidentally, it is a (not direct) result of making this film, as opposed to Born Free as I had previously thought, that Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna (aka Mrs Bill Travers) founded the Born Free Foundation.

Can anyone offer an explanation as to why the Eastleigh shopping mall smells of caramel? It's as if Costa Coffee is wafting the smell of caramel lattes into the ventilation ducts. Not unpleasant - but not particularly pleasant either.

Watched - or half-watched - the first three-quarters of the Calcutta Cup match on Saturday. By that time I figured England were doing well enough to no longer need my support, and besides, we had a concert to go to. Scotland gave away far too many penalties for a team that was intending to win the game - but it's not so long since I've made similar charge against England.

One Scottish player was sin-binned for not-releasing the ball. On the face of it, it seemed odd to sin-bin for that (unfair, yes; dangerous, no) when no similar sanction was levied for tackling a man in the air (both unfair and dangerous). But if it was a consistent offence - and Scotland had already been penalised several times for this - ultimately the referee has to decide that enough is enough, and if they can't keep to the laws they will have to spend ten minutes on the side-lines.

Sport loves its statistics doesn't it? Some of them seem a little pointless. Like "8 more points to overtake xxx as the eighth highest scorer for England". Apart from the reuse of the number 8, is there anything especially significant about being the 8th in the order for anything? Details of the relative possession in the previous game. Yes, there are times when it might be interesting to know how much possession England had when they played France - but midway through their match against Scotland is probably not one of them. "Two goals kicked from three attempts". Well so what? This has no bearing* on whether or not this attempt will be successful. Statistics have no memory. And what if the goal missed was from the touch line, and the goals hit were from the centre?

*OK, maybe a bit of psychological effect.

I did a paper round on Saturday. CGF Sprog 2 was at a D of E training thing, and CGF had to go too for a couple of hours, so I offered to do it. The paper included a magazine and after the first couple of houses, I worked out that if I took the magazine out of the newspaper, it was easier to fold the paper to fit through the letterbox. See, all that university education did me some good.

UK streets are numbered with odds on one side and evens on the other so the postman (or newspaper delivery boys) can walk up one side to deliver numerically to the odds (or evens) first, and then back down the other to deliver reverse-numerically to the evens (or odds). This prevents having to backtrack when the numbers don't line up (e.g. because properties on opposite sides have different widths, or there are side-roads that get in the way).

Of course, this is all very well if you are a postman and delivering to most of the house in the street. A bit more of a nuisance if you are trying to find just one house. And it all goes a bit pear-shaped when there are squiggles and turns in the road, which may or may not continue the numbering. Or they rename the road and restart the numbering just for the sheer fun of it. There's a sign in a nearby village: "17 to 19 Winchester Street (Odds Only)". I'm still trying to work out what other odd numbers there are between 17 and 19. And what's happened to 1 to 15.

We went to an ewok concert (or a concert at which ewoks were playing, along with a couple of other ensembles). Obviously it wasn't really ewoks, but it's close enough to the real initials of the orchestra. It was a good concert; a pleasant selection of music, and enthusiastically played.

The venue was a church in Winchester. A typical Victorian C of E building from the outside. I imagine that once upon a time the interior had been fashioned in a contemporary style with wooden pews, wall plaques, and other paraphilia, an organ, maybe even a rood screen. That has all been ripped out and replaced with office-style chairs, projection screens and electric guitars. The place had all the ambience of a conference hall. There was something else that wasn't right, but it was half-way through the concert until I realised what it was. The interior has been turned round. The altar was at the west end, and the chancel has been turned into an open space - presumably for the Rite of Coffee. I could hear Pevenser spinning in his grave. They probably sing "Shine, Jesus Shine" too.

Later in the evening we watched Slumdog Millionaire - one of plethora of films that I've not seen. It was better and more enjoyable film than I'd expected. Probably why it won an Oscar.

Lots of floods in England currently. And lots of blame being levied. As Mr JM has already pointed out, the floods can't be attributed to one cause. Lack of dredging (river can't hold a much water as they should be able to); building on flood plains (flood water has nowhere to go); building in general (water runs off concrete and in to rivers more quickly than it would have soaked through the ground); flood defences (water gets to lower reaches of the river more quickly); more rain than usual.

In essence, floods are caused by too much water being in the same place at the same time. But the investigation has to look at all the causes, not just one or two.

Once, flood prevention would have been the responsibility of the government department. Now, it is the responsibility of the Environment Agency, which isn't a government department. So it's not the government's fault. So that's all right then.

Here's Bert.