I don’t really know who Didier Drogba is

Well hello Wednesday. Actually I’m not keen on Wednesdays. Wednesday is an age away from the coming weekend and yet the previous weekend is only a dim speck in the rear-view mirror. Thursdays are altogether much more agreeable to me. I suppose on Wednesdays I could try and look forward to Thursday. That might help. I really don’t like Sundays much either. Sundays are a potentially great day, ruined by the fact that they are invariably followed by Mondays.

Whatever, the sun is shining and I didn’t even bring a sweater to work today.

The Olympic torch is apparently going past my house today. I’m watching the BBC live torch cam as I type this. They haven’t reached my street yet. I think Didier Drogba is going to be running with it, but I’m not sure if he’ll go past the house. I did think about taking the day off to see it, but frankly, I’m really not that interested. The boy is allowed to go out of school to see it though. Actually, I don’t really know who Didier Drogba is.

It has been reported today that Abu Hamza al Masri the terrorist has asked prison guards to address him as Mustafa Kamal Mustafa (his birth name) from now on in an apparent attempt to distance himself from his past activities. The name Abu Hamza was a name he gave himself apparently. It’s almost as if he invented a character and got tired of it. It’s easy to change a name I suppose, but much more difficult to change history. Abu Haza will always be known as the one-eyed nutter with a hook hand who turned the Finsbury Park Mosque into a terrorist meeting point.

Right, lets talk about lap dancing. There has been a bit of an explosion of lap dancing clubs throughout the UK in the last 10 years or so. Every town has one. I think I have visited such clubs three times in my life and I find them slightly seedy. I have never paid for a private dance, even while incapacitated through drink. I have to be honest however, I do remember having a dance bought for me on one occasion. I don’t remember why, but I was single at the time. I tell you this because I’m about to become opinionated and I don’t want it to sound like I’m talking out of my arse. I actually don’t mind these places. I don’t think they exploit women because no one forces them into it. I don’t think they’re anti-social, because it all happens behind closed doors. But mostly, and I speak as someone who lives just a few minutes walk from a “gentlemen’s club”, they never seem to have any trouble with fighting or violence. I suspect this is due to the fact that they charge on the door and it keeps out the riff-raff. Also ,I think most red-blooded men tend to become passive when boobs are rubbed in their faces.

Not everyone sees it like me however. Public opinion is apparently divided very evenly between the pro and con camps. In Newquay, Cornwall, which essentially makes a living out of tourism, the local police chief has claimed that the town’s clubs have contributed to 14 rapes and 34 sexual assaults in the previous two years. He’s apparently based his conclusion on the fact that some these crimes happened relatively close to clubs. Indeed records appear to show that 69 reported sex crimes occurred within a mile of a club, 15 of which were indecent exposure. It’s unclear however how the chap actually arrives at his figure. It does sound suspiciously like he’s trying to make figures fit his philosophy.