Nuts. Loopy. Mental.

We need an icon for non-hockey posts.

Anyway, is it me or has the world gone *completely* mad?

The thought struck me as I was driving along the A6 that, no matter what I do, I'll never understand this world we live in.

For example, the Hutton inquiry. Several people from the BBC were forced to resign over allegations that were - eventually - proved to be true.

Or Metrolink. The Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling, stands up in the House of Commons and says that Britain is heading towards gridlock. There are simply far too many cars on the roads and in 10-15 years time, we're going to be in trouble and building roads isn't the answer. And what does he do? Cancel the "Big Bang" Metrolink extension which would have made a huge difference to public transport in Manchester. The Gvt has spent 200 million on it already, and the job could have been finished for a further 600million.

Lets put those numbers in perspective. Lloyds TSB has announced profits of £1.5 billion for the last six months. The Metrolink extension would have been cheaper than the new Wembley Stadium. Yet on the one hand crying "gridlock", the Gvt says "too expensive"... and approves 10bn for Londons Crossrail - a project to support the Olympic bid that noone wants and has gone through three chairmen in 12 months. Oh, and thats less than the West Coast Mainline Upgrade that the Gvt refused to fund.

And yesterday, Mark Palios, Chief Executive of the FA, resigned over an affair with one of his staff. The papers call it an affair, the radio calls it an affair...

Except it wasn't.

You see, an "affair" is a relationship where one or both of the participants is married. Palios is divorced. Faria Alam is single. And Sven-Goran Eriksson is unmarried. So what "crime" has been committed? Last time I checked, a failure to keep your flies up in the vicinity of the office bike wasn't a sackable offence. Yet somehow we end up with a vacancy for the most powerful administrator in British sport and the possibility of losing a third England manager for non-footballing reasons out of the last four.

Maybe its just me. I can't see what Palios has done wrong, apart from a rather human lack of judgement. Within reason, it doesn't matter who he is sleeping with. After all, look at Bill Clinton. He made the world a better place, yet will be remembered for dipping his wick with Lewinsky. Whereas the guy in charge is an avowed family man, non-drinker (allegedly), non-smoker Christian Fundamentalist.

Oh, by the way, Christian Fundamentalists believe the Bible to be literal truth, starting with Adam and Eve and all the way up to that wacky fire and brimstone ending in Revelations. Remember Dubya has the finger on the Nuclear Button and try to sleep tight.

And finally, I gigged last night. I've been a bit down about comedy recently, stuck in a rut. I had a bad day, well bad couple of weeks actually. But I'd promised to do the Gong Show at the Comedy Store and didn't want to let the organisers down. Instead of my usual style, which is (a little too) quiet and laidback - once described as "laconic" - I thought "sod it" and was really aggressive, abused the audience, shouted down hecklers and... came second out of 20.

Go figure.