You know I'd love you better.

I'm off to Bavaria, land of pork and yoghurt. I intend to sleep in and eat. I also hope to see a marmot this time. I went up an Alp last time I was there, but no marmots showed themselves, the sneaky inconsiderate little devils. Marmots are great. Not quite as cute as wombats, but I can't afford to go to Australia, so they'll have to do.

Tony Blair says

It is particularly barbaric this has happened on a day when people are meeting to try to help the problems of poverty in Africa

the implication of which is that, if he hadn't been at such a terribly important meeting today, if the bombs had exploded, say, last Wednesday, it wouldn't have been quite as barbaric. Fuck you, Mr Blair. Really.

And if the prospect of days of earnestly interminable self-important pish like that doesn't make this a good time to get out of the country and switch off the news for a week, what would?

There may be the occasional bit of blogging via my phone, and I promise I'll bring back a photo of a marmot if I manage to see one. In the meantime, I leave you in the capable hands of Johan, our clever new Swiss-Swedish-Australian cattle-farming opinionator. Be nice to him, please.

Cheers.