Ice: had a dodgy ride to work today. locking up the bike I noticed it feeling slimey. The hadnlebars and tubes were slippery feeling as if oily. Looking closer, I noticed crystals and realised it was ice. The bike’s metal parts were covered in slighthly crumbly ice and so was I . I had ice on my arms and reflective straps. At this point in time a 6th former feel on the tarmac I’d just ridden over. She was uninjured though. It’s appalling to think aout the conditions and by oblivious journey. If I’d known – then the journey would definitely have been made in the car.

Further to yesterday’s comments on the Cartoons row. I was going to put the heading "what’s wrong with Blasphemy" but I already said that yesterday. It’s interesting that it comes at a time that the UK government is chainging the law on "inciting releigous hatred".

I wonder if religous leaders could be charged with this new law if they were prompting terrorist acts in protest about some cartoons.

The BBC seems to have handled it calmly and very conservatively. A good analogy was drawn today with schoolkids. With badly behaved pupils, teachers are usually reluctant to provoke them, there’s no point setting them up to have a temper tantrum. Likewise…

I’m still struggling to find a reason why blasphemy could be a bad thing. It’s something to do with the nature of religion. Relgious leaders are power brokers, they are a kind of half hidden government. It seems that they use the language of spirituality to feed  their followers. Maybe religous beliefs are as fragile as I suggested yesterday. more thinks later…