It was a shame to hear this morning that Oliver Postgate, writer and narrator of many children's TV series, has died.

Like so many I was intrigued by his whimsical tales, charmed by by the primitive animation and mesmerised by his style and voice, of which this link will give a taste:

http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk/tv/children/noggin/noggin.htm

A kindly man, it seems, who created my favourite villain, Nogbad the Bad.

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What's this I hear about 'The EU's first naval task force' and 'The EU takes over policing in Kososvo'? Constitution or no constitution, we edge nearer and nearer to the Europhile Promised Land.

I also hear that the Irish are going to be dragooned into a second referendum on the constitution. Defying all logic - approriately - the proposed document will be presented as altered enough to justify a second vote in Ireland, but not enough to necesssitate re-ratification in other states.

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Meanwhile our own Nogbads are busy. The government has used the whips to lob the Speaker's committee of wise men into the long grass, using the sanctimonious excuse that if it meets now it risks prejudicing the police enquiry into leaks. Drop the enquiry, I say. It's pitifully unimportant compared to the assault on Parliamentary sovereignty.

And shame on Gordon Brown for turning this into a party issue and interfering in a strictly internal Parliamentary matter.