Blogger was down for most of yesterday and what with that and Friday's tragedy there's a long list of things I've been wanting to mention...although most are now a few days old.

Let's start from last night and work backwards....and Saturday evening was spent in the very agreeable company of the Associated Press's Jamie Tarabay (briefly in London after leaving Baghdad), the BBC's former Gaza and Kabul and soon to be Bangkok correspondent Kylie Morris and Jerusalem bureau producer Keren Pakes.

Picture: Kylie, Jamie, Keren
Picture: With Keren

Needless to say that as well as events in Iraq there was much discussion of Abu Mazen's resignation. The power struggle between him and Yasser Arafat has highlighted Palestinian disunity and killed off any lingering hope of progress on the roadmap to peace. Following the failed assassination attempt on Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and the promised reprisals from Hamas, the only certainty now is that there'll be more bloodshed soon in the Middle East.

Earlier in the day I put the new leg through its paces at a Body Blast class at the gym (on hearing of this Aileen, ever the wit, suggested that my body has taken enough blasts for a while.) I'm pleased to report that it performed extremely well. Lunges are a little tricky because obviously I can't bend the prosthetic ankle but aside from that it works a treat -- very sturdy and responsive.

Friday afternoon and evening, of course, were taken up with giving reaction to Ian Rimmel's horrific murder.

MP3: Extract from Radio 4 1800 News Bulletin (149Kb)

There was some good news, though. Alex Lemon has made it into The Friday thing for a second successive week -- and has received an grovelling apology for the lack of a credit last week. Her article on the new Mel Gibson film "The Passion" is reprinted below:

Article: Christ on a Bike (.doc)
Article: Christ on a Bike (.txt)