Wales at the World Cup!

A lovely story in tomorrow's paper about a little lad from Bangor who has won a prize to be a mascot at one of the World Cup semi finals! Hard to imagine on current form that he will be clutching an Englishman's hand - but you never know, the Three Lions usually are slow starters on the grandest stage. I recall Italia 90 when one national - the Sun, I think - demanded "Bring Em Home" on the front page after a dismal start in the qualifying group. And on they went to the semifinal of "blubbing Gazza" folklore.
There is promising news over the plans to merge the Welsh police forces - looks like new Home Secretary John Reid has other matters on his mind but is eager to re-open negotations. A full merger now looks far less inevitable. We have a full report and comment piece in Tuesday's edition.
Tomorrow sees the meeting of the Daily Post "product development group" - a monthly meeting where we thrash out our ongoing plans for changes to the newspaper and strategies for sales, marketing and advertising. We will be looking at the latest draft of our plans for a weekly "food and drink" spread plus getting some thoughts together on a restaurant guide, a big summer "what to do with the kids" guide with special offers for readers and their families - plus lots more. I'll keep you posted.
Also, a nice lady from the BBC has phoned me. Radio Wales are doing a slot on blogs and have asked me to record an interview tomorrow. Very sporting of them considering all the rude things I said about Auntie in my last entry.
My favourite story of the moment is Geoffrey Robinson MP, the Labour MP for Coventry North West who has been using a private bore-hole to water the lavish gardens at his Surrey home.
Today he claimed to be "behaving with a great sense of civic responsibility" by not filling up his swimming pool from the same source.
As a young reporter on the Coventry Evening Telegraph many years ago I was sent to Mr Robinson's home chasing a story about how one of his dogs had had an altercation with a neighbour. I was stunned that the entrance of a Labour MP's home should have a notice pointing to the "tradesmen's entrance".
Personally I had a lot more time for his fellow Coventry Labour MP Dave Nellist. A devoted MP he knew EVERYTHING that was going on his constituency and worked like a dog to better the lives of the people he represented in Parliament.
Quiz time - can you guess which of these Coventry MPs went on to be Paymaster General, and which one got thrown out during Kinnock's Militant witch-hunt?