To be honest I'm not quite sure where to start when writing about the last few days.

First of all I was despatched to Nottingham with work on Tuesday for 3 days.

It was a strange experience being away with work again and I spent much of it people watching (when I wasn't working, we were all worked like dogs!) and concluded once again how unhappy people are. Most of those at a city centre hotel in January are business folks. And you just had to look at them to see how unfulfilled most of them were, even if only in the short term. So many of them looked lonely and over worked, and I include myself amongst them.

There is nothing wrong with being by yourself but there is a difference between when you chose to do so and when it is forced upon you. That is the difference between solitude and loneliness.

And now I start to understand the pressures that so many relationships are put under in such circumstances and its really quite sad, and I mean that genuinely.

So then there was the journey home through some of the worst storms the UK has seen in quite some time. The train system was in chaos and I was forced to travel by a very convaluted route that took 21 hours! (Although that did include kipping at my parents house for a night). Two things to point out about this.

Firstly I simply cannot praise the staff of Central trains, Midland Mainline and First Capital Connect enough. They simply bent over backwards to help me and many others in very difficult circumstances. At the end of the day if trees have fallen on the line then trees have fallen on the line, there is nothing they can do to help that and some very bad tempered passengers would do well to bare that in mind.

Which is my second point, in the circumstances I realised what I had got out of being a scout as a kid. It was hard slog getting home, at times frustrating and tireing but at the end of the day you have to do the job that is put in front of you. It's no good wingeing and moaning about things, you just have to get on with overcoming them. If you want to overcome them AND winge then be my guest. But to simply bitch and moan? What's the point? And that is what I realised that I got from scouting as a kid, just getting on with it.

And so to Big Brother.........

The papers and TV news have been full of comments about the apparent racist abuse hurled by Jade Goody at Shilpa.

Well here is my view on it.

The vitriol hurled by Jade at Shilpa was vile, vindictive and she should be utterly ashamed of herself. For her and others to gang up on someone like that is appauling and indefensible.

However, it was not, in my opinion, racist.

If it had been the case that Jade had picked on Shipla because she was Asian then it would have been, even if no racist terms were actually used. What happened however was that an extremely stupid and ignorant individual was involved in a personality clash with someone who is clearly cultured and educated. This caused a row and racist terms were used simply because the different skin colour, nationality and accents between them were the most obvious features in which they differed.

Yes typically racist comments were used but that does not in itself make it a racist attack.

Ok so this is only a game show and maybe there are many more important things to worry about but think of it this way. This is an issue that has received massive publicity and that is worrying. If non racist issues are classed as racist and large numbers of people can see that then it undermines those that are trying to tackle genuine racism.

Secondly the pig ignorance of Ms Goody is a frightening indication if just how badly educated some people are, in a supposedly wealthy civilised country, surely we can turn out people from school of a higher level of intelligence than this?