Close on ten million people watched the Dr Who season finale on Saturday. Paul Groves was one of the lucky ones. He was at Lichfield Cathedral watching the wonderful Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.

But Grovesy, like me, thought the Time Lord stuff was a huge disappointment.

The Lichfield Festival sure isn't. The Ukes are the stars of the whole thing as far as I'm concerned (we couldn't get tickets!). Can I just point you towards the Garrick Theatre this Thursday when a little known Indian silent film from 1928 is being screened.

A weekend of beef and Buddhism - the contrast could hardly be wider!

At the Royal Show at Stoneleigh we caught the judging for the Burke Trophy, the country's top beef prize for a male/female pair from a breed. Interesting for the kids and townies like me to see a whole range of cattle on display, from Herefords to British Blues, Limousins to Charolais and more, with an excellent and informative commentary.

You've probably seen the adverts for Britain's Missing Top Model and if you haven't seen the first episode, check it out on the IPlayer. It's of course a rip off of America's Next Top Model but with the BBC twist- being politically correct to the point of craziness. The show is very similar in the way that girls battle it out each week in challenges to do with posing or interviews and then have a photo shoot with a set (usually warped) theme. At the end of the week there is a judging with some apparently important people in the fashion world and one potential model is eliminated, continuing until the last girl emerges as the winner.

We already have Britain's NTM on LivingTV, so the BBC have come up with the enlightening prospect of having eight girls with disabilities compete, hence the 'missing' model, a pun on some of the girls with missing limbs.

The show is a great platform to raise awareness for people with disabilities and as one girl put it, "I want to show people that wow, you can be disabled and pretty!" This same girl started crying at dinner, asking 'Why did this happen to us?' concerning their disabilities and another comforted her by saying, 'We all think that,' until one put plainly, 'I don't. I don't give a f*****g s**t.'

'I don't know if the public are ready for disabled models' seems to be a theme throughout the show. And there's a constant doubt whether they could ever achieve magazine covers like the model above or her success on major runways... Oh wait, the model above is Brenda Costa and she's been deaf her whole life. The Brazilian beauty is a face of Loreal and is now pregnant with her first child. Did she have any problems breaking into and being successful in the industry? Doesn't seem like it! Funny how there's two deaf girls in the competition. Also in Cycle 3 of America's Next Top Model a partially blind girl sailed to the top three.

It annoyed me throughout they show that it seemed such an original opportunity and that the world needs to be shown that girls with disabilities are beautiful too- don't they realise they're already in the media?! Even people who are in the fashion industry question whether they can 'make it' as a model because the business is so tough. Argh! One of the judges asks 'Do you think having a deaf model would make a difference to the industry?" Funny that there already is a deaf super model and you didn't even notice!

A judge comes out with 'I think it's really important that the disability is obvious in some way. I don't think there is any point in having a disabled model that no one knows is disabled.' Frankly that's quite shocking. Are they not entitled to a career as a model, plain and simple? Do you have to be a 'model with a disability' rather than a 'model' forever?

The thing is, the fashion industry is always looking for controversy, something different, something headline-seeking. If a model will sell clothes, then she will sell clothes, shes hired. Who's to say that if a girl in a wheelchair went to a casting with an exquisite face and and another girl just strolled in with an exquisite face, she would have the upper hand? I know face models, I know hand models. I've seen fashion shows for wheelchair users.

If Lily Cole had her arm missing would she be as successful? I guess these are the questions the programme raises. Would we look at this picture in a magazine and want to buy a product? This month sees an all black model issue of Vogue Italia. Could there be a time when there will be an all persons with disabilities issue?

Hottest day of the year ... two sports days, one for each grandchild, handily one am, one pm, both ordeals to a grandfather with a sun allergy barely dealt with by a giant straw hat and a flagon of Factor 50 - and (no, don't laugh) a clutch of Christmas communications through the post and via email.

I laughed heartily at the Health and Safety aspects of the infant schools sports, where 'javelin throwing' turned out to be launching a giant dart made of sponge into the wind to see how far it would go - it was simply too light to actually 'throw'. They'd have been better off hurling a cricket ball, but that was probably far too dangerous.

The huge performance project down at Goodrich Castle at Ross-on-Wye which I wrote about back in May and which can be seen at http://blogs.birminghampost.net/lifestyle/2008/05/forbidden-fruitful.html
has been proceeding apace with director Helen Parlor (above) and her team getting ready for the big day in a couple of weeks. Here's a picture blog of rehearsals, workshops etc

Since the age of about 18, when I found an old copy under my then boyfriends bed, I have been an ardent reader of Viz comic. Yes, it has been viewed as sexist and politically incorrect, but the humour is dry and satirical, something which you rarely find anywhere else these days, and something that I crave once every now and then. Having been in China for well over a year, I have felt a massive void when it comes to humour. And so, with a pleading email to my father every few months, he nips down to the local newsagents and hastily posts me a copy of the latest Viz. Good old Dad. Why is his 25-year-old daughter more interested in reading an adolescent boy's comic and not Heat magazine, he must wonder.

However, inbetween Viz comics I have found a satisfying relacement. The English language Chinese newspaper. The 'fillers' are my favourite. The fact that these are true stories that the Editor has selected out of all the happenings in China, I find delightfully amusing. It puts me in mind of the 'Letterbocks' pages from Viz, where readers write in with their own ridiculous tales.
Yesterday's paper entertained me with such newsworthy stories as the following, "a yellow-billed grosbeak slammed into a shop window and died in Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi province.
A second bird settled on the ground near the dead animal, appearing to keep vigil.
A woman passing by surnamed Liu tried to explain to the lingering live bird - which of course did not understand her flurry of excited hand signals - that she would give the dead grosbeak a proper buriel."
- Shanxi Evening News

How that didnt make front page, I will never know.
I like to imagine that lady frantically doing sign language to a bird, trying to tell it that she will give it's mate a plush funeral. And in my imagination, the bird is looking back at her with one of those "she's mental" expressions on it's little furry face.

Another one of my favourites from the same issue, is...
"A woman in Hankou, Hubei province, did not see her husband when she woke up on Tuesday morning. He did not answer her calls all day.
Worried that he might have been kidnapped, she alerted police that he was missing.
Later, officers found the man camping out on the roof of their home.He said he was hiding from a gang of criminals who had recently threatened him at the small grocery store he owns.
Both police and his wife wondered why the man, 42-year-old Huang Liang, had not informed his spouse."
- Chutian Metropolis Daily

Fabulous. Have I been away too long, or are these the kinds of newsworthy stories we find in western papers too? Perhaps it's the way that the stories are worded that amuses me.. Or perhaps i've just been eating too much street BBQ food this week.

The city council have said that whatever the result of English Heritage's attempt to get The Central Library listed, they still intend to knock it down. It's nice to have city planners with vision, but it's important to disagree when we think they're wrong. I do here.

This post is a slightly re-worked version of this one from Birmingham: It's Not Shit, as much as I don't like crossposting I think Josh in the comments there makes an important point about The Birmingham Post being where this debate is taking place. Sorry for the very rough 'artist's impression'.

Quite a few people have raised objections, which the council have decided not listen to, but so far I don't think anyone has voiced an opinion on what should be done instead.

One of the main arguments against keeping the library is that the whole 'paradise' development cuts one side of the city centre off from the other. People do see the divide as an effort to cross, the council is always keen to have events and focus in Centenary Square and these can be sparsely attended on occasion. It's a valid point, but knocking down the library and placing another building in its place (very probably one the public will have no occasion to use) won't solve that.

The council want to be able to see the Town Hall, they think the library cramps it -- but the beauty of the library is similarly cramped by truly horrible buildings.

So, lets open it up -- and knock every bit of Paradise Circus apart from the library down.

From an outside-of-a-relationship perspective, I have always advised my friends never to change for a man. Be who you are. And if he doesn't appreciate you as you are, then get rid and move onto the next. Being the supportive best friend, and the much hated girlfriend's best friend, has been a role that I feel I have excelled in. It's so much easier to be objective when you are not involved in a relationship yourself.
However, when you are the one involved in a relationship, the objective way of thinking becomes somewhat hazy, and you'll find that no matter how much your best friend demonises your boyfriend for making you want to listen to a different kind of music, this is just something that you find you want to do. It's about keeping your lover interested, finding a common ground, and adapting to maintain attraction.

When the relationship ends, perhaps you will find that it has changed you. Maybe you continue to listen to that new music and do those new things. The relationship has broadened your mind, and taught you something new. You live and you learn. The biggest lesson of all usually being, don't date someone like that again.

If Beijing were a person, like you and I, I would say that Beijing has been looking for some love interest for quite a while now. Beijing's not unattractive, in fact rather beautiful. It has a reputation, sure, but name one place or someone that doesn't...

After a long time 'developing' and doing it's own thing, Beijing now finds that it will finally be in for some romance this Summer. Summer lovin', if you please. In fact, this Summer will be like Beijing appearing on Chris Tarrant's Man-O-Man, as the only bear-chested contestant in front of an audience of over-sexed middle-aged women. The world's eyes, and not just those belonging to females, will be trained on Beijing for a whole four weeks while it hosts the 2008 Olympic Games.
In preparation for it's 'close-up', Beijing has already begun to change it's appearance. Obviously it wants to look it's best for this date.
So, it's cutting down on it's smoking habit. No more smoking in restaurants and taxi's, for this city, which is an achievement in itself. It has also noticed that it's a bit smelly, and err toxic, so it has cut down traffic pollution by alternating the days for which people can use their vehicles. And to show that it is the caring and environmentally aware type, it has placed charges on plastic carrier bags, in the hope that people will use less, and recycle more.
Commited, check. Hygenic, check. Caring of mother Earth, check.
Add a little bit of 'wow' factor by throwing in a few impressively big and odd-shaped buildings, and bingo. It's innovative and good-looking. Beijing could be the perfect man-o-man.

Now whereas I have always (hypocritically) advised my friends to never change for a man, a man changing for a woman seems...ok. I'm no Germaine Greer, but I do think that if there's something annoying about your man you could try your luck and ask him to quit it. I'm not talking about drastic things, like encouraging your lover to have liposuction or abandon his family... Really! But perhaps a well-timed hint that the moustache that he's trying, and failing terribly, to grow, makes him look like a reject from the village people. Or that when he chews his food with his mouth open it you feel an uncontrollable urge to spear him with your fork/chopstick. Not that I condone violence in a relationship. Or any place, for that matter.

Of course if changes are made, you need to know that they're going to be taken seriously. If I promise to not sing in the mornings, then he must promise to never expose his feet until they have been thoroughly bathed in dettol. And we should accept these little 'nit-picks' as friendly advice from a loved one that they are incredibly annoying and unattractive. We should be thankful that they have pointed out these things, because it means that by stopping you from doing this they have improved you as a person.

What makes Beijing the equivalent of the perfect man, is that it has made a commitment to stop all of these unattractive things, and prove to the world that it is wonderfully caring, hygenic, modern, multicultural and innovative, and not the slob that people have always assumed.

Ergo I find that I like my cities like I like my men. Willing to change and ambitious. Not to mention, big and rich.

I don't take this blogging thing too seriously - that's part of its attraction, unlike the 24/7 sweat of the last staff job I had, which was great, but extremely hard graft and which left the life-work balance tipping very much one way ... which translates as your work becomes your life (and then you die ... prematurely).

But serious or not, I must own up to waiting to see what my old friend/colleague Grovesy - aka Paul Groves, aka Shouty Villager (?), aka a certain model maker (?) - has to say about Dr Who developments. I trust his instincts, even if he has an unhealthy obsession with The Apprentice - we all have weak spots - and he is a serious cyclist, which has got to be weighed in his favour against the Sugar rush.

I am really grateful to replacement Turkish goalkeeper Rustu. No, you're not in the wrong section - sport is still that green-labelled bit where they talk about Bob Dylan lyrics (good collection of them in today's Guardian by the way).

I am as interested in goalkeepers as I am in typewriters, both slight obsessions. Last night against Croatia in some big tournament which we aren't playing in, the idiot 35-year-old ran out for a suicide tackle, leaving his goal empty and Croatia scored with less than a minute of extra time to play.

Amazingly, the keeper then made a huge clearance into the Croatian penalty area from which Turkey equalised with the last kick of the game.