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So I feel like it’s the done thing these days to say something topical about Gaza. Particularly as my mother is, by all accounts, violently (justifiably) distraught about the whole thing,  and my heavily pregnant sister-in-law felt it important enough to shift her bulk over to Hull to take my two year old niece to her first protest march.

But I think the best I can do is to point you in the direction of Mona El-Farra, Laila El-Haddad, and the myriad local(ish) bloggers being show-cased on Global Voices Online, who tell the Palestinian story more eloquently than I ever could.

I suppose there’s Israeli points of view out there too, but frankly they’ll be misleading, or at best unbelievably misinformed. New York’s Israeli Consulate has set up a couple of Twitter accounts in some perverted attempt to pervade their shit throughout the realms of young, down-with-it, online types. I’m sure it’d be highly interesting to get some Palestinian Consulate types on there as well but they’ve probably got better things to do with their time, what with their women-folk and children being massacred in the streets, n’all.

We bit the bullet. We piled in the car and went to Northampton for our long awaited meal with Lisa and Vaughan. I have to admit to being slightly dubious about the culinary talents of a German-vegetarian pairing. But I was pleasantly surprised. We got tzatziki in abundance, greek style salady stuff, roasted vegetably stuff, and peppers full of cheese. I like cheese. We also got loaded down with kuhflecken. Mmmmm.

And Tom and ^Tom_ were there to join in festivities. We got a tub of farty putty and a pooing cow from Tom, not to mention my sweaty t-shirt via Lisa. All in all it were a bit of a laugh.

Tom’s hippy commune was a bit scary though, replete as it was with twitchy, clompy housemates and god knows how many evil pathogens lurking in corners. But we survived. And that which doesn’t completely shut down my immune system can only make it stronger, after all.

Best bits included watching Lisa attempt to express herself through the medium of rhythm action games, and learning of the existence of these little things. How outrageously clever!

Sadly, we didn’t get to visit the elevator museum, which turns out not to be a museum at all. Just a very tall tower. Ah well.

[Edited to placate pernickety bastards.]