It's Lisa's birthday! I can't tell you how old she is for legal reasons, but suffice it to say she's got another year before her life really begins. She needs to make the most of it - by next August we could have two children.

But Lisa aside, I went to a Chinese Festival yesterday afternoon in the Pavilion Gardens. Obviously it would be wrong to judge an entire day's entertainment on the basis of the ten minutes I spent there, but frankly it was rubbish. Just because the Olympics were fine, doesn't mean that all Chinese people can put on a good show. Or maybe they can, because frankly most of the people running this thing seemed to be English. It basically consisted of a few stalls manned by pasty-faced white people offering to teach your children paper-folding. The place was crying out for a flawless nine-year-old girl miming to a backing track.

There were some Chinese people there though. Here's one doing a fan dance...


Frankly an umbrella dance would have been more appropriate. I wonder if the old woman knows there's a serial killer creeping up behind her? And why is that man taking my photo?

Anyhoo, I did experience one decent bit of Chinese culture yesterday. My brother dropped in and we had chicken chow mein. I actually haven't seen him since January (Essex is further than you think, and he came up with a convenient excuse last time), but he's finally brought his family down to the south coast for a couple of days to do a flat inspection and rent review. They're staying overnight at a Premier Inn, and are meant to be back here by 10:30 this morning. Needless to say they haven't arrived. Either they're buying Lisa a birthday card, or they're busy hiding from Lenny Henry.