I might not have written much over the past week, but fortunately I know someone who has. Whilst the the ancient art of letter-writing remains lost to most people outside of Clarence House and Her Majesty's Prison Service, my 80-year-old mother-in-law is still flying the flag for people who aren't on Twitter and think e-mail is the first son of Abraham. So having watched a recent television news report about the effect of the warm weather on energy companies' profits, she felt moved to put pen to paper in the hope of expressing her heartfelt views as a consumer in a letter to British Gas...

Obviously, since Royal Mail put up the price of stamps, she's unlikely to be able to post it, but the sentiments remain valid all the same. I particularly like the bit about a donkey kicking the woman's brains in. I presume she means she's got her head up her own ass. Admittedly, I got a bit confused when my mother-in-law started talking about her daughter's three sons, but having put it down to either senile dementia or compulsive lying, I realised she was talking about Lisa's sister.

Anyhoo, I'm right behind her. Since lottery tickets doubled in price, I'm struggling to pay all our bills, so I'm certainly not going to shed a tear for British Gas. If it's getting warmer, they'll make more from air conditioning. I did feel a slight twinge of pity when I thought my mother-in-law was accusing them of having to keep warm in Morrisons, but I think that was more of a handwriting issue than a supermarket one.

Anyhoo, we'll see what response she gets from the fat cats of British Gas and their back-scratching mates in government. I'm quite looking forward to it. They'll probably cut her off.

All of that aside, I have actually done some writing in the past week. I've been working afternoons at the hospital since Thursday, but my mornings have been spent making this...

As the title suggests, it's my follow-up to this effort from last year. Stefan did the pictures and I did the words. The conference isn't for another seven weeks though, so I've made that image un-enlargeable to foil any attempts at industrial espionage. I don't want anyone stealing my spelling mistakes.

Admittedly, at more than 1500 words, it's not the snappiest of posters, but personally I just see that as increasing its potential market. It can be displayed anywhere that desperate people have time on their hands: waiting rooms, night-bus shelters, Guantanamo Bay. The possibilities are endless.

Anyhoo, it's good to make a splash...


And I have to grab the limelight away from my kids somehow.