People were looking at my a bit oddly yesterday. I was stood with the other parents waiting for our kids to emerge from school. No one said anything, they just did a double take. My 8 year old was not so kind. "What's that on your nose?" were his first words to me. I'd spent the morning painting a ceiling, so I guessed it was a bit of paint and made light of it.

But it wasn't paint, it was tomato soup. I'd drunk a mug of it just before I left, and somehow left a great long streak of orange all up my nose. Is this the onset of old age? Have I now got to check myself for unfortunate food stainings every time I go out? Probably. It's all downhill from here then. And I was thinking, from now on I don't want anyone else to die. (Soup to death... how did that happen?) Anyway. I was listening to James Taylor, who I love, and I thought, he's older than me, one day it'll be on the radio that he's gone and I'll be so upset. So, no, I don't want a single person on the whole planet to die before I do. After I'm gone, do what you like, I don't give a monkey's.

So... no more dead. Not even people I don't like. Not even, say, Tony Blair, who I consider a complete plonker. Pity he hasn't got the same attitude as me, huh?

The thing about Tony of course, is that he's only a weeny bit older than me. I'd prefer it if people making those tough decisions to be way, way older, then you can fool yourself into thinking they know what they're doing. They will have passed through the clumsy phase I'm now entering, and emerged all dignified... they will have slowed themselves up a bit, and gained gravitas.

People my age, like Tony, well I know what he'll be like... he'll make mistakes, he may even turn up at a press conference with an orange streak down his nose... you mark my soup. Words. Sorry.