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Thank goodness we have the UK Government! In their latest attempt to spend the country out of recession, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) have produced a 26 page guide on how to look after our pets.

With 26 pages of advice on diet and providing somewhere suitable to go to the toilet, you could be forgiven that the Department for Stating the Blindingly Obvious (DeSBO) were also involved.

In all seriousness though, it is a shocking state of affairs when people need to be told about the responsibilities of looking after a pet. But while we are accusing the government of setting up a ‘Nanny State’, the 137,245 cases of animal cruelty recorded by the RSPCA in 2007 show that some people really do need to be told how to look after an animal.

We should really ask why DEFRA are getting in on this, as the code of practice will not hold any real weight, and owners could not be fined for not following the guidelines. DEFRA are really only pointing out pet owner’s responsibilities under the Animal Welfare Act 2006. Having been a dog owner for over 3 years, I was not even aware of such an act. However, surely promoting awareness of this act is the responsibility of organisations such as the RSPCA and the Police, not the UK Government.

I’m dismayed about the lack of reports about the problems with the iPhone 3G launch. Granted, it seems that any anti-apple or anti-iPhone stories are banned from most of the main media outlets, but there are fundamental problems with how Apple and O2 have handled the iPhone 3G launch.

I am an existing, very happy iPhone customer, having bought one on the afternoon the original was launched last November. It is truly a fantastic device (calling it a ‘phone’ does not really do justice to it, but it is not really a ’smartphone’ either - despite being branded as one). When the 3G model was announced, I put my name down for further information, but was not too impressed with the features - I was waiting to see what O2 would offer existing customers.

The truth is that all existing customers of O2 get is the ability to end their 18 month tie-in to start a new 18-month contract. The cost of the phone is the same for new and upgrading customers.

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What is it with Celebrities adopting children from Africa?

Now Madonna has jumped on the bandwagon. Are we supposed to celebrate her compassion by taking one child out of his environment and bringing him into her world, which is frankly so far removed from ours that she believed that Swept Away was a great script.

I’m not denying that she is doing it out of compassion for the child. Having visited a school in the Dominican Republic and meeting some of the children there, you get a real sense of how lucky you are. However, if Madonna really cared, she would take the money she would spend bringing up the child and donate it to the orphanage. She could use the money to improve the living conditions there, or even set up a school, or training college herself to help these children get a better life.

If she were a real philanthropist, she could cement her legacy in history by helping the wider community, as opposed to selfishly taking a single child out of a world where wealth is measured in grain, and into one where wealth is measured by how many magazines you can sell.

And what of the child?

Granted, he will get a life that many of us dream of - never having to struggle, driving lessons in a Ferrari, one-on-one tuition with the best music teachers money can buy… But what happens when he grows old enough to understand where he came from?

Will he look down on his former countrymen, thankful that he didn’t have to grow up in that hardship? Will he be proud of his heritage, or feel a traitor to his roots? Will he ever go back to the country of his birth?

Only time will tell, and his upbringing will have a lot to do with his attitudes.

I really hope for everyones sake that Madonna is adopting for the right reasons, but why Africa? I am sure that there are just as many Orphans in America or the UK (where she lives) that would benefit just as well from her charity.

Geldof looked to help Africa for the greater good of the country, he did not look to help individuals, and that is what makes him a greater person.

Douglas Adams’ character “Wonko The Sane” from the Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy does not seem so far-fetched after all.

In the book, Wonko builds the Asylum: an inside-out house where the brick is on the ‘inside’ and the wallpaper on the ‘outside’. He explains that the world has finally gone totally mad, so he has built the Asylum to put it in until it got better.

I have just attempted to buy a new mobile phone from the Orange shop. I was told that I needed to bring two forms of identification, for example a bill and a credit card. Thinking that it would make life easier, I picked up my Orange mobile phone bill from my existing phone. it has my account number, my phone number and my address on it.

Apparently, they don’t accept their own phone bill as proof of identity.

Apparenlty this is because I could print one off myself.

Apparently I could bring in any other bill, even though I can print that off for myself as well.

This is preposterous, as they would not be able to do any background check based on that bill because of the Data Protection Act. However, given my Orange bill, they have all my information, and I would be happy to answer any questions based on that account to them in order to prove who I am.

They did ask if I had my driving licence on me.

Of course I don’t! It’s not a legal requirement to carry your driving licence, and I don’t carry it because I don’t want to lose it.

Looking through my wallet, I was seeing how many ways I could prove my identity. I currently have:

• Debit Card
• Tesco Clubcard
• Sainsbury’s Nectar Card
• WHSmith Clubcard
• Boots Advantage Card
• Blood Donor Card
• Library Card
• RAC Membership Card
• Gym Membership Card
• Blockbuster Video Card
• Game Reward Card
• National Insurance Numbercard

Despite an alarming number of ‘loyalty’ cards, there is precious little that prove my identity - they all have my name on them, and to each individual company, I could prove who I was to them by answering a few questions.

I’m dead against the introduction of identity cards, but I wonder how much the government is paying Orange to make it increasingly awkward to prove your identity so that when they force Identity cards upon us it will seem like the solution to the problem.

However, it is still daft that a company like Orange will happily accept a bill from another company, but not one of their own as proof of my address.

As blogs gain promenance, spammers find an easy way to reach a wider audience: posting spam comments.

Just a note to anyone trying to spam this blog:

It’s powered by wordpress, meaning that I have to approve each comment before it’s seen. therefore I am unlikely to approve any comment offering viagra, porn, or anything else!

(I know that most spammers don’t actually read this blog and the comments are added by a spider, but I’m just getting a bit fed up of these spammers…)