On his way to the G8 summit in Japan, where the world food crisis is to be discussed, Gordon Brown is reported to have urged people not to waste food, and it seems he has come up with a quite revolutionary suggestion.

Prolong the life of your fruit and vegetables by keeping them in your refrigerator! Damn, I wish I’d thought of that.

I do hope that Gordon wasn’t guilty of wasting any food himself at the summit. Munching through a 6-course lunch, followed by an 8-course dinner comprising 18 different dishes, swilled down with five different wines must have taken considerable determination.

Hello! Is there anybody out there?

Alex Wotherspoon had a mantra that he chanted frequently to justify his various shortcomings: “I’m only 24.”

Well, yesterday, demonstrating magical driving skill in miserable, dangerous, almost impossible conditions, Lewis Hamilton steered his machine calmly around 60 laps of Silverstone to finish more than a minute ahead of his nearest challenger - and that after a week of criticism and derision by the press that would have demoralised and shaken the confidence of a lesser man.

In his second season in Formula One he has so far pocketed both Monaco and his home Grand Prix. And he’s only 23.

When we bought our house 13 years ago, the garden comprised of neat grass, three vines growing up the house, a large walnut tree and a very old plum tree.

Now it has numerous bushes, trees, herbs, roses, plants in pots, patios, veggie patch, gravel, and pond. Also bindweed, thistles, nettles, brambles, dock, mullein, greenfly, blackfly, wilt, rust, scab, an army of baby rhus and uncontrollable bamboo and forsythia.

The previous owner could spend long summer afternoons sitting quietly, listening to the birds, soaking up the sun. We spend them weeding, trimming, mowing, tugging, watering, clipping, pruning, spraying, wheelbarrowing.

Amongst our gardening tools and associated paraphernalia are mower, strimmer, branch loppers,shears,secateurs, stakes, netting, sprays, slug bait, fertilizer, ladders, wheelbarrows.

The previous owner’s gardening equipment: 5 sheep.

If I could turn back the clock, that’s what I’d have too.

Ingrid Betancourt, hostage of FARC for six years, and fourteen other captives have been released in what sounds, from the little information available so far, like a superbly designed rescue by Colombian forces.

I can feel a film coming on ………………….. Can’t wait.

The daughter and her friends arrived on a perfect sunny day, with the temperature floating around in the mid-20’s, and for only the second time this year, it was warm enough to dine on the patio. During their 9-day stay we ate out in the garden every evening (despite the mosquitoes), and only experienced one rainy episode - albeit a violent one - lasting for about half an hour and turning the roads into temporary waterways and our bathroom and hall into an ankle-deep paddling pool, courtesy of the bathroom Velux.

By the time we sadly delivered them back to Poitiers airport yesterday, a hot morning had developed into an unpleasantly humid afternoon, and the mercury in town indicated a blistering 39° C.  During the night a son et lumière in the guise of a cracking thunderstorm brought welcome relief, except for our Viszla, Tally, who doesn’t do thunder claps at all, and clambered into our bed and tried to hide beneath my pillow.

Considering just how unpredictable and unseasonal the weather has been so far this year, our guests got their timing absolutely right. Today is much cooler, and it’s just beginning to drizzle, so we certainly will not be dining al fresco.

Of all the many things at which I’m utterly useless, I think housework tops the list. I absolutely hate it, more even than I hate undercooked egg, and just as I never touch an egg unless the white is solid, so I never touch housework unless a gun is held to my head.

Consequently, when we are expecting visitors, I plunge into a panicky state, up to my ears in animal hair, tools, fluff, cobwebs, weeds, jumbled drawers, crumpled bed linen, heaps of unironed clothing, and every kind of mess imaginable. I run around like a blindfolded chicken, wringing my hands and moaning softly, wondering how on earth to get it under control.

That’s what I’ve been doing all last week, and all of this week so far, with little to show for it. The garden which almost looked manicured 10 days ago has reverted to its usual jungular state; there’s a fine layer of sawdust over most of the house where TOH has been finishing off a number of small building projects started, and abandoned before completion, some years ago.

The reason for this flurry of unusual activity is that the wonderful daughter arrives on Sunday, with a couple of her friends, to stay for a week. We see far too little of her, so this is a momentous occasion which we are ecstatic about. Everything has to be perfect. It won’t, of course. I’m realist enough, and experienced enough to accept that - but it certainly won’t be from want of trying on our part.

Did Sralan get it right? I think he did. When it came to choosing between Claire and Lee, I suspect his heart over-ruled his head. Beneath that grumpy old carapace I believe there lies a big old marshmallow heart. Claire was the better man, but she will always land on her feet; for Lee, though, this was his one big chance. I thought he looked rather like a slightly crazy bird of prey, with his piercing eyes and beaky nose, and when he did his reverse pterodactyl impression it would have been hard to distinguish him from the real thing.

Somehow I could not see Helene fitting in anywhere; she seemed to have difficulty in relating to anybody else. And as for Alex, he was doomed from the start, wasn’t he? I mean, after all, HE’S ONLY 24. But here’s the good news, Alex: soon, you’ll be 25, then 26, and before you know it, you’ll be an old man.

Every day Gmail obligingly filters out all the spam from my inbox. Sometimes I check through it just to make sure that nothing has been moved there by mistake, and I run my eye down the list of senders.

Apart from a few fake Rolex watches, and cries for help to share untold wealth from total strangers with unpronounceable names, living in god-forsaken parts of the world, and who usually address me as “My beloved”, or “Dearest Love”, the bulk of junk mail is offering either sexual performance enhancing drugs or penis enlargement. Our household is already very well furnished in the latter department, thank you, and performance is more than satisfactory and no enhancement is required.

I suppose there are programmes which generate the ridiculous names used to send these dopey messages. This week I am offering two awards - one for the most appropriate name, and one for the least imaginative.

The award for least imaginative goes to: ejkdnaiqej6hshnarvnzvqa. A very poor effort.

And, for the most appropriate: Derck Kuntz. Well done, Derck.

ITV today, at 11.47 - Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo has called on Max Mosley to stand down from the FIA presidency despite his endorsement by the governing body’s General Assembly on Tuesday.”

BBC Sport today, at 14.23 - “Ferrari boss makes Mosley U-turn: Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo has given his backing to motorsport boss Max Mosley just a day after he had called for him to resign.”

It gets farcicaler and farcicaler!!

I don’t know about you, but as soon as I heard that Max had asked for an EGM of the FIA to decide on his future as President of that organisation, I was certain that he had already made sure, by whatever means, that he would emerge victorious. Not for one minute do I believe he would have risked the humiliation of being ousted in disgrace. So he is still ensconced, albeit it in the shadows, as a pariah. World leaders won’t be seen with him, several motor manufacturers and more than one-third of the FIA members voted for his resignation, and today, quite astonishingly, since Mosley has always been accused of being blatantly pro-Ferrari (FIA = Ferrari International Assistance), even Luca di Montezemolo has called for him to resign. Major international motoring organisations are already talking of leaving the FIA, but none of this appears to have any impact on the spanker.

Now we will see what happens to those very few people in the sport who had the cojones to speak out against him - he isn’t known for his forgiving nature. His one-time mate Bernie is quoted as saying: “Max has always ruled by fear.”

One big issue that remains is the fact that a QC was appointed to decide whether or not Mosley’s antics with the hookers had a Nazi theme. If the result of his decision was given to the FIA members, then presumably it was that Max was clear on that count, despite the uniforms and faux-German accent. In that case, what are the implications for Mosley’s action against the News of the World?