To begin at the beginning, as a rather famous Welsh poet once wrote...

It came home to me with a bit of a rush earlier that when I wake up on Tuesday morning I'll be just ten years away from retirement.

Birthdays can be funny things and I don't usually look forward to mine, but this one is different because it's a milestone. It's not like 18, or 21, or 40, but it is a milestone.

Not everyone wants to retire of course, but I do; I'd chuck it all in tomorrow if I could and spend the rest of my days doing those things I'd really like to be doing instead of having to drag my sorry arse into work day after day...

So yes, I'm looking forward to being 55 if only because it means I'll be that little bit nearer to my retirement.

Oh, the Sex on Sunday bit?

Why that was just to drag you along in here.

Last Man Standing

I stood and shed a tear today
For fallen sons on foreign fields
In service of the crown.

Those precious lads,
Those bands of brothers,
Who spilled their blood for freedom.

What thanks give we
The multitudes that benefit
From their ultimate untimely sacrifice?

Do we even appreciate
The freedom we enjoy
Paid for with the blood of others?

Who among us now
Would put our head above the parapet
To be the last man standing?

Not I, I hear you say
And as my tear falls gently
I offer up my thanks for lost generations.

My Grandma always used to say the Mountain Ash was the most beautiful of trees. That may or may not be, but the fruits of the Rowan’s labour certainly add a splash of most welcome colour to any scene.

So Fernando Alonso has been stripped of pole and dropped five places down the grid for today's Hungarian Grand Prix as a result of impeding Lewis Hamilton in qualifying.

Furthermore, McLaren will not be allowed to score constructors' points in today's race.

Has justice been done? Well maybe. Whoever engineered yesterday's fiasco, I don't believe Alonso acted alone, both team and driver have been penalised. Such a shame though that any action was needed in the first place.

The world of Formula 1 is often controversial, but I can't help thinking that as sports go things have gone steadily downhill over the past four or five years.