I'm going to be married on Aug 1st 2007

One of my New Year resolutions is to update this weblog more often. But today is a red-letter day of such magnitude and importance that I couldn't have failed to write an entry.

What happened? I finally cleaned out my plastic knife and fork tray, for the first time since I moved into this house in 1991, that's what.

You see, I'd been meaning to do this for quite some time. I think I may have first had the idea as long ago as early 1993, when it had started to develop a slightly dusty appearance - but then I moved out in the summer of 1994, to take up a job in the City - so obviously it didn't happen.

In 2004, two years after my return from London to Slim Towers, I noticed that it was getting a bit sticky, and resolved to give it a good clean. And today, I did. I extracted it completely from the kitchen drawer, removed its contents, and washed it in the kitchen sink, thereby ejecting forever the accumulated fluff, random grime and stray particles of toast and ground coffee to which it had been home, in some cases for many years. I even cleaned out the drawer as well, for good measure, and I found stuff in there that I didn't know I had.

And now readers, for the first time this decade, or the last decade as well come to think of it, my knives, forks and spoons are all correctly arranged in their respective compartments in frighteningly clean surroundings. I feel rather proud - yet at the same time, I can't quite believe that I actually got round to it.

Doesn't the manner of Saddam Hussein's execution tell you everything you need to know about the American occupiers and their puppet government in Iraq? He was sent to his death surrounded by thugs in ski-masks who taunted and abused him, while capturing the whole event for posterity on a mobile phone video. Nice.

Saddam's trial was unmistakeably choreographed to the timing of the US political calendar, and his silence over American culpability in his past crimes is now conveniently assured. There can be no serious doubt that this abbhorent circus was carefully directed by the US government, its grisly conclusion determined in Washington many months ago.

It must be said that Saddam met his destiny bravely, with considerable composure and dignity. I have no doubt that, if by some benevolent whim of fate, we could instead have seen Dubya brought to justice last week, he would have bawled like a child, grovelling pathetically at the feet of his captors, begging pitifully for his poisonous, worthless life until the welcome moment of its cleansing from our world. I'd certainly buy the DVD.