The visitors counter for my home page clicked to 2893 as I opened up this morning: that's my parents' old telephone number! Yesterday I got to breakfast to find NO BANANAS! I was horrified since I've had a banana with my breakfast for years. This morning I went down a bit earlier and found one: only two left, even so!! Report on the old London smogs of around 50 years ago that reminded me of the time I was talking to my assistant in Almaty around 9 years ago about Britain and things and she said something like "We have read in books that in London there is a terrible fog and people are falling down". The things these Soviets wrote! Still, Sky News reminded us this morning that in the smog of 1952, 12,000 Londoners died due to breathing difficulties. They also went on the say that whilst the smog has gone, it's been replaced by an invisible alternative that is not so deadly but it's evil nonetheless. Oxford, just down the road from chez moi, is held up as an exemplar of a British city that has banned traffic from its centre and they are claiming it's a miracle cure. In reality, they have cleared only a relatively small area and if it has had the effect they claim then we are ALL, world wide, in imminent danger of falling down. DW