It's started. And in the same way the Phoney War must have dragged on, so it has been in the Nota Bene household. But now hostilities have broken out and it is the end of waiting for the exams to start. Yesterday they had a tough English exam, and a tough French exam. I hope that's helpful in focusing their minds on the coming weeks and getting the results they've worked so hard for. Both seem to be in good spirits and will get every little bit of encouragement from us as we can muster.
Well it was my most embarrassing moment for a while. I've had plenty of embarrassing moments in my life. Some mentionable, some not. Generally I've a pretty thick skin...well you need it in my business. But here I was cruising up to the traffic lights on my bicycle in the middle of the rush hour forgetting until the last moment that my feet were clipped into the pedals. And when I tried to unclip, all I did was make myself topple over. Gracefully I'll admit. But there I was falling in slow motion in front of four very long lines of traffic on to the pavement. It didn't hurt, but I lost my dignity.
Not, of course in the same way that Max Moseley lost his dignity. He says that being awarded £60,000 is not enough to restore his dignity when his sexual predilections were exposed to everyone and anyone including his family. Many would argue, that he lost his dignity when he decided to cavort with prostitutes wearing military uniforms, rather than when his antics were exposed. It was probably right that the European court decided that newspapers don't have to contact someone before they write any salacious details of their private lives to enable them to get an injunction. On the other hand, I'm not sure why we should all be able to read about what legally goes on behind closed doors. It's a dilemma isn't it?
The latest reasons for superinjunctions being a useful legal tool is that they prevent blackmail. Evidently, that's all these floosies are doing...trying to extort money from famous married men. So I'm not sure where that leaves us in this privacy muddle. I guess, and I'm no expert, that it means that 'kiss and tell' stories will go on to feed the readership of the News of the World providing the newspaper doesn't contact the celebrity in question first. I'm sure they'll make doubly sure they get their facts checked and double checked. But I doubt they'll do it by tapping people's mobile phones.
So expect plenty of celebrity embarrassment. It must be embarrassing for Dominique Strauss-Kahn whose antics - alleged and true - are now being exposed in every newspaper across the world. Who knows what the truth is? The conspiracy theories have gained ground pretty fast, even in our household. So we will have to wait a while for his trial to find out the truth.
Fortunately The Boy and The Cat's trial by exam will be over by July.