Puppy rescued from watering can

This mornings most e-mailed article on the bbc news website, is a story about a puppy getting its head stuck in a watering can. Don't worry folks, he was freed in the end.

The thing I found most interesting was the fact that Hampshire fire service have a specialist animal rescue team. Slur.

Cheese please

Two years ago, just after I finished college for the first time, I was staying in my folks place, scanning through the appointments section of the Clare Champion.

There wasn't much in the way of suitable employment for someone with my esoteric skill set. (I had a degree in computers, but I'd been so interested in theoretical stuff, I'd never bothered to learn anything practical.) There's only one specific job I can remember reading: a cheese-maker's assistant somewhere out in the wilds of West Clare.

Initially it gave me a chuckle; The Sorcerer's Apprentice playing in my head as I imagined myself taking up Mickey Mouse's role in Fantasia. The more I think about it though, the more I realize that, actually, it might have been a pretty cool job.

Instead of living in a flat across the road from a pub, and sitting in an office all day, I could be living in a house, with a garden, and spending my days in a shed creating the greatest Stilton the world has ever known.