With Anna in need of a day's peace and quiet to get some work done, I took the kids to the zoo.

Everything was going swimmingly.

But then around 2.3pm I noticed our youngest, who is 18 months old, was... well I think wet is the word.

Now I'm nowhere near as organised on a day out as their mother is.
And I didn't have spare clothes.

Go to the zoo shop, I thought, they are bound to have some cheap trousers with a picture of a sloath or some such animal, I'll change her.

When I say I'll change her, I don't mean swap her for some trousers, I'm not that callous as a father.

So anyway, 20 minutes later I left the shop with four egg cups. They had no trousers, and I was sucked in.

Mission well and truly failed.

We headed to the bat cave, and while sauntering along, wondering whether if we stayed in the bat cave long enough the heat would dry out said trousers, our eldest, who is three and a half, suddenly said "oh daddy, I love this, he's cute..."

What's cute? An egg cup? Well she is three? Nonsense, the egg cup was stashed away out of sight.

I looked down. She was clutching a panda bigger than her sister...
I'd missed it. The cashier missed it. If there's an NVQ in shoplifting she'd easily passed the practical. She was that good she deserved to keep it.

So I made her take it back.

Quietly she shuffled towards the counter. I prodded her on the back.
"Go on," I told her, "what do you say to the lady."

She looked up at her, mournfully, but with a cheeky grin fighting to get out. "Sorry. Daddy says I haven't paid for this."

The cashier laughed aloud. "And have you got any money?"

And do you know what she said? "No, but my daddy's got some..."

GHOSTS. We're researching a publication on ghosts at work, and I have a question. Ghost always seem to take on 'historical forms'.

Does that mean in 50 years time there will be spooky teenagers in hooded tops, carrying mobiles? Phantom punk rockers stalking the streets, or ghostly goths (although in some cases, would you know?)

Will headless horsemen be replaced by legless skateboarders, grey ladies become old ladies clad entirely in Harris tweed?

THE CREDIT CRUNCH. A quick plea to the BBC. On the news at 10 c'clock at some point in the next week can you please, please, please discuss something else.

I know the whole world might be in financial meltdown, God has cashed in his chips and wants his money back, no-one can get a mortgage on anything bigger than a garden shed, and the only banks not in trouble are sperm banks.

I know I've more chance of Elvis being spotted emerging from the undergrowth at Powis Castle looking a bit rough around the edges after years lost in the bush than I have of selling my house.

And I know it's a darned important story effecting the entire world.
But I'm still fed up of hearing it. It is just so depressing. A few more months of this and the Samaritans won't be able to cope.

Just one day's good news please and allow me one night in peace.