Don't be put off by the marketing for BURN THE FLOOR at the Shaftesbury. This is excellent high octane dancing with some great routines - would love the men to have been as hot as the women so they have a bit more to dance against but apparently that's always the case! It's a very enjoyable evening's theatre.

There's a very fine cast performing in THE 39 STEPS at the moment - and Tim Speyer is excellent in his latest West End role.

Big congrats Tim - your performance is bold, barmy and brilliant!

Bureaucrats around the world - you have a new leader!

Philip Colechin, Senior Customer Services Officer of Gospel Oak District Housing Office, has successfully transformed himself from a human being into The Man Who Knows The Rules. So even though a 99 year old woman needed help, Philip reminded me (at length) of the Rules and thank goodness - otherwise I might have gone through life putting other people first. And what a fool I would have felt!

Thank you Philip. Your adherence to The Rules has saved me from a life of compassion and kindness. Thank goodness we have people like you putting The Rules first, whatever the circumstances. (If you fancy knowing the circumstances, I've posted them in Comment.)

Do the right thing? What tosh. Follow The Rules!

Through Philip's example I now understand how we got ourselves into the state where policeman stand on the side of rivers watching people drown because they're following The Rules. Where fireman have to read a four page dossier before they can sit down on a chair. Where apparatchiks like Philip happily disregard humanity in slavish adherence to The Rules.

What mad genius created these Rules? Why as a society do we accept them?

No doubt Camden will give Philip Colechin a bonus. The bureacrats have certainly won the battle. Is there anything we can do to prevent them winning the war?

Is there anybody in Britain who could have got away with forcibly pushing Ian Tomlinson to the floor and got away with it....except a British police officer?

Er, no.

What's really sad is that it isn't a surprise.

The CPS could have charged the officer if they'd done so within 6 months of the incident, but funnily enough it took 16 months for them to decide what to do. Funny that.

Well done British justice. Another fine day for us all.

I sometimes get asked if I give acting lessons, so over the summer I'm happy to provide acting lessons for anyone who is interested. Please drop an email to the BSC at [email protected] if you'd like to arrange a lesson.

Birmingham lost out to Derry for Capital of Culture last night. A big shame for us all but here's to next time!

Is it me or do we live in a very weird world where people eulogise a narcissistic murderer, a man is given copious airtime to claim he could have saved a brother he hadn't spoken to for seven years and the police are blamed for not saving a man who sat with a shotgun aimed at his head for six hours?

Personally, I'm glad there are a group of volunteers prepared to put their lives at risk to protect people like me from the likes of Mr Moat. Whatever mistakes they made along the way - and there were many - the obsessive desire of the media to strangle moral clarity is disconcerting and depressing.

As we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, I have begun to wonder if this country still has the moral fibre to do the right thing, whatever the cost. In my own personal experience, the debacle over the play Behzti seemed to suggest we don't - and that it's only getting worse.

I'd like to warn people about my experience of eating at the fabulous Belfry Hotel. Five hours after eating duck at the Belfry my friend spent the rest of the night in the bathroom.

When I rang the hotel, I was introduced to the Dashing Debbie and Dave. Speaking to the wonderful Debbie Evans and her fabulous boss David Toulson-Burke (yes, his real name) I was informed of the Belfry's practise in dealing with people poisoned by their food.

First, according to the brilliant Debbie and Dave, it is "IMPOSSIBLE to get food poisoning in less than 12 hours". That's what their training tells them, so unless the food was obviously rotten, we must be mistaken. (Whatever training course they're using, they should change it).

So as their restaurant was unlikely to be at fault, they would require my friend to list everything she had eaten for the last 36 hours. The fact that she hadn't eaten anything else that day didn't concern them, because...

Next they would require my friend to subject herself to an examination by her doctor.

Next, they would launch an investigation by their highly specialised Health and Safety team who would thoroughly examine the circumstances of this episode to discover whether it was indeed her duck that caused her illness. How you work out whether this particular portion of duck which no longer exists could be proven to be the cause of her illness, science has yet to explain. But given she hadn't eaten anything else that day, it looks like their training course is rather more successful in teaching Debbie and Dave how to pass the buck than cook the duck.

Next, after this extensive research by their top team had taken place, the Dashing Duo would finally be in a position to declare whether indeed their fabulous cooking was to blame (but it wasn't, because it's "IMPOSSIBLE" to get food poisoning in less than 12 hours).

Until that point, no apology from dear Debbie, no flowers from delightful Dave. Instead Definite Dave declared, as all great managers declaim in times of need: "No-one else has complained!".

So good luck all future customers of the Belfry. If anything goes wrong, The Dashing Duo Debbie and Dave are waiting to take your call.

Alan Yentob's excellent programme on Tom Jones is well worth watching on iplayer if you missed it on TV. I had no idea what a huge star TJ was at his height - and how his comeback was organised by his son. It's an amazing story of an extraordinary professional career of a highly interesting man.

Still love Jackie Mason's verdict when he shared a dressing room with Jones at the Royal Variety Show - "let me tell you, it's not unusual".