I mean, it’s just ghastly, isn’t it.

Of the alternatives I seen my favourite is this one - simple and stylish (and I’m not alone in thinking that - it won a BBC poll).

I’ve been trying to find time to sit down and try to read what runes exist about the approach that Gordon Brown will take to Europe, as Prime Minister.

I haven’t managed to get down to it properly yet, but Jon Worth has a very good analysis of a pamphlet by Ed Balls for CER, which may offer some interesting insights - I recommend it.

When I was at school, I wasn’t very good at sport and didn’t like it much either. Most games didn’t offer much in the way of get-outs, but as anyone who has ever watched a game of cricket knows, it generates a multitude of statistics, and so there is actually a role specially designed for academic and lazy boys who want to get out of physical activity, ie the scorer.

So as a result I got to sit at either (depending on how glamorous the school we were playing was) a table, or in a large scorebox, watching my school-fellows exhaust themselves running around the place.

The quid pro quo was that you did have to concentrate quite hard, not only watching intently everything that happened on the pitch so that you caught everything the batsmen were doing, at the same time as not taking your eyes off either umpire so as not to miss any casual signals, but also meticulously recording everything that happened in several places in the scorebook.

But I enjoyed the challenge and had a fun time doing it. I even - this will surprise some of my current colleagues - had a reputation for putting together a particularly neat and legible scorebook.

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We are coming to know that new Lib Dem member Laurence Boyce has a pull-no-punches style of writing, but I think his latest opinion piece on Lib Dem Voice is a very regrettable attack on religion.

As it happens I don’t think I agree with a single one of the views that he attributes to Cardinal O’Brien - even the more widespread ones such as opposing abortion, let alone some of the more exotic ones. And I am not a Catholic.

So I don’t at all seek to defend those views - but what I find very regrettable is the attack on religion which his comments have prompted Laurence to launch.

It is very easy to say that religious people should not speak on matters which are part of public debate, but Christianity - and all other faith systems that spring readily to mind - are in fact precisely concerned with right and wrong. To argue that religious people should say nothing about moral matters of public interest, which abortion clearly is, is really to argue that religious people should not think or say anything at all. So although I don’t think this was Laurence’s intention, arguing that faith groups should keep silent on moral questions, is effectively arguing that they should not do anything.

Surely freedom of belief (whether religious, political, or anything else) is something I hope we all fundamentally believe in - especially Liberal Democrats.

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I have written my own personal view of the ten years of Blair’s government, here on Lib Dem Voice.