Saturday night! I’ve been meaning to blog about this, for I think it demonstrates an original formula for the classic night in: two nights in one, sliding down the formality scale from wine to ice-cream as you do it. Perfect 
So, I shared a few glasses with the well-attired Andrew (making his exciting first visual appearance on this blog) Matt and Caroline from Themes and Sources, before Oliver, Abi and I rewarded ourselves for our pleasing mock exam results with Ben and Jerry’s cookie dough. The plan was to watch Doctor Who – an excellent episode, by the way – but this was scuppered by the iPlayer so we went with Child Of Our Time instead. Still, twas lovely!
Recipe for success: wine…
…and then ice-cream
Talking of Who – the news that Steven Moffat will succeed Russell T Davies as executive producer made my little fanboy heart jump for joy. Steven Moffat! He wrote, like, all the best episodes! And I’ll always be eternally grateful to RTD for bringing the series back to television and doing it as such a wholesome triumph to boot. 
I shall shortly return to much-needed work, which this week is on education which is rather brilliant, and doubly so for giving me quotes such as “there are decreasing returns to selectivity for the able and large returns to mixing for the least able. Society at large benefits from mixed-school communities and teaching.” Told you so, society 
Can we have our comprehensive future now, please?
And finally: at a time when it’s very difficult to find good news about the state of the government, I am genuinely proud of what is being achieved tonight with the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. By the time I had dinner tonight the moves to block hybrid embryos had already been defeated, but there was still some question over whether IVF would continue to discriminate against lesbian and single mothers in its ‘need for a father’ and – of course – over abortion, which was worrying us. At time of writing, thankfully, the IVF amendment has also been defeated and it’s only abortion which remains an open question: I very much hope we get a clean sweep tonight and reject attempts to lower the 24 week limit. Not because I think 24 weeks is a magic number, naturally, but the medical evidence doesn’t seem to suggest any advance from the previous reduction from 28 weeks, and so any further cut could be a dangerous step in the power of those who ultimately seek to curtail the right to abortion drastically. We’ll see.
Bet you didn’t wear a shirt.
This need for a father thing is a load of old shit. No offence to any of my wonderful male friends but men need to have a look at themselves before going off on a tangent about fathers being made redundant. So many women are left to care for children alone because men can’t be bothered and don’t see it as their responsibility. You can’t have both!
Precisely! It doesn’t matter if you’re raised by a single parent, or two parents of whatever sex, or a kibbutz. The important things are love, trust, security etc in whatever structure you happen to have. I’m not surprised we agree