10 March

I think my 5 year-old laptop must have heard me toying with buying a replacement. It has taken to crashing when I run it on the batteries, which was a little alarming on Monday when I was writing some minutes on the train. It crashed no fewer than three times, so when it was working, I'd for ever to be pressing the save button. (Mind you, I wasn't in the finest of moods either as I hacked my way home on four trains, two of them standing-room ony, and not a lot of it. Why is it that the nice little secondary lines have no direct service at peak hours?) The lid/screen housing has a crack in it too, so I should perhaps bite the bullet. Good excuse for a detour through Switzerland in July (I much prefer the Swiss keyboard layout).

The minutes were those of a Historia trustees' meeting, and it's the tradition that I get a first draft out for comments on the day of the meeting itself. I still managed to do so, but wondered a few times whether I'd have to start again from scratch. That might have made for welcome brevity, I suppose. Anyway, it's back on duty this afternoon for the county branch of the Magistrates' Association, so keep fingers crossed.

The cold, bright weather seems to have put a brake on progress in the garden: the daffodils are still not in bloom around here, though there is a good show of crocuses and snowdrops along the roadside. As for colour in the garden, we have yellow crocuses and a few dogged pansies and polyanthus in flower, but precious little else. A few of the seedlings will be ready to plant on into trays in a week or so, including the perennial penstemon and achillea seedlings.

I'm a bit shocked (well, on reflection, depressingly unsurprised) at the reactions to the news that a certain murderer has been recalled to prison for breaching his licence conditions. The tabloids are clamouring to be told wot he dun, and what his new identity is. Three problems with this. (1) If he's been recalled, it will presumably be for a matter that will in due course come to trial. In that case, unless the charge against him is one of murder, and it can be shown that he has a propensity to murder people repeatedly, a jury or a bench should not know his antecedents, else any guilty verdict will be unfair, and sooner or later he'll get away with it. (2) It's a sad fact that, despite having served his sentence according to law, if he is 'outed', he'll be meat within hours. (3) His original (and dreadful) crime was committed when he was below the age of criminal responsibility in normal, civilised jurisdictions. Not a lot of point telling that to the red-tops and the lynch mob that makes up so much of their readership.