Enjoyed the film The wrestler yesterday. Good to see Mickey Rourke again. It shone a spotlight upon a part of America in which a fit body governs the ability to earn a living. And there's parts of Britain like that, although far fewer options now, as compared with when the pits and the steelworks were open. It also showed that alongside the shabby world of lapdancing, in which women allow the boundaries between sex as private and sex as commercial transaction to be blurred, exists a world of quasi-sport for men, where pumping up with dodgy drugs offers financial rewards for a short time.

The mantra of Lifelong Learning seems to fit here. What was sad about the film is that the one character in education was the one with no dreams. Learning should be all about fixing on a distant horizon, working out how to get there and revelling in that journey.

Jan 19

The fighting in Gaza comes to an end. The conclusion: that for every Israeli killed, there are 100 Palestinians killed. With that sloping playing-field, we are are much further away from the beginnings of laying a foundation for negotiations with any prospects of success. These numbers need to be remembered when Eurovision comes around, when Israel pretends to be a European country. And football too - for some reason, Israel counts as a neo-European country in football terms, which seems to me a very subtle way of bolstering its reputation internationally. How can Israel, whose formation was borne out of the recognition that after so much slaughter and suffering in the Holocaust, the children and grandchildren of those survivors are meting out to others the same bullying treatment.

There is only one solution and that is to talk, to negotiate how the land and the water are to be shared out in a just settlement and to acknowledge that injustice always begets violence.

The cold New Year

The shocking updates from Gaza suggest Israel is free to act alone. Other states act in coalition, out of solidarity or heed the United Nations. Israel's action is disproportionate and will not bring long-term stability to the people of Sderot and Ashkelon or lasting peace to the wider Israel. On the contrary, it will galvanise support from other terrorist groups. But it will probably gain votes for Kadima in the forthcoming elections. How will Rahm Emanuel advise Obama on this when he takes office? The world awaits signs of an evenhanded approach across this bitter divide that has been lacking from America.

If you have a brain like mine, developed as a child through hours of playing Scrabble, then Gaza is filed next to Gazza. His appearance in the press this week highlight the brittleness of football and reality TV celebrity, acting as a Pied Piper playing tunes to the gullible. I hope he turns his life around but it's not looking good.