Apologies to those looking for updates from Cheesetown. Today I've gone all POLITICAL....

To me, Remembrance Sunday is about remembering those servicemen and women who have died for their country. It's not a political event, or even necessarily a pro war event, it's a simple acknowledgement of lives laid down.

This year, for one reason and another, I'm thinking especially about the kids who have lost their father.

I don't want to be too pathetic here, but Dads are important. They're there to teach you to swim and ride a bike, to cheer you on through all the primary league football games, to encourage you to climb hills, sail a boat, scale Alien Rock.

At least that's what the cherub's dad did.

And as a teenager you still need them to sub you if mum's being tight with pocket money, to work through the various levels of Call of Duty with you, to cheer when you pass another science test, to take you to rugby internationals - especially if you are entitled to cheer the All Blacks.

So the cherub is far from alone in losing his dad this year. 403 British servicemen have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. I was thinking that a lot of them would have had kids. Being young men, they would have had young kids....For some reason there's no readily available figures on how many kids have been affected. I bet there's A LOT

You'll notice I'm not even going on to consider the orphans and carnage in Iraq or Afghanistan. Or American kids.

I'll tell you what though, if I was a politician I'd make sure I was really certain the cause was clear, achievable, and RIGHT.
How else could you justify even one kid losing someone as important as his dad?


Sorry. Normal apolitical service continues tomorrow.