I wish everyone who is receiving A-Level results today the very best of luck. However it turns out, don’t let anyone belittle your achievement – the media pump out ridiculous lies about the exams every year, and every year I get annoyed. Congratulations to those who get good news. Those who didn’t do as well as expected shouldn’t get too disheartened – after all, you tried your best – but you may find the Guardian’s clearing site useful, as it’s chock full of useful info and will have a live adviser to answer questions later this morning.

On another topic entirely, I’ve not been great at posting this month. Sorry about that. I’ve been in Canada for two months, and thought I did quite well on keeping up the blog – for the first six weeks… I’m back now, so normal service will resume shortly. 🙂

I’ve just posted on a popular perennial topic over at Gazette Communities: Music for Funerals. It’s hardly new stuff, but it is reworked… a bit. I’m taking a summer break from posting over there, but there will still be updates on here… occasionally.

There are now more videos available through the site: As well as the video posts, you can also access the YouTube videos that I’ve marked as favourites. All of this excitement is available with a click of Videos in the menu at the top of every page. More new stuff is coming soon.

I love this story: Police lose scooter OAP in 8mph chase

I’ve just published Returning Politics to the People over on Gazette Communities. Hopefully, the links are working better than last week. Regular readers will have heard it all before, albeit not in one post. Enjoy.

Much like a certain other blogger, I’ve been really struggling for what to write for this week’s Gazette Communities piece. The result, which is now online, was Embarrassment about mental health costs lives.

It’s not brilliantly written, but is sort of locally relevant at the moment, with a sort of national resonance, and is very loosely based on this post from last year.

I’m pretty sure it’s my worst one over there yet…

I’ve just published Teenage Heroes; Teenage Villains over on Gazette Communities. It’s a post with a local focus, but wider resonance, and it’s all-new.

My book, Instant Opinion, is now available from a number of bookshops, including the ever-reliable WHSmith and the Foyles group of sites. WHSmith is actually selling it cheaper than I am able, and that’s with free delivery to your local store and seven very exciting Clubcard points.

In a moment of wonderful irony, it isn’t yet available through sjhoward.co.uk/shop; it is, however, available through the links on this page in both printed and (exclusive) ebook formats. I’ll let you know when it becomes even more widely available.

Can’t recommend Polly Toynbee’s column in today’s Guardian enough: If Chelsea were under water, it would be taken seriously: “Imagine if the Thames had burst its banks at Westminster, Chelsea and Fulham. It wouldn’t have been a weather story but a full-scale national emergency.” Too true.

I’ve just posted Why terrorists aren’t ‘evil’ over on Gazette Communities. It’s an extensively reworked and updated version of this post from 2005. Those with a copy of my book will also find a copy of the original post on pages 173 to 174. Those without the book can buy a pre-publication copy via this page, or will shortly be able to get hold of it from all good bookshops – including sjhoward.co.uk/shop. How much promotion can I fit in one tiny post?