I must learn to pick my fights better. Imagine I'd got myself into the following entirely hypothetical situation: say a person was working for a client and they are trying to negotiate a licence with that client's landlord to make an alteration to the landlord's building, but the client has already made the alteration diminishing their bargaining position, however they are a good tenant so they still have some weight.

Imagine the client must pay the landlord's fees, if I were to request an invoice for the fees and receive a response along the lines of 'please provide a cheque and we'll provide an invoice'. Say I was to reply with 'WTF! Invoice first then money, that is how it works dick wad'. Say next day we receive notice that they won't agree to our preferred terms and we are forced to accept less favorable terms, however they are happy to provide the invoice in advance. If your client was privy to all these communications it may look like you'd picked the wrong fight and that would be bad!

Learning what fights to pick is very important, George Bush picked the wrong fight in Iraq and now he can't touch Iran while Iran freaks around with fissile material. Both Hitler and Napoleon wished they never picked fights with Russia during the winter, look what happened to them, and Jodie Marsh never properly recovered from her tit-off with Jordan. (If history has taught us anything it is never challenge Jordan to a tit-off).

Recently it appears that some people may be picking a fight with the West, how else would you explain this. All this has been rumbling on for a while with both sides picking up on any petty flashpoint they can get there hands on, and judging by the reaction of our press to the recent story of the Teddy and the Teacher we’re bang up for it, so to speak.

I don't have the world’s greatest track record for picking fights; I've still not recovered from Mark Drackett, year 7, in the school gym, so I won’t try and pick the winner in this one, but the lesson from history could very well be that there will be no winner, as far as I know Mr Drackett never finished school and I still can't set foot in any place of exercise. My advice for all involved is, calm down! Calm down!

Update: I once read that when couples argue before the argument is resolved one side will offer the other an out. For a couple an out could be a joke, or a quick smile, or a reference to something they experienced together. An out is basically an offer to stop fighting and start negotiating. When one side consistently ignores the other sides outs the relationship is over.

Was the 15 day, apparently lenient, sentence an out from the Sudanese courts? Because if it was it was ignored by both sides!

British Government: "extremely disappointed"

Bearded nut jobs: "Shame, shame on the UK", "No tolerance - execution" and "Kill her, kill her by firing squad".

All I am saying is give peace a chance, come on everybody sing it, all I am saying is give peace a chance.