The MPs' expenses row rumbles on (and will most likely continue to do so for some time yet) and our Right Honorable Member has refused to apologise over his involvement.

Harry Cohen, MP for Leyton and Wanstead, will not say sorry for claiming for items such as a pineapple slicer and a garlic press as he believes his "rebel" status is justification - preferring instead to blame a flawed system.

I don't know about anyone else but the question I would like answered at this stage is just what the heck anyone would actually need a pineapple slicer for. Don't most people use kitchen knives to slice their pineapples? Before this story came out, I had no idea such a thing existed, nor indeed that it was possible to make a living cleaning out people's moats.

Perhaps one good thing has come out of this sorry tale, in that case - it's been an education in the things MPs apparently deem necessary for the furtherance of their daily political lives. Useful, should any of us ever take up public office, I feel.

Thereat I will leave my expenses whinge, good blogfans, as it's already all over the news and I did whinge about it last week as well. What's more, there will probably be something else to whinge about in the same area next week and the week after and the week after...

Moving on from there, we continue to be somewhat bereft of good news this week. There's more than one story about elderly people being mistreated, as well as the usual levels of death (a motorcycle accident in Thailand) and destruction (a collapsed wall in Walthamstow) - though these are broken up rather well by a man who voluntarily puts maggots in his mouth. A good news story if ever I heard one.

Still, next week is shaping up rather more positively as the row over control of the Lea Bridge Road mosque is finally at an end and, continuing the theme of creepy crawly-related tales, there's a boy who won a competition to design a giant insect for ITV sci-fi drama Primeval. The pictures aren't quite as stomach-turning as the maggoty ones but perhaps not suitable for the squeamish all the same.

Finally, there is a change to the blog. Henceforward, FCR is no longer FCR. Following careful consideration and lengthy discussions on the topic, he is now the Possum of Steel.

I couldn't even begin to explain why.