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I have a blockage. Not unusual in itself, and at my level of hackery it used to be instantly cureable by a quick thought about cash. This worked for more than 30 years.

But today? Black and howling. The dog still recovering from her panic attacks of the storm-filled weekend, very clingy, though we managed half an hour by the raging river this morning. Between the rising, breakfasting, cleaning, fetching, carrying, shopping and endless cooking, the knowledge that I lose a precious 90 minutes of work time today because the boys’ football practice has been cancelled because of the weather. And any evening time is lost because yet again, yet again, the school requires their teacher mother to work late.

In latter days, I find the spirit usually moves my two fingers at lightning speed across the keyboard just as I start looking around for the car keys to go and fetch the boys. Not today.

And this week there’s a training day on Friday, so the boys are at home and another day’s attempt to work is lost.

So there’s a familiar rising sense of panic as the white page stares relentlessly back: each precious minute that passes brings 3pm that closer and if I don’t come up with something now what will happen?

Well, these days, not much. Each succeeding thing I scrawl gets weaker and worse, that’s all, because this old game, writing, is not a procedural pursuit. There’s that awkward bloody creativity monster around, and it really doesn’t like having to break off to peel the spuds. The monster goes to find other playmates, the thread unravels. So Radio 4 will jolly well have to manage without my three would-be funny sketches today, and you, my friends, will have to be fobbed off with a much shortened epistle. I surrender.

Here, then, are a few snippets from today’s news, just to remind our happy band that we don’t believe the lies.

When the criminals who ‘run’ our energy companies tell you they have no excuse but to raise prices far, far in excess of inflation because of the vicious evil government making life too, too difficult for their impoverished shareholders and because the wholesale price is too high, remember this. In, for example, British Gas’s case, the wholesale price is fixed by parent company Centrica’s generating operation, which, (using 2011 figures, the latest available) made a 30% profit on £1.43billion of sales. The price they are using to justify their criminal rise is the price they pay themselves. It’s not just them – their competitors run profits of between 23% and 60% in their generating arms. Don’t believe the lies.

The NSPCC has reported a 15% rise in the number of calls from members of the public worried about a child’s welfare, another helpful piece of context in which to set the lying liar Iain Duncan Smith’s lies about welfare cuts not hurting people.

In 1984, Thatcher’s government introduced a tax loophole. Today, an investigation by The Independent has revealed that many corporations – care home owners were the focus of the probe, but it includes the likes of water utilities too – still use it to avoid paying tax. They take high interest loans from parent companies through stock exchanges in the Channel Islands or the Caymans, and paying back these loans to themselves cuts their profit, thereby reducing their tax liabilities. Care home owners are among the worst offenders for low pay to employees, and many care providers have been criticised for poor standards. How rich we as a nation would be if corporations had to pay tax, like their employees! Another triumphant part of the legacy of Thatcher, the alleged great patriot. Has anybody in history ever robbed this country of more money than Thatcher?

In return for £9,000 tuition fees, students now get less tuition. Universities minister David Willetts revealed today that academics spend only 40% of their time teaching; the rest is devoted to pursuits likely to bring in money or grants, such as research. The market fails again.

More than 170 – one hundred and seventy! – teachers’ leaders, academics and education experts have signed an open letter to Michael Gove warning about the shortage in school places and an emerging crisis in teacher recruitment. Well, we all know this government’s record when it comes to listening to people who know what they’re talking about….

The Government has permitted energy utilities to raise prices horrifically, saying it is completely wrong to have state ownership and completely wrong to fix prices. It has now announced a new nuclear plant will be built by French state-owned EDF and the price we pay for its electricity will be fixed for decades. It seems we can’t afford to renationalise the energy companies, but we can afford to subsidise EDF and help them along. We can’t fix expenditure for customers, but we can fix income for businesses. It occurs to me that if we can’t afford to renationalise the existing energy companies, let’s just set a new one up and bankrupt the evil bastards.

Jeremy *unt tells us we must care for elderly people. But his colleagues are also telling us we must work until we’re 68. So who looks after the 80- and 90-year-olds while the 60-year-old children are at work? Presumably the grandchildren waiting for jobs to become available.

And finally, there’s one thing to be said for a windy day: it’s saved me having to climb the apple trees to get the last few down in readiness for Brother Bertie’s grand cider-making festivities at the weekend. I’ve got a feeling I’m going to need a drink by then.

And that’s your lot. 956 words. Not bad for somebody who’s got a blockage.