Two posts a month seems to be a challenge at the moment. I've been working on two fronts; firstly, working through the editors' suggested changes to one of my books and secondly a once a week contribution to an investing website.

The editing process swings between highly enjoyable and very frustrating. The offering for the investing website is somewhere in between. One particular challenge is having to think up the subjects to write about. Despite quite a lot of writing experience in the last two years, I'm more used to working on subject matter decided by someone else. Thinking of my own subjects is more challenging than I allowed for and all too easy to decide on a subject that works out more difficult than one's expecting.

The long and the short of it is that all the work seems to blotting up the inspiration for ordinary blogging. I'm not really sure how this happens because the focus of the work is relatively narrow. Somehow, it must be using up brain capacity.

So, if I say that, as far as current affairs are concerned, everything seems to be in a state of suspended animation, this may be the state of my brain cells rather than political reality. Or maybe the government really is treading water until (next year's) general election. At least the Prime Minister is prepared to admit now that there will have to be cuts in government spending. Well done, Alistair Darling, and thank goodness you faced down Ed Balls's attempted job snatch. I'm still doubtful that any of the political parties on their own will be prepared to take the tough decisions needed to sort out the nation's finances.

The most worrying aspect of that danger is that the UK ends up unable (or just unwilling) to pay for key parts of our own national security. The arguments over equipping the armed forces could become a lot more serious.

Whether Afghanistan is a key component of security still seems open to question. The government says that it is but they don't really say enough to give weight to their case. Is this to allow for a change of heart or just a realisation that sound argument will be drowned out by people's feelings about the casualties, or because the case really isn't so strong?

The Afghan election has been another instance of half-hearted debate about the fighting. There's been a lot of debate about the low turnout in Helmand invalidating the whole Panther's Claw operation and even the British Army's presence there. But there's a lot of good that could be done for the locals in Helmand before they get around to voting. The Taliban are denying the inhabitants of Helmand many, more basic freedoms than that.

So the politicians and the UK voters owe it to the troops and the Afghans to have a proper debate about what's happening this winter. Further down the road another debate across a broader arena is needed about being tied into a supranational political institution, the EU, that has no ability or will to protect Europeans' interests with military force.

I listened to most of the repeat of the radio drama about the Lockerbie trial in the Hague. As far as I can work out, a lot of the case hangs on the identification of the clothing in the bomb suitcase by the owner of the shop in Malta where the garments were purchased. It also seems possible that some lines of enquiry were pursued with more diligence than others.

I've always thought that it seems wrong that other prisoners don't get released early because they keep on insisting their innocence but al Megrahi case has made me think again.

In any case, al Megrahi's release was on compassionate grounds, as we keep being told. Granted, if you deny someone their last few weeks with friends and family close by, it's an opportunity gone forever - just like executing a person who turns out to be innocent. Yet surely, with the opportunity to 'say goodbye' denied to so many victims, this is compassion that shouldn't have been in any politician's gift. Just possibly, if there were serious concerns the case was unsound, he should have been released within Scotland but not allowed to return to Libya.

So it's Scots law relating to prisoner release that's at fault. However, the Westminster government do seem to have been preparing the ground for letting al Megrahi go home themselves by agreeing to include him in a prisoner exchange scheme with Libya. Presumably, that agreement applied to prisoners in Scotland and might have been put into effect if the Scottish government had decided to try and keep Megrahi.

Also, the release of Ronnie Biggs a few days earlier looks suspiciously like softening the ground preparatory to al Megrahi's release.

In years to come it'll be interesting to see what else comes to light.

After all the focus on the Scottish government in the al Megrahi case (the inluence over foreign policy that the Labour government don't seem to have realised they were giving the devolved government), it was interesting to hear Alex Salmond state his intention to propose a referendum on Scottish independence to the Holyrood Parliament in the next 12 months. Would that be a referendum timed to coincide with the Westminster elections?

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I'v had one good walk in the last couple of weeks. This started at Frensham Great Pond and wound up hill to the west of Churt, crossing over into Hampshire for about half the distance covered. The highlight was Huntingford Bridge (over the River Wey in its early stages) and the much smaller pond a mere hundred yards down from the Great Pond.

I've not done so much reading recently but borrowed a book about the archaelogical search for the real Emmaus by Carsten P Thiede. The most interesting part of this was the case he makes for the references made by Josephus to Jesus in his account of the Jewish War of AD 70 being authentic. Most commentators have discounted these references to Jesus - which refer to the resurrection - saying that Josephus would never have said such things.

We've had a bumper harvest of plums. The tomatoes have been less successful and not particularly tasty - don't think I'll bother next year. The main feature of the garden currently is the row of 13 foot sunflowers looking over the garden from next door - like some floral surveillance.