ONCE again Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery has a treat in store for visitors to its latest exhibition.
These ValuedLandscapes is as diverse as an exhibition can get.
Yes you have the giant photos of footballpitches and council houses. Yes you have the paintings of landscapes to look at.
What you also have, however, is a nine-minute dvd show of different landscapes, landscapes (some shattered into pieces) painted in blue on white plates and a waterfall.
The shatted plate was a highlight for me. Bombs over Baghdad it's called. Look closely and the figures on the plate go about their daily business. Pull out and the plate is in a dozen pieces representing war. Clever is not the word.
Fraser Harrison's 20 year old essay startes in the wall and ends up on the floor - a unique way of displaying a piece of writing.
Go and see These Valued Landscapes. It's clever, unique and interesting - a bit like the gallery housing it.

I always promised myself I wouldn't let my family become absorbed in rubbish reality tv.
We avoid Big Brother and the Jungle explpoits of z list celebs like the plague.
We have, however, done Britain's Got Talent and I'd Do Anything and what a finale on Saturday!
Patrick (aged 10) was thrilled the young, cool dancer won the talent show and he, James (8) and yours truly squealed with delight when Blackpool lass Jodie won the part of Nancy in next year's production of Oliver!
I even got cucked into the voting as I allowed Patrick to ring up and officially register our support for Jodie.
Alpha male in the house sulked as his preferred choice of Irish girl, Jessie, limped in second. Well she moved like a plank of wood and sang out of the corner of her mouth so what did he expect!
Yes I know we could have been doing a hundred other things over the last weeks and nights but we chose not to, simple as that.

SOME people I know have queued up at the crack of dawn almost to get their hot little hands on a Wii Fit.
For those of you who have no idea what I'm going on about it's an optional extra for the Wiii games console at a cool £70 ish quid and you can measure your BMI, exercise, twiddle a virtual hula hoop around your virtual waist and head a virtual ball off your virtual head, etc.
Got me wondering so I popped to a local bargain shop and found hula hoops in there for a quid and a football for a couple more. Job done. PLUS you can do the REAL stuff in the lovely fresh air, in a meadow full of buttercups if it grabs you (Sudbury Commonlands are covered in them just now) without electricity - how clever is that?

Driving in from Sudbury I am met, along Cullum Road, with that most spring-like of visions - new born lambs frolicking in a meadow.
If you haven't seen them take a walk down there and say hello. They are very cute and with the sun on your face it's a nice way to spend five minutes out of a busy day.

POPPED into the lovely Sudbury Tourist Information Centre at the weekend and Shirley the manager (who has known me since I was 4) pointed me in the direction of their new "green" bags.
For less than two quid you can get a cute little jute which says "I got carried away in Suffolk". I bought one to add to my growing collection of jute bags.
I'm sure Sudbury isn't the only office selling these little gems so pop along to your nearest TIC and pick one up.

At a time when post offices are severely under threat, the powers that be should come and stand in the queue at Sudbury Post Office.
Closing village post offices will only heap pressure on those that remain open and Sudbury will burst!
In the last week I have queued twice at the Sudbury East Street branch for 20 minutes each time.
There are seven counters and only the three to the far right are ever open.
AND anyone wanting foreign currency can waltz straight to till seven and beat the queue. Why? They should jolly well queue up with the rest of us.
My most recent adventure in there was hideous. A woman three people behind me in the queue had a nightmare child strapped into his buggy. Said child kept kicking the poor woman in front of him in the queue who, like an idiot, smiled sweetly at him and tried to edge forward.
His mum, in a very loud voice for all to hear, told him if he kicked the woman once more, the woman would turn around and kick him back, then his mum would kick him. And so it continued until she threatened him with the police.
She told him she'd take him up the road to the station and leave him there. Then he started screaming and writhing in his buggy, telling his mum he hated her. It was a nice morning!
I finally got to the till for my track and trace service only to be bombarded with questions about whether I had pet insurance, a credit card and whether or not I wanted to swap my home insurance to be with the post office.
No wonder the queue is always out the door if everyone is asked all these questions!