But, the best one for my money is Hungry Jacks' sponsorship of the Gorilla Rainforest enclosure. It used to be McDonalds paying for the privilege of having their moniker on the wall but I can only imagine someone at head office eventually saw the deep irony of sponsoring a refuge for animals who have been displaced because their homes have been razed to make way for beef farmers, who, er yes, supply McDonalds.

You'd think that making morning tea for 20 kids would be easy enough, but is it hell. First off you have to clean all the tables and chairs outside after the wombats, possums and Tasmanian tigers have played around on them during the night in a who-can-defecate-the-most competition.  Once you've done that it's pouring milk into plastic cups (except for the special kids who have things like low-fat latte or soy with cranberries (freshly squeezed, please!). Ah yes, you also have to make tea for the teachers. All but one have green tea so that's easy enough - let the water see the tea bag and then fish it out. The odd one out has Ovaltine with three sugars and full fat milk - good one.

By midday you're finished and I mean finished. It is a tiring business. I forgot to mention that while you're there you also become every children's father. The upside is they make stuff for you and gently hand it over as if you're a visiting King. The downside is, you have no idea what it all is.

Two came along too which is good because he is now sleeping and will continue to do so for some time, hence my appearance here today amongst you all.

When I arrived it was like the second coming (I mean, Jesus, madam) with them all rushing out to embrace me (some rather too fondly, I fancied. For example, the small brunette with the - oh never mind) but the trouble was the person who had the key for the room with the toys hadn't arrived. Apparently she'd had a serious incident with a bowl of porridge, a one year old and a jar of jam with the lid off.

One of the women asked me jokingly if I could play the piano - they have an upright beast there which I reckon was last played when they held the town dance to celebrate Federation - and of course I wasted no time flexing the fingers and giving them a rendition - and lusty vocals too of course - of such standards as Mine's a Pint With A Cherry on Top, and She's A Barmaid With Big Things Ahead of Her. Oh sorry, I mean pub standards. When I looked around again several of the women had their mouths wide open and two kids were crying, but overall I think I can say they were entertained until the keys arrived.

Later, when the toys were out I got talking to some of the mothers, one of whom works for Esso. They let her do two days a week which frankly is probably good enough as she is an engineer and presumably as long as the pumps are working she's not got too much to do. We got talking about my book (yes, I know, I'll drop a hint whenever I can) because it's a thriller set in the motor industry and then we got onto Jeremy Clarkson and Top Gear. I mentioned that back in the day, as they say, Clarkson was a struggling motoring journalist (he might say he wasn't, but take it from me...) when I got a call from the Sun newspaper (daily circulation 6.5 million, I believe) asking if I could do a column for them every week. At the time I was too busy running eight magazines or something equally ridiculous so I told the bloke I knew this journalist who'd probably be able to do it, what with his writing being lively and amusing, and so I told Mr C and he got the gig. I guess it was one of the stepping stones for him, gave him a high profile and eventually led to an interview at the BBC who had a new program planned, called Top Gear .

Anyway, one day Happy Bear disappeared. This is not an unusual occurrence. Toys get lost everyday in our house. There must be some kind of black hole into which they are sucked, never to be seen again. I tried the usual places - the car, under the sofa, in the garden, in a bed, under a bed, stuffed down the toilet, and in the fridge or cooker. But Happy Bear was nowhere to be seen. Until this week.

A friend of mine who is familiar with the heartbreak caused by the bear's disappearance happened to be in a branch of charity shop Vinnies this last weekend. This being the suburb I live in, it's apparently full of Armani, Hugo Boss, Jimmy Choo and Versace cast-offs. There are bargains to be had, so I'm told, but what that means in a place where the average house price is $3.2million I'm not sure.
However, sitting in the box of bears was Happy Bear, so she told me. Now, there can't be too many Happy Bears out there and certainly not on the route I travel every week as I take Four to pre-school while Two rides in the pushchair. So, I figured Two must have dropped HB out of the pushchair, someone picked him up and next thing he's nudging shoulders with a bejewelled Barbie, naked Ken and a clown called Mr Bobo.

Meanwhile, the Germans leave today. They have left their room tidier than when they arrived and my computer now works 48 times faster and is linked to the Pentagon. If you need to know anything, just ask me.

In other news, as some of you may know, I mark journalism correspondence course papers and they've just asked me if I'll mark all the New Zealand papers because they've bought a Kiwi correspondence college. They sent me the first batch this last week so I've been busy with those too. The parchment is lovely and some of them handle a quill pen very well indeed. I hope next time they can send them by airmail though, and I don't mean that pigeon again. The Kiwi students have Dickensian names like Franklin Smudge, Betty Ann Arbuthnott and Seamus Feague - wonderful. I shall give them each a commendation and seal it with wax - that'll make them feel at home.

This week I'll concentrate on writing book two a little more. The book I've finished  writing is still with a couple of publishers. One is interested and has asked me if I would consider making some small changes, so we shall see how that goes.

Anyway, the girl and her boyfriend will arrive today for a few days. They speak excellent English - in fact their syntax is often better than mine. The bloke (bloken, in German) is what they call a wunderkind which in his particular case means he knows more about computers, and apparently NATO's early warning missile system, than any other person alive. I have still not worked out if it's MI5, the CIA or some shadowy German secret service outfit he works for and I'm not going to ask again - last time I broached the subject he said to me calmly with a slight German smile on his bespeckled face, "I could tell you, but of course I would then have to kill you. Very quickly." I feel he's a good person to have around in the event of a war breaking out, which let's face it could happen any time. Well so he tells me.

The girl is also something of a whizzkid who dresses in jeans and a t-shirt but who wears the smallest, most expensive diamond ear studs and a beautiful but subtle watch I happen to know is worth rather more than the GDP of Botswana. She is said to know Bill Gates rather well and Nelson Mandela and is sometimes absent for many months doing whatever she does around the world.

I'm not sure why they are in Australia, though my apple strudel is known to make men and women swoon, so maybe it's that.

I'm looking forward to it because we always have super conversations (but never taped, of course) and I will cook them something typically German - I'm thinking sausages, pigs trotters and sauerkraut.
How did we meet? Well, I can't tell you that. If I did, well you know the rest.

Anyway, to ebay. I have this weakness. It is for watches. They say (no madam, I have no idea who they are) that the only piece of jewellery a man should wear is a watch. Of course, I have seen plenty of men festooned with many glittering jewels but that's a story for another day.

The thing is, I've always wanted to start a watch collection. At the moment I have only an everyday Raymond Weil which is 20 years old and a Jaeger le Coulture which in itself is probably enough to get my house burgled, but don't even think about it; I have arms and I'm extremely dangerous. Only the other day I knocked over a glass, which shattered. So, beware.

Now, the other thing is, I like 1970s watches. Yes, I know, the 70s was a dreadful era, so you all will say. But I don't think so. I remember the summer of 1976 fondly. I lay next to a girl in the sun almost all summer. Of course we were sunburnt (and I seem to recall an ambulance was called at one stage) but oh my, it was a summer to remember. I had flares, I had bell bottoms, I had Ben Sherman shirts with the big collars, and when platform shoes came in I thought that at long last I'd be taller than the other boys. Only I forgot they'd wear them too.

Now, I won't bore you with all the details but in the 70s many interesting watch technologies came out. As an example - the electric watch. This is not a quartz watch with its plastic gears but rather a watch which used a battery to flick a wheel which then set the whole metal mechanical movement humming. Yes, these watches have a satisfying hum to them. Someone told me it's a little like strapping a vibrator on, but frankly that's not something I know about. No really.

So, that's why I've been absent for a while. I am endeavouring not to live at ebay because I can see it could become as addictive as gambling or Coopers Pale Ale and frankly the Coopers alone is costing me dearly (but it is so worth it).