The daffodils are on their way. Suddenly there are shoots above ground everywhere you look. No blooms yet so if you wander lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er vale and hill you won't stumble across a host of golden daffodils. But a nice little hint that Spring...and St David's Day...are on their way. Seasons is one of the delightful things about living in this country. My official private winter stretches from Guy Fawkes Day to the end of February. So once again it looks like I will make it through.

Last year Making Poverty History pushed Seattle style anti-globalisation demonstrations off the front pages of the mainstream media. But in Genoa memories live on. The Olympic torch landed in Italy two months ago on its way to the Winter Olympics north of Turin. Here are some of the incidents along the way.

In Rome sponsor Coca-Cola was targeted. In Genoa there were remonstrations between the police and protest groups and the dowsing of the Olympic flame for twenty minutes. In Bologna protesters forced the police to provide an escort for the torchbearer. In Trento the flame was grabbed from Elenora Berlanda and held aloft. In Milano a chain was held across the road and the torchbearer and entourage pelted with snow balls. Typical of the tone of the banners was this one: Olympics of Peace or Games of War?

Meanwhile the Church of England was holding yet another synod. It began its deliberations by commemorating its role in the abolition of slavery in 1807 and pledging its members to continue campaigning against modern slavery. So far so good. But there were one or two problems. For starters William Wilberforce had brought bills before parliament for twenty successive years before legislation to abolish the slave trade was passed. One of the reasons for the long delay was that the bishops in the House of Lords with biblical authority had voted repeatedly against the abolition of the slave trade.

Then there was the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts who had the unfortunate habit of branding its slaves on the chest with the word SOCIETY to show who they belonged to. Profits from the slave trade were part of the bedrock of England's industrial development. No one who was involved in running the country's business, financing it or benefiting from its products had clean hands.

I motored into Cardigan and wrote my weblog directly onto the blog site for the first time. I will be doing this for a few days and tidying up when settled. I took a cursory glance at the emails that had triggered mobile phone message alerts.

John Papworth was reporting that Edward Goldsmith and his nephew Zac had signed up for our September conference. Teddy will give the Friday morning keynote address and Zac will get his revenge on Jonathon Dimbleby by chairing the Radcon Any Questions at the Thursday evening public meeting. That should bring in the crowds. I told John to strike while the iron was hot and bring out the big guns to get Kirkpatrick Sale, Tracy Worcester and Angela Bates to join Deli Oguntomoju on the panel.

To the delight of scientists and historians the vanished minutes of the Royal Society were found gathering dust in a cupboard when auctioneers were carrying out a routine evaluation the other day. Filled with crabby italics and acerbic asides, the five hundred yellowing and stained pages are the hand-written minutes of the Royal Society between 1661 and 1682 as recorded by Robert Hooke, one of the society's original fellow and curator of experiments.

Lisa Jardine has written a number of excellent biographies of great 17th century figures including one on Hooke. She moved straight into campaigning mode: 'This is the last bit of the jigsaw for the society's archives, which is otherwise intact from 1660. There are Hooke enthusiasts out there and some are very wealthy and the calamity would be if the manuscript were to end up in one of their private collections where the broader community would be unable to study it.' Nice thought but with the going rate somewhere in excess of a million pounds I fear she is whistling in the wind.

In 1833 when Parliament voted compensation to former slave owners...rather than to the slaves themselves...the Church of England received nearly £ 9000 (half a million in today's money) for the loss of slave labour on its Codrington plantation in Barbados. The Bishop of Exeter and his business associates did even better. They came away with £ 13000. At least Rowan Williams kept his nerve and told the General Synod to acknowledge its 'corporate and ancestral guilt' and apologise. I wonder who will be apologising to whom for what 175 years hence?