It's 3am, or just a little beyond and can't yet sleep so I have come here to blog hoping my laptop battey doesn't die on me.

It occurred to me earlier, this blog has just turned 5years old. Perhaps this is the longest running Bravenet blog still (sortof) active if you take into account Bravenet only started offering a blog service a full week before I got mine. It's obvious things have changed since then, beyond wild belief, from a small weedy lttle 12-going-on-13 year old still in the 2nd year of high school in Lodon where I grew up and still a catholic, to an 18year old that I am now with a husband and child of my own in Gibraltar. How things change!

I am considering bringing back my pen name. I have used the name "Mystika Quinn"or just "Mysti" for short since I was 11 and many people online still only know me by ths name. I use it sporadically these days but it's a name that's so tied in with my online personality it's still a part of me in some respect. Not only is it a pen name but I have also submitted artwork under the name, rather than my own name, giving me some sense of anonymity. I don't attempt to hide behond this pen name, it just seems safer that way.

Maybe there should be a Bravenet seal of longevity for those who have stuck at the same blog year in, year out.... I should hope so, I'd be a good winner for it! 5 long years worth of blogging is proof!

Anyway, I shall try and get some sleep but it was fun walking down memory lane in a way through my blog. And damn these sticky keyboard keys! My letter I is serously fucked up!

Yes, it is 1:30am. Yes, I am busy feeding the baby. Yes, I have become petrified of small ants.
Lately we have become swarmed with ant armies living in small cracks in the wall so we are on red alert for the little buggers. It has become rather a nuisance and one i could we easily do without.

Hannah is doing great, she's grown so much. She has started teething have started giving her baby rice with her milk to sustain her for longer. Today she had her first day out in a normal buggy as the pram is now too small - she loved it. She was enthralled by all that was around her. It was gorgeous!

Myself and the husband are still hooked on World of warcraft these days, it just doesn't tire you. We've even started buying books and comics of Warcraft and the lore behind it. For those of you still unknowing of the story of Arthas Menethil and Lordaeron it is well worth looking into, it's a brilliant piece of lore and the book Arthas: Rise of the Lich King by Christie Golden is an excellent book on his life and story, and really gets in touch with the emotional aspect of Arthas's downfall. No longer would you see Arthas as just any old villain, you really feel in a way sorry for him as he makes the hardest decisions and watches friends and teachers betray and turn their backs on him as he descends into madness.... it's epic.

Anyway, enough about that, I should be off to bed soon when I get the girl to fall asleep (no easy job with a small child!) xxx

Commons Speaker Michael Martin will resign over the MPs' expenses scandal this afternoon.

Speaker Michael Martin was elected to the role in 2000

He will make an announcement at 2:30pm when he opens the Parliamentary session.

Mr Martin is still due to meet party leaders to discuss reform of MPs' expenses at 4:30pm.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said it was for the Speaker to tell the Commons what his intentions are.

"It is only fair to wait until he says that," he said. "It is not for the Prime Minister to tell the Speaker what to do.

"The Speaker will make his own statement and I will comment on what he has said after he has made his statement."

The Speaker has been under pressure over the issue since last year when he fought, in court, to keep MPs' expenses claims secret.

When the details were released by the Telegraph, he angered MPs by appearing more concerned with finding out how they were leaked than with their contents.

Yesterday Tory MP Douglas Carswell tabled a motion of no confidence in Mr Martin but the Speaker refused to allow MPs to ask questions about it.

He told the public and the Commons he was "profoundly sorry" for his role in the affair but said the motion could not be debated because it was not "substantive".

Extraordinary scenes followed as a series of MPs rose to demand he stand aside or submit to a vote of no confidence.

Sky's political correspondent Joey Jones said: "I think the likelihood is that friends of Michael Martin will have told him to think about the situation and to consider the events of yesterday, when he had no control of the House of Commons.

"He will have reflected on that overnight.

"I am sure that he will have taken counsel from his fellow MPs, perhaps particularly among the Scottish MPs, and decided that this was the time to go."

Mr Carswell told Sky News it gave him no pleasure to have played a part in bringing Mr
Martin down, but said the House of Commons needed a new Speaker to help guide it out of the current crisis.

The Harwich and Clacton MP said: "I have acted not as his enemy and least of all as an opposition MP. I have acted as somebody who cares passionately for the parliamentary system.

"I believe we have found ourselves in a moral ditch and we need reform and change to get out of that ditch and restore dignity to politics."

Text of Mr Carswell's motion of no confidence in the Speaker

Mr Martin was widely denounced for allowing police into the Palace of Westminster to search senior Tory Damian Green's office last year.

Several MPs broke convention by publicly suggesting he should stand down, on the grounds that he could no longer be relied on to protect their rights.

Mr Martin was forced to take the unusual step of making a statement to the House, saying the police had neither a search warrant nor his permission to raid Mr Green's office.

He laid the blame on Serjeant-at-Arms Jill Pay, who he said had "regrettably" granted permission without his explicit say-so.

It has been many a month since I have last posted any news about my existance, so apologies for those who think i popped out of life =)

My 18th birthday is today =) A joyous occasion indeed! I am an adult and the world is at my feet. Or something. In reality it's pretty much the same, except I could go drinking, vote and all that stuff. Only at the moment I can't drink as I am 9months pregnant with my daughter! There's the European elections coming up though so I shall be having my first ever elections!!

first post of every month of 2008