Mr Calder, I see your Julian Swift-Hook and I raise you Association of Chief Police Officers spokesman Alf Hitchcock. Commenting on knife crime.

It’s that time again: tonight is the final of the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest.

I missed both semi-finals and haven’t had time to listen to the contenders, so I’ll be watching tonight (at the local LibDems’ annual Eurovision party) with an open mind.

One of my two predictions for the contest has already come true: Ireland’s abysmal entry by Dustin the Turkey was knocked out in its semi-final. My other prediction is to disagree with the BBC’s tiny and unrepresentative Eurovision panel that Sweden will win. Although Charlotte Perrelli has won before, her entry this year, Hero is – based on the short clip I’ve heard – nowhere near as good as her 1999 winner Take Me to Your Heaven.

In lieu of my usual reviews, you can get a rundown of tonight’s songs from Liberal Revolution, and a quick guide from Mike.

I’ll probably live Twitter the show. You can find what will no doubt be pearls of wisdom (“What *is* she wearing?!” will be par for the course) at twitter.com/willhowells or by texting follow willhowells to 07624 801423.

Last Friday, the morning after the local elections, I was returning to work late in the morning (having got home towards 5am). I’d foolishly forgotten my iPod, so I could hear the voices of the commuters I passed on the Jubilee Line platform. One was very nasal and very familiar. I turned and saw Ken Livingstone waiting for the next train, newspaper in hand.

So I went and said hello. He seemed fairly dispirited and not optimistic about the mayoral election result. Turns out he was right.

In the week since taking office, Boris Johnson has launched one deliberately eye-catching initiative: to ban alcohol on London’s public transport network. So much for selling yourself as a liberal when your first act is to ban something. I wonder why he didn’t make more of this plan during the election – did he make it up in two seconds after getting elected, or was he afraid some of the more, let’s say, light-hearted of his supporters might have been put off?

Anyhoo, the ban takes effect on June 1st. Quite aside from whether it’s liberal or not, will it make a difference? Drunks are probably the least likely to take notice of it. The law-abiding majority who had the odd drink on the Tube will stop, and be slightly less free and enjoy their evenings slightly less.

And who does drinking on public transport actually harm, as long as it’s not the driver doing it? Drunkenness can be a problem, but Boris hasn’t banned drunk people from public transport (as Chris points out, the night bus network would be unsustainable if you did). He isn’t introducing more staff to enforce the ban and he isn’t clamping down on anti-social behaviour generally. The ban might succeed in reducing litter on public transport very slightly but that’s about it.

So a policy that grabs headlines but costs virtually nothing to implement (the politician’s favourite), that inconveniences some people while not noticeably increasing quality of life for anyone else, that misses the real target, but which, in true New Labour style, Sends A Message. Unfortunately, that message is that if you reach your tube station with a half drunk can of beer (or M&S G+T if that’s your preference), you should down the rest before trying to catch a train.

Three marriage certificates I ordered online last weekend popped through my letterbox this morning, and all three were curious in their own way.

The first recorded the marriage of my great-great-great-grandfather Henry Beard to my g-g-g-grandmother Sarah Payne in Reading in 1843. I didn’t know the names of Henry and Sarah’s parents, so I was particularly interested in the “Father’s Name and Surname” column on the certificate for each of them. This showed Sarah’s father as James Payne (although gave no occupation), but this box was crossed through for Henry.

A missing father’s name can often indicate illegitimacy. I don’t mind if that’s the case, but the missing father’s name doesn’t help my research.

I moved on to the second certificate, which recorded the marriage two years later of Joseph Gibbs and Eliza Alleway, who were also two of my g-g-g-grandparents. I was surprised to see that Eliza’s father’s name was missing from this certificate. Two illegitimate ancestors in one morning seemed a bit of a coincidence. Although Joseph’s father, James, was recorded, his occupation was again not recorded.

It turns out that both couples were married in the same church – St Laurence’s (recorded as St Lawrence’s) – and both by the same vicar, John Ball. As the early 1940s were the first days of civil marriage registration, my suspicion is that this may have been a case of the vicar having a particular approach to recording the registrants’ parents: he didn’t record fathers’ occupations, and he left off fathers’ names if they had died – as opposed to the usual practice of putting “(Deceased)” after the name.

That practice was demonstrated on the third marriage certificate that came today, from 1902 (and soon enough after the turn of the century that the registrar was still using “18__” cetificate with the 8 crossed out). This records the marriage of my great-great-uncle Frederick Pinnock to Annie Batttison. My previous research suggested that Frederick was born to my g-g-g-grandmother Harriet Pinnock five or six years after the death of her husband Thomas, so I was interested to see who Frederick recorded as his father.

This time, there was a father shown: “Thomas Pinnock (Deceased)”. Frederick’s age is given as 32, which confirms census evidence that he was born in 1869 or 1870. But I have Thomas Pinnock’s death certificate and he definitely died in 1864. Maybe Frederick never knew, but that would mean that none of his eleven older siblings ever spilt the beans.

Next task then is to try to find the four ancestors from the 1840s on the 1841 census – but that may have to wait until after the local elections…