Editor Andrew Parkes is a man with many thoughts, here are just five he’s had this week.

1. Well I’ll eat my hat, The Tories have been returned with a majority. No one saw that coming, especially dear old Paddy Pantsdown who’s desperately searching for enough marzipan to make a hat. But it’s the SNP result that is even more interesting – we might need to find some wallbuilders to add height to the Roman’s effort from 122AD.

2. When did it become so ridiculously trendy to ride a bike? Have you seen the kit you need to mount a two wheeler these days? But forget the Lycra and all the other stuff for a minute, I was stopped the other day by a bloke demanding to know what my bike cost. When I said £100 he was horrified, he honestly believed that any bike costing under £1,000 should be scrapped. Pretentious nonsense.

3. Ah, the joys of children. I’ve been waiting a little over 17 years to realise the true pleasure of having offspring. For the fist time in his short life my son drove me to the pub on Sunday, almost worth the wait and the previous 17 years.

4. If you travelled back in time a few decades and told someone that in 2015 we’d pay large sums of money for water in a bottle they would have thought you were crazy. I reckon in a couple of decades no one will believe we once used to pay for phone calls.

5. If someone’s feeling a bit down and gloomy I recommend a good dose of solid, hard work. For one reason or another I was a bit blue at the weekend, but two hours full on chopping logs made me feel 100 per cent better and I was even ready for my son to drive me to the pub for a well-earned couple of pints.

Send in your 5THOUGHTS by email to aparkes@london.newsquest.co.uk Send on Twitter to @parkestheeditor Send through Facebook to facebook.com/newsshopper