Scratch

* Well presumably it is when you live(d) up the road from the BBC Headquarters. Likewise the cafe that Egg works in, which no longer looks like that, is next to North Acton, so he must've had hell of a journey from Southwark every day.

* In no particular order.

* and its not like I am going short.

*Or fowl.

** Or maybe even spitefulness on behalf of some unnamed deity.

* Although it will probably be limited to those of you who like Top Gear and/or Jeremy Clarkson.

Insulation

I am now the proud owner of approximately 5.542m³ of additional loft insulation which I spent most of the early part of the day installing.

I have spent the rest of the day scratching at the glass fibres that somehow found their way past my sealed cuffs onto my arms.

I'd show you a photo of the loft, but it looks like any other loft. I could show you the photo of the wasps nest if I'd though to take a photo of it. Instead if you go here, you'll see the comedy of me getting the insulation home. The 6 2x4s were comparatively easy.

And In Other News...

I have given a name to my pain, and it is Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. Specifically Uncle Salty.

Its probably just me, and not that hard. It just seems as though I would have more luck slapping the neck of the guitar with a kipper than acutally tring to play.

Nothing

Just a quick post to say absolutely nothing. Things have been busy but nothing I care to mention.

The one cool thing* of note (pun intended) is that we now have a reasonably dense covering of snow. Wonder if I have time to build a snowman before work...

Technical Fault

So, having done my good charitable deed for the day at my own expense, I head to the train toget home and hopefully enjoy what should be the remaining 2 hours of my half day.

The train pulls out the station and begins its merry way towards Finsbury Park. After a few minutes, the train pulls up just short of the station and we sit and wait.

And wait.

Some time goes by and a rather meak voice comes over the tannoy announcing that

due to technical problems, the train is currently being held outside of Finsbury Park, but enginers are looking to see if they can resolve the problem.

At about this time, a FCC employee who happened to be sitting next to me goes to the carriage door at the end of the train in first class as we can hear voices outside.

Some more time passes. An irate gentlemen ends his phone call that he has been kindly sharing / with us, stomps down the carriage full of self importance* and demands to know what is happening.

It is at this point the guard rather nonchalantly turns and says,

well, we appear to have lost half the train, so we are just waiting for the ok to move.

Is that really a technical issue, or just plain carelessness? And to be fair, if we had made it that far without the back, was it really that important anyway?

Presumably for anyone on it, perhaps rolling gently to Kings Cross, then they might feel differently.

The Best Laid Plans

It was a relatively simple plan. Get the 703 to Finsbury Park, change to the Victoria Line to Euston hop to work, pick up my camera, and do the reverse getting the 750something home walking through the door about 830 bringing croissants and coffee for bonus points.

There were however some flaws.

The Victoria line isn't running today. Adapting to this I took the Piccadilly line to Russell Sq. But that's closed. Only that wasn't announced until after the tube doors shut at Kings Cross. After walking from Holborn, I picked up my camera and walked to Kings Cross.

Having ordered said bonus inducing items, it became apparant I didn't have my wallet. Walking back to work, getting security to let me into my building, picking up my wallet and returning to Kings Cross where I now find myself waiting on the 852. Already an hour late and the day hasn't started for most people.

Well I suppose it can't get worse. Right?

Fare Jumpers

So there I was, sitting on the train after on the way back from another day in purgatory and to compound matters in the far off distance I can see a ticket inspector working his way up the train. Knowing that he isn't going to take my word for it I dig my wallet out, since they tend not to be the most patient of people, and wait. As I wait the person next to me starts rummaging through their pockets, then their bags... I show my ticket and the Inspector hovers waiting the person next to me. Perhaps it was obvious what was going to happen when she reluctantly removed her bag to let me sit down, harrumphing all the while.

I'm sorry I can't seem to find it, I know I had it here. Oh, that old chestnut

I used it on the bus earlier. Hah, if that were the case, then why do you have a separate bus ticket amongst the lint and Werther's Original!

Erm, no I don't have receipt as I must have thrown it away.More lies! You never had a receipt because you are jumping the fare like the criminal low life you are!

Well can't you just let me off? The audacity of it! I don't pay my season ticket to have spongers like you leeching off me.

I almost felt angry enough to pipe up when the ticket inspector only charged her the £20 penalty fare, not the £35 it should've been. If it was down to me she would've been picking herself up off the platform at Stevenage and starting to to walk to St Neots. Floggings to good for these people.

Looking back in hindsight now, the shifty eyes and walking stick were a giveaway*. A career criminal, no doubt picking the pockets of young innocent hoodies in London.

Photos

I really need to rejig this site, specifically the photos. Compression screws things over something chronic, and option are the order of the day.

Perhaps its time to start with a clean slate.

White and Nerdy

Sifting through iTunes, listening to Weird Al, and I began to wonder just how White and Nerdy I was. A short google later I kinda regret the thought....

How White and Nerdy Are You?

I don't think I'm gonna be rolling with the gangstas anytime soon.

Flowers

Whilst walking to my office, I noticed a flower delivery that has been sitting in the mail collection since the middle of last week. Given they were wilted and dying if not already dead, I am presuming that the apology was not accepted.

Ho Hum

Whilst there isn't much else new in life*, the trailer for Doghouse is out. Jake West directing a Daniel Schaffer script. On a similar note, my copy of Dogwitch: Mood Swings finally arrived some two years after ordering so that seemed like a good omen.

Dorian Gray

Went to the ballet earlier and caught the matinee performance of Matthew Bourne ’s Dorian Gray. I would wholeheartedly recommend seeing it, but seeing as its on a limited run with the last performance startinmg in little over an hour, I guess its a mute point.

Really quite looking forward to Edward Scissorhands. Presumably there will be less lifts from the eponymous character than in Dorien Gray.

Stecky

The Bride arrived on time, the sun was shining, the groom was wearing a skirt, what more could be said. The service went well after which we retired to the reception venue where much food and drink was consumed. Speeches were spoken, merriment was had, more drink was drunk and then dancing was, erm, danced

The next day was spent resting, swimming, and eating and drinking before finishing off with some billiards.

A lovely weekend all in all.

Church Time

Stu has 3hrs 10mins of single life left. As I struggle into my waistcoat I wonder how he is doing. I also hope the trafic will be better for Becky than it was for us. Fingers crossed.

The Road To Hell

...or the M25 as its more commonly known.

Of the two hour journey so far, the last one hour forty five minutes worth have seen us travel the grand distance of about 200 yards, if that. Knowing that the traffic 'incident' is two junctions away i am not hopeful of a swift resolution.

The irony is not lost on me that less that 20 yards in front of me, quietly burning its image into my retinas, is a temporary speed restriction of 50mph.

I wish.

EDIT: 15/08/2008 23:55 - Hmmm. Original estimated journey time 1hr30mins. Actual time 4hrs15mins. I think my eyes are melting. One piece of good fortune was that as we got to the scene of the 'incident', they had literally picked up the first cone so we were the first car allowed back on the now clear vacant road. I wouldn't have been overly cheered to have been sent off across country lanes. In retospect I am kinda glad that a BMW shoved in front of me.

Dinners Ready

Ah. There is nothing like coming home to warm cooked meal thats been lovingly prepared. I however came home to the remains of a a bird carefully laid out in the kitchen, the floor literally awash with feathers.

Bless kittenage..

Finally

I have direction. I have a goal. At least as far as photos go.

Now its just the implementing part.

Michael Turner

RIP Michael Turner, a truly gifted artist and writer.

Return Of The Bathroom

I started writing up my last bathroom decoration about a year ago, but decided it was crap. Having spent all day under the bath fitting a 2.0 bar pump after having sworn off plumbing for as long as I could foreseeably manage, I thought I might try to recap last years escapades.

Having approached it almost with hindsight and less emotion, I am forced to say, its still crap.

Read on if you want. Or not.

About eighteen months ago I started work on what I hoped would be a relatively straightforward redecoration of the bathroom in our flat. Four days in, the old suite was replaced, the tiles gone, albeit with two layers of plasterboard that were either intrinsically bonded or dissolving, and we were down to chipboard on the floor. About a week after that I had modified all the piping to have wall mounted taps and controls and at the same time taking the opportunity of running the shower pipes behind the lack of wall.

To coin a movie phrase, time passed. The plasterboard went up. A built in cupboard was, erm, built in*. The tiles started to go up. Relatively early on I regreted the decision to go with 400mm² tiles on the basis they would go up quicker as almost every 4th tile needed cutting and diamond blades ain't cheap, nor are they the quietest thing, and whilst I know my neighbours wouldn't offer me the same courtesy but I tried to avoid using a bench saw after about 8pm. Also, with regard the taps, contols and shower head, to get a good finish would require first drilling through and then using a jigsaw with carbide blades which would take about two hours a tile to get right**. That and the fact my tiling skills, to me anyway, felt as though I was actually tiling with humous. Oh, and there was also the case of the disappearing Ikea pencils. If I had a penny for every pencil I had lost***, I would have lots of pennies, but not any useful tools to mark tiles.

Anyway, the short is it took about four months for me to practically complete the room. Hand on my heart, I am pretty sure I did actually finish before we moved out.

Weak

Ok. The mind and in this case, the liver were willing, but in the aftermath, the body is found to be wanting and weak. Damn quad bikes.

Driving a car after playing in rage buggies is quite a novel experience.

The Clock Has Ticked

Well, after a grueling 4 hour day primarily spent putting off til tomorrow, well Monday, what I could probably have done today, its off to overcast Bristol for a weekend. Ah, tis a brave groom that lets his stag take place in an area with scrumpy that you can't see through let alone cut with a knife.

Although my liver is screaming no, and possibly it knows/remembers better than I, let the games begin. Cry havoc...

Mummy It Burns

I've spent half the night fidgeting trying to get comfy. The room is oppressively hot, there is no air movement and even if there was I couldn't sniff a sausage* through my blocked nose. I am lying on my back staring at the ceiling. In a fit of for the love of God I reach out for the bottle of Sinex nasal spray on the bedside table, hoping it will help. In the dark I remove the cap, place the bottle and simultaneously sniff and squeeze.

In hindsight, sitting up may have been preferable, as 10ml of Sinex flooding straight into the nasal cavity burns somewhat, not to mention tastes awful as it overflows into the mouth.

Damn gravity

iWake

Nothing like dozing off on a train with an iPod in your hand and then accidentally maximising the volume to make you look like an insane loon.

Succession

Sixty second in line to the throne is HRH The Crown Prince of Norway King Harald V.

A Mobile Life

I remember when I got my first mobile, not necessarily the exact details (me being at the end of my second year of University) but most of the facts. The where was Chatterbox Telecom - 184a Cowley Rd, Oxford. The who was John. The what was an Orange badged Motorola StarTAC. The when was 15 May 1998 (10 years ago today) and the why... well thats one of the facts I can't quite remember.

They were heady days. Texting the three or so other people we knew with phones to see if they had escaped from their 10am lecture in sufficient time to be in a position to stand at the bar and order at 11am*.

Time passed, and the numbers with phones that we knew rose into double figures. I remember the conversations when 'The Matrix' came out, and everyone marveled at the bananaphone which was quickly redesigned into the Nokia 7110 which if memory serves**, I think Stu was the first to get. He was also I believe the first to break it. On a reassuring note, even with the Navi wheel as it was then, he has never escalated into a crackberry, though he now has an iPhone...

Over the decade that would follow I have been through, by my counting 2 free replacements, 5 upgrades and 2 freebies. There would be shares of ups and downs. Happiness and sadness can be transmitted from or to wherever you were. The flaw in the plan is the word 'mobile' always there, ready to bleep when you least want it to to make or break your day... I would say when you least expect it, but I guess by definition it will only beep when you are staring at it really not wanting it to and so that means you are expecting it, or perhaps in some sixth sense-esque way making it ring.***

Ignoring the cost to ones sanity, relationships and general well being, one key element however can be quantified.. the cost to the pocket. Before I divulge this cost lets see what milestones I have 'achieved'.

Over the last ten years, I have:

• Talked for a total of 26 Days, 13 hours and 50 minutes
of which
• June 2001 was the highest with 20h, 53m & 30s;
• Febuary 2006 was the lowest with 29m & 44s;
and
• the average being 5h, 19m & 07s

• Texted a total of 30,028 message
of which
• November 1999 was the highest with a staggering 1032 texts (which also accounted for the longest bill of 29 pages, compared to the average 9 and lowest being 2);
• March 2006 was the lowest with 14 texts;
and
• the average is an unhealthy 250 texts a month (although if you only go back 5 years the average is a marginally better 77 texts a month)

These are just differing scales of markers on the road that is my mobile life. They are more easily resolved against other peoples mobile lives as they do not change with time - a minute or a text are exactly that whatever phone you have or whatever plan/network you are on. There is another set of markers however that we traditionally put more weight and relevance on:

• July 2007 was the cheapest bill at £22.20;
• October 1999 was the most expensive bill at £207.46;
and
• the average is £63.62 (although for the past 5 years this drops to £40.36)

The cost though, the bottom line cost, for the long calls to friends, the arrangements to meet down the pub, the moral support, the wrong numbers, the condolences and the celebrations, the memories - both good and bad, the accidentally leaning on the phone and calling the police, the replacement handsets... the sum total of my mobile life to date is £7884.70.

Not a small amount by any means. Whilst not wishing to change the past, I shall however be bearing this in mind for the future as I watch to see what other devices (crumpet toaster anyone?) can be added to phones... When I first got a phone you could (just about) make calls and send texts, now, you can do a hell of a lot more, take photos, watch tv, replicate PC functions... ...If only I could get a signal at work.

As a closing note, if you are interested, you can click here and see a graph of my minutes, texts and bill totals...

Remember kids, practice safe text.

100% Recycled Paper

Is a good thing. Don't get my wrong. If you still need to send hard copies then recycled paper and that obtained from a sustainable/maintained forest is the way to go.

Advertising literature and donation forms... there has to be a better and more environmentally friendly way...

...especially for the Woodland Trust.

Summer

Summer must almost be here. I can tell. Yesterday was a glorious day which I spent pottering around doing DIY, gardening before, having looked at the sky, that it was time to polish the car and remove the hardtop.

An hour later, the car is back to the racing green it should be rather than the mudtrack brown it was and the softtop is up and a healthy consistent blank.

Approximately twelve hours later, it is exactly the same, just with small pools of water covering it.

Swing Of Things

Its strange, after two weeks of not be able to do much on the site, first because of decorating and secondly because of a trip overseas, it is rather difficult to get back into the swing of things. I suppose its actually the accumulation of lots of things that need sorting and buckling down to do so.

...and then there is the 1351 photos to be vetted.

Less Guitar Hero, More Average Session Musician

I presume like many an aspiring musician in the formation of a band, the choice of which instrument you end up with is defined by both what the other, better, musicians can play, and also what instrument can be afforded*.

As such I find myself using the Wiimote to play the bass part.

Now don't get me wrong, whilst not quite as glamourous as wanging around a lead guitar, its about the participating and a bass guitar, however small in this instance, is still a core element of a band...

I know its not about appearances, but perhaps I would feel more rock n roll if I stood up. Or perhaps took off my slippers. Only the other day I was watching some footage of Queen and saw John Deacon wearing a tank top whilst on stage....

Memory Lane

Took a couple of trips down memory lane over the last few days. On Thursday I revisited the Old Doctor Butler's Head for a few drinks after work, albeit not with the friends I went with on my last visit. Then yesterday we went to a 60s themed party at the Half Moon in Bishop's Stortford which is near a school the wife of one of the aforementioned friends attended and had her 21st. I have never seen so many Beatles in one room, the 60s party not the 21st, and there was a guy there who was the spitting image of John Lennon circa late 60s early 70s. Actually the outfit and facial hair were a bit too convincing and I suspect he always dresses like that, whether as a concious decision or out of poverty, I do not know.

Hopefully we'll be seeing said friends in a little over a month. Woot.

Its Ok. Its Camden

Earlier today I had to go across London for work and on the way back I stopped off at Camden as I had some bits to pick up. Now whilst I don't mind the tube, I wouldn't say its in my top 10 of places to spend time in, and certainly in the interests of personal survival not somewhere I would care to share both intimate time and flesh with it. Its not the cleanest of places, what with the dirt, dustand detritus of everyday life, and thats before the world and his dog has wiped any number of biological excretions on pretty much every surface imaginable. And then some.

Now, I understand that Camden has an eclectic mix of people and draws people from lots of disparate places together. One such individual as we were walking along the platform walked up to a poster for The Other Boleyn Girl and proceeded to lick Scarlett_Johansen's face before uttering 'If you and Natalie [Portman] play your cards right you could have me' to which the young girl next to me quietly said to her rather astonished friend 'Its ok. Its Camden. People do that here.'

Presumably not after catching something like tetanus or ebola.

Its Ok. Its Camden

Earlier today I had to go across London for work and on the way back I stopped off at Camden as I had some bits to pick up. Now whilst I don't mind the tube, I wouldn't say its in my top 10 of places to spend time in, and certainly in the interests of personal survival not somewhere I would care to share both intimate time and flesh with it. Its not the cleanest of places, what with the dirt, dustand detritus of everyday life, and thats before the world and his dog has wiped any number of biological excretions on pretty much every surface imaginable. And then some.

Now, I understand that Camden has an eclectic mix of people and draws people from lots of disparate places together. One such individual as we were walking along the platform walked up to a poster for The Other Boleyn Girl and proceeded to lick Scarlett_Johansen's face before uttering 'If you and Natalie [Portman] play your cards right you could have me' to which the young girl next to me quietly said to her rather astonished friend 'Its ok. Its Camden. People do that here.'

Presumably not after catching something like tetanus or ebola.

Mental Note

Otters live in Holts. Much ridiculed was I last night whilst playing cranium and this gap appeared in my knowledge.

Still won though. :)

Science(ish) In Action

In a completely unregulated, unsupervised and generally unscientific trial, I will shorty be able to report categorically whether ingestion of a female oral contraceptive by a recently neutered male cat prevents conception by the test subject.

Less apparent will be whether the contemporaneous ingestion of anti-histamines reduces the as of yet non-apparent allergic reaction he may have to himself.

That Which Doesn't Kill You, Erm... Hurts Like F**K

Throughout the course of a lifetime, there are many trials to be undertaken, tribulations* to overcome and pain to be felt.

No doubt we have all experienced the yearning pain of unrequited love, the emptiness following the passing of a friend or family member, the sting of betrayal, and my current favorite, the lesser known but still popular burning sensation associated with not attaching the top of the blender when pureeing boiling soup**.

Induhviduals Strike Back

Following my earlier post another pearl of wisdom from one of my colleagues. We were talking about rolling out a new service that has been in the pipeline for a year or two, and one of my colleagues piped up to say that the people she represents were 'panting at the bit' in anticipation.

Given I know our service levels and they aint that good, I can only imagine some tragic S&M session going wrong.

Truly Frightning

Just think back to my earlier post about visiting the Terracotta army and something amusing popped up from my memory. When Sal mentioned that she was going to one of her work colleagues, he responded with 'So these Terracotta Warriors you're going to see... are they a band?'

Its a good argument for some sort IQ benchmark related steralisation.

The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army

On Friday night, we went to see the The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army at the British Museum. Although it could never capture the awe inspiring site you would see in China, being able to get up close and see the intricate detail and craftmanship is breathtaking. Much like The Times' review it is well worth visiting.

The one criticism I would have is that even at 9pm, it was very busy, and the layout sometimes made it difficult to move around, but I guess thats always going to be an issue if things are really popular.

Karma

So, its the early hours, you have a day at home whilst your other half is going into work, so you do the nice thing of offering them a lift to the station. Do you:

• a) get up and dressed as you usually do; or
• b)quickly dart to the car wearing your sleep attire with an additional fluffy dressing gown seeing as its bloody early/bloody dark and noone will see you,

Needless to say people saw.

Listermint

I didn't know that Listermint has a best before date. I only discovered this the other day as I was casually looking at the recently-found-ex-student-days bottle I have been using up.

Presumably it just gets better with age, although if I am honest I cannot taste the difference.

Induhvidual

In the style of a Dilbert induhvidual, a work colleague and I were talking about a project when he referred to an issue as the 'fly in the ocean.'

I pointed out that if that were the case, I probably wouldn't worry.

Listerine

Apparently it has an expiry date. I just thought it always tasted nasty.

Bleurgh

Don't know about you but I feel rather rotund.

Hope Santa was good to you.

Merry Christmas

One and all. Time to head to the kitchen...

Caroling

...at rugby club this eve, which is neither silent nor Holy.

Have fun kids and enjoy Christmas.

Busyness

I've noticed of late that things really aren't slowly down in the run up to Christmas, the pedal is firmly to the metal and there is the slightest hint of creaking. Work is still busy and aint gonna get any better particularly soon. A while ago we had an attempted break in, someone going to the effort of angle grinding through some security grills before they were disturbed. Luckily they didnt get anything, but its an ongoign concern this close to Christmas. Home is really starting to feel like home, albeit for the average eskimo family. The benefit of living on a top floor flat, well our old one anyway, surrounded on all sides by people of varying race and socio-economic background was that there was always, and I mean always, either the heat from cooking, or the combined heat of lots of people going about their daily lives. An end of terraced house has little such benefits, and having moved into the burbs, there isnt even enough concrete around to retain what little heat the sun kicks out.

Although of late I haven't done anything thats really out of the ordinary (time seems to still be slipping through my fingers*, I have learnt several things recently. Our car now costs £45 to fill compared with the large 4x4 BMWs (which was adjacent to me at the pumps) adjacent which take in excess of £85 to fill a tank. They do this by having a clip that keeps the gun 'on' thereby allowing you to sit in the car blissfuly unawares as the car drinks its fill (and then some) of the worlds remaining oil. Slightly unrelated, I quite like curtain shopping (admittedly we were actually bed shopping, and I was side tracked into performing ad-hoc curtain browsing). Belt sanders are worth their weight in gold... ...or if not gold, then certainly their weight in elbow grease. Kittens love Christmas, specifically the baubles on the tree, the pretty tassles on the wrapping... and they show their love at every opportunity using their fangs.

Spose I should go and get something to eat and perhaps think about uploading a photo.

Or maybe bed (with only five more nights till the new one arrives).

Podcasting

Hmm, podcasting, or videostreaming as it is in my case fast becoming. Great idea in theory...communism works in theory etc etc.. But off the shelf software that doesn't do quite what you want, but gives you the tree, rope and a DIY guide to Famous Knots to let you get on...

Grrr arrgh.

Back to the mixing desk. I hope..

Updates

Whilst I have said it before, I need to sort my timekeeping out, specifically my to-do list or rather consolidate my to-do lists inot one lovely synced list which reminds me in adequate time wihtout publishing all my personal tasks at work. I have one tied to my work calendar, another tied to my work desktop, PC & traditional calendar @ home, this site, not to mention numerous bits of paper.. all of which means I invariably look at the wrong list..

But of course, rather than do this, update my site, edit photos or do any of the other things niggling at me, I am going to sit and watch snow settling on the driveway.

All very wintery, and dare I say Christmasy.

Moved

Whilst to me it seems an absolute age that we moved, looking back at the calendar it was only six weeks ago. It seems strange to think in that time, we have seen the start and end of the Rugby World Cup 2007, and erm, other important stuff.

The move itself began promising. Unlike when we moved into the flat we a) didnt sleep through the alarm*; and b) weren't hungover. Vans were collected, porters (read Smully and Dan) turned up on time and the labour (of necessity) began.

Heavier items and large scale furniture was first. Most went quickly and quietly.... the sofa being the obvious exception. Necessity meant doors and hinges were seperated after many years of happy unison, much like our respective vertebrae would be come nightfall. It wasn't so much that the individual seats of our sofa were difficult (although they were cumbersome) it was that the inconveniently ever present gravity meant the sofa bed kept catapulting out much like an air bag in a car crash, just without the space to expand fully or any regard for our safety/welfare**.

Sofas aside, there were few troublesome objects. The main problem was the sheer number and volume of boxes. I am sure better physicists and mathematicians than I could work out the correct formula based on the number of people, the nuber of rooms and length of stay. In fact I am almost certain they could, because, lets be frank, my estimation was 'somewhat' off. Four hours after completion we finally left the flat, dropped off the keys and slammed straight into rush hour on the North Circular, via Burger King in Park Royal - an alternate definition of 'Fast Food'. 2 hours later and one family member to pick up the keys we were in. Unloading took a bit less than two hours, even after we lost a pair of hands (not literally). Dropping the van back and then hopping on both the last tube and the last train saw me walking home from the station, to a new home, at 2am. :)

To be continued.

Moving

As moving day approaches, our lives are packed in varying sized boxes about us. Every sentence now begins 'After we have moved...' which is a reflection of our life on hold. There isn't any point starting anything, and we couldn't anyway since everything is packed, and we can't begin to think about the new place because it has been over 5 months since we saw it and, well were not quite there yet.

Part of me wishes that we could have moved in any other the accumulated 8 weeks we had off to move, whether it be the move at the end of July that was aborted or any of the last 4 weeks, not three days after we go back to work. Saying that at least we will be in and we can get our lives back to normalcy. In the interim, the site archives will be offline until I get broadband again, although the front page, as you may realise will be being hosted somewhere else for reference, probably Smully, which reminds me, I must ask him...

Although I am glad to be moving (would be silly to voluntarily do so otherwise) I will miss the flat, more so than Acton itself. As the missus just said, the flat has been good to us, and although we have had our differences over the years, the flat has always been there for us and we there for it. I hope the next owners/occupiers look after her*.

Therefore, I guess all that is left to say is have fun and see you soon.

Why?

'Why?' was the question I asked of text answer service AQA (Any Question Answered - 63336) the other night given the conversation had gone rather philosophical. Out of the possible replies, the one I received was rather unexpected.

'AQA: There is no reason why the Red Jungle Fowl used to roam in ancient India. Like everything in nature, the chicken's heritage is a matter of pure chance.'

Who would have thought.

When I pointed out I was perhaps looking for a general answer to life and its mysteries which was less chicken orientated, I received,

'AQA: As so many parents have said through the years, the answer to the question 'why' is 'just because'. Ah, the wisdom of parents!'

I feel happier now, although I am becoming inceasingly worried about the part played by Red Jungle Fowl in the bigger picture...

A Slow Day At The Cinema

So with the release of Run Fatboy Run we decided to take advantage of the fact its Orange Wednesday and also being on vacation we can get lunchtime showings cheap with few people there. Two slight problems with this. First to see a film you need to turn up no less than 20 minutes after the film has started. Also, weekly daytime showings have a larger proportion of OAPs who are entitled to free tea and biscuits.

To rectify issue one we watched 1408 which finished in time to get the next showing of Run Fat Boy.

As of yet I have no remedy to issue two.

Today In History

Add to the earlier posting that today will be the day where we will be taking a very roundabout route to get into London (courtesy of the RMT*) to finally sign papers for the new house. Coincidentally, it is four years 360 days to the day when we brought this place and said it would be our home for five years.

Part of me suspects this is more luck than judgement...

Sods Law

What better way to start two weeks off than putting my hand down and getting stung by a wasp.

Fubar (2)

Ok, so maybe I didn't break it that badly... Will try a further upgrade over the next couple of weeks which should be interesting...that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger and all that.. and might try and tie it in with some changes to how the site works...

The last weekend of my twenties ahead of me will be filled with drinking and friends, which given thats how they started is all good. The last few days have been relatively heady and I am looking forward to a couple of weekd downtime. Would be better if we had moved already, but its getting there.

Albeit very slowly...

Malibu

There isn't really any excuse...

Old old friends n stuff..

Banham Zoo Photos

Back in late March this year, I gave highlights from our surreal trip to Suffolk and within the text uttered the line "(photos will eventually follow)". Well for those of you interested, these can be found here.

Moves.

For those that know me in First Life™ will probably know that of late I have been pretty busy not moving house. Whilst not moving house has been ongoing for sometime at a rather leisurely pace, moving office was a much quicker affair. Its amazing what a phone call, an unlimited supply of company cash and a really irate tone can get you. Since I only had national dialling and a slightly irked voice I received three men or South American descent, or is that accent, and less than 5 hours later I am in a new office, my belongings staked around me.

After my PCs were set up, telephones were working, one of the other first tasks that I needed to do was re-organise my files on my slightly smaller shelves and give me some much needed floor space. Needless to say priorities took over and 30 minutes later I had disassembled my keyboards, removed the majority of keys individually, washed them and re-attached them in the correct order. Some may say this is not a valid use of my time, and they'd be right. 10 minutes in I could've afforded to buy a ney keyboard, but then thats not overly environmentally friendly. Instead now I have a almost pristine keyboard with good key action and a space bar that no longer sticks.*

And piles of box files and other bits 'stacked' 'neatly' on the floor for sorting.

Perhaps another day.

Warhol vs Banksy

The Hospital on Endell St is currently hosting the Warhol vs Banksy Exhibit, and will continue to do so until the first of Sept. The exhibition is houses over 40 mixed media works by the two artists, and hangs Warhol's classic drawings and paintings side by side with Banksy's graffiti art.

Well worth a look, as it is interesting to see how Banksy has adapeted Warhol's style and ideas and bringing it up to date. Although given My Warhol's passing, I felt Banksy's impromptu art outside the show was nice touch.

A40 Bridge

Since its instigation in Oct 2005, TFL's Acton Bridges project has slowly been edging towards its Summer '09 completion point. As part of the daily ritual in getting to work its been interesting to watch the slow progress, with the occasional large chunk such as the installation of the new bridge beams back in Oct 2006. One thing that continues to amuse me however is the path at the Westmost end of the Wales Farm Road Bridge.

About two months prior to construction beginning, Ealing Council resurfaced the path from the bridge, all the way round to Jenner Avenue, about 200yards with nice new tiles. Construction started, the diggers rolled in and crushed these. Then they were tarmacked over and a replacement path across the site was installed a bit further down, in tarmac rather than tiles.

A year went by and little changed, and then the path across the site was moved once closed to the bridge and then back again to allow the utilities to be moved. Then in the past month it has moved around ten times and in five at least being put back in exactly the same place as it was a couple of days before, with each time having to be dug out, and then re-laid.

I look forward to the temporary pedestrian bridge being opened so I don't keep missing the across the site of a morning/evening.

House Move. Not

So with a week till exchange of contracts and a fortnight until th proposed completion and move date, our buyer pulled out. Timing is a wonderful thing.

I suspect the only people to benefit from this are Orange and BT..

Headaches all round as a chain of six sales grinds to a halt.

Thing N Wotnots N Stuff

Has been a long weekend so far.

Most of yesterday was spent at work with various contractors ironing out glitches and omissions in the design of the electrical supply, mainly to do with alterations to our flywheel UPS' to allow syncronisation of supply frequencies across a common bus bar to allow us to alter their respective loadings, but also changes to the cooling system to allow more accurate throttling when the load is transferred to the genset. Whilst his took me a little over 2 minutes to type, it actually took me leaving the house a bit before six in the morning, and then arriving back a little over twelves hours later.

Now I am just playing with technology of my own. Over the past few weeks, the server hardware and software that this site is housed on has been a bit problematic, so I decided to upgrade and rebuild it completely. This has the benefit that I can correct some underlying problems, but I always feel a a clean O/S with new programs is more stable than a heavily upgraded/patched system. I hope to do this out of spares so there should be minimum disruption (fingers crossed).

However, theres going to be on-off server downtime over the next few weeks, whilst inevitable problems are ironed out, but also whilst we move, which will effect this site, others and email, and whilst I will do the best I can to get it up and running, but it will also depend on arranging a new ISP.

All good clean fun.

CSI-tastic

Although CSI: Miami is my least favourite of the three, three hours back to back, ending in the season finale is always watchable.

More so when I know the next season premier is next week.

Big Wetness. And Hail. Yay

As I rounded the corner from North Acton tube and onto Wales Farm Road (yes they farm Welshies in this neck of the woods), the stormclouds in the distance, accompanied by rumblings of thunder and the occasional flash of lightning firmly enhanced my belief that I really wanted to be home sooner rather than later.

I suspect no respectable witch, no matter how wicked, would be out in such weather and would most likely be tucked up safely home with a cup of newt's eyes tea and a copy of Which Witch monthy.

As I headed down towards Gypsy corner, the spots of rain started. Followed by the lightning. One further bend and then the heavens opened.*

It was at this point, I took shelter behind a wall from the increasingly horizontal rain to take my increasingly damp electrics from my sodden pockets into my slightly less sodden bag.

My view at this point was relatively limited.

Although I did get to see the hail pretty close up, and more mportantly, without it trying to scythe out my eyes.

About two minutes later, it eased up enough for me to wander home, although by this point it didn't really make any difference, and to be fair its been a while since I was this wet. However the last time I was this wet I was 10ft below water level with a breathing tank in the Maldives. And then it was considerably warmer.

More Rain

Not that I mind, I quite like the rain, but I don't think thats the general opinion.

Athens

Finally, I have managed to get the pics of our trip to Athens for Marc and Lou's Wedding. They can be found here.

Fun In The Park

Yesterday, ie second bank holiday of May, saw the annual-ish fun and games in the park. Well except we didn't play games, it wasnt in the park. It was the bank holiday though :)

The day itself, just turned into a leisurely pub crawl around Soho in the rain. We visited some nice bars, some not so nice bars, and generally caught up whilst drinking a variety of fine ales.

And then to finish it off, on the way home we were entertained by a very inebriated lady from Barcelona, who was pole dancing round the central pole on the tube, occasionally clipping my thigh, whilst making lusty comments at the missus. Sadly she left us at Lancaster Gate, but not before swinging over and licking the entire left hand side of my face.

All in all, a different way to finish a good day.

A Godly Con

Given I have a mainly agnostic view of religion, churches aren't places I often find myself. True, the buildings themselves I find amazing, hence why there are often so many photos of them when I come back from holiday, but the actual practising of religion I find somewhat, whats the word, sinister. This would be one of the reasons why I have never attended Catholic mass.

Well, until yesterday.

Now I wish to point out that it wasn't actually of my volition, more like circumstances beyond my control and before I realised what was happening it was too late. At 5am we got up in the pissing rain to traipse across London on a patchy mass transit system get to Leigh on Sea in time for a 9.30am Christening. Ironically, even with buses, the first Tube and a modicum of walking before we even got to Fenchurch Street, we somehow managed to be early and get the train ahead of the one aimed for, and ended up being in the aptly named Leigh-on-Sea at 8:15.

A further traipse but this time accompanied by not only the rain, but the wind whipping in from the sea, we managed to find a small bagel cafe to kill some time and prevent us from getting wetter, if that was possible. A few coffees and a bacon and cheese bagel and I was ready to face a Christening.

Walking in through the doors, we were greeted by the parents and child, and as we took our seats, there was a nagging doubt in my mind that something wasn't right. Whilst, there seemed to be a higher proportion of silver hair than I would have expected, I put this down to lots of elderly relatives. Everyone seemed to have kids of varying ages (except us) but it was a Christening so that was expected. Then it struck me, well not literally, hanging upon every cross, was Jesus in all his suffering. Although my thought processes geared up, I couldn't see this as being too much of a problem, afterall, a Catholic baptism couldn't be that different from other Christenings I had attended. Although as a related note, it was a bit strange that baby #2 was to be baptised when baby #1 got a naming ceremony, but thats by the by.

Of course, what I hadn't considered was that on the day of Pentecost, in a Catholic church, that the baptism wasn't going to be an exclusive thing, and Sunday Mass would be proceeding as normal. And to be fair, I wasn't wrong. Now, all credit to the priest for his ability to talk/sing/chant over the constantly crying babies and children for the entire hour and a half, although I think he only had himself to blame as the incense didn't help, nor did the uneartly chanting. Or the subject matter of death and dying. But hey, everyones a critic.

Given that I/we hadn't been to mass before, I think we coped well, with the only problem being that the 34 page service guide, was more akin to a Fighting Fantasy Gamebook with its 'if there is a baptism please go to page 18, if not continue to page 24' rules. The only particular points of note, were we obviously had a sinful aura that was immeadiately discernable to all practising Catholics and this was evident for several reasons. First, noone sat next to us. Secondly, the priest kept looking at me (although to be fair I did forget to shave, which was probably symptomatic of my sinful life). Thirdly, and this might be just my paranoia, but I am sure my hands were smoking when I was cluthcing the hymnbook. Lastly, and this probably compounded it, that we didn't get up for Communion, and the benches around us were deserted, even the tumbleweed seemed to shy away from us. Occasionally, people would glance at 'the heathens' on their way back, with righteous indignation, which was oddly warming. The only other bit of note was the requirement to 'exchange signs of peace', where everyone suddenly turning and began shaking hands with other people. That was particularly interesting as random strangers walked up and limply shook my hand. I did wonder whether we had to shake hands with everyone else in the church and whether there was someone keeping tabs, but luckily not.

With the event over, we bid ourfarewells, headed out into the rain and returned to London for the other important event of the day, getting plastered in Soho.

Amusing

One amusing story which might make you chuckle.

The other day at work I was running late for a meeting, so was hurrying along on the pavement next to a one way system when I came to cross a road. A white van was slowly pulling up in front of me and a black cab behind that. The van started to edge forward and I glanced back over my shoulder to see a lull in the traffic he was aiming for.

I checked to my right to make sure I wasn't going to get hit by a motor bike and stepped jogged into the road, aiming for a gap that was going to appear behind the van as he pulled off and the cab edged forward into the existing gap. I checked the traffic again over my left shoulder to make sure that nothing was speeding that might stop the van, and then whipped my head round and right to make sure I couldn't see any bikes coming up over the far side of the cab.

It was at about this moment there were two strange noises.

The first, I only identified retrospectively, was the sound of an engine cutting out. The second was the sound of my face and left shoulder bouncing off of the rear wing of the van.

I pulled myself from the tarmac apologising by waving in the genral direction of the WVM's wing mirror and then returned to clutching my ever deadening arm, vaguely aware of the hysterical fits of laughter eminating from the cabbie.

1000th Post

Its seems probably fitting that as I type these words, that there is quite a lot going on, most good, some mediocre and thankfully nothing really bad. The main one is, subject to all the paperwork/surveys being completed, is the impending house move. Currently the loft is boxed up, with nothing but my PC equipment/junk remaining. The remainder of the flat is mostly small ornaments and chuffing great lumps of furniture, the latter of which will travel as is.

We now have our broadband connection back to its full capacity after two minor problems. The first being that an unlimited service, is apparently still subject to a fair use policy, and 50GB per month is apparently fair use. Interestingly, if that were equated to an uncompressed DVD I purchased from the shop, that would be what, 12, 13 movies. So apparently streaming movies over the Internet as a replacement for my TV isn't quite possible, and being restricted to 128kps is not fun. How did I ever survice on dial up. The second problem was that my adsl router died, and I had to get a new one. If/when we move, I might look to another provider but demon have been pretty good so we'll see.

Work is pootling along, although its becoming increasingly confrontational with other departments. The main Estates department don't seem to grasp it isn't possible to just move fibres and duct work at the click of the fingers. Nor, as we found out last week, think to inform us when either a building is being vacated, or, and this is a great one, that access to a disaster recovery room is being closed as they remove the concrete floor. Even better that they then use pneumatic equipment which not only sets of the motion alarms in the walls, but screws up equipment and don't see why its there fault.

I myself am now fed up with the summer sun streaming through the blinds and waking me up at 5. I look forward to thick curtains. This obviously isn't helped by continually staying up to feed my growing addicition to American shows such as the CSI(s), Law & Order(s), Shark...

And thats about it really. Today I hope to do some tidying, take pics of my finished bathroom, wait for my another 500GB drive to arrive. Perhaps go shopping, and generally relax and try and shake this cold I have. Tomorrow we have a Christening down on the coast and then its playtime in the park with uni people. Monday will be spend wishing the sun wasn't so bright I suspect.

Enjoy yourselves. :)

To Sleep, Perchance To Dream

Two problems with crawling into bed after drinking copious amounts of tequila and fosters at 5am and then getting up at 9. First, it makes you really tired for the rest of the day. Secondly, by the time nightime comes round again, your bodies adjusted/recovered and your sleep pattern goes out the window.

Not looking forward to getting up tomorrow.

Moral Quandry

Should you tell a prospective house purchaser about the comparatively low local burglary rate, even if it is most likely due to the relatively frequent visits by armed police?

Stuff

I truly never realised how much stuff we own. We certainly not until we came to start boxing stuff up this weekend. I am glad that when we leave this 3rd floor flat (touch wood), we shall be moving into a ground floor house. Well I say I am glad, no doubt the workers my friends who will be helping us move are also somewhat happy, especially those that helped us move in and remember the agony involving the books and the stairs (which if you reading this Smully, you'll be please to know that over the last five years we have increased the number of books by about half and before you make excuses, remember you owe me one move. And to be fair, we have used slightly smaller boxes this time). Oh, and of course there is the furniture we didnt have last time....

I suspect my beer and pizza bill will be somewhat enlarged on previous years.

Crispy Fried Electrician

What could be a better way of starting the working week than passing 240V across your chest at 8:30 on a Monday morning. I am so glad I was looking at the flash at the time. My eyes are still starry, although to be fair, probably not as much as his.

Only minutes earlier he was complaining about his worn screwdriver and having to buy a new one. I suspect had he known it would have been an charred worn screwdriver a few seconds later he may have actually not regreted forking out the money for a new one. To be fair though, he probably regrets not picking it up from his workshop.

Silly man.

Hey Han

Happy Birthday.x

You Gotta Laugh

In a true comedy moment, whilst I was scratching the tip of my nose, I accidentally jabbed myself resulting in blood pissing everywhere.

Most embarrassing.

Bleak Expectations

Last night I managed to get tickets to go see the recording of

Bleak Expectations

A new comedy by Mark Evans.

Starring Anthony Head, Celia Imrie, Richard Johnson, Geoffrey Whitehead, Tom Allen and James Bachman.

The remarkable adventures of young Philip Bin as he struggles to rescue himself and his sisters from the plotting of his guardian - the scheming, evil and badly-named Mr Gently Benevolent, and the blood-curdling Hardthrasher brothers.

A Victorian epic of awful schools, worse prisons, nuns, giant rabbits, and long lost super-hero aunts, in the style of Charles Dickens after far too much gin.

The recording was at the Drill Hall on Chenies Street, and after the initial queuing to get in, we sat down to a good few hours of hilarity. I had forgotten how much fun it can be to watch radio shows being recorded.

The only down side is that not having got tickets to the recording of episodes three and four, it means I have to wait until it airs, which will be on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesdays at 6:30 pm, June 20 - July 25, 2007.

Oi! Han

Do me a favour and wish Matt a Happy Birthday for me will you. <:)

Suffolk

Last weekend, we had the pleasure of attending the wedding reception of two of my work colleagues (to each other), that was held in the depths of Suffolk. The journey was pretty much as anticipated - sunny and pleasant, depositing us in around Diss shortly after dusk, and with the last of the light we bid farewell to the main road, lights and civilisation and disappeared into rural Suffolk.

Ten minutes later, we were urm, lost.

A further ten minutes later, we had given up on the small digital map I had downloaded earlier in the day, for its failure to adapt to the seemingly dark magics bending space time around us. Perhaps its not entirely fair. Perhaps its not dark magics, merely murky grey magics fueled by Wrong Turn-esque locals who wear teeth necklaces... I suspect however, its more something to do with there being no real distinction between public roads, personal driveways, the latter of which are often wider and straighter, and fields. There is also the issue that if you pass a sign you will see a sign to x y miles behind you and then two minutes down the road (with no turn offs other than residential areas or ponds) you see the location the same distance in front. The one benefit about driving in the night however, which we realised the morning after, is that you don't see the cows that seem to roam freely on the fields - cows without borders, as by lord there are quite a few, and whilst you may see some roadkill*, you don't see many cows. Well not compared to the amount of wrecked Mazda MX-5s. That, and the carefully concealed signs, but thats a story for another day.

Eventually, after much luck and praying, we found our destination - Gables Farm Bed & Breakfast in Wingfield. Knowing in advance we may well be pushed for time, I took the opportunity to book a dinner at the recommended and newly re-opened (it was closed) local village pub - the De La Pole Arms with a view to offloading our stuff and wandering down - and knowing I might fancy trying a local tipple after such a long drive, one of the criteria was could we walk?. And the answer was yes.

Hindsight being the thing it is, its obvious we could walk - I have legs, ergo I can (usually) walk. The question shoulds have been, is it less than thirty minutes walk to the other side of the village, in the dark, in the rain, with no map? Five minutes drive later and we arrived relatively unscathed. The pub is lovely, the food is very very good, and I would recommend visiting if you are in the area (intentionally or otherwise).

Breakfast the following morning was, for me anyway, a traditional English breakfast affair (sans black pudding), where we happened to meet the random people we had been sitting next to in the pub who were obviously staying in the same guest house. One coincidentally was for the same wedding as us, and the other happened to be Celia Imrie.

Saturday day was spent wandering round Banham Zoo where we met some kewl Llama's, some rare Snow Leopards, lots of birds of prey and a giant triceratops (photos will eventually follow). I remember it was soo cold so we stopped of to get a coffee. Having been previously diddled by the Llama / goat feed vending machine, I made sure I asked for additional coins so we could return later. When asked by my better half

Are you going to feed the Llamas?

No, I am going to watch them bite you.

Returning to the B&B, we stopped of at another local pub, the Swan at Hoxne (a place that I would later, in a drinken state argue with a cab driver for a good 20 minutes about why it was pronounced Hox-en locally but all outsiders, cue tumbleweed, pronounced it Hox-ney). Anyhoo, wherever it was, I had a nice fish and chips. A short doze at the B&B later, and it was off to Yaxley Hall and the wedding reception.

Whilst I could not fault the house upon arrival, the drive up had me worried. We turned off the main road and onto the driveway. As we approached the house loomed in the distance, but was briefly replaced by two smaller residences which presumably shared the same drive way. As we passed the first one, in the window stood a man, 40s - 50s, wearing an unbuttoned dressing gown and a guitar. I am hoping he was wearing a gravy stained vest, if not he has the most gravy-dribble-esque birth marks down his chest and presumably... anyway. It was some minutes after arriving that the sound of duelling banjos faded from my head, but once we had arrived, the locals were all forgotten and replaced by the evening ahead. The Bride looked lovely. The Groom looked Groomlike (and that is a compliment) in the way all Grooms do - we may look good in a suit, we meet and greet and are the happiest chap on the planet, but I don't think any of us could outshine the better half in their wedding dress on the day. The food was lovely, the band were brilliant, and the beer was there for the drinking. It was a wonderful evening.

The following morning we woke up, well 50% of us did - it took me until at least the morning coffee to be vaguely with it. Ms Imrie asked whether we had a good night, so presumably if I ever meet her again I will apologies for stumbling in one over the eight at a considerable time passed the witching hour. We said our goodbyes, checked out and headed out into the fields and forests to run a family errand. After that, we stopped off for pancakes and apple pie at a bit before 10am before heading home.

'Twas a lovely weekend, and just what was needed.

Still Tiling

Is there no end to the tiling?!? I feel like Sisyphus.

Just with a giant tile.

Snow

I love the snow, I really do.

Without wishing to go all Travis Bickle, the snow covers everything, making it clean. As it melts it washes away all the dirt and grime. Little chunks of architecture and quirkyness jut out through the snow. Londons prettier in the snow. And its still falling.

Well, that, and my sublime journey in. No one about, and notwithstanding Oxford Circus being closed, it was impressively quick. I could live with an inch of snow.

And I am sorry about the snowball thing.

Darn Plumbing

Well the main body of the plumbing is now done and I can honestly say I don't miss the occasional drip of water, nor do I expect the downstairs neighbours. To be fair to my plumbing skills, considering I spent most of the week ill, I managed to get the majority done by Saturday. It was then the simple matter of needing to lose the pounds I hadn't sweated off via illness or labour to escape from underneath the bath where I had accidentally incarcerated myself.

As I look to my next few weekends, I can happily say that all that remains is the small piece of carpentary required to build some units, the installation of a shaver socket and the minor issue of the tiling the floors and walls.

Given that these are all things I have done in the past, I look forward to being unpleasantly suprised when it goes belly up.

DIY

Whilst I didn't realise it was possible to have so many DIY projects on the go at once - I currently have:

• 1) no bathroom - Not my fault, but knew about it;
• 2) no secondary glazing in front room - not my fault, but noticed a small something that shouldn't be on the outer's inner frame so decided to remove all panes, douse, and re-varnish.
• 3) no secondary glazing in bedroom - my fault, as figured whilst doing the front...
• 4) almost a new electrical ring main to kitchen - my fault, taking advantage of '1)' above I have decided to run a new electrical circuit to allow me take full advantage of our two dial/supply electricity meter/board with the aid of a mini UPS.

On a related note, DIY Doctor, which I happened across this evening, is quite good.

Come Back 2006 All Is Forgiven

Earlier in the week, I got an email from a friend I don't talk to enough wishing me a happy new year and telling me how him and his wife were and talking about what the year ahead holds. During the mail he asked how I was and what my plans were. I was having a particularly bad day and to be fair none of the days back have been great and was tempted to write something eloquent, such as 'It's all shite and I don't care anymore' but figured it was probably too early to write 2007 off without having completed a full week..

I was wrong. Its all crap and its a big conspiracy against me.

I mean I could be wrong and am fully prepared to eat my words if some change of forture occurs before 8am Monday.

Normal service will resume soon I am sure in the very near future, and no doubt be filled with numerous witticisms and situation comedy concerning plumbing.

Festivities

Things have been a bit busy of late in the run up to the festive season and as a consequence of working late/overtime and the obligatory round of Christmas parties, I have been neglecting this site amongst other things. Hopefully, time permitting tomorrow I'll update at length, but if I don't get a chance, festive tidings to one and all.

Dear God I'm Getting Old. But Its Worth It.

So, it was the Uni friends xmas do on Saturday and it is now Monday eve and I'm still feeling it.

Fun was very much had. The combination of good ale, lovely food (courtesy of The Riverside), fun interactive art at the Tate Modern, followed by more drinking and dancing (not me I might hasten to add) was a sure fire winner.

Roll on the next covenient excuse, er for alcohol fueled fun.

Braindead

Tonight. 11:45pm - 1:45am. Film4.

Awesome.

Too. Frickin. Cold

England is damn well too cold. Admittedly Greece wasn't the height of summer, but its certainly a culture shock. That, getting up for work and the prospect of a whole day without a doze after lunch makes me wish I was back in bed.

Weekend Away

Only another 18 or so hours of work before we're off on a long weekend away to sunnier climes c/o the med.

Woot!

Later...with Jools Holland

If you're in, Later...with Jools Holland is on BBC2 tonight at 11:35pm (VIDEO Plus+: 278749 if you're that way inclined). Performers include Muse, Jack White's the Raconteurs, John Legend and Amy Winehouse, while former Eurythmic Dave Stewart provides the requisite seasoned chat.

Weekend To-Do List

My aims this weekend include:

1. Perhaps visit the post office to collect two parcels (depending on weather)
2. Household chores
• dusting
• ironing
• tidying
• etc
3. Configure a secure USB stick with some common apps
4. Change all passwords
5. Recover from illness
6. Edit and upload some new photos

1. Sort through the loft; with an aim to
2. Building a MVP

Secret Policemans Ball

We were just watching the Secret Policemans Ball, and I had forgotten how damn funny Eddie Izzard is. Also the Natalie Imbruglia, mime artist was pretty awesome live (shes looking as gorgeous as ever). And The Might Boosh were surreal as per.

Five.US

Over the last few months, maybe years, I have become quite partial to American tv drama, predominantly crime investigation based - CSI, Law and Order, relevant spin offs, Without a Trace, Killer Instinct, NCIS etc. Now with the launch of Five US, its almost a respectable channel, being like Five without the likes of best of police animal chases 9 etc.... . Along with these, it is also debuting some new to the UK shows, such as Conviction (A Law and Order spinoff) which looks promising, and the rather surreal 'Nightmares and Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King'. The later of which was pretty damn good. Then again, green plastic toy soldiers running amok destroying things, it can't be beaten.

And if you want more than drama, there is NASCAR, NBA, MLB, NFL and the X Games. For the comedy there's Joey...

I'd be interested to see if Five can continue to afford shows to maintain the listing, and whether it pays off in the end.

Shame it only runs between 4pm and 1am and not any longer into the wee hours.

How I Spent My (Late) Summer Vacation

A while ago, me and the missus had a two week vacation, and whilst we didn't go away we did do lots of stuff that we wouldn't got time to otherwise.

One of the highlights was seeing our friends John and Sally who were over from New York. We did the civilised thing of cooking, and the eating, and the drinking and the talking. And it was good. We also met up with them and the masses in Green Park to eat, drink, catch up, play rounders/cricket and generally have fun, which again was very good. Following a particularly good bowling streak I did learn three things however. First, its never a good idea to get the better half out. Second, certainly not good to be the one to get her out three times (about up there with accidentally smacking her in the face with an American Football). Finally, any semblance of manly pride will dissolve under the intense laughter of friends upon going out for a duck to the bowler who takes over from you, who just happens to be female. Perhaps not as amusing as watching friends drink the pub dry of cocktails, breaking their ice machine in the process, but certainly close.

At the Tate Britain we saw several exhibitions including Stubbs: A Celebration - marking the bicentenary of George Stubbs' death (Tate | TimeOut), Seeing Africa - a collection of artwork by European artists between 1880 and 1960 during the height of colonial rule (Tate | TimeOut), Karin Ruggaber's 'Art Now' "pebbly concrete and plaster, often with pieces of fabric embedded in them" - I'm not joking - (Tate | TimeOut) and finally a display of William Turnbull's sculptures including bronze, steel and acrylic (Tate | TimeOut).

From these I'd really recommend seeing both the Stubb's and Africa exhibits if you get chance. Also, stop by the cafe, they do a great crab wrap which goes rather well with Guinness.

On the subject of food, we had a nice dinner at About Thyme, prior to seeing Wicked The Musical which was very good (review will follow), and also went to Whipsnade Wild Animal Park where we saw lots of fluffy and cute things, and some fluffy but not so cute things.

Other than that, we went shopping a few times, slept in a lot, watched films (inc A Scanner Darkly) read books, played on the computers/playstation and generally relaxed.

Oh, and the other highlights were two birthdays and an anniversary which were pretty damn good. :)

Ambivalence

As another weekend comes to a close, I cannot find the will power to update the site like I intended, let alone do some work in anticipation for tomorrow. Watching episods of Ulysses 31 back to back for hours seems like such a better bet.

Technology Increases Productivity..Pah.

Its always the little jobs that take the longest. Take for example, my installation of OLSpamCop to automate some spam reporting to SpamCop.net for my home PC. Admittedly, I was doing this over the net from work whilst doing other things, and I didn't expect to have to upload the office cab files to do so...

... or setting up Google Analytics

... and don't get me started on the iTunes not recognising audiobooks unless they are either Audible.com's .aa format or in Apple's .m4b.

Memory Lane

Whilst visiting the Meerkats, we happened to come across a Hamiltons wherein I discovered sweets I had not seen since my childhood. Army & Navy Tablets, Sugar Mice, Stawberry Sherbet Pips and Kola Kubes... and I can order online.

Teethrot here I come.

On a related note, the sweetshop I frequented during my schools days, Candies, closed in December 2000.

Cabling

Theres nothing better than getting home after a hard days work and forgetting you'd agreed to simply recable for some additional electrics. The joy of fishing around behind plasterboard walls... Hell, whilst there I might aswell throw some cat5 cable in just in case I want a telephone/PC behind the sofa in the future.

Time Flies

..and before you know it your 1000th post has come and gone. The parties over, the guests have left and theres a funny rattling in the broom cupboard.

Meerkats

Spent yesterday at Cotswald Wildlife Park. Took lots of photos of baby meerkats (very cute) amongst other things. Drank lots of coffee. Looked at the new enclosure for the some new Canadian Timber Wolves that will be arriving shortly.

Was very nice. Just need to find somewhere to move so we can set up a sanctuary with Meerkats. And Otters. And Llamas. And Crocodiles.And Oryx. But probably not together.

Attention Span Of A Thingy...

With work neeing to be done, I find myself being sucked into thehits: 50 Girls of the 80s. I had forgotten all about the Miami Sound Machine and Dr Beat, not to mention both Whitney's and Tina's rather awesome hair. And thats before we get onto the Bangles or Bananarama...

Could it get any better.*

Tickets (and Passports) Please

Not a month goes by where I don't see the Revenue Protection Service at North Acton at least two or three times, much to the chagrin of the fair dodgers. What I didn't expect to see today was the Immigration Service also performing checks.

Lucky I wasn't selected on whatever their criteria was, given I tend not to carry proof of citizenship on me...

New Toy

Woohoo. My new Sony Ericsson K800i has arrived.

Now if only Orange would hurry up and register it, I could get on with the important stuff such as messing about with it.

Ox '06

After a fifteen hour Friday and a six hour Saturday (including accidental inclusion in a Keira Knightley film) it was onto a train and down to the dreaming spires of Oxford to say goodbye to Emma who will shortly be heading to foreign, and warmer, shores. She will be greatly missed.

I don't think much needs to be said other than there was much drinking followed by a healthy dose of good fun and hilarity, a dash of reminiscences, thoughts for absent friends, a (un)healthy dose of parmesan was snorted (and that isn't a metaphor - don't ask) and a single, solitary wedgey was delivered.

Photos will follow, once the BBQ ones are up.

Time Flies...

Where did the week go!? Or last week for that matter. What with one thing and another, I've been lacking time, and technology (ie laptop) to update things round here. Hopefully this should be rectified by the start of next week after a weekend away in boozier climes.

Just need to get through the on Friday night / Saturday morning shift first...

Any Question Answered

The following is a brief 'conversation' between myself a some helpful person at AQA whose help now stops the sleepless nights of wondering:

Me: Can you name the manga-esque film involving a stolen tank, a robbery and a blue/white robot on skates.
AQA: AQA Believe's you are referring to the 2005 release 'Robors' starring Ewan McGregor and Halle Berry. It was by Blue Skt, the creators of Ice Age.
Me: No that wasn't it. I was small when I watched it so it must've been released in the 80s. Any other ideas?
AQA: The film you descrive sounds like 'Techno Police 21C', a manga-style Japanese animation from 1982. It involves robots, bank robberies and a runaway tank.

Excitement

It doesn't get better than getting home late after a hard day to find that the pipe between the kitchen sink's built in shredder and the waste pipe has given up dumping the 'residue' over the particular cupboard and the kitchen floor. Yay.

Summer

Rivulets of rain form running, cascading down the window, streaking through months, even years of grime. An incessant pitter patter, like a maddening, ever loudening, ever quickening metronome. Even if I could see through the window, or the rain beyond that, the shadow caused by the rain clouds means I can barely see the next building. It could almost be late in the evening for all I know.

The falling rain gives rise to steam. The streets seem transformed, as if twisted by some corruption at their very core. Wispy half seen clouds drift across every surface, altering and obscuring. A young girl shreaks as she dashes under cover, a newspaper held forlornly above her head like some latter day Canute trying to hold the tides back.

Still the pitter patter, pitter patter.

Yesterday, the heat was uncomfortable. Today the humidity is unbearable. In films people usually pause to wipe away the sweat with a small cloth, perhaps drinking slowly from a glass bottle, covered with condensate.

Life isn't like the films.

Downtime

The up side to being at work just after 6, well in my case anyway, is that there is noone else to bother me for a good few hours. The down side is the getting up at 5. Well thats not so much the downside as the sun is up anyway, but its more the knock on effect of dozing off sometime around 8 in the evening. This, coupled with two weeks of having people prod me with sharp implements, hasn't bumped this last fortnight into my top 5 of all time fun times ever.

With payday falling on a sunny Saturday prior to the football, it seemed like a good opportunity to go Tottenham Court Road/Oxford Street, have a coffee, do some window shopping, buy a pair of shoes, write jocularly offensive messages in the dust on John Lewis appliances and then retire to Hyde Park with some freshly baked bread, some cheeses, various cut meats and cold orange juice to enjoy the summer sun prior to retiring to watch the football with a cold beer or two. One thing I hadn't factored in though was EuroPride and the masses of people vying for valuable pavement space.

The masses with whistles were bypassed, the food was eaten, the sun was enjoyed and then all that was left was to watch the football... ...and in hindsight, I should've stayed in the park.

Many weeks ago, I got into a rather heated discussion with someone at work over the press coverage and national obsession with Wayne Rooney. I believe my argument went along the lines that the England squad is made up of 23 players, and no one individual was more important than any other, everone has a job to do, and they should do it to the best of their abilities. If one person isn't fit, stop speculating on it. I can't imagine how demoralising it must've been to the rest of the squad to be sidelined over a metatarsal, and then further so when the saviour of all our hopes was pronounced fit.

Anyway, coming back to the present, the hopes and dreams of the nation lie in tatters after todays performance. Lost again in the old penalty shootout, following a gutsy display by a 10 men England, possibly their best of the tournament so far. I always thought a talisman should inspire those around them via skill, not out of necessity. Quite reminiscent of a match 8 years ago.

I wonder whether tomorrow we will see the abrupt turning of the national media on the golden child. Possibly accompanied by the headlines Roo-Stupid Cu....

Howdy Hum

Hello there.

Things have been different of late. Recently, work has increasingly been playing on my evenings. Last weekend we went to a bbq, which saw Smully introduce Rachel into the world, which to be honest, she didn't seem to enjoy as much as we did. It was good to see people again, and was even better not to have to manage the bbq. Trip home seemed an age, but in reality, three hours on public transport late at night is good. Photos to follow.

Saying that, think I might have to head to bed now. Tired. The last few days I could've down without. Will (probably) explain all later.

Stay happy kiddos.

Its A Conspiracy

Come on then, own up. Who called my mobile at 1:42 am this morning.

Summer Days

For the last few weeks, I have done little other than sleeping (not enough), eating (not healthy enough) and working (too much). This, added to the alternating flood and drought warnings, has of late seemed to indicate a decided step to Hermitsville, population one.

It was perhaps no suprise therefore that when I received a mail from young Miss Mac inviting us to an "alcohol fuelled day at Twickenham??" for the IRB Sevens. There was little I could do but embrace the day whole heartedly.

Every day out with friends requires a meeting place, the more picturesque the better.

Obviously its always a pub, and in this case it was the The Barmy Arms.

Luckily they provided an outside bar. Unluckily we had to wait for them to open. Luckily they did so at 1030am so we didn't have to wait too long.

After a few jars and a quick walk we entered Twickenham, picked up some beer and sat back in the sun to watch the rugby.

To our left, like an aisle and three seats from me was the, as of yet, uncompleted South Stand which will see capacity at the stadium increase to 82,000....

...to our immeadiate right, were some enthusiastic South African fans who had a very big flag which occasionally made friends with my face...

...and finally in front of us were some more, urm, spectators enjoying the sun.

The beer flowed and was enjoyed by many (presumably including the man, bottom left) ...as was the rugby.

If you don't fancy burgery goodness, Twickers has now gone somewhat upmarket...

...but as all sports fans know, burgers are the corner stone of a healthy diet for growing big and strong (see pic) and at Twickenham are the plat du jour.

Obviously England ain't been eating that many burgers as lady luck was required to intervene against France in their opening game.

Sadly, England went out in the semi finals to Samoa who went on to lose in the final to Fiji who were crowned well deserved London and IRB Sevens champions.

The standard of rugby throughout the day was good, with some very exciting play. Whilst it was thoroughly awesome to watch teams like Samoa and Fiji cut loose, it was the underdogs such as Kenya who created the biggest cheer. Needless to say one of the other highlights was Australia choking against Russia. Although I couldn't hear the silence in the stadium from the Aussie's over all the cheers, I imagine it must've been devastating in my local.

Its been some years since I went to a 7s tournament and I had forgotten how awesome such days out are: good weather, good rugby, good beer and perhaps most importantly good friends. Needless to say I think it was long overdue and will be something I intend on doing again sooner rather than later, although perhaps this time I will wear sun cream, as due to the passage of the sun (or lack thereof) I have a perfectly toasty left profile.

Lastly though, I'd obviously been drinking because I took this photo and have no idea what its of, or why.

Oh well, par for the course.

Why (Me)?

There are moments when I stop and ask the question 'why?' or more specifically, 'why me?'. This particular instance was prompted by me somehow slicing chunks of skin from my knuckes on a first aid kit I was fetching for a colleague.

Its instances like this that make me question certain paradoxes that exist in my life, like my twisted belief in the notion of divine retribution or karma, which sits side by side with my current 'agnosticism although leaning towards athiesm if this is how God works' stance.

Pillion

Its been a while since I was on the back of a bike. Years. Possibly even a decade. On that occasion it was a short trip to the shops, but last week saw me take another small step towards the world of leather, diesel and mirrored sunglasses... No wait, thats Top Gun.... Anyway, before I knew it, I found myself travelling at a speed of about 95mph with a cruising altitude somewhere in the region of four feets as I undertook a 120 mile roundtrip taking in the M25 and the M3 with only a small handgrip between me and a splattery death.

Not being the smallest of chaps I did occasionally become concerned with the wind buffeting or the odd unexpected bump in the road upsetting me (literally), but when the speed dropped to 60-70mph, and I could sit without slouching, I found it very enjoyable, watching the scenery drifting 'slowly ' by. Its surreal how different a routine journey feels when you're a bit higher, with nothing between you and the rest of the world than a small see-through visor.

Having said that, travelling back in the dark wearing just a t-shirt beneath my jacket, was a chilling experience.

A New Addition