Another actuarial book reference

A long time ago, I wrote this short post about actuaries being mentioned in books. Since then, I don't think any other instances have come up... until this morning. And (maybe) oddly it's in the sequel to the book from last time. Now... how much of this can I be arsed to type out...

"May I assist you carrying one of those tomes Mr Halley?"
"Daniel! An unexpected pleasure! I can manage, thank you, but you may assist me by telling me in which of these rooms I might find Mr. Pepys."
"Follow me. He is meeting with one Cabal or other at the end of the opposite wing."
"Ah, then wait with me whilst I rest my arms."
"Are these for his book collection?"
"These are money/"
"On the pages I see numbers. Rumor has had it, Mr. Halley, that you have hired up every computer on this island, and set them to a great work. Now I see the rumors were true."
"These are only the first fruits of their lucubrations - I have brought them up, at the request of Mr. Pepys, to show them as a sort of demo'."
"Why do you say that they are money? To me they could be sines and cosines."
"These are actuarial tables, a sort of extract or distillation from the records of births and deaths of every parish in England. Supplied with these data the Exchequer can raise capital by selling annuities to the general public; and if they sell enough of them, why, the law of averages dictates that they will make a profit without fail!"
"What, by gambling that their customers will die?"
"That is no gamble Dr. Waterhouse."

Extract from 'The Confusion' by Neal Stephenson

Why I hate shit nightclubs

I've just got back from a nightclub. It was total shit. And I'm not in a good mood, so this post may contain swearing and insults to everyone I was with. I really don't give a clown shoe fuck.

Reasons why I hate shitty Nightclubs:
1. You can't hear the people you'd like to speak to.
2. You can only hear the people you'd happily lock in a metal box and dump into Mt Vesuvius.
3. Every single person who enters the place is a retarded, low down piece of excrement, stupid sodding loser, what the fuck are you doing there? get a sodding clue, look at you, do you call those clothes you sadwit arse nose? And yes, that does include me.
4. And for the hell of it, that includes my friends.
5. Now onto the music. I have seriously been to funerals where I've enjoyed the music more than the utter beatshitsense they played tonight. At least you can sway to a good dirge.
6. For God's sake, take a step back and look at you.
7. I didn't go to the toilet, but if I did I expect it would have been Glastonbury standard.
8. The last time I was that bored was whilst invigilating at an exam. Seriously, I could have slept on my feet except for the pain in my eyes that seeing the other people nearby would have given me. Dancing like that is not going to pull girls you ridiculously coiffered handman of semolina-like shit. Get it to-fucking-gether.
9. I'm not against nightclubs - I know good ones are out there. The Leadmill, Sheffield. The Waterfront, Norwich. Etc. But I repeat: Everyone in there tonight has a brain deficiency. There are good looking girls there and I suspect that talking to any of them woud be a disappointment akin to Blair not finding his WoMD.
10. I'm not even going to start on what passes for drinks in there.
11. And the fucking DJs! These are the twilight donkeys without a speil good enough for Hospital Radio. It is really not difficult to play three good tunes in a row! Or in an evening! Please just take your diseased left arm and stick it through a paper shredder along with your less than healthy HEAD.
12. Please all be a bad dream. Nobody, not even me, deserves to have been in that meat-sodden bandit hole of a place. Yes, The Gallery, I'm talking about you. In fact, if anyone fancies googlebombing the dank haven, please link to this post with the words "The Gallery, York".
13. And today could have been so promising.

I'll leave with another line from the great bard himself:

"There's a club if you'd like to go,
you could meet somebody who really loves you.
So you go and you stand on your own,
And you leave on your own,
And you go home and you cry and you want to die."

I didn't stand on my own, but might as well have done. And now I am going to go to bed and probably actually have a good old cry.

A little one

Another of those short Friday morning posts.

Port

Sadly I was unable to manifest any more psychic abilities at The Swan last night, my star must have waned.

As a plus point for the day, we did win a bottle of Port (and yet more chocolates) at work, the final prizes in the Euro 2004 competitions. No idea what we are going to do with the Port now though, not the easiest thing to share round in the office. I do still have some plastic glasses in my drawer, left over from when I qualified 2 years ago, but they may be a bit big for Port - they are at least 1/2 a pint.

So I might try and raffle it off within the team, or maybe we could all go into the Memorial Gardens (if that's what it's called - its the one with the winos anyway) at lunchtime and drink it there, passing it between us in a brown paper bag. The other winos would think we were drinking cheap wine, or cider, but we would know that we were better than that: we'd be drinking Port. Favoured after dinner drink of late middle aged men.

I used to drink quite a lot of port at university, but mainly because the College Port was fairly cheap (and nice) and they'd also sometimes have some at formal dinners.

Local band seeks electricity

Monday night we went to a local pub (The Black Swan, one of the most haunted in York, allegedly) to see Drew's new band, Motu One, play a short acoustic set. Here's the man himself and a bassist on a stool.



Note the way that they appear to be playing in a medieval banqueting room, complete with tapestries. You can't see it in the photo, but there's a glass of mead down by the base of the mike stand. Have you ever had mead? I have. Didn't like it much.

The minstrels played maybe six songs, sounded pretty good to me.

During the band's previous incarnation (makes them sound like Spinal Tap...), I once went round the centre of York handing out flyers for a gig they were supporting at to bemused passers by. I don't think I was very good at it, but I'll try anything once! At the very least it's another one to add to my list of things I'm not very good at.

"Can I interest you in the flyer for the most excellent band 'Bull Moose Jackson Junior'?"
"Who?"
"'Bull Moose Jackson Junior' - They are a local band of some prodigous talents"
"Never heard of them"
"Then why not come along and witness this soon to be legendary performance?"
"Is it free?"
"No, it will cost you maybe four english pounds with this flyer, and there are some other bands on as well."
"Four pounds? Are you mad? Piss off!"

That's how I'd like to remember it anyway. In reality I think I just kind of waved the flyers in people's general direction and hoped they'd take one to make me go away.

F.A.Busted

Whilst we're on the subject of Busted, I've just heard the brand new song that they've done for the Thunderbirds movie. It starts with a guitar and drums intro riffing on the original theme tune. And then changes into a song that sounds exactly like every other Busted song they've ever done.

Sample lyric:

"It always looks so cool
When spaceships come out of the pool"

Whilst that is a sentiment I won't disagree with, it seems appropriate that a film starring people that used to be puppets is soundtracked by a band of puppets that used to be people.

Or maybe a nice blue plaque

At work today I was congratulated on "innovative use of Lego in a presentation" (on "Sources and Uses of Capital in a Life Company", fact fans). Yeah, yeah, enough words. Give me more money instead. Or chocolate. Or a cushion with my name on it.

The songs that should have been...

The great Morrissey never quite wrote the following:

Some beds are wetter than others,
Some beds are wetter than others,
Some beds' covers are wetter than other beds' covers.

If song writing is a process of channeling nascent songs from the ether through your head, onto a sheet of parchment, then I feel sure that this is what he was aiming at for the final track on The Queen is Dead. Not some nonsense about girls and their mothers. I think, like Coleridge, he must have been distracted part way through the creative process. Maybe Charlie from Busted could incorporate the above into their next album. I won't charge (Moz might though)! Does Charlie actually write their songs? Frankly (Mr Shankly), who cares!

My covers are very wet at the moment due to being in the washing machine. I'm going to put some dry ones on in a short while though.

The lottery is a lottery

Because I stupidly wrote this on Saturday, I found myself being forced into a position where I had to buy a lottery ticket. I know that it's basically a tax on the stupid and I know that the odds of winning a pound are something like ten billion to one. However, because I'd put some numbers up there, I was not going to run the risk that I'd get it right and lose out on millions of pounds - you can almost guarantee that the sure way to make the numbers I'd chosen come up was to not buy a ticket.

In the old days, buying a lottery ticket involved going to a shop, making sure it was a shop that sold lottery tickets (rather than one that sold cheese, pets or "specialist materials"), filling in the slip and paying the shopkeeper a pound. Then you wait for the draw, and win lots of money. Now that we are in a modern age, this is all unnecessary and you can just buy them online, here. And this is what I did.

Several unexpected problems were encountered though. Firstly, the site only seems to work properly with IE and Netscape. It doesn't seem to like Firefox, Camino, Safari or Mozilla. Which is a bit strange, as Netscape is based on Gecko, like the three Mozilla products (I think). I generally refuse to use IE due to it being sh*t (and also not having tabbed browsing), so I've had to download a copy of Netscape (like I really need another browser on my system...) and have used that instead (I did actually use IE yesterday when I bought the ticket, but that just reminded me that it is sh*t).

So once I had a working browser, I get to problem 2. You can't just buy a single ticket, instead you have to credit an account with a minimum of £5, from which you then buy your tickets. I can afford £5, but it was more than I had expected to fork out. After I'd bought my ticket, my account still had £4 in, but I didn't really want to buy any more tickets due to the lottery being the aforementioned tax on the stupid etc... I then spotted that you can also play instant win scratchcard games online. Whooh! I'll soon get rid of my money now. Yes indeed.

First game... based on Monopoly. And I won! I won £1! Clearly the only sensible thing to do then is reinvest the pound in a new game. Which I did and lost it. And the next one too. And the final two earlier this afternoon. So four pounds gone gone gone forever. But what about the actual lottery draw I'd entered?

Predictably I won nothing. Matched one number though (better than I've tended to do in the past!).

Unrelatedly: Last night I won an argument on The Faraway Tree and lost one on The Railway Children. Overall Kids Literature Argumental Rating (KLAR): Neutral.

Shatner is still singing

What is the strangest news I have heard today? I think it is that William Shatner is putting out a new album (which is clearly what the world has been waiting for) which will feature a duet between Shatner and Joe Jackson. They are covering Pulp's classic "common people". For more info see here.

You really can't just make this stuff up...

FInal Toast News

I'd better make this the last toast post. I know that you've all been eager to see some photos of the toast that I make. So I've gone one better. Here you will find photos of not just the toast, but also the toast being cooked (toasted!) in the toaster itself.

Here's the first one:

Note the way that the red switch is set to its "2" setting. This is because I was cooking (toasting!) two slices of bread. Both for me.

Then here are the finished toasts:

I have smeared marmalade over them because its nice. I seem to have used a plate that is slightly too small - it was big enough the first time as I only had one slice then. But next time I have two slices, I may need to conduct a platter upgrade.

How I am and amn't using my time this morning

What I should be doing now but amn't: Finalising a presentation that I'm giving to the marketing department at lunchtime today (key thing: Keep it simple for them).

What I shouldn't be doing now but am: Watching last night's Big Brother and writing this.

Toast update

Today I purchased the ingredients I needed to make toast:

1 x Loaf Hovis Country Grain
1 x Golden Shred Chunky Orange Marmalade

How exciting! I cooked the bread in the toaster. Makes great toast! Didn't want to eat too much though, to avoid spoiling my tea later, so I only had a single slice. Maybe later I'll post a picture of some toast that I made.

At the age of 28 the psychic tendancies started to manifest

Second new pub quiz of the week, and things start to get scary. It's The Swan, on Bishopthope Rd. Not far from where I used to live, but not a place I'd ever been to before. Actually a pretty decent pub - TT's Landlord on tap, always a bonus for me.

I correctly identified Kim Wilde's "Kids in America", and Billy Idol's "Hot in the city". Due to peer pressure ended up changing the Idol to Ocean (Big wrong!) - big darn! And also got some none-music ones sorted. But tricky questions: First names of the three original members of Bananarama. We got Siobhan and Keren pretty quickly, but girl no 3 proved elusive. As the quiz end neared us, drastic measures were needed. And it's hard to thing of something more desperate than "Let Rich do automatic writing - that's our best hope". So I try the automatic writing. Close my eyes, let the pen move over the paper - some squigglies come out.

Our first guess is that I'd written Sophie. But then the initial S inspired a guess of Sara from elsewhere in the team. and then when the squiggles were relooked at, it was actually quite easy to see that that was what I had written... Maybe I knew the answer subconsciously?...

But then it got weirder still. On our team was a girl I'd never met before. To try and validate my automatic writing skills, I tried to guess the name of her sister (could have been mother, but I think we changed to sister). A name sprang into my head almost straight away (I had to lightly touch her shoulder to get this to work - all the best psychotics need some small physical connection). The name I thought of was 'Fiona'. Now, because this name had hit me fairly hard, I tried quite consciously to not write it down. And conscious efforts mess up the automatic writing. And I ended with a load of illegible scribbles.

The correct name I should have written was... Fiona. Somehow I had pulled a rabbit from a hat. Sadly, I had (and still have) no way to probe I'd selected that name, other than my apparent look of fear. I have no way of knowing where it came from. It could just be coincidence. But it was more than a bit odd...

Turkey time

Today was the last day of June. Clearly the year is moving on apace, and so it must be time... to start arranging work Christmas dinners. 2 in fact. Seems vaguely ridiculous to me...

I do like Christmas dinners, and am firmly of the opinion that you can't have too many turkey dinners at that time of year. With sprouts and the rest. But June is too early to be thinking about turkey.

Actually, not doing so well on the early Xmas righteous anger here. Must try harder. Completely unrelatedly to Christmas, I did succeed in making my life marginally less complicated today, which is at least something. Only marginally, mind, but it's something. And I shall say no more on this forum. Because it'd bore you to tears.

Things you may not know about Portugal

Today's Euro 2004 competition at work: Submit 5 things Portugal is famous for. After trawling the internet, here's what I found

1. In 1872, Portuguese man, Pere Fansata was the first man to walk unaided across the Bay of Biscay. His oversized inflatable shoes were made entirely of seal skin (due to its useful waterproof properties) and were sewn together by his wife, Marie. He was such a sight that to this day, local Biscay residents still use the phrase "walking like Pere" to refer to anybody walking in oversize footwear.

2. The boat based TV series, Triangle, was filmed entirely off the western coast of Portugal. This was for tax reasons - Portugal was the only (non-landlocked) country in Europe that did not levy a tax on offshore drama. In parts of Finland the tax was as high as 32% of gross dramatised profits. In later years, European leaders realised that the celluloid-shipping industry was being stifled, and the majority of the taxes were removed in 1993.

3. 13th century Portuguese Pope, Pope John XXI was so unhappy living in Vatican City that he temporarily moved the centre of the Catholic Church to Lisbon. Upon his death in 1272, it returned to Rome, but some remnants of his reign remain in Lisbon. There is in fact a whole (small) museum devoted to Lisbon's brief Church-leading industry, and artifacts there include Pope John's Papal Chair, woodcuts of the palace in which he lived (The Basilica de Lisbon) and several official Papal proclomations.

4. The sweets known in England as Jelly Babies were actually first made and popularised in Portugal. Confectioner Bert Basset holidayed there in 1894 and was so impressed with the sweets that he "borrowed" the idea and started producing his own in his Derbyshire factory, upon his return to England. They were an insant success, rapidly outselling all other Bassets sweets, even the Liqourice Allsorts for which he was most well known. The original Jelly Babies are still popular in Portugal where they are known as "Bebês da Geléia".

5. The wild horses that roam the plains of Southern Portugal were the inspiration behind The Osmonds' hit, "Crazy Horses". Whilst watching a film about Portugal in their US ranch, Donny exclaimed - "Cra-zee Horses" and the others, on the spur of the moment went "Whhhhaaaaahhhhh". A song was born, and the brothers never looked back.

I'm sure you'll agree that those are most interesting facts.

The sun was shining on the sea

"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--Of cabbages--and kings--And why the sea..."

"I must interrupt you there" said the carpenter, "for it is getting on and you have to go to work".

"But I haven't discussed why the sea is boiling hot, or whether pigs have wings yet" complained the Walrus.

Carpenter counters "it's not and they don't, end of conversation. Let's go."

And with that the Carpenter started off down the road towards his working domicile. The Walrus relented in his masculine desire to discuss only concrete facts and things and followed. Maybe Old Carpy would let him linger longer tomorrow morning...

The simple things in life are most rewarding

Now this is exciting. Regular readers may recall how only last week, in a fit of breakfastipation I ordered a new toaster from the world web thing. It has just arrived... toasty toast toast!

It's silver, shiny, and conducts electricity through it's elements. It's assembled my hand here in England - not quite the same as handmade, but not bad in this modern age. I've installed it into my kitchen, it sits very pleasantly next to the currently redundant espresso maker (when will I coffee again?...). I have turned it on for three minutes as advised by the instructions, in order to "condition the elements". It smoked a little bit, as I was told it would. Now, now, now it is ready to make me TOAST.

There's just one little ickle problem. I'm not hungry as I had my tea just before it was delivered. And more fundamentally, I have no bread. I have no marmalade. I have no jam, meat spread, meat, marmite, jelly or pate. I have got some margarine, but I don't like margarine, so it is of little use to me. Especially as I have no bread, that most important toast ingredient. So, my first toast will have to wait... until at least Wednesday. Maybe even later.

Sunglasses

Yesterday socks, today sunglasses. Tomorrow...

But sunglasses. Had to buy some new ones today, as one of the lenses had fallen off my old ones. Not much use to me then unless I keep one eye permanently closed. I don't wish to do this, it would hurt after a while, look rather stupid and would basically be too much effort. The old glasses are now binned, and I have a brand spanking new pair. Nothing fancy, nothing expensive (they probably barely protect my eyes), but they'll do.

I do always seem to end up buying sunglasses that look faintly ridiculous. Not laughably ludicrous you understand, there are no comedy frames, absurd shaped or coloured lenses or musical flashing lights (though that would be cool) - just faintly ridiculous. I think it's because I tend to buy them on my own, and so when I try them on in the shop I can't see very well what they look like. Everything goes a bit dark and it's hard to make out whether they suit me or not. If there was someone there to say - "maybe try slightly larger frames", "I don't think grey is your colour", "you look like a gimp" sort of thing.

But there is just me, so I now have new sunnies, not dissimilar in fact to the old ones. Now I must try to not sit on them, lose them or accidentally feed them to a passing goat. Goats'll eat anything.

Socks

Socks. When you wear socks, eventually they get holes in the ends. Well, mine do anyway. I've been wondering at what point should you give up on a particular pair and throw them away. How many holes? One hole you can definitely get away with. And when lots of holes all start to merge into one big one, it's bin time for Mr Socky. But where is the intermediate point?

My Day Today

Here's my day so far - not every little bit - for example, whilst I could relate at what time I cleaned my teeth, for how long and what brand of toothpaste I used, this could be construed as being too detailed to be worth reading. Or indeed writing. This is just the highlights. I think you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

1. I went for a haircut. I wasn't sure whether I was going to bother or not, right up until the point where my path would diverge either towards the barber, or towards town. The hair could have waited for another week, and I wasn't really in the mood. But what guarantee would I have that I'd have time next Saturday? None! So, carpe dium and all that. And now I am shorn. Not that it's much different or anything, just a little shorter.

2. I bought an engagement card. Will you people please stop getting married? It's costing me a fortune! Ok, it's not a hugely big or expensive card, but it all adds up. Now I just need to get round to writing it and hoping that I can remember the address.

3. Happy Birthday Jenny! I think it's today...

4. I've been getting slightly too much pleasure listening to Dire Straits' "Telegraph Road". Great song. A bit long though, clocking in as it does at 14 minutes and 16 seconds. Time enough to make and drink a cup of tea? No it wasn't. The tea was cherry by the way.

5. I should try and think of a plan for tonight. Maybe I'll get lucky and someone reading this will do one for me - hint, hint. (Listening to "Mr Brightside" by The Killers as I write this - it's very good!).

6. I Purchased my first bag of Satsumas of the year (I think). Must mean that Christmas is coming near. And I was convinced in town last night that a brass band was playing "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town". Though it was apparently "Da doo ron ron" by The Crystals. Go here for Bon-tempi-tastic version of it. Speaking of last night, at least I know now how a Walla-walla-bing-bang is made, and I do plan to stop narrating pigeon porn.

I think that that covers off all the high points. Doncha wish you were me?

And finally (for now), why not visit "Mondo di residuo di stoffa". Always fun.

Impossible things

'Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."'

Sometimes I think I'm good at that too. Except I don't have breakfast as often as I should.

They're all fruity, not just the orange ones

In my ongoing mission to try new sweets so that you don't have to, I tried Fruit Smarties at the weekend. After my recent unpleasant experience of Fruit Allsorts, I was somewhat dubious, but I know my duty and I carried it out.

Normal Smarties are round, sugary coated chocolate. All taste the same apart from the orange ones which taste orangey. This is either genuine or psychological, but I think genuine. They are like flattened M&Ms, but much nicer. And they come in a round cardboard tube, with plastic top and bottom. The top normally has a letter of the alphabet under it so if you collect enough you can spell words like "giraffe", "guaranteed" or "gynaecological". Most kids probably don't do that (especially the last one) and instead just have lots of fun eating the sweets, replacing the top and then squeezing the tube so that the top flies across the room and hits Mrs Dawson the maths teacher on the back of her head.

So onto Fruit smarties.
Good things about Fruit Smarties:
- They taste like Tutti Fruttis, but are slightly smaller.
- You can play a game where you have to guess the flavour the sweet you've just put in your mouth. This is a bit like the game you can play with Opal Fruits but better and easier because you don't have to unwrap Fruit Smarties.
- They come in a cardboard box which can be opened and closed at will.
- They are lovely. I want more.

Bad things about Fruit Smarties
- No cardboard tube, so no letters to collect.
- No cardboard tube, so no fun firing plastic tops across the room.
- I've eaten all the ones I had.
- Not a lot of point to them given that they taste just like Tutti Fruttis (but are slightly smaller)

Overall, I give Fruit Smarties marks out of 10 as follows:

******** 8/10

That is quite a good score. Fruit allsorts would have got 2 at most. Maybe only one.

Raise a toast to the Super Toaster

I'm thinking it's time I got myself a toaster. To make toast with. Nice toast, good for breakfast if you have breakfast, good for evening meals if you're really lazy (and you're not trying to impress a girl you've invited round for a candlelit dinner). I don't generally eat much toast, but currently how can I tell whether that is because I don't want toast, or because I can't have toast because I have no toaster? I had a slice of toast on Sunday morning and it was quite pleasant. Or did it just appear to taste pleasant because I was happy? Who can tell with toast...

So, as I said, I'm thinking it's time I got myself a toaster. Not just any toaster, but a posh, shiny toaster that will last for approximately a million years so that I never have to buy another toaster. Here's the toaster I have chosen: "I'm a toaster". Yes, it's the Dualit Vario Super Toaster. A toaster so good, that it's actually called a Super Toaster. It flies and rescues damsels. And cooks damn good toast.*

I expect I'll have trouble sleeping tonight, with all the new toaster excitement I'm currently feeling.

* actually, it only seems to be the John Lewis website that calls it Super Toaster, I've actually sourced mine from somewhere else, where it was a bit cheaper. Shame.

Quicksand

I was watching an archaeology program on Sunday night, and it got me thinking about quicksand. When I was a kid, you couldn't watch TV for more than 10 minutes without seeing some poor sod encountering some quicksand and being sucked down into it. Sometimes they'd escape, or be rescued, but sometimes they'd meet their end there, especially if they were the bad guys.

I even have vague memories of being around beaches when I was young and seeing signs warning of possible nearby quicksand. Just scaremongering, or a real hazard?

In recent years, I don't remember a single TV programme or film that has had any quicksand in it. Not even 24's Kim Bauer (a girl who has managed to get into pretty much every scrape imaginable) has managed to encounter this particular hazard. Where has all the quicksand gone?

I have some theories:
1. Quicksand is not real, and I in fact had no real childhood - I have imagined everything up to the age of 12, and some of it is inaccurate. Or maybe I have been given false memories by a therapist and/or evil hypnotist.
2. All the world's quicksand has been gathered up by terrorists for use in some new, ultra secret WOMD. One day soon, London will wake up to find all the streets have been coated in two metres of quicksand and everyone will be sucked down to an early grave.
3. Quicksand has become too cliched and film-makers have tired of it.
4. Over the last 20 years or so, humans have evolved special feet that let us walk unaided over quicksand (and possibly sucky mud too), so even though there is still as much if it as ever, we just don't notice it any more.
5. I'm not watching as much TV as I did as a kid.

If anyone does know where and why it's all gone, then answers on a postcard to the usual address.

Here is some information I found on the interweb about quicksand. It doesn't really answer my question though.

You can never have too much B&S

The new Belle and Sebastian EP was out yesterday - always a treat! 2 lovely whole new tracks.

I remember when they put out the 'Dog on Wheels' EP back in 1997 (how can that be 7 years ago already?!) - it was so good that I just played the four tracks on repeat for hours and hours. Couldn't get enough. That was back in the days when B&S didn't release singles off albums, just EPs full of brand new material. Since the move to Rough Trade, they have been taking a more conventional approach and releasing songs from albums as singles - but at least they are keeping up high standards on the b-sides.

And even better, the new CD comes with a fun little game to play, featuring a little bookworm. Slightly less frustrating than the previous "I'm a cuckoo" game. It's available online too I think.

Goran's Beer Money

I had one task that I was supposed to have done this weekend, which I have failed to do: Find a bottle of Croatian beer. I tried the beer shop in town, but they didn't seem to have any - though I was too lazy to actually ask the man who worked there. I think I'd hoped they'd have a little section of shelf labelled 'Croatia', in the same way that Supermarkets often have parts of the wine shelves labelled "France" or "New World".

Going off on a slight tangent, isn't the phrase "New World" slightly antiquated now? Surely there must be a more up to date set of words that could be used? How about "America" or "Bushland" or something?

Back to beer. Yep, didn't find any Croatian beer. I did however find an (almost) amusing advert starring Goran Ivanisevic for a Croatian brew called 'Pan'. Watch it here if you really have nothing better to do.

Not for the fainthearted

Yesterday was a fancy dress party at Castle Bert. Theme of the fancy dress: Musicals. The following photo is quite disturbing - it depicts a welshman in ladies underwear:




I hope that does not give anyone nightmares. In case you are unable to work it out, Daf is dressed as Lil' Kim, from the Lady Marmalade track used in 'Moulin Rouge'. If you ask me, that is a pretty tenuous costume - Moulin Rouge is not really a proper musical in my opinion, since all the songs are sourced from other places. And the costume in question is not even from the film, instead it is from an accompanying music video.

Anyway, I didn't really want to post the picture, but Daf was so desperate for the world to see his new look that I thought it would be cruel to go against his wishes.

My costume was much better, and much bettily linked to a musical. I went as Buffy (well, there was one episode that was a proper musical, so it counts). I had a nice axe, some lovely long blode hair, a couple of stakes and lady breasts. We had a picture of the Buffster from the OMWF soundtrack CD, and frankly it was like looking in a mirror when I saw it. Absolutely uncanny.

I can sum the rest of the evening up in three words: Wine, Women and Song (please ignore the 'and' when counting). And I shall leave the rest to your imaginations.

Tickling

It's always fun to check what searches people have been running that have pulled up this wondrous blog. I can't help but feel sometimes they must be disappointed at what they find.

I particularly pity whoever tried "tickled a girl's feet" in Yahoo and found this site. Google returns the same result. Not really a Googlewhack (or even close) but still odd.

Clearly there are not enough people out there tickling girls' feet in bed and then writing about it. So, what I want you all to do is use the phrase "tickled a girl's feet" in your blog later, so that it doesn't look like I'm the only person with a foot fetish.

Wet Wet Wet

A day of rain. After weeks of sunshine, today is looking wet. I'm going straight out after work and can't be bothered to be carrying my umbrella round with me, so I'm gonna try and dodge the raindrops on my walk in to the office in a short while. Wish me luck...

In every job that must be done...

I said a few days ago that I didn't intend to post about Euro 2004, due to me having no interest in football. Well, this isn't about football. Not really. At work, for the duration of the tournament, we have a series of games, quizzes and competitions, into which people were free to enter teams. Teams were then randomly allocated a European Country that made it through to the football finals. Teams can win prizes for winning these things and also on how well they decorate their area in the style or colours of their allocated country.

My team (for I am captain) got England. So we've had lots of fun putting together a shrine to godlike English people (eg Tom Baker, Richard Bacon, Thora Hird etc), collections of English Wit and Wisdom, and other things. It's been rather like being back at school where you put up displays on the walls. I also spent half an hour this lunchtime blowing up balloons (red and white). Tying knots in balloons is a skill I only learnt in recent years so it's nice to have opp to use it from time to time. I did blow one of them up slightly too much and it burst in my face which gave me (and those around me!) a bit of a fright!

We also have a daily quiz/challenge. Yesterday, the first team to name 10 famous people from their country would win. If you happen to be Latvia, this ain't so easy. If you're England, it would be extremely embarrassing to not win. Thankfully we did win. Yay! Today was a little harder. We were sent a list of 10 football related phrases (eg "Who ate all the pies", "The referee needs new glasses") which we had to translate into the language of our country. They had today though realised that this might be quite easy for the England team (ie us) so they instead made us translate into Portuguese. A couple of minutes with Google later, and we sent off the entry and... won again! We're great!

I won't be around for tomorrow morning's challenge sadly, as I have a meeting in another building. Hopefully the rest of the team will manage without me and make it three in a row (something the real England team are unlikely to do).

Football itself is still really dull though!

Lost card

At the weekend I received a birthday card. It was not my birthday, and the card was not addressed to me - it was addressed to Miss K Smith. I am not she. I opened the card anyway, in the off-chance there was a return address in it. There wasn't, but I know now that K is Karen, and she has an Auntie Jane and an Uncle Michael (who she can't be that close to, or they'd have her real address!).

If by some fluke, you happen to be reading this Karen, then I have your card. If you are Jane or Michael, then Karen doesn't have your card. If anyone knows any of these people, then get in touch and I'll ensure the card reaches it's proper destination. Otherwise, sorry Karen, it's bin time for your little card.

Music Downloading

The iTunes Music Store launched in Europe today - the first (I think) online music download service to work with the iPod. Which is handy for those of us with iPods. I've had a little play with it, and it seems fairly slick and easy to use, with reasonable pricing at 79p a track. As an experiment, and to check it all works, I downloaded a couple of tracks (don't laugh) - "Four Minute Warning" by Mark Owen, and "I saved the world today" by The Eurythmics. And it all works fine. And more to the point I've not had to buy a whole album by either artist to get the one song I wanted.

Everything is not perfect in the world of iTunes at the moment though. The major record labels are all on board, so chances are that if you want anything mainstream, you'll be fine. Plenty of Dido, Avril Lavigne and even Keane. If you want anything on an independent label however, then you are going to be disappointed. Apple hasn't yet managed to sort out a payment deal with the indies, so no Belle & Sebastian, no Cinerama, no Franz Ferdinand and no Thirteen Senses. Plus many others are not there too, obviously (it's be daft if there were only four bands left on indies!).

I'm hoping that this dispute will be sorted out soon, as the majority of the music I buy tends to be on the smaller labels - for the iTunes Store to be any major use to me, I need Apple to play ball with the indies. Maybe they'll just end up charging more, say 99p for the good stuff.

But this does lead to a wider question, why should I bother to use the iTunes Store at all? If there's stuff I want, I can get it easily using Kazaa, Bit Torrent, Usenet, or several other methods. I can even borrow CDs of friends if I'm really desperate. Or I can buy CDs from the shop and have the nice little case and booklet and maybe some fancy packaging.

So firstly, I'll say that I have no objection to actually paying for music. It is clear to me that if everybody stopped buying music, and just freeloaded off the net, then all the labels would go bust (major and indie), and there'd be nothing produced. Sure, there'd still be some bands who'd put stuff out on their own back, with their own money, and they could make money by doing gigs and selling merchandise, but at the end of the day, if the artists aren't selling music they are not going to make any money. They'll need other jobs, the music may suffer. I just can't see it working. Or maybe the industry would just need to move to a new business model. I don't know.

Anyway, what I was trying to get to there was that I don't mind exchanging my money for someone else's tunes.

The majority of times I have downloaded tunes from the 'net for free, it has been for one of four reasons:
1. The music is not released yet. I couldn't buy it, even though I wanted to. Example: The new They Might Be Giants Album, "The Spine".
2. The music is released, but I can't find it in my local stores. Example: "Castaways and Cutouts" by The Decemberists.
3. The music is avaialble free for download from a band website. Example: "The first word is the hardest" by Four Day Hombre.
4. The music is dull, bland rubbish that I only download because I see it available for free and figure it might be handy to have around one day, maybe if people come round the house. Example: Katie Melua, "Call off the search" (which really is incredibly dull).

In cases 1 and 2, I'll often end up buying the album anyway when it is released, or if I find it. In case 3, it is generally only one or two tracks available, which I'll end up buying on an album at some point. And case 4, we're talking about crap I'd never buy anyway. So in no case, has anyone really lost out.

I seem to have spent a lot of time there justifying myself spending money on tunes if I want to. When it comes down to it, I'm lucky to have a decent job that enables me to earn enough money to buy the tunes I want to, so I do.

So the real issue I have is whether to buy a physical CD, or some less tangible data. And this then mainly reduces to: "Do I want packaging". In the past, I'd have said "yes" straightaway. You get nice booklets, shiny CDs, and maybe some cardboard too if it's a "Special Limited Edition". But for about the last year, and especially since I got the laptop, I have listened to very few actual CDs. As soon as I buy one, it gets copied straight onto the laptop and the iPod, and I then either listen off the lappy, or plug the 'pod into a proper stereo and use that.

I've also pretty much run out of space on my shelves for CDs. I can maybe do another 100, but after that, full, full, full. At some point I'll have to get rid of some of them. Or buy some more shelves. But I think I'm finding that I'm less and less bothered about having the actual physical CDs and cases anymore. And doing things electronically has two more advantages - it's a bit cheaper (maybe... defintely not always), and it has to better environmentally.

So I think I'm going to have to buy a few albums in electric form and see how I go with them. See whether I wake at night, panicking about the lack of a plastic case.

There is one way though in which my behaviour will definitely change - I can't see me buying many physical singles any more. They seem a very natural thing to buy online - buy the tune I want, maybe the b-sides too if they're any good, and then when the album is out, buy a CD then if I want a hard copy.

And hopefully it will encourage people to release albums with tracks that are all good on them. If an album only has two good tracks on it, a lot of people are not going to want to buy the rest of the album.

I suspect some of what I've said above may be flawed, naieve, or just wrong, but I can't really help that. In the meantime a final repeated message - sort things out with the indies, Apple.

Nice new sheets

I've been spending my nights this week in brand new sheets. Feels good. New sheets good. Two new pillows too. Yuuuummmmm, new pillows. It's like being in a hotel bed. If I could afford to buy new sheets every week... Mind, if I did buy new ones every week I'd rapidly run out of space to store them. Though I suppose in that case I could just throw away the old ones rather than storing them.

Two late strikes from Zinedine Zidane - Hilarious!

I intend this to be my first and last post on the subject of Euro 2004 because I really do have very little interest in it. The tournament started over in Portugal a couple of days ago, and probably goes on for another couple of weeks.

It is quite hard to avoid the football at the moment - not only are all the matches being broadcast on normal terrestrial television (rather than proper sports channels where they belong), but the event is all over the papers, posters, radios and every other medium going. It is even polluting the normally pristine waters of this blog. I know I'm not alone in my total disinterest so here are five ways to avoid the so called "beautiful game" (frankly, I've seen more beautiful lepers):

1. Don't leave the house. Not even in the event of a terrorist attack.
2. Avoid any pub with a TV during matches. Because you are unlikely to know when the matches are (I certainly have no clue) then it is best to avoid pubs with TVs entirely.
3. Leave the country - go abroad. Obviously avoid Portugal, and possibly avoid Europe entirely. I suspect Peru may be safe, but I wouldn't put money on it.
4. Using a sharp knife, carefully remove your eyes and ears and put them in jars ready for reattachment later. You'll probably need some liquid to store them in, but as I am not a medical expert I can't recommend an exact process - "careful" should be your watch-word.
5. Suicide. This is maybe a little drastic, as unlike eye removal, or going abroad, it cannot be easily reversed.

I hope these are helpful for some of you. Now, if I can just skip back to point 3 for a minute. During tournaments such as this one, pub TVs act as total tw*t magnets - to the extent that if you go to a pub that does not have a TV you can guarantee that it will have 90% less pissed-up idiots in it than normal. It is almost tempting to suggest that England should be forced to play every night, with the matches beamed to a specially selected bunch of pubs country-wide. You'd end up with all the idiots coralled into a few known places that all sensible people could avoid. And the idiots get to watch England every night - everyone's happy, it's a complete win-win situation (apart from maybe for the England team...).

Now it's not the fact that people watch the football in pubs per se that annoys me, more the manner in which they tend to watch it. ie ridiculously loudly, shouting, chanting, spilling and crying like something important is going on. People seem to turn into complete animals, losing the residual humanity that their retarded male (and they are mostly male) brains have kept. It's a shame that stun guns are illegal - it would be a lot of fun if it was legal to buzz anyone who started to display Neanderthal tendencies.

Anyway last night's England/France match was hilarious. Didn't actually watch it, but I did have a smile when I woke this morning and heard that England had lost by conceding two goals in the last two minutes. This has put us bottom of our group, so there is the potential for an early exit from the tournament. I'm under no illusions that that would make the whole tournament go away, but it might at least stop some of the mindless jingoism (cliche alert!).

After the tragic defeat, there was a bit of trouble in a few places around the country (though thankfully none reported in Portugal). Hotspots last night were Croydon, Wakefield and bizarrely, Boston, Lincolnshire. Another reason to avoid that blighted county.

On a final note: People of England - what is with these ridiculous England flags that every other person has stuck on their car aerials? There's enough complaints about these elsewhere so I won't go on (too much), but really, you might as well put a sign on your car saying "I am an arse". They just seem utterly redundant to me. Mind you, it at least lets cars be singled out to have "2-1" written in the dirt on their sides. If there are any Scottish, Welsh or Irish peeps reading, you might find that this is a fun game to play today *.

I think what I was trying to say is that I don't much like or see the point of football, and hence I intend World of Lint to become a football free zone for the next few weeks. And good luck to England anyway, looks like you're going to need it!

* Vandalism of cars is in no way endorsed by this blog, or its contributors. Unless it's really funny.

A recipe for fish

Bert held an impromptu barbecue yesterday. Since it was another lovely hot day, this was no bad thing. And going out in town would have been no fun at all due to the races being on again, meaning that in the evening all the pubs would have been full of fat, drunk, bald men.

Bert had bought himself a fish to barbecue. Here I will share with you his special recipe, that I have called "Fish With Herbs On Top".


 

It's an easy recipe. Just get a fish, put it on a hot barbecue and then put your herb garden on top of the fish and wait. And voila, you have a meal fit for a king.

Legacy of Krull

I've just been watching the trailer for 'The Chronicles of Riddick', the 'Pitch Black' sequel. Looks quite entertaining, but I guess I could be proved wrong. No idea when it's out in the UK and I can't be arsed to look it up. Two things struck me from the trailer itself:
1. Judi Dench???
2. It looks like finally a film has taken a stylistic influence from 80s classic 'Krull'. All the sets, costumes, everything look like they could have come straight from it. This is a good thing.

Joe's Last Day

Bye Joe!

Hot summer nights

I still find it hard to decide whether this is the best or the worst intro to a song ever. In either case, it seems vaguely appropriate at the moment.

Meat: On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
Girl: Will he offer me his mouth?
Meat: Yes
Girl: Will he offer me his teeth?
Meat: Yes
Girl: Will he offer me his jaws?
Meat: Yes
Girl: Will he offer me his hunger?
Meat: Yes
Girl: Again. Will he offer me his hunger?
Meat: YES
Girl: And will he starve without me?
Meat: Yes
Girl: And does he love me?
Meat: Yes
Girl: Yes
Meat: On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
Girl: Yes
Meat: I bet you say that to all the boys.

Yesterday, all my Venuses seemed so far away

Yesterday's Venus transit has now been and gone. I'd like to say that I observed Venus. Mainly because I would then have used a transitive verb in the sentence which would seem appropriate. However, I didn't really see it for a number of reasons:

1. Cloud cover early in the morning
2. Too much sunshine later in the morning

I always have a problem with these Sun related astronomical events. And the problem is that I don't really hold with all this new fangled sun-viewing technology, like really dark glass or eclipse glasses. I figure if you can't see something with a normal pair of sunglasses, then it's probably not worth seeing.

So armed with nothing but my sunglasses and my wits, I went out to see the transit. I put on the shades and had a quick glance upward, but to be honest I didn't really see much. Even after staring for a full 10 minutes I still couldn't make out the small black dot that would have been Venus. But not to worry, I can always watch it on the TV News later.

With this consolation in mind, I looked forwards once more and headed onwards into town. Sadly, I was now blind and stepped (ironically) in front of a transit van. The van was travelling at 60mph and killed me instantly. It's lucky that they have an internet cafe in Purgatory.

Two morals from this that we can all learn from:
- The sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace. That will BLIND you.
- Speed kills - slow down kids, nowhere's worth going to anyway.

Return of the Mark

After a 7 year hiatus, Mark Radcliffe is finally back on late night evening radio. Some differences to the old Radio 1 show (or was it 1FM back then?) - No Lard anymore, no sketches and it's now on Radio 2. However (well based on the half hour I heard last night) he's still playing some great tunes and has some great guests. And a woman from Coronation Street, but I'll skip by that. Last night for example: Badly Drawn Boy in session. Since I have no intention of going out tonight, hopefully I can listen to the rest of the show via the magic of the innanet when I get out of work.

A wedding surprise

It's always nice to be invited to a wedding, especially if it's the wedding of one of your friends that you've known for years and years (10 now in the following case).

I was invited to a wedding today. Came as something of a surprise though, as I had no idea that the person getting married (Hello Marlon!) was engaged. Actually I'm not even sure I knew he was seeing anyone...

Oh, well - shouldn't complain. Get to go on a fun stag weekend somewhere and then a wedding too. Quality entertainment all round! Hopefully he'll send me more details of both in good time. Hopefully his future missus is more organised than he is.

Incidentally - if any of you lot are getting married and have "forgotten" to tell me, do let me know!

Ice is nice

One great thing about being a grown-up is that you can have ice-lollies whenever you want. Even in winter if you want to.

I bought some Fruit Pastille lollies at the supermarket earlier. Nicey icey. I have been fairly restrained so far and only eaten one of them. So far.

On the Symmetry of Spaceships

Let's start today with a quick quiz. Out of the following spaceships (all from Star Wars for now), which is the odd one out:

1. X-Wing Fighter
2. Star Destroyer
3. Millennium Falcon
4. Slave 1
5. Snow Speeder

Answer... It's the millennium Falcon. And the reason is to do with symmetry. It's the only ship in the whole of the Star Wars universe that displays basic asymmetry. I know there are various others with smaller differences between right and left (eg the TIE-Bomber), but with the MF's little cabin, sticking out on the from right hand side, it loses a lot of aesthetics, to my mind at least.

This may not just be an aesthetic issue - Since the Falcon is powered by some kind of engine which propels it centrally from behind, then its builders must have put some kind of counterweight in the left side - otherwise its centre of gravity would be over to the right and as it moved forward, it would start to rotate. This would not be a useful trait for a spaceship.

It's not just ships in Star Wars that have a central line of symmetry. When I think of any other ships from any other film or TV series, I'm having real trouble thinking of non-symmetric ones. Anything from Star Trek, B5 or Blakes 7, The Nostromo or even the Space Shuttle. All symmetric. It's just the Falcon that is on its own, annoying me.

Not sure where I was going with this.

Anyway, a while back I'd been talking about getting a Lego Star Destroyer. I'm now glad I didn't because I've found a picture which demonstrates how big it is better than the photo on the Lego website.
Here it is. I'm fairly sure there is nowhere in the flat it could sensibly go! This shows the importance of doing good research before making a purchase.

Same old same old.

Once more I find myself at home at lunchtime. Today it was to take delivery of my new backup drive. I'm performing the first back up as I write - 15Gb down, 12Gb to go. This will hopefully the last time this whole data debacle will be mentioned here because frankly I'm getting bored writing about it. Hopefully it won't take more than another 15 mins or so, as I need to be back at work in a short while.

Return of the Mac

I've spent a large part of this evening reinstalling software onto the Powerbook, but am now finished, and back where I started - hooray! And I think the only significant thing I have ended up losing is a load of old emails. Could have been much worse! Sadly, I'm now too tired to be arsed to write anything. I have a vague feeling I used to be more interesting... Ah well.

Post #200

This is my 200th post since I started writing back in January, giving me an average blog rate of just over 1.3 posts per day. I feel like I should look back and take stock. But sadly I don't have time to do that tonight. Instead, here's a little happy list - 3 good things that have happened (to me) today:

1. Got the laptop back - it seems to work fine, but I do have to spend a load of time sometime soon reinstalling programs etc.
2. I won a Coca-Cola Football at lunchtime.
3. I have actually booked (and paid a deposit) on my holiday! It's actually going to happen!

Maybe I'll have time for some good old fashioned retrospection tomorrow.

News Update

I may get the laptop back tomorrow if I can get away from work for a couple of hours at lunchtime. So this evening I've done the thing I should have done (literally) years ago and ordered a backup hard drive. Never again shall I be at risk of excessive information loss! No more shall I fear the demon of disappearing data.

In even more exciting news, I used the new bridge to the station yesterday. It was a lot of fun.

If you strike me down...

I know that this sort of thing has been done before (and done better), but I fancied a bit of bank holiday fun. Enjoy!


Darth Vader: I've been waiting for you, Obi-Wan. We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I met you I was but the learner. Now, I am the master.



Obi Wan: Only a master of evil, Darth.



Darth Vader: Your powers are weak, old man.



Obi-Wan: You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.



Darth Vader: Bye bye, time to die!



Obi-Wan: Oh bugger.

Tunnel Vision

Since I've mentioned The Tunnel several times in the past (eg here), I thought it wouldn't hurt to stick a picture of it here. Note the bright new lights running along the ceiling. And no, that is not me that you can see in the distance. I am standing behind the camera.
 

Off on the holiday bus with Cliff

I wrote earlier in the month about how I was intending to take a holiday, but didn't know either where to go, or what form the holiday should take. I'd mentioned that, for example, I felt being stuck on a coach with a bunch of strangers would be like a "mobile version of Big Brother". Having now started to watch the new series of BB, and seen the total weirdos on there this year, I have come to the realisation that it couldn't actually be that bad. Might still have a miserable time, but as I was saying yesterday, if you can't have a miserable time on holiday, when can you have one?

So a coach holiday it is. Next question where to? This turned out to be quite easy. Since I have no huge preference for where to go, I'll go to Lots Of Places! So I've put in a booking on an 18-35 tour that will take me to Amsterdam, Munich, Venice, Rome, Florence, Switzerland and Paris, amongst others. None of which I've ever been to except for Paris. Clearly I won't be staying anywhere for too long, but I can always go back another time if I like somewhere. Best thing is, it starts and finishes in London, so it's dead easy to get to, in fact it'll be a lot easier to get to (and possibly quicker too) than any of the UK airports. Bonus!

So I'm actually finding myself quite looking forward to it at the moment. Meet new people, maybe meet some nice new people, see lots of new places, and sample some European night life. Haven't actually had confirmation of the booking yet, mind, so there's always the possibility that it could all still go belly up. Fingers crossed.

At the very least, I have managed to pull my finger out and attempt to do something - I was starting to doubt I'd ever get round to organising anything! I may come back suffering from cabin fever, I may never want to go on holday alone again, but I will have tried it. And maybe I'll have a good time.

I'm The Invisible Man

Well, since I'm still stuck back on the PC, thought I'd try out the new photoblogging software. Sadly, I have almost zero photos on the PC at the moment, this was the most interesting one I could find. It is me, myself, dressed as The Invisible Man last year. 

New, improved.... Tunnel

I have mentioned in the past that there is a pedestrian tunnel on my way into town, which goes under the railways. The tunnel has been shut to pedestrians for a week or so. But now, it has reopened, new and improved. So much excitement in one week! A new bridge and a revamped tunnel. I am so lucky to live in this time of changes.

I did consider trying out the new bridge this morning. In the end I decided against it - figured I may get bored on Bank Holiday Monday and it would be a shame to have alredy used up my only entertainment.

But back to the tunnel. "What have they done to it?", I can almost hear you asking. Well, I will tell you. What they have done is: Install some really bright lights. It bizzarrely now feels like one of the tunnels in the London Underground. Just without the buskers. Or underground trains, ticket barriers, rats and escalators. Actually I'm not sure about the rats. I'm not quite sure why it's taken so long just to install some extra lighting, so I'm drawn to the conclusion that they must have done something else less obvious too. I'll keep my eyes open.

The tunnel does seem taller than before, but I think that must just be an illusion caused by the brighter lighting. I'm absolutely totally sure that they have not somehow raised the ceiling and/or lowered the floor.

So, I am once more safe from the evil pigeon threat.

A New Bridge Opens!

Some exciting news this week: Shortly a new pedestrian bridge is going to open, leading into the back of York Station (starting from the NRM end of the tunnel). I reckon it should cut my journey time to the station down to just over 5 minutes - excellent! And especially good for those times late at night if I've been out somewhere else, get back to York and just want to get into bed as quickly as possible. Or if I need the toilet.

Askham-Richard (v)

We all worry too much. But how often do you worry that there aren't enough names for all the different types of worry we experience on a day to day basis?

Example. Today I went downstairs to the vending machine. I was at work. I can't go downstairs at home as I live on the ground floor and even if I lived on the next floor up there wouldn't be a vending machine downstairs because that would be on the floor I actually live on and there isn't one there.

So anyway, I inserted 50p into the slot to buy a Snickers bar. The little metal coil started to turn and I started to worry that the chocolate would not fall, that it would end up stuck on the shelf, or maybe wedged between the shelf and the glass. I didn't want this to happen. If if did happen, I'd either have to expend physical effort to nudge the machine, or buy the next chocolate bar too in the hope of dislodging the first. A risky enterprise, and I only really wanted one bar. Not two bars. It strikes me this must be nearly the opposite worry you have when you are trying to use your phone in a low reception area and you worry you may not have enough bars to indicate a passable call may be made.

Anyway, the coil spun and after an interminably long moment, the chocolate fell safely to the base receptacle. The moment of worry passed. I retrieved the chocolate, returned to my desk and ate it all up.

But the fleeting worry, the "arrggh I'm very mildly concerned that my vended item may not reach me" thought, it doesn't have a name that I'm a aware of. It needs a name: now that I'm aware of it, it feels like not having a name for "clouds", "cannibalism" or "hippocampus". So in the tradition of "The Meaning of Liff" and "The Deeper Meaning of Liff", I hereby name it after an English Village. I choose Askham-Richard, a small village just outside York.

So next time you're at the checkout and you hear the beep.... no that's not right, try again. So next time you're at the vending machine and you experience weak fear of non-droppage, what you are actually feeling is Askham-Richard. I hope this helps you all.

Title of the year... so far

Mclusky have just released an album with my favourite title of the year so far:

"The difference between me and you is that I'm not on fire"

Decent album too. If anyone has any better titles of albums released this year, I'd like to hear.

I'm thinking... "Bonnie Langford"

A lot can happen in a week.

For example, I had not even considered last Tuesday that Billie Piper would be named as the new assistant to play opposite Christopher Ecclestone in the new series of Dr Who. It just doesn't sound right. Mind, I bet she's a good screamer. Here's how I imagine it might go:

The Dr: Billie, why do you play your music so loud?
Billie: Because I want to! Because I want to!
The Dr: Well can you turn it down a bit? It's really upsetting my concentration. If you want me to finish fixing your hair rollers, I suggest you quieten down somewhat. Now, have you seen my sonic screwdriver?
Billie: So shake it, move it, use it, groove it!
The Dr: I will, once you tell me where it is. Why can't you ever be helpful?
Billie: Don't criticize me 'cause I'm running the show!
The Dr: No, Billie, you're not. I've had enough. I'm going to drop you off at Earth next time we pass by.
Billie: I throw a party for the world and my friends?
The Dr: Well you can try, but I'm not sure they'll be glad to see you...Maybe I'll just take you to Skaro and leave you to the mercy of the Daleks instead.
Billie: We can do anything, Free to be who we want to be?
The Dr: No Billie. You'll be enslaved or killed. Or possibly both. Now where is that screwdriver...

This is not a comfortable place to be in

A few observations I have observed over the past few days. Some are blog related others are not:

1. Lots of blogs seem to look much worse on a PC than a Mac. Maybe it's just my PC, or the fonts or something - It's hard to put my finger on it as I can't compare the two directly.
2. I think I need to pull back and regroup before I get hurt.
3. I really don't enjoy using a keyboard whilst sitting cross legged on the floor. It is uncomfy and really discourages the writing of long posts. Some of you may not feel this is a bad thing.
4. Bloody insects! My hands have been in itchy pain all day and at times they have resembled the hands of a leper. Or at least what I imagine a leper's hands to look like. Thinking about it, mine are potentially much less flaky.
5. It's so uncomfy here on the floor that I can't even think of a proper no 5! Oh just got one: That cute little robot from Short Circuit. I wish he was my friend.

A nice soak

Due to being both a bit tired, and a lot dirty after being out paintballing earlier, I decided to have a bath when I got home. I've not had an actual bath for a long time, and it was certainly the first time I've used the one in this flat, but it was kinda relaxing. Had to use shower gel instead of bubble bath, but it worked fine.

It is a lot more effort to have a bath compared to a shower though. It needs planning and forethought. And you have to move the radio into a different room and remember to also bring a towel (which is as good advice today as it ever was). Best not to use the laptop in the bath, but it wouldn't make much difference in its current state.

So now I am clean again. And pretty tired, so I think I may head off to bed shortly (or before eight o'clock in any case).

More computer woes.

I spent an hour on the phone to Apple this morning before heading out to work. And after trying lots of things, the bloke on the phone came to the same conclusion as me: the hard drive is broken. Probably could have saved both of us a lot of time if he'd just let me tell him that in the first place. So now the laptop is going to be picked up and taken away from me early next week, and will hopefully come back all fixed.

Things aren't quite as bad as they looked yesterday though. A friend gave me a Linux boot-up disk, and weirdly I managed to get this to temporarily fix the machine - I was able to boot it up and access the hard drive fine! First thing I did was back-up all the important stuff. Thankfully I was able to do this. So I should no longer be suffering any major data loss, though there are bound to be some things I forgot to move.

So I thought for a while that it was fixed. Sadly that wasn't the case, and it is now back in it's useless state. And the trick with the Linux disk didn't work a second time. So I shall stick to plan A and let the trained people sort it out. Hopefully they won't need to swap the hard disk for a new one...

Bad computer

I am not a happy bunny. And it's not the usual girl rubbish.

My lovely laptop has entered a comatose state. It won't start up and let me do things, and the limited diagnostics I have been able to perform gives me the impression that it may be the hard drive that has gone. If so, that would be the second one in 2 years. Last time it was an utter pain in the ass as I had only a total minimum of stuff backed up. This time, clearly I have learnt my lesson and so will have performed regular backups? Don't be daft. I nearly bought a second hard drive earlier this year, but ended up buying the laptop instead. And then because networking the mac to the PC proved very fiddly and intermittent, I never really bothered backing stuff up to the PC.

So potentially I may have lost a load of irreplaceable stuff. Again. Photos, writings, tunes, spreadsheets, and things that I won't realise I've lost for a while. At least I should be able to rip the tunes back off the iPod once I'm up and running again. But most of the other stuff will be gone.

So until I manage to get things fixed, I'm stuck back on the PC. Maybe I'll be lucky and it won't be the hard drive after all.

I am going to go and flagellate myself for being an idiot.

Take it back. Please, it's a horrid hat.

I am going to head into town shortly and attempt to hand back two of the items I "stole" off my friends at the weekend. If he's turned up... The item will be "the Hat and Pen". I've already returned the sunglasses, so it'll just be the frisbee left.

Cakes

Sometimes you feel like having some cake, but there isn't any cake. And then after a while you get a little taste, perhaps a slice, and it's great. Good cake. With fruity bits. And then someone takes the cake away and you're hungry again. Possibly it has been locked in a cupboard, or maybe just taken away. Or maybe it's gone stale and has to be thrown away, or fed to the birds (sparrows). It's hard to tell with cakes.

Another note to self...

It's a really bad idea to put a six inch chocolate medallion in your pocket and forget about it. This morning I woke with a chocolate coated wallet.

Suedehat

This is the first time I can remember that what is essentially the same song has been at both no 1 and no 2 in the singles chart. Yes, Frankee is on top, with Eamon just below. I will personally eat my hat if she actually is his ex-girlfriend. The worst thing is that if they were both somewhere else (or dead or non-existent), Lord Morrissey would have been Top Of The Pops, potentially for the first time ever. I could look it up and be sure, but I think I'll rely on my instincts here.

In other news this morning, I have been doing a good job of stealing my friends things over the weekend. I have: 1 hat, 1 pair of sunglasses, 1 pen and 1 frisbee. If you want them back guys, click here.

Catch that frisbee, now

Two things I have learnt today:
1. There is a big field five minutes away from the flat where it is fun to throw frisbees when it's hot.
2. I have a pocket which if you put a pen in it, the pocket is capable of completely dismantling and breaking the pen without my knowledge.

Also, the pub near the field smells of sick a little bit. After a while, you don't notice it any more.

Post-shower Addendum: After seeing myself without the t-shirt I was wearing earlier, I have also learnt that I am now very red around the neck and face region.

Three for two

The bookshop has a three for two offer. I made some use of it today, by purchasing three copies of the same book. One of these I intend to keep and read myself, the others are for other people who also wanted a copy. I was mildly disappointed by the reaction of the bookseller - he just sold them to me like he would have sold me three books that weren't the same. Far too professional. I had hoped to have the opportunity to use some comedy lines. Something along the lines of:

"You do realise these three books are all the same, sir?"
"They are? How stupid of me!"

That kind of thing (booksellers are very polite in my head). Or maybe "Oh! I thought the offer meant that if you bought two of the same book then I got a third copy free. I hadn't realised I could have three different ones! I am so blonde."

But I was not offered the chance to say these things. I paid my money and left.

Wake up, it's a beautiful morning

It's a strange feeling to wake up in the morning and not want to stay in bed. I haven't pressed the snooze button once this week, and the I've had the alarm set half an hour earlier than normal.

At least I know where my passport is

In a moment of madness at work today, I booked two weeks off work in July with the full intention of using them to take a proper holiday. Something involving planes and suitcases and queues and resting and beer. Holidays are good, everyone loves going on holiday. So for a normal person, the next steps in the process are easy. Book a return flight to your chosen destination(s), sort out hotels, buy some paperbacks and wait a few weeks/months with excitement slowly building until the day of departure comes and you can finally leave England behind for pastures new. Just for a week or two.

There's a problem though (isn't there always?). I'm having real trouble thinking of anywhere that I want to go to. Or indeed deciding what kind of holiday I want. The choice is slightly too wide. I need ideas, I need inspiration, I need to actually make a decision. There must be somewhere I'd enjoy?

Part of the problem is that I've never been on holiday on my own before and don't really know how it works. Something where you get put on a coach with a bunch of losers, sorry, I meant strangers, and get taken all over someplace could be good. Not so much for the company, I imagine it to be something like a mobile version of Big Brother - spending too much time with a bunch of people with which you have nothing in common except a desire to be on TV, sorry I meant a desire to go on holiday. No it would be good because it would save me having to worry about what to do each day. I'd have an itinery! I'd be told what to do and where to go. Maybe I should just join the army for that...

Or I could just fly off somewhere and wander round on my own doing touristy things. Art galleries, museums, castles, more museums, oh Christ that sounds dull.

How about a beach holiday then... Get up, go to the beach, read a book, go back to the hotel, repeat ad infinitum (or for several days at least). Then realise that your skin has become the colour of tandouri chicken and in places you've burnt until you blister. And you've run out of books with 2 days to go and you can't buy any more because you're in Spain and you don't read Spanish too well.

Or my personal favourite kind of holiday, one I've used several times in the last couple of years, take two weeks off and stay in your flat. Stay in bed until lunchtime because there's nothing to get up for. Maybe pop out to get a sandwich because you are too badly organised to actually have bread and fillings available in your kitchen. A beer in the evening with the same people you see day in, day out that you'd normally take a holiday to get away from (no offence guys). And after two weeks you realise you've achieved nothing except to age fourteen days. Actually that's not always true - there was that one time I painted two bedrooms - needed doing, but not much fun.

If you've read this far, I can guess what you're thinking: "Rich, you're pathetic!" must sum it up. Well, maybe that is true, but I am going to go on holiday. I have made up my mind, and I'm quite stubborn once I get going (but to where!).

So it just leaves one last thing to do... Make that f***ing decision! If anyone has any ideas of a good holiday I could have, or somewhere interesting to go to, then please let me know! Maybe if I get three or four good suggestions I could put it to a public ballot and then head off to the place with most votes. I'm not going to Iraq though, so don't suggest it.

I wish my ears were full of wax

First, I need to say that I'm watching it because I'm in, I'm not in so that I can watch it. That would be sick.

On Saturday, Turkey hosts the 49th Eurovision Song Contest. Live from Istanbul (not Constantinople). This is an annual contest where most of the countries in Europe, plus a few hangers on (Israel, some of the old USSR places and others) all sing a lovely little ditty in the hope that they'll win votes from all the other countries, win and be able to host the contest in their own dirty little country next year. And possibly bankrupt themselves in the process.

This is a popular contest. So popular that the number of entrants has been growing each year. This year there are 36 in total. That is 36 solo singing freaks, groups of singing freaks, odd rapping men and James Fox, the UK entrant. Obviously he is great, no bias here, no siree. 36 is a lot of songs, so much so that now for the first time ever, they are holding a semi-final. Tonight. 22 of the lesser countries will be whittled down to just 10, leaving 24 (?) finalists for Saturday night.

Now the standard of Eurovision songs is generally not high. In fact often the only things worse are the costumes, the freaks who perform the songs and the presenters. So given that today's program features acts worse than the normal dross in the main event, I simply cannot find words here to describe some of the things I'm seeing and hearing.

Let me try with whichever the next song up is. It's Monaco. A song called "Our Planet", sung by Maryon. She's wearing a purple cape with little lights on it. That has now been removed. Euro dance beat kicks in. She's dressed oddly like Meg White - white top, red trousers. No idea what she's singing about, it's in foreign. And slightly out of tune. Some dancers are doing those jumps like the kids from Fame. Now she's prancing around the stage, leading into a chorus. Not it's not a chorus, it's a slow bit. "ohhh ohhhh ohhhh" she caterwauls. Give her some credit though, apparently she's only 16 and a half. This moment will scar her for the rest of her life.

And that happens 23 other times tonight. And oh Lord, it's getting worse. And the next even worse. Looks like it's being performed by Xena, Warrior Process. Sounds like a small child stuck in a washing machine with several metal pans.

The worst thing is that I'm going to have to hear ten of these uber-bad compositions on Saturday when I host the annual Eurovision party for the second year running. What's the word.... Oh yes, masochism.

If I don't write anything here tomorrow night it is probably because my brain has imploded in pure horror and disbelief. Wish me luck. Oh, and good luck to James Fox as well.

Going under a bus

I have a new staff member. Sadly he is staff at work rather than staff at home. It would be nice to have a butler... Anyway, later this week I intend to get him to update and improve much of our process documentation at work. The reason for this is that it will be needed if I get "run over by a bus". The number of times you hear people worry about dying in this messy way, you might thing it was a particularly common way to end your days on this Earth.

As an actuary, death rates and causes are something of a specialty of mine. I have tables which tell me how many people out of a large group will die in a given period of time. I have access to tables which detail the percentages of deaths which are due to different diseases or methods of passing on.

So I looked up the "Going Under A Bus Rate", or GUABR as the more senior actuaries call it (generally seems that the more senior you are, the more you tend to use impenetrable acronyms). I was surprised at what I found. I thought that I'd start by looking up the GUABR rate for 28 year old males. I myself am a 28 year old male so this would be a pertinent statistic. I could use it to bolster my case for documentation improvement.

Here's the shocking part. If you took a large group of say, 1000 28 year old males, 46% of them will die from being run over by a bus (or related injury) before they reach 30. 46%. That is 460 young men with everything to live for. Some of them may have wives. Some may even have children. Some who hail from Barnsley may even have grandchildren. I can't even begin to estimate the mega-tonnes of sadness that all this death would cause.

But it gets worse... The chance of a 35 year old male dying by bus before his 40th birthday is 92%! Almost unbelievable. It's a wonder you don't see middle aged men piled haphazardly by the side of the road in bloody heaps, carrion crows picking languidly at their toupees.

Now I understand why bus journeys can be so bumpy sometimes.

So I am now quite worried about my own future. Almost an evens chance of me being splatted within the next two years. Bugger. I guess there are two things that need to be done now. Somebody (not me, I'm too lazy) needs to start a campaign to reduce bus-related deaths. And secondly, you should all update your process documentation asap. Your colleagues will thank you for it when you're gone.

Face Lift

So whilst I'm messing around with things, let's try a new look too. Still pink though. Let me know how you like it. Not that I'll listen :-)

Admin

Well, Blogger has relaunched with lots of "Exciting" new features. I've decided to try out the new commenting facility - the old external one was always intermittently broken and temperamental, so let me know what you think. It does however mean that y'all can no longer see any of the old comments on old posts. You'll get over it.

Not sure if people not registered with Blogger can leave a comment as anything other than "Anonymous". If this applies to you, why not put your name in the comment too! Genius!

I'll leave it for a couple of weeks and then if I/we decide it's rubbish I can always bring back the old comment system nothing has actually been deleted.

I'll write something more interesting later maybe. Or maybe not. Take a guess...

A Shopping List

I went to Sainsbury's the supermarket this morning. There were several interesting things relating to my shopping. I shall relate them here in the obvious form - a shopping list:

1. Twinings Orange, Mango and Cinnamon teabags
I didn't actually need any of these, as the previous box is still full. However, the ones on sale at the moment come with a free gift - a plastic teabag holder. Designed so that you can carry up to five teabags around with you in relative safety, anywhere you go! I had to have one. They come in a range of lurid colours, and you don't find out until you open the box. As soon as I got home, I opened the box to find that mine matches this blog. Teabag-tastic!

2. Sainsbury's Meat Feast pizza.
See my post from April 04, 2004 for more details of this product. The pizza box now has a label on the front saying something like "Now with extra toppings". This is clearly a good thing, or at least it is until you realise: The damn supermarket has been ripping me off for the last month, holding toppings back from me! They should have had this much on to start with! I've a mind to write to them and demand they send me the extra toppings in the post immediately. I expect they've put them on a shelf in head office somewhere, labeled "the pizza toppings withheld from Lint". They've maybe got a shelf with your toppings on too. Why not write to them as well? Topping-tastic!

3. KP Hula Hoops 7 pack multibag.
Crisps are great. These should have contained: 3 packs of ready salted, 2 packs of barbecue beef and 2 packs of salt and vinegar. What it actually contained was: 3 packs of ready salted, 2 packs of barbecue beef and 4 packs of salt and vinegar!! Yes, you read correctly - the multibag contained two whole bonus packs of S&V for no reason whatsoever! I will not be writing to complain about that one! Crisp-tastic!

4. Powerade, "Citrus Charge" flavour, 500ml
Now this is just vaguely unpleasant.

I will add that I don't normally put this much detail on any shopping lists that I make. It would clearly take forever. Consider this to be a special one that I wrote just for you.*

*Not you

Mornings

I saw Saturday morning for the first time in quite a while today. It's alright, I suppose. Might try a Sunday morning tomorrow.

Dose me up, once is not enough

Somebody said something to me earlier me this week. Yes, I was having a "conversation". And the thought that it made me think was: How do you know that you have got over somebody? (And what does that even mean?)

Is the point at which you are "over" somebody when:
- You stop crying?
- You stop thinking about them constantly?
- You stop dreaming about them every night?
- You can think about them without crying?
- You look to the future not the past?
- You forget their birthday?
- You forget their name?
- You stand over their corpse with a bloody knife in your hand, humming songs by The Smiths?

I think perhaps none of the above (though the last one is certainly quite final). You know when you're over them, when you're ready to move on.
Or maybe before.
Or even after.
Or you just know.

And there is generally not even a particular time that can be pinpointed. Show me someone who says "I got over X at twenty past three on Tuesday the 27th November" and I'll show you a liar. A liar that owns a watch, true, but one of the "people who've not drank truth serum" nonetheless.

And maybe sometimes you never really are over someone, but there comes a point where it doesn't matter anymore. Sometimes love dies, sometimes it was never really there. Sometimes it fades exponentially. And it's possible that someone can come along and rewrite your mental pathways, make you spanky new, joyed up and ready to rock.

The past is by definition, "over". Gone. It ain't coming back. If it did, you probably wouldn't like it anymore anyway. The metaphorical tomorrow is gonna be great, and you're all invited*

*Not you

It's a bit... tart

And whilst I'm on the subject of sweets... I think they have reduced the sourness of Sour Skittles. They used to make me go "thrrrrrrr" but now the effect is less pronounced. I liked them better the old way - they weren't very pleasant, but sometimes I just want something a bit nasty-sour.

And did you know that adding salt to tonic water reduces the bitterness? Go on try it. Add enough and it starts to taste like lemonade!

Sweet Hell

Liquorice Allsorts. Great sweets, I love them. Yes, I love them.

But Bassetts, the esteemed sweetmakers, seem to have decided that there are some freaks out there who do not like Liquorice Allsorts. Inconceivable! So to fill this perceived gap in the market, they have released "Fruit Allsorts" (crap name). They look like the originals, but the black liquorice has been replaced by.... Red Rotten Tasting Stuff (RRTS). I've no idea what the RRTS is, but it tastes like I'd imagine decaying animals taste like.

I don't imagine I'm the only person revolted by this new development? I'd be tempted to boycott the originals. But they are too nice...

How to be happy

How to be happier... I'll seek advice from the ineffable beyond instead: I'll listen to the next 10 songs that iTunes randomly plays, take the first word sung in each and lay them in the order they were played. Then marvel at the resulting sentence - truly it's bound to be a message of amazing advice from the infinite, one that I can live my life by.

I baby there tell please alright there's drown lose quiet.

Um. Hmmm not sure that worked properly. I'll try books from my shelf instead - hold on.

Far the this my do Kate during the according Sam.

Don't think that was better.

Who knows what goes on in her pretty little head?

I've not felt this down since Christmas Eve. It's that moment when all the optimism is shattered and the future rearranges itself again into a new and less appealing shape. And the new shape has less room for more optimism. It may improve, no, it will improve, but without knowing where all the future good is going to come from, it's hard to blindly hope.

So instead, I just get slightly older, slightly lonelier and incrementally less likely to do all the things I want to do.

And I'm not sure why I tend to feel so lonely anyway. It's not like I don't have lots of good friends. Maybe it's that I don't have that certain someone - a centre, soulmate, whatever - and I think I need that. Just someone to hold on to.

Someone cheer me up...

Bye bye not-so-Hotmail

I have now acquired a gmail account for use from this blog. I've been using a private account for a week or so, and have generally found it quite pleasant (though strange at first). So please don't send any more emails to the old Hotmail address - chances are I'll never see them. Unless you get strange perverse satisfaction from sending people messages they'll never see... I mean I'm not going to stop you doing things that make you happy, so go, send emails to whichever addresses you like! (clearly I am not condoning spam here). I was going to write about something else today but got distracted by Britt Ekland and have now forgotten what it was. Ho hum.

Seafood Cover

I've just been very pleasantly surprised. The final track on the new Seafood album is a cover version of "Willow's Song". For those of you with less culture, it has nothing to do with Willow from BTVS, but is in fact a song from classic horror/musical, The Wicker Man.

If you've seen the film, you may not remember the song very well, as it's the one sung by Britt Ekland as she dances naked around her bedroom whilst banging on the walls. And the poor policeman in the room next door is just trying to get some sleep. The nakedness is quite distracting, but all the same it's a brilliantly haunting piece of music, and the Seafood version is pretty damn good too. Sadly however it did not lead to any naked girls dancing round the flat (though I didn't actually check all the rooms - maybe she was in the back bedroom?). Think I might go and watch the original version on DVD. Just for research and comparison purposes you understand...

Inicidentally, not only did Britt not actually sing the song in the film, it was not even her naked body the whole time - the actual girl used for the longer shots was called Lorraine Peters. Apparently Britt was slightly pregnant at the time and they decided to use someone else's bottom. Never trust anything you see on screen!

Waiting

"Limbo" isn't the right word, but it's the first word that springs to mind.

Selwyn comes to York

So last night was the first annual North of England alumni event of Selwyn College Cambridge. Designed to improve relationships with those of us in the North who are too lazy to attend events in Cambridge itself. I should add here that Selwyn is the place where 10 years ago I commenced my study of mathematics. I was expecting to be one of the youngest people there, as these things tend to traditionally attract old people, but what I hadn't twigged was that because Selwyn used to be a heavily theological college, a lot of the old people are vicars. What a fun way to spend an evening!

First up was Evensong at York Minster. I haven't been to church since my sister's wedding over a year ago, and have never been to an Evensong before. It's interesting to see what the mad catholics get up to for fun. The choir was the controversial girls choir - controversial as all the songs and prayers were originally written for boys voices, and some people still maintain that they should only be sung only by boys. I think the girls one has only been in existence for a couple of years. They sounded fine to me anyway. Not sure I'd recommend Evensong as a fun thing to do at 5pm on a Friday night, but it was interesting.

Then on to a guided tour of the Minster (the only non-free part of the evening). I've walked round the Minster several times in the past, but never with a guide before. It's good to hear the stories and history that they can tell you. The main part of the building is around 800 years old. It occurred to me that most Americans, Australians, Canadians and who-not will never have been in a building anywhere near as old as that - whilst I do it quite regularly. I even know people from back in College who have lived in really old buildings. The tour lasted for around an hour, so I was getting a bit bored towards the end... ready for some wine. Which was handy, as afterwards it was over the road to St William's College for...

...A drinks reception. On entry, we were all given a name badge with our names, year of matriculation and subject on it. Also, they handed out a sheet of paper with a list of all the people attending. I quickly scanned down to see if there was anyone I knew (or wanted to avoid). Just one person from my year, but it was somebody who I had used to get on with ok. There were around 6 of us who were under 30, so we all kind of hung around together and chatted. It turns out that T, the guy from my year, has been stalking me since we left college. One of the first things he said to me (after hello) was "I shop in the same supermarket as you do". Oh! That's... nice. In addition he lived in Norwich for most of the time I did, and now cycles past my flat on a regular basis (though to be fair, he didn't know that until yesterday). Hopefully I'll see him again for a drink at some point in the future, if he can get away from his two kids!

After a bit it was time for dinner. A very pleasant Moroccan spiced lamb dish with cous-cous. No seating plan, so we were free to sit wherever we wanted. My table contained two vicars - one old and one young, both very affable. Wine of both colours was free-flowing and seemed to be available in as much quantities as we desired. Then after dinner us youngsters managed to persuade the Master to take us back to the hotel where him and some of the Fellows were staying, for some late-night drinks. On the condition that we carried the display equipment for them... Gets a bit hazy then and I've no idea what time I left the hotel.

So overall, it was a pretty good evening, and I'll try and go again next year, wherever it may be. Hello to everyone I talked to, and a big thank you to The Master for having the event.