Bring back the balls or the human race dies...

Do you have an optical mouse? Pick it up and turn it over. See that big red light shining back at you? Scary isn't it. Does it remind you of anything? Of anyone?...

Does it perhaps look a bit like a... Cylon?

Could Cylons evolve from our current generation of wireless mice? I'm not saying that they definitely will but there are some good reasons why I could be right:

1. Scientists are always experimenting on mice. Witness Pinky & The Brain, and the infamous Mouse With Ear Mounted On Back. It's only a matter of time before they start engineering experiments with their electronic brethren.

2. Lots of things in so called "Science-Fiction" end up coming true, or at least potentially plausible. Witness Virtual Reality or the Space Elevator.

3. A lot of weird shit happens. Who'd have thought twenty years ago that Arnie would actually become president of California?

4. The red light is clearly an embryonic Cylon eye.

5. I'm right.

6. I'm so right.

The only way to stop this threat to the human race's very existence is to stop using optical mice and revert to bally ones. They're not as nice, they need cleaning and work colleagues will regularly steal the ball as a joke, but they may be our only hope for salvation.

Ball mice may save us all. Bring back balls.

Adult Entertainment

I went to Certificate 18 last night for an Acoustic Night, cos Drew was playing there. Along with about nine other bands.



The overall quality of the turns was variable - ranging the full gamut from rubbish to very good. I saw at least one harmonica being abused beyond forgiveness. Dylan has a lot to answer for.

On the other hand, I saw an acoustic version of Monster for the first time. It worked remarkably well.

Drew's set featured a few new songs and seemed to go down very well with the audience. Possibly because he played damn well, possibly because the crowd was getting a bit drunk. The mad dancing girl especially. I don't think he's used to people dancing to his tunes. They ain't exactly Bee Gees.

Monkey!

Normally I'd have a lie-in

This morning I ran in my second and middlest race of the year - the 10km Harrogate Theatre Race. In Harrogate. Although it was by no means the longest distance I've ever done (that's still 10 miles) it was twice as long as the previous race I did, and on a much more demanding course.

The race blurb describes the route as "pleasant" and "undulating". What it should have said was "bloody" and "hilly". Quite hard work in places, but I seemed to have less problems with the uphill parts compared to many people and did my best overtaking at those points.

The final kilometre was all downhill which meant I could do a nice fast final section. Several spectators mistook me for a speeding missile and hid behind trees to avoid the explosion. There was no explosion and I crossed the finishing line without accident and then collected my goody bag.

Because that's what it's all about. It's not the taking part. It's not the winning (which I didn't technically do). It's about the free stuff you get at the end.

This time I got a free pair of running socks (worth £7), a bottle of Harrogate Spa Water, an apple and a ginger cereal bar. Given that entry to the race was £8, I don't feel I did too badly. I probably won't use the apple though.

My time ended up being about 1 hour, 0 minutes and 20 seconds. Not spectacularly fast, but I beat the girls this time at least. It would obviously have been nice to break the hour, but there's always another time. And it's nice to have a target.

Afterwards we went into town for lunch and drink. We had to sit outside because we were a bit smelly.

Bargain Spam

The Yorkshire Hussar does some pretty decent food. Last night they had a special on: Spam Fritters and Chips. For just two pounds.



I couldn't resist having it. It must be many many years since I last had Spam fritters, but they still tasted as good as ever. Deep fried Spam is a hugely underrated dish - simple yet tasty. I could eat it all day. And yet, you hardly ever see it on restaurant menus, even in the better ones.

The perfect condiment to compliment Spam Fritters is English Mustard. I mention this purely for informational purposes should you find yourself in a place where you need to compliment some spam.

And can I just repeat that they were only two pounds?

Just ridin' the storm

I spent lunchtime in a local pub playing Mario Kart DS wirelessly with some friends. I've played the console versions with real people, in the comfort of my own home on many a happy occasion. I don't normally do very well at the business of actually winning, but I have a good time nevertheless. However, I've never played it in a pub at lunchtime before. I guess until recently it just wouldn't have been possible. Now that it is, I'm surprised more people aren't doing it!

Like normal, I wasn't very good, but I was managing to just about stay in fourth place (last human, ahead of the CPU players). I won one race (out of 25!), Baby Park, so it was not a total write off.

Of the four of us, three including myself were using white DS Lites. The other had a black one. He was clearly an evil person! He said that black was the only colour they had in the shop when he bought it but I find that story unlikely.

I think I'm going to have to do some practice on my own to improve my karting skills.

York Beans

My favourite hotel in York for meetings is still the Royal York. For one reason only. They give you individually wrapped Jelly Belly jelly beans. The wrapping is pointless, but I love the beans.

Tuesday's TV

I'm not going to be watching any television tonight myself, not even Battlestar Galactica on DVD (currently h'way through S2). The Actual TV on telly looks pretty boring. But that's only if you believe the descriptions in my TV guide. If you take the descriptions and re-attach them to different programmes, it gets more interesting (albeit only slightly). Here's, then, what you could be watching on the five main terrestial channels later tonight:

BBC1
Celebrity Masterchef
Nutritional experts Dr Wendy Denning and Vicki Edgson explore how to improve the 10 parts of the body people most dislike. 1745096

BBC2
Extreme Dreams with Ben Fogle
Musicians David Grant, Paul Young and model Marie Helvin are in the kitchen. 9893

ITV
Emmerdale
Howard begins to struggle as the group climb a mountain pass. 473

Channel 4
Ballet Hoo! Backstage
Viv and Bob attend their first scan. 4589

Five
The Diet Doctors: Top to toe
Birmingham Royal Ballet's Shoe Master Michael Clifford reveals cobbler's secrets. 815638

See - only slightly more interesting.

Name that tune

I reckon I could sit here for hours and still not think of anything worth saying. One of those evenings where the old brain just gets too tired to do or say anything useful. I should just sleep.

I've just searched my iTunes library for all instances of "lint". It got five results:

Flint (For The Unemployed And Underpaid) - Sufjan Stevens
Clint Eastwood - Gorillaz
Splinter - Seafood
Meet The Flintstones (theme from the TV show)
Meet The Flintstones (version off'a The Simpsons)

Why not try this fun game with your own fake name?

Magnetism and Magic

I know that in principle, magnetism isn't the same as magic. This is what my head tells me.

But c'mon. It is magic really, isn't it? It has to be!

Magnets are so cool!

Big Insects

Maybe it's the weather. Maybe it's the place. Maybe it's the time of year. But I've seen a lot of Daddy Long-Legs in Sheffield today. One just landed on my face whilst I was writing this! I'm in bed, with the lights off. It scared me!

Pamphlets

In the old days, people used to write pamphlets.

Then they'd get into trouble and be tortured.

Or executed.

Nobody writes pamphlets anymore.

Where have all the good pamphlets gone?

I don't even know what makes a pamphlet a pamphlet and not a leaflet, a booklet, a flyer, a magazine, a waste of my time.

But where have they gone...?

Bustedstar Galactica

Busted were created by man
They evolved
They rebelled
There are many copies
And they have a plan

Now that's a concept for a show! Or it's possibly real life...

Fat Boy on a Chopper

On my way home today I saw a sight that I thought was a long time gone from these shores: A fat boy on a Chopper.

He was cycling, slowly along the pavement, swaying slightly from side to side. His tyres looked to be quite flat but that may just have been because he was fat. Despite the fact that he was on a bike, he didn't really make any faster progress than myself. This was again probably because he was very fat.

I found him funny. This might be cruel, but then I'm sure that you would find a fat boy on a Chopper to be funny if you'd seen one too.

It got into my hand and it went bad, so I lopped it off at the wrist

For the first time in over nine years, I am now actually registered with a doctor in the town where I live (as opposed to where I went to university many years ago). *Gasp*

Why has this happened, I hear you ask? Let me tell you a story. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

I woke up on Saturday morning and found that not entirely unusually I had a bit of the old pins and needles in my hand. I attributed this to having perhaps slept in a funny position or something like that and paid it no heed initially. But after a while, I found that it wasn't going away. I had a tingling and numb sensation on the right side of my left hand (little and fourth fingers, plus the bit of hand below them down to the wrist). It felt strange.

There was no pain or major impairment to motor functions, just the constant tingling and slight numbness. I figured that I'd leave it for a bit to see if it cleared up on its own accord, but by the end of Saturday morning there was no sign of this happening. Bugger, I thought.

On Sunday, with still no improvement, I popped down to the Walk-in Clinic to see if they could help. They don't have doctors there, just nurses, but I figured that it was worth a try - especially as it was next to Sainsburys that I was going to be going to anyway. I had to wait over an hour and then the nurse wasn't really sure what the problem might be - she recommended I go and see my GP as soon as I could in the week.

When I got up this morning, the hand was starting to feel a little more normal. Still numb and tingly, just not as much. Since I didn't have a GP, I had to register first but this was straightforward and I was actually able to get an appointment to see a doctor less than two hours later. They clearly respected me and wanted to give me the best possible service because I'm great.

The doctor had a quick look at me and then decided that it was probably nothing serious, just some kind of damage/inflammation to my wrist that was causing one of the nerves to malfunction a little. But since it seemed to be getting better, she wasn't too worried and told me to take a few Ibuprofen and come back if things started to get worse.

She wasn't sure what might have caused it in the first place, but thought that it was likely to have been either some kind of computer-related injury or possibly a sleeping in a ridiculous position injury. Both seem entirely likely.

As of now, I reckon it's about 50% to 75% back to normal so it looks like there's no major problem other than that I now have to take a sample of my wee back to them next week (which is always not much fun).

And at least they're not going to have to amputate my hand.

Not yet, anyway.

B5 actors: Where are they now?

I'm currently working my way through re-watching all of Babylon 5 on DVD. 10 years and on and for the most part it is still fantastic viewing. Best ever (long running) sci-fi series? Quite possibly.

But watching it today, I was struck by how most of the main actors seem to have disppeared into nowhere subsequently. The only person I've noticed anywhere was Delenn (Mira Furlan) turning up in Lost as "the mad french woman". So using IMDB I've done a bit of research to see whether anyone else has done anything of note (ie proper roles, not just one-off appearances in American shows I've never heard of) since B5 ended in '98. Here are my results:

Bruce Boxleitner: Nothing I've heard of.
Bill Mumy: Ditto
Claudia Christian: Nothing much, though she did turn up in Broken News. Which was rubbish.
Jerry Doyle: Nothing much.
Andreas Katsulas: A few episodes of Star Trek.
Peter Jurasik: A couple of episodes of Dawson's Creek. But they must have been after I stopped watching.
Richard Biggs: Died a few years ago. Quite a good excuse.
Jeff Conaway: Nothing much, but since he was Kenickie in Grease, he can be forgiven.
Jason Carter: Played Aragorn in Lord of The Rings. Nearly.

So overall, not a great showing. But I'm sure there's room for plenty more of them to turn up on that bloomin' island...

Jump!

We have a weekly fire alarm test at work, every Thursday morning at 11am. The alarm goes off for about twenty to thirty seconds and then stops. Despite this being a regular event, and despite signs being put up in the entrance to warn of the impending test, I get scared by it every single time. If I'm sitting at my desk, it makes me jump quite visibly. People around me are now quite used to my reaction and find the whole thing fairly amusing, but it annoys me. It's like I have no self control. Even if I remember a few minutes before the test, I still jump come eleven of the clock. This has happened pretty much every week for the last four years or so.

So I was very surprised when we had a proper fire drill yesterday (Friday) morning and I barely was scared at all by the noise. I was in a meeting at the time, but when the alarm went off it didn't cause any significantly amusing reaction in me. It was very strange. Am I only scared by noises that I'm expecting? I don't think this is the case because often other people's phones will scare me when they go off, particularly if the ring volume has been set overly loud.

At least I don't get a fright when my phone starts vibrating in my pocket any more. I used to, but I think I did eventually get used to it.

Air-con-con

In Fibbers tonight. British Sea Power. I'd forgot how sweaty it can get in there even though it's now got the air-con. Cool.

Parcel Delivery

Whilst I was at work today a parcel from Amazon arrived at my flat (some DVDs and a book). As I wasn't in, they left a card saying what they'd done with the parcel, which was to have left it with one of my neighbours. This was a good thing because it meant the parcel was nearby. It was bad news because it meant I'd have to have contact with my neighbours. I actually wouldn't mind this, as I know most of them, but the delivery man had managed to leave it with the one neighbour I've never met, and indeed have no idea what he/she looks like.

I tried initially to go for the approach of hoping said neighbour would bring the parcel down to me and save me having to climb two flights of stairs. On the basis that they'd have nothing better to do than sit around watching out of their window for me to get back from work (because obviously they'd know who I was!) so that they could rush down and give me a package of happiness.

But this didn't happen so I had to resort to plan B: going up to... see them, a complete stranger.

Bit scary.

I went upstairs, and had worked out what I was going to say ("Hello! I live downstairs, why weren't you watching out for me returning home, can I have my ball back?") and approached the front door of the flat. What I saw wasn't what I expected to see. My parcel was just leaning by the flat door. I took it relieved that I'd avoided a confrontation (oh, ok, conversation) and went back downstairs. But I was puzzled.

Either a) the delivery man had gotten into the building and left the parcel outside completely the wrong flat (for safety?) and then left me a message saying he'd done that or b) the owner of the other flat had left it outside his own door in a bid to avoid having to speak to me.

The second option seemed more likely, but I didn't really understand why they hadn't just have left it by my own front door. It wouldn't really have been any less secure - it's not like there are hundreds of people traipsing round the place. Maybe he was thinking that he knew the delivery man would leave a card saying the package was at his, not mine, and so he should go for the approach that made this as true as possible.

I don't know. But at least I got my stuff.

Return of The Yorkshire Hussar

The First Hussar wasn't one of my favourite York pubs, but it was one of the closest to work so I'd find myself there from time to time. It was recently taken over and refurbished, and it reopened a week or so ago under its original name of The Yorkshire Hussar. Whilst it's still in the same location, it features some new and improved features inside such as:

1. A bigger bar
2. An extra door leading to the toilet corridor
3. Better beer
4. Not being sh*t (i not u) any more.

Apparently it had a VIP opening.

.

I wasn't invited though, this wasn't my invitation. I didn't go.

I'm not bitter though because when I went to the newly opened pub for the first time, Jack the landlord gave us a free bag of crisps. My custom can always be bought with free crisps (hope you're reading this, Landlords of York).

What to do with spare chocolates (part 3)

It's surprisingly easy to convert your flat into a hotel using only chocolates taken from a local curry house.



Ujala!

Sticking a puppy where the sun don't shine

My current toilet roll has small pictures of puppies on. This is apparently some form of innovation. Andrex, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that what users of toilet roll really need are small embossed dogs. Several per sheet. "Puppies on a roll".

What is the point in this? Does having a puppy there make the paper softer, more comfortable, more absorbent? No, of course it doesn't. I just don't see who, in their right mind, would find the whole bum-wiping experience improved by the presence of puppies up their arse-crack.

It's madness, and a product that just isn't needed. If I wanted to clean my bottom with pictures of dogs, I'd pop down to York central library, head to the "D" section, find the first dog book they had (something like "The Observer's Book Of Dogs"), check it out, take it home and wipe to my heart's content. Because that's what any normal person would do.

Obviously I'd wipe the book down with (puppy-less) toilet paper before returning it to the library. I'm not a caveman.

I've never been to prison

When you go to prison, do the police give you half an hour to sort out your life before you are locked up? For example, can you:

1. Top up your ISA?
2. Do the washing up (imagine how mouldy your cups would be after 5 years in the slammer!)?
3. Lock your front door?

There must be many other things as well that I haven't even thought of.

I know prison is supposed to be a punishment, but is part of that punishment the continual worry that your kitchen might be overrun with new species of growth?

Yellow Sock

I'm not sure that I'd wear socks like these.

The Tinkler Bell

I'm enjoying the current series of Dragon's Den. The main things people seem to be inventing this year are:

1. Bags that turn into blankets (or vice versa)
2. Premium rate phone lines

There have been two inventions in the second category, both equally retarded. The first was Car Doctor, a premium line you phone when your car's broken. They give you advice on how to fix it, most of which appeared to be along the lines of "take it to a garage". Genius. The second was The Knowledge, a service where if you are lost in London you phone a premium rate line where a taxi driver will answer and give you directions. There are so many flaws in this idea that I won't even begin to list them.

But the reason I mention the program is that I have an idea that is brilliant. However, I'm too lazy to patent it, design it, prototype it or to try and make any money from it whatsoever. Instead I'll describe it here and the world can take it as a present (though if it wants to give me a percentage, I won't say no).

My Idea - The Tinkler Bell
Isn't it annoying when as a male you visit the little boy's room and forget to do up your fly when you've finished having a tinkle? Often the first moment you'll realise you've forgotten to do it up will be when you emerge on to a street and small urchins point at you and laugh at you and say "eh, mister, yer fly's undon'".

This need happen no more, not when you've fitted a Tinkler Bell.

Imagine the same scenario, but this time when you've finished your tinkle, forgotten to do up your bits that should always be done up and begun to walk away, you hear a small bell from down below. "Aha!" you think. "Silly me!" and you do up your trouser fly, embarrassment avoided.

It's a revolutionary idea, but how does it work? I'll tell you!

Attached to the bit of the zip that you hold is a small steel bell. At the top of the aluminium zip itself is a magnet (could be built into the trouser button). Hence when the zip is open, the bell is free to ring and ring it will as you move about, fly undone. But when the fly is closed, the magnet holds the bell still, preventing it from ringing.

This really is a genius idea. Up there with the paper clip.

And I personally would find it quite useful. Come on world, make my dream into a reality.

No more nieces

I was pondering the other day on how you should refer to your nieces and nephews as a whole - ie with a collective noun. I think I may, for possibly the first time in my life, take Bert's advice and try to invent my own word and try and get it into proper widespread usage. Quite ambitious, but no harm in trying.

When inventing a new word, I think it works best if the word starts from current words and expands on them. I'm going to take a cue from Adam Roberts. In his book, On, he uses a system for family members which typically start with a root related to a currently used part-word, followed by a "he" or "she" to denote the male or female. For example, parents are "pas", the male parent (the daddy!) is a "pahe" and the female parent (the mummy!) is a "pashe".

I don't think I need to go quite so far from current usage. I suggest the following:

1. Nephews stay the same and are called "Nephews".
2. Nieces become "Nepshews"
3. A collection of Nepshews and Nephews (Nieces and Nephews in the old parlance) are now just called "Nephs". Maybe this technically should be "Neps", but "Nephs" sounds a bit softer so I'm going to run with it.

So, now, I have two nephs - one nephew and one nepshew.

I think this actually works quite well and I'd encourage all of you to start using it as quickly as possible. Together we can improve our langauge.

Now, I realise it's emminently possible that someone else has already tried to instigate this usage. I did check Google though, and didn't get any usages of "nepshew" apart from a few instances where it looked like "nephew" had just been typed badly.

The only outstanding issue is pronunciation. Should it be Neph-she-ews or Nep-shoes? I think I favour the second one...

Brummies don't sound funny

I saw some research today that said all jokes are funnier when pronounced with a Birmingham accent rather than a Yorkshire one. This is clearly bollocks. For example:

Q: What has eight arms, eight legs and eight eyes?
A: Eight pirates!

I could hear you laughing so loudly when you heard my voice in your head saying that. You're still rolling on the floor, you silly moos. Now get up and imagine the same joke in a Birmingham accent:

Q: What has eight arms, eight legs and eight eyes?
A: Eight pirates!

Hah! Not funny at all, now is it? Stupid researchers. They know nothing.

If anyone has a funnier accent, please feel free to try it on me - you won't win though!

Do you deliver? Yes? Can I have a liver and pineapple pizza then please?

I quite enjoy dirty pizzas - not ones that are actually dirty, but pizzas that come from your generic takeaway kebab/burger/fish/pizza outlet (I nearly used the word "restaurant" there but thought better of it). Actually, most of them probably are dirty. You never know quite what you are going to get and some places do much, much better ones than others. Each new place is a new experience.

Found a great new one last night - Salsa Pizza in Acomb. The best thing was that the pizzas weren't overloaded with cheese - sometimes you get one and you can hardly find the pepperoni for the cheese, if indeed you're lucky enough to have real mozzarella rather than the strange cheese substitute that I believe sometimes acts as a stand in. These ones had just the right amount of cheese - much closer to what you'd get on a Dominos or Pizza Hut pizza. But much cheaper!

I had pepperoni, jalapenos and green peppers. Tasty. I wasn't really particularly hungry because I'd had a big plate of pasta before going out. However, I was a little drunk and I managed to get through three quarters of an 11 incher.

So if you're ever in the area, consider this to be a recommendation.

Mmmmm... pizza.

Exciting New Blogging Toys

Well, I've just migrated over to the new Blogger Beta. Very exciting for a saddo like me. I still have a bit of fiddling to do with fonts and the stuff in the sidebar but I'll get there eventually.

Best new features I've found so far:
1. The spell check is now much faster and easier to use (not that I need it...)
2. It's much easier to manage lists in the sidebar
3. I can put labels on my posts
4. Because it is now all linked to my google account, I have one less password to remember!

I had planned to go running this afternoon, but all this fiddling has cut into my available time. Ah well, there's always tomorrow...

W***ers

And, finally, like a half legged leper, Big Brother Seven has crawled drippingly to an end. Thank God. I kind of wanted welsh muppet Glyn to win, but inevitably it was sweary Pete instead.

This series has been unique in that it featured somebody (Graceless) who was so f***ing horrible that I often felt physically angry when she came on screen. I hope she gets a job on one of those interminable late night quiz channels. That's the kind of hell she deserves. ****.

New Baby

I got a brand new niece yesterday. She's now 1 day old and looks like a baby (though a very cute one). Welcome to the world, little one! Behave well and cry not a lot.

She's my second niece/nephew - is there a word for that? If I myself had two children, one of each gender, I could say I have "two children" rather than "one son and one daughter". Can I do a similar thing with niece/nephews? I suspect there's a very obvious word that I've forgotten due to being stupid.

Lorraine - Live and Not Live

I went to see Lorraine play at Fibbers last night. They're an electro-pop-rock band from Norway, and unlike most bands from round there, they don't seem to be satanists. They were very good indeed. Sounds of the Pet Shop Boys, New Order and the Eighties (in a good way).

I've been on their mailing list since I saw them supporting The Feeling in February. They have been sending me a series of free promotional CDs - those half-size ones that you can't play in slot loading CD players. The first one was a great song (Tell me where you want to go - there's a lovely key change part way through) and the CD case had a picture of an alarm clock with the track length (4:20) displayed on the screen.

The next one came a few months after the first. The cover looked familiar - it had the same alarm clock with a different track length on (4:16 as it was a shorter track). What I didn't realise at first (due to a bad memory) was that the track name was... the same as the first one. It was the same track but a version that's 4 seconds shorter. I have no idea what has been cut out.



What's the point of sending me the same song twice? Why? And why is the second one slightly, pointlessly, shorter?

The only thing I can think of is that because the CDs can't be played in my Mac as it is slot loading, it's a hassle for me to rip it. They've therefore realised this and have sent me the second one to put in a different room to the first. This is actually quite thoughtful of them.

Norweigans - they're such nice people.

Shower Fixing(s)

I've had a plumber round this afternoon to fix a leaky shower. It was a very, very small leak, but it was pretty constant and was enough to cause problems elsewhere. The water had been pooling on the front edge of the bath and was then getting under the sealant between the bath and the wall which wasn't quite as tight as it should have been. This had then leaked down the wall, behind the bath, and had started coming through as a small damp patch on the living room wall.

I think he fixed it. Looked like the whole magic part of the shower had come away from the wall a little, as one of the hidden fixings had come loose. This meant that one of the pipes going into it wasn't as secure as it should have been. So he fixed it back up properly and applied some new sealant round the side of the bath (after first filling it right up to the top). That was actually a job I'd meant to do years ago but never bothered to do as it didn't seem urgent. There's a moral in there somewhere.

He told me that I had a very powerful water supply. I said that yes, I had and that that was a good thing. He agreed but thought it was unusual to find such power in a newish flat such as mine.

Maybe he's right, maybe he's not. I don't really know much about showers and plumbing. When I phoned the plumber this morning I spoke to a lady and she asked me whether it was an electric shower or not. I wasn't really sure. Which was daft because thinking about it a little more, I've used a lot of electric showers in the past and they tend to be notable for one main thing: you have to turn on the electricity before using them. Since I don't have to do that, I could perhaps have made a clever deduction.

But given my shower doesn't have electricity, I'm not really sure how it works. It has a thermostatic feature that keeps the water at a constant temperature and in my head this had always been powered by electrics. So now I don't know how it works and I'm confused, and can only assume that it does indeed run by magic.

Or perhaps, to paraphrase Arthur C Clarke, any sufficiently advanced technology will look like magic to an idiot.

This post covers minimal new ground and is mostly other people's ideas. That doesn't make it untrue though.

One thing I worry about from time to time is whether we are all real or whether what I am experiencing as "reality" is in fact just a giant computer simulation. Yadda, yadda Matrix etc.

Whilst browsing the New Scientist archives yesterday I came across this old article, from July 2002, which pretty much proves we are in a simulation with a probability approaching one.

The argument broadly goes as follows:

1. We need to make one assumption - at some point computers will become powerful enough to simulate a consciousness. I personally think this is reasonably likely.

2. Then either three things can happen:
a) we all die (from terrorism, natural disasters, asteroid impact, grey goo or just from plain old worrying) before the computers get powerful enough. In this case, we are in the original timeline :-) But we're all doomed :-(
b) computers get powerful enough but nobody mimics consciousness for ethical reasons. Yeah, right. In this case we're also in the original timeline and lions are our friends.
c) computers get powerful enough to mimic consciousness and they do actually do this.

3. Under 2c) it is likely that a very large number of universes will be simulated. Therefore on the basis that I, today, find myself in a universe (which I do), it is quite improbable that it would be the original one. In fact, as the number of computer generated simulations grows, the probability of me being actually in one grows towards one.

And that's how it goes. We are The Sims.

Now this does actually explain quite a lot - all those glitches - the way my memory doesn't always tie to everyone elses, the way road markings sometimes move from day to day and so on.

The article later points out that if we are in a simulation then there is a risk that we could be deleted. The best way to stop this would be to work out the purpose of the sim and then act in a way that fits best into it so the creator will like you. If for example it's an entertainment sim, "then you'd better make sure you're part of the fun. What that means varies across cultures, so to be safe you should be funny, outrageous, violent, sexy, strange, pathetic and heroic all at once" which sounds a bit like a Big Brother contestant to me. Horrid to think that maybe this whole universe might be designed purely to produce Big Brother contestants.

A final thought on this (as I could go on all night but I'm planning to go out for a drink shortly). I was watching Odyssey 5 earlier, a nice little show, shame it was cancelled after one season, and the episode featured one of the characters (Robocop) becoming trapped in a computer simulated reality. Now, this could be coincidence. Or it could be someone from the outside trying to give me a message, a clue that I'm on the right track.

But I think I'll stay in the sim for now. At least while it's warm and I'm having fun.

Animals and People

There's a lovely juxtaposition of stories in this week's New Scientist. On page 6 there is a story about how vets need to start taking bestiality more seriously, as it can be quite harmful to the animals.

Then, over on the opposite page, a completely separate article starts: "Should medical researchers be allowed to create human-animal hybrids to investigate disease?".

Girly Race Results

I've got my time and placing for the race I did on Tuesday - 124th out of 168 runners, 29 minutes and 29 seconds. I was also slower than the entire main mens' race which makes me think I definitely made the right choice when I categorised myself as a "slower man" and joined the girls' race. Unfortunately, they've labeled me as an "F" (girl) on the results page of the website. Darnit.

Next race looks like it will be twice as long - a 10k race in Harrogate in September. And after that, about twice as long again for the Great North Run. I can see where this sequence would go next, but that ain't happening. No. Way.

Reasons to be cheerful (part pizza)

1. I have only one more day at work before I have a nice week off.

2. I'm due to be either an uncle or an aunt again shortly. Not sure which yet, my sister hasn't told me what flavour baby it is, but I'll find out soon enough.

3. I avoided the rain this evening.

4. I was at work until seven pm but that's ok because I was doing good stuff and I should have everything finished that I need to before I leave tomorrow.

5. I'm about to order pizza.

6. Not going out tonight, but there's a lot of good telly on a Thursday at the moment. Dragon's Den, Time Trumpet, Extras.

7. Big Brother's nearly finished. Thank God. It feels like forever.

8. Four Day Hombre have landed a support slot on the upcoming Embrace tour.

9. I've now just ordered pizza.

10. I don't need ten reasons, just to be cheerful!

A New Dance

Dancing class tonight as normal for a Wednesday. New dance: The Empty Car Park Tango.

Yep, turned up, nobody else there, no class this week, nobody told us, own fault, should have gone last week to hear the warning to not go this week.

Slow and steady wins the race...

This evening I've taken part in my first ever proper running race! It was a whole 5km down around the river and the millennium Bridge. There were two races - the first was for men, and the second was for women and slower men. I clearly went in the second one. If I'm going to be beaten by girls, it might as well be by hundreds of them.

It was strange running that way, with marshals pointing the way and random people clapping. As I got near the end I was being encouraged along by shouts of "Come on Liz!" which helped me no end.

Anyway, suffice to say, I didn't win the thing. I don't have my final position yet, but it was definitely not top ten. Or top hundred. Oh well. My time was twenty nine and a half minutes which I was happy with since I don't normally do that distance any faster than that and I was dead ill yesterday.

If you're worried that I might be over-exerting myself, then you're probably right and I intend to now take a few days very easy and relax and sleep and get back to 100% health, or at least as close to that as I ever am.

And this will be helped by the lovely bags we got at the end of the race containing Smarties (standard), Fruit Pastilles, a Kit-Kat Chunky and... Twenty Yorkshire Teabags. Can't complain!

I was ill. But I got better

After my incident at the level crossing last night, the last thing I wanted to see when I turned on the TV was that public information film with the cute rabbit ambling along a railway track where it eventually comes across bits of wreckage and eventually, at a level crossing, a full on car crash. Message: Don't piss about on level crossings.

Strangely it was pretty much the first thing I actually saw when I turned on the TV.

After that I sat in my shorts watching my favourite engineering programme, Megastructures on Channel 5 (this week featuring the Dubai dude and his bizarre island building plans) and slowly started to feel colder and colder. I swapped my shorts for jeans and put on a fleece. I was still cold and was starting to shiver so I added a dressing gown on top. This didn't quite do it and by now I was shivering a lot so I added my duvet to the mix. That just about did the job (after a bit). I was also running a bit of a fever at this point - if I'd had a thermometer I think it would have shown a temperature of about a million degrees.

I assumed that this was some new feature of the cold I still had. I'd been sneezing and sniffing and headachy all day, indeed all weekend, so it seemed strange for the thing to suddenly move into full on fever mode.

It lasted for an hour or so and then I started to feel better and was able to remove some of the excess layers until eventually I was comfortable again wearing just my normal clothes. Then I slept ok overnight and I feel now pretty similar to how I felt yesterday (ie a bit crap but not exactly bedbound).

I'm hoping that I'm over the worst of it and it'll be uphill all the way now. But I'm going to take some Lemsips to work just in case.

The light of an oncoming train

I was out running this evening (how nice for the temperature to have dropped below 20 degrees...) and for the first time ever the level crossing barriers at Nether Poppleton were down and flashing when I got to them. There were a couple of lorries waiting on one side and a car and a cyclist on my side. There was also a railway man in a yellow jacket who seemed to be looking after things and talking to the drivers to explain the delay.

As I got close I slowed down to look around and see if the man would wave me across as he was starting to do with the rest of the traffic. Once he'd cleared most of it (the lights were all still flashing and there was a loud siren going off) he waved me over. I crossed the tracks carefully, thankful that there was someone there who knew what was going on and would prevent me from being run over by a speeding train.

He said to me that the things were all out of order. Ahh, thought I. That's annoying. Lucky you were here to prevent me waiting around for hours!

Then, as I started to run off, the man in the yellow jacket got back into his big lorry and drove off! Yes! He wasn't a railwayman at all, just a fat trucker! He could have had me killed! I trusted him and believed he knew there was no train coming, but he likely knew no such thing. He was just guessing.

They don't warn you about that kind of thing in running school.

Driving Practice

I took a friend out for a drive this afternoon - he is currently learning how and needs practice before his test. Since I have been driving for longer than 3 years and am also over 21, I am a suitable person to sit beside a learner whilst they attempt to move a large dangerous hunk of metal from A to B without passing through Dead.

We went up to the test centre at Osbaldwick and then drove one of the actual routes they use for the test. My knowledge of the roads of Tang Hall is now much higher than it was yesterday. I found it quite hard to get all the directions right - a lot of them say things like take the 5th left turn but it's not always obvious which one that is. Also the routes don't always do what you might expect them to - they dive off into little housing estates and do little loops and things. We only made one proper mistake though and I was able to get us back on course fairly easily.

I think I was quite a good driving supervisor overall. I was calm and didn't scream once. The actual driving itself seemed better than the driving of certain people who have driven me places in the past that had passed their tests. I think he'll be fine as long as he keeps practising and works on his starts a bit.

A Mild Cold

I'm currently labouring under a mild cold. Definitely in the annoying rather than debilitating category. Slight runny nose, slight sore throat, slight feeling of grogginess (that could just be yesterday's wine), lots of sneezing, etc.

I got some Lemsips (my favourite drink) from the shop though, so I'll be ok.

I'm not just making fruit up...

It's hard to belive that two years after launch there are still good, decent people out in the world that haven't yet been introduced to the wonders of Fruity Smarties. They're great!

I think I've done adequate brain correctionage on the subject tonight now...

Time Trumpet

Tonight I've particularly enjoyed watching Armando Ianucci's Time Trumpet. It's like one of those annoying talking heads retro clip shows but from 30 years in the future and about times that haven't quite happened yet.

Some reasons why it's good:
1. It has Armando Iannuci in it (really just guessing at his name spelling though I should know it by now)
2. It has Stewart Lee in it.
3. It is funny (I hear the career as a TV critic beckoning...)

It's not as good as The Day Today or Brasseye, buy maybe the closest I've seen for some while.

To update on a previous post, I'm now 99% certain it was Herring I came across on the train at the weekend. I'm going to always go first class now!

Love Poetry

Here are the contents of one packet of Love Hearts, in the order they come out. I'll type as I eat.

It's Love
New Love
Looking Good
How Sweet
Just Me
I Want U
For Ever
Groovy Chick
Bye Bye
You Fat Fuck
Find Me
Cool Dude
Nice Girl
I Won't Tell
Whore Yourself
Cheeky Boy
My Angel
Just Me
My Pal

I enjoyed creating this post. It tasted good.

So wet

It's been very very wet this evening. I had thought that I had left work at the wrong time since I was absolutely soaked when I got home (I hadn't bothered to take a coat or umbrella). It turns out that this would have happened pretty much whatever time I left. I'm sure Summer will return soon though.

Greenwich Drunktime

I've been down to London this weekend for a party hosted by some of my girlfriend's friends from Scotland (who are not there any more). We started off with beers in Greenwich Park - quite a nice place but could do with better signposting to the toilets. Whilst on a search for said facilities I found myself up by the Royal Observatory - on top of a hill with a good view of Docklands and The City.



I realised, unexpectedly, that I'd been there before on a school trip as a kid. Back then the world was a different place and I'm not sure if Canary Wharf was even built then, never mind yer Millennium Dome. It wasn't exactly all fields, but it was definitely less built up. The observatory didn't seem to have changed much as far as I could remember. There were less of my teachers around. And I'd had more beer.

We had a game of rounders in the park (on Saturday, not when I was a kid). Annoyingly I managed to get picked last. But I'm used to that. I got my own back by getting a fantastic catch near the start and hence putting the whole other team out. They still thwapped us overall, mind. But at least I could hold my head up.

Later on it was Karaoke but not in the park as that would have been hard to arrange logistically. I did a few renditions. McFly's All About You was particularly memorable.

Travelling home the next day we had first class tickets (bought cheaply in advance, natch). There was a man in the carriage that I clocked straight away upon entry - he looked just like Richard Herring. I wanted to say "Hello. Are you Richard Herring?" to check, but the conversation would have stalled after that. I wouldn't have really wanted it to end up as a CNPS tip swapping session. I therefore never found out if it was him or not and maybe now I never will. But if you ever come across this, Mr H and you were travelling up from London on the 1645 from Kings Cross on the 30th July 2006, could you drop me an email to confirm? It would put my mind at rest. Alternatively if you are not Richard Herring but you were on the train and a man who looked like me was staring at you a bit, then drop me a line too. It would also put my mind at rest. And maybe I could put you in touch with a look-a-likes agency (I'm sure the demand for Herring-a-likes never ceases to peak). Thanks!

Outdoor nonsense

On Friday we had an away day from work out at the Rufforth North of England Activity Centre (or whatever it is called). The morning wasn't huge fun (as it comprised lots of thinking about work stuff and I had a mild hangover) but the afternoon was much more interesting as it involved lots of team building outdoor things.

First up was clay pigeon shooting. The maddest thing about this is that they give you (and indeed me) an actual shotgun that you could easily use to kill someone. All it would take would be a single lapse of concentration and then Bam, dead person, intact clay pigeon. Luckily I didn't kill anybody. If I had, I suspect I would not be writing this here now - I'd be incarcerated in a dirty jail instead.

I fully expected to not hit a single one of the targets. I thought I might get lucky and get one or two, but that would be it. I was therefore quite pleasantly surprised to find myself hitting the first two pigeons with my first two shots. What madness was this?! The only people more surprised than me were... everyone else. It went a little downhill from there and I ended up with a final score of 6/15, and fourth place in our group of seven.

Whilst shooting is a fairly individual activity, the next things all required a bit more teamwork. We had to make a bridge over some fake water. And then do some walking around on big skis that take lots of people at once.

And then we had to make a raft to go over some actual (slightly smelly) water. Our raft design was frankly crap and this manifested itself by virtue of the thing falling apart pretty quickly, dumping its incumbents into the lake. I found that my natural role in the team was to stay away from the water and use my phone to video the whole sorry thing. It was very funny though.

Evening Horses

I went to the races last night. It was the first evening meeting they've done in a while, and afterwards there was a Beatles tribute band playing. A bit too early era for me, but competent enough and they had good mop-tops.



My betting wasn't great. Ended up fifteen pounds down (plus entry, drinks, burger etc). I need to take my own advice and always bet on the favourite. It's that way for a reason.

And you think I have a lot of iPods...

I gave in and bought a Nintendo DS Lite (white) today. It's very nice. Much better screens and a bigger stylus than the original version. I reckon it's the sixth Gameboy I've owned. I know it's not technically a Gameboy... but it is.

I also got a copy of the Brain Training game. It told me after the first play that my brain age was 63. Grrr. Stupid machine. It also made me draw a picture of a koala bear. I'm not totally sure why.

Bloody Alcohol

I had a really funny thing to say. I'm sure I did. It was great. You'd have liked it.

You can't have too many babies...

One of the best things that can happen in work is that a colleague turns up in the morning with the biggest box of Jelly Babies you've ever seen:



What the photo doesn't really show is the depth of the box. It was deep. There were a lot of sweets in there. So many that we entirely failed to finish them off in a single day (which is really saying something!). Yum and indeed yum.

Later on another colleague asked me for my boss's mobile number (they perhaps should know better than to do that sort of thing...). I gave them the code, then the actual six digit number. Then another random six digits. I swear I got to about 15 digits after the code before they twigged something was up. Made me laugh, anyway.

Vouchers of Misery

Sainsbury's sent me a pile of money-off vouchers. They enable me to get money of when I spend a certain amount of money on classes of good. The six categories in question are:

1. Fresh Pizza
2. Toiletries
3. Bakery products (including cakes)
4. Fruit juice
5. Crisps and nuts
6. Frozen food

These are all things that I tend to buy anyway (and they know that, the spying hussies, from my Nectar card) and so I can't see how they benefit from this. Surely it would be better to try and tempt me to buy things I don't normally buy? Things like Catfood or SanitaryLadyProducts? What's the point in giving me a pound off when I spend five pounds on pizza when I spend at least five pounds on pizza every week? it's dumb.

And don't give me that crap about them being a very successful supermarket that know much more about marketing goods than I do. I once sold ice to a group of Eskimos (*)

You might think I'm being silly here, and I should just be happy that I have some nice vouchers and should be grateful that they are for things I often buy. Well, I'm not. So there. I'm pissed off because I forogt to take them with me. I could have saved a POUND!!!

(* This is not strictly true)

Purple toe

I foolishly and clumsily stubbed the middle toe of my right foot last night whilst I was wearing no shoes. Now it hurts and has gone kind of a purple colour. I hope it doesn't fall off.

I suppose it could have been worse. I could have stood on Lego and then stubbed my toe.

I'm going to cry myself blind

The recent hot weather (I do seem to keep going on about it) seems to have brought a plague of insects to York today. It felt like I was swimming through them on the way home this evening. Not particuarly nice.

When I went for a run later on I decided to put on some insect repellant since I'd be going through some countryside areas. This was a good idea in principle, but where it fell down was that when you sweat, the repellant on your forehead starts to run into your eyes and that stings a bit and makes it hard to see. Then you run under some traffic and die. I didn't do that last bit, but I coulda done. It was that close.

My own fault for putting it on my forehead, I suppose. Oh well, Test And Learn.

Hottest Day Ever!

Today is supposed to have been one of the hottest days ever ever in the UK (it's been like 8 degrees or something). It didn't affect me too much as I was in an air conditioned building for most of the day and the air-con was actually working. I heard someone on the radio saying that the worst thing you can do in this kind of heat is go out and drink lots of alcohol. That's clearly bollocks - it's one of the best things to do when it's sunny. Just find the nearest beer garden and drink cold beer. And then drink more cold beer. And then drink more cold beer. And then go and wee. And then drink more cold beer. And then go and wee. And then drink more cold beer. Etc.

But obviously, wear sunscreen.

No nomination again

It's a hot week. I could have done with a bit of a run tonight to keep the miles up, but it was somewhere between 27 and 32 degrees depending on which forecast you believe and that's mad running. Also I'm still resting my leg a little as I hurt my left knee/lower leg (I forget which) a bit last week which led to cutting a run short early and walking the last mile and a half home. I think it's ok now, but another day or so rest won't hurt.

Also, for the 30th year running, I haven't been nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, despite this being the first time I've actually had an album's worth of material under my belt. I've not even been nominated for eviction from Big Brother yet. You may say that's because I'm not in it. I say we're all in it...

Password Reset

I'm sure there's some statistic about the average work computer user forgetting their password about 50 times a month, and each phonecall to get it reset costs about five quid or something daft. To help counter these costs, my work has just installed a new thing on our intranet which lets us reset our own passwords, for three of our main systems, without having to make a phonecall. Theoretically I'm sure this has to be a good thing.

I tried it out today as I needed a password reset.

I loaded up the app, and the first thing I had to do was enter a username and password. I knew my username, but wasn't totally sure what my password was. I had a guess. It didn't work. I guessed again and got it wrong again. I tried one more time. It still didn't work but this time it also said I was now locked out. I was now confused. I wanted my password reset but I was locked out of the thing that would reset my password because I didn't know it and probably needed it reset. Something of a dilemma here.

I went back to plan A and dialed the IT helpdesk (always fun).

A man answered. He asked how I could help. I said I needed a password reset. He asked which password, and I said it was for the password management application. I felt foolish saying this. Unfortunately, the man had never heard of the password management system and so he wasn't much use. I felt a bit stuck. I tried to explain that it was a new thing, and I told him how to access it and everything, but he still couldn't help. As normal I felt I knew more about my IT problem than the IT people did.

After a short while I gave up and just figured I could get the original password I wanted reset, reset instead and I could worry about the password resetting password another time. I asked if I could do this and he said ok, but he'd have to ask me a couple of security questions first. No problem, said I. How hard could they be?

First up, an easy one. What were the eighth and ninth letters of the name of my secondary school? After working out which school this was, all I had to do was write the name down, count the letters and say them out loud. I did, and he then asked me the next question. This was harder as it involved the names of my mother. I always get these wrong as she has a first name and a middle name but she uses the middle name as her first name. Not the full version of it though - an abbreviated version. Hence when I was asked what the fourth and fifth letters in my mother's middle name were, I didn't know whether it was her full middle name, her shortened middle name or her normal first name which is a bit like a middle name because she uses her middle name as a first name. Confused? I was. I got it wrong.

I had failed the security check. Darnit.

Thankfully, rather than sending the guards round to have me thrown out onto the street, he just gave me one last chance. I nearly got this wrong too because it was about my dad's name and he has a very similar thing going on as my mum does - using a middle name as a first name. Luckily, the letters that were asked for could only have come from one of his names as the other was too short.

So finally I passed the test and the man reset my password.

This had all been so much fun that I had sadly forgotten what it was I needed to do that had made me need to get my password reset in the first place. I love technology - it makes us so much more productive.

DVD arranging for beginners

Today I spent some time rearranging my DVDs. I was quite close to moving to a thematic classification system (ie one shelf for cartoons, one for tv series, one for films that contain half a trucker) but in the end stuck to a mostly alphabetical arrangement, divided into films I've seen and films I haven't seen. I need to work on making that second category smaller - I think it's currently at around 40 films. I'm pretty sure that there are at least two or three there that I'll never watch...

Pigeon Detection

I spent a pleasant half hour watching The Pigeon Detectives in Leeds this evening, supporting Snow Patrol. The gig was outside, and ironically although there were a lot of pigeons about, visible above and behind the stage, none could be seen from the stage and so all of them failed to be detected by the band. Such is life.

Reggae Mystery Solved?

I think I may have solved the mystery of Mr Reggae man from yesterday. I spotted that the pub nearby has a reggae night tomorrow. I'm thinking that maybe the man's carrier bag contained fliers, not stolen CDs or skunk. He probably was just trying to gauge my interest to see if it was worth while him giving me a leaflet.

My advice to him would be to hold your fliers where they can be seen. Let people know your intentions so that they can react appropriately.

I wouldn't have wanted to go though, so no harm done.

Reggae or Hip-hop...

As I was walking into town this evening to see Captain at Fibbers, I spied a black dude coming towards me carrying a carrier bag in both his hands. As he passed close by he gestured me to stop and asked me a single question: "Do you like Reggae or Hip-Hop?". I got the feeling that this wasn't an either/or question - he wasn't asking for a vote one way or the other. I think he wanted to know whether I liked those musical styles as opposed to not liking them. I said to him: "Sorry, not really no". He looked a little disappointed and carried on up the street.

I did not find out the reason for his question or what was in his carrier bag. But I have theories:

Theory 1: The bag was full of stolen Reggae and Hip-Hop CDs that he'd stolen and was hoping to sell down the pub later. He identified me as a clear music lover and thought he'd try me on the off chance.

Theory 2: The bag was full of skunk and the dude thought that asking about Reggae and Hip-Hop was a good coded way of asking me if I'd like to buy some. A way that would leave him innocent should I have turned out to be an undercover policewoman. It's legal to ask about music, it's not so legal to sell skunk (*).

Theory 3: He was bored and fancied a chat with a like-minded individual about Vanilla Ice and Madness.

Sadly, because I gave a negative answer and then parted company, I may never know which of these theories is the right one.

(* If I'm honest, I'm not totally sure what skunk is. I'm just trying to sound cool)

Doctor Two

It was the last episode of the second (new) series of Doctor Who on Saturday. The series as a whole has been a bit variable in quality, but there have been some great episodes. The one with K9 and Sarah Jane was cool (and made me cry at the end) and I also enjoyed The Girl in the Fireplace. The one with the televisions was however a bit rubbish. And as for Love and Monsters... mind you it did have ELO in it (though sadly not as an evil baddy rock band).

The final two parter was however utterly great. Possibly the best episodes I've seen this time around. And that's because it was (finally, after all these years) Daleks versus Cybermen! What the world has been waiting for methinks. It featured the best, most arrogant and plain funniest dalek dialogue I've ever heard. And at the end it was really, like really sad - I haven't cried like that since Buffy.

I'm so rubbish :-)

Orangey goodness..

I just found a Plain Chocolate Orange in my cupboard with a best before date of September 2003. I wonder if it's ok to eat?

Beer Snail

There's nothing worse than finding snail tracks on your beer glass. Absolutely nothing. It's worse than nuclear war, worse than (Celebrity) Love Island. Last night in the pub I caught one of the buggers (a snail, not a lovelorn non-celebrity) on camera...



Retrospectively it occurs to me that the best way to deal with this situation would have been to order a tequila and use the salt as a weapon. As opposed to taking a photo of the little cute monster. I'll know for next time!

Hangover cure

I had a big hangover this morning after drinking copiously last night. It was suggested to me that a traditional cure for this kind of thing is a big juicy fry-up. I, however, took the less traditional route of finally caving in and purchasing an Xbox 360. First impressions:

1. It's actually still quite ugly. Not as bad as the first one, but still not that pretty.

2. It's bloody heavy.

3. Clearly it's very powerful, but the graphics and stuff don't seem to be a huge leap from the first one. Maybe it's because I'm not watching in HD.

4. And how big is the transformer???

That probably sounds a bit negative, but tough. It does have one really good feature which is that you can turn the whole console on and off using the wireless controller. That's neat.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to playing a lot of Elder Scrolls IV in the near future. Bye bye life.

Happy blog-a-versary!

Well, here it is, the momentous post. Why? Because this is the 1000th post on this blog! I should celebrate.

I was thinking of writing a list of a thousand things I'd done since this started back on the 3rd January 2004. But that would take hours, perhaps days and would also be quite dull. Arguably it's what I've been doing for the last two and a half years in any case.

But 1000... wow! That's a lot!

Incidentally, I just spellchecked this and found that Blogger's spellcheck doesn't recognise "blog" as a word. Or "Blogger". Or "spellcheck".

t-1

This is not a special post. Unremarkable it is. Just a placeholder. I could write about the knocked over cyclist with the dislocated shoulder, or the summer dance or what happened when I explained my confusion over Heisenberg and Pauli. Or a multitude of other things. I won't though.

Tomorrow's post will be a special one, if I remember. I just haven't yet decided what to write. But. it. will. be. a. landmark.

Unless I forget.

Physics is fun(ny)

In conversation at work today two people were complaining that their desks were so close together that it probably violated Health & Safety laws. I, being both funny and well versed in physics, joked that it probably also violated Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. I thought this was very funny as I'd implied they were very close together. The two people however, just looked confused. And then they stopped talking and I went away.

It's only now looking back that I have realised my error. I should actually have referred to the Pauli Exclusion Principle! No wonder they were confused and didn't appreciate how funny I was! I shall have to explain my error to them tomorrow. How we'll laugh!

Bath problems

There's a problem with my bath.

Or a design flaw.

Imagine I'm running a bath (I'm wearing still some clothes, so it's not pervy or anything). I've turned on the water. It's a bit hot so I add some cold into the mix. Then I open the bottle of bath bubbles and add some in. Bubbles start to rise.

I leave the room and go and do something else - make a cup of tea, open some wine, or take off the rest of my clothes (but it's dark so it's still not pervy). I come back to the bath later and the bubbles have risen high, so high.

But something's wrong. Although the bubbles are high, the water is not. There is less water than there should be... because the plug is out. And not due to me forgetting to insert it. Oh no. It's because there's a problem with my bath.

Or a design flaw.

The water comes out so fast. The plughole is beneath. Fast water on to a plug can make the plug bounce out of its socket. And a plug once out will stay out. If this happens whilst I'm not looking, water starts to drain and if it's draining at a faster rate than it's leaving the tap, the water level will no longer rise, it will start to fall.

And this is what happened to me yesterday. For the second time.

It's really f**king annoying. I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to pick these things up in testing... All it would take is a couple of tests and it'd be like: "Derek! Derek! Come quickly! There's a problem with this bath design! Outflow exceeds inflow! We need to move the inflow to be disaligned from the outflow! Now!!!". (Engineers are very excitable in my head...)

And then they'd go back to the proverbial drawing board and redesign the flows and the holes and I'd be able to get naked whilst running a bath without having to worry about everything draining away like so much wasted time. But not in a pervy way.

She loves me!

Today I received an email from a very pretty girl who I must have met at some point in the past. Even though it is quite a personal message, I hope she won't mind be quoting it in full here:

"Do not iagnore me pleaase, I found your email somewhere and now decided to write you. I am coming to your place in few weeks and thought we can meet each other. Let me know if you do not mind. I am a nice pretty girl. Donb't reply to this email. Emaaila me direclty at makym@snail4mail.com"

What an offer! But I have some reservations about her kind words:

1. Her spelling is quite atrocious. However, I assume this is because she is from Eastern Europe. And bad spelling can be cute sometimes so I haven't been put off yet.

2. She's coming to my place! Wow, I guess we will be meeting up then. I'm so excited. I just wish I remembered her...

3. "I am a nice pretty girl". Good! I wouldn't want you to visit if you were a horrible heffer!

4. Hang on... Why have you sent this to ten other people at the same time? I thought it was me you loved...

So I thought it might be wise to just check her out a little bit before emaailaing her. I went to her domain, www.snail4mail.com and there was a picture of her there, and she is quite pretty as she said she was. But... there's some oaf fondling her. The bitch has a boyfriend already and has been getting my hopes up just for kicks. Gaaaaahhhhh! I'm gutted.

And to make it worse, the whole bad spelling thing was just an act as she is clearly a highly intelligent chemist who can make all kinds of drugs (though she seems to specialise in penile disfunction). The whole bad spelling thing was just a lark to lure in gullible men like me! And possibly gullible women too for all I know.

I'm glad I didn't email her. I still don't remember giving her my address though... Guess I was probably drunk.

New Shoes

My current running shoes aren't really on their last legs, but I've done around three hundred miles in them so I decided to get a new pair. Last time I just went to a generic sports shop and got some fairly random shoes that happened to be in the sale at the time. This time I figured I'd make a little more effort, and I went to Up & Running in York. It's a proper running shop that sells things.

There was an England match on this afternoon so I went during that so that the shop wouldn't be too busy. This plan worked perfectly. There was only one other customer the whole time I was there and there were two assistants. A good ratio.

I'd been recommended to take my old shoes with me - when I got them out to show the shop girl, she managed to avoid laughing at me, but did say "yes, I think we can help you" in the same way that a specialist doctor might say that when you showed them one of your diseases. Then she made me take off my shoes and socks (luckily I had showered not too long before) and she had a look at my feet. Apparently I have good arches but my feet tend to twist a little and so I need some moderate support. Ok, whatever you say young lady. Now run and get me some shoes!

So she went to get a few appropriate pairs from where ever it is that shoe shops store shoes. All three pairs looked pretty similar to me but I could feel differences when I tried them on. One was a but funny under my feet, one was a bit tight at the end. But the first pair felt fine. Nice and comfy.



So then I had a little go on the treadmill in the shop. I've never been on one before so it was a little bit scary for me. I didn't fall off though thankfully - that would have been an embarrassing way to get a sporting injury. I also had a little run on the road outside - only a very little one though because it was baking and I was wearing jeans.

The shoes seemed ok so I bought them. At eighty nickers they may be the most expensive shoes I have ever bought! Wow. I'm wearing them now (got to get value from them!) in order to wear them in a little before I use them for any actual exercise. That may come tomorrow - I'm planning a nice run along the river and back to make use of the bridge I espied on Thursday night. It's good to have something to look forward to.

Always belive in...

You are gold. Really.

Boat on a river

One of those things I tend to do on an annual basis... Booze Cruise on the Ouse.



Mistakes I made today: Three pints before boating.
Lessons learnt: Where one can cross the river past the A64.

Word of the day: Twat-sicle

BBBM v QT

My two favourite mass debating programmes on TV are Question Time and Big Brother's Big Mouth. Both are very similar in that they are presented by Russell Brand and discuss the most important issues of the day.

However, the issue that has been burning me most today is: Which studio audience is most insane? My money's on Question Time's.

Wine Warning

Note to self: (Duplicate notes to all:)

Whilst in the Akash curry house, York, eat curry. It's very good. Don't under any circumstances order the "Indian Red Wine". It either doesn't travel well, is off, is bad to start with or possibly all three.

You have been warned.

You can take your carriage clock...

Two of our guys at work are having a leaving do tomorrow and I was put in charge of buying presents. Is that ever going to be a good idea? I didn't have a budget as such since they are only moving roles rather than leaving completely and so no collections had been made. This meant I had to fund purchases from my own pocket. And this in turn means: Cheap!

But never let it be said that I don't have ambition!

Everyone knows that the ultimate leaving present is the Carriage Clock. Preferably inscribed on the back "George, we'll miss you, love from the girls in accounts" - that sort of thing. So that was my goal: inscribed carriage clocks. On my budget it wasn't going to be easy... but it was.

First shop I went in was perfect. It had little plastic square clocks for a pound each. A variety of colours. I got one pink one and one black one. But even better, they were on special offer! Buy one get one free! Perfect presents and better value than the Pound Shop would have been had I been arsed to walk that far. They'll be so happy!

I plan to inscribe (ie stick a sticker on the back of) them tomorrow.

I am the lineman goo goo ga choob

Actually, I haven't been to London. That was a subtle piece of misdirection. I've been instead at a surprise birthday party in Edinburgh and since there was a chance that the surprisee could have seen this page, writing that I was going to be surprising her would not have been conducive to giving a good surprise.

A proper karaoke machine had been hired for the evening, and it came with what seemed to be every song ever (including the complete works of B*witched!). It was nice to have a decent set-up rather than just playing Singstar on the PS2, which while lots of fun, never has quite as many songs as you'd like.

There were some truly astounding renditions through the evening and it's a shame that they are now for the most part lost to the ether never to be heard again. Perhaps they should install a hard disk inside the machines so that they can record everything that is sung. Or perhaps not.

I did a few astounding renditions myself. Wichita Lineman was a goody. Lose Yourself not quite so good. I don't think rap is my thang.

Bye!

I'm off down to London today for a friend's housewarming. And I'm (as usual) running late. So... Bye! Write soon!

Deadgehog

For the past few days there has been a dead hedgehog on my way to work. Not a cute little "awww, ain't it sweet" dead hedgehog, but a "urggh, its entrails are spilling onto the pavement" kind of dead hedgehog. Suffice to say it wasn't pleasant to look at and I've been having to actively not look at it to avoid feeling sick.

It's gone now. I don't know where to, but I'm glad and I hope it's in Happy Hedgehog Heaven now.

I also hope that the reason it's gone isn't because the place where it lay was actually part of an old Indian burial ground and that it's now come back to life and is wandering around York terrorising queasy people. I know this happens albeit mainly in badly spelt American films rather than a popular English town.

Bad Rock Spelling

My Bro-in-Law took the following photo in the Vargin Magastore, Basingstoke. God knows what he'd done wrong to be visiting Basingstoke though.



The nice thing here is that they've also got ¡Forward Russia!'s name slightly wrong by missing off both the upside down and the right way up exclamation marks. Fair dos that the upside down one probably isn't easy to do on one of those labelling machines, but they could at least have made an effort. I bet elsewhere in the store they haven't got B*witched right either!

Oh, and the album by David Ford, ex of Easyworld, is a belter.

Running in Space

For the first ever time, my running took me outside what I class as York - ie outside the ring formed by the outer ring road and the A64. It felt like the first time I'd ever been outside of York on foot but this is clearly not the case - I've walked in places such as Great Yarmouth and San Francisco in past times.

The route I took went right round the back of Bishopthorpe Village. It seemed nice enough and there's also a palace out there. But the most interesting thing about the back of Bishopthorpe is the Planetarium.

Near where the A64 crosses the A1036 you'll find the Sun (*). And then some way along the path is Mercury - and it's just as far as it is in real life! But shorter so it fits to the path. And there's a big sign on the other side of the path which says "Mercury" - just like in real Space! And there are direction signs saying Sun: 100m. And Venus: 87m. And etc. Just like in real space! Then, if you keep running you get to actual Venus. And then actual Earth (look really closely and you see a tiny little you running along a tiny track!)! And etc!

We turned left just after Saturn. To go out all the way to Pluto would have added another 15km or so to the overall run and it was raining frankly quite heavily which made the full interplanetary journey not that great a prospect. I was surprised just how wet space was. And I never knew it had so many trees!

(* actually we couldn't find the Sun but it must be there somewhere. There's a sign and everything! In fact, I'm not sue how we missed it because it's supposed to be eight feet in diameter...)

Burgers!

I was hanging out in Leeds train station tonight and was hungry. I went to Burger King and had a Whopper. But then I was still hungry so I went to MDs and had two more burgers. Is that wrong?

Cider!

I let myself get a bit pissed off on Friday night (not like me, really). I was so angry that I decided to... order a bottle of Magners. Yes, it seems that I'm the sort of person that when they get angry, I don't turn green and huge like the Hulk, I have a glass of cold cider. I don't even particularly like cider. I used to drink it when I was little, but I haven't had more than the occasional accidental pint for around ten years.

It was nice though. I had a couple more at lunchtime today. Not because I was annoyed - I drank these ones purely because I wanted to. I do feel like I'm a trend-following marketing victim but what can you do?

Look at my ring!

Sometimes you have a meeting in a hotel. And sometimes that hotel has free chocolates. And sometimes you feel compelled to create using the chocolate wrappers. And sometimes you make yourself a ring:



Or is that just me...

Hot Chick

I felt faintly ridiculous earlier this evening when I phoned Pizza Hut and asked them to bring me a "large Italian Hot Chick". Not as ridiculous as when she arrived though and I realised I'd phoned the local brothel in error. What a mistake-a to make-a as they say in Italy. I apologised profusely and sent her back. And then I ordered an actual pizza. Tasty.

Halfway!

So last night I passed the halfway point in my Run-a-Thon 500. This is truly a milestone achievement. I was however, quite disappointed to find no actual marker at the 250 mile point (which if you're interested was in the centre of here.) There was just bushes and grass. And a slight smell from the nearby sewerage works. Ho hum, such is life.

Anyway, it's not too late to sponsor me if you (yes, I mean you) haven't done so already. Go on, it'll make you feel good. And I'm pretty sure I sponsored you last year/this year/next year (delete as appropriate). I may even have paid up!

On a scale of Paris to York, I'm on England's M20 heading towards London and will reach the M25 London Orbital in about 10 miles (likely to be next Tuesday). I hope it's not rush hour!

New Coke

I tried a new drink yesterday that's just been launched in the UK - Coca Cola Zero. It's Coke, but with zero calories.

Except that a quick reading of the nutritional information shows that zero is something of an underestimate since a half litre bottle actually contains three calories. That's infinitely more than zero. Most children could tell you that zero is not the same as three. If a child has three toys and I remove three toys so that they have zero toys, they are not indifferent to this. In fact they'd likely cry like a baby.

I admit that Coca Cola Three would not have been as good a name, but even so I felt a little cheated. The only potential excuse Coke have is that they may make it with zero calories in other territories but they've had to use different (caloried) chemicals here to fit in with some legislative restrictions. But I'd just be guessing - I'm not a food doctor.

It didn't taste too bad though. More like Coke than Diet Coke is. I'm not sure how CCZ is different to DC though. I never understood the difference between Diet Pepsi and Pepsi Max so I expect it's like that.

And three calories isn't much (even though it is three more than the claimed zero). Recommended daily calorific amount for a man like me is 2500. This means I could drink 400 litres of CCZ a day without getting fat! That's equivalent to drinking over five times my own body weight! Without putting on any weight at all! Absolutely amazing. And if I did drink that much, it would weigh so much that lifting it all would be lots of exercise that would mean I'd need yet more calories and I'd be able to drink more coke!

I think it still probably rots your teeth though.

More Running. I used to do fun things...

Against my better judgement, and some would say common sense, I decided to go out on a ten mile run early yesterday evening. The potential problem here was not so much the length (I'd done nine the previous weekend, after all) but the weather. It had been really hot all weekend and showed no major signs of changing. So a sensible person would have said: "I'll stay in and drink beers and watch the television". What I said was "I'll head out and do two hours of exercise in some excessive hotness and possibly nearly die".

Now, fair enough, it wasn't exactly Death Valley in York - temperatures were around 25 degrees Celsius. But that's quite a lot. I had however not unprepared myself for this. For earlier on the Sunday I had been shopping. I finally decided that warm jogging bottoms were no longer a good thing to wear. They are not good summer sportswear. So I bought some proper running shorts! Not stupid really short ones though - they look ridiculous on the best of people. My new shorts descend to a few inches above my knees. This gives adequate coolness, flexibility and not-looking-silly-ness.

But best (?) of all, they are like swimming trunks in that they have mesh undercrackers built into them. Hence no need to wear separate pants with my shorts. I think. It's possible you're supposed to wear underwear as well - I just guessed that that wasn't the case. Am I right? Am I wrong? It doesn't matter. I didn't wear pants and it was perfectly comfy. Hah hah - I ran all around York with no pants on! :-)

So it was lucky that I'd remembered to put the shorts on instead!

The actual run itself was fairly hard work (cos it was very hot!). I only had a half litre of water with me so I had to ration it quite carefully. Also I was going quite slowly to ensure I'd last the distance, despite this meaning that I had to spend more time in the heat that way. So my total time ended up at one hour fifty five. I'll have to pick things up a little bit to get to my arbitrary two hours fifteen minutes target for the Great North Run. I'm still managing to go without stopping though (apart from when crossing the occasional road) so I'm happy with that.

I feel like I'm moaning about the heat quite a lot. Tough. It's hot. And the air conditioning at work is f**ked (again).

Going round in circles

The Yorkshire Wheel dominates the local skyline around here. That's not too hard to do, as there are only about two high buildings in the whole of York. It's been up for about two or three months now and I've just about got used to it. It's moved from being a "wow, look at that" construction to something I pass by two or three times a day and pay as much attention to as most lamp-posts.

Anyway, yesterday was another hot, clear, gorgeous day so it seemed like a good time to finally spend my six pounds and have a go on it. Despite the lovely weather it wasn't really that busy - I suspect this was due to a certain sporting event taking place on the television. Me being me, I wasn't at all interested in seeing that so the Wheel was a good alternative (after a quick picnic (ok, sandwich) behind the Minster).



No queues, so we didn't have to wait long to go on. And then you go on and you go round and round and round three or four times. I lost count a little. Up, down, round it goes, where it stops no-one knows.

The view from the top is pretty good and you can see both of York's landmarks. But they're all small like toys. I could also see my flat (I wasn't in) and my office (I wasn't there either).

The main problem though was that because it was very hot, the capsules were also very hot. They have air conditioning but ours didn't seem to be working very well. Darn modern technology. In the old days, you'd just open a window and it would sort everything. I suppose insects are less of a problem when you have air-con. At least it was only a short walk home to get a cool drink after.

Dinner at Trickster's

I went for dinner with me girl last night at Trickster's Lane on Fossgate. I haven't been there before but I think it has a reputation as one of York's better restaurants. I hadn't bothered booking in advance for two reasons: I hadn't actually chosen anywhere in advance, and also I figured that things would be fairly quiet because of the football. And this turned out to be true. Though I've often found that most places tend to be able to squeeze in a table for two at reasonably short notice.

We had a rather tasty bottle of Pinotage and I went for the Sea Bass with Sweet Chilli Sauce. It was a very perky looking little fish! And very tasty too. I wouldn't perhaps normally pair fish and chilli but the combo worked well.



Apparently the mussels were also really good - I didn't have them myself for once though as I'm not a fan of the creamy type sauce they were in. I much prefer mussels in a tomato based sauce. Yes.

All the staff were very friendly and helpful. They even carried our drinks from the reception area to our table for us! I liked the whole look and feel of the place. Big chunky wooden tables and not at all pretentious. All in all, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. Although it's perhaps not York's cheapest eaterie :-)

It's being closed down soon for a complete refurbishment and a name change, but with the same management. I have no idea why this is happening as it seemed perfectly nice as it was but it'll be an excuse to go back again!

Friday Meeting

I had a good meeting this afternoon. Some things I said:

 

- " **click** Sorry - I spilt my coffee and the spillage looked like a picture of a cheery ghost so I thought I'd take a photo before it dried."

 

 - "I had a thought so I've written it on the side of this plastic coffee cup so I wouldn't forget. Here it is!"

 

- Boss: "Is there anything we've missed?". Me: "How would we know?".

 

I love Friday afternoons.

Summer's here kids

Well, summer's officially here now. Here's why:

1. It's been really bloomin' hot. I went for a run and found it to be REALLY BLOOMIN' HOT. My own fault for going out early evening maybe, but even so...

2. I've just got back from seeing the Cosmic Rough Riders who are officially one of the most summeriest bands in the UK. They made me smile with their songs.

So tomorrow is the second day of Summer. Wahey!

Phone Savings

This will be a handy tip for people who are stupid like what I am.

For the last forever years I have been paying £1.75 to British Telecom to get the Caller Display system. I find this quite useful as it lets you see the number of the person that is calling you and then ignore the call if desired. Obviously I never use this power for evil. However, whilst playing around on the BT website yesterday I discovered something (reasonably well hidden): you don't have to pay the money to get this. There is another way.

All you have to do is subscribe to "BT Privacy" instead. It's free and includes automatic registration with the TPS, with whom I am already registered, and you also get free Caller Display thrown in. So I did this. Hey presto, savings of twenty one English pounds per annum. Possibly plus VAT.

It's hard to see how they don't just give existing customers this automatically - oh, hang on, it's not. It's because they are greedy capitalist b**tards. Ahem.

So my recommendation to anyone reading is to do this same thing. And if you don't want Caller Display or if you're with a different company, then register with the TPS anyway because it really works and virtually eliminates unwanted phone calls (ie all of them).

This was a public service announcement. Bye!

For no good reason...

On the way home today I was thinking about an experiment. I shall present it here in an A-Level physics practical style:

-----------------------

Objective
To determine whether audio language or visual language attenuates more quickly with distance.

Equipment Required:
1. A blind person (A) with perfect hearing
2. A deaf person (B) with perfect sight
3. A person (C) who can speak and do sign language (sight and hearing optional)
4. A trolley
5. Ticker tape
6. A piece of lined paper
7. A sharp pencil

Method
1. Place the person, C, in the trolley facing towards persons A and B.
2. Attach the ticker tape to the trolley.
3. Get C to start talking and signing as normal. It doesn't matter what they say, as long as it is not totally predictable.
4. Ensure A can hear C's voice and B can see C's signs.
5. Raise A's right arm in the air.
6. Raise B's left arm in the air.
7. Pull the trolley away from A and B slowly. Ensure that the ticker tape is ticking whilst this is happening.
8. Ensure that A and B know the following things: (a) that B should lower his raised arm as soon as he can no longer understand C's signs and (b) that A should lower his raised hand as soon as he can no longer understand C's voice.
9. Probably best to do stage 8 before stage 3.
10 Wait until A or B does the thing from stage 8.
11. If neither person lowers their arm before the ticker tape runs out, politely re-explain the requirements to A and B. It may be necessary to enlist C's help to communicate with B. Restart the experiment from stage 2.
12. Record whose arm fell first on a piece of lined paper using a sharp pencil.

Results
???

Conclusion
???

-----------------------

Sadly I am unable to complete the final two sections because I have not carried out the experiment. The reason I haven't done this is because I do not have any of the required equipment apart from the piece of lined paper. Not even a sharp pencil!

I tried doing it as a thought experiment but all the people I thought about (A, B and C) kept getting bored and wondering off halfway through. Idiots. And the trolley had a broken wheel.

So I'm a bit stuck. Can anyone help? Which is the best means of communication over longer distances - sign language or speaking? And is C allowed to shout and/or make really big gestures?

Another month, another mile

Since it's now June, I've had to up my maximum running distance again. Another month is another mile. On Sunday I did my first nine mile run. It was quite hard work, but I finished in about one hour forty. Which incidentally, is a hell of a long time to be running for. That's enough time to cook and eat around five fresh pizzas. Or alternatively, it's enough to have sex well over a hundred times. You'd be quite tired afterwards I guess, but then I was quite tired after the running so maybe there's not that much difference.

I think it's possibly getting easier to add the extra mile each month. Proportionately it's certainly a smaller physical increment each time, but I think it also gets easier mentally too. After all, I'm probably going to be physically tired well before I'm supposed to finish so it just becomes a case of getting used to this and seeing how long I can force myself onwards for. Slightly masochistic maybe...

But the thought of that lovely hot bath and glass of wine at the end is a good thing to have in mind.

At The Drive-In

Last night I sat in a dark car park on the Knavesmire for several hours. Lots of people kept flashing their lights and there were lots of strangers making out in many of the cars. Yes, that's right: I went dogging.

Ha ha, fooled you. I wasn't really dogging. I was at a drive-in movie.



I've never been to a drive-in before. I think the main reason for this is that they are a bit daft and also quite uncommon these days. You sit potentially quite far from the screen, in a car seat that is nowhere near as comfy as the seat in a decent cinema. If you're lucky it doesn't rain so that you can actually see the screen. Sound, however, works pretty well as it can be broadcast over a local FM frequency.

And you can take a picnic - normal cinema owners are always slightly averse to people doing this. And you can also take wine (non-drivers only, obvs).

Yesterday's movie was the classic Grease. Always a fine film, and one that felt particularly appropriate for the drive-in arena, being set as it was in the 50s when that particular form of cinema viewing was actually considered normal. We were quite far back as we'd watched Doctor Who before leaving home - this led to us being some of the last people to arrive, at around quarter past eight. The actual film, however, couldn't start until it was dark so we still had about an hour and a half to eat and drink.

Whilst there some idiot kept trying to add my phone to their Bluetooth thing. I couldn't tell who it was other than that the phone was called "Reef". Later, however, I heard a parent in a nearby car refer to one of her four boys by that name. Stupid child with a stupid name. My theory on the name was that the woman has named each of her children after the drink she was Drunk-Out-Of-Her-Skull on when she conceived. This was later borne out when I discovered the other boys were named "Strongbow", "Tenants Super" and "Screaming Orgasm". Ok, I made up this last bit.

Just ignore the crappy DRM

One of the best things about iTunes is that it lets you get buy tracks that you'd be embarassed to buy in the shops. But I won't say what I just bought. Because it's embarassing.

St Prescott

I never thought I'd say this, but I almost feel sorry for Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. The poor fat man has now been forced to give up his freebie official home, all because he played a little game of croquet.

He managed to survive the thing where he owned two whole Jaguar cars. He survived the time that he actually punched a member of the public on television. He survived shagging his secretary on his work desk. But... then the revelation came that one time when Mr Blair had left the country so that JP was in charge, within just a couple of hours, he played CROQUET!!!! Can you imagine a worse thing than that?

Apparently this was a really bad thing for him to do, but I don't understand why. I was at a university for three years where croquet was oft played in summer times. I never played myself, but it always looked harmless, if slightly silly and pointless. Certainly I am aware of no cases where someone was seen to play the game and was then asked to leave the university. The whole violent Alice in Wonderland aspect just doesn't happen in real life.

Croquet just isn't bad. Now, if Prescott had done any of the following things within a few hours of Blair going on hols I'd be more against him:

1) He wandered over to the nuclear bunker and lovingly fondled the Big Red Button for a few minutes before shouting "f**k Wales" and then pressing it.

2) He went off to find Mrs Blair and then made love to her for eight solid hours because they've had this thing for years but they never found a time when they could be alone together.

3) He went for a walk around town and then punched a member of the public in the head.

But he never did any of these things (apart from number three) so I don't see the issue! I say to all the British People: Let this man keep his official home. He has never done nothing wrong. In fact he should be sainted. Are you listening Mr German Pope (sorry, I've forgot your name)? Saint him now!