So there it was, Merry Christmas

Everybody did seem to be having fun on Boxing Night (Stephen's Night for our southern viewers, there).

Order of service for the evening was roughly as follows.

Got ready to leave Tyrone at about 3:00. Plan was reviewed when Fr O. called round. The craic, as ever, was good with him. Not your usual brand of priest... So then, belted it up the M1 to get to the Bot (via C&L's place) in time to meet everyone and share a taxi to Ravenhill. Got there, said hello, hugs/handshakes were exchanged, and then we hopped into various forms of transport to get over there. Or at least as close as we or the taxi driver could figure out to where Ravenhill is. It's always had this mystical quality — entirely attributable to drink — like the platform in Harry Potter (there's another blog reference for them). You're never quite sure where it is, but you always end up finding it. Right enough, the sixty-foot floodlights probably give it away, but there we are...

Anyway, got there, and split into our two factions. Me, Gerry, Colin, Pete and his brothers on the promenade side; the Cullybackey Man, M, Shaun and Shaun's sister on the terrace side. In a much better position than the corner in which we found ourselves. I spent most of the first half talking to Arse Cvnt, as he used to be known in Greek, only half keeping an eye on the game. We nipped off five minutes before half-time for some lack-lustre chips and some sort of sausage, before the second, spirit-crushing half. I'm starting to wonder if I'm not some sort of jinx on rugby teams. If I was a superhero, my special power would be the little-coveted "Making My Team Forget How to Catch the Bloody Ball Once It's Passed" power. I'm sure DC and Marvel have a stack of such back-up characters for a rainy day...

Back in the real world (or the nearest APS drunken equivalent), post-match we slowly rendez-voused at the entrance to the beer tent. WIthout getting any beer, which — given the journey which followed — was a stroke of luck. When J, M and the Bloomfields appeared, we headed off "towards" the Errigle. Led by Gerry, who knew as much about where we were going as J ever does when drunk (learned that lesson the hard way in Cambridge). Only when Dr AC realised that he used to work for Thales where we were walking did we do an about-turn and completely go back on ourselves, all the way to the stadium, and thence to the Ormeau Road. I hate not having a sense of direction: I'm inclined to believe others who don't have on either.

Eventually got to pub feeling distinctly sober, despite Pete and Gerry's whiskey supplies during the second half. Then, we managed a Guinness. Everyone decided that I was rubbish at being gay because I should be good at co-ordinating colours but am, in fact, rather colourblind. I eloquently told them where to shove their opinions and made a mental note to check the disability discrimination act. (I have a feeling I won't, and that it wouldn't help anyway, but that's hardly the point.)

Too much information

I'm in two minds as to whether or not to remove most (or all) of the last few posts.

I don't want to put up incriminating evidence which can be traced back to the individuals concerned.

More in a minute...

Prologue: Pre-party night

Yeah, the reason I was so knocked out on Age's birthday night was simple.

It was a Friday, I was suffering minor economic melt-down, and had just decided to drop the mountain of work I was trying to carry successfully across the deadline. Mixed metaphors, I'm sure.

Solution?

1. Go to gym


2. Hope to see light-blue-t-shirt guy


3. Fail to (not part of solution)


4. Come home and cook dinner


5. Eat dinner in front of TV with some fridge-stock beer


6. Go upstairs and log on to well-known online service whose name may or may not rhyme with radar (yeah, sorry — should've mentioned this in the catch-up — was a drunken creation) and see if I've any messages


7. Find message from nearby dude who looks cute (okay, also not part of solution, but definitely a bonus)

At this point, LS bounds in using the spare key, and demands we look at porn on the interweb. We do. Then, about 15 minutes later, in falls the Aussie, with Rob off of his office.

Rob is decidedly my type. Small, compact, wiry as you like. Oh yeah, and — the usual kicker — he's really straight. Thanks for that. Very comfy around lords, but really straight.

But I don't care. So, after LS and the Aussie have a bit of banter with us, LS disappears off to bed, while I fire up the recently-ressurected shisha for me, Age and Rob. I've recently taken a shine to this bit of kit, so I like to share and share alike with those I like :o)

Over vodka and coke, the three of us yammer away. Rob's finding it funny how Age and LS get on, saying it's exactly how he and the Aussie go on. And Age and I puff away at the shisha. Eventually, Rob gives in and sacrifices some of his fitness (medical only, I note</pest>), and joins us in the smoking. As a non-smoker, I get a hell of a kick out of these things. I'm not used to the usual nicotine rush, and Mr Rob is the same.

As the night wears on to about 3:30 (they piled in about 1:30), Age decides he's had enough booze and tobacco, and heads to bed. Rob checks to make sure I'm not going to bed yet, in a way which I take to mean something between "please stay up and talk" and "please stay here and stare at my arms when you think I'm not looking".

ACtually, now I think of it, there was something else that gave me the wrong signal. He'd got off with teh wrong girl at the orifice do that night, and wanted to talk about it. He was really down on himself for embarrassing her (bless 'im) and said that he didn't want to be on his own that night. (Guess whose radar blipped at that!)

But, regardless, the guy is really cool to chat with, too. He's good craic and extremely laid back. Even though he wasn't a lord, and even if I was drunk and horny (theme of the weekend?), I was still happy to sit up and talk shite. Not often I've got to do that recently, so I was pretty chuffed, if a little sheepish, when I saw that there was more light coming in through the window than escaping out of it. It was about 8:00. Feck. I felt like a teenager who's just been up drinking all night for the first time. Ha!

As we'd laid off the booze for a couple of hours, he decided to head for home.

So this all explains my knackered state the next day. I'd had about 12 hours' half-decent sleep in the last three nights, after all.

Cool night. Always nice to meet someone new and cool.

(I'm also thinking that there's a lot of bridges I need to repair in 2006. And some explaining to do on my part...)

When an Australian has his birthday bash

Okay, I said in the last post </plays trumpet></gets shot for bad gag> that I'd talk about the Aussie's birthday party chez Aggy.

It was Saturday, a couple of weeks ago. For whatever reason, we were both a little low on fuel, but we sailed over to Tescos, bought the booze (and some food to prop ourselves up with), and — with 20 minutes to go before people were allowed to start arriving — we decided on a last-ditch furniture rearrangement.

And it actually worked! (I put it down to helping Mr Bridger move house twice in six months)

We got the old sofa into the dining room, hence creating some much-needed strutting space in the living room. (This was to have interesting consequences for me later in the night, but that's for later in the story.)

After the first guest pointed out the blunder of us not having any lime or soda, she and I headed back to my ...favourite supermarket to right this terrile wrong. We solved it with organic limes, in case the lack of detail is killing you.

Back at the house, about a half an hour, six limes, two bottles of soda, a bottle of tonic (for me) and two-toothbrushes-for-the-price-of-one later, people were arriving in force. Lord Simon had escaped his wedding technical support duties, so that important box was ticked for the Aussie, and H&F, Jumper, Chilled (a.k.a. Guitar) Chris, Rob (Ah, now I remember why I wasn't so energetic), and various others had already made their entrance.

I, however, still hadn't showered or shaved that day, having only got up at about 3:00 to get into town, in order to buy Age's present and a new shirt for me (mandatory for parties), meet him and Cool Jen for coffee, and then get home to eat. I therefore did the Triple-S, then joined the party people in the dining area (now with added sofa).

We're talking gone 9:30 by the time I get back to the only-just-begun glass of Pinot Grigio that I left in order to source lime and soda. So I'm feeling a little behind in proceedings, but not so bad I go quiet.

Anyroad, LS had once again pulled out the stops and brought over four lights and two pretty good speakers to give the whole thing some more cred. (I'd warned the Nice Neighbours two nights before, supplying them with some Bordeaux (adults) and a fancy chocolate cake (kids) by way of advance apology). So he dragged me into the living room where I saw, and greatly appreciated, the whole setup.

As usual, though, I missed the crucial point where he went from being a sociable, entirely-in-control chap to being a drunken monkey. If I'm on the same level as him, I can handle it just fine. The theory that the Aussie and I are pursuing is that he went a bit wonky in the presence of a load of people he doesn't know. Jumper called him something the following week which rhymes with "Bob". Which I understood — I could see him shrinking into his shell at every encounter between the two — but feels odd, as LS and I get on grand. Anyway, not all your friends are going to get on with each other. I'm learning that lesson more and more. It's not all one big happy family. All you can do is enjoy their company yourself.

So, the craic was good. Because of the previous night's irresponsibility (well, fuck-it — it was a Friday night with good company), I slid straight from tiredness into drunken energy, and ended up doing a lot of dancing. This is where it becomes a little hazy, but I do remember the following elements:

• LS taking me aside to ask me various questions with quite serious tones about himself and the Aussie
• me desperately trying not to get involved any more than I already am — they're two of my best friends in Guildford, and see them more than most
• LS setting fire to the hair of some visiting bar boy he liked
• The Aussie, rather understandably, being distinctly upset with boyfriend-based, albeit JD-induced, hair pyromania, and telling him this
• Me naffing off to phone the Cullybackey man, and being somewhat taken aback when Dr R answered it!
• Me staying on the phone for about 5 minutes
• Going back inside to find the Aussie in a quiet mood
• LS sitting on the sofa in the dining room showing hardcore twink movies to the bar boys in what is possible the least subtle attempt ever to gauge the tacklability of another bloke
• Rob having gone home, and LS trying to persuade me that what I needed to do was text him. The Aussie assured me this would be a Bad Idea?
• Dancing like a loose-limbed wonder with two of the Aussie's female, very good craic workmates
• Dancing, randomly, with one of the bar boys, who was clearly going through something of an identity crisis, if the swings between his camp dancing and then very macho non-dancing were any indication (and they were).
• Sobering up ...a little (wouldn't like to overstate this)
  

And this is where it got interesting. Sat down with this scan bar boy, and got talking to him. THen his mates left and asked if he was coming with them. He said no, he was going to stay here, and one of them (the one Si had diagnosed as being most likely to be a lord) stuck out his tongue at me. Interesting, I thought... Don't remember a lot of what we talked about, other than he was unhappy/lonely. Anyway, got a bit close and relaxed, in a good way, he let me put something in his back pocket, and I was wondering whether I should just get stuck in and chance my arm.

Then the morals kicked in. Feck.

Having been sat beside him, rather than looking straight at him, I hadn't realised he was actually quite shit-faced. When I moved around to, er.. see his face, let's say, I realised. And that was the tin hat on it &mdhash; there was no way I was going to push him to do anything now. Best case scenario, it would be taking advantage; worst case scenario, there could've been nasty charges. Anyroad, I thought that was that. I think Age told him to get his coat (the guy could barely stand by now, it was that bad), helped him into it, and he bounced his way off the walls to the front door, slurring something in a heavy Swedish accent.

LS, the Aussie and I held a drunken conference at Si's insistence in the hall, and as we were doing so, the doorbell rang again. Scan bar boy. He came in and the Aussie sat him down on the living room sofa. Age and I had both had a feeling he'd come back to talk in secret to some kindred spirits. As I was the one who'd been planning on chancing my arm, and as LS was not being subtle in any way, I escorted him out to the dining room to talk about it out of earshot.

So, after we'd been sent out for a while, the Aussie summons us back in for an announcement from bar boy. I even remember him telling bar boy that he was amongst friends, but he said nothing. I rewound back to the night after the old veggie restaurant outing a long time ago, and could understand. Bar boy was not quite ready yet. Fair enough: Mr Wait-til-you're-27 wasn't exactly going to condescend...

So I got out the sleeping bag, and we cobbled a bed of sorts together for him on the sofa bed that he wasn't about to get up off in order for us to make it an actual bed.

He was gone by the next morning. Hope he's alright, poor guy.

The old ah-so

Well, that was a bit of a long break from posting, now, wasn't it? Seventeen days. by my reckoning.

How to explain? Not sure there's much to say. Just what's happened in the meantime, I guess.

But I'll start with the latest and most exciting news: it looks like J-land is definitely on!!

</scary></cool, though>

(The new contract starts in April, handily on the fourth anniversary of me starting at the place.)

Ergo, I'm currently investigating places to live in'n'around Tokyo, as well various ways that might help me to learn the oul' Nihon-go... Those Kanji flashcards might just do the trick. In the meantime, I'm trying to learn about ten katakana, and I'm going to get the Youngest to try and test me on them later. Ah so.

I've got (very) approximately (thanks to the unique way these things work) eight months to get to grips with the basic language, where to live, what to do in public, what NOT to do in public more importantly, how much I'm going to be paid, whether I'll get a laptop, and probably a million-and-one things that are more important, but haven't occurred to my slightly bewildered head just yet!

And, breathe...

The Aussie sounded like shite warmed up this morning, thanks to him visiting Fahrenheit 55 till the very VERY wee hours of this morning (the finishing time he quoted began with a "five"). At the other end of the night, I'd had to phone Lord Simon to make sure he was up at 12:30 am. My life in Augher, quite deliberately, is very sedate by comparison.

I...

...like it.</Louis Walsh>


A lot.

So what's been the craic since the last time...? A rather sedate first half of December, due to a large influx of bills, etc. Changed everything over from Dr R's name to my own, which now (hopefully) means I should be able to hook Age and meself up with broadband. This is a dull but — in my scatter-brained life — significantly significant piece of <ahem> "actually sorting my fucked-up life out".

Elsewhere, I hit a point not long after the last post where I realised it was going to be impossible to get everything done that I was being asked to do on time. So I stopped trying. It was like a strange Zen calm had come over me.

I plan on doing this on a more regular basis.

That, and employing the ancient Norn Iron wisdom "Catch yerself on" when being prodded by my employers.

What else.... Oh aye, Age's birthday party, a couple of weeks ago. See the next post for that one ;o)

Rounding it all off, for now, I just wanted to say — and she'll never read this, unless the world really is a very small place — a big congratulations to the Cullybackey Man's sister on her wedding today. She was the same Pisshead Diploma year as meself, and even came to my graduation in place of Himself, who was stuck in the America, being told that his arms were too long for his body. (You can imagine the likely chat-up lines that followed. Hello, ladies, etc.)

Anyway: Well done, Anne, on escaping all family name ties to the Cullybackey Man. I'm sure you'll never look back.

Worst to best gym session...

...EVER!

When I got to the gym lastnight, straight from work, I was a bit pissed off that I'd forgotten my swimming shorts. Only had my new "track pants", so I couldn't use the spa or steam room. Which is what I normally treat myself to now at the end. (Helps me not to glow quite so Bright Unfit Red™ afterwards, too...)

Anyway, got changed, wandered in on auto-pilot... then as I was starting up, I actually looked around.

It was like that scene in 40 days and 40 nights! Everywhere I looked, talent. I was starting to wonder if Age had spiked my tea the previous night with testosterone, and it was making me see things. Particularly this one guy who — coincidentally? — ended up synchronising with me... What a body... what a face!

Moral of the story: I now know what time I'm going to the gym on Mondays!

</pest>

Winged it, once again!

As per usual... Hard to beat the oul' CBS bluffery!

So, I went and gave a talk in Essex lastnight. Was a bit scared crossing the Thames to go North. Anything could've happened! But it didn't. The only thing was that I was knackered after a day of furiously cobbling together the talk, and trying to go through the new planning software, and then having various other distractions. All the while looking at my watch!

Apart — as is so often the case — from the ragged end of the journey there where I first came off on the wrong side of the M25 (was reading the instructions which were implicitly for the clockwise direction), then overshooting past the non-streetlit lane that held the Scout hall... it was all fine. The people were very nice, and even offered me a cup of tea and a chance to drink it before I stood up and rambled. For about an hour. I think I was enthusiastic. Not easy to tell. But the spectroscopy demonstration got pretty much all of them out of their seats (apart from two lovely maturer ladies, who I showed how to use the gratings from their seats)! Bwrilliant!

Joined them in the pub for a half of Genius afterwards, and about an hour's chat. Then fecked off back to this side of the Cabbidle. On the way up, I'd passed Clackett Lane (off of the Plan B trip) and Thurrock services, so I thought I'd pop in to the latter, as it was closer and get some petrol and — more importantly — some coffee!

Amazing how quickly 3/4 of an hour can pass when all your doing is ordering coffee. The shop wasn't open (nor was the susprise bookies!), so no semi-traditional lord mags were purchased. However, I did try a Ritazza hazelnut mocha. I'm not sure I would again. I think there's only chocolate and coffee in a mocha for a very good reason. Couldn't make my mind up whether one of the other customers was fit overall or just had a nice ass... Too tired. I really wanted to just sleep at that stage (just after midnight).

But I got home just before 1:00, after about 170 miles

Anway, back to work now. Gave myself an easy morning this morning, fed the fish (who by now must be wondering what the fvck kind of daily "routine" I think I have), and ambled in to work.

Which is what I should be doing right....

....about.....



....now!

Slow, grinding progress

Which is often the most useful kind. 'Cos it means I'm concentrating on what I'm doing.

Well, as I've said before, there are two times of year I dread at work. One is the end of the financial year, the other is the end of the calendar year. Why the second one is so important, I don't know, but it must be some sort of psychological deadline which everyone suddently sets themselves. Granted, the New Year is a great time to make resolutions, and I always hope the next year will be even better than the one before... BUT, how many people will stick to those resolutions, eh? I know the gym had cleared out a heck of a lot by March, so why bother trying to stick to the end-of-year mentalness??

Ach, I'm being melodramatic. In fairness, there's just a lot of stuff I agreed to do ages ago. But the real pressure is coming from the Rolling ("Russell") Grant which looms, if not large, then loomingly! We're supposed to be churning a few more articles out so that it can go in the hallowed book that is our RG application. Hence, I need to crack on with data analysis (which I actually like, it being The Science and all), but yet somehow do everything else that everyone else "needs" me to do before Christmas. Was it a blunder agreeing to be on the Social Club committee?

Anyway, I'm sitting here waiting for a load of images to be co-aligned in time, but it's taking a while. However, I have now got a rather nice data-gap and GOES monitor running underneath my movies, which I'll probably use a lot in the future. When I thought about it, there was no need for messy looping to get the delays -- just a case of shifting and subtracting the array from itself... Yadda yadda....

I'll get me white coat.

Or maybe not. The 'puter is still cranking away.

In other news LS has cancelled this week's Drunk Wednesday. Which I'm secretly quite relieved about. Got to go to somewhere in Essex (don't think I've ever been to Essex) on Thursday night, to give a talk to amateurs (that's not a condescension, by the way), and it's... sort of.... not really ready at all. Got loads of PPT files off of Dr Green, so I just need to work out what the feck I'm going to say about solar magnetism. I've got a few props to break things up, at least...

Help!

Christmas Flights Booked!

There we are... the mothership, bless her, offered to book my flights for me.

Think she was worried I wasn't coming home for Christmas.

Phonecall was a bit frosty. Hmmmm....

Sunday Petulance

Rubbish

I'm bored, but penniless. I'm also well over the hangover induced by Lord Simon visiting lastnight, replete with bottle of JD. Hence, the answer is to phone people and catch up. Except that my sister's phone goes straight to voicemail, Neilo's on the tear in the Dubai, and Aussie Adrian has fecked off to Oz. Some housemate he turned out to be! ;o)

Why doesn't the world revolve around me? WHY??

Currently weighing up the pros and cons of hitting the hay early. However, I didn't get out of bed til 11:00, so maybe I'll just have to watch Little Britain and Man Stroke Woman (which was a heck of a lot better than I thought it was going to be — think it's the actors -- Nathan Barley and that bloke off of Spaced).

Right, tea-time. Maybe spinach and ricotta will help...

The Old Class

Well, it's a sad day.

Neilo leaves behind Drive, and with it Mr M, Emlyn/Omlyn and Laura.

Recently re-christened "one of the ones who doesn't speak", it feels like he and Mr M have been working together for an age. Still remember when they were doing Early Death™... As well the dubious privelege of sitting in on the odd show or the tail end of an after-show meeting.

So, as a member of the Old Class, he doesn't need my good wishes, but he's getting them anyway.

Best of luck on the next project, Ted. I know you'll make a great success of it. All your colleagues think very highly of you.

The bluffery continues!</CBS>


Eh?



</MG>

R

After a very enjoyable meal out with some really good friends in the old Moloko tonight, I had to head immediately home. �20 was all I had fer the night. I'm really bored of being broke.

Rant ends.

Pest Control

Sometimes it's not that wise having a pesting partner.

LS and I were perusing the interweb lastnight, with the aid of Mr Vodka. Today, I feel rubbish. Generally. Need to sleep once I've dropped the Aussie off for his Big Visit Home...

Off to Heefrow in a few minutes. That'll be lovely. Need coffee also...

Unheard-of for a while...

... but it's an actual late-night blog. Just having a scan around the interweb at this late juncture. All seems quiet, despite the fact that I know people in Hawai'i tonight.

Have they got something better to do than e-mail me??

I doubt it.

Maybe their fingers are broken...

Etc.

Homeblog!

Very exciting... I'm blogging, out of hours, from home!

All thanks to Age's wireless adapter and a hooky wi-fi connection (thanks to the mysterious provider, there!).

Needed a night in and off as much booze as possible, so I'm lying low and surfing a bit.

Wow...

Rate my life

Erm...

My life has been rated:
See what your rating is!
Created by bart666

....Feck. I thought my answers were quite tame, too.

Seriousness Avoidance

Evidently, so much is happening in my life at the moment that I'm avoiding it by talking of such minor things as fish-flavoured chocolate cake.

In brief, I need to update on:

1. The trip to J-land
2. The big J-land possibility (increasingly certain)
3. Neilo's had job news
   
4. Age moves his stuff in today, and is staying at Aggy tonight
5. Eenglish has mooted a drinking night. This scares me. Anyway, he's banned...
   
6. I tidied my room lastnight (well, carried out the first stage of what I think will be a four-stage process)
7. I'm not doing any work today
8. PAL's security shite disabled my shiny new PHP success lastnight (led to some grumpiness)
9. The Cullybackey man is in Hawai'i
10. I've told the Cullybackey man about the J-land thing
11. I still have no mobile contact with the outside world (slowly doing my head in)
12. Think that's it.
    

Fish-cake

I just ate the slice of chocolate cake I bought at lunchtime.

It tasted of fish.

This distresses me.

West Gate to Nanzen-ji

West Gate Nanzen-ji1
Originally uploaded by finassy.

Taken on Thursday morning (J-land time)

Fvcking hell...

Could've been a lot worse

So I'm going to be grateful.

Off to J-land on Sunday, so this could be the last post for about 10 days (or 10 years, if I get marooned à la Lost!). Hoping Kyoto is going to be wicked, although I'm on medication til Thursday, so I'd better get some kick-ass sake that night!

All the hairy!

Good night's sleep = perspective

As ever...

So I now have some measure of what's bad and what isn't. But I have to wait until this afternoon to know how bad the bad is. (Sorry to be so vague, but I should be.)

SO, off to J-land this weekend. Age is driving me out to LHR on Sunday, then I get there on Monday (already a head-fuck). By which time, Neilo will have flown back to LHR from his big Tokyo trip. The rumblings of which were good yesterday. Should send him a note, actually, to see how it's all going...

That is all for now.

Moshi moshi.

In summary... "Fuck".

The nature of this info would be too sensitive to post on the interweb, so I'm not going to. But suffice it to say that it's not good. Could be a million billion times worse, to be fair, but it's not good.

Got told off by a stern lady today. You can imagine how much I enjoyed that...

Llamas of the season

LlamasFromBrit
Originally uploaded by finassy.

One day, back in August or September — summer, anyway — I was sitting outside the Brit with the two lords. And from our of feckin nowhere, these llamas appeared in the car park, being led into a trailer.

Sometimes life is a bit too random...

Oddities of having a house to yourself

One of the things I can do while I've got Aggy all to myself (apart from leave the door open when I'm in the bathroom) is use up all the hot water in the morning.

I now see why herself used to do it</miaow> ? you can have a bath first thing in the morning! Got up at 7:30, and did just that. Thought it might help my progressively more aching muscles (going to kill LS next time I see him... I knew he wasn't a qualified physio...).

(It didn't, you will already have gathered.)

In other news, don't ever try to buy pumpkins in England actually on Hallowe'en. Asked for them in the Sainsbury's near the orifice this morning, and the kid (for such was his age) replied that I was the sixth person to ask for them this morning. As though it were some weird coincidence... I know which shop I won't be going to for Christmas decorations.

Going to have the annual lab Hallowe'en Simpsons Tree House of Horror showing later in the week, I think.

Still don't know what I'm supposed to be doing on Wednesday up at Gower St, but at least I have some background info on the people I might be talking to. Quite scary!

Non-Traditional Parade

NonTraditionalParade
Originally uploaded by finassy.

This front page, from around the twelfth, made me chuckle. I don't think the man with a paddling pool on his head is following a traditional route.

Ow ow ow ow ow!

That'll teach me to try and keep up with a gym enthusiast.

I'd always assumed I didn't have any actual muscles — just bumpy bits of me that seemed to move other bits of me. However, I now know this to be false: I have special hurty muscles which can kick into action within 24 hours of trying to do a tough workout.

Ow.

This morning started off with me unable to fully bend my right elbow. Still a bit tender, but almost doable now. However, scratching my left shoulder blade is something of an engineering challenge which I'm currently solving with a 12-inch ruler.

A much-needed, very good day off

I had something very definite in mind when I went to get the laptop this evening. But now I?ve forgotten it? Frustrating, but not very. I'm sure it'll come back to me?

It's been a good day, actually. Just what I needed — a distraction and to burn off the accumulated stress from this week! And now I'm completely fecked.

I'd offered to give Lord Simon a hand setting up his mobile disco stuff just down the road this morning. Still haven't sorted out my car permit, so I figure that, since I had to move the car early, I may as well get up at the same time as I would do anyway and do something productive.

Mind you, the shape he was in at Age's when I got back to Guildford (from work, at ten) lastnight should have made me think twice about rolling up at his place at 9:30 as planned... We nipped over to the gig site in the shiny new company van, and waited for the keyholders to turn up. Setting up was the usual combo of me occasionally being quite helpful and largely looking useless. Meanwhile, kids asked for bubble and smoke machines LS acquiesced, ostensibly for a quiet life. Made me chuckle.

Anyway, a plan had been fomented in the new van, which entailed us heading fer the gym after the setup. So we dropped the van back at Chez LS, and went to the nearby leisure centre. Where I put up (frankly) an heroic attempt to keep up with his regime (although I'm pretty sure it was toned down a bit for slack idiots like me). And it was quite a bit different to what I'm used to pacing through down the Spectrum. Incidentally, we will never be speaking about my first ever bench-pressing attempt.

Ever.

So anyway, on one of these machines, you need to work out your bodyweight (subtract some kilos, add the number you first thought of, etc.) and it turns out that I'm now a good bit under the 80 kg I was sure I was. 12 stone, to be precise! (According to the magical index calculator, off of the lobby, too). Some folks had told me I'd lost weight recently, but I hadn't quite believed them. I'd put it down to being stressed and — presumably — looking like shite as a consequence. But it turns out they were right. Now all I need to do is lose a bit more, and rearrange what's left into the right places!

And my details? Les voil�:

• Weight: 12 st 0 lb (76.3 kg)
• Height: 5' 9.6" (1.77 m, can do naff all about that, sorry)
• Body mass index: 24.3 (apparently 20 to 25 is ideal, and I know it was at least 26 when I started at Spectrum last September) (kg / m²)
• Ideal weight (for BMI between 20 and 25) is, apparently, between 9 st 12 lb and 12 st 4 lb
• Fat index (percentage by mass, it seems): 21.2 % (better than average, it seems).
• Which, depressingly, means there's 16.1 kg of the stuff, stuffed into my skin.
• Oh, and my body type is "standard". How rude...

All surprisingly positive, though. And I'm now looking forward to a cracking night's sleep!

In other news:

• No digital TV because Seymour?s old Sony box is knackered
• Haven't mentioned the big J-land news.
• Going to J-land for a conference in 8 days ? arghhhhh! (that?s not the big news)
• Monday is much-needed pay day
• Neilo, coincidentally, is off to J-land on Wednesday, after we've had a long-needed liddle drink on Tuesday
• Age and LS have been stars in making sure I'm not too lonely in Aggy
• Had to cancel the long-postponed drink with Mr M again ? R.
• Bernhard was over this week, along with Pascal and Lidia. Was really nice chatting to him. Not only a brilliant physikist, but very self-effacing and easy to chat to.
  

Taking a break

Just to say:
Our on-site travel lady absolutely rocks. She does the nicest things for us, even though some of us — especially me — are so shoddy after our trips abroad.

May have to bring her back something special from J-land.

Back to it, then...

I know it's coming, there's going to be violins

So, at 7:10 am today NiceHousemateLady, of rocky-but-fun-housemate-relationship fame, left Aggy — and me — for good. Hazel did the honours of driving her and P to the Airport, and I dutifully attached a helium USA flag balloon to her unusually light (connection?) monster suitcase and studiously made sure it would pop out in comedy fashion when the boot was opened at Terminal 3. I hope it did, anyway.

Very sad now.

Might've accidentally consumed 2.5 bottles of wine and 5 cans of Fosters between us :o/ (a logistical blunder, but that's never stopped either of us before) So we finished as we started, by having a wicked boozy chat from late evening until 1 am, just like the old days! Was absolutely brilliant :o)

Sniffle...

Lord Simon was a star, again, and sent me a good pick-me-up message just after 10 o'clock this morning. But I'm still dreading going back to Aggy tonight.

Might buy a new telly if funds level out next month. That might help cheer me up!

VERY very successful party on Friday night. Which was crucial, because I really wanted it to be quite warm and fuzzy and fun. And that's exactly how the vibe panned out. The This Is Your Life-style attendee list that Hazel, Fluff and I put together worked really well. Unlike the pi�ata, which took a heck of a beating before it broke at all. Very funny, though. Looking forward to the snaps appearing.

Sniffle...

Say it ain't so...

I can't tell you how much I hope this isn't true:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/england/london/4357914.stm

That's all I can say.

Very exciting!

I'm clearly unfocused this week...

I've just converted over from PINE to Thunderbird. After 7 years of tenaciously holding on to text-mode e-mail clients.

I'll keep hitting CTRL-X to send for months to come, I know. But I've made a change.

Just think — I'll be able to see HTML-formatted mails without having to switch to my browser.

Hi, I'm old.

norn iron wallpaper 2

norn iron wallpaper 2
Originally uploaded by montober80.

Shite stirring of the finest variety.

I like it!

Meddling ends

Finished my tweaking of the new template. Quite like the header, but needs a bit of work on composition.

Ach, who'm I kidding -- I'll leave it like that for ages, then hoke it all into the bin and start again! :o)

Ta....

...daaaa!

New template. I was getting restless.

Now all I have to do is customise. Flickr badge first, then I'll mess up the top image! :o)

Sagrada Fam�lia

SagradaFamilia14
Originally uploaded by finassy.

Neil was not enjoying himself at this altitude. Not even remotely.

Sight-seeing in Barca

Didn't quite work as planned.

On the way up to Tibidabo (for the view) the rain set in. Well, actually, it chucked it down. T-shirt weather, it most certainly was not.

Not even for an Ulsterman.

Delorean!!

On the way in to the lab this afternoon, I passed a Delorean!

An actual Delorean!

It was turning into Newlands Corner, just as I was going past.

Which reminds me that I need to mention J's visit. I'm in posting a load of pictures on Flickr this afternoon, but I'll post tomorrow if I get a chance.

Delorean!! Yay!

Twats

Just heard bad news about Neilo's job.

Idiots.

I know it's partly friend loyalty, but it's more logic. He does the job, but they're not paying him the corresponding (significantly larger) salary. Which smacks of cynicism. Who'd have thought it?

Silence isn't always golden

Just because I haven't posted for a while, it doesn't meant I've been way too busy doing fun stuff. In fact, I've mostly been working. Apart from today, when I'm just doing my occasional start-of-week procrastination. :o)

I'll get back to BBB soon. Promise.

Anyway...

Interesting weekend. I woke up on Saturday — not hungover on account of only getting home the previous night at 11:00 — and opened the curtains, allowing me to see the shitty "yard", as I call the upper patio area. I took a look at the collapsed pile of damp wood which was apparently called "the Wood Store (TM)". I thought about how annoyed it always made me. Then I thought of the axe resting in the shed. I thought about how happy it would make me to take it to the Wood Store. I got up, shifted the Plan B (no new permit yet), and returned to the house determined to enact my happy plan.

After a Weeto-heavy breakfast, I grabbed my parachute club fleece, went out to the yard, and discovered that I'd make a crap axe murderer. Seriously, if there's ever an axe murderer abroad in the Surrey Hills, it's not me. Believe me. I injured my upper back muscles on the first swing, completely missed the first spot I hit on the second swing, and by the third swing I'd just decided to close my eyes in a rubbish gay way, mainly to avoid splinters I'd felt from lodging themselves in my corneas.

The ex-furniture base of the Wood Store shortly lay in pieces, partly throuh axe manoeuvres, partly through me just pulling it to bits when it was obvious my axing wasn't getting me very far. Time for the bin bags. Lots of bin bags... I filled five of them with first the damp wood, then with the general soil/insect aggregate I swept up from where I pulled up the ubiquitous yellow-flowered weed that infested the base of all the outside walls.

Then — and this was the fun part — I broke out the hose. Seriously, I forgot how much fun you can have with a non-euphemistic, actual garden hose. With all the various bits of wood, metal, soil and insect now in bags in the alley, I suddenly had what felt like acres of flagstoned patio, all about to be hosed down and made clean(er).

So, having done that, I phoned home to prove that I, too, can do manly things like working outside in the cold. With a fleece on. And cleaning things. Seriously, you wouldn't believe how chuffed I was with myself. You actually wouldn't, because now it just looks like a boring yard with a wonky brick barbeque and a binful of inexplicable sand. But to me, it looks non-derelict, which is a major plus. Now I just have to do something similar with the rest of the garden. I'll call that Phase 2. Or perhaps Phases 2 to 15...

So, to follow up a plan to go out on Saturday night, I made plans to go out on Saturday night. Miss Mac was provisionally signed up to go, but Jumper was having a house non-party. However, I felt I had a moral right to go to the pub. So I arranged with the Aussie to head for the Brit where we could imbibe and catch up on things like him not going home before 2006...

It was blatantly a Uni Lord's night out in the pub off of the sun umbrelllas. Gap all over the place... One guy had a man-bag... It was all on. Easy on the eye though (G'd bornin). And when Lord Simon turned up to join, the pesting just went to a whole new level... I really need to grow up...

Several drinks later, we headed up the road to the Star (closes at midnight — see what we did, there?). That's where it started to go a bit wrong. LS started doing his usual thing of flirting with the young things. Good craic, but intoxication levels rapidly got very high. Couldn't tell you what I was drinking, as I genuinely don't know. Cards were produced, by-passing the financial limit set on the night. Bugger. Then the Aussie decided to leave at midnight, leaving me in custody of his other half...

Which would explain why I felt rubbish the next morning at 7, when he rang asking where LS was. Passed out on my sofa, I explained. Send him over here, came the voice at the other end. Job done, I returned to my bed to ignore the rest of Sunday a.m.

I'd arranged to meet Lucie for lunch. So at midday, when I woke again, I had a 147 and shower to see how the mood was, decided food was tolerable and not to keep her hanging around for too long. I'd drunkenly suggested Albert Roux as a venue, so we met at House of Fraser at 1:30. I looked like I'd been drinking the previous night, she gently pointed out. I feld like I'd drunk everything possible the previous night, so I felt in retrospect like I was getting away with something! However, I was hungover, and therefore incapable of holding a train of thought. Lucie put up with it, though, and the craic was good, particularly as I slowly sobered up! We left the cafe at twenty to four(!) and as we were descending the impressive array of escalators, I got a call from Mr M to ask about time travel stuff... Was a little random for my head at that time of weekend, but very funny. Although I did feel a little self-conscious talking on my mobile about the fabric of space-time while walking through House of Fraser's suit department.

Anyway, got home, and promptly hid. I'd done a Tesco run the previous day after I'd taken all the Wood Store to the tip (once I'd overshot on the A3, like a good idiot). I hid like I'd not hidden for quite some time. LS decided to do the same at his folks', it appears, while the poor Aussie had to work. Fair play to him!

My axing muscles hurt.

Today, I will be mostly...

...drawing things with pencil and paper.

Using the right-hand rule (remember that one, kids?)

I think...

...we may have had weevils. Either rice or grain. Not sure which. But they seem to be dwindling now, which is nice :o)

Barça becomes Belgium (Part 1)

And who knew that there were TWO "Louvain"s in Belgium??

So, it's been a long time, there. But with good reason!
Barcelona was funny -- and good craic. Some good heart-to-heart drunk chats, starting on the first night (let's not forget the HiThisIsWes bottles of Magners at �2.49 in the Gatwick before we even left!).

Went something along the lines of this:

• Sunday: arrive at hotel, Neil extremely pleased with the central location, then we head for an Irish pub and get ratted#
• Monday: Aquarium, beer in Pla�a de Catalunya, more beer in another Irish bar, bought supplies in the Corte Ingles, then dinner in the Attic (yah yah yah AND HTI Wes in price!), then CASINO! The Spanish like their gambling, it seems. I didn't do quite as well as I'd hoped, but we still got free entry 'cos of where we were staying ? ya-ho!
• Tuesday: Port Aventura! Where we were basically half-cut all day. The morning struck with quite a lot of hangdog, so beers were mandatory as soon as we got to the old train station, there. At about 10 o'clock... However, things picked up en route, and we decided to pay the extra 18 Euro and get the Gold Express armbands which got us past all the other poor folks who were waiting in the slow queues. Tee hee :o) Which also meant that we could get off and then straight back onto the BEST ROLLER COASTER.... EVER! The Dragon Khan is a fantastic thing. I'd heartily recommend it. As my wee sister had to me, as it happens! Anti-craic was in the coming back, though, as the train never arrived. Nor did the one after that. Took us ages to get back home, and Neil ended up asleep on a concrete bench with holes in it. Occasionally piping up to say that the very energetic ten-year-old kid near us was "good craic" :o) When we did get back to Barça, I think we went straight to the room ? via the Supermercado (get me) to get some beers ? and just had a few before calling it a night. I famously declared that it was the first night I would remember going to sleep. I don't remember it.
• Wednesday: was designated tourist day. And not a particularly mirthful start to the morning, either. Everything was off... Everything. But I'd decided we should go to the Sagrada Fam�lia. Neilo is not ? as he reminded me on the extremely high vertical-drop ride at Fort Aventura ? a fan of heights. So he did not enjoy the climb up one of the spires. Or, indeed, really look outside at any stage. I was still half-cut, so the climb didn't bother me much at all. The walk down the steps was much more off-putting, though. Could see feck-all, as it was always darker. The place is bizarre: they say it's basically a building site, but that doesn't do it justice. It's actually a building site! With all the associated noises and smells. There's a feckin wall missing, for crying out loud! Quite windy high up there, too...
  
• (speaking of Wednesdays, I've just been reminded that this is when the lab tests their fire alarms. Brilliant. Glad I woke up at 6:00 a.m. for this)
• Wednesday (continued): So, after the descent with a particularly not-happy-faced Neilo, we decided to attempt some nutrition. Well, Pizza Hutt Express, anyway. One slice each, and that was enough. I don't think it ever sat well until the following 147, but it probably helped settle the chemical chaos that my body was in. Still wasn't even lunchtime, so we went back to the hotel to pick up the trusty Lonely Planet Spain. I fancied a trip up to Tibidabo to get a good look over the city. For this, we had a three-stage journey:
  1. Local train to the north of the city ? was nice to get out of the centre and see some suburban stuff, I initially thought...
  
  
  2. Tram (which we just missed but didn't have to wait long for) up the hill to the Funicular(se) stop
  
  
  3. The Funicularse, as it was renamed. Timetables seemed as scatty as the trains back from Fort Aventura, so we ended up sitting in this really wonky looking carriage for ages until some middle-class English people (Neilo's favourite) and some middle-aged clueless Germans (my favourite) joined us. And eventually, the bored-looking eejit in charge of "driving" the machine came out of the money-collecting booth and into the funicular-driving booth at the front of said contraption.


• Stages 2 & 4 took a while on the way up. But the real dampener ? quite lidderally ? was the feckin rain which set in that day (and didn't ever really leave) (to say nothing of the tornados!). So, the view from the top of Tibidabo consisted of the top of Tibidabo. Where there's another church, which is apparently one church on top of another church. I didn't care. It was dry. Drier, certainly, than the amusement park which people were fleeing in droves... being highly unamused by the torrential rain. (I've some pictures on my now-fecked phone, so I'll see if I can ever get them off it before it dies completely.) So, the sight-seeing was a wash-out. But the journey down was excruciating. When the return funicularse finally got going, we got down to the bottom just in time to not be allowed onto the downward tram, because it was full of people that were fleeing the rain. Much like ourselves. So we waited, just sheltered from the rain, for about 45 minutes, generally shivering and sporadically cursing. The tram eventually arrived, and we stood for some old ladies to have our seats, feeling slightly self-righteous about it...
• When we got back down to base camp, I don't remember exactly what we did, but the fixed point in the plan was the now-legendary Norn Iron vs England game! Not easy to find anywhere showing it, though, as all the Irish pubs were showing the Republic game. All, that is, except one which eagle-eyed Neilo spied from La Rambla as we were heading north along it. Can't quite remember the place's name, but it seemed to be an English pub. I've a receipt from it somewhere... Anyway, I've never laughed so quietly in all my life. The North-African bouncer mentioned there were some seats and a big TV down the back basement, so we sat down beside some German middle-aged tourists who didn't stay for much of the game. Eventually, two girls, a floppy-haired English lad, and a Canadian couple sat around the bend from us and started watching. The girls were clearly Geordie, the couple were Tom (a geophysicist who I geek-bonded with) and Teresa (a PR exec) and were really cool. Teresa was quite taken with the floppy-haired lad, who introduced himself as Alex when NI beat the English, congratulated us, and turned out to be a model living in Chelsea, claiming to have been in Vogue. Possible, but the Geordie girls clearly thought it unlikely. The craic was good for a while, but Alex blatantly fancied himself and was starting to do some heads in, so we decided to move on, sadly abandoning Tom and Teresa.
• Next stop was the girdles hotel, where we waited and Neilo was sure we'd pulled. Wouldn't have been a problem ordinarily, apart from the fact that they were the wrong gender for my interest to be piqued. But they were good craic, and we decamped to the Irish bar off of the first night in Bar�a, for our last night in Barca. Very random, but very good fun.
• Thursday (leaving day): Eurghh.... hangdog special, this one. Eventually managed to get up and packed. Slowly. Left the luggage with the nice man at the hotel, and wandered off to do some shappin and a beer in Pla�a de Catalunya. Well, I would have shapped, except my feckin card wouldn't work in the machines, so I contented myself with enjoying Neilo ordering trainers in Spanish and planning a return shopping trip at some stage. One place had particularly nice t-shirts, and I'm going back. Fact. Then it started pissing it down (rather than just the scattered showers we'd been putting up with since Tibidabo). We just had time to squeeze in a dinner at Pizza Express, with rose wine naturally, before collecting the suitcases, rolling back up to Catalunya and getting a taxi to the airport with a driver who clearly thought he was hilarious. I was in no position to judge</lo siento pero no hablo mucho espa�ol>
• Airport: By now, quite cut again. Well done everyone. The rather fit local fella at the BA check-in desk assured us that, although two tornados had turned two cargo planes round 180 degrees, and given a passenger plane a bit of an upward dunt the previous day, today's thunder, lightning, and torrential rain shouldn't be a problem. Good... We head for the air-side, and Neilo goes off to do some reconciliatory shopping for the missus, disappearing for quite some time, but retrieving beer en route. This only puts off the inevitable five-day compound hangover which is by now gallopping towards us like an over-enthusiastic hound.
• I ask for tea on the plane on the way home. It's that bad.
• Lord Simon, bless his cotton socks, picks me up from the aerophort and we head into town for litterally one drink and bit of a shared perv.
• I go to bed. Desperately thankful to be home.

TBContinued...

Long time ago now...

bridge_far_away____or_small
Originally uploaded by finassy.

...but I decided to put some of Thanassis' Victoria Falls pictures on.

I wish I could take credit for these, but I only digitised them from slide film.

My head's a mess today. Was out with Lord Simon lastnight, while the Aussie and H were doing Body Pump (TM) at the oul' Spectrum. Got about five hours' sleep, then drove the two lords to Heathrow. I've been awake since 4:45. I don't like it.

Drink off tonight, despite earlier plans to do so. Need a quiet night. Possibly cinema tomorrow, ahead of the Barça trip. Feel rubbish.

Holiday!

Bar--seh--LOOOOO-NAAAAAAAAAAAA

Yaaaaaaaaay!

Neilo saw to the flights last week, and now the last piece of the organisational jigsaw is in place. I've just booked the Hotel Rivoli Ramblas in Barcelona. It's official — we're off on holiday!

Cannot

wait.

It's been ages since I had a proper sunshine holiday. The last time I was away was St Paddy's Day, and that was great craic. But I haven't had a sunshine holiday since the last Dewbye trip in 2003! Feck!

But we're right beside Las Ramblas for this and I'm now VERY excited.

Hats off to Lord Newby for giving it the lord seal of approval, too:

"oh come on!!!

anything with the phrases 'gothic quarter' and 'spa with a view' are always
going to get the gay excited!!!"

Ha haa!

That was horrible

Really, Really horrible

I haven't prayed like that in a long, long time. But it worked.

I checked my account balance by phone this morning. I was overdrawn by my net monthly salary. This was bad. I should've been paid. I thought I had been, and that suddenly I was in this situation where I'd have literally nothing for a month. Literally. No rent, no petrol, no groceries, no holiday, no going to this conference, no anything. Terrified.

Absolutely, 100%, thought-of-every-extreme-option, purely and completely terrified.

But thank God it's okay.

The pay is going in a day late.

I've never been so relieved to hear the woman at the bank speak words.

Much to talk about!

Principally the Creamfields trip (absolutely brilliant).

But — very exciting — yesterday, I bought my first plant! It's a yellow prairie fire chilli plant! Like this!



Chilli-watch will continue!! More exclamation marks!!!

We're off

To Barcelona!

Eep.

Neilo knows the place quite well, and speaks the lingo much better than meself. AND it looks like we'll have a go at the old water park! Yeeeees!

This has all put me in a powerful mood. And we're off til the Liverpool fer Creamfields first thing tomorrow.

The holiday weekend is nearly here.

Inverse Snow Day

There's a first time for everything. We've been officially told to go home from work unless we need to be here. Thames Water say there's a problem with the pumping station, and it won't be fixed soon.

So I'm off to rest and recuperate, like I was nearly going to do anyway. Brilliant!

Flash-Bastardising!

Yep, I've finally decided to experiment with the layout of the Blog, change that slightly aggressive picture in the profile, and enable an RSS feed. Just in case anyone actually reads this.

Layout-wise, I've added a Flickr badge above the Recent Posts on the right, so you can see pics like this one:



that normally just get filed away in an anonymous corner of the Internet.

It's not rocket science (thank feck — or I'd be in trouble). But I'm pleased with today's mods.



In other news Barcelona's now looking likely as a holiday destination.

I like it!

Can on the Train

Can on the Train
Originally uploaded by finassy.

Great picture, this. Sums it all up.

Working Late + Pringles in Drawer

Equals Pringles for Tea.

Which probably completely counteracts all the healthy food I ate the rest of the day.

Nadgers.

New toys, feeling old

Sure don't I have a printer...!

The ending of the week with some proper rest has improved the mood no end. I was starting to think of renaming this to MoodBlog, on account of my moody-bastardness recently. I think it was a combination of effects, not least that I wanted some time away from people, but didn't want to miss out or disappoint anyone that I'd committed to. So I slept the sleep of the knackered last Sunday when I got home from the Peaslake barbeque, but that wasn't quite enough. Ended up doing some room-tidying (prompted by Abi's) on Monday night, didn't go to bed early (of course).

Tuesday night, ... dunno what happened then. Late finish, maybe...

Then on Wednesday night I got home late-ish to find a few of the usual suspects gathered in the garden with herself, and a new wood burner. Didn't see that coming, but it managed to consume some of the old Christmas tree we've failed to otherwise dispose of! I called round to Sarah's to see this PC that her other half was getting rid of, which turned out to be a Celeron 650 MHz with 128 MB RAM and a 10 GB drive. And all in a lovely little alumin(i)um case! As if that wasn't enough to get me thinking of wiring up Aggy (and indeed wireless-ing the place up), he gave me a switch, an ADSL modem, a wireless access point (old, he said, but looked suspiciously like the ones we got in the lab in the last year or so ... draw your own conclusions from that).

Thursday was the first chance Neilo and meself had had to meet up in nearly two months, which is almost unheard of for ourselves. We rendezvoused in Ha-Ha's beside Charing Cross, which was a much preferable venue than the station's Old Traditional. Much has happened in the intervening weeks since I went up for Sperm's birthday, with the Aussie in tow. But it all sounds like it's going very well, fair play to him, bringing a dose of sanity to proceedings. After a couple of pints in the Ha-Ha's, and a perfunctory half in the Old Traditional with a dash for some uncustomary Budweiser cans at the Whistlestop, we adjourned to Studio Sloan for the usual Cool Edit-aided craic and some holiday searching. We got very excited by the appearance of Las Vegas near our budgets, but were dejected ... I don't think the word's too strong ... when we realised it was just the flight. Ach well' some other time. (H.S.T. was fired into space yesterday, by the way ... what a star!). In an highly uncharacteristic manoeuvre, I actually went to sleep on the sofa, too, rather than passing out on it! I wasn't sure what that meant.

Friday, then, was begun at approximately 5am. I think this was due in no small part to the lack of a serious hangover, which meant I didn't sleep as usual through the early-morning Charlton traffic. (That's what going-to-sleep-not-passing-out means, Dave...)

There was an unusually organised (i.e. financially driven) plan in all this, too. I had to go back to Wimbledon with the proof-of-address they needed fer-te re-tax the Plan B. So I stopped off en route back to Guildford. Spent what felt like an hour in the Post Office once I'd managed to locate one, thanks to the surprisingly Munster-accented community support policeman. Got back to the house at lunchtime, feeling like death. Too little sleep on the sofa meant the accumulated lack of sleep of the last few weeks wanted instant revenge on me. I wanted to acquiesce, but then herself decided she wanted this month's bills now. Feck. To make matters volatile, she also asked for next month's in advance. I freely admit to being in the wrong about not paying up at the start of the month, but I sent back a terse message saying I'd spent my last at the DVLA, but why did she want my money ahead of time as well? Wrong question, Dave.

Am I missing something? Did you pay me the money, etc. And don't you owe me three months now.

I apologised instantly, then realised the last part didn't make any sense. I'd paid her the previous two months (at about �70 extra expense to meself, which I thought was churlish to mention given my generally obvious guilt, not to mention the fractiousness of things). I'd already said I'd pay for her JPD viva meal on the old cheque book as part-payment, but she seemed a bit surprised about the already-paid bills. I panicked, thinking — as I do by default, and I need to sort that attitude out — that I was actually in the wrong, and doubted myself furiously. This would be not-good. However, for once the bank statement said something in my favour, as I thought I had read before. The cheques had cleared when I'd posted them to the bank, so all was well on that blame-diminution score.

It's weird. Well maybe "weird" really isn't the word. But I've never been close to cracking before. I mean, not that close. I spent a large portion of Friday really scared; I don't mind saying that now I've had a chance to step back and breathe. So little money, so many things committed to, so little energy... that was how it felt in my head. With the commitments removed from that vicious triangle, and no-one around today, I feel like I've got some control back.

Shit. Maybe I should've renamed this BreakdownBlog instead...?

In the midst of it, though, I was pissed off that Dr B was persisting in his plan to visit, despite my gentle warnings that I was not in the form to entertain. And I was even more pissed off that he didn't let me know whether he was planning on staying here. So I stayed awake when I should've gone to sleep. Then he turned up about six-ish, stayed fer an hour or so, then left me to the restaurant, so I forgave him :) So, I went to JPD's meal, where it was nice to get out of the house, even though herself was still there, and I didn't know what her state of mind was. Mind you, if I'm honest, I never do. Unless we're pished, naturally. But she was lovely in public, as always, bless'er.

I stayed out for the meal, enjoyed it immensely, caught up with a few of the people I class as proper friends in Guildford, felt a little odd at us being at a separate table from AndyYou'reAStar and that party, but overall it was great craic. They then headed for the TUP, where I made my excuses and left them to get on with the dhrinking.

Then I got home. I stayed on the sofa for half an hour, just because I could. Then went upstairs, resolving to set no alarms, switch the phone to "I'm asleep", and sleep the sleep of the knackered. Again.

Yesterday was spent a lot more sanely. Borrowed the old wheels to nip to Tesco's, got the last groceries of the month (off to Creamfields next weekend, so that shortened the week). And sorted out the sink a bit, with the aid of some new chemicals and equipment. Dr B called round, as he said he would, in the evening. So we had a bit of a look around at FreeBSD on the new machine, as he came in JUST as I was about to put SuSE 8.2 on it. And then, seeing that I was falling asleep in conversation, he said he'd make his way to Gomshall — Peaslake, I presume. For which I was incredibly grateful.

So today, with the exception of picking up the Plan B from holiday camp and getting the paper, I've stayed inside the confines of Aggy. Determined to take it easy and talk to no-one unless I make the call. It's been Fan Tastic. I like it.

I'll be honest: this week, I've been scared that I'm turning into any one of three members of my family, each of whom has not been known for their gregariousness or general mental well-being. I hope I'm not. But it has made me think about what I'm doing here in Surrey. I'm not saving any money, and my job seems to be bifurcating, rather than being well defined. With herself saying how many grand she reckons it'll take to move across the pond, I think it's only realistic that I start thinking about getting a better paid job and/or somewhere cheaper. Plus get on top of how I spend. But I'm fairly sure now that I've got to leave for my own sanity. Shame. I was just getting used to the place...

Demon days, Damon nights

I'm really fecked off with August. Or rather, the situation I'm definitely in until August ends. Flat broke (again) + exhausted all the time (actually, that's beginning to worry me a bit) = no craic + haven't the energy to go out even if I had the means.

Feck.

However, I'm feeling like less of a freak on the exhaustion front. If only because the Aussie and even — EVEN — Lord Simon have also complained about wanting to fall asleep at the drop of a hat. I think someone's coming in in the middle of the night and stealing my energy.

Okay, that's grasping at straws and doesn't make a lick of sense. Not least if you're in my line of work...

But lastnight I had a dream with Matt Damon in it. This made me happy. Much happier than the previous night's dream about a green wasp which was chasing me. And which everyone said I should let sting me, because — even though it'd hurt like a bastard — it had several antibodies (or something) in the sting which would eventually do me more good than harm. I did not succumb to their logic, and was convinced I could hear buzzing in my ear for a good five minutes after I woke up. Mind you, lastnight's dream did end in me being pulled over by the police in America. Only for me to realise that someone else had left their (flapjack-shaped!) block of blow in my car. How happy was I when the dog seemed more interested in something innocent on the back seat! The suspense was still in full swing when the alarm went off.

I'm thinking I'll take Saturday off completely. Unless Dr Buxey calls round...

"Hard to believe, eh?"

BridgerJason
Originally uploaded by finassy.

Almost a year since Mr Bridger (left) became Dr Bridger (night of this photo). Now Mr D (right) is on the final approach to Doctorland himself. Good luck, fella!

Underslept life

I pretty much collapsed on contact with the bed on Sunday afternoon at 2:30pm. Thereby completely missing return drinks for young Hazel.

However, it was the culmination of two weeks of not getting enough rest. Even Friday, as I said, was unintentional. Meant to go home early. Result? Left here at 10:30pm.

Just haven't been getting enough kip. End of.

So I didn't get up until 7:30 yesterday. And would gladly have stayed in bed all day today, but the dreaded work ethic kicked in and I decided to go in and work on various bits'n'pieces. Lastnight involved some room-tidying. Then not enough sleep. I'm basically seceding from the world of social life until I feel like non-shite. Can't wait...

One BBQ down, one to go

Ended up staying around til 10:30 lastnight, and the craic was good. Even managed to see the student flats for the first time! Aussie Steve-o was in charge of the fire supervision, of course. Very funny :)

Got to bed about an hour later and slept. A lot. Which is great.

Anyway, because my stuff ended up being locked in the orifice lastnight, I've just popped in to pick up my work bag, wallet, etc. Then back home for a couple of more hours' sleep :) Can't wait to get the car permits and all sorted out, then I can sleep AAAAAALLLLLL weekend sometime soon.

Mind you, Creamfields is in two weeks! Must look into train times for that...

It started with a fugitive particle physicist...

I'll be honest — this last week has been absolutely knackering. And it's not over yet.

I just popped into Cranners for some supplies, though, for a bit of a break. Ironically, I'm now bored, but can't go home: AndyYou'reAStar is organising a surprise BBQ for his summer girlfriend, so I thought I'd pick up some BBQ food. Think we're getting going about 6:30. CPG and the missus are coming along, too, which'll be really nice as I've not seen them for ages.

So, it all started this day last week, the day after the visit to the Lord Bar. Or, at least, it was supposed to. Dr Collins is on the run from his post in Sweden. Okay, "on the run" is a bit dramatic :) but he was in Argentina and Brazil for a few weeks after we were both last in the 'Fast. Then he was planning to stop here en route to France (but that all changed for reasons I won't go into here -- get well, Mrs Corr, though).

Anyway, last Thursday I was waiting all day for a call from him to tell me when I could pick him up from Heathrow, but he changed his mind and went to stay with the Italian GF. I heard nothing from him Saturday, when arranged to meet up with himself and herself at 2pm in a cavernous pub by the Watherloo. I hadn't been on the beers the night before, which is always a blunder when a London session is arranged, as it means I haven't innoculated my system. But anyway, the craic was good. Two of herself's friends turned up and we mosied on around to a couple of places near and on the Strand and then — with blind inevitability — to Waxy's. The lights were going out by that stage (about 11:30 pm) so we headed back to the Watherloo and I got my nice slow train home to Gilferd.

On Sunday morning, I looked at my wallet with some dismay. As always happens after a London seshun. So I was in two minds about going up to meet G'n'V. But when Dr Collins sent a text to come up because Mr Castles was en route, I couldn't in good conscience say no :)

This time, the meeting point was Westminster. I've never been to Westminster, but Dr C is a history geek, so it fitted... And I didn't know whereabouts the Tube spat you out. Needn't have worried. Taking the Houses of Parliament exit throws you out immediately beneath Big Ben. No mistaking it at all. We wandered back to Waterloo to meet Mr Castles — in my case for the first time — and rendezvous-ed with him at Bonaparte's, where he promptly threw back the remaining beer in the glass and we mosied on to the pub by the Globe. Can never remember its name, that one... Anyway, we basically stayed there from about 4:30 til chucking out time, and had a very quite civilised afternoon! Good craic, that Mr Castles.

So, I went home, and we'd already arranged for G'n'V to come and stay in Aggy because of their slightly cramped conditions, at least as long as Dr C was around. I'd had a wasted trip to Wimbledon DVLA because that silly little girl (who couldn't speak) at the DVLA call centre (yeah, she was at a call centre and couldn't speak clearly, getting annoyed with me — and I can understand all Welsh accents) (breath, Dave) hadn't told me about the last thing I needed to bring to change the Plan B over to a British log book. I was already pissed off. When they came down on Monday night, they found me stressed because I was about to go on local radio to talk about the Shuttle.

I do not study the Shuttle.

Spaceflight became my favourite site within seconds, and I raced home to get to town and pick up a Wanadoo CD before the shops closed (yeah, no internet connection at home). Anyway, we went to Café Rouge for a bite to eat, then back to the Hice to let them settle in, head fer bed, and let me do a bit of emergency reading-up. Up with the dawn at 5 am. More cramming. Then rang to see if I could park and thereby save myself ten minutes' walk (i.e. have ten minutes more cramming). I felt like I was about to do an exam in something I knew very little about...</far from the truth?>

It went remarkably well. So well, in fact, that when I rang up to ask for a tape of my stint, they askeed me to commentate on the landing. That went with... measured success, owing to NASA TV disappearing from my screen just 90 seconds before the Shuttle landed. Feck. Still, the Old Class was on... :)

Back home early, I kipped for an hour and a half to top up on the sleep I hadn't really been getting since before the last post. Met themselves in the Brit, gave Lucie a ring to see how she'd got on on National TV, and then rang Age to see if he wanted to join us in a drink. Plus, I was feeling a little out-numbered. He came down when we were quiz-machining, and was a star. Nice night, actually. We headed home before chucking out time, I seem to remember. (Was actually really drunk pretty much every night, owing to lack of sleep and food mostly.)

Wednesday started off with a chat at work to the Old HOD about a new project that I'd postponed after the previous day's sleepiness. Then the Funny German came down to talk at great length about the semantics of all the wording in the poster. Still, even though it was knackering, it was useful.

Anyway, I was feeling really really run-down at this stage. So when I went home, I ate before meeting the two of them inside in the White House. The Aussie was in the neighbourhood and called in — feeling really awkward, he later said, because he thought he'd intruded. I was glad he showed up, though, because he'd lifted herself's mood the previous day, and was suffering a reaction to a pastie, so she was even lower. His police mates turned up, too, and the policelady was on good form. I even learned a bit more about The Cricket... Which'll probably leak from my head after a while, like all pretend-sport information :)

We didn't stay. Dr C had sorted out a flight to Oireland, by the way. Instead, we left Age and we headed home fer a pizza and some gin. Very serious conversations were had. By feck, Italians can talk. I have noticed this. And himself fell asleep. I packed it in about 1:30am.

I dropped them off at the station the next morning, thinking that — although one of my best mates had been around for five days — I never got to have a decent conversation with him...

Anyway, a few notes on lastnight. The Aussie called round with a Chinese and big bottles of beer, and I fired up Lost from the previous night — very good by the way — with smatterings of Big Brother Craig's eviction in between. Was just about the most I could managed lastnight. Packed it in, didn't sleep great, woke up wondering what the best course of action would be (feign illness? go in for a few hours? ...sleep in car?? Dismissed that thought easily), then got up at 7:45 and fished around in my hastily discarded jeans for my phone. Found it. With a stunningly abusive message from Lord Simon's number! I got really worried. He gets lairy when drunk, but never nasty. It was sent at 4:56 am. Weird, I thought, because he always gets up around that time... So I texted back "Er... what? :o)", but the message didn't arrive. Then tried ringing him back instead to ask if he was in a bad mood (either because he was drunk at that hour or because he'd had to get up). Straight to answer-phone. Weird. Tried him again after I rang Neilo from outside the orifice. Number not in service.

Answer?

He'd got really drunk and lost his phone. Someone obviously half-inched it and decided to go through the inbox. And they're not a fan of lords, whoever they are. The message made that abundantly clear.

But today's been a weird one after all the overexposure to people. After a chat with the boss, I decided I'd better clear up how to edit and create pages on the group webshite. That took about most of the morning to write (never overestimate people's knowledge). Then did some poster tinkering, unenthusiastically (conferences must die). The lab's been nearly dead all day. Neilo's been posting grumpy texts from Wales</no change there, then>... But folks are hanging around now for the BBQ. Food cooking's starting in about 45 mins. Mmmmm... sausages...

Off of the Isle of Wight

I like these pics. Cheers to the Eenglish for them. What a service!

Return of the evening

SO...

after three twelve/thirteen hour days, and a full day at work yesterday, my brain gave up all hope of interpreting words, and I went home to pay the Aussie a visit for dinner. After a brief sojourn to Tesco's, he cooked lamb. Niiiiice. I never have lamb unless I'm at home-home! :)

Half a bottle of Pinot down each, he suggests that — as there's not really anyone else around — we pay a visit to Gilferd's lord bar. The immortal words "fuck it" sprang instantly to mind... so we did.

Bit of a random evening, actually. I wasn't in the mood for getting drunk originally, but half a bottle of white wine went down exceedingly well. Much more easily than the food, although that was really nice.

But here's the weirdest thing. Eenglish, when he was round at the Aussie's on Wednesday night, said the new tenant was 9.5 on the scale. Vee nice. But later that evening, he texted to say that he hadn't been made aware that Age was gay, and that he wouldn't be moving in now because of it. Even though he seemed "really cool". Brilliant.

Admittedly, I was disappointed that I didn't get to see the guy wandering through the living room in a towel... bad dave... but that wasn't actually what had me reeling. What made me quite speechless was the mixture of self-justification and homophobia. The guy was apparently 23 and a design graduate, with a girlfriend in Hampshire. Now, if he's managed to get through life so far without any gaylord friends or colleagues, I'll be amazed. So how did he think that what he was writing was going to help? So when the Aussie's landlord came round with a prospective new tenant (female this time), he introduced her as "not homophobic(!)".

I think it knocked me a bit sideways — the fact that there were people younger than me in professional careers with that attitude — because I've had an almost uniformly good experience since I came out. At least, if many people have changed their attitude to me, I don't know about it, so I'm in blissful ignorance... Maybe it's my first brush with real life, or the experiences you read about occasionally from very angry people in the lord mags... It's just left me feeling a bit odd, and bad for Age, too, that he feels that he might have to declare his leanings to all new housemates.

Years ago, when I worked in that restaurant, the owner mentioned that the other waiter was gay. This was eight years ago, in a corner of the country which is not known for its liberal views on poofs, but I still felt surprised that she'd felt the need to mention it. So perhaps that's why I feel it's so strange that in this opposite corner, which isn't exactly bible-belt, someone had such strong feelings...

Anyway, maybe I should end on some happy notes.
First, I got the car MOT'd (though not all sorted out), thanks to those absolute stars in Cranners.
Second, this lord pub was actually alright lastnight. Much to our surprise. We stayed for three drinks, which always means a place can't be that bad. Then back to the Aussie's for a beer and — randomly — a Southern Comfort and coke. Until about 1:30 am.

Then I went back and stared at the Geordie totty on Big Brother for five minutes before I realised I was pissed and needed sleep.

It's only bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey Friday.

Promotion du jour...

Well, I was going to start today's posting with chat about the Isle of Wight working holiday trip that myself and Lord Simon embarked on Friday. And I will later, if only because he very kindly span all his photos onto CD for me yesterday afternoon.

Harever....

After months of us joking about another promotion for my recently-former line manager, she's actually got another one. This time to deputy. Which means that when our new glorious leader is away, she'll be in charge. I'm stunned at the speed she's climbed the ladder. Frankly, if I were in her shoes, I wouldn't be in her shoes at all. I'd have given them back and asked for a size that fits me, and then held back from the admin duties aplenty until absolutely necessary.

But that's just me.

From my position to deputy top-dog in the space of six years! Feck... The e-mail only came round this morning (when I was still in Aggy enjoying a leisurely morning before a lift from Lucie), so the various "reaction" conversations are still being had. I'm reeling a little, but it's not completely unexpected. Our new glorious leads takes over today, so he's left a power vacuum which needed to be filled. I'd just like to know what the power structure is. They obviously do, but our old "organogram" </careful now> needs updating by an almost comedy amount...

Hmmm....

Don't want to {insert chore here}

Yeah, it's going to be one of those nights. After being one of those days, actually.

However, good stuff to concentrate on:

1. BenOffOfTheStudent texted me out of the blue this morning. He's around, working in an offy in town, and him and Ollie the Usual Suspect are sorted with a flat. He was asking if I was around for drinks and apologised for disappearing for a while. Good to know he's back on the scene!
   
2. I paid off the canteen bill and...
   
3. I had my last canteen meal under the iron regime of Big M.
4. Hurrah!

So that's the upside. Now I have to:

1. Sort out my laundry, as I'm off with Eenglish to the Isle of Wight on Friday morning (vee early), and heading with himself and the Immigrant to the Chinese Buffet tomorrow night
2. Really sort out my laundry, because NiceHousemateLady is back from France. Tomorrow. And will have a mountain of dirty clothes in tow
3. Do the washing up, because she's back and I'm trying to keep the place under control
4. Do some shopping and fuel-buying on the way home. Have no food apart from cereal, and that's bad nutrition, maaan.

Still, last day of the week tomorrow! And it's Hilary's last day before she's off for the bairn. Hard to believe...

All the hairy!

Kink in press

It's out. Finally. The paper that's occupied pretty much all of my time since the middle of last November finally has an issue and page number that I can reference! So grateful that it's done! They've fibbed a bit and said it was published on 22nd July, too, but I know better.... :o)

Anyway, with that out of the way, it only remains to get the poster done so the TT can take it to Lindau, and I can then recycle it for Leuven.

Speaking of which, the No Stella rule was broken on Saturday, when we were celebrating the successful — and remarkably quicker — move of Mr Bridger's stuff to the new flat in... the Gilferd! Hurrah! Mind you, the way I was feeling yesterday morning, I wouldn't have fancied helping his Ceri move all her stuff too. Anti-craic in that!

So I woke up on the sofa instead. To The Hits TV, playing tracks from their Mobile Disco Classics Weekend. A-Ha!'s Take On Me was the first one I was even remotely awake for. Too much stuff going on in that video for a hungover person to take in. Feckin Stella and white wine...

Bag for the bag, dear?

I finally cracked and decided to take away the phenomenal stash of carrier bags that's been accumulating in Aggy for... probably about half a decade. We now have only one huge bag full of bags. Hooray for the Tescos recycling area.

It was the end of a campaign to get the washing up properly done for the first time in weeks. DrAbi's not been around much, and I was away for a week. So nothing got done. I got about 90% of it done, but fell at the cutlery hurdle (I was in serious need of tea and Big Brother-watching). And I thought I ought to do something to alleviate the tension of the unpaid bills money. Feck. I really wish she hadn't presented me with that bill so long after pay-day, but I'm still in the wrong, so what can I say? Sent the cheques off today by special delivery. Hope they clear soon...

In other nooze... dunno. I'm completely skint, but still haven't gone back to the gym. Think that could be the plan tonight. Anything that stops us sharing the living room, to be honest. Herself has been weird enough at the best of times recently, but she's only really pleasant around other people (yeah, I know, I saw this coming over a year ago).

Perfunctory note

It took me just as long to get back from Augher lastnight as it did the last time.

And this time I flew.

Too knackered to fill in the details, but details will be in-filled soon. Just as soon as I can concentr....

Upside-down

It's now been four days since London got bombed in pretty horrific style. And the day was just surreal from beginning to end.

I started off unaware that anything was happening. Drove into town (parking restriction bollox) for a hurcut, and was cheerfully getting it washed, massaged and chopped while a phonecall tried to come through. I wasn't in a position to answer it, but texted Si back when I heard his voicemail. He was looking for Emma's number, but — having only met her twice of an evening — I didn't have it. I didn't understand the urgency at the time. Then I read Neil's text:

Feck. Seen the news? (09:52)

"No. Why....?"

(He's not in the habit of asking that question in a light-hearted fashion)

Explosions on the tube, he says. I wanted to get Mum something for her & Dad's 30th, so I wandered on down to the first jeweller's I could find. I asked them. They'd heard there might've been a power surge (TferL's first story, I think), and that it sounded pretty bad. I move on down to Earnest Jones and find a nice little necklace with some diamonds in it, buying it. At this stage, my head's a bit confused. I try ringing Simon again (it's now 10:30), and get through. He tells me what's happened, and that he's looking for Emma's number because a) he can't get through to Adrian and b) he remembered that Emma works near Liverpool Street. I tell him I've not got the number, but good luck. Feck.

Jewellery bought, but in need of a slash I'm en route to the shopping centre, then race back up to get the car before its ticket runs out. Just in time. I get home.

The inevitable traffic blockage in central London will only take a matter of time to spill out onto the radial roads, then the M25. I'm unsure whether I've got time for the breakfast I need, but decide I really DO need breakfast. And I really DO need to call everyone I can think of to see they're okay. Problem is, everyone else has got the same idea (apart from breakfast). None of the mobile networks gets me through. Sperm's the only person I have an office number. Reception puts me through... to his feckin voicemail! And I don't have Chris's surname, so I can't see if he's okay... Arse. Neil's number was the first I'd tried, but unsuccessfully.

In the midst of all this, about 11:30 (I want to leave at noon), the big Aussie rings me crying. He can't get through to Simon. Simon works in London. Not good. But I'm able to tell him he's okay, 'cos I spoke to him after all the blasts (I hope they're over, I think to myself) have happened. He says he'll try to ring Haze, and I try to get through to the Big Fraser in the City. Eventually, I twig about the mobile networks and text himself to say that that's the reason we can't get through. I get through to Fraser. He's grand. And do I contact Age to tell him? Do I bollox. I'm in bit of a spin by this stage, so I'm not thinking. But I feel a right shit afterwards...

Anyway, at 12:30 I finally get on the road. A25 or M25... tricky. I've got to get to north-east Kent, so the M25 is the logical one, but the A25 mightn't suffer so much from the London butterly-wing effect. In the end I stay on the smaller one until Gatwick, then head north onto the M25. All's going okay (decent speed, if you get me) until I miss the junction for the M20. Which I really REALLY shouldn't have done.

They've closed the way across the estuary, and the queue back along the M25 is enormous. FUCK-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck.... You get the general emotion. It's an inarticulate expression of the phrase "I'm going to miss my flight". Not a happy face. In the mire, I text Chris to see if he and Sperm are okay. All is well. He even apologises for not being there on Friday night. (That's another blog entry in itself.)

However, I'm smiled upon. Because although I spend most of an hour crawling along the outside lane of a four-lane motorway, when I get off it, I'm flying along.

But best of all, when I get to the airport (and it is tiny), and park the car, I've about 30 seconds' walk to the terminal, and about 30 seconds before I'm all checked in!

It's 15:10, and I haven't been so relieved in ages.

There is no bar. Time for some brief phonecalls (low battery) and then a coffee.