flanerie.org

From Verity

And she loves it.

Only half days at the moment, with the rest of the day spent in the nursery. The nursery that she once loved but is now 'rubbish' because school is so much better.

Tomorrow morning I am going to quit my current temporary job and in ten days time I will go to Canada to start a new one.

Initially it is for four weeks, but it could become a permanent gig, in which case wife and child will need to pack their cases and join me.

It will be based in Toronto. I have visited Toronto twice, the first time for one and a half days and the second for three days. Barely enough time to get over five hours of jetlag. Actually, the first time I flew there from Tel Aviv, so it was seven hours of jetlag and I was in such a state I couldn't find my own nipples with a satnav.

This time I can acclimatise and should get a chance to be a tourist as well as a corporate ninja.

Exciting times.

Aged 4 years, 3 months

"I've got good news and bad news.

"The bad news is that Michael Jackson is dead.

"The good news is that we can still listen to his music."

Grandad completed his final ascent of Great Gable last week. Above is the photo, below is the route. Shyt weather.

You need to zoom out the map a few times to see it - Google Maps is a little off beam.

View Great Gable in a larger map

We have sponsored an African child through the charity Plan International.

We haven't really sponsored a child, of course, since sponsorship is just a money-raising gimmick, but it is a smart gimmick and we are using it to give Verity an appreciation of those who don't have the same feather-downed gilt-edged fully-loaded childhood that she is experiencing.

So, we have sponsored Kaligueta from Burkina Faso. She is four years old, although in the photo of her and her mum, she is up to her mum's shoulder, which would make her mum a hobbit, or Kaligueta a future WNBA player.

No matter. Kaligueta walks a kilometre to get water and food is not plentiful. It is a tough life and the average life expectancy is just 53 years.

We explained this to Verity. She was puzzled that people might not have enough food. Not enough food, not enough money to buy food, we said. Oh, she said, so they have to eat in restaurants?

The tour of British racecourses has arrived in Carlisle, a half-decent town in the far north.

They like a drink in Carlisle and, in order to discourage this, the entire pub and brewing industry was nationalised in 1916, and only returned to the private sector in 1971. Along with state ownership, which was expected to reduce sales of beer due to disincentivised salaried managers, the buying of rounds was also outlawed.

None of this has any relevance to the racing, but I think it is an interesting story.

Anyway, Carlisle Racecourse is pretty good. They were holding a family fun day, which is the only way I can get the wunderkind to enjoy a day of turf action. I am becoming something of an expert on horse racing family fun days, and Carlisle gave a good account of themselves with the inclusion, alongside the bog-standard bouncy castle and face painting, of a petting zoo. And free chocolate. Genius.

I couldn't pick a winner in a one horse race, but Sally managed to preserve Verity's inheritance with a tidy win in the last.

This is the 'golden mile'. It wasn't very golden when I was there, but it did look quite long. Possibly a mile long.

From Blackpool

Blackpool definitely looks better in black and white. In colour everything looked faded and grim. Monochrome hides that.

Perhaps this is a metaphor for Blackpool's status as yesterday's town.

A fox got the chickens last night.

May Shadow and Yoda pok for evermore in a heavenly garden.

After five months of funemployment, I have a job, albeit a temporary one.

Sadly it involves being in Blackpool three days a week, but needs must and I am staying in Preston to maintain my sanity as we head into the tourist season.

The job itself is running a small eCommerce business, and is hectic, as I am trying to do everything at once, but enjoyable. The contract is for three months.

Verity is impressed that I am visiting the seaside every week, and I have promised to take her one weekend.

Eleven down, forty-nine to go in the racecourse tour of Britain.

Today we visited Kempton Park and I managed one win from six races, which for me is something of a betting coup.

Verity was enterained by a magician, a balloon-modeller and a face-painter, so it was all good.

A bit of sunshine would have been nice.

From Chickens

The chickens now have names, Shadow and Yoda, after I wrestled naming-rights from Verity. She wanted to call them Pecker and Layer, which is as good an example as any as to why children should never ever be allowed to name pets.

We felt guilty about their pokey run, so have allowed them to free-range during the day. The garden has not been completely trashed yet, although they are remodelling the borders.

Yoda is particularly adept at de-housing snails and the lawn has become a snail graveyard. What I wasn't quite prepared for was the amount of poo. Chickens create an improbably quantity and clearing it up is a daily chore.

Otherwise all is good in Chickenland. They put themselves to bed at night so I only have to raise the drawbridge to keep the local foxes at bay.

Mork only chases them occasionally and only then for fun. Egg production is like clockwork. Two eggs every day. Shadow lays at 8am and Yoda at 11am. I am not sure whether they agreed a rota between themselves or just have different body clocks.

...and here they are, currently named 'the black one' and 'the white one'

From Chickens

They arrived yesterday evening and have already started earning their keep with a brace of eggs this morning. We plan to hire the boy next door for daily food and water duties and weekly mucking out.

The white one made a bid for freedom yesterday but today they have been well behaved although there was a bid too much pokking this morning.

Mork has been harassing them and managed to chase one for a full lap of the garden last night. Today, after a couple of slaps on the arse, she has been leaving them alone so hopefully peaceful cohabitation is the future.

It was my birthday last week and my present is two egg-laying chickens!

The chicken house is still being built but it should be delivered next weekend and then we can collect Hen 1 and Hen 2 and introduce them to their new home.

I'm not sure what the cat will make of it, but Verity is stoked.

And three weeks later, here are the photos:

Another excuse for dressing up at pre-school.

Today we are Pocahontas.

From Verity

Tomorrow we get married.

My (very) long-term mission to visit the 60 racecourses in Britain (soon to be 61) arrived in Chepstow at the weekend.

It was a good day's racing and, although I didn't win a bean, I came very close on a couple of lucrative bets. Sally won a few small bets and Verity cheered everyone on.

Hopefully I will get to York this year.

I confess that world book day would have completely passed me by, but thankfully the school is slightly more on the ball with a 'dress up as your favourite character' day.

Verity chose to be Angelina Ballerina, a simpering mouse that really grates after the first couple of hundred readings.

From Verity

I am not sure what I would choose. Presumably it should be vaguely recognisable, so I would probably end up choosing Long John Silver so I get some practice in for International Talk Like A Pirate Day (19th September, mark you diaries.)

We have finally set a date! We will get married in March (the village in Cambridgeshire) in March (the month in 2009). This is nicely symmetrical.

Due to the need for witnesses, mothers and escorts have been invited. I did ask the registrar if we would be okay to recruit people on the street as witnesses, and apparently this is okay. The catch is that March is home to a maximum security prison, so a random witness could be a randomly escaping murderer, or visiting high-class family member.

So, mothers it is.

At some point in May or June, ...or July or 2010, this will be followed by a semi-formal lunch for all the family. Including ex-step-parents we have ten parents between us so name badges and guide books might be in order.

I have a couple of interviews at the end of this month, one for Managing Director, one for Finance Director, both for mail order companies. Both would involve relocating, but to nice areas, so that's okay.

Meanwhile I have been working on a business plan for an internet retail business that I am thinking of starting. It would mean living off thin air for a year, but if it worked would provide a tidy profit after that. I need to figure out how brave I am.

I am also touting around for consulting work and have one lead which might turn into a few days' work in York.

Add in the twice-daily walk to school and I am rather busy. Time is zipping by and it seems a bit weird that I have been unemployed for six weeks already.

Our week in Egypt was great - plenty of sun, without being scorching, great hotel, a bit of sailing, a little snorkelling and lots of entertainment for Verity.

From Egypt 2009

She now wants to live there permanently and my detailed explanations of the relationships between work, money and holidays have failed to make an impact. She still thinks I have a job too since I use my job as the cornerstone of my case each morning that she needs to go to school!

From Egypt 2009

2. Drink less alcohol
3. Drink more water
4. Get a job
5. Banish the belly

The cold weather has finally got to us, and we are heading to Egypt tomorrow for a week of sun and sail.

Back in action on the 19th.

1. Keep this blog up to date

Sometime between now and Christmas I will be made redundant. My 'southern' staff of 9 will be laid off in January, while my 'northern' team of 8 will be unaffected.

Which is a bummer, although not the biggest surprise of the year.

In January I will be 'spending more time with my family' and then hopefully I will find a job before my pay-off runs out.

On the bright side, all five of our mortgages are base rate trackers, so the last two months have made a huge difference to our finances. No need for food parcels just yet.

The muslim wedding is still on and the plans have not changed for more than a week, so I reckon they are fixed.

Bride's day, at our house, on Sunday 21st December. By then we will have a Christmas tree and Minnie the Christmas dog, just to make sure we have minimal space to squeeze 100 people into.

Groom's stuff, at a hotel, on the evening of Monday 22nd December.

I have to wear a regular suit (my interviews, weddings & funerals suit) to one day and my funky asian suit to the other but I am not sure which order.

We are borrowing a dog for Christmas - Minnie the black Labrador. Her owners are going on holiday and were looking for a cheap billet. She will be with us from 20th to 27th December.

Verity is beside herself with excitement.

On Christmas Day Upton the yellow Labrador will be joining us for a festive wagathon. I don't fancy the chances of the Christmas tree, but at least we won't need to vacuum the kitchen after dinner.

Mork is pissed.

I knew this would get complicated.

The new plan is that there are three separate events. One for the groom, one for the bride and then some mosque action.

In the absence of a reliable family, we are hosting part of the bride's day. Around 100 people will gather in our front room, the groom will sit on a ceremonial chair, then the bride will glide down the grand stair case, sit in the chair next to him and everyone will take pictures.

Then everyone goes off to a hall for a proper knees-up.

If we were playing sardines, we could probably get 100 people in our front room, but any photo shoot is going to require the removal of an external wall. And we don't have a grand stair case. No matter, we will manage it some.

So far we have arranged to borrow a modest marquee, for our modest garden, hire a couple of waitresses and bought lots of pop from Asda - the good thing about muslim weddings is the low drinks bill.

This was all set for next Sunday, but the date is now moving again due to it being an unlucky date.

Meanwhile I have bought my fancy embroidered suit, a tasteful cream and pink affair. Pics to follow.

Verity was in Pizza Express last week with her friend Lucy. Verity is three and a half, Lucy is three. Innocent angels both and at the perfect age for Santa and Christmas nonsense.

I should add that they were accompanied, although I wouldn't be massively surprised if Verity wandered off to Oxfam on her own and came back with a new second-hand bear.

Now, just to recap those ages - three and a half, and three.

Lucy turned to Verity and said, "Santa isn't real, it's just a man." (This the result of seeing Santa in a shop that morning.)

Verity said, "No, there are two Santas. The other one is real."

An audible 'phew' of relief all round.

Our wedding plans have made no progress at all. We nearly went engagement ring shopping at the weekend, but it was cold and wet so we went for a Starbucks instead.

However, Nelam is getting married in December. Nelam was our lodger for a year and as her kinda adoptive family, we have been signed up for two days of muslim wedding mayhem. Sally will be in full-on Pakistani gear, and for part one of proceedings so will I - something that Elton John would have worn on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Not that he was on the cover, but had he been...

Verity is in on the gig too, with a sparkly pink effort.

All of this gear costs a fortune, and we are spending far more on this wedding than we plan to on our own. Indeed, don't be surprised if our gig suddenly gains an asian theme.

Mork grew a lump on the side of her face last week. Thinking it was a tumour I started thinking about what kind of kitten to get. Then it popped and became a horrific, growing, oozing sore.

Time for a trip to the vet.

Verity found this rather exciting and told the vet her life story in an unpunctuated stream of consciousness ("My, you are quite the talker, aren't you"), while the vet poked around.

The prognosis is a double puncture wound - the black cat over the road is the suspect, although I guess it could have been a green mamba - with a stupid collar, regular bathing and a course of antibiotics.

She is also supposed to be under house arrest, but she is pretty determined to get out and dismantled the cat flap yesterday in a successful bid. She only isn't allowed out because she might throttle herself with the collar, so I figure we should let nature run its course and work on that kitten shortlist just in case it ends badly.

The silver case is mine, on the head of a porter at Jodhpur railway station. I reckon the two cases weighed forty kilos. They set off at quite a lick too, although I guess when your neck is being crushed, getting there in a hurry is probably wise.

Okay, I made it back.

Here is what I have been up to:

Sunday - flew London to Zurich and Zurich to Delhi. Landed around midnight and got to bed around 2am.

Monday - up at 8am, visited two rug suppliers and looked at around 500 rugs. I was rug-blind by the end of it. Pukka Indian cuisine for lunch and dinner, then the overnight sleeper train to Jodhpur, which takes around 11 hours. We were in first class, which means four people sharing a cabin, rather than 20. Indian rail first class bears no relation to airline first class.

Tuesday - arrived in Jodhpur, went to hotel to freshen up, quick breakfast then off to visit a factory. It was hot and dusty, but not as bad as Indonesian factories. Back to the hotel for a whole two hours of free time. The hotel is owned by the King of Rajisthan and is a very decent gaff. Then off to dinner at the palace, also owned by the King and the place that Liz Hurley got married. Tidy. Drank Indian red wine, which was highly quaffable.

Wednesday - visited another factory and spent all day there apart from lunch at a fancy hotel. Owned by the King, of course. Took the overnight train back to Delhi and had dinner in the carriage, provided by the wife of the factory owner. Home cooking is a big thing in India and is generally preferable to restaurant food. Walked the length of the train with one of my hosts to see how it changes as you move from first to second, then third and general. It is surprisingly unhorrific, with the lack of AC the only thing that makes 'general' unpleasant. According to the Foreign Office website, taking a train in India is a very stupid thing to do, but I think it's okay.

Thursday - arrived at 6am, and went to our host's house for a refresh and a home-cooked breakfast. Visited a doormat showroom, then a furniture factory. Had dinner at the best chinese restuarant in India. It was certainly good, but I have nothing to compare to.

Friday - visited three showrooms and had planned for the afternoon off but overran and didn't finish till 8pm. My colleague came down with the obligatory Delhi belly, so we skipped the hosted dinner and had simple fare at the hotel.

Saturday - visited Jaipur, departing at 6am. Supposed to be a 4 hour drive each way, but it was seven hours there and five hours back. Lost the will to live in the back of a people carrier. Saw wild monkeys and working elephants. And a factory and a showroom.

Sunday - visited a showroom and had three hours off in the afternoon, which we used to tour Delhi. Saw a few obligatory sights and went inside the lotus temple. Dinner at a western restaurant which poisoned me. Spent most of the night admiring my bathroom.

Monday - yet more bloody showrooms, then back to the hotel to pack and check out. Airport at 11pm, a night at 40,000ft and suddenly I am home, smacked up on Imodium.

What I have learned:
- driving in India is beyond prior imagination
- there are even more cows than you expect, but no cats
- real Indian food is a lot better than the ersatz curry we get in England
- eventually all rugs become one blurred image

Today I fly to India on a tour of showrooms and factories. The schedule is gruelling but it should be an interesting cultural experience.

I will be based in New Delhi, but will visit Jodhpur with two overnight train journeys, and also Jaipur. The only time I ever hear Indian trains mentioned is when one crashes and the news reader reports, with a slightly raised eyebrow, that 50 passengers that were in the carriages were killed, plus a further 300 who were riding on the roof!

We did manages to squeeze one day off into the schedule, which will be in Delhi.

I am flying on Swiss via Zurich, which will be useful as I have a theory that CERN caused a very large piece of Switzerland to disappear last week but the media is subject to a news blackout. Short of waiting for Toblerone to disappear from the supermarket shelves, a fly-by is the only way of checking.

Back on the 23rd.

Sailing was great fun, although I don't think I am ready for cold weather sailing - that's a nutters' game.

We are still very much beginners, but of all the novices on our holiday, we were the only ones to go out in asymmetrics from day 1 - everyone else was messing around in training dinghies.

We even progressed as far as spinnakers, although for my part only accompanied by sheer terror. It simply makes no sense to have that much sail atop a tiny boat.

It was not until our final day that we capsized and only then because of a moment of gross negligence by Sally at the helm.

Verity had a great time in the kids' club, gaining a bunch of confidence the swimming pool and even going on a speedboat. She wants us to live in Greece all the time, so I had to give her a little speech about how work pays for holidays.

Hey, sailing isn't as difficult as it looks.

More soon if I survive the RETURN TO WORK.

The Manchester Art Gallery is holding a Charlie & Lola exhibition. For the uninitiated, C&L is a blockbuster cartoon for the 3-5 age group, a cornerstone of CBeebies.

So we took Verity in the hope that it would kick start her cultural interest and also make her act reasonably when we dragged her round the Lowry Gallery later in the day.

On arrival at the gallery I asked the helpful volunteer for directions to Charlie & Lola.

"Through the shop then up to the second floor"

Well that set some alarm bells ringing. Through the shop? Are they crazy? A shop papered, bedecked and stacked with Charlie & Lola goodies was only going to cause trouble. Now if this was the Disney Corporation (may it burn in the fiery pits of hell) it would be fair enough, since dancing with the devil has known consequences, but a civic gallery surely has a duty to protect me from this kind of thing.

No matter, I had a plan.

"Verity, I have a surprise for you, but you have to close your eyes first"

"Okay"

"We are going to walk through a door and then another door. Hold my hand so we don't bump into anything, and keep your eyes shut"

"My eyes are shut"

"No peeking"

"I'm not peeking"

"Okay you can open them now"

"What is it?"

"It's, er, a lift and a staircase"

"Oh"

"But it's a glass lift, it's very exciting"

"Is that the surprise?"

"Yep"

"Oh"

On Saturday we went to Hebden Bridge to celebrate Sally's birthday. It is a nice place and has the distinction of having move lesbians per square foot than any other town in the UK.

While there I asked Sally to marry me, and thankfully she said yes.

Also thankfully, this took her mind off the fact that I hadn't got round to buying her a birthday present.

I went to see David Tennant being Hamlet weekend before last and it was rather corking.

Subject of much hype, not least because it starred not one but two sci-fi icons - Patrick Stewart being the other one - and only David Duchovny being added to the bill could have made it more of a geek draw.

Tennant entered the stage silently and stood at the corner, head bowed, whilst the opening scene unfolded. And every pair of eyes in the audience was on him. Hype got him that far but then he had to carry a play for 3 hours. And crikey, he did just that.

Full of energy and animation, but also subtle when required, especially for the most famous lines of the play, which he deliberately underplayed.

I had hoped for good things when I booked last January (January! And I could only get restricted view tickets) but Tennant exceeded even the highest expections.

More. Much more.

Verity had her first cinema experience recently at the local picture house. They have a saturday morning kids' movie to get em hooked while they are young.

So we went to see Curious George, which she thoroughly enjoyed and, more surprisingly, I did too.

Thankfully our cinema doesn't throw people out for taking their own food (like Cineworld do), since we were armed with a full picnic and when the ticket lady asked if we wanted to buy any popcorn, Verity said "We heard the popcorn go pop"

"Was that in the microwave?"

"Yep"

Verity is spectacularly unequipped for keeping secrets or even low-level discretion. I know she is only three, but silll...

The other good thing about the kids' movies club is that adults get in free (presumably only when armed with a child) so it only cost £4 for all three of us. Bargain.

Sadly, I doubt they will be showing that new batman film anytime soon and even Wall-E doesn't look likely for a while.

Sally has already tried to kill me twice, with snowboarding and skiing holidays. And this is before I have even named her as the beneficiary on my life insurance.

Her third attempt will be sailing with a week in Greece learning how to drive a dinghy.

It will be something of a miracle if I manage it and I reckon I will still be in the swimming pool in an inflatable on day 5, with all the kids in the 'Snappers Club' laughing at me.

Verity will be in the Snappers Club and is quite excited about it, without any knowledge of what it actually is. Ahh, the exuberance of youth.

My aquatic adventure commences on 31st August.

Last weekend we attended the Cornbury Music Festival, which is a middle-aged, middle-class, frightfully respectable music festival.

How respectable? Paul Simon headlined and David Cameron attended. THAT is how respectable.

It wasn't so respectable that it avoided the shite weather. It rained a lot and having decided to camp, that wasn't so good. We being three adults, four children, two tents and three cuddly rabbits.

Children being children, they didn't mind the weather and we spent a bunch of time in the family tent where, and I am not proud of this, I heckled the Mister Men.

If I go again next year I am taking a proper big family tent. On wheels.

A month later we have finally received feedback from our 3 day fostering induction course. And we passed. It would have been difficult to fail, to be honest, since it was very basic, but we now have a certificate of attendance to frame and mount on the loo wall.

The next step is home interviews where that pick apart your motivations for fostering and try to uncover your secret history as a member of staff in a Jersey children's home.

I am determined not to crack under interrogation.

...was very nice. Stinking hot, mind, at 29C or mucho mucho fareinheit.

The guide books all say that Venice has bad food. But, hey, how bad can it be? This is Italty after all. Well, it can be very bad. I did a bunch of research to make sure we only went to traveller recommended restaurants, and the food still blowed. So it you are planning to visit Venice, take enough food with you to last the duration.

Apart from that it was a great experience. Imagine the most Londonny parts of London all merged together - a Beefeater, red buses, the royal family and some knife crime. Put them altogether and you have an intense tourist experience.

Venice is like that, not just in one street, but in every square inch. It is a theme park that wasn't created by a marketing weasel. I am not sure whether that is good or bad.

Anyway,it is well worth a visit, but don't do more than 2 days. And take your own food.

Photos to follow.

This weekend we will be in Venice. There was a cheap flight promotion last September (September!) and I figured that Venice during the winter months would be grim, so I booked as far out as I could. It was £70 return each, all in.

I visited Venice as a child, on a day trip from a beach resort we were holidaying in. It rained and I was of an age where Venice would have been boring whatever the weather. I do remember being told that the city was sinking by 3cm a year and was figuring that it wouldn't be a bad thing if it sank faster.

This time around I am slightly more cultured and, travelling independently, I can avoid the worst of the tourist trail and try to find the real Venice. If such a thing still exists.

Back Monday.

Last weekend was Marlow Regatta weekend, which is generally a time to steer well clear of Marlow. However, on the Sunday morning they have dragon boat racing, so we headed over to the river, armed with champagne and pastries to take a look.

Verity enjoyed it greatly, cheering on all the red boats, which were apparently all called Puff.

Pascal came too and has one of those fancy cameras that take a good picture even when the subject matter is traditionally nonphotogenic...

Three years old today and enjoying every minute.

Ah, 41. A bit of a nondescript age really. It underscores 40 a little, but doesn't preface the significant ages ahead. One of those nothing year.

I am still in the French Alps, in Peisey-Vallandry for those who know the region. And... I can ski!

It transpires that snowboarding last year will a bit of a silly idea since it is near impossible, while skiing is a piece of piss. That I could ski after one two-hour lesson is testament to the sheer ease of it. Five days in I can now do fancy stuff like zig-zag down a hill, ski backwards and stop on a sixpence.

The only problem is that my knees aren't up to it. After an hour they hurt. At the end of a 2.5 hour lesson I am crippled. I recover overnight, but I think I might have to rethink my new ski-bum career.

Other than that all is well.

Oh, Verity hates skiing. We booked her a one hour private lesson and she lasted ten minutes. Looked cute in all the gear though. Photos to follow.

On Saturday we drive home.

Snowboarding didn't kill me. It tried. I got pneumonia while trying to be a rad boarder. Sally says it was 'a bit of a cough'. Katie, in a telephone diagnosis, said pneumonia. My doctor said lung infection. I think Sally is way off beam there but she isn't for changing her opinion.

Anyway, having, er, mastered boarding I will try skiing this year. Skiing is supposedly easier and is better suited to old folks.

Tomorrow we drive the France, with a bit of help from a boat, and on Saturday we mess about in the snow and then on Sunday I learn to ski. Simple, surely.

My boss said I could only have next week as holiday if I was online, which I will be, so there will be updates and medical bulletins.

I have been trying to sell my car this week, via an advert in Autotrader. Yes, my beloved Mini is moving on to a new life, having already been replaced by a nice sensible Audi estate.

The Audi has room for Verity and her travelling circus of detritus and is also comfy and quiet. Given that I am now driving 800 miles a week, comfort is essential.

So, the Mini for sale.

I have had a dozen phone calls, all of them from companies offering to sell my car for no fee. I allowed to first one to send me details of their service, which costs £90. So, erm, no fee then.

All of the calls were from similar numbers and with similar call centre background noise, but each one had a slightly different name.

The next call I politely declined.

The new few I gave very short shrift to.

Then I started getting annoyed:

"We have buyers already interested in your car"

"So tell them to read Autotrader and fuck off"

Click

---

"We can sell your car for you"

"I'm kinda busy right now. Give me your personal phone number and I will call you this evening"

"We can't give out personal numbers"

"You don't seem to have any problems calling mine, now piss off"

Click

---

"We offer a service matching buyers and sellers"

"What was your name again"

"David"

(camped up) "Hi David, you sound hot, could we meet later?"

Click

---

"There is no fee for our service"

"Tell me what you are wearing Karen, starting with your underwear"

Click

---

and after those last two the calls stopped.

After much thought we have decided to become foster parents, and to do so with a teenage. At this point you are probably thinking 'are they completely mad?'

Well, yes, probably. Despite being kinda busy with other stuff, like working and parenting Verity, we figure we would be quite good at sorting out a teenager.

It takes a long time to get approved for fostering, around nine months, and during that time we will find out a lot more about what it takes, and of course might get rejected. But if we do clear all the hurdles, and they don't manage to put us off along the way, we could have a new tearaway by the end of the year.

Jana's diet hasn't improved much.

The extended break from work provided the opportunity for a bit of turf and another step on the path to the 59 racecourses of Britain.

And contestant number 8 is... Lingfield in Surrey.

A good day's racing, despite only getting one payout from six races, and that was only a place. We both came close with exactas and I reckon we have cracked the art of the parade ring. So by this time next year we will be rich.

Next on the tour of Britain is Market Rasen in Lincolnshire and I am on track to complete the challenge in 2024.

It is coming down today so I thought I had better get a picture of it, especially given that it is so much more tasteful than last year's effort.

I guess I will bring myself a year of bad luck by taking it down early, but Christmas is dead and buried and we need to move on. Except that I am still eating turkey and chocolate.

It's off.

Fuckity fuck it.

The 'buyer' decided that current market conditions meant that a big price cut was needed. I did not concur, mainly because a price cut now would mean another, deeper, one, on the eve of contract exchange.

Back to square one.

My next mission is to teach her some Shirley Bassey

Irregular readers will know that in August 2005 I put my house on the market and spent well over a year trying to sell it with minimal interest from the house-buying hoi poloi. Finally in September 2006 I agreed a deal with a woman by the name of Felicity Time-Waster who went through then entire process only to pull out the day before the sale became contractually binding. The bitch.

Anyway, I then rented out a couple of rooms for a while, moved back in myself for a couple of months, spent £6,000 fixing up the garden, and the put it back on the market early last month.

And I appear to have a buyer. Given what happened a year ago I am not being overly optimistic, but it would be nice to be rid of the house, and in the intervening year the value has gone up significantly, so it does all go through Felicity Time-Waster will have done me a favour.

Fingers crossed.

Let the journal be marked with the age, at 2 years 6 months and 8 days, at which Verity first said "I hate you Mummy". The first of many, for sure, with occasional "I hate my life"'s thrown in for good measure.

I, and no doubt Verity, have already forgotten the perceived crime, although it might well have been a refusal to put Pingu on the TV.

Should I be happy that she has progressed sufficiently to express such a sentiment? Or depressed that she felt the need to?

Actually I am depressed, but for a different reason - she made a grammatical error. She said, "I hated you Mummy". If she is going to be a pain in the ass, she could at least be eloquent about it.

Since my eye operation in August I have been carrying some tubes around in my head. The went from above my eye, down through the upper and lower tear ducts (and visible in the corner of my eye linking the two lids), and into my nose.

On Friday the tubes were finally removed. The technique was to snip the tube in the corner of my eye and then have me blow them with a powerful nose blow. Which worked and is exactly as gross as it sounds.

I did have my eye numbed first with an eye drop that really stung. This is akin to kicking someone in the shin to take their mind off a headache.

Anyway, it is all done now and the next step is to return to the hospital in four months time and decide whether I want to go through the whole thing again with my other eye.

So from Shanghai to Singapore, but only for an overnight stop - we arrived at 10am and had to be out of there by 6am.

We were tired and needed sleep, so we spent 3 of our 8 hours in Singapore eating and drinking and the other 5 hours allowing hangovers to develop while we slept. Our hotel was the exquisite Fullerton which must have cost a packet, but a supplier was paying so I never got to find out.

From there we flew to Surabaya in Indonesia for my third trip into the southern hemisphere (Mauritius 2004, South Africa 2006). We spent two days there visiting factories, developing new products and haggling over prices, and got blind drunk both nights and ended up in Desperado's Nightclub, which is very well named.

After that, and hungover again, we flew to Singpore and chilled for 28 hours, including the obligatory photo shoot outside Raffles, then flew home via Bangkok. I am awash with airmiles and have developed a drink problem, a craving for marmite and a monstrous work backlog.

After Hong Kong we returned to China, taking a fast ferry into the Pearl River Delta to visit a factory, which was of impressive quality. The factory, not the ferry.

The ferry was pretty impressive though, zipping between massive container ships. I have never seen so many ships in my life, from leviathans to dows, most of them carrying containers, even the dows.

I do wonder how the container shipping business manages to consistently get stuff from A to B without losing it.

Anyway, after a factory tour we did lunch in a local restaurant with the factory owner then did some product development work back at the factory and headed off to the airport to fly to Shanghai.

We arrived in darkness and headed straight to dinner downtown and then had a 90 minute drive to the hotel somewhere in Haining. The hotel was interesting - luxurious for a start but with quirky touches. Such as the basket of goodies by the bed - socks, shorts, condoms, 'arousing cream' and... a pack of playing cards. Maybe strip poker is a big thing in Haining.

The Haining factory visit was very good and then back to Shanghai and its other airport to fly to Singapore. After a relatively restful time in HK, the travel schedule is becoming bruising.

I visited Hong Kong in 1981 and there have been a few changes. The skyline has gone crazy and there are new roads, bridges, tunnels and an airport, but overall it feels very familiar.

The main deterioration is with the pollution - the view from Kowloon to the Peak is permanently hazy.

We arrived there on Friday evening, went to trade shows on Saturday and Sunday, and met a bunch of potential suppliers on Monday and celebrated our last night on Monday with dinner at Aqua, 22 floors up and with the best (hazy) view in Kowloon.

Over the weekend we managed to squeeze in a little shopping - handbags, watches and electronics. With more time we would have visited the Peak, Stanley market and nipped over to Macau for some gambling fun. Next time maybe.

A couple of pictures will follow when Flickr comes back online.

I left home at 8.20am on Tuesday and 27 hours later finally came to a halt in Guangzhou. That sounds like a long journey, but it never really felt like it apart from a couple of hours waiting in a railway station while jetlagged into 2008.

The flights were lovely on account of being with Thai Air and also on account of being in biz class, or Royal Silk as Thai prefer to call it. We were upstairs in the bubble of a 747 on the flight to Bangkok then ninety minutes on the ground and on to Hong Kong. A taxi to the railway station then a train into China.

Guangzhou was busy, hot and smoggy. The trade show was very good, although I have sore feet from traipsing around. Think of a product that has a tiny niche and China will have 200 companies making it. Impressive. And scary.

After a couple of nights and days we were back on the train to Kowloon, where I am now.

Next week I am going to the Far East on a buying trip.

The current travel schedule is:
Tuesday - fly from London to Hong Kong via Bangkok
Wednesday - arrive in Hong Kong, train to Guangzhou
Friday - train to Hong Kong
Tuesday - ferry to Pearl River Delta. fly from Shenzhen to Shanghai
Wednesday - fly from Shanghai to Singapore
Thursday - fly from Singapore to Surabaya
Saturday - fly from Surabaya to Singapore
Monday - fly from Singapore to London via Bangkok
Tuesday - arrive in London

The final Sunday in Singpore is the only day off in the whole schedule, so it is mostly work and little play, but I will be disappointed if I don't get to eat a few things that taste like chicken.

Our holiday in northern Spain was lovely. We stayed in Tudes, a village of 30 people in the middle of the Picos de Europa, 20 minutes from the nearest shop and 90 minutes from the nearest hospital. It was very relaxing with a log fire every evening and plenty of local cheese and wine.

There were a couple of cute cats there and we gave one of them a sardine for dinner. The next day a dead bird was on our doorstep, perfectly intact and looking like it was sleeping. With its eyes open. On its side.

A generous return of favour and a sign that not all cats are selfish. Verity thought it was a penguin, for which we can blame Happy Feet.

The ferry crossing was interesting since most of the passengers were on a mini-cruise, sailing to Bilbao and back without getting off and spending three days and nights eating, drinking and smoking themselves to death.

On the final morning we squeezed in a quick visit to the Guggenheim in Bilbao, or at least the outside of the Guggenheim, and it is genuinely impressive. Verity rather liked the spider.

Flanerie is in the Picos de Europa in northern Spain.

Internet connectivity is shite, but the food and wine are good. Yesterday's revelation was a bottle of very drinkable wine for 99 cents. Euro cents, rather than the cheap trashy dollar cents, but a bargain.

More on the location, and the ferry crossing, on my return.

Age: 2 years, 131 days.

Her: "I hide your cuff links"

"Oh. Where are they?"

"I don't know. I don't remember"

[found on Ananova]
Paddington Bear is courting controversy by swapping his famous marmalade sandwiches for Marmite.

Fans are bound to accuse the bear of selling out when TV viewers see him appear in an advert for Marmite.

Paddington enjoys a Marmite sandwich, then shares it with a distinctly unimpressed pigeon, reflecting the spread's 'love it or hate it' slogan.

The bear has been eating marmalade sandwiches since he was found on a station platform by Mr and Mrs Brown at the start of Michael Bond's first Paddington book 49 years ago.

Cheryl Calverley, Marmite brand manager, said: "We are really excited to be working with Paddington Bear.

"Both the Marmite brand and Paddington bear are British institutions and bring back warm nostalgic childhood memories."

Karen Jankel, managing director of Paddington and Co, said: "I think fans might be perturbed if they thought he was giving up marmalade, but they should know he's not. He just wanted to try something different."

On the recent holiday weekend we went horse racing at Beverly in Yorkshire. Well, the horses went racing, with leprechauns as passengers, and we merely watched and wagered.

Beverly is number seven in my very long-term mission to visit all 59 racecourses in Britain, the others so far being Towcester, Windsor, Goodwood, Sandown, Cheltenham and Newbury.

(I have also been to Ascot racecourse for a seminar on company law. That doesn't count.)

The day was lovely, the turf action was very good and the wagering was a fiasco. Seven races, eight bets, no wins. Thankfully I am still spending winnings from the Newbury coup, so it doesn't stick in the craw too much.

Next on the list is probably York, since it is a city that warrants a long weekend visit.

As my regular reader will know, two years ago I put my house up for sale and it stayed that way for fifteen months before I finally gave up in an explosion of expletives.

Now, after having the garden completely remodelled, I am trying again.

The good news is that the theoretical value of my house has gone up by around 10% since I gave up nine months ago, so maybe all the hassle last year, and the frustration over a collapsed sale, will turn out for the good.

My plan is to have it sold within six weeks. Although I said that last time too.

I watched the movie About Schmidt last weekend and it got me wondering.

Oh, it was about Jack Nicholson retiring and having a late-life crisis. Or it was about a dude called Schmidt, played by Jack Nicholson, retiring, etc.

The thing is, I have been working for 20 years for a whole range of companies, big and small. I have worked with many hundreds of people, and I have never once seen a person retire.

Do the nearly-retired go to special companies to retire from? Is it like the elephants' graveyard, crawling on their knees with their final shallow breaths?

Or perhaps I have seen a bunch of people retire without ever realising it. They pretend they are going to another job, or just popping out for a sandwich, and disappear into the land where people read the entire newspaper every day.

It also made me wonder about my own retirement - it needs to be soon, obviously, and involve foxy handmaidens, whatever they might be, lots of money, and a butt-load of drugs for when either my mind or body hits the skids.

I had a DCR yesterday, which drills a new channel from the tear duct into the nose to make up for the faulty one that already exists.

It was not as unpleasant as it should have been, although the stitches and swelling mean I can't wear my glasses for more than a couple of minutes and without my glasses I am as a bat. Without the sonar.

The stitches come out next week. And if it all works okay (a 70% chance of success) I will get the other eye done.

Here are the photos - pre-op, post-op and de-bandaged:

Poor Milly, she had her 20,000 mile wash at midday and four hours later was rear-ended in Milton Keynes. Amusingly, for me at least, it was one of my staff that did it, driving a huge planet-busting Jeep. Her car was, of course, unscathed.

Time for a new rear for the old girl.

This weekend we attended the Cornbury Music Festival. It is a music festival, but for toffs, and is a great idea. The hoi poloi, the great unwashed, the men and women on the clapham omnibus, CHT's. None of them were there, just respectable types eating organic beanburgers.

I tried to big it up with Verity in advance:

"We are going to a music festival"

"Music testicle"

"No, a music festival"

"Testicle"

"F-f-f-festival"

"F-f-f-testicle"

"Ah, whatever"

It was a good day out, with a bit of the Proclaimers, a bit of the Waterboys and a bit of David Gray.

Apparently I need to see the Lion King too, although I quite like the cartoon and would hate to be disappointed.

It will be an interesting challenge and if it all goes wrong I will blame my predecessor, or the parent company, and if things go well I will go to great lengths to point out my inate genius.

After much prevarication my house now uses 100% renewable electricity, with Ecotricity as my new supplier.

Add to this the carbon offset for motoring, which I started in 2006 and my offset for air travel, which I started in January and I am slowly reducing my carbon footprint. For these two, of course, an offset is a very poor substitute for not generating the carbon in the first place, but right now I can't reduce my road miles and am not willing to reduce my air miles. Offset is a reasonable second best.

My next mission is to get my place of work on renewable electricity.

I tried to book both the Uffizi and Accademia in advance but only the latter was available, so we passed on the Uffizi rather than stand in line for a few hours. Still, the statue of David in the Accademia is genuinely impressive. I work on the assumption that the really famous works of art, the ones famous simply for being famous, can only be a disappointment when finally viewed in person, but David fully lived up to its reputation.

A significant proportion of the US population was in Florence for the same weekend but, although it is only a small city, it managed to absorb them with driving me to strap explosives to my body.

The weather was good until the last day, by when it didn't matter, and we brought home a bunch of tasty treats from the central market.

Florence is highly recommended.

Is it something genetic, or just the early budding of a foot fetish that in most people fades away before they are old enough to be a real nuisance?

In my house there is real competition for my shoes between the kid and the labrador. A battle between snot and drool in which only I, and my shoes, can be the losers.

West Wycombe, 18 May

If steam engines captivate you as a boy, they will continue to do so for your whole life. That's my theory anyway.

I had a Meccano steam engine when I was young. It remains one of the coolest things ever.

I have been suffering from a chest infection since Sunday, and if I am suffering it means everyone else is suffering.

I am no the mend now and am no longer making special requests for my funeral, although I am not quite ready to leave the house. Or my bed.

Send flowers and pizza. Thanks.

Last weekend I was interviewed on BBC News 24. My 30 seconds of fame was on the subject of Zopa.

---

During the week Verity celebrated her second birthday. Without being fully aware of what it all meant, she clearly knew something was up and managed to force herself to wake up at 5.30am. Bastard. Anyway, we now have even more plastic tat in the house.

---

At the end of the month I am going to Florence for a 4-day weekend. Also, I might at some point write up my weekend in New York.

Flanerie is in New York and hot damn this city is fascinating.

More on my return.

I spent the weekend moving house and then going to an open day at an agricultural college, which was way more fun than it sounds. The open day, not the moving. The moving was okay though.

Anyway, if I hadn't been doing that, I would surely have been creating my own Transformers (Robots in Disguise!) outfit.

But if I did, it wouldn't be a patch on these guys who have clearly reached the very pinnacle of Transformerdom.

My birthday dinner was a treat from my other half - I had only specified that it must be somewhere I had never been and a walkable distance from home. Thankfully this remit excluded the local chip shop, of which I am already a patron.

Her choice was The Vanilla Pod in Marlow and a seven course dinner. They threw in a couple of bonus courses to make it nine and at the end of all that I was fatter than Elvis.

Cream of celeriac
Butternut Squash Risotto
Seared Scallops with Purée of White Beans and Bourbon Vanilla Foam
Pink Grapefruit Mouselline

Roasted Sea Bass on Purée of Jerusalem Artichoke infused with Truffle
or
Rump of Lamb on buttered Savoy Cabbage and Woodland Mushrooms
(we had both and shared)

Trois Laits Cheese with Pear Chutney
Apple and Cranberry Compote with Greek Yoghurt
Tahitian Vanilla Panna Cotta with Doughnuts
Petits fours

All the food was delicious and I now have a tough act to follow in August.

...to me.

Today I am 40. Please send tea, sympathy and chocolate.

On Tuesday I visited Accrington in the North of England, a part of the country famed for cloth caps, whippets, Woodbines and wife-beating.

My route takes me past the nearby town of Darwen, a festering shit-hole that is a blight on the county, the country and, indeed, the planet.

However, there an exception in Darwen, a thrupp'ny bit in the pudding, a gem that sparkles in the ordure - Carlos Viveiros.

Carlos is a curious name in Lancashire, a county where 60% of men are called Gary. He is from somewhere is South America, or maybe Central America, and he runs a factory that makes chairs.

In one of my previous lives, I worked for a sister company that sold office furniture. We bought chairs from Carlos and sold them to our customers.

Unfortunately we were losing money like Bush loses poll ratings and, when deciding which bills to pay, Carlos was bottom of the list.

So he would ring me up to politely request payment.

[Carlos' lines should be read in a kinda South American accent, if you can manage it]

"Ah Carlos, what can I do for you?"

"Give me my money!"

"Hey, come on Carlos, you know if I had the money, you would be the first person I would pay, even ahead of my own salary"

"Just give me the money. You took my chairs, now you have to pay for them"

"But Carlos, we are owned by the same guy. I would have to get him to lend me money to give to you. He would be transferring money from one pocket to the other. So really, you need to call him for the money."

"I will come to see you and cut you with a knife! You want that? Huh? Cut you with a knife. Now give me the money."

"Carlos, given the choice I would vote not to be cut with a knife, but I really don't have any money."

"A knife. I know where you work, I can visit you tomorrow. The money or the knife?"

"Erm, okay. Let me see what I can do"

Now that is a credit control process that really works.

I have always assumed that travelling with children is just like travelling, but with children. It isn't.

Even with a perfectly behaved child, which Verity (mostly) was, it is a very stressful experience. There is no point packing a book in your hand luggage, it will only add extra weight which given all the child paraphernalia required, is not entirely welcome.

Not that it wasn't enjoyable, just different.

There is barely a single moment when you can think of anything except the child, its welfare, and whether it is about to run towards a security point shouting "death to infidels."

The child, of course, doesn't notice this. The child doesn't even realise that there might be something terrifying about hurtling down a runway, strapped into a metal tube full of explosive fuel in the vague hope that it might start flying.

And so, I would like to apologise to my parents for all the years of foreign holidays when I was too young to be grateful for the stress they went through; and for the years when I was old enough to be grateful but wasn't.

I went to the French Alps and brought back...

...a lung infection.

Tomorrow I head off to the French Alps for a week of snowboarding. This is my first ever such holiday and I expect to get seriously injured.

Obviously I didn't think this when I agreed to go, but since then everyone has told me that I am doomed. Apparently there is an age where is becomes more likely than not that a serious injury with be suffered. For snowboarding it is around the mid thirties and for skiing the mid forties.

I was in a job interview when I was told this, by my rather jolly potential new boss.

Anyway, if I do die, it has been fun. If not, I will update next from the hospital.

Meanwhile there will be some time-delayed posts.

Sometimes you have to wonder whether progress is a good thing.

Take Verity, for instance (please, take her. ha ha. er, sorry). Time was that a runny nose didn't bother her. She would just ignore the green trail of snot that made tracks to the top of her lip. It bothered me of course, and nose wiping, which met with protest, ensued.

These days it does bother her and she wipes the snot across her face with the back of her hand. It gets as far as her cheek where it acts as glue, sticking her fine hair to her face.

It's progress, but I am not sure it is in a forward direction. But then to get from A to Z you have to pass through a bunch of crap letters. Snot-smeering is just a passing phase before sniffing and nose-blowing. It is a passing phases that lasted about 20 years in my case.

The other development is that when her nose runs she points to it and says 'naughty nose'. Lovely stuff.

Anyway, I don't know what the child of a cousin is. A second cousin? A cousin once removed? A grand cousin? I have decided on subcousin since it does make some kind of sense.

She is called Jana and looks like new babies do. Just once in a while it would be cool if a new baby looked like something else. A puppy or a giant lego brick.

But enough of this fol-de-rol. Welcome to the world Jana.

I am going to New York in April for a long weekend. This is part of my 40th birthday celebrations. Forty? Already? Fuck.

Although I have been to the US maybe forty times, I have never been to any of those itty bitty states in the top right-hand corner, so it will be a whole new experience.

So, dear readers, what should I do/see/avoid in New York? Are there any great places that the guide books omit to mention? Do any of you want to lend me an apartment overlooking Central Park?

It might not seem much to readers in the north-east US but this meagre snowfall was a real treat. In this part of England it happens once a year at best, and leads to traffic chaos and school closures.

I gave up on my 50 mile commute without even starting and focused instead on enjoying the snow while it lasted (it has mostly melted already).

The child viewed it with cautious enthusiasm so I tried to get her into the spirit with a few snowballs.

Not having any gloves on I decided to flick the snow up with my foot. The first attempt was pretty good, spattering her coat like buckshot, but the second came up as a single big clump of snow that hit her square in the face.

She took it quite well considering - she just kept saying 'face' in a tone the said she couldn't believe I just did that to her. Get used to it kid, ha ha ha ha.

I am in Miami right now. Not for the Superbowl though. I only discovered that it was Superbowl weekend when I was headed to the airport, and only discovered the Miami was hosting when I got here.

I guess Miami gets to host the Superbowl pretty often because of the near-guarantee of great weather.

Slightly unfortunate then that it is raining like it did when Noah was doing the animals two at a time. At least the bears and colts will appreciate the comparison.

Why are so many US sports teams name after animals?

I visited my doctor last week, a pleasant chap called Dr. Foord, about a minor matter that I won’t bore you with.

It was a lovely spring morning, in globally-warmed late-January, so I decided to walk the two-thirds of a mile.

On my return walk, as I my flitted between random thoughts, I sensed a car slowing beside me and, still walking, turned my head. It was a police car and the passenger lowered his window, “excuse me sir.”

I stopped walking.

“Could you give me directions to the police station?”

“You have to be fucking kidding?” I said.

He looked over to his partner, who had a road map open on his lap, the sort of road map that tells you the approximate location of a town, as long as it is a big town, and turned back to me, “we aren’t from this area.”

“No shit. But you do have a police radio. And presumably cellphones. And perhaps, having embarked on this journey, you might have thought to call ahead and ask. Or did you just think you could drive into town and the police station it would be lit up like a Vegas casino? And if you, highly trained defenders of the law, can’t find it, what chance do we, the terrified populace, have, constantly in fear of hoodlums, brigands, hucksters, shysters, rapists and murderers. I put it to you office that you could not find your ass with both hands.”

I said all of this in my head, of course, and with my eyes, and silent though the communication was, it was perfectly understood.

“I have a good mind to get out of the car,” replied the cop, “club you to the ground with a baton, kick the crap out of you, then urinate on your prostate form.”

He said this with his eyes, of course, but it was perfectly understood.

Our respective positions thus established, I gave detailed directions to the police station and continued on my merry way.

On hearing about this gig I couldn't resist taking Pickles the rabbit along to be a part of the show and he has been there for a couple of months already.

I was a bit worried that he might be lonely over Christmas, but clearly I needn't have worried - he has found himself a nice lady rabbit for company.

The rabbit will be returning home in time for easter, hopefully armed with chocolate eggs.

There was a competition on a newspaper website recently that asked people to try their hand at crime fiction. I fancy myself as a bit of a writer so I gave it a go.

The task was to provide the story that explained a crime scene, which was provided in sketch form, in only 50 words. It was a lot more difficult than it sounds, as there were 6 or 7 different clues in the picture and I have already used more than 50 words in this paragraph.

Anyway, I clearly did something right as I won the competition and the prize is a 3 night trip to Florence, including flights and a half-decent hotel.

Yay me!

I need to take the holiday before the end of April so will probably squeeze in between Miami in February and New York in April. Meanwhile, if any of my readers have been to Florence, do you have any recommendations?

I am looking for work. Anyone want to hire me?

Subject to a few technical formalities, I today sold the company I work for. The whole process, which has been going on for several months, was grossly unpleasant and akin to being raped while eating horse shit.

[I have never experienced either, but there are some things you just don't need to experience to know that they are plain nasty. And anyway, there is probably a Danish porn flick that covers it in glorious detail. With pigs.]

My new masters have asked me to stay for a few months but I just can't face 100 miles a day for longer than a few more weeks. Hence, I am looking for work.

So all of those in the Thames Valley that thought you were shot of me - I am heading back. [Cue an evil laugh that descends into a coughing fit.]

Last night I went to see Cirque du Soleil in London and it was excellent and, at times, breathtaking. That's breathtaking in the sense that I forgot to breathe for a while. They should give warnings about that sort of thing.

I did find these two minxes a little disturbing. If you get to the point where you can sit on your own head, you have taken things too far. I am all for honing skills to a fine point but there has to be a limit and these girls went way beyond it. I wasn't even able to find it erotic which is a miraculous first.

But freaky contortionists aside, it was a cracking show and well worth seeing. Now, of course, I want to see the other Cirque shows, especially the aquatic one.

French demonstrators saw in the New Year - by protesting against it.

People carrying banners reading 'No to 2007' and 'Now is better' marched through the streets of Nantes.

They called on the United Nations to stop the 'mad race' of time and declare the indefinite suspension of the future.

The protest was an attempt to make fun of French people's apparent fondness of saying no to any kind of change and as a different way to celebrate the New Year.

When the bells sounded to mark the start of 2007, they moved on to the next stage of their campaign - chanting 'No to 2008'.
[from ananova]
------

I rather like this philosophy, although last year was sufficiently shitty that I am glad to see the back of it. 2007 will be a good year.

What better place to buy a Christmas tree? I couldn't think of one anyway, so we paid a visit last weekend and 15 seconds into a tour of the tree barn, we found this gorgeous tree. She is called Fiona. I love her for her bushiness and her well-rounded arse, making her the antithesis of my general taste in women.

The cat is treating Fiona with extreme caution, sitting in front of her and staring for minutes at a time. Possibly the cat has developed a tree-based religion, but more likely is planning a daring assault on the summit. Cats do that sort of thing, they are deviants.

I have been trying to sell my house for the past 15 months. Clearly anything can sell at the right price but I did need to hit a certain price level. Add to that the large building site at the end of my road and you have the recipe for a very frustrating year.

Eventually, finally and in the end, I sold it and the sale process has been trundling along for the last few weeks. Unlike the US system of housing transactions, nothing is for certain until 2-3 weeks before you move. In the meantime the buyer does a survey, fixes up a mortgage and checks with the authorities that they aren't about to build a nuclear power station next door.

All that went according to plan and on Monday we were scheduled to sign contracts with a planned move date of 28th November. I have been boxing stuff up, have sorted somewhere to live, kicked out my housekeeper (well, okay, she was moving out anyway) and told the pigeons in the garden that the food supply might be coming to an end.

Last Friday, on the last working day possible the buyer pulled out. The fucker. The bitch.

So now I am stuck betwixt homes and with a mortgage I really need to offload. I do have a plan, more on which when it comes off.

Meanwhile I have a wax effigy to fix up.

I visited the David Hockney exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery on Sunday.

And very good it was too. It was a useful reminder that I don't go to exhibitions as often as I should

Next I will try to catch the Velázquez exhibition at the National Gallery.

A council has decided to dump Guy Fawkes from its annual Bonfire Night party - and replace him with a tiger.

Officials in Tower Hamlets, East London, say the story of the Gunpowder Plot is now too old so there will be no bonfire and no Guy.

Instead officials have spent £75,000 on a celebration in Victoria Park that will centre on a Bengali folk tale called the Emperor and the Tiger.

A mock Bengal Tiger will pace a giant catwalk surrounded by Bangla drummers and dancers. The area has a large Asian population.

John Midgley,spokesman for the Campaign Against Political Correctness, said: "There's a time and a place for everything and November 5 is for Bonfire Night.

"It's time to tell bureaucrats that actions like these undermine our historic occasions and harm community relations."

According to the Sun Tory councillor Tim Archer said: "Bonfire Night is a celebration of our rich and proud history. It's being air-brushed out with an attempt to be politically correct."

MP George Galloway agreed, he added: "Guy Fawkes was one of the few men to enter Parliament with good intentions. It beggars belief that this council should organise a Bonfire Night without a bonfire or a Guy."

Labour-run Tower Hamlets council insisted they had not forgotten the Gunpowder Plot but had decided to try different themes.

A spokeswoman said: "This differentiates our celebrations from other boroughs and our events are proving to be extremely popular. Our sole aim is to stage an exciting event on the traditional Fireworks Night that will attract as many people as possible."
---

Personally I am always up for a bit of Bangla drumming, but Tower Hamlets is a bit of a trek, so tonight I will taking in the fireworks at the Marlow disaply.

Diwali = good
Guy Fawkes' Night = good
Hallowe'en = shit

Or at least Hallowe'en in the UK. Back in the day it was an excuse for a few ghost stories while we all got excited ahead of Guy Fawkes' Night. Of course hardly anyone refers to Guy Fawkes' Night - it has become Bonfire Night or Fireworks Nights. Functional naming and I am all for it.

By the same token, Hallowe'en should become Dressing Up and Begging Night.

Pity the respectable right wing politicians who spend most of the year trying to legislate against street beggars, only to have most of the child population spend an evening in solidarity at the end of October.

In theory the one good thing about Hallowe'en is ogling the soccer-moms that accompany their spawn around the neighbourhood, but it doesn't seem to happen that way around here. I had one visit on Tuesday evening (an unexpected bonus from my long commute) and found two devils on the doorstep. At the end of my drive was a fat mother holding a fat baby. One of them will grow out of it in the next few years.

I gave the kids some out-of-date candy I found in the cupboard to mumbled, and far from profuse, words of thanks, and the younger one said "my bag is getting really heavy"

"Eat them and you will look like your mom," I said. After I had closed the door.

Police were called in Bulgaria after a mass fight broke out between 23 teenage girls over a handsome male student.

The girls, aged between 15 and 18, used brass knuckles, chains and beer bottles to fight over the lad whose name was not revealed.

The girls, from the Bulgarian capital Sofia, agreed to fight it out and skipped school to meet up in a local playground in the Gorublyane district of the city.

Several girls suffered minor injuries and dozens of passers-by reportedly witnessed the incident.

But the alarm wasn't raised until after the fight when a father of one of the injured girls called the police.

---

That happens to me all the time

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your viewpoint, Passepartout is into snowboarding and I have been convinced to try my hand (legs?) at it. The hope being that if I am not a complete no-hoper I can progress to an alpine holiday.

And so it was that I found myself at an indoor ski slope last Friday. I didn't know such places even existed. I am sure it was all dry slopes last time I checked, but now you can pay to be in a big fridge with real snow. Well, not real real snow, but artificial real snow. It is like cheese. Real cheese is real cheese. Yellow cardboard is artificial cheese. Kraft slices are artificial real cheese.

I did lessons one and two, which were thankfully very basic, and I can now slide down the hill backwards on my toe edge and forwards on my heel edge. I can't actually aim the board downhill and let God decide my fate. That sort of crazy behaviour can wait until I am in the Alps - if I am going to die strapped to a plank of wood, I want to die somewhere nice.

Of course, now that I am a snowboarder I am cool. And rad, dude.

I need to stop drinking tea and start drinking Mountain Dew while listening to the Lo-fidelity All-stars. I need to talk about half-pipes. I might even need to start smoking half-pipes. Or maybe what I really need to do is buy a snowboarding dictionary so I know what all this weird shit means.

I haven't owned a bike for more than 20 years which, given my attempts to be vaguely eco-friendly and vaguely non-obese, is very poor.

I have been wanting to buy one for a while but have been put off by the following hypothetical encounter:

Me: I would like to buy a bike
Shopkeeper: What kind of bike are you looking for?
Me: I don't know
Shopkeeper: Is it for road or off-road use?
Me: I don't know. I will know once I start using it.
Shopkeeper: Mmm'kay, and how much were you planning to spend?
Me: I am not worried about the price - whatever it takes to get the right bike for me.
Shopkeeper: Ah, very good. If you could just drop your trousers and bend over the counter I am sure we can help you.

Thankfully passepartout knows a thing or two about bikes and guided me through the whole terrifying process, and now I and the proud parent of a new bike, which has been christened Omally.

It has wheels and handle bars, 16 valves per spoke, dual overhead cam reflectors, instamatic teflon-coated brakes and is matt black. That is, matt black. I love it for its matty blackness. It is boss.

Now I just need to figure out how to ride the fucking thing.

The obligatory, and the late, 9/11 post.

There has been a vast amount of coverage in the past week and more so this year because it is five years. Five is more special than four or six. Why? No-one really knows.

A lot of the coverage has been about the terrible events of that day, and there is no doubt that they were truly terrible. The most spectacular single crime ever committed - I am discounting Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and also discounting crimes that cover a period of time or involve a population rather than a small and distinct group, which takes care of many examples of genocide.

Often 9/11 is described as 'The Day That Changed the World' and and I take issue with that.

The world has not changed at all.

Look at how people live their lives and almost nothing has changed. Consumerism is still the biggest religion on the planet, and continues to grow. Within consumer spending there has been no marked shift between categories. Electronics and digital services continue to grow their shares through consumer choice; oil and related products take a bigger cut due to excess demand; otherwise, little has changed.

In commerce, there have been the changes that any five year period would entail, but the biggest companies then are the biggest companies now. China continues to increase its economic power and now owns an ever larger slice of US business. Russia is riding the oil boom, Europe is drifting, Africa is failing.

In international politics, Iran has taken advantage of the falls of Afghanistan and Iraq to become the leader of radical Islam, in the case of the former, and a regional power in the case of the latter. Such power games happen in any period, although Iran got to where it wanted to be a lot faster thanks to the work of its friend and ally the USA.

None of this constitutes a fundamental change in the world. The changes in the five years since 9/11 are no more significant than the changes in the five years before.

On an individual level, somewhere between 100,000 and 250,000 people have died in the ongoing wars 'justified' by 9/11. The Iraqi population is living under changed circumstances and a large part of the Afghan population is doing so too. Add those killed and injured in 9/11 itself, plus any relatives; throw in the US and allies military deaths and the families of those service people; the victims and their families caught up of the civilian attacks in Bali, Madrid and London; and if you do an vast amount of rounding up at every stage you might get to 100 million people directly affected by 9/11 and its consequences.

100 million out of 6,000 million. More people have been affected by natural disasters in the last five years, not least the tsunami.

The world hasn't changed at all. It is still a planet full of people just trying to make the best of their lives, while a few hundred individuals play power games that cause death and suffering. All that has happened is that the 20th century forgot to end.

There are many theories on how to make a good cup of tea, but it seems, statistically, there is only one right way.

Call it a storm in a teacup, if you will, but Statistics New Zealand has issued a tea-making protocol to its 500 staff in an effort to "improve human traffic flow" in the kitchens.

The "approved protocol" issued after staff moved into new offices in November includes bullet-point instructions on where to find a clean cup, when to add milk ("before the hot water"), and where to return dirty cups.

After a staff meeting, 12 days later, an "amended protocol" changed the instructions to add milk after the hot water. It also included advice that, during peak times, the first person takes milk out of fridge and leaves it on the bench, and the last person puts it back.

Food etiquette in the building near the Westpac Stadium is strictly regulated. Hot food is banned from work spaces to prevent smells spreading, and staff must go to the bottom floor to use the two microwaves provided. Food scraps are banned from desk-side rubbish bins.

Staff spoken to by The Dominion Post thought it was all laughable – but a Statistics spokeswoman said the protocol aimed to help workers settle in and provide safety guidelines. "There may have been some health and safety angles around, rather than a Public Service tea-making ritual."
[found on stuff.co.nz]

The book I recommended for the last reading group meeting went down like the Titanic. I guess the Titanic went down quite spectacularly and over a couple of hours. My book went down faster and with much more ignominy.

The book was A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes. A great book, but not according to the Reading Group. There was even a vote by text that managed to slaughter the novel in less than 160 characters.

Oh well, I had better not recommend anything for a while and hope that everyone forgets that I crashed and burned so badly.

For next month I need to read State of the Union by Douglas Kennedy, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and I need to see Nacho Libre at the movies.

There is a charity store which I frequent called Oxfam. It is a good source of cheap books, but sells a wide range of other junk too.

Traditionally it is staffed by senile old women. A cash transaction can take any time between 30 seconds and 2 hours. Once the crazy crone serving me started reading the book I was trying to buy. It certainly adds a random element to proceedings.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Oxfam buying Frankenstein. The book, not the crazy doctor. Ahead of me at the cash register was girl aged, at a guess, 12 buying a bag of sweets. She was being served by a hunched old man, which struck me as a bit of a departure for Oxfam. Perhaps the sex discrimination rules have finally taken their toll.

After money had been exchanged the girl thanked the man and he said, "that's right, you go off and have a nice suck" (his emphasis, not mine)

The girl seemed unphased, but I am scarred for life. I wonder if this is the old guy's only pleasure, making inappropriate remarks to young girls. Or is it the tip of a throbbing ice-berg that includes sniffing bicycle seats and 'jousting' in movie theatres.

And what of the victim? No immediate signs of distress, but maybe she will never be able to eat sweets again. Or she might have repressed the experience only for it to re-emerge in her golden years in the verbal abuse of young boys.

Who knows. All I know is that wherever I go, strange shit happens.

On 24th July 2000 I observed to my colleagues that it would be neat if Concorde was to crash.

They looked at me with incredulity, but I ploughed on...

No, but really, think about it. Planes crash all the time, there is at least one decent-sized plane crash each year. They are commonplace. Barely worth watching on the news. Been there, done that, saw the charred bodies, bought the t-shirt.

But if Concorde was to crash it would be special. A unique crash that would give us something to talk about for years. A pointy-nosed supersonic Anglo-French crash.

They kind of accepted my point.

The next day Concorde crashed, frying some Germany tourists. It crashed in style, trailing a hundred-foot flame and flattening a hotel. Now that is how to crash a plane.

I caused that.

I like coffee shops. They are one of my few vices. I don't go in for complicated orders - just a simple latte, usually grande, often fairtrade, occasionally double tall, and skinny or soy when I am feeling fat. But still, nothing too fancy.

Recently I was in a small town in a rural part of England when I espied a coffee shop. The sign actually said, "Coffee, Cafe and Internet." What more could anyone want?

Er, plenty, as it happens. As soon as I walked in I knew there was going to be an underfulfilment of expectation. There was a bare counter, and behind it a prep area that consisted of several cups and saucers, a kettle and a jar of instant coffee.

On the bright side I got a cup of coffee for £0.50 (less than a dollar) that came with two biscuits (one was a rich tea, a prince amongst biscuits).

As entertainment there were some old folks being trained how to use PCs. "A folder holds things just like you might use a folder at home to hold letters" "I keep mine in a drawer"

Lovely stuff.

As suspected, the people buying my house were mealy mouthed, lily-livered, time-wasting bastards.

Thankfully I didn't set my lawyer off on a fee-charging mission so I haven't lost anything. I have fired the estate agent though, and that gave me a warm feeling.

Condi thought she had negotiated a temporary ceasefire, the Israeli government knew that she hadn't. Neither party was wrong, it is all just part of the fun of negotiating with Israelis.

A few years ago I worked for a furniture company called Teknion. We sold-to-order in Europe products that were made by a sister company in Haifa, which was run by a former general called Shmuel Reshef.

Four times a year we would visit the factory in Haifa to negotiate terms and on the first two visits I was completely scammed by the good general. He was very precise with what he said and agreed to. I was broad-brush and heard what I wanted to hear. Initially I was livid and accusational, but then I realised that it was me who was at fault. He never lied, he never reneged on a deal, he just ran circles around me. Shame on me, but a valuable lesson.

Once I knew the rules of engagement it became far more enjoyable and a couple of times I managed to tie Shmuel in knots of his own making. The art of judo is to use the opponent's weight against himself, and so it is in the art of negotiation. Set the bear trap then do all you can to keep the other guy away from it. He will figure that you are defending something worth having and will make concessions to get there. Only later does he realise he paid you to sell him nothing.

That's how it was with Shmuel - we both knew the business would pretty much look after itself, so spent our time manouvering, bluffing, double bluffing and waging war with thesaurus and dictionary. At the end of one particulalry sweet negotiation he stared at me for 30 seconds and then said, "you do know I carry I gun?".

Teknion itself was a basket case and I jumped ship long ago. Recent events have brought it all back, and I hope Shmuel Reshef and his team are safe in Haifa.

I had the misfortune of spending 100 minutes driving home on Friday. The double misfortune was that I listened to the Bush/Blair news conference while my life inched by on the tarmac.

The Israel/Lebanon situation is a mess and not one easily resolved.

Hezbollah decided to annoy the hornets and rather than throw stones at the nest and run away, stood right next it while repeatedly whacking it with a stick. The result was as desired by Hezbollah as it was predictable by the rest of us.

Israel for its part defenestrated originality and went for all out reprisals. I am reminded of the Yakuza - they don't kill you; they kill your family, your friends, anyone who has ever met you. It is collective punishment for the entire population of the country that hosted Hezbollah. Illegal though collective punishment is, the Israeli government can barely be bothered to deny that this is the strategy.

Meanwhile Hezbollah is sitting pretty. Israel cannot possibly afford to back away now - that would be admission that the radicals cannot be defeated. So instead they will need to take southern Lebanon and occupy it while Hezbollah simply disappear back into the general population and pick off Israeli soldiers one or two a week.

It is history repeating.

The difference this time, supposedly, is the new world order(tm). We have an economic powerhouse that is happy to use military might to spread democracy and freedom, and to hold on to its wealth. The US has a choice between letting this play out for the next ten years and then start the cycle again, or intervening.

Not for the first time, the US figures that long term debilitating war is better for business than short term political and military action. So the US are busy arming Israel, ensuring the Hezbollah has no shortage of backers, while the UK pretends to care about the humanitarian crisis and tags along with uncle.

Bush and Blair declared a 'framework' and a 'clear path ahead', without actually saying what they were going to do. The 'framework' will do nothing to protect the peoples of nothern Israel or southern Lebanon. The framework is made of air and gutlessness. The framework means lets run through this tired old shit just one more time.

The alternative is to come down heavily on those who continue the violence. Stop the direct arms supply, intervene in the indirect supply, support the institutions of state in Lebanon, promote trade and wealth creation, facilitate talks and slap down those who act against any or all of these.

Unfortunately there is no new world order, there is no war on terror, there is no promotion of democracy and human dignity. There is only the middle ages repeating and repeating.

I have acquired a housekeeper, and about time too. The effort of maintaining the stately home was become too much for my increasingly infirm body.

The housekeeper is called Molly Maid and she will be cleaning, washing and ironing.

And it is all free of charge. Sweet.

In other news, I have rented out one of my rooms to someone called, er, Molly. She gets the run of the house and her own bathroom. And it is all free of charge.

We had the police in the office last week after we reported a case of credit card fraud. Most companies don't bother getting the police involved but I figure it is always worth reporting a misdeed - our money is lost but it might help a future potential victim.

It being another slow day for the local fuzz, two officers turned up and while they were taking statements and drinking tea I asked them what other stuff that had been working on that morning. We were their third call of the day and the other two were:

1. Milk theft
Not a dairy heist but the theft, from a doorstep, of a pint of milk. Cost of property stolen: £0.46. That is less than a buck my dear yank friends.

2. Dead badger
Someone called in to report a dead badger in the road. This is rural England - at this time of year there is a daily slaughter of the innocents. Later in the year the youngsters have learned a bit of road sense but right now it is the killing fields. Badgers, rabbits, deer and birds. Calling to report a dead badger is like calling to report the sunrise. Technically it could be a hazard to traffic, but believe me, a dead badger is less of a hazard than a live one and within a day it will look like a striped doormat.

There really is a different pace of life out here.

Uncle Ted, husband of the sister of my granddad, died this morning aged 84.

Granddad's mind faded while his body continued. Ted's body faded while his mind continued.

Which is the better way to go? Is any demise preferable?

Perhaps most people's first choice would be to continue in rude health forever, not because eternal life is necessarily desirable, but because death seems so grotesquely unpleasant. Yet that choice is closed to us - death comes to us all, with no grace or favour.

So what choices does that leave us?

The sudden heart attack? Bent in agony and unable to breathe, with no time to say 'goodbye' or 'sorry' or 'I love you'?

The deterioration of mental capacity? Knowing the mind is slipping away but not knowing where it is leading you, and seeing the distress of those around you who can only spectate?

Or the physical decline? Trapped within a body that won't let you speak, still thinking, still calculating, like a permanent state of drowning.

If we could choose a way to die, could we really choose?

I couldn't.

Memo to self: do not write blog posts at 6.30am

The second book for the book group is Madame Bovary, not Frankenstein. I did have a minor doubt yesterday but figured someone would email me if I had it wrong.

Sure enough I got an email from Belinda Ballcock pointing out my ineptitude. Belinda is the book group queen and also the mother of my third wife.

Book clubs were the cool new thing about three years ago, and typically for me I have waited until now to join one.

Not that it was a conscious decision. I was invited to join one and couldn't think of a good reason not to. So I am a founder member of 'the book club'. Action item 1 is to think of a better name.

I had always wondered what book clubs 'do' and had prepared a few notes on the chosen book (The Time Traveler's Wife) for page quality, binding, smell and the niceness of the ISBN number (a bit disappointing: 0099464462)

Wide of the mark as it turned out.

What book clubs do is gossip, drink wine and eat tortilla chips, then move on to discussing good and bad things about the story.

I read the book on Christmas Day (there is a bit of a story about that which I will recount another time) and six weeks ago I sent the book to a bookcrossing member in Devon. As a result I was working from unreliable memory and managed to invent an entire chapter, which on reflection comes from Donna Tartt'sThe Little Friend. Although maybe I have remembered that wrong too and it really was in Time Traveler and the book club harridans were just messing with me.

Notwithstanding that, it was a very enjoyable evening and in the tradition of overambitious beginnings we have resolved to read two books and watch one DVD for the next meeting:

A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters
Frankenstein
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

The first and third were my choices and the second I should have read by now but never got around to it.

I had better get on with it.

As exits go, Zinedine Zidane's was pretty spectacular. Playing his last ever game of professional football he headbutted one of the stylish Italian guys and got his marching orders.

Typically gallic, of course. He joins Eric Cantona in the pantheon of crazed french geniuses, along with the chap at the castle: "I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries."

Being English, reserved and the son of a hairdresser, my exits have always been very subdued. No histrionics for me, just a quiet exit with a box of CDs and cuddly toys.

Oh, and several thousand pounds of misappropriated funds, but I'd better not mention that.

I am having a detox weekend. I have always been a little sceptical of the whole idea of a detox diet so while I was passing time daydreaming of pizza I decided to look it up:

A class of diets whose underlying assumption is that the body accumulates toxins that must be purged, especially after unhealthy periods such as over-eating during festivals. Toxins, in this case, refer to toxic substances - often of undefined nature - from foods, the environment and the body's own wastes. "Detox diet" is a common phrase, as is "I'm on a detox".

If I am such a sceptic, why am I doing it? The aim is to drop a couple of pounds and it seems as good a short term diet as any. Not that I am following a prescribed diet - I made up my own. Only fruit, salad and tea for a whole weekend.

My post-vacation diet has been pretty successful but I just wanted to round it off with a final sprint. Ideally I would like to lose 2 very specific pounds of fat which have taken up love-handle positions. Losing specific fat is like trying to only breath air from a certain part of the room, but there is no harm in hoping.

Meanwhile I have been feasting on apples, bananas, strawberries, figs, dates, prunes, orange juice and a big mixed salad, with only balsamic to liven it up. It is a diet that is not lacking in taste, or in volume of food, but it still isn't as scrummy as marmite on toast, pizza and fish and chips. Ideally all on one plate.

Of course, the best diet isn't a diet - it is to eat healthily and in moderation on a permanent basis. But I prefer the three-stage dieting process: binging, self-loathing, purging. Repeat at will.

This morning I made a start of my decluttering exercise. This involves finding all the hidden deposits of mail and sorting through them.

My house has been for sale for nearly a year and the real estate agent will often ring me at work to ask if they can show someone round that day. As a result I need to have the house in viewing-condition permanently and the way to achieve that has been to hide anything that looks clutterish.

Hence there are secret piles of mail all around the house. I hide it, then forget about it. Out of sight it very much out of mind.

So today I set about finding it all and going through it, with the intention of rounding off with a session of filing.

I hadn't got very far when I found a few tax documents, reminding me that I had been planning to complete my tax return this weekend. So I quit with the mail and started on my online tax return.

A while into that I needed to get some interest income data and went into MS Money to discover that it was only complete up to the end of January. So I quit with the tax return and started updating MS Money.

That was going okay until I needed some credit card statements that were missing from the file. So I quit with MS Money and went back to sorting through the post to find the missing statements.

Some days it really is better to stay in bed.

After 11 (eleven!) months on the market I have sold my house. Or rather, I have accepted an offer.

If the buyer doesn't change her mind, the survey goes okay, buyer can get the finance all sorted, and I don't have a fire, then the course of events will lead to me selling my house. Hurrah!

The next challenge will be to find somewhere suitable to rent, but I will tackle that once the sale looks more certain.

Meanwhile, I had better further declutter my already mostly clutter-free house.

I bet £71 last night and got £68 back in winnings.

It could have been even better - I won the first two races in a four-race accumulator and was getting ready to crack open the champagne when my third selection only managed a place.

Next time maybe.

A cracking summers evening though. Next up will be Ladies' Night on the 31st.

A scorching summer afternoon with cornflower blue sky and scattered fluffy clouds; a Thames river taxi; the thunder of hooves; dogdy beer, dodgier food and scantily-clad women.

It can only be Monday night racing at Windsor.

I have relieved the petty cash tin of all but small change and am set to make my fortune, although previous performances give little reason for confidence.

Milly is my trusty steed, much loved and, these days, much driven.

A 100-mile per day commute has done for her tyre tread so today I bit the bullet and got all four tyres replaced.

Six hundred pounds. SIX HUNDRED! That is eleven hundred dollars in 3rd world money. Crikey.

My trip home from Miami was far from simple. A one-hour boarding delay at Miami, due to a thunder storm, was followed by a two-hour weather closure of Washington Dulles. With Dulles closed we weren't allowed to take off.

Meanwhile another thunder storm passed over Miami and made for entertaining viewing while we remained seat-bound and earth-bound. The 747 alongside us took repeated lightning hits and the wind got so strong that our plane started rocking from side to side.

I finally got to Dulles three hours late and had missed my connection, with the next available seat two days later. Yikes! I was placed on the standby list, with around 50 other people, for the 10pm flight.

I was nowhere near the top of that list but they finally called my name only to then discovered that the plane was full. Either that or they just wanted to mess with my emotions. They then closed the flight and I thought it had actually gone when the gate was reopened because they had found one empty seat. That would be mine then!

I landed in London only four hours later than planned and even managed to sleep for a few hours en route, probably due to nervous exhaustion.

My bags weren't so lucky and are currently missing in action.

Before Tuesday the last funeral I attended was 6 years ago and the difference could not be more striking.

Funerals are for mourning losses and for celebrating lives. The balance between the two often depends on the nature and timing of the death.

Martin was 28 and died after an 18 month battle with bowel cancer. My Granddad was 93 and died after many years with Alzheimers.

Both were mourned, but when someone is taken so early in a life it is almost impossible to celebrate anything. How can a life so short be celebrated when there was so much still ahead? It was a painfully moving funeral, full of a sense of waste and helplessness in the face of disease.

For Granddad, the end was expected - not precisely but in general terms. There is no certainty like death - I will die and everyone I have ever known will die. Perhaps in millenia to come death will be the stuff of human history, but for now our universal truths are love and death.

When the life has been lived fully and the end, for the true person inside, came some years ago, it is a time to bring those two together and show that death does not conquer love, it reaffirms it.

If there is such thing as a good funeral, Granddad received one. A gathering of the clan to give a very warm and affectionate farewell. Gentility and dignity in a very English way.

Afterwards, thoughts turn to the inevitable - I wonder who will be at mine. Again, timing is the key. The earlier you go the more you get. Working life keeps the numbers up, as does procreation. Making some assumptions about my full term, my offspring (none, damnit, none!) and the life expectancy of my own generation of relatives, I reckon I will struggle to reach double figures.

Which should keep the cost down.

The World Cup has started and England has collectively lost the plot.

The greatest sporting nation on earth is, and is pains me to say it, Australia. A land of convicts and sheep-shaggers is world champion in more than 50 different sports.

But the greatest sport-supporting nation on earth is England. At the Athens Olympics the biggest group of supporters there was, of course, the Greeks. The second biggest was the British. In Rugby Union, when the British Lions played Australia, in Australia, there were more red jerseys than gold in the crowd. When the English cricket team tour in the West Indies the England fans outnumber the locals.

Home field advantage counts for a lot in sport and the English have exported the concept. When truly playing at home the impact is magnified - pity the poor Australians (for once) who played eleven men against 50 million in the cricket last summer.

And so on to the World Cup, the greatest show on earth. England is awash with flags, banners and football shirts. Even dogs are being dressed in the cross of St George.

The English don't normally do patriotism, certainly not overtly - it is all rather undignified. But sport is the glorious exception; the excuse. It is now okay to say it proud and say it loud - England, our England. Dressing head to toe in red and white is perfectly fine, and all the better if you can have a dozen flags attached to your car.

And now, on the quiet morning of a white-hot day, is the time of greatest expectation - the hours before our opening game. The time when people are daring to whisper that we can win this year. The time for buying beer, barbecue supplies and St George sun hats. The time to stop worrying about Wayne's foot, Stevie's back and Sven's taste for the ladies.

This is the time for faith to conquer nerves, for love to conquer fear, for nation to conquer individual.

This is the time.

As I walked through Brussels airport this morning I was reminded of an incident in 2000. While I was thinking about how I would describe it on these very pages I was reminded of an incident in 1980 and in a tangential move I then remembered something from 1985.

I then started thinking about memories and how my blog has become a trigger for memories and anecdotes. I have entered my dotage, but with me it is an anecdotage.

Is this what we become? A collection of memories? Or perhaps it is the linkages that matter - what is a memory if it is never fired by synapse and dendrite?

We are each the product of a million moments, but are we lessened if those moments are not remembered? Does the person fade with the memories or are we distinct, with the memory being merely the filing cabinet in an office - disorganised if the filing cabinet is lost, but still an office.

And exactly why, as a portly Belgian with a walrus moustache walked by me, did I remember bananas and custard?

In another example of how behind the times I am, I have just started watching the new series of Doctor Who. Not the one that began 6 weeks ago but the one that began in 2005 - the first series of the all new Doctor Who with Christopher Ecclestone.

And... it's ace. It takes me back to Saturday evenings in the late 70's hiding behind a cushion while watching because the monsters in Dr Who were so scary.

This time round I am managing to maintain my dignity, although it is only a matter of time before I abase myself over Billy Piper, and it is not until season 2 that the Cybermen will appear to scare the bejesus out of me.

Cracking stuff.

I was at the hospital this morning for a Dacroscintogram scan. A what? Exactly.

When I checked in to the radiology department I said 'I am here for something unpronounceable' and gave her my appointment letter. She couldn't pronounce it either and played safe with 'ah, one of those.'

This is the deal: radioactive water is placed in my eyes and then I sit still (very, very still) in front of a fancy radiation detector for 20 minutes while it tracks the progress of the water through my tear ducts.

What should one do when sat still for 20 minutes? I am sure I was not alone in falling asleep.

The results will be sent to my consultant and he will haul me in to tell me the news.

Meanwhile 'a small amount of radioactivity stays in the body for 24 hours.' By rights that means I have super powers including the ability to see through walls and cook toast with my eyes.

Given that I would only use such powers for evil, I have placed myself under house arrest until tomorrow.

South Africa and Swaziland were both fabulous, in different ways.

I can't really do them justice in this post, and I probably can't over several posts, unless I am to suddenly become a talented travel writer.

For now, just a couple of photos (from the 500 I snapped!) and the news that I am back, am tired but have had a great holiday.

Mountain sunset, Swaziland

Giraffe fight, Timbavati Game Reserve, South Africa

Like the clown that I am I got up at 5.20am so that I could be at work for 6.40am and get plenty done before heading to the airport by 5pm.

Still, I did get plenty done and I will come back to slightly less of a raging fire than would otherwise have been the case.

I will be back in 9 days, armed with a raft of nasty diseases and a few photos. Meanwhile flanerie will resting.

I had my ears flushed on Friday, which is an odd but strangely pleasant experience.

Unfortunately, it didn't fix the ringing.

I guess the next step is to return to the doctor after my vacation. Of course, being in a pressurised cabin might cause my ear drums to explode and bits of brain spray across the aisle. Would certainly make it a memorable flight.

The doctor shook his head while sucking in his breath, then led me to an examination table and placed my head in a large vice. He then produced a Black & Decker cordless drill, fitted a number 8 bit and drilled into my ear.

After mopping up the blood he took a close look inside with a torch and said, 'aha!'. He then got a wire coat hanger, unwound it, and poked inside my head with it until he latched into something and then, using his knee to brace himself, yanked it out.

An old bicycle wheel! Who would have thought it?

Okay, I made that up, but I had you convinced well into the first sentence.

It was wax on my eardrum, and my attempts to shift it in the past few weeks with eardrops have just been moving it around like a deckchair. I am booked in for a flushing out on Friday.

My doctor is cool - he actually reads the notes. When I said I had an ear problem he said 'ah, we need to fix that, you are flying to South Africa on Monday'. Top banana.

I have developed a ringing in my left ear. What the hell is that all about? It is midway between a hiss and a tone. It varies in intensisty and at its worst becomes ear ache.

It has developed slowly over the last three weeks and apart from the ringing, I can hear normally.

I will be visiting the doctor tomorrow and my question for the guy with the stethoscope: Why me and not Mick Jagger?

Easter is the time of shopping, home improvements, gardening and eating chocolate.

As it is written in the Gospel of Darren:
"Jesus died on the cross and was laid to rest in a tomb. A few days later he woke up, gagging for chocolate, and bust out of the tomb. Then he went shopping and spent a pile of money he didnt have on stuff he didnt need."

You might recall that Darren was the one that, as Jesus was getting into his stride with the 'drink of my blood' speech, shouted out, 'got any more wine Jesus? I'm parched!'

According to an article on the BBC today, the average household will spend £434 ($760) this Easter, and that is just in physical stores. In England it is a four day weekend with public holidays on Friday and Monday, hence the big spend, although most shops are closed on Sunday due to some retarded laws about when shops can be open.

Looking at my own spending, I guess I am not very average - £78 in the drugstore (of which £43 on malaria pills), £15 in a supermarket, £10 elsewhere.

But I have been very Easterly in other regards, with the 2006 gardening campaign beginning on Friday and continuing yesterday. I like gardening, but only in small doses, and I will probably do another hour today. I have no idea what any of the plants are called, or what the need doing to them, but I act like I know what I am doing and the plants respect that.

And chocolate? But of course. A Green & Black's organic chocolate easter egg. Mmmmm.

I have some vacation time booked at the end of April but my original plan fell through and I was stuck for ideas.

So I cheekily emailed Miss Elly and asked if I could visit her in South Africa and incredibly she said yes!

That was at the start of the week and since then I have been frantically trying to put together an itinerary, not helped by all camps in the Kruger National Park being fully booked.

On Thursday I got a Hepatitis A vaccine, yesterday I got Malaria pills. Next on the action list is to learn some basic words of siSwati and to buy enough mosquito repellant to bathe in.

I fly out on the evening the 24th, so flanerie.org will be a little quiet while I am away, but I will try make up for it with some good photographs when I return.

Hopefully I will be allowed to bring back a baby elephant.

Three weeks ago I received a hefty tax demand. By hefty I mean fucking monstrous. I had filed at the end of January and had not yet received a final assessment. The demand included some interest and warned me that the clock was still running. 'Better call the tax office and figure out what went wrong', I thought.

Two weeks later, with the tax demand still on my action list, I received a 5% surcharge notice for not paying within 28 days. Nevermind that is wasn't yet 28 days since the demand, and nevermind that there was no mention of a 28 day limit.

Still, it did spur me to call the tax office. I bleated that I still have not received an assessment on which the demand is based, that there was no mention of a 28 day limit, that the demand was outrageous and adding 5% was racketeering, and that it was my birthday.

A very chirpy James at the tax office took it all in his stride and talked me through the figures - 'so your total taxable earnings were X, and the tax on that is Y'.

'Wait, that's the same as the demand I received. What happened to all that shit you have been deducting through payroll?'

'According to the form you filled in, you didn't pay any tax last year'

'Oops, I am a twat. I paid Z during the year'

'Fine. I have adjusted that and the new balance is Q'

Q was still a big chunk of change but did roughly tie to what I was expecting. Curiously I got the impression that I could have given any figure for Z and James would have happily keyed it in to his system. It is self-assessment after all, so I could decide the tax office owe me $64,000. I guess the trick is to know how far you can push it before they pull on the latex gloves and audit you.

All that was on Monday. On Tuesday, by some exceptionally unamusing twist of fate, I received all the forms for the tax year that just ended, and the merrygoround starts afresh.

Following this little appeal, I have today sent £175 to Elly:

£80 from Julie and Louise
£80 from me to match it
£15 that I won on the Grand National sweepstake

And today she is buying a cow, which totally rocks.

In other news, today is my birthday. Hooray!

Where there is light there will always be a dark side.

The dark side of commerce is corruption, the dark side of sport is drugs, and the dark side of politics is sleaze while politics itself is the dark side of democracy.

The scariest dark sides of all are in suburbia - swinging, coffee mornings, dog shows and Elvis.

Last week I saw Elvis in an indian restaurant and it has taken me this long to face up to what I did.

I didn't see Elvis in the way that people regularly see him shopping for groceries. I saw him perform. I paid money for curry and Elvis.

The restaurant concerned was the Dil-raj in Abingdon. The Elvis concerned was Gary Glen, one of the top 5 Elvis impersonators in England. I don't know how the ranking works, but here he is:

The curry house was packed with, mostly, extremely ugly women. Forget that line about falling out of the ugly tree - these women had been thrashed with an ugly stick, then punched with an ugly fist before being given a good kicking with an ugly boot. And they were mad for Elvis.

The uglier they were the more they sang along and whooped and cheered. Elvis, of course, encouraged them, serenading the most afflicted and doing that pelvis thing for their pleasure. Unfortunately one of the hideous targets of his attention was sat on the table next to mine so that when she was getting pelvic thrusts I was getting Elvis ass in my face. At least I got to learn something - Elvis wears briefs, not boxers.

Apparently blind people have a better sense of hearing to compensate for their lack of sight. If only ugly people could sing to compensate for their hideous features. Instead, when Elv made his fans sing solo, the windows broke and the RSPCA went on maximum alert.

But so be it. For many there, I got the impression this would be the best night out they had all year. Is this an indictment of them, of Elvis or of me? Whatever the answer to that question, curried Elvis is a great advert for staying in and choking on hamburgers while sat on the toilet. It's what he would have wanted.

My first wedding of the year - Pascal, long time housemate and lover, and Cheryl, some bird he met at work. At the time he met her he was engaged to someone else, but there you go.

When I arrived at the Registry Office I was instructed to make sure the two ushers did their job properly. Normally that would be a pretty easy ask, but the lads concerned were busy trying to make sure their 'stash' would arrive in time for the reception. It was like being asked to take two chimps out to lunch without making a mess.

Anyway, dumb and dumber managed it somehow, with a little management guidance, and Pascal and Cheryl got hitched without a hitch.

A cracking reception followed, from which I gained two things:
- a life-threatening hangover;
- an invite to a lesbian wedding

Sweet.

The Commonweath Games is a waste of time, but I love it anyway.

Most of my readers are in the USA, and probably have no idea what I am talking about...

The Commonwealth is what used to be the British Empire - after the empire was pretty much dissolved, they stayed together in a genteel club of nations. The are some obvious members, like Canada and Australia, for which the Queen is still head of state, and some more obscure ones, like South Africa, Norfolk Island and Singapore.

And the games are the Commonwealth olympics, and include a curious mix of sports.

They sit oddly in the sporting cycle. Most sports follow a natural progression - national championships, regional (eg European), world and/or Olympics. These games don't really fit anywhere in that, except to be practice for the Olympics.

As a result no-one takes it very seriously in sporting terms and focuses on having a good time. The media are encouraged to call it 'the friendly games' and it's a reasonably fair description.

So although in sporting terms I have no interest in the Commonwealth Games, I still watch them.

Where else can you see Guernsey v Papua New Guinea at Lawn Bowling, followed by the Bahamas v Malaysia in the boxing ring?

If the games were scrapped for lack of interest (the England team couldn't even get a sponsor) I wouldn't miss them, but while they continue I will revel in sporting gentility.

Fuck me it was cold yesterday.

It was the sort of cold where you start to lose your survival instinct and serenely open yourself to the possibility of death. I very nearly did a Capt. Oates, wandering off with the final words, 'I'm going for a slash, meet you back here'.

If there had been penguins wandering around the only surprise would be that you don't tend to see them in the nothern hemisphere.

But in lieu of penguins there were some Irish people. Some Irish people in the way that there are some wildebeest in the Serengeti. There were also a lot of gangsters, wannabe gangsters, ne'erdowells, low-lifes, do-as-you-likeys and crapulous old men.

All of life was there, even if some of that life was clinging on by its yellow fingernails. And death too - three horses died in one race alone yesterday - and the winner of today's feature race was the rather appropriate War of Attrition.

It was also a truly shocking day for gambling. Over five races, four of us backed around 30 different horses and the only payout was an each-way place for Natalie, which only paid back the stake. For me that was a typical tally, but the Jolly Boys can usually be relied upon land a couple, even on a losing day.

But despite this, and despite that, and despite the other, it was a cracking day out.

footnote: Capt. Oates was born on this day in 1880 and died on this day in 1912. Happy birth- death- paddy's-day.

In general we know what we don't know.

I know that I don't know the weight of a migrating swallow, the maximum temperature yesterday in Prestatyn, or the telephone number of Nicole Kidman.

There are some things that I don't know that I don't know. There are many plants and animals that I am wholly unaware of, and I don't know the color of plant X because I don't know that plant X even exists.

But because I know that I don't know all of the plants and animals on the planet, I am comfortable with the knowledge that I don't know about them. There is a generic lack of knowledge and within that is a whole swathe of specific lack of knowledge. I am aware of the generic lack, and so the specific lacks seem okay.

So far, so good.

But what about the stuff we used to know, but don't know now. Lost knowledge.

We don't know what we no longer know, and have to rely on lost knowledge being exposed.

I was occasioned to look at a statistics paper last week. I used to know and understand statistics - as part of my degree I took a one year statistics course and got a first. But it was like reading greek (a language I know I don't know).

When did I lose that knowledge? Did I lose it as a result of learning something else? Did I lose it in stages or all at once? Have I had a stroke? Do I even exist? Is this a dagger I see before me?

It seems fair to presume that there is a finite limit to knowledge. Learning means forgetting. This should be advertised more.

"This course in beginners' French will take 10 weeks and cost $50, plus you will forget the Superbowl winners from 1970 to 1984."

If only it was that easy though. Instead we can't know what we will soon not know.

"The next chapter of this book will cost you several memories. The publisher cannot be held responsible for any loss suffered."

This is the sort of thing that costs me a night's sleep.

The sheep have gone.

This means that the mingling last week was clearly a leaving do.

I wonder what the cows gave the sheep as a present. And I hope there were speeches.

The weather forecasters say the weather will be changeable when they have no idea what will happen. It wouldn't be cool to say 'we don't know what will happen, try sticking your head out the window' so instead they say it will be changeable.

In recent years, in England anyway, weather forecasters have tried to avoid that tricky business of forecasting what will happen by spending a good half of the weather bulletin saying what happened today. Sadly they get that wrong most of the time too.

But I guess we don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blow. Yeah, Dylan man. Yeah.

Anyway, today there was beautiful spring sunshine in the Cotswolds, and then there was a blizzard. A real blizzard with a white-out. It only lasted ten minutes and then it reverted to spring. And then another ten minute blizzard and then back to sunshine again. Like woah man, awesome.

And with that sort of weather the forecasters don't have much of a chance.

Thor and Odin are up in Valhalla and Thor turns to Odin and says, "It's great being a god and everything but I haven't had sex in a millennium." Odin says, "Well, what you need to do is go down to earth and find what they call a lady of the night and treat her." So Thor goes down to earth and the next day returns with a smile from ear to ear. Odin says, "It was good, then?" "Good?" replies Thor. "It was great! We did it twenty-seven times in one night." Odin is horrified. "Twenty-seven times?!? Mere mortals can't handle that! Go back to earth and apologize," he tells Thor. So Thor goes back and finds the woman and says, "Sorry about last night, see, I'm Thor..." The woman replies, "You're Thor? I can't even pith!"

---

I went to a comedy club last night on the occasion of a stag night. A chavtastic venue replete with stags and hens. The compere and comedian number 2 were very funny. Comedians one and three were appalling. Such are comedy clubs - the quality of the humour is a crap shoot.

We did manage to get abused by comedian number three for being 'miserable bastards', probably because we were ourselves abusing anyone who laughed at him. But there you go. If the guy on stage isn't doing the job, make your own entertainment.

On my daily commute there are many sheep which, given that I work in an area with a name that means 'sheep hills', is not overly surprising. Then again, Shepherd's Bush in London has a notable lack of shepherds and, take it from me, bush takes a lot of finding too.

There are also a few cows, although nowhere near enough for my liking. Make cows not war, as John Lennon would say. Well, perhaps.

One field though has both cows and sheep and this pleases me immensely. I can't really explain why, but I just like it when animals get mixed together.

The only problem is, there is some kind of apartheid deal going on. The sheep hang out together, the cows hang out together, but they don't mix. They don't even almost mix - opposite ends of the field usually. This field ain't big enough for the both of us.

Yesterday morning, much to my satisfaction, the respective groups were quite close, with the most easterly sheep being near to the most westerly cow. I sensed progress - a thawing of relations, an extended olive branch, a hoof of friendship.

And then this morning complete integration! I nearly left the road in my excitement. Cow sheep, sheep cow, passing round the canapes and ferrero rocher, discussing the weather and exchanging hair care tips. Marvellous.

This evening they were back to apartheid, but now they have managed it once I am convinced they can do it again. The dam has burst.

Next up, Christians and Lions.

This is my two hundredth post. Hooray.

I always assumed I would get bored with blogging long before one hundred posts, so to reach two hundred is good. I think. Or it means I have no life.

I went to see King Lear on Friday evening at the BMW Mini factory in Oxford, performed by the Creation Theatre Company.

I have never seen or read King Lear before, although I did know enough not to expect a knockabout comedy. As is often the case with Shakespeare I was completely lost for entire sections of dialog, but got back on track before the plot escaped me completely.

And I really enjoyed it.

This summer Creation will be performing at Oxford castle and I will definitely be up for that, although I also need to take advantage of the RSC's mission to perform the complete works over the next year.

The evening was also a date, with the lovely Natalie. More on whom, hopefully much more, in the weeks to come.

Britain's lawmakers are voting on a smoking ban today. Smoking will not be banned of course, but it will be banned inside public places such as offices, shops, restaurants and bars.

There may or may not be exemptions for bars that don't serve food, and private members clubs.

I am not sure whether I support such a ban or not. Personally I would like smoking to be banned in all buildings and open spaces that I am ever likely to use. But much though I would like to mould the country around my own preferences, reality means accepting a majority view and also balancing personal liberty with public health.

I tend to err on the side of liberty but there are occasional episodes that turn me into an authoritarian, wanting to ban cigarettes completely. Like the colleague whose daughter smoked throughout pregnancy and when the baby was a few days overdue joked that the it didn't want to be born as it was addicted to nicotine.

But then people as vile as that will happily harm children some other way if cigarettes are denied them.

For two years I worked in a smoking office. It wasn't just an office that allowed smoking, it was an office where management chain-smoked. The office stank, the people stank; by lunchtime the smoke formed layers; there was ash on the every surface. And funnily enough the company had a really bad sickness record. Go figure.

Ultimately, with only a third of people smoking, and half of them wishing they could quit, a smoking ban is doing a lot of people a favour, so let's haul ass and get it in place.

I don't watch a lot of sport - it takes a lot of effort to follow sport properly and it's usually more effort than the entertainment merits.

The are certain exceptions and they have a common theme - a lot of sport packed into a limited period of time. Premiership football is no good - it lasts 10 months and most days there isn't any action. Likewise Formula 1, with a two hour race twice a month. But the football World Cup is a month of thrilling drama, Open golf pits man against the elements and Six Nations Rugby is an annual civil war.

Similarly the Ryder Cup, athletics European and World Cups and, of course, both editions of the Olympics.

While single sport events have purity of form, the Oylmpics has sheer breadth. There are sports at the Olympics that don't even exist at any other time, like that one that involves skiing and rifle shooting. Wtf is that about? The Olympics is like the biggest buffet ever, combined with a stomach bypass so that you never get full. It is hog heaven.

The only bummer is that Team GB is shit so I have decided to adopt another country. I couldn't take Germany as they are clear favourites to win everything. The US is out, for obvious reasons, as are the Norsemen of the Apocalypse (Denmark). After some deliberation I have chosen France, a country that knows it onions.

Allez les bleus, and all that.

God made the earth, the garden of eden, Adam, Eve, apples, figleaves and a serpent.

Then he made the wheel, Noah, cows, penguins, the Stone Roses, books, coffee, quorn, porn, radio 4, crosswords, mugs of tea, cricket and cheese.

All of which is a pretty good effort, but he had one more trick up his kilt - Tiroler Edle 75% chocolate.

But this stuff... it's crack. Really. Take the best chocolate you have ever tasted, and double it. Two bars appeared on my desk (thanks boss!) and I thought, being on a diet, just one square as a taster. So much for that plan!

I still have the second bar and it is only surviving because I don't have a further supply. What I need is a chocolate dealer. Drug dealers are always easy to find (and are usually called Dougie), but where are the chocolate dealers? But if I find one, I will need to take up bulimic vomiting. Which doesn't sound too much of a price to pay.

Sex or chocolate? Both, of course.

Fat, obese, lardy, tubby, circumferentially challenged.

I have an acceptable range for my weight and when I hit the upper limit I reduce my food intake to bring it back down again; a process which usually takes just a few days.

I hit the upper limit two weeks ago and my attempts at weight reduction have completely failed since. This is despite my Laugh Yourself Slim programme. And the lack of progress is beginning to annoying me.

I have even significantly cut down on my chocolate intake, which is a big sacrifice to make, and all for nothing.

So I have started to consider

erm, y'know

like

exercise

:-(

A couple of statistics I heard on the radio yesterday:

Just five percent of rapes reported to the police lead to a conviction.

Just twenty percent of rape cases that go to trial lead to a conviction.

Welcome to Britain in the 21st Century.

I visited Ikea today. It is a strange place.

Everything is really cheap, but I always manage to spend a fortune and have little to show for it. On the plus side, if you manage to steal enough pencils, you end up in profit. Or you do if you have an fireplace.

I learned this week, from my two favourite americans, that nik-naks are also known as chachkis, which is nice. So now I have some chachkis.

Candle holders, statuettes, bowls, pictures, plants and tableware. And then a motherlode of pickled herrings and chocolate, which will make for a taste dinner.

Half a mile into my drive home last night a rabbit ran into the road in front of me. Thankfully it was some distance ahead, and I lifted off the accelerator to give it time to effect an orderly crossing of the road. On seeing a fast-moving car bearing down on it, the rabbit turned and started running along the road in my direction of travel.

This presented a problem. Rabbits are slower than cars. Fact. The best way to run over a rabbit is to try to avoid it. Another fact.

In India rabbits are unable to jaywalk because the roads are already clogged with cows, who have taken jaywalking to new levels. Which just goes to show.

Returning to the matter at hand, the rabbit was making good progress along the road, while I was making efforts to slow down without losing control on an icy surface. We equalised speed at 15 mph and a distance of only four feet and then formed an unlikely procession. After 50 yards it was becoming rather boring and I was growing concerned that the rabbit might have a heart attack, so I moved to the other side of the road hoping to shepherd him into the open field that lay beyond the tarmacadam.

As noted above, avoiding a rabbit is the best way to kill it and, not wanted to mess with tradition, the rabbit also moved to the other side of the road. So I moved back. The rabbit moved back. Another three iterations of this took place before he finally forgot the rules of the game and continued into the field. In all probability he was so tired by this point that he stopped for a rest and was eaten by a fox (BJAI 7).

But still, I avoided a karma-decimating squishing and at least one of us survived the blog the tale.

I was having an interesting dream the night before last. I was in a supermarket but was having trouble getting around the aisles as I had a suitcase with me. This was due to me returning home from holiday. The original plan was to go home, drop my bags off, then go shopping, but the taxi ran out of petrol right outside the supermarket so I figured I might as well do the shopping first.

I woke up and checked my clock – it was exactly the time for my alarm to go off.

How can my body-clock by that accurate? HOW? Come on, I want answers!

If I was King of more than my house, I would demand that the best scientific brains of the kingdom be summoned to provide answers; and convincing answers at that, or else be handed over to the grand inquisitor for ‘encouragement’. Alas, all I have are retarded pigeons, aggressive blackbirds and a house plant called Derek.

Derek showed the most interest in my scientific query, with a slight movement of one leaf. I intend to persue the matter further.

A lottery winner is me, although my plan to pay off the debts of everyone I know will have to wait a while longer - I won only £7.30 ($13).

The Euromillions jackpot this Friday is a staggering £100 ($175m.) American readers should note that this is not taxable and is paid up front, with none of that 20 year bullshit. To have the same net payout, a US lottery would need a jackpot of around $400m. So this one is freaking enormous and Europe is going lotto crazy - the Euromillions lottery is a joint venture between 8 counties.

It would be a shocker if I don't win this week, since I so clearly deserve to, so I am busy planning a Brewster-style spending spree. Roll on Friday.

I went for a nice country walk today over Bergher Hill. I was using a walk route printed in 1986, which is fine since public footpaths do not have a habit of moving, but the map was very vague. More to the point, I have an appalling sense of direction, and of the five mile route I was lost for about three miles. As it turned out, I was pretty much on the right path throughout, but it was more by luck than judgement, although I did use 'indian tracker' skills learned from bad movies.

The walk itself was lovely, and hopefully the picture above gives a flavour.

Frank, Sammy and Dean. Not quite live from Las Vegas. None of them are even alive, but apart from that minor detail a thoroughly enjoyable show from That's Life and My Way to Mr Bojangles and That's Amore, all backed by a fifteen-piece orchestra.

London was it's usual self - simultaneously lovely and revolting. Good things about London - vibrant, multicultural and full of hidden delights such as tiny churches hidden behind huge office blocks. Bad things - crowds, pollution, prices, lost tourists.

No-one that wants to visit England should go to London. It is entirely possible to spend 24 hours in London without talking to a single person born in England. That doesn't make London bad, it just makes it not part of England. Go to London to see London and then visit England

The other glorious thing about London is that you can be walking back to a hotel on Saturday night, and buy a Sunday newspaper. Lovely.

...also known as the Cheltenham Festival is a horse racing meeting. It is a horse racing meeting in the same way that the Superbowl is the game of football.

Horse racing is either flat or national hunt, meaning over fences. The Cheltenham Festival, over four days in March, is the pinnacle of the national hunt season, which takes place over the winter months.

What makes Cheltenham special is the quality of the racing and the quality of the crowd. Around half of the crowd are Irish and are on a major drinking and gambling session. The other half are not Irish and are on a major drinking and gambling session. The racing involves the very best horses in Europe in races that are anticipated for months. There is already a buzz about Cheltenham - a gambling friend of mine pointed out today that there are only 9 weeks to go until the Gold Cup (the biggest race of the meeting) and he has a gambling budget of £1,000.

I have secured four tickets for the Thursday (Ed - if you are reading, one of them is for you. If you aren't, you can feck off) and I can't wait!

Bring on the Cheltenham roar.

Just as I left Miami the weather turned icy. Relatively anyway - down to low 40's F on Friday night, and it was only 75F during the day on Thursday. The locals were in heavy denim, sweaters and overcoats. Bunch of lightweights.

Fort Lauderdale to Washington Dulles on TED, and the Dulles on London on United. I didn't manage to sleep much, but United bumped me into business class so at least I failed to sleep in comfort.

Tonight I will win £58m on the Euro Millions lottery and tomorrow I will start spending it.

New Year Fireworks
Originally uploaded by chancer.

Hopefully this also works for entire years, as I had a deliciously relaxed start to 2006.

Just in time for midnight on New Year's Eve I walked over to the beach with Katie and we watched various firework displays, then headed back home and had our own backyard display. I finally went to bed sometime after one.

Butter lights
Originally uploaded by chancer.

After that we headed over to the Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens and mooched about in the sun (it reached around 80F), checking out their display of Chihuly glass and harrassing iguanas.

And then in the evening a beer, a pizza and a movie. It was War of the Worlds - more fireworks, and never mind the story line.

Today, the antithesis - I will run the gauntlet of the mall for my bi-annual wardrobe restock.

Of course, New Year is completely arbitrary, but it is a good a point as any to take stock and look forward.

I have pretty much given up on specific new year resolutions and instead maintain a rolling list of intentions over at 43things.com - an annual assessment is just not often enough, especially when I am so poor at focusing on what needs to be done.

Making predictions is another reckless New Year tradition, and I think I will pass. I remember a graffito from my home town, "Nuclear free in '83, or no more in '84". Nice sentiment, but thankfully the obscene gamble of the cold war didn't end in vapourised tears. Perhaps it was sprayed by Al Stewart.

Taking stock is easier - 2005 was a good year and I continue to be blessed with a charmed life. If I wanted to go looking for them, I could find a few negatives to moan about, but it is not my attitude in life. The good, as with most people, massively outweighs the bad.

Whatever your hopes and dreams, and however 2005 worked out for you, have a wonderful 2006. Remember to make your own luck, to always think of your impact on others and to think of every single person on this planet as a neighbour.

Volo omnes felicem novum annum habere!