Creakkkk....

I have an ambition. It is a recent ambition and, as ambitions go, rather small.

I would like sometime before the end of the year, to pay a visit to South Cambridgeshire, lair of wallabok, and return from there in roughly the same state I arrived. Last time, dear reader, you recall it was all about claret and facial orifices. This time it's all about my bloody back popping again. Happily, I rarely take any notice of doctors, so I still have the anti-inflammatories left over from last time, and I am happy to say that they are doing the business. But, ooooh, creaaaakkk.

I can't actually remember precisely what I was doing at the time. I know we were outside enjoying a barbeque, and I know that feeding quite impressive amounts of wood into the burner was involved, but at which point my lumbar fell foul of the lumber, I can't recall (it's almost worth the pain to get that pun in).

And what a wood burner it is. I was accused of exaggeration when I pointed out that it consumed anything and everything fed into it, without a reciprocal production of heat. Well, I was vindicated. It did produce heat, and in quite remarkable amounts, but only once it had consumed over half a tree. At one point we managed a plume of ionised gas about 8" high from the flue, and a shower of sparks a good 6' high. Ah, it was marvellous; pure pyrotechnic pleasure. Of course, this mobile garden Vesuvius did produce quite copious amounts of airborne ash, and by daylight it was quite clear that another couple of trees fed into its maw would have turned the village into a latter day Pompeii.

Had we been allowed by the lady of the house to start feeding the garden furniture into the flames I daresay that we would still have been there now.

That's how to spend a Saturday night in summer.

Well. Not the bit about the back. Leave that bit out otherwise, it's all good.

Creakkkk....

I have an ambition. It is a recent ambition and, as ambitions go, rather small.

I would like sometime before the end of the year, to pay a visit to South Cambridgeshire, lair of wallabok, and return from there in roughly the same state I arrived. Last time, dear reader, you recall it was all about claret and facial orifices. This time it's all about my bloody back popping again. Happily, I rarely take any notice of doctors, so I still have the anti-inflammatories left over from last time, and I am happy to say that they are doing the business. But, ooooh, creaaaakkk.

I can't actually remember precisely what I was doing at the time. I know we were outside enjoying a barbeque, and I know that feeding quite impressive amounts of wood into the burner was involved, but at which point my lumbar fell foul of the lumber, I can't recall (it's almost worth the pain to get that pun in).

And what a wood burner it is. I was accused of exaggeration when I pointed out that it consumed anything and everything fed into it, without a reciprocal production of heat. Well, I was vindicated. It did produce heat, and in quite remarkable amounts, but only once it had consumed over half a tree. At one point we managed a plume of ionised gas about 8" high from the flue, and a shower of sparks a good 6' high. Ah, it was marvellous; pure pyrotechnic pleasure. Of course, this mobile garden Vesuvius did produce quite copious amounts of airborne ash, and by daylight it was quite clear that another couple of trees fed into its maw would have turned the village into a latter day Pompeii.

Had we been allowed by the lady of the house to start feeding the garden furniture into the flames I daresay that we would still have been there now.

That's how to spend a Saturday night in summer.

Well. Not the bit about the back. Leave that bit out otherwise, it's all good.

Blessed silence

Today is going to be a better day than anticipated.

My office PC works fine, including e-mail and internet access, but every telephone in the ODPM is dead. I don't know what happened, and I don't care. No telephone distractions all day, and just to be sure, I have switched my mobile off.

I can hack away at various pieces of work in splendid isolation, listening to MP3s on my Walkman without fear of interruption. This is, of course, a GOOD THING. The only blot on today's landscape is that I am both short of coffee, though I have enough to see me to lunchtime, and the water heater is acting up, so my next cup of coffee will get a boost from the microwave before I take it back to my desk. That can be a fun procedure if not done properly; best mix the coffee in the water before nuking it. I learnt sometime back that to nuke the water and then add the coffee meant that it would instantly froth up like something from Quatermass and strip a couple of layers of skin from the unsuspecting hand. A teabag introduced top water in a similar fashion has similarly impressive results. Of course, for that full mad scientist effect, I recommend leaving the teaspoon in the cup and setting the microwave to maximum. I'm not sure that the city lights will dim momentarily, but they ought to.

I have to restrain myself from nipping across the HMV in Victoria station at lunchtime and buying the new Goldfrapp album. - Yes, Bryan buying alternative electronica. Is this the end of civilisation as we know it? (all I can say is that I have traded up my guilty musical secret from Andy Williams, OK?).

Back to work.

Blessed silence

Today is going to be a better day than anticipated.

My office PC works fine, including e-mail and internet access, but every telephone in the ODPM is dead. I don't know what happened, and I don't care. No telephone distractions all day, and just to be sure, I have switched my mobile off.

I can hack away at various pieces of work in splendid isolation, listening to MP3s on my Walkman without fear of interruption. This is, of course, a GOOD THING. The only blot on today's landscape is that I am both short of coffee, though I have enough to see me to lunchtime, and the water heater is acting up, so my next cup of coffee will get a boost from the microwave before I take it back to my desk. That can be a fun procedure if not done properly; best mix the coffee in the water before nuking it. I learnt sometime back that to nuke the water and then add the coffee meant that it would instantly froth up like something from Quatermass and strip a couple of layers of skin from the unsuspecting hand. A teabag introduced top water in a similar fashion has similarly impressive results. Of course, for that full mad scientist effect, I recommend leaving the teaspoon in the cup and setting the microwave to maximum. I'm not sure that the city lights will dim momentarily, but they ought to.

I have to restrain myself from nipping across the HMV in Victoria station at lunchtime and buying the new Goldfrapp album. - Yes, Bryan buying alternative electronica. Is this the end of civilisation as we know it? (all I can say is that I have traded up my guilty musical secret from Andy Williams, OK?).

Back to work.

Freud Fish

So. Lunchtime.

I managed to restrain my impulse to go out CD purchasing. I talked my ever-acquisitive Id into waiting until Saturday, when I can get to Steve's Sounds just off Charing Cross Road, where his 'off the back of a truck' prices are more to the liking of my wallet. My Id, of course, cares little for such economic niceties and is bouncing up and down screaming, "Want now! Want now!". My Superego is standing by with a cattle prod and mop, just in case it shows signs of getting its way.

This was all particularly difficult because the short walk to Sainsbury's to stock up on coffee takes me perilously close to the station, and I could quite easily have wandered off unconsciously, acquired a CD and returned to the office coffee-less. Tricky, but mission accomplished.

Of course, this was helped by the fact that it is raining. It is that 'worst of all worlds' type of rain in that it is persistent, but not heavy; more a heavy mist/drizzle. The temperature is still somewhere around 70 degrees too, so the humidity is high, almost as though the air is sweating.

These past few days we have had much of the rain we failed to get in the spring.

Were I a farmer, I should be shaking my fist at the skies and cursing the rain for the flat, wet wheat fields with their potentially ruined harvest. It's the sort of weather that makes lesser people build Wicker Men to propitiate angry gods. Except, of course, that they wouldn't burn because it's too damp. Kerosene would redress the balance, but weather and fertility gods tend to look askance at that sort of thing. It's a bit like using firelighters to get the barbecue going; it just isn't cricket, and the steaks taste odd afterward.

Best, I think, just to take a couple of cans of chicken soup to the harvest festival, and if anyone asks, you can just look accusingly upwards and mutter about the weather and rubbish harvests.

Churches tend to have lightning rods, see.

Freud Fish

So. Lunchtime.

I managed to restrain my impulse to go out CD purchasing. I talked my ever-acquisitive Id into waiting until Saturday, when I can get to Steve's Sounds just off Charing Cross Road, where his 'off the back of a truck' prices are more to the liking of my wallet. My Id, of course, cares little for such economic niceties and is bouncing up and down screaming, "Want now! Want now!". My Superego is standing by with a cattle prod and mop, just in case it shows signs of getting its way.

This was all particularly difficult because the short walk to Sainsbury's to stock up on coffee takes me perilously close to the station, and I could quite easily have wandered off unconsciously, acquired a CD and returned to the office coffee-less. Tricky, but mission accomplished.

Of course, this was helped by the fact that it is raining. It is that 'worst of all worlds' type of rain in that it is persistent, but not heavy; more a heavy mist/drizzle. The temperature is still somewhere around 70 degrees too, so the humidity is high, almost as though the air is sweating.

These past few days we have had much of the rain we failed to get in the spring.

Were I a farmer, I should be shaking my fist at the skies and cursing the rain for the flat, wet wheat fields with their potentially ruined harvest. It's the sort of weather that makes lesser people build Wicker Men to propitiate angry gods. Except, of course, that they wouldn't burn because it's too damp. Kerosene would redress the balance, but weather and fertility gods tend to look askance at that sort of thing. It's a bit like using firelighters to get the barbecue going; it just isn't cricket, and the steaks taste odd afterward.

Best, I think, just to take a couple of cans of chicken soup to the harvest festival, and if anyone asks, you can just look accusingly upwards and mutter about the weather and rubbish harvests.

Churches tend to have lightning rods, see.

Bloody memes

I shall be so happy when this latest series of memes is out of the way.

Every time one pops up, someone does a poor cut and paste, and the next thing I know my friends page is all over the bloody place. As it is now. again.

Bloody memes

I shall be so happy when this latest series of memes is out of the way.

Every time one pops up, someone does a poor cut and paste, and the next thing I know my friends page is all over the bloody place. As it is now. again.