Wasted morning, productive PM.

We could do with a good, cracking thunderstorm but I don't think we're going to get it. Outside it's raining; we could do with a good downpour, but I don't think we're going to get it. I think instead, we'll get just enough rain to leave the temperature unaffected while the humidity goes through the roof.

The smoking clinic wasn't anywhere near as exciting as I'd hoped. Just me and a nurse who seemed a little deflated that I'd already gone five and a half weeks without a smoke. She contented herself by giving me some diet sheets, telling me to get more exercise and lose some weight, before belatedly doing the only useful thing she managed in the 20 minutes I was there, giving me a prescription for two weeks worth of nicotine replacement patches, which means the lot will cost me £6.30 instead of around £17 each. She suggested going back at the end of the two weeks. Other than getting another prescription, I'm not sure I see the point.

This afternoon (or rather yesterday afternoon, looking at the clock!) I managed to get everything done I intended to on the work front. Or rather nearly everything. For reasons I can't explain, there was no Chapter 9, updated or otherwise, and bits of chapter 8 need information added in. Beyond that, Chapters 1-7 inclusive and 10-22 inclusive are now ready for assembling into a single document and conversion to pdf format. Soon the 2006-07 version of the manual will be ready.

Then I can start on the 2007-08 version.

Cor.

Wasted morning, productive PM.

We could do with a good, cracking thunderstorm but I don't think we're going to get it. Outside it's raining; we could do with a good downpour, but I don't think we're going to get it. I think instead, we'll get just enough rain to leave the temperature unaffected while the humidity goes through the roof.

The smoking clinic wasn't anywhere near as exciting as I'd hoped. Just me and a nurse who seemed a little deflated that I'd already gone five and a half weeks without a smoke. She contented herself by giving me some diet sheets, telling me to get more exercise and lose some weight, before belatedly doing the only useful thing she managed in the 20 minutes I was there, giving me a prescription for two weeks worth of nicotine replacement patches, which means the lot will cost me £6.30 instead of around £17 each. She suggested going back at the end of the two weeks. Other than getting another prescription, I'm not sure I see the point.

This afternoon (or rather yesterday afternoon, looking at the clock!) I managed to get everything done I intended to on the work front. Or rather nearly everything. For reasons I can't explain, there was no Chapter 9, updated or otherwise, and bits of chapter 8 need information added in. Beyond that, Chapters 1-7 inclusive and 10-22 inclusive are now ready for assembling into a single document and conversion to pdf format. Soon the 2006-07 version of the manual will be ready.

Then I can start on the 2007-08 version.

Cor.

Business Cards II

I have just wandered around the corner to the small post office sorting office and picked up the small package of business cards that was just too large to get through the letter box of the Athenaeum Club. When Furtle's arrived, they left hers sitting on the doorstep; I had to go and fetch mine.

Convenience versus security. Tough call. I guess that generally speaking security is the better, if less convenient road, but in this instance, as it is just a box with 250 free business cards in it, well, convenience would have been nice.

I last had personal business cards about 20 years ago. In those pre-internet days, unless you knew someone, they cost real money or looked exceptionally tatty, or both.

I knew someone.

I had a set of about 100 made up. They had a nice brown marble effect, back and front. I had my name and address and telephone number (landline only; these were pre-mobile, too). Since they were for personal use, they had the obligatory joke: under the name it read something along the lines of "Genius and Wit. Curry Raconteur. Poodles Wrestled". There may have been other stuff too, but I forget now. I think I only remember that much because boroshan sabotaged me by using an insert symbol and writing "1/2 only" in front of the word, 'wit'.

The point is, and despite the deviation around the subject, I had 100 of those and I had them for many years. From time to time one will still turn up as a book mark. I have two and a half times as many of the new one. I don't know what to use them for...

Business Cards II

I have just wandered around the corner to the small post office sorting office and picked up the small package of business cards that was just too large to get through the letter box of the Athenaeum Club. When Furtle's arrived, they left hers sitting on the doorstep; I had to go and fetch mine.

Convenience versus security. Tough call. I guess that generally speaking security is the better, if less convenient road, but in this instance, as it is just a box with 250 free business cards in it, well, convenience would have been nice.

I last had personal business cards about 20 years ago. In those pre-internet days, unless you knew someone, they cost real money or looked exceptionally tatty, or both.

I knew someone.

I had a set of about 100 made up. They had a nice brown marble effect, back and front. I had my name and address and telephone number (landline only; these were pre-mobile, too). Since they were for personal use, they had the obligatory joke: under the name it read something along the lines of "Genius and Wit. Curry Raconteur. Poodles Wrestled". There may have been other stuff too, but I forget now. I think I only remember that much because boroshan sabotaged me by using an insert symbol and writing "1/2 only" in front of the word, 'wit'.

The point is, and despite the deviation around the subject, I had 100 of those and I had them for many years. From time to time one will still turn up as a book mark. I have two and a half times as many of the new one. I don't know what to use them for...

Phew Urr Gosh...

When I was smoking 20 or so a day, I was always impressed by how little it affected my sense of smell. The only thing I couldn't really smell was cigarette smoke unless it was blowing directly into my face.

Of course, this isn't quite true, though I thought it was. By and large I did maintain quite an impressive olfactory function (sorry, came over all pseudy there), but unless the smell was virtually intolerable to others, I wouldn't be able to smell settled cigarette smoke - the stuff that gets in the clothes, curtains and so on.

I have just dug out for display one of my oldest and most favourite action figures. Criminy, but it honks of stale smoke. I am hoping that exposure to the open air as opposed to its box may do something about that. If not, I can see myself having to soak it in a mild detergent to lose the smell. I hope it doesn't come to that; I have a bunch of these figures and may be selling some on eBay in due course.

Phew, not without giving them a clean, I shan't!

Phew Urr Gosh...

When I was smoking 20 or so a day, I was always impressed by how little it affected my sense of smell. The only thing I couldn't really smell was cigarette smoke unless it was blowing directly into my face.

Of course, this isn't quite true, though I thought it was. By and large I did maintain quite an impressive olfactory function (sorry, came over all pseudy there), but unless the smell was virtually intolerable to others, I wouldn't be able to smell settled cigarette smoke - the stuff that gets in the clothes, curtains and so on.

I have just dug out for display one of my oldest and most favourite action figures. Criminy, but it honks of stale smoke. I am hoping that exposure to the open air as opposed to its box may do something about that. If not, I can see myself having to soak it in a mild detergent to lose the smell. I hope it doesn't come to that; I have a bunch of these figures and may be selling some on eBay in due course.

Phew, not without giving them a clean, I shan't!