Tuesday, 1105 as I start writing this. I've been in the office since 0831 and managed to do about 20 minutes worth of real work in all that time. I knew I did the right thing by being at home yesterday. Anyway, an update on the time since Sunday morning:

Surprisingly enough, I managed to fall asleep a few laps in to the GP. To say that I was a bit fed-up with myself for it happening when I did come round would be something of an understatement. So naturally that was top of the agenda with the doctor yesterday. He thinks it could just be that with all the disturbances of late I've just got into a strange sleep pattern that has taken over and could possibly use a teensy bit more exercise. However, I am also going back in on Friday for some blood tests so we will know a bit more when the results of those come back.

Sunday night was quite pleasant at Ma & Pa's. No problems about the car (other than perhaps a spot of jealousy as it will be the newest in the family). Their extension is coming along nicely and they also had a present for us. A big (1m+) thermometer for the garden. It looks really good sat in the lawn and we can read it from the kitchen to decide whether to go out or not!

Yesterday, as mentioned was a working at home day due to the doctor's appointment. I could have come straight in afterwards but would have struggled to park so thought I'd be better off at home - and a load more productive too. As well as the sleep thing I let him have alook at my hurty foot. Couldn't find anything major so probably just a strained ligament that will sort itself out over time. Doesn't do much for the pain though!

Joan came with me so after we emerged we went for a drink and ended up having poached eggs on toast as well. I knew I wouldn't miss the Alberts run! Then had a bit more of a look at holidays before heading home to work.

I did loads of map updating, timetable sorting out, index compiling, scanning and stuff while Joan blitzed the house. I think we both did what we wanted to get done as I have a list of things ticked off and the house looks lovely. I also found the time to sort out the insurance for the car and knock off another level of Gridrunner.

Then it was off to Chris for another head rub thingy. Not sure how I'm feeling about it all at the moment. Might not go again - will see how I feel over the next couple of days. Not what I'm really after, a bit expensive plus he thinks I should try some diet supplements which I'm a bit dubious about. Especially as they are also likely to be expensive.

Ohm and have now started Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as I couldn't hold off any longer. Good so far, even if it will mean a longer wait for the next one.

Oh man is it hot today. Even just sitting here with the window open and nothing else going on is hot. How I am going to get any ironing done later is a definite mystery to me.

Yesterday was in many ways a lazy day. Joan got up fairly early, but I had a good lie in to catch up on some of that missing sleep. Then after a fiddle about on here and working out of finances we went shopping.

Tesco at Martlesham - where we also had lunch and then spent less than expected which was good.

Especially as on the way home we bought a new car. Yup, we finally did the deed. OK, so not a brand new one but only 5 years old. And we have stayed with the Escort rather than going smaller, but that's OK as at least I know where it will fit and stuff. A slightly larger engine so we will have to pay a bit more road tax and insurance but hey, we're worth it!

It also comes with all the gizmos - electric everything (including seat adjustment), airbag, cd player and Air Conditioning. Never thought that would be essential for a car in this country but hey, I'm not about to complain. Could have used it yesterday on the way to the shops.

So I pick it up on Friday after work when they will have serviced and MOT'd it and scrubbed it top to toe. Now all I need to do is work out how to tell people (especially Ma & Pa who have been involved in all my car dealings up to now) and dig out all the paperwork for the old one.

When we got home we had a nose about at holidays once again. Glad we didn't pick Prague as it appears to be underwater at the moment. Depending upon availability and what the weather over there is doing we might have a week in Austria or we might just stay at home and chill out.

I was felling tired again despite the late uprising (and also very hot and shaky - probably just the thrill of the car catching up with me) and ended up going to bed straight after we had eaten at 8ish - and then sleeping through until this morning. I think I will have to insist the Doctor does something for me about this tomorrow. I also want him to look at my right foot which has been hurting (and getting worse) since Tuesday. Totally jarred off with my body at the moment - it seems to be conspiring against me.

Today Joan is at work once again and I have a mound of ironing to attack as soon as I post this. There is the Hungarian Grand Prix this afternoon which I shall probably watch as I press even if Schumi has got the championship sewn up. Currently listening to Eat Static - In The Nude!. Very good stuff. And yes that is the name of the album, not my condition clotheswise - it's hot here but not that hot.

Urp, just had a first proof through of the map for the gyratory thing. Found about a million errors on it so I'm glad they came to me first. As Charles said "what have they got right?"

Time to go home for the weekend now I think. Joan off tomorrow so a good day is anticipated.

It sure was dashed hot out in Aldeburgh. And spending 45 minutes getting out of Ipswich didn't help keep me cool either. I don't think I've ever seen so many sets of roadworks so close to each other before. Got the temporary stops in place, notices on the three that won't be used and a bag of chips on the beach for my lunch. Not very healthy but nice.

Now another timetable has arrived so I will wop that in and off to Pindar.

Watched Robocop last night - supposedly the directors cut but I can't recall seeing anything different. Oh well, a couple of fun deleted scenes anyway. Also mashed off another level of Gridrunner, only to get toasted on the next. Grrrr.

Just finishing off an offering from Alberts then I'm off to Aldeburgh.

Calmed down a bit now but still feel very down and pissed off by the whole affair. I think it helps a bit that Gary has gone off on his holiday and that I had a couple of visitors yesterday to distract me, but it was still a pretty hard day to get through. Especially when the email announcing our results came through saying I was "successful" in getting the PTO post. Oh, great, so staying in my current job while everyone else goes up is a success now is it! I also made sure I left early with the excuse of delivering my newsletters to Park & Ride just to get away from it all.

Back to some sort of normality today, but still glad of excuses to get out for a breather from everyone else. Only trouble with that is where these trips take me. This morning's was to the bus station to deliver some temporary timetables to get around the problems due in Aldeburgh on Monday because of the carnival (And tomorrow I will be out of the office putting up the bus stops for this variation, and Tuesday to take them down again). Trouble was on the way back I got sucked in to Cash Convertors and ended up buying the three Robocop films on dvd. A nice box set, but I wish they'd do these things properly. As is the case with the Superman 1/2 set film 1 has full Dolby 5.1 surround, loads of extras and commentary while the sequels merely get Dolby 2.1 surround and no goodies. I like my loud explosions and dvd extras...

Joan and Helen went bingoing again last night (no winnings, don't know why they bother) so I was left to mope about. Tried a spot of ironing (well, I needed some shirts) but it was just so hot I gave up when I had enough to last the week out. And I only managed to squeeze in enough time on the PC to check for emails too. Did finish the Game On book though.

Although I've not mentioned it, I have still been getting through a reasonable amount of music this week. Both in car and at home, comprising:

Dire Straits - Communique and Making Movies (both on 1 minidisc)
Alice Cooper - Brutal Planet
Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon
OPM - Menace To Sobriety (a very rude bunch of boys)
The eponymous first Orbital and Elvis Presley albums
Lothlorien - Ghostwood

This afternoon we have a site meeting at London Road Park & Ride to see if we can beef up the security a bit after an incident a couple of weeks ago. Not sure if there is much else we can do (and afford) but it will keep everyone happy if we at least take a look.

Think I'll have some lunch now as I need to go out again before the meeting to take some stuff back to the library.

Arse.

Seems I need to develop personally a bit more. Whatever that means. Communications and media training and dealing with people and stuff. Seems like a lot of it has come from what got shoved on us a couple of years ago though. I got P&R, Gaz got infrastructure and they had differing effects on how we've worked since. Which then influenced the choice made now.

Oh well.

Got to remember I haven't lost anything, just not gained.

Definitely going to fill in that application form for St Eds now though.

Too down to fill in anything else today. See you tomorrow.

Done it.

It was a proper interview too, not just a chat between colleagues.

Been in and said a lot of my piece, including the bit about feeling let down and betrayed by my speciality being put in the "lesser" post.

Was in nearly twice as long as Gazza too if that will count for anything in the decision. Probably not.

Feel I made my points and stated my case and hyped myself up but will have to wait and see.

They are going to make the choice now and tell us before Gary goes home/off to Edinburgh for a week. Unless of course they can't choose then it all starts again when he gets back.

Back to the waiting.

Waiting. Waiting.

Gary in there now.

I feel like utter shit.

Shaking AND Stirred.

I can't stand it.

Waiting.

Interesting, that's a good word to describe the experience of last night. After talking and building up a profile of me we never actually got as far as reflexology stuff which I was expecting. Instead he used a mix of Reiki and Head Massage which left me totally relaxed (which was very nice). And then a spot of thought exercises and working on accupressure points which I can try myself if I get stressed out. I am going again next week, but don't plan to go every week as it will be too expensive. Hopefully once a month or something just to keep me in balance.

Which is pretty hard at this very moment. With only a few hours to the interviews I am pretty much resigned to accepting the worst now as further study of the job descriptions does point in that direction. I have a big list of stroppy questions I want answered before I'm prepared to leave the room though - I can't see it happening but it might just possibly give them cause to think again. Yeah, and pigs might fly etc. So now I just feel sick and nervous and tense and want to be anywhere else but here. I know whatever happens I won't be worse off for now, but I can see that at some point the gap between senior and normal levels will increase and why should I be the one to get left behind? And it is all mostly change for change's sake, which winds me up all the more.

Another weekend has been and gone. On the whole it was a pretty damn good one too, although there were a couple of negative aspects which we will no doubt get to later in this stack of waffle. Actually, let's get them over and done with then I can concentrate on the positive stuff.

Friday night after yet another phone call from Canada asking if everything was sorted out yet with Ernie's accounts we got a bit stroppy and sorted out what we could. We are still waiting to hear from a couple of people who may or may not have some more money to give us, but this is apparantly too slow for some people. So we divided up the cash and wrote a couple of cheques for the other sisters. This was not enough and there were still more calls asking for copies of things to be sent (as if our word is not good enough and it seems clear that we are not trusted to look after money. Pity nobody remembers asking me to sort it while we were still up north and then letting me get on with it). So yesterday we gave all the paperwork over to Helen and are going to let them get on with it themselves. Of course, in theory everything left outstanding should be coming to us anyway as we did the initial organising but we won't let that get to us. They also brought Joan a new mobile phone that Alexander had got from one of his uncles whilst staying up in Northampton for the last couple of weeks. It works with her SIM card so all seemed well, and I was to have her old one as it isn't actually that old and the keys on mine are starting to get a bit iffy. Today Helen has been on the phone and getting arsey with Joan - first off a message asking if she could have her old one "temporarily" to which the answer was no as I'm having it and then a call asking if Joan's boss would do a reference for Alexander.

When Joan said her boss was busy but she'd ask, but not to be too helpful as she doesn't really know him that well she got all uppity, asked to speak to her anyway and then came in as well to buy something acting all nice as pie. What is it with these people?

Anyway, enough crap and on to the good.

Saturday was a way out day out to London. With Richard and for fun rather than for work or with Joan for a change. We got the 0900 train out of Ipswich and decided about half way down that if we didn't get away from the screaming kids sitting a few rows behind us soon we would end up throwing them out of a window or something. After all, they were keeping me awake!

So, we got out at Stratford with the intention of showing Richard the exciting (well, I like them) extended Jubille line stations as far as Canary Wharf and then transfering on to the Docklands light railway. I also wanted a look at Stratford tube station itself as it has been rebuilt in a rather dramatic fashion of late. Naturally, having made this decision they were doing engineering works so we had to get a replacement bus as far as Canary Wharf instead. Which was OK by me in some respects as I do like buses after all, but not quite the thrilling trip we had in mind - the underground architecture of east London is much nicer than that on the surface! Still, he got to see the dome at any rate.

At Canary Wharf we met our first cow of the day. Yup, the cow parade statues have come to London this year. There the DLR transfer went ok and we were off via the tunnels to Covent Garden. That produced the only other major let-down of the day as the London Transport Museum shop didn't have the book I was looking for. Will have to get that from the jolly old Interweb instead. Oh, there was also our second (and surprisingly last) cow outside the museum too. We were also fascinated by the bungee trampolining - but not enough to give it a try. Must be getting old or sensible or both.

Next stop was Tottenham Court Road where it meets Oxford Street for lunch. This was consumed at Garfunkels next to the Dominion theatre and for me was Chicken smothered with BBQ sauce, bacon and melted cheese along with copious amounts of mashed spud and a bit of greenery. All very tasty it must be said. Opposite (and thus determining the choice of lunch venue) is one of the entrances to the hugest of huge Virgin megastores in the big city so it was only fair we had a look in there whilst in the capital. We only came out with 5 cds and one pre-recorded minidisc between us. Which I think was pretty good. My tally was Crash which goes one more step towards migrating my Human League collection on CD and also In The Nude by Eat Static. Can't say what Richard bought as I wasn't looking.

From there it was off to the main attraction and reason for being in London - Game On at the Barbican. As the name suggests, this is an exhibition on the culture, history and future of computer and video games. The first strangeness came when we emerged blinking in the daylight from the tube into what can only be described as a wasteland. The Barbican is in the middle of the actual "City" of London - the financial district and that only operates monday to friday. So there was no-one about, all the shops were closed etc. Very unusual for a big city. Still at least we didn't have to worry about getting run over.

More strangeness ensued when we followed the handy yellow line painted on the floor between the tube and the exhibition centre. Without going up any steps I can recall (although I guess there must have been some) we found ourselves on a walkway at first floor level running between offices and flats. A strange place to live if you ask me. Anyway, on to the event itself.

As was to be expected, there were computer games there. Lots of computer games. Lots and lots and lots. Over 150 you could play plus several more that didn't work (mainly the old stuff, the final disappointments of the day were the non-workingness of Tron and Battlezone) coupled with conceptual artwork, marketing methods, more games, articles on history and development, old adverts and magazines, differences in stuff from around the world oh and some more games. I won't go in to a long list of what we did and didn't play but will just mention a few highlights - Tempest in the original arcade version with rotary controller rather than joystick or pad (a real novelty, and stranger still as it was obviously built before the now familiar convention of movement bit on the left and fire/action buttons on the right of the control panel/joypad came in to play). The original Japanese version of Renegade as set in a school playground rather than a subway (and thus with kids as opponents rather than thugs). A peculiar Japanese train simulator complete with proper loco controls. Anything on home systems we've never owned - PS2, X-Box and Gamecube obviously but also the original NES, Commodore 64, Sega Saturn, PC Engine etc.

All provided much fun and enjoyment, even if there wsasn't nearly enough time to devote to any one piece of kit. It has made my mind up that I will get a Gamecube at some point (although not until Jeff Minter confirms that is indeed the system he is now developing for) as the stuff we saw on that just looked amazing.

There was also a groovy new thing from Sony that tracks movements with a camera system then overlays your actions on to (in this case) live footage of you - in real time. It was limited to flame or water effects for now but the power required to do that "live" must be phenomenal. Looking forward to see how they can implement it into a game without it being simply an excuse for the technology that gets boring after 5 minutes. That, after all, is usually the fate of new ways of playing - witness the dance mat, most light guns, Nintendo Power Glove and robot, Spectrum surfboard et al. Still, perhaps they will get it right.

That proved to be the end of the day as we spent longer than expected there. I restricted myself to just buying the book of the show, although there were numerous others that could have quite happily come home with me. I am now about half way through it and enjoying it quite a lot.

When I finally got home after train (woohoo a chance to sleep for half an hour or so) and car it was to find Joan in the middle of cutting the lawn so I finished that off before dinner and a quick check on the internet to find that the full version of Jeff's new game Gridrunner++ was now available so that was bought, downloaded and played till my eyes could take it no longer.

Yesterday we did a whole load of work at clearing in the garden. 5 sacks worth at least. We also popped up to Homebase to get some plants and did some tidying in the house as well. All that after a very long lay in. However I was still in zombie mode and managed to have 1½ hours sleep in the garden while Joan kept working. Makes me feel a bit guilty but does add more ammunition to the case to present to the doctor next week. Then we ended up having another late night after watching the first show in this week's Elvis bonanza, it being 25 years since he popped his last pill and all.

So now I am back to today. Not done a lot of real work - mainly replying to messages and, err, writing this! Have also been out at lunchtime and moved money about to clear a few bills etc and buy a new SIM card for this phone. Am leaving early as well in order to go see this Chris chap and see what he can do for me. Will report on that tomorrow, which is also D-day for me and Gary.

I still haven't decided which of the two jobs I want, but feel I am being steered into the Junior one as that's where they've put Park & Ride and I want to keep looking after that. Oh well, no point worrying about it at the moment.

Quite a good, fun and interesting couple of days since last I wrote.

Wednesday night we watched Seven and enjoyed it muchly. A bit gruesome in places but a very good plot etc.

Yesterday started far too early in order for me to meet Claire from Norfolk on the 0737 train to London. That went smoothly and we found our way to Fenchurch street with ease (and saw two policemen on horses too!). Train out to Grays was also dead simple and the walk to the office was simple too (even if I did nearly get clobbered by the barrier at the level crossing).

Morning part of meeting was a bit tedious (in fact I had real trouble staying awake) as it was mainly a guy talking about information strategies that we all have to write. The same guy giving basically the same presentation as we had two meetings ago. Oh well. They did put on a decent buffet though and Claire and Davina (Cambridgeshire) and I spent most of the time planning our strategy for today's meeting (of which more later).

After lunch we wandered back round to the bus station to admire their kerbs (no, really) then on a bus to the Tilbury - Gravesend ferry. That took us across the river where we saw the highpoint of the day - the grave of Pocahontas. Not what you expect on the banks of the River Thames but there you go.

Train back to London was delayed when the power lines were vandalised but we made it for the 1700 train and thus got home at 1830 which was nice.

Today we were in Norwich discussing marketing for our regional Traveline. We have been a little disappointed by the manager so far, so went in all three in agreement with guns blazing so to speak and seem to have got the desired outcomes. I also got to claim 115 miles and lunch so that made the drive up there in the rain worthwhile.

Now to go home and sleeeeeeeeeeep cos I'm zonked.

Just been up to visit Ipswich Buses to sort out their stops when the gyratory system comes in and it is hot hot hot out there. So hot I had to have an ice cream on the way back. Mmmmm, Galaxy Caramel Swirls, very tasty. Such a hard life. And I'd only just got back from a wander at lunchtime in the sun too, where I managed to control my expenditure to some new films for the camera. Well, can't be out of the office in the summer and not take a few pictures now, can I?

Still, being hot makes me wish I could wear fewer clothes to work which reminds me I need to iron a couple of shirts tonight which in turn reminds me of this what I got sent the other day:

Reasons to go to work Naked

1.No one ever steals your chair.

2.Gives 'bad hair day' a whole new meaning.

3.Diverts attention from the fact that you also came to work drunk.

4.People stop stealing your pens after they've seen where you keep them.

5.So that - with a little help from Muzak - you can add 'Exotic Dancer'to your exaggerated CV.

6.You want to see if it's like the dream.

7.To stop those letches in IT from looking down your blouse.

8.'I'd love to chip in, but I left my wallet in my trousers.'

9.Inventive way to finally meet that special person in Human Resources.

10.Can take advantage of computer monitor radiation to work on your tan.

...and (drum roll) the number one reason to go to work naked:

11.Your boss is always yelling, 'I want to see your arse in here by 8am!'

Well, they made me smile at the time. Then again, the temp looking after the TraveLine this afternoon is displaying far too much wrinkly flesh for her age and I do wish she'd sit down and get out of my field of vision.

Smiles were good as we now have the job descriptions and they are not really smile material at all. Whatsoever in fact. They have as threatened taken my job and Gary's job and mixed them up to create two jobs that neither of us really want to do. If I go for the senior post I lose out on the Park & Ride bits that I like the best but in the junior one I have to do bloody roadside again. Part of me wouldn't object to that at this time of year, but I don't want to be going out in the rain all the time. I've done that and got out of it thankyouverymuch. Will have to do some good hard thinking over the next couple of days as to what I really want to be doing for the next few years.

It doesn't help that Gary is currently out of the office looking for sticker suppliers and taking some pictures of bus shelters and then when I go home I won't be back here until mid-afternoon on Friday. We won't get the chance to talk it over between us until then and they want some indication from us if we are more interested in one post or the other. Although technically neither of us can go for the senior post as we haven't got associate membership of the Institute of Logistics and Transport.

I did look in to membership back when I first started here but they wanted about £900 to put me through the graduate entry programme and then another £50 ish a year membership fee (none of which the Council would pay) all for a one scale point pay increase which would only just cover the £50. So I decided not to bother with that. After all, it would be of no value at all if I left transport.

I guess I could be barking up the wrong tree but I just getthe feeling they have already earmarked me for the junior position but don't want to admit as much. God, I hate all this crap and indecision, but it seems to consume me at times like this. One day I will be a positive person. Yeah, I'm positive I'll get the worse deal!

At least I can still enjoy music at the moment. When I had the real big downer before starting this job I couldn't even do that for much of the time. On the subject, finished off the Rutles at lunchtime and have now moved on to Kite by the much missed Kirsty MacColl. Why do the good die young?

I think there is a conspiracy afoot to stop Gary and I doing any proper work this morning. His computer has been playing up for a couple of days now. IT have compeltely rebuilt it from a formatted hard disk up and still it refuses to play. I've just finished my Newsletter with a load of stuff stolen from elsewhere, tried to print it and the darn printer is out of yellow toner. There isn't even any yellow in the document. Aaaargh. Plus other people's phones keep ringing when they aren't there and we seem to be the ones left to answer them. When I choose to be lazy I don't mind having nothing to do and obstacles to productivity, but when I'm trying to get things done it does get a tad frustrating.

Here's a list from Total Guitar Magazine of the top 20 guitar players as voted by their readers:

1. Jimi Hendrix

2. Jimmy Page

3. Eric Clapton

4. Slash

5. Brian May

6. Joe Satriani (soloist)

7. Eddie Van Halen (Van Halen)

8. Dave Gilmour (Pink Floyd)

9. Kirk Hammett (Metallica)

10. Steve Vai (soloist)

11. Carlos Santana (Santana)

12. James Hetfield (Metallica)

13. Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine)

14. Kurt Cobain (Nirvana)

15. Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits)

16. Zakk Wylde (Ozzy Osbourne)

17. Gary Moore (Thin Lizzy, others)

18. Jeff Beck (Yardbirds, Jeff Beck Group)

19. Stevie Ray Vaughan (Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble)

20. Angus Young (AC/DC)

Not too sure about the guy from RATM but I kind of agree with all the others. Although maybe not in quite that order.

And then there is this from the BBC. A story they've been featuring a lot on Radio Suffolk over the last couple of days and everyone seems to feel the same about it!

Protest over children's play bans


Children are to campaign against a "culture of caution", which charities fear is restricting youngsters' experience of play and stifling their social and physical development.
The protest will see the children make a giant daisy chain, play with yo-yos and ride skateboards and bicycles - activities which many schools and public playgrounds have banned, research suggests.

Survey of 500 children
45% can't play with water
36% can't climb trees
27% can't use climbing equipment
23% can't ride bikes and skateboards

Source: Children's Society and Children's Play Council

The survey of 500 children up to the age of 15 by the Children's Society and Children's Play Council found many thought public playgrounds were boring and unadventurous. The two charities also found that traditional childhood games from daisy-chain making to doing handstands had been banned for fear children might catch germs or injure themselves.

Now the charities are calling on every council and school in Britain to carry out a "daisy chain audit" to uncover the extent of bans and restrictions on children's play.

To mark National Playday on Wednesday, the two charities are asking play providers to look again at what is on offer in schools and parks.

If traditional games - such as tag and conkers - are banned, councils and schools are urged to consider whether this is in the best interest of children.

The theme for the fifteenth National Playday is "take a chance on play" and more than 100,000 youngsters are expected to take part in events across the country. Penny Dean, a director of the Children's Society, said: "We are asking councils and schools to look at what activities children can't take part in."

Should children be more exposed to risk?

"Where there are bans, or equipment removed, we want adults to question whether this is necessary. Children must be allowed to take risks in safe and well managed places," she said.

Tim Gill, director of Children's Play Council, added: "We are not pointing the finger of blame for a growing culture of caution at any one group, but individuals and organisations have an important role in making play exciting."

The campaign comes as experts grow increasingly concerned that restricting children's play may stifle their social and physical development and contribute to the growing levels of childhood obesity.

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I'm not sure what the real reason is for this trend. I think it is partly overprotectiveness but more likely the fear that parents will start sueing schools if their sprogs graze a knee or fall off a climbing frame. They tried to get rid of a lot of competetive sports and games a few years back too as it was bad for those who came last. OK, so I usually came last but I can't see that being the real cause of all my hassles and wories.

I plucked up the courage in the end and made the call. And after a wrong number, looking him up in the book, leaving a message on his answerphone and waiting for him to call back I finally got to speak to the chap. Sounded OK and I have got an appointment to see him next Monday - which might just help me get in the right frame of mind for this interview thing. More details Tuesday morning I guess.

Dinner last night was good. Joan had bought a steamer and we gave that a try. All the veggies came out really well and were added to a very nice Chicken in white wine sauce she had picked up from M&S. Can't complain at all.

Currently listening to a couple of tracks from the Llamasoft game Tempest 3000 I was pointed to on the web. Quite uplifting they are too. In the car the Sprout has given way to Archaeology by The Rutles. Neil Innes & Eric Idle's spoof of the Beatles. Very well done and pretty funny too. Will have to give it a proper listen without traffic intrusions sometime. Some of the tracks appear to be spoofing one song musically and several others in the lyrics, which suits me fine.

Some more very strange dreams last night. One where I was walking through a bunch of terraced houses that all shared a common corridor across their fronts with no doors on. A bit odd - neighbours just waltzing through your front room ontheir way to somewhere else. There was also something to do with cycling in the dark but I can't work out/recall how that fitted in.

The other was even more bizarre. I was driving someone (never found out who as they always seemed to be just out of view) and we got caught up in a strange rally/treasure hunt type event. Lots of very flashy cars all with unusual occupants. We had to keep stopping and performing tasks, and if we failed them had to take some of a revolving group of passengers on to the next one. When I woke up we were trying to decide if small gold bars or a few ten pence pieces would be the more useful amount of currency to take on the next stage. Wish I could remember a bit more of it, but there you go.

Oh Gawd, still nearly two hours before I can leave here and nothing left to sustain me but a Cadbury's Boost. Which I really want to eat but will then be left with nothing. OK, so technically I could leave at half past three, but I've finally got myself back up into positive hours after the time I had to take off and would like to keep it that way. Definitely a typical Tuesday. And still not got ourselves sorted to go back to Body Balance (and when we do the rest of the class will just be streets ahead).

I am also debating over a phone call I ought to make. The person Joan sees for aromatherapy has given me a recommendation of someone else to call. I did see her a couple of times last year for reflexology and also a full aromatherapy back massage - both of which were lovely - but we came to the conclusion that Joan and I shouldn't really be seeing the same person. I do want to get back into that area of "treatment" as it really helped me relax and I think I am in a better frame of mind to appreciate it now - back then I was more analysing how it was making me feel than just feeling it.

The debate is over the fact that the number she has given me is for a chap. I'm just not sure whether I want to submit myself to the ministrations of another bloke or not. Well, it won't hurt to call him tonight I guess, and he might just put me on to someone else anyway.

And now the corporate style police want a chunk of the newsletter changing. Great, time to track down a willing volunteer to write that for me I think.

Hmm, the sun has come out and my mood has lifted a bit. Must be some form of coincidence or cause and effect in action there. I wonder which. You decide (to quote the bloke off Big Brother). Had a bit of a mooch about at lunchtime which was slightly spoiled by having to make smalltalk with a colleague on the way in (I'm no good at that kind of meaningless chat, I just want to shout "Shut Up!" and run away). It was almost ruined by a screaming kid in Woolworths but fortunately I had the MD player with me and was able to drown it out.

Have finished the 80s discs and am now on to The Gunman and Other Stories by Prefab Sprout which is proving pretty good so far. As the title suggests there is a kind of country feel to it, and some of the songs were originally used by Jimmy Nail in his Crocodile Shoes tv shows/albums. So in some respects you could say the cover versions of those were released before the originals.

Oh, and it turns out I was both wrong and right about the pay deal stuff. We are only getting the original 3% straight away but it has to go through approval with unions and that will take six weeks so we won't get any back pay until the end of September. Then we get another 1% from October and a further 3% next year. So by next April we shouldn't be too badly off, but I don't want to wait that long so will still fill in the form.

Here's a bit wot I wrote last night but never got the chance to stick on:

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And now I am home once again. And Joan is out once again (Oh, they came out of the Bingo empty-handed once again too). Am just waiting for a bunch of Chumbawamba MP3s to finish copying over from Zip Disk before having a go at the latest demo release of Jeff Minter's marvellous Gridrunner ++. Hopefully this should have sorted all the bugs that were plaguing the earlier releases. The trouble with parallel zip drives is that while stuff goes on them pretty quickly, it takes ages to copy it off again. Oh well, it has saved me several hours of download time so a few more minutes won't kill me.

And just for a change I know what I'm getting is worth the wait. Having grabbed all the files off the net at work I was wishing the PCs weren't nobbled so that I could play them. They are all totally silent and we all assumed they had had their soundcards removed (or never installed in the first place). Then I happened to glance at the back of someone elses machine and spotted the microphone and earphone sockets. Why would they be there if the sound cards weren't? So I plugged in my trusty headphones that normally occupy the socket on the CD drive and fired up one of the MP3s. By Jimcrack, we had sound after all - just no internal speaker. So a swift bit of desk rejigging later (in order to reach the socket and have the earphones in use without a broken neck) I had a very entertaining afternoon finishing off the newsletter. I even hid the Chumblies web site in a word search I put in it just to express thanks in a subtle way! Why has it taken me three plus years of using that PC to think about trying that? D'oh!

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Extra! Gridrunner updated again while I was writing that. Even better than before!

And now I realise I haven't got time to post this tonight so it will be stuck on top of Tuesday!

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So now it really is Tuesday morning and I've got a slight attack of the tuesday syndrome previously mentioned. The weather isn't helping there either - yesterday was a mix of sunshine and serious showers but today is just drab and leaves me unenthused.

The newsletter is now going through all the corporate hoops it has to jump before I can unleash it on the public. I hope there are no major changes required as I hate having to mess with my words. Especially as I try to tell the truth and reflect reality rather than putting the official spin on stuff. Trouble is everything here has to be so political. I probably mentioned this at the time so apologies if this is a repetition but it winds me up something chronic. In a previous newsletter I had nothing to fill some space so put in a call for comments etc from the users. I finished it with something along the lines of "..and we want to hear what you think. Most comments we get at the moment tell us we have the best toilets in Suffolk and really ought to be running the Norwich and Cambridge schemes as well". Now I thought that was a clear indication of what the public were telling us not me trying to score points off other counties, and my colleagues agreed. However, the Public Transport boss at Norfolk thought we were running his service down and we had to send a grovelling letter out. It just frustrates me even more.

Today I have done a bit more designy stuff. An advert to go in a booklet going to every schoolkid in Ipswich. If it works we can always use it elsewhere too. A bit of a tough job though, how to persuade the people who have no say in their travel decisions to get on a bus.

News just in from the BBC web site is that the Unions have reached an agreement with the councils on our pay rises for the next couple of years. I don't think I will be any better off than I would have been if they had just accepted the initial deal, but it will help the people paid by the hour. All I have to look forward to now is 5 months worth of back pay at the end of the month (hopefully).

We have also just been told that Gary and I will be interviewed for the job clash situation next Tuesday. Another reason to not like Tuesdays! We are expecting to get the proper job descriptions and task lists today to enable us to prepare but I can't say I'm over keen on the prospect. From what we have seen so far neither job actually covers what either of us want to do full time but splits stuff between the two of us. Splendid. And I just get the feeling that however well I do in the interview I will end up with the lesser of the two posts which will be a real kick in the teeth. That could just be my natural negativity coming in to play but it just sits there nagging at me.

Mind you, I have got an application form sitting at home for a post with St. Edmundsbury council (as a refuse and recycling officer, which looks pretty interesting actually) that it won't kill me to fill in and post. Just finding the time to do it seems to be the major problem. I'd even be happy to spend more time travelling again if the ultimate prospect was better for me. And right now I'd jump at anything that would put make me happier more often.

Of course what I forgot to mention in all of that entered last night was the debacle of Saturday's lunch. We thought we would try the new Italian coffee and Sarnie place that just opened in Felixstowe - Pucinos. So I dutifully trotted in to town in time to meet Joan for her break at one. She didn't finally get out until nearly quarter past but that was OK as she still had an hour to play with. We went up and found a table. After 10 minutes we snagged a menu off the table next door and decided what we fancied, however that still didn't produce a waiter and as we were running to a timescale decided to move on after 15 minutes with no sign of life from the staff. Now, I acknowledge that the place was busy and that it was their first day open, but you would think that any sound business plan would anticipate being busy on your first day and arrange staff accordingly. At least someone to come over and say "we're a bit busy but will get to you eventually" would have been nice. When we gave up we met some friends outside who had waited 25 minutes just for a coffee earlier in the morning.

We settled on Bumpers after that as at least we knew lunch would be OK and prompt. Seems we were wrong there as well. After we had sat for 30 minutes with no sign of food we collared the owner and he discovered they had lost our order. We got our money back and left as Joan then had no time left to eat and had to go back to work instead. I was by this point in an equally mixed state of anger, frustration and general gloom. I only just kept myself in check until I got home where it all came flooding out for a few minutes. Not a great situation. Oh well, over and gone now.

So, the Springsteen album (The Rising) is superb. Nice to hear the full E-Street Band back in full flow and also the, dare I say it?, experimental bits. I.E. strings, eastern singers, hurdy gurdy, dancey beats and stuff like that. Will have to listen to it again very soon. Possibly even tonight as Joan is out getting aromatherapied.

And now I'm back at work for another week. At least I'm not stuck at the desk for 5 days - Thursday is an ATCO meeting in Thurrock and on Friday I have to go to Norwich for the morning. So far I confess to not having done very much today - a bit of tidying up on my Park & Ride Newsletter - really must get that finished this week - and one simple timetable change. Have also spoken to Joan at home and she has booked me in with the Doctor. Not until the 19th but at least I now have a target to monitor feeling tired until. And yes, I could use a couple more hours snoozing today.

Have also had a bit of a bad head this morning so took a stroll out in the sunshine after lunch (as well as a good dose of Ibuprofen!) and that seems to have sorted it out. That included a stop in the Library to take back last week's CD borrows and grab a couple more (Orbital and OPM) and one at HMV for the new Chumbawamba album Readymades which I am listening to a the moment. So glad we got PCs with CD drives in. Anyway, they have taken loads of samples from classic British folk tunes and added a danceish feel to them with a smattering of the usual Chumblie sound. Top notch so far.

I'm not going to start this off with some reference to it being a busy few days and use that as an excuse for my laziness in not putting anything on here since Thursday. I admit that yes, it has been fairly busy at times, but I have been more lazy than things have been happening. So there.

Anyway, Friday was a reasonable day at work. I had a meeting in the morning where we sorted out a few more design issues for the new Park & Ride site at Martlesham - mainly moving the windows in the Terminal building to somewhere they will actually serve a purpose other than letting light in. You would think that having the windows for a security office located so that the occupants could actually see what they were trying to keep secure (i.e. the car park) would be fairly obvious a concept. Not to architects obviously. Oh well, at least I got to see the plans in time.

Lunchtime I was forced to go up the town by the ruthless tactic of not making any lunch. Ended up with a very nice sandwich from Marks & Spencer but managed not to buy anything else. Then the afternoon just seemed to drag so I made my excuses and left early. Via Homebase to pick up a bathroom storage trolley we ordered two months ago and then Felixstowe Tourist Information Centre to drop some timetable books off. And thus ensure that the journey home can be counted as time worked and keep my hours up. Ooh, such a naughty person I am.

As well as having been on order for so long, the trolley has caused much hassle now we finally have posession of it. Not only does it not fit at the end of the bath where we wanted to put it (and only by a matter of a few mm) but when put in the second choice location between the other end of the bath and the toilet it prevents the loo from being flushed by being too tall for the handle to move fully. And as we have only had the bathroom suite since just before Christmas replacing the cistern with one where the flush handle is located elsewhere was not an option! In the end we took the wheels off and it does at least go in place b. Grrr.

Then in the evening we ate more Chinese food and watched You've Got Mail. I was pleasantly surprised by just how good a film it was. I know all the reviews raved over it, but I wasn't expecting them to be able to do another film as good as Sleepless in Seattle. Just shows a good team can repeat success. In fact the only downside to the whole thing was that it was a tape we had bought for Ernie's birthday that he never got to see. Which left a tinge of sadness.

Saturday was a nice and sunny day in the main, so naturally I spent most of it indoors. Partly through being absolutely zonked when I got up the first time. To the point where I had a spot of breakfast and went back to sleep for another 2 hours. I finally got up around 11 which I always thought was rare for me but seems to be becoming more prevalent. Really must see the Doctor about it soon. Anyway, I then spent most of the rest of the day clearing out the study (with help from Richard) in preparation for today. Which I will come back to in a minute or two.

The main aim was to get rid of the desk and one of the bookcases. Much to my surprise, not only did we manage that but he took the bookcase and Ma & Pa came round a bit in the evening and made off with the desk. Which was a bit of a result as I was expecting to have to pay the council to take them away.

Today I spent the morning (again with brotherly assistance) putting together the new desk and chair that are enabling me to write this in extreme comfort. A proper corner desk at last meaning I can finally (after 3 years) get the monitor a better distance from the keys and stuff like that. It all looks very nice and I just hope I will manage to keep it tidy. I don't hold out too much hope of that given my track record in the tidiness stakes, but Joan is threatening violence if I mess it up so fingers are crossed. Mum kindly made lunch then I came back here and spent the afternoon sorting junk out into neatness before it was time to fetch Joan from work. She has now gone off to Bingo with Helen so I thought it was only right that I give the equipment a proper test. Complete with help from Chasm, the second (and last) album from The Beyond. And now I must upload this, resist the temptation to check out the Llamasoft forums cos I'll be there for hours and go do some ironing - otherwise I'll have to go to work naked tomorrow. Which would probably make the office temperature bearable but not help in many other ways. So I shall listen to the new Bruce Springsteen album while I flatten some shirts and say adios for now.

Made the "mistake" of going in to Waterstones while I was out at lunchtime. Only bought 5 books, 4 of which were in the sale and together as a set so I guess they could count as one if I try to justify it properly. The 4 are Eric Thompson's Magic Roundabout scripts and the one is a serious investigation into computer games. Which seeing as how I have got right back into those of late was a must have. More details when they get read!

The meeting was OK - made some progress on the publicity for the Ipswich Gyratory but would still rather have been doing something else.

Am listening to a series of '80s compilations in the car at the moment and my unprovoked reactions to some of the songs got me thinking. Why does the memory work like that? If I was trying to actively think of certain places and events from the past I know I would struggle with some of the details but play me a song associated with them and wham - glorious technicolour. What got me this morning was Perfect by Fairground Attraction. That one (along with Love Shack by the B-52's and Sinead O'Conner's Nothing Compares 2 U) takes me straight to the bedroom m'friends Deborah & Marianne shared at Linden's lodge in College. Right down to the cheques for £1m and shrunken crisp packets stuck to the wardrobe doors. Kind of spooky that I can recall that much detail. I know I visited there on a regular basis but that was 12 years ago now.

Nearly time to go now. And to pick up some KFC for tea on the way home...

Ooooh, a couple of days worth of waffle to fill in! I know I could and indeed should have written some yesterday but just never got round to it. Lazy and busy at the same time!

So where were we? Tuesday evening. Can't remember doing anything spectacular. We haven't got around to booking back in for Body Balance as yet so didn't do that. I think we just sat out in the garden with our tea and then did a bit of tidying and ironing.

Yesterday proved pretty productive for me in the end. I got all the changes needed on the map and town plans to send them off for updating. Then I scanned in the recent Park & Ride pictures. Had a slight hiccup there when the scanner started playing up, but it seems to be working again properly now. And also got a good way in to sorting the accounts out. Might be able to finish them off soon and actually understand them. And to make things better than doing them here (a) the phone only rang twice all day, (b) I had the windows open and my shorts on, (c) there were no e-mails and (d) I had a decent soundtrack. That comprised:

Underworld - Live: Everything, Everything
Ned's Atomic Dustbin - 0.522 (a B-sides collection)
Ozric Tentacles - Strangeitude
Skyclad - Prince Of The Poverty Line

And also the in-game music, bleepings and so forth for a variety of old Arcade classics I was running under Mame for breaks every now and then. I've got a set of cds with over 3,000 games on for Mame and am gradually trying them out for size. Some of the old Japanese ones are very obscure and tricky to get to grips with, there are also an unseemly number of ones featuring people taking their clothes off in very bad graphics!

The afternon featured the long-awaited (but not looked-forward-to) trip to see Kirstie the hygenist to see if all the agony earlier in the year had been worth it. This was the poke the needle in lots of times to measure if the pockets have got any shallower stuff. Not fun, but not too painful in the end. And yes, all of them have got better than they were before we started. Not all of them by a great extent, but enough to have justified the treatment package. They will keep an eye on them and there are some other things they can try in the future if things start to go the wrong way again. And I didn't have to pay any money over yesterday either as I had been knocking a chunk off the bill on the earlier visits and actually went 12p over.

In the evening we had our feet sorted out then had a look at holidays once again c/o the good old Internet. Some wonderful tours around parts of the US and Canada that we really want to see. The prices look fairly horrendous at first glance, but we think we might just treat ourselves next year. We just need to get disciplined to save properly. Then we had a manic two player session on Puzzle Bobble. One of the few games Joan can really get into.

Got woken up at 5ish this morning by my right leg deciding it hadn't seized up with cramp for months and that now was the perfect opportunity. Quite painful at the time and still uncomfortable now. Still, got to work OK, have done some useful stuff and finally the morning is almost over once more. Time for a spot of lunch, a walk up the town and then back here for a meeting.

Goes on, and the heat goes on... To adapt a line from the Talking Heads for a moment or two! It is still absolutely scorching out there, but it is now also raining which may help to cool things down a fraction (it will also probably mean our washing will need drying again when we get home if this persists as far as Felixstowe and lasts all afternoon). It might also encourage the girls of Ipswich to put a few more clothes on. I wouldn't mind so much if they were nice looking to start with. Better stop that thought now before it gets me into trouble.

Tomorrow I am working at home updating our maps and trying to whip the finances into some sort of shape. Trouble is I have been so good at getting stuff ready to do so that I'm now left with not a lot to occupy the afternoon. I might go home early and make a start - especially as I need to do some work related scanning too. Of course, given how the future of this department appears to be shaping up I ought to ignore the finances as they are likely to be split between different managers in the new milieu but it is still a better option than being here for all 5 days of the week.

Going back in time a bit, last night was reasonably busy for us. Jerry from next door brought a car round for us to test drive. A Vauxhall Corsa. It was quite nice and all that, but not really what I'm after as despite being small it had a large engine so that pushes up the tax, insurance and fuel costs and I'm trying to save on those. I do feel a bit sorry for him as he is lonely since June died, but I don't think I'm ready to be a substitute family for him yet. I also don't want to end up buying a car from his mate just to keep the pressure off and harmonic relationships on if it doesn't come with the right warranties etc.

After that we did a spot of shopping and then went on to see Helen & Bhupen for a bit. As a consequence of that we didn't eat until quite late (Chinese again!) and thus didn't really do much else. And we both had disturbed sleep (Joan was up for two chapters of a book) and strange dreams again. I think the disturbed sleep may also have been temperature related. And now the heavy eyes and yawns have hit me once again. I really must get a trip to the doctor sorted if I don't start being more awake soon.

Still hot today. And uncomfortably sticky too. At least the office isn't too bad, but I think I'd rather be elsewhere. Nothing to do with Joan being off today of course. Oh, no, nothing to do with that at all! Also very tired this morning again - must get an early night some time to try and catch up on missing sleep.

Had a nice evening of dinner on the new patio and just relaxed chatting, but it must have drained some of the energy reserves after all. And now sitting here trying to make sense of timetables without my eyes closing. Not easy.

So Kate won. But at least Jonny came second so we aren't too downhearted here. Mind you, we were both absolutely knackered when it come to getting up yesterday after staying up to watch the final and all that, but never mind. It was worse for Joan as she had got home late on Friday due to Saturday being the launch of the new catalogue. And the shop is just intolerably hot at the moment. I know from having worked there just how oven-like it can get at times, and yet still head office won't splash the cash on some air conditioning for them. A customer even passed out because of the heat in there today but I bet that still won't make a difference.

We finally got around to watching Scary Movie 2 last night. Not quite as funny as the first one but just as good as I remembered from seeing it in Canada last year. There are also loads of deleted and alternate scenes. Got through about half of them last night and was surprised that some of them didn't make the final cut. Especially as in places they have bits in them that are featured on the cover of the disc (and were thus on the posters for the original release) but didn't make it to the cinema version. Strange.

I also picked up my photos yesterday and I think some of them will do just nicely for the purpose I took them for. Others will be useful for joke stuff to go on www.b3ta.com so not all wasted. On top of that we got a new wooden table and chairs for the garden. Joan had seen them at work and liked them, but we thought they were a bit overpriced. While we were up north one of her colleagues spotted that they had gone down in price and ordered us a set in. They are really nice now, especally for what we finally paid!

Today Joan is at work once again, and I have been taking it easy up to now. Have sat in the sun a bit (including for lunch, nice) and finished the Dilbert book(s). Not sure what to pick next, but I do have a huge pile of magazines to read so the next actual book is a couple of days away as yet. Better do a bit of tidying up now before I go to pick her up.

By George it sure is HOT out there today. Spent the last 6 hours out and about doing deliveries and some roadside publicity for that service previously moaned about. Only got lost once (but that did lead to an encounter with a nice Traction Engine in full steam, so it was a worthwhile diversion). But bloody hell am I glad to be going home for a shower soon.

Last night ended up being a tv and Galaxians fest rather than a film. Tonight is the Big Brother final so that will be required viewing then next week back to some sort of normality. Speaking of BB, Graham Norton had Dustin Hoffman on his show last night (not literally!) and they did a short BB sketch. Dustin as Jonny even going as far as to do a bit of a Geordie accent. Absolutely superb. And he was really funny as himself in the interview part too.

That's it for now. Just too hot to think straight.

Been sunny all day, so I took the chance to get out twice. First off at lunchtime when I wandered up to the bank to pay that cheque in and then look at the shops. I'd been thinking for ages that I really ought to get a copy of Alice In Wonderland and read it again sometime and that popped back into my brain whilst I was passing The Works. So in I went and not only did they have a copy for £1, but for an extra 99p I could get an omnibus of everything Lewis Carroll ever wrote. So I took that option instead. Ok, so its a flimsy book that probably won't last me until my dotage, but it will do for the opurpose. Or indeed porpoise!

And now I have just got back from going out again. After a couple of requests for Park & Ride photos that didn't really match up to what we have on file I thought I'd go and take some more. So have been up to Bury Road and tried to get a bit interesting and also "arty". We shall see what comes out when I get them back. That also seems to be the nearest thing I've done to any real work today. Have mainly been reading through an avalanche of magazines and journals that have been building up in other people's in trays and not getting passed on to me.

Joan is having her back cracked tonight so I am meeting her there to do a bit of post-cracking shopping. Then it'll be healthy grilled food for tea and hopefully tonight we really will get round to watching a film. Last night we caught up on old episodes of Holby (although we missed two while we were up north). That is of course if the phone will stay silent. I used to get frustrated that whenever we started watching something it would ring, then that stopped but we still had to take a break around 9 every night for Joan to phone her Dad. Obviously that is no longer a problem, but since last week's events there always seems to be someone calling to check if we are OK. I am getting close to answering back with "we'd be better if you'd all leave us alone for a couple of nights" or unplugging them all!

Didn't think to mention that last night was also pretty stressful for another reason. The estate settlement cheque came. And while it is obviously nice to get some money, the reason for it isn't and it was all a bit upsetting for Joan. I have brought it with me to pay in to save her the possible embarrassment of bursting into tears in the bank if she were to do it.

On a lighter note, I just found this in the BBC site and have to stick it in:
Thursday, 25 July, 2002, 02:46 GMT 03:46 UK
Barbie loses battle over bimbo image


Barbie must accept that being parodied is part of the job, a US judge has ruled after the manufacturer of the famous leggy blonde took legal action against a pop song which mocked her.

Danish pop act Aqua stormed the charts in 1997 with the song Barbie Girl, in which a female singer portraying Barbie refers to herself as a "blonde bimbo". She is also enticed to "go party" by a male singer representing Ken, Barbie's steady boyfriend.

Barbie's maker Mattel, in a lawsuit against MCA Records, contended that the song infringed copyright and sullied Barbie's image. But Judge Alex Kozinski said that the song was protected by the right to free speech in the US constitution because it was a parody and a social commentary. "With Barbie, Mattel created not just a toy but a cultural icon," he said. "With fame often comes unwanted attention."

He also noted that Barbie had heard much worse since her conception in the 1950s.

Tall, slim - yet curvaceous - Barbie has been the bane of feminists who want society to move away from conceptions of the female figure that do not correspond with reality. "Barbie has been labelled both the ideal woman and a bimbo," said Judge Kozinski. His court also upheld a lower court decision to throw out a defamation suit brought against Mattel by MCA over comments allegedly made about the record company. "The parties are advised to chill," said the judge.

However the news still comes as a blow to Mattel, being the second case it has lost over the Barbie mark in less than two years. In February last year, a court ruled that an American artist was within his rights to use Barbie dolls in his work. Some of Tom Forsythe's photographs depicted the blonde in sexually compromising positions.

A court had ruled on that occasion too that parody of Barbie was an acceptable activity.

What can you say about that?

Big yawn time - feel absolutely washed out this morning and like I could drop off at any minute for no apparent reason. Went to bed same time as normal, slept all through (although with the obligatory strange and confusing dreams - seems I was moving into a house in Derby that kept changing street and also buying a mini at the same time that was then in need of major repairs) and woke up as required when the alarm did its stuff. Oh well, I'll just have to get some matchsticks from somewhere to keep my eyes open.

Until everyone else goes off for meetings, then I might be able to snooze under the desk a bit!

Slight changes of plan last night saw us getting our heads trimmed at Faith's place rather than ours for a change. I don't mind going there as she has a couple of nice dogs. And I don't normally like dogs, so that says something. Collie sheepdog things. Both mad as hatters and utterly cute. I think they could almost be used to persuade me to get a mutt myself sometime, apart from the walking and clearing up shite business of course. And I'm still not sure about the generall doggy smell they all seem to have - it seems to waft throughout a doggy household and I can't get used to it.

That meant we were not home until 7ish and decided a chinese was called for as we couldn't be bothered cooking by the time we'd showered. The Magic Wok was unexpectedly closed so I went up to the one in town we had been treated to food from at the weekend. They have a few different choices on the menu so I ended up with (and sorry to any Llamasofties reading this) Mongolian crispy lamb. It was lovely!

OK, time to see what the working day can do to keep me awake.

Stayed awake until we went to bed last night, which was nice. And we did do the toasted sandwich thing for tea too. Dunno what we will have tonight though.

Today has been in equal parts rewarding and frustrating. I finally got all the timetable changes from the last two weeks in and off ot the printers when, Kazam!, another one turned up. Ordinarily this would just be a cause for me to shake my head wearily and say something like "just when I thought it was safe" or "here we go again" but this one took the biscuit and finally spurred me into writing a stroppy email. It was for a service that started on Monday. Now, that would be bad enough, not hearing about it until after it changed but this is one we are sponsoring. Yup, not only had the information been in the office before today, we designed it. Accompanying the registration was a letter of support for the change dated the 19th. But did they tell us then? No. And knowing how the system works it will have taken them a couple of weeks to pull the whole thing together. It is actually a replacement for a commercial service that has been cancelled. Did they tell us they were going to look to replace it? No. Did they tell us when the tenders went out? No. Or when they were returned? You guessed it.

So that was just one step too far for me. I have sent this to their stand in manager (names not changed cos they ain't innocent and don't deserve protecting!):

I've been trying to get communications from your team about what goes on for 4½ years now so would welcome your input on the matter. The main issue is on letting us know what they are doing when it comes to sponsored services. I am continually finding out about things we are paying for from the final registration rather than in advance from the people doing it. This is made worse when it comes to supporting short notice changes.

I think the final straw has just come - I have received a registration in the last ten minutes for a service that started on MONDAY accompanied by a support letter from Ian dated the 19th. Now I know I was off for two weeks, but your people must have known they were doing this before the 19th and could at least have told someone something about what was going on. It would have been nice to get the roadside publicity done before it started, whereas now it won't be until Friday of this week.

Frankly, I've had enough of being left out of the loop like this. And after all, who's going to ride a bus if we can't tell anyone it is running?

There is also this email I sent to Mike, Chris and Charles before going off up North:

Chaps,

As I seem to have been lumbered with producing a leaflet to tell the plebs all about ticket interavailability between sponsored and commercial services, can one of you provide me a definitive list of what we do, where it is valid etc etc etc.

Ta,

Again, I have heard nothing. Not even a "we're busy but will get back to you". I can see I will be getting chased for news on the leaflet soon and will have to say that people are letting me down.

Any chance you can take them off somewhere and knock some sense into them? All the re-org stuff implies we should work together more but that's only what the publicity/marketing team has been asking for since before I started here.

All help gratefully appreciated...

He agrees the situation is not a good one, so has agreed to join us at our next team meeting to see what we actually need then sort them out. Hopefully the results will prove positive. After all, we are supposed to be getting closer to each other under the re-org stuff so there are some pretty huge walls to break through.

Better news is that we think we have decided on the holiday we want to take. Prague. Will see now how much money we end up with and if there are spaces for us.

Also wnet to the library at lunchtime so have four cds to listen to soon: Underworld - Beacoup Fish AND Live - Everything, Everything, Jimi Hendrix - Axis: Bold As Love and Blink 182 - The Buddah Album. The latter will fit on the same MD as another album of theirs I've got but the live Underworld will need some clever editing to fit on an MD unless I can find somewhere selling 80 minute ones locally.

Nearly time to get out of here for the day. Yay! Getting hairs cut tonight as they should have been done last week but we were on the A1 at the time.

Despite feeling like a complete Zombie by the time I got home (and falling asleep on the sofa for an hour) I am not too bad today and even made it in to work before 830 for a change. Only by 2 minutes mind, but that's all that you need!

We finally got the grill wotsit up and running last night, and the results were very tasty indeed. Might just have to use it again tonight. Or possibly it will be a toasted sandwich kind of feel to the food. More news on that when it happens!

Another good bit from yesterday was that in the 269 messages was one letting me off any financial implications of car scraping. That was a big load off the mind I can confirm. Having had run ins with the neighbours over car issues I certainly didn't want to get embroilled with a stranger on that issue. Why do cars create such hassle?

Am now halfway down the stack of bus registrations so might have all the details off to the printers by the time I go home tonight. I will of course drive carefully and make sure I avoid any pigs that might be flying past. Still plenty of other things in the in-tray to deal with, but nothing that can't wait a couple more days. And have got a van booked for a day out of the office on Friday, so hopefully today's rain will only be a blip in the nice weather we've been having.

Being back at work has also meant a return to in car music. Yesterday was By Your Side by The Black Crowes and today has seen a Chumbawamba B-sides and rarities compilation I knocked up myself with (would ya believe) Geri Haliwell (Scream If You Wanna Go Faster) to get me home again. Never say I don't have a wide taste.

I have even managed to get up the town today - where I realised what it was that was nagging at me after getting in to work with no traffic for two days in a row. The bloody kids are off school for the summer now. The place was full fo the little horrors. Still, I got what I went out for - Iron Maiden's Rock In Rio DVD and also an unexoected bonus of The Big Blue which is a film about divers and dolphins and stuff that was recommended on the Llamasoft forums this morning. Well, it was only £8 on the market so I thought I'd take the chance. Joan even agrees with me there so we will hopefully not be disappointed. Back to timetables now...

So here I am back at work. Oh joy and rapture. Be still my beating heart. And other such crap.

Only 269 emails waiting for me when I logged in this morning. Might get through them all by the end of the day, but somehow doubt it. Ended up having to take 4 days of holiday and one flexi-day for last week, after getting compassionate leave for the first 5 days. Better than Bhupen I guess as he had to take it all as holiday, but not what I really wanted. Still got enough left for another three weeks between now and April plus whatever flexi I can build up so we will get away at some point. We have even picked up some brochures so might look at them later.

Also a whole stack of bus service changes that have come in during the last fortnight. Weren't any for ages before we went off!

The re-organization thing is still going on as before. No chance it would seem of stopping the two of us having to fight for senior status. Part of me is just totally pissed off with the whole situation while the rest just wants it all to go away. Whatever happens I'll still have a job of some description and no less money coming in (more even, if the union ever decides to accept an offer - I'm not a member but have to wait for my pay rise anyway). In the end it is only a job and recent events just re-inforce the feeling that it doesn't really matter what I do at work, so long as I make the most of the time at home. So once I've made up the 2½ hours I'm down on time at the moment I think I will concentrate on building up a few days by working longer hours just so I can do some of the things I want to do rather than have to do.

Hmm, just had a phone call asking for timetable books in Bury. Think I will book a car and have a day out later in the week. I probably need one!

I think the worst part of today was looking at my diary - the first half of this week has "Keep Free - Trip to visit Ernie?" written in large letters all over it. There's something I'll never write again. Also realised I forgot to put in the bit above about all the hassle over treating him - one of the doctors was even proposing moving him to another hospital for kidney dialysis. What planet are these people from? He probably wouldn't even have made the trip and it wouldn't have done a darn thing to solve the underlying problem. Just prolonged the agony a bit longer.

Oh well, nothing more I can say will change things.

On a lighter note, am now reading my way through an omnibus edition of The Dilbert Principle, The Dilbert Future and The Joy Of Work, all by Scott Adams. Just funny enough to keep me sane (but not too far gone to seem in bad taste at the moment) and also horribly true about what is going on around me here at the moment.

Only another hour or so to go!

And finally I get the chance to write a bit more.

Thursday we did some more shopping and sorting out of stuff during the day. Also Joan went to the doctor and we had everyone around for dinner in the evening - a sort of mopping up of the whole process plus farewell to Sheila. It also allowed Bhupen to help her pack her cases - obviously I'm not capable of such a complicated task!

Friday we got up early and I took Sheila to Heathrow for her flight home. I was expecting a long and stressful run complete with lots of traffic and hold-ups as is normal on both the A12 and M25, especially with it being the last day of term so no doubt some families would have removed their sprogs from school a day early and be heading off on their holidays. We left here with a good 3½-4 hours to spare before the last minute she could check in, and got there in a little over 2. I have never seen those roads so empty. There was just a little bit of stop-starting around the M40 interchange. Uncanny. It was also a doddle to find a parking space and there were no queues at the check-in desks either. Most strange. Anyway, she got checked in OK and from all subsequent accounts the flight went on time and she got home fine (for about 5 minutes before heading off to see her daughter's new home now they have finally moved in after months of waiting for it to be built - and I just realised that today is their first wedding anniversary).

My trip back to Felixstowe was almost as uneventful as the journey down. I did make one stop to fill me up with an egg & sausage sandwich (at South Mimms services, where Joan and I had our first holiday - a couple of nights in the Travelodge with easy access to London!) and had to queue between the M11 and A12, but otherwise again free flowing all the way home. I seem to recall dozing through much of the afternoon and then we had a relaxing evening watching tv - BB now down to the final 4/final week and we are actually quite keen to see Jonny win - and not just because he's from County Durham.

Yesterday we thought would be simple. We have been after something new for the lounge to store the DVDs and stuff in. So, off we trotted in the morning into Felixstowe. Nothing available to suit. So we then went up to Ipswich. Not the town centre but all the little retail parks dotted around the outskirts. Again, nothing doing. We did manage to have a very nice lunch at Fatty Arbuckle's American Diner (mmm, pancakes with Maple Syrup, almost as good as being back in Canada again) and look at lots of cars though. We are begining to think that it might be time to replace the Escort and are just looking at options for what is available and how much we want to pay. We are thinking of going smaller again though as there are only the two of us and we don't buy a lot of big stuff. And when we do there is always the delivery or borrow Dad's Volvo option. Perhaps a Ford Fiesta or Ka. We shall see.

When we got home Joan was zonked so I did a bit of ironing (with a soundtrack from Kingmaker - Sleepwalking and The Human League - Romantic?) while she slept. Then we went round to Ma & Pa's for a big Chinese meal. That was very nice and from one in town rather than our usual haunt of the Magic Wok (well, that one is on the corner of our street, it would seem rude to go elsewhere).

Today we have again been in to Felixstowe. Joan wanted to check on how things had been going at work while she was away so I had a wander about for a while until I ran out of magazines to read in Smiths and thought I ought to go find her before I started buying DVDs instead. In the end we had lunch at Wimpy and came home with another 6 foot bookcase for the dining room (to be used for shiny discs not books in the main instead of something for the lounge) and also a USB hub for the PC. Been after one of those since Christmas and now no longer have to reach round the back of the PC when wanting to swap between playing games and printing.

So that's us up to date again. Not sure what we will do tonight, but not a lot sounds good to me!

I have been thinking a bit more about the events of the 9th. I know Ernie was fairly aware of what was going on until a few hours after they withdrew treatment and just let the morphine do its stuff, but I don't recall anyone ever actually talking to him about what was going to happen. He did ask Helen a couple of times when it was all going to end, but never said anything specific about what he wanted to do and if he was ready for that really. I can't decide what I would want to do if it was me lying there wired up with no hope. Would I go for the option of letting everyone else make decisions and not know the end was near or would I want the chance to be involved in the choice? I think I would like to know I was on my way out in the next couple of hours just so I could say some proper goodbyes before drifting off on the drugs. It just seemed a bit odd to me that nobody wanted to give him that chance, but were rather keen to let him go on thinking things would be OK until he wasn't awake any more.

Well, it wasn't my choice so I will just have to live with how it happened. I hope I get my own way when the time comes though.

Back to work tomorrow so should be able to keep this more up to date again.

Dang it, you write all that and then the sodding thing refuses to publish.

Any luck now?

What a week and a half that was. Where on earth do I begin and how to get it all down in words without it sounding too trite in places? Well, I shall just have to press on with it and see how it goes.

Sunday the whatever it was, I had it all planned for a nice quiet evening when Joan got home from work. We were going to try that new grill thing and just generally relax.

We got as far as Joan having a bath before the phone rang and blew everything to pieces. It was Joan's aunt Dahlia (Ernie's Sister) to tell us that she had been to see him in hospital and things had taken a turn for the worst. So basically we dropped everything, threw a few clothes in a case and hit the road along with Helen, Bhupen & Alexander in their car. We arrived at the hospital at about 0130 Monday morning and were immediately confronted with a doctor asking us to agree to a Do Not Ressucitate order. Not the best way to end a 6 hour journey.

It turned out he had actually had a small heart attack under the gas for the operation on thursday and then another, bigger one on Friday. Pity they didn't tell us that over the phone. Anyway, we had a bit of a chat with the doctor, nurses and Ern himself and then Bhupen & Alexander went off to the house to get a bit of rest while the three of us settled down to see what the morning would bring.

I think I caught a couple of hours sleep in a chair somewhere but can't really remember.

On Monday we had him moved to a side room as the rest of the ward was a bit noisy and he couldn't get any rest. Fair enough really as it was the High Dependency Unit and everyone was hooked up to at least three machines. The three of us who had stayed the night went home to get changed then back for more waiting and thinking.

We had a bit of an argument with the surgeon who had done the leg op (which was a success) and one of his juniors over what should be done next. They were adamant that we should do everything to keep Ernie going but we could see how pointless it all was. Basically the rest of his body was shutting down because the heart was too damaged by the attacks to do any real pumping of blood, and as there was no hope for a repair or transplant it just seemed cruel to us to keep him going with more drugs and machines.

The chaps went home again that night and then on Tuesday morning picked up Sheila from Newcastle airport and brought her in. None of us left again until it was over from that point. Monday night had been pretty awful for Ernie as he was begining to throw up blood - in quite large quantities and by Tuesday lunchtime we had all agreed that all the drugs were doing was prolonging the inevitable and the doctors agreed, so at exactly 12 midday they withdrew everything except the pain relief and all we could do then was watch and wait.

There were a couple more hours where he was drifting in and out of conciousness, and obviously getting more confused as the morphine kicked in. His last few sentences were about thinking two thoughts at the same time, dreaming different dreams in each side of his head and wanting to share a sandwich with Joan. It was very heartbreaking and in some ways a relief when around three pm he stopped waking up.

For us watching and waiting it got worse around 5ish when he started to stop breathing. He would go for 3 or 4 minutes with the breathing getting increasingly ragged and then stop for 30 to 40 seconds. We'd all lean forward to see if that was it and then he'd start off again. That went on for nearly 7 hours of stop-start worry for us until the end came at 1245 making his date of death officially the 10th.

The girls had spent a couple of hours debating about whether to get a priest in to help see him off, and finally made their minds up in time for him to arrive at 1230. He came in, laid his hand on Ernie's head and did some prayers etc (I can't remember what) before finally finishing with "...and tonight, Ernie, you will walk in paradise with the Lord" and at that exact moment he stopped breathing for the last time. Which was a bit spooky to say the least. We came to the conclusion that he must have been waiting for permission to die.

So, that was that. The first death I've witnessed and not a pleasant experience.

The staff on the ward were all absolutely marvellous while we were there. Never intrusive, always ready to help and explain things to us, willing to back us against the surgeons and so forth. They all thought Ernie was a great bloke from the time they had spent with him, and I shall certainly back them to the hilt if ever it came to a crisis with the NHS.

We hung around for a while before finally all going back to the house to sleep and see what happened next.

The sleeping arrangements were a bit awkward and the three girls ended up sharing the double bed their parents had used while us lads rotated between, sofa, single matress and floor in the lounge.

After making the arrangements we then divided our time between clearing out the house (over 100 black sacks and counting, not to mention innumerable trips to the charity shops), sorting out the paperwork (which mainly fell on my head although I then got shouted at for taking over - I'll forgive Helen for now, but if she ever tries to use it against me in the future there really will be hell to pay), making the necessary arrangements and just getting on with distracting ourselves to get through it all.

The funeral was on Monday and went very well. The vicar was a lovely bloke (even if he does look a lot like Ronnie Corbet) and got everything we wanted to say into his speech. He also nearly managed to kill himself tripping over a microphone cable at the crematorium (but resisted the "goodnight from me" gag we were all half expecting when the curtains closed on the coffin). We went back to the pub he used to visit afterwards and all went pretty well considering. Then yesterday we had a little ceremony in the church yard to inter the ashes along with those of Joan's Mum which she had kept for the last 10 years waiting for this moment. That was also a nice event in a way as it brought a lot of things to an end and reunited the pair of them. They have also been placed with the view he never wanted to leave, so that was kind of fitting.

As an aside, it scared me half to death when I first discovered Joan had kept her Mum's ashes. It was before I moved in with her int he flat - we were moving the furniture around and she suddenly yelled at me to be careful with the box I was about to pick up as her Mum was in it. Not what you expect on a lazy Sunday afternoon!

We also did a lot of shopping for bits and bobs (the girls all got new outfits and hired hats to make sure they gave their Dad a proper send-off) visiting the Metro Centre and Chester-Le-Street among other places. Ate a lot of takeaways (it was decided as soon as we woke up on Wednesday that this was no time for cooking and all the pans got thrown out first) and did some evening driving (trips up to the Angel of the North, into Newcastle to see the new bridge across the Tyne and also down to the coast at South Shields). There was also a lot of catching up with family up there, sitting around talking and laughing over memories and old photos and stuff like that. Also numerous visits to the Chapel of Rest to put flowers and photos in the coffin with him - my first encounter with a corpse too. He looked a lot better then than during the final hours and helped to put my mind at ease a bit.

In the end though, 82 years of Ernie and 72 of Jessie all distilled into two cars loaded with stuff and people that left the North East for probably the last time (although I hope we will be able to go back at some point, even if just passing through on the way to Scotland) and got back here at 1 this morning.

All in all an eventful series of days.

It was nice to sleep in our own bed last night!

I did manage to find a bit of time for myself during all the hubbub to read as I need that to calm my head at times. Rather than take the classic buses I instead read Distraction by Bruce Sterling which was actually just what I needed. It would be filed as Sci-Fi but is about 90% politics. Very good.

We didn't really watch any TV during the time we were there (and yesterday gave it to the hospital) and no music was consumed either.

So now we have a few more days to get back down to earth before returning to work on Monday. Sheila goes back to Canada on Friday (guess who's got the airport run...) and then we will have the weekend to ourselves.

I think that's about it for today. You can guess where the girls are (I'll give you a clue, starts with B and ends with INGO!) but I did the drop off so Bhupen will bring them home.

D'oh - forget my head if it wasn't screwed on.

Meant to mention in that post about last night's sleeping and dreaming. Didn't sleep very well at all - unless I had several consecutive dreams that featured me looking at the clock and the time slowly progressing!

The main dream, however, was much stranger than that but also if true would explain an awful lot about the way things work. Joan and I got sucked through into another universe that was almost the same as this one, but just ever so slightly different in places. Apparantly this sort of thing was going on all the time with traffic in both directions. So, for instance, all the cheap rip-off merchandising you get around films that isn't quite what the official stuff ought to be (as found in pound shops and on market stalls etc) isn't cheap chinese forgeries but actually the real stuff from this other universe slipped through into ours by mistake. It was also home to all the people who have disappeared over the years etc. Well, it made sense to me at 3 this morning anyway!

Friday night ended well - justice was done and Adele was voted out of the Big Brother house. We slept peacefully after that!

Yesterday was a fairly typical Joan at work and Simon at home kind of day for the majority of it. I ironed in the morning with help from:

Chumbawamba - Swingin' With Raymond AND i - Portraits of Anarchists
Sum 41 - All Killer No Filler
Alien Ant Farm - Anthology
The Orb - Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld

Then had a mosey about on here and lunch. With lunch I decided it was about time I re-watched The Haunting what I got for my birthday last year as it is the main film ripped off in Scary Movie 2 which we will probably watch tonight. I'm not sure if the ending made any more sense second time around but I still enjoyed it. Must watch the extras on there sometime as some of the FX were really quite good.

That was followed by the obligatory (it seems) falling asleep on the couch until it was time to pick Joan up from work. I was a bit annoyed with myself for that but again must have needed some sleep. Really must get around to seeing the Doctor again to find out if there's anything he can do to stop me nodding off all the time.

When Joan got home we made the standard issue calls to the hospital and relatives to see how Ernie was and pass it along. She got a bit of a shock when they said what they were having to help him with - I don't think she realised he would be all tubed and monitored up for a few days after the op. Still, progress appears to be being made - his sense of humour is coming back and so forth. Fingers are begining to relax from the crossed position I think.

After that we went round to Ma & Pa's for dinner, which was nice to be able to switch off a bit. Their extension is coming along well and the food was lovely.

Today Joan is at work again and so far I have cleaned out the bathroom and played a few games on here. The soundtrack to the morning has been Crawl, from The Beyond (who were just starting out in Derby when I was at college there and generally superb the couple of times I saw them - pity they didn't last more than two albums) and Implant from Eat Static. This afternoon the ironing calls again - which should help to keep me awake during the British Grand Prix.

Tonight's tea will feature chicken cooked on the new George Forman health grill thingy Joan bought yesterday. All the reports from other people rate them highly so we shall see.

Mmmmm. All full up now with Burger and Chips and Onion Rings and Coke and Grease. Lovely! Joan has already bought two DVDs today (one with Will Hay and one Jackie Chan) - don't know anything about either of them so that will be a change to watch. Still raining though so I'm a teensy bit damp. Now just have to hang around here until they want to come home.

I know where I'd rather be though.

And so it rains again. Well, a whole dry day was nice anyway.

Ernie was doing much better last night when I phoned to check on him. Breathing and obs back to normal and he was asleep naturally. So, that's something to smile about anyway.

I am also smiling for other reasons today. Firstly I don't feel too tired. Slept fairly well - only woke up once when Joan thought it was a good idea to wake me from a dream. Was dreaming about the parking problems we have been having with next door - he had finally decided he was going to park where he wanted whatever and was somehow getting his car on top of ours. I think I must have gone round to complain as when Joan did the good deed I was thrashing about and shouting "you've got two minutes to move the bloody thing or I'm getting the Police". I wonder what the conclusion would have been. Anyway, I slept well again after that - to the point that although I remember the alsrm going I must have just zonked straight out again and not finally got up until an hour after normal. Luckily I made some time up and only got here half an hour later than I usually do. Praise be to flexi-time though.

Secondly the postman brought me a set of cdroms today containing about 2-3,000 old arcade games ready to use on the PC with MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator). There go any hopes of getting anything useful done this weekend.

Thirdly Joan is off again today and is in Ipswich right now along with Alexander. So, despite the weather I am goingup town in 25 minutes time to meet them for lunch. I feel junk food calling (well, Alexander doesn't really eat anything else).

And I've designed a nice advert this morning too.

Terrible news at lunchtime - Boots have (a) put the price of their meal deals up by 10p and (b) stopped doing the chicken & sweetcorn sarnie I like. Had to settle for a cheese topped Ham and Emmental roll instead, which was quite nice but not in the same league.

Joan's foot rub thing went well enough for her to book another one next month, so that'll do her good.

Ernie has come through the surgery. The actual op went well, but at the moment he is having a bit of trouble breathing so has been moved to a high dependency ward (one step down from intensive care). I guess he was lucky they even agreed to knock him out at 82 and he should be back to normal soon they reckon. We shall see. Probably going up there in a couple of weeks time.

Time to go home now, methinks.

Hmmm, got the details through on whose car it was and have sent them an email, but no response as yet. Then again, I didn't see it when I got in this morning so perhaps I shouldn't expect one as yet.

Gary is just as piddled off as me so we are going to work together and go on strike! Will see what happens.

Nearly lunchtime, and will have to go up the town having brought no food with me. That factor also led to me breaking my resolve to be good and having an Alberts this morning. Very tasty (egg and sausage for a change) and I don't feel guilty about it at all. Even confessed to Joan and she said it had been a good idea!

Ernie should be going under the knife any time now - they are doing a vein transplant or replacement depending upon what they find when they oopen the leg up. Hopefully he will come out of it with better circulation. Fingers are crossed.

Forgot to mention last week - we finally got a new water cooler thingy at last. Actually, we got two - one last week and a replacement for that this week. It has only been 6 months or so since the one on this floor went wrong. So now I can get a decently cold drink with no stairs involved. However, this one doesn't do fizzy water (which is fine by me, I prefer it still) so I won't get the bizarre sight of people getting a glass of half and half. Surely you either want fizzy or still? How can you have half fizzy? Doesn't quite make sense to me.

Will be accompanied by the end of a disc of assorted heavy tracks as recorded from Kerrang telly and then a collection of Honeycrack B sides I put together when I go out. Yesterday's in car entertainment came from Satellite by P.O.D. A bit shouty/rappy and not enough singing in places but very good otherwise and an uplifiting feel to the lyrics for a change. Nice.