Sitting in front of the blog engine, parrot on my head preening my hair (before crapping on it, no doubt) it all feels good. Yes, red wine has been ingested, but nonetheless there are clearly good things afoot.
Work has been particularly shite recently, but there have been a few good points. Not least of which is that the Students’ Union decided to honour me with an award at the 2005 Student Awards Night! I can’t tell you how important this was to me. There were lots of jokes beforehand about how it was a “lunchtime achievement award” (thanks Llynos) etc to the extent that I was convinced it was a piss-take…but it wasn’t! Some great friends from work came along, together with many “big nobs” from the college, and it was a great night. Everyone in the place seemed happy and seemed to have a good time (apart from Ben who fell down the stairs and had to be taken to hospital…again :). Jamie, the official Union geezer, had the job of selecting the music to be played as the winners picked up their awards. He is convinced I am some sort of geek…Christ knows why…and so chose the Imperial March from Star Wars (AKA Darth Vader’s theme). Sadly, I was wearing all black as I went up to collect the award, so it was quite appropriate.
Needless to say, Michele and I had a couple of “bastards behind the eyes” next day.

And that same day a really good old friend, Tony, popped in from France. He, Zap, Michele and I spent a drunken night in the company of Eurovision (we was robbed), Dr Who, HIGNFY and various other televisual delights, whilst having a good laugh and a good curry from Monsoon…well I enjoyed it anyway.

Sunday was another goody. We went over to my mum and dad’s and had some gorgeous roast pork, followed by a brief selection of someof my dad’s 1970s singles collection…ie my audio childood memories: Peter, Paul and Mary, Paddington Bear sung by Bernard Cribbins, The Wurzels etc). So good. There have been loads of other occurrances recently but none spring to mind. When they appear I’ll get blogging.
More apologies to those whom I have been so crap at keeping in contact with.

It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.

P. G. Wodehouse, The Man Upstairs (1914)

I nearly forgot!
On saturday I received a phone call from someone I was very friendly with when I was at college (as a student). He’d seen a message I left on the Alumni message board at Goldsmiths website! He actually noticed the message a couple of years ago but never got around to calling until a recent moment of procrastination. That’s cool though, logic I understand!
BTW, please allow me to apologise to all of those people I’ve been so crap at keeping in touch with. Please remember not to take it as a personal swipe and always remember what a useless wanker I am.
Goodnight again.

Two years ago, if you’d asked me if I could ever love someone/thing with feathers, I’d have thought you were barking. And you would have been – it’s a bizarre question to ask someone. But now, as I type on this parrot-shit caked keyboard, I think of my dear little humph and her innocent, earnest, face, and it makes me feel strangely loved-up. Perhaps we need children now…(Michele and I, not the bird…)
I’m also thinking of Michele, in her distant luxury hotel. This week I realised just how much I depend on my sweet bat. Thanks meanie.
Sorry all – this wasn’t supposed to be a maudlin, soppy blog but that’s just how it came out.
This afternoon and all day tomorrow I’m off work for unbloggable reasons.

What a crap blog. Sorry.

BTW – I loved HHGTTG despite this “expert” opinion. I intended to write to this character and point out what a nob he is, but it seems that he’s already done a good job of doing it himself.
Good night.

This week I turned 34. What a thing to celebrate…
On Tuesday Raaach left work for good. A sad day but a happy one in reality because we were happy for her and decided to celebrate. Many of the assembled throng had problems getting into work the next day. Not me, of course, apart from not wanting to leave our beautiful parrot home alone (currently on my head).
Anyway, on my birthday, a bunch of good friends accompanied me to my favourite restaurant. I had such a good time! The restaurant people were really nice too, despite us clearing the place. They gave me (mister Martin) a free Dosa that was the size of three plates. 14 quid a head, including the massive amounts of wine. GO THERE! Gorgeous! Happy day!
This weekend, Michele came back from Exeter and a very good friend of mine, Ben, came up from Brighton for a visit. It was really nice to see him. Humph thought so too – tart :).We went out on Saturday night to “The Peninsula”; ostensibly to see HHGTTG, but also to eat.
We ate in “Nando’s”. Now, if you have never had the Nando’s experience, let me tell you, it’s as close to the experience of going to America can be without actually getting your fingerprints taken by a humourless, souless, American, civil servant. Not only do you have to queue up to get in, but you have to order and buy your own food before you eat (no refusing to pay if it turns out to be crap). If there’s no cutlery you eat with your fingers. If you want water, you go to the tap with your glass…that you received when you ordered your manky, sugary, piss, from the “bar” and fill it yourself. If you were foolish enough to order a bottle of wine, then fuck-you. You are clearly anti-American and deserve to die of dehydration.
While you eat, you can look out the window at the scenic car-park and watch the cars go up the motorway. If you don’t like such scenes then worry not. You can enjoy the happy atmosphere of the thousands of FCUK-clad chavs stuffing themselves with overpriced battery-chickens whilst listening to chart-inspired muzak. A fun day out for all the family.
I must admit that the hot sauce and the corn on the cob were pretty darned nice. But it wasn’t cheap.
In fact, the whole experience of the peninsula was singularly horrible. Another American inspired hellhole where you’re not welcome unless you drive. You can pick up busses outside the cinema for Thamesmead, Bexleyheath, Eltham and Woolwich, but not for Greenwich, Lewisham or New Cross. Considering that this place is actually in Greenwich (next to Lewisham, and New Cross), the situation is really fucking annoying. They clearly know their target audience. Already we’re at the US position of not being regarded as true citizens unless we drive.
At the souless, miserable, multiple-screened, misery-temple, that is Greenwich Filmworks, there was a poster on the wall that sums up why I HATE ALL COPYRIGHT FASCIST COMPANIES, especially FACT, FAST, the BPI and the MPAA. They are evil scum who suckle on satan’s sulphurous teats. These BASTARDS, in conjunction with global capitalist Borg, have produced a poster that attempts to link pirate films with everyone’s favourite easily understandable hate figure: terrorism! Yes! People have gone from normal dudes, through to terrorists, via criminality, just by downloading films that they’re not necesserily interested in, but are far simpler to watch via download than by going to the fucking Greenwich peninsula. We’re going to hell in a handcart etc ad nausiam…

The more you love someone, the more difficult it becomes to care for them. Michele has gone away for training in Exeter, and I’m left alone with my dear Humphrey. I love them both, and therefore worry about them both when I have to go to work. Michele is in a luxury hotel, surrounded by beautiful coutryside, with crow’s nests outside her bedroom and gourmet meals at the taxpayer’s expense. Lucky girl. Humph is at home, on her own, while I work in my office, controlling computers that are in another room.
It’s a shame that Michele’s away because she’s going to miss my birthday. Not that I’m happy about turning 34 or happy about my little sister turning 30 (she’s only 10!) but because I plan to eat a wicked south Indian curry that night…and I know she’d love it.

Friday afternoon was due to be a double celebration. Not only was Raaaach moving to more verdant pastures, but also Ian was a year older. So Ian and I took the afternoon off work so that we could enjoy the stupidly complete cheese-board Adele had organised. It was heart-crushingly good! Thanks!
Today was the first day back at work, and the first day of term. Consequently, Ian, Llynos, Paula and I went for a few drinks after work. So nice. Humph was very happy to see me when I got home though. Lovely bird. I gave her some nice seeds. Good bird.

A salesman, from some lame company or other, told me that the reason why a certain brand of firewall was popular was it was less difficult to understand than the alternatives.

Now, think about this: if your network people can’t understand a firewall, do you really want them running your network ? If they don’t understand the underlying protocols then should they be doing a job where the key skill is to understand the underlying protocols ?

The worst aspect of this is that the people who really understand the things are generally much younger, more keen, more intelligent and far more immature. Pity that.

The project I’ve been working on for the last few months has come to an end. At least the funding has, it’s not finished so there’s still more to do and I intend to do it. Not sure why, maybe because I want to see it working properly. Blimey, that almost sounds like professional integrity doesn’t it? In fact, the pressure from the last few days has clearly taken its toll. My concentration has been slipping. Last night, some debugging code got left inside the live version of the software which was published on the web. Today I received a panicked phone call from the project manager asking why all the tooltips (the little messages that appear when you hold the mouse over an icon) all said “ARSE!”. He thought I was having a dig at him! Little did he know it’s because I haven’t had a good night’s sleep for a while.
On the upside I’ve learned a great deal about Java, GUIs and the nature of development work. I’ve also spent a long time at home keeping Humph company. On the downside I’ve not needed to move more than a few metres from the sofa in the last few months and the lack of excercise is taking its toll on my body, which is slowly beginning to fall apart in accordance with the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
So it’s time for a new regime! Out goes much of the red wine and lethargy, in comes excercise and a load of pointless but possibly enjoyable walking. Out go fry-ups and red-meat, in come Bran Flakes and chicken salad…oh god…
Lots of thinking has gone-on inside my rotting brain recently. Sadly the mulling has not produced any fruits worth a mention. I’ll let you know if the situation changes.
The tunnel of U.S. immigration is still concealing any signs of light. No hidden skills have manifested in me, leading me to see the future looking like some Orwellian Microsoft-based nightmare. I’ll die first!
Worst of all, this link from popbitch puts me firmly in the LibDem’s catchment area… I reassure myself that this is merely indicative of how right-wing Labour have become, rather than how right-wing I’ve become. Please ?

One of the most important things you have to do when writing a blog, is to write a blog. If you stop writing a blog, you stop writing a blog, and your readers get bored and go down the pub. This is a major problem for depressive bloggers because depression really inhibits one’s confidence to write a load of objectively bland stuff for the sake of not-much. The less you write, the less frequently people bother to check it…until it rots away to buggery…

Anyway, while Humphrey pecks at the edge of the screen on this laptop, in a (successful) attempt to get some attention, I want to tell you about the City Inn in Birmingham. It’s where I stayed last night (courtesy of the British taxpayer) and it is my ideal hotel:

• FREE Internet access for all guests with ethernet AND wireless (and a bunch of exposed PCs, ripe for the hacking)!
• TV, DVD player (with DivX support), Corby trouser press (unused) in every room
• 24 hour room service, with good, cheap, food
• A bar that opens late
• A superb restaurant – haddock risotto with poached egg, followed by poached salmon with roased vegetables and salad 🙂
• Friendly staff
• Other things

We (a colleague and I) were in Birmingham for a two day event which could well be the most disgusting waste of taxpayers money ever. It does go on you know. Everyone there was very earnest, of course, and all felt it to be worthwhile, but I can honestly say that it would have been equally productive and far cheaper if the organizer had simply sat in his room at home and burnt £10 notes for a day. Such a pity. There are so many problems within education that need sorting out, and there is so much money to do it. It’s just a shame that the money ends up all getting poured down the khazi like this.
By day-two the tedium and pointlessness of it all had necessitated drastic action. Whilst I was psychologically prepared to sit through it all again, my colleague could bear it no longer and was so desperate to go back and start doing productive stuff again that we shunned the free lunch, coffee, tea and awkward conversations with tedious cretins in favour of going home.

But, it was a great night that involved eating gorgeous food, and then sitting reading some fluffy Tom Sharpe book in the hotel bar with a pint of Guiness or two. This is my idea of heaven.

Before this, there were load of noteworthy events that remain unblogged for various reasons. Just to help jog my memory, here are a few clues:

• Easter! Some nice wind-down events in various bars/pubs
• Visiting my parents and indulging in lovely food and company. In fact, last sunday we took Humph over there and sat in the garden…lovely. My sister called too – it was really lovely to speak to her! (Ok Frances ? 🙂
• A great night in Brockley with Dr J and Petra. After a few in the Brockley Barge we staggered off to the Wickham with Stuart H for some nice arguments. I may have consumed more Summer Lightning than that which could be considered polite…sorry
• Lucinda’s super-human catering event, where she managed to russle-up enough lasagne for 5,000 people in her house, from only 3 slices of pasta and 2 bits of beef. Great day that was, although I might have had a tad too much red wine than that which could be considered polite
• [Humph is currently talking to and dancing for my foot 🙂 ]
• Loads of other things that I can’t currently remember