I should start with an apology to anyone who came by here this afternoon to be greeted with a load of PHP errors. I was doing a bit of house-keeping earlier and had a blond moment. I moved what I thought were two old development directories into a trash folder where I put things I am considering deleting only to find that somewhere in amongst the live code, there was probably a symbolic link to something in the dev code. Of course I can't tell what it is because (given I am outside the US), I have no SSH access and the file mangler interface that is provided doesn't deal with symlinks. It took an email from Waaarty late this afternoon to alert me to the horror. It would have taken me two seconds to hit refresh after I had moved the dev directory but I didn't. Mea culpa. I am mortified that I have broken my own self-inflicted SLAs. In fact, if you need me, I'll be the body they find in the canal tomorrow morning. Or maybe not. I mean the body on the railway track at the end of the road. I tease. It will be hung from the rather sturdy rafters at work (I know they are sturdy because I have often sat in meetings wondering whether or not they could hold a body in weight. -- when no-one was in yet one morning, I dangled from them by my arms -- I know that's a distribution of load that a rope would not afford, but you get my drift). Hell, I could be all three.

As Tuesdays go, today was a bit ace. We've been trying to buy some firewalls for months. Today we finally got someone to cough up for them, in all their glory. Now we need some public IPs. You have no idea how painful that process is in an organization the size of ours. No matter -- positives. The order for firewalls negates my own slapshod SLA compliance so I guess I will spare me the horrible death I was promising myself.

I might be back later, but I have loads to watch. I picked up a copy of Quantum of Solace at the weekend, and I still have seasons one and two of Bones to go at. I don't know which will win out tonight, but one of them will.

Toodles.

That is how the day went. I stayed up and watched Bones until very late last night, which is never a good move on a Sunday. As soon as I had switched the light off, the alarm went off. As if that were not bad enough, there was no Shelagh Fogarty this morning (and none tomorrow). Dis-bloody-aster.

One of the metrics I deploy for measuring how stressed I am at work is my tolerance for urbane banter. Today I had zero-tolerance (sorry Grom). I have stuff going on all around me and it's getting to the point where if I carry on juggling, I will drop something, presumably a bollock. So it is fortuitous that as of the end of Thursday, I have a reprieve for ten days or so. None of the work will magically go away in that time, but at least I can come up for air.

I have been plagued by Formula 1 conversations all day. I know how people who hate football feel now. I used to like F1 until they started changing the rules every 30 seconds. Now I just find it utterly tedious. It's so bad, you can now mention it and Indy racing in the same breath. I do not even know what the rules are at the moment and I have little desire to find out. It's kind of like the \"power-play\" overs in cricket; I've vowed that I will never attend a one-day or Twenty-20 again. The one-day game has ruined a fantastic sport. Only test matches have any meaning (chess on a field) and given the recent debacles in the West Indies and the obscene attack in Pakistan, I fear even they are heading for an untimely demise.

'Tis all. I fear I have no energy for anything other than troughing and watching Bones tonight. Let us all hope that one of my guest bloggers steps up to the mark and entertains us.

BTW, I might have fallen in love with something that is not a meerkat or a Bosendorfer. You're intrigued aren't you? Freeda Gnome, sadly not you.

First up, it would not be Sunday without a bit of Barbara Ellen adoration. Best column ever. Fine piece of writing.

I was surprisingly productive for a Saturday yesterday. I was up and at it quite early. I nipped into Wigan to buy a suitcase from Argos. It is enormous. When the comment was made that it could hold a body, I answered straight-faced that it was a good thing because that is exactly what I wanted it for. The gal looked quite concerned and was visibly shaky as she handed me the receipt. The reason for the suitcase is that I have come to the conclusion that my mini-break will be to Toulouse. I think I shall be booking flights as soon as I have confirmation that I move into chez Kennee on Friday. I am determined to be away a week on Saturday (my birthday).

I then hit Sainsburys for some storage boxes and household gubbins. I managed to blow £100 on nothing of any significance. Deflation shmeeflation.

Before I left to meet the Vanquisher at the Stag, I started a download that has now furnished me with the whole of Ani DiFranco's back catalogue. Even at mp3panda prices, it took $30. The woman is prolific in stark contrast to Fiona Apple who averages an album every 5 years. Even if you take Kate Bush's average, it does not come out at 5 years. The lass should pull her finger out. Anyways, I detract. Ani DiFranco is a seriously impressive guitarist. I am increasingly not of the guitar mindset as I get older but she manages to make them sound appealing. If you like Joni Mitchell and were not offended by punk, I think you might like her. It's kind of punk folk. I read somewhere (maybe Wiki) that her style is classed as \"staccato guitar\". I started with Not A Pretty Girl, which I think is a top album. I am surprised that it didn't hit the mass market because it was one of those definitive albums that everyone should own.

At the Stag, we observed Earth Hour or whatever it was, entirely by accident. The lights were switched off to make way for some atmosphere when the karaoke started. If you could disinvent something, karaoke would come before nuclear arms. Karaoke has caused more harm to the human spirit than nuclear arms have. In fact, it was probably invented as a distraction to the atomic bombs in Japan. Evil begets evil. Thankfully the karaoke was not too obnoxious and I was able to explain at some tedious length to the Vanquisher how the port mapping on a blade enclosure works. He was fascinated -- I could tell.

Today I have lunched chez the parental units and altered more clocks and watches than I can remember. What a royal pain in the arse. Why do we bother? In any frame of logic I can come up with, it makes zero sense. It attempts to change the harsh reality that days do get shorter in winter. I think that is something that we could all come to live with if the news was broken softly. Still, at least the clock in my car is now accurate for the first time in six months.

Finally, I am concerned for Evil Albert's welfare. I suspect Mrs Albert of having broken his fingers or worse. I keep getting emails where she relates a message from Himself. This is very much akin to having a conversation with my father where he, Mater and I are sat in a room and he will say \"Ask Kenny whether he wants a brew\" to Mater. I will reply to Mater \"Tell Derv two teabags, one white and two sugars\". It's a pretty solid proxying service although occasionally her packet filtering algorithm fails.

Right, more Bones to watch. I am seriously in love with her character.

I drove back from what ended up being a pretty damned rewarding trip to Bristol. I now \"get it\" and ended up with a blinding flash of non-epiphany at about 08:30 this morning. I can now install, configure, and network a blade chassis of up to 16 blades, each with 8 NICs on any of 8 VLANs through a shared uplink. In fact I did two before 10:00am. I can then slap any of Linux, Windows or VMWare on the blades. 'Tis a beautiful thang. Once you have got your head around the virtual connect stuff, you're on a winner.

Upon arrival home, I felt the need to break the news of my move to Die Führer -- it is T-7 days and I have put this off for far too long. She appears to have taken it rather well although her voice became shaky for a few minutes. After we had gone through the practicalities etc. and what I needed to buy, she stunned me by offering me £1000 to help with buying stuff. I can't decide whether that is a helping hand or a statement of how much she will pay to get rid of me. I turned it down. I think she should put it towards her annual invasion of Poland.

So now I have to really start thinking about what I need to buy. I have a list but as I was going through stuff, it became apparent that there is quite a lot more I need. I shall develop a list addendum tomorrow. Tonight is a night of Bones, NCIS and browsing for a long weekend over Easter, somewhere hot. I just hope that I can get Sky\+ installed before Good Friday because I will need to tape NCIS that day.

Ooh -- quick thought -- isn't Bones on one of the Sky channels? Just think of the back-catalogue that I have to go at. Series 1-4. I wonder whether, by the end of it, I will be as fond of Bones as I was of Sydney Bristow?

Right, things to do.

Before I start, I have to comment on how poorly you all behave when I am not here to regulate. As far as I can see the Waaart has been straight red-carded twice and Mrs Albert has picked up enough yellows to merit a suspension. Dooblervay, well he merits a lifetime ban -- a 404 with bells on if you will, just for being French. If I could only track his IP down, he would be an ex-Dooblervay -- the clever bugger spoofs IP addresses that are known to me but from which legitimate (if cautionable) comments come.

My feeble intellect has been put to the test today. We had some connectivity issues that put off doing anything hands-on until late this afternoon. That gave me enough time to read up on what we were about to do and convince myself that I would never be able to do it. Once I had connectivity, one of the chassis was not playing according to the rules so I skipped it and went for the all singing all dancing chassis. I now have all of my virtual connect (network) mappings done and I am thinking that they are right because all the little lights are green okays, as opposed to the threatening red that appears if you do something horrendously stupid (not that I did -- I have just been told that is what happens -- cough). I have resilient 8Gb shared uplinks, 4 VLANs operating across resilient etherconnect units and a mind that is sat imagining a relaxing weekend of hunting Minogues with a 12-gauge shotgun.

I am now settling in with some room-service and Bones. Don't you dare to try to stop me. And please play nice.

First thing this morning my phone rang. It was the travel gal. She was all for moving me ASAP but I said it was fine -- I'm sure I could survive a couple of nights here -- and that I had been a bit of a drama queen.

Off I went to start to understand blade configuration and deployment. You know my ideas about pixies? Well I have refined this theorem having been shown how to use the virtual connect functionality of a blade chassis. The pixies are the software portion of t'interweb. The *elves* are the hardware parts. Doh. Once my brain had been fried by the hardware portion of the day, we then moved on to VMWare and virtual machines, virtual everythings. By the time the day ended and the chap was asking us questions, I could barely recall my name (be that CNAME or vhost -- sorry -- geek alert).

Tomorrow, a fellow chap and I have three enclosures to give birth to. Thankfully they are already racked, so it's a question of working through some fairly heavy duty networking gubbins. Is there a God of pixies? I know Oberon was king of the fairies, but I have never heard of a God of the pixies. To be honest, tomorrow is going to be seriously mind-bending because I don't believe for a second that I have remembered everything I have been told today. It will be a case of Kenny winging it once more. I do my best work when I'm baffled.

After all my fun, I returned to the dump™ to find a note under my door saying that I had been smoking in my room and that I am to be charged extra. This is not strictly true. There is a half height window that allows you to dangle out of it a good way. And I had one cigarette out of it last night and one this morning. Venal sin at worst. I had to laugh. From the state of the room, and how musty it is, the only evidence that I had even smoked dangling out of the window would have been that I had an empty packet of cigarettes in my bin. I am half tempted to say bugger it and spark up this very minute. If I am to be charged extra, I might as well get my money's worth from it. I won't but the devil in me really wants to. I really should have taken travel gal's advice and moved.

Right, I shall head outside for a smoke then I shall think about eating.

Remember the days when I used to update you on the wonders of arriving in Singapore/Thailand/China/Taiwan/Korea/Miami/Chicago/Tampa/Munich/The Hague/Tokyo/Paris/San Diego/Oslo/Ad Infinitum? Remember the awe? Remember the details of the hotels? The pictures?

Well tonight I will revert to a certain visit Boston-style where upon arrival at the hotel I registered the domain thatsuck.com. The idea was that I could use a subdomain of hotels to give me hotels.thatsuck.com. I long since let that one lapse because to be honest, I am generally never stuck in a crappy hotel. Even the Hilton in Sadly Broke (Bradley Stoke in Bristol) is bearable. I am stuck in the Ramada Grange in Bristol. How do I hate it? Let me count the ways.

-- Upon approach, it looks gorgeous. Old building in the fields. Okay, there are fields around it but the M5/M4 is audible. It has some gorgeous trees, a country feel to it and the entrance hall is lovely, apart from the dodgy banister on the stairs on your way in (ideal for Kennys, not).

-- No smoking rooms at all. Kind of ironic seeing mine is covered in nicotine stains all over and looking out of the window, I can see about three months worth of dog-ends.

-- First impression of room: "How sweet, I must be on my honeymoon. There's a four-poster bed. Wait a minute. Where is the desk? There isn't one. Lovely, a nice little round table with a sofa to put my laptop on. Wait a minute. Where's the power point? Oh, I see I can use the little Edwardian table. Wait a minute. Where is the chair? Okay, that kind of works."

-- I have had to literally rewire the damned place so I can power my Macbook in a place that is slightly less uncomfortable than sitting it on the bed an lying down to type. It is a good job I am a seasoned traveler and know what to take with me.

-- £12 a day for internet on top of £92 a night? Again, another rewiring exercise.

-- On the table I was going to use as a laptop area prior to noticing that it would be worse than useless, lay two open safety pins and some crumbs. Once the light was switched on, it revealed a carpet of heart-shaped sequins (bless whoever's wedding was held here).

-- The caulking at the bottom of the bath panel is a vibrant green. Great for vegetarians.

-- Worse still, I lifted up the toilet seat to see that whoever had "cleaned" (I use the term freely) the bathroom hadn't and there was someone's stuff in there unflushed.

I hate making a scene because the lass who checked me in was ever so polite. It's not her fault that the hotel is a dump. From others who have stayed here, the only complaint I heard was that there is the occasional fire alarm in the middle of the night because the sensors get triggered by the heat of the shower water. But honestly, what would you do?

I think first order of business tomorrow morning is to see whether I can get hold of my travel gal and move. I met her for the first time a couple of months ago and I rate her as ace. As my grandfather used to say, she has a look of "buggerment" in her eyes [Before the Yanks take that literally, it means playful devilment]. She is afraid of nothing and will, I'm more than sure, sort it. I am not doing three nights here.

If I took photos of the outside of this building, you would all swoon. If I took photos of the inside of my room, you would vomit.

I can't believe that we have a "corporate" rate of £92 a night + internet fees for such a horror. I seriously hope we don't put customers in here. In fact we can't -- we would never have made a profit of we did.

I can't bring myself to eat here. Looks like it's a taxi down the road to where of my compadres are heading for a pub quiz.

Conclusion: Ramada Grange = No go area. Truly awful.

Laterz.

I shall probably be silent-ish as of mid-afternoon tomorrow (apart from brief spells in the evenings). I am on my way down to Bristol for the rest of the week. Wednesday is full of meetings. Thursday and Friday, I will be in data centers so technically imprisoned. For those of you who have never been in a data center, it is your worst nightmare. They are sterile places with row upon row of computer gubbins in huge cabinets and more wires than your mind can imagine. I have been on SMT production lines in Asia that look like Pontins in comparison. I've never been inside these particular data centers before, so they might not be so bad, but I am not holding my breath.

That was a bad choice of words. To add to my litany of neuroses, I am utterly claustrophobic. Putting a crash-helmet on sends me into blind panic, nearly as much as dealing with height does when I have nothing to hold on to. I have a similar feeling when I get into places I cannot easily leave. I once toured an LCD plant in Arizona where it was full clean-room gear, complete with CSI-style outfits, vacuum chambers, mouth masks. I think back then I wasn't too bothered but as the years have gone on, that kind of thing freaks me out. Having been in situations where you cannot physically ingest enough oxygen to keep your body from panic, I am mortified by sealed spaces. Thursday and Friday might see me being really quiet, because it will take me a good few hours to decompress.

Genüg, I can tell you my tales of horror as the week goes on. You never know, I might be totally unphased by it all. You just never can tell.

--

I was really pleased tonight to drive past my new residence and see the \"To Let\" board had been taken down. I guess that means they got the cheque and are willing to proceed. I have to stump up some pay stubs and a professional reference but that bit is gravy. I have at least 4 CEOs who will vouch for my madness. I'm not looking forward to moving all my gear but I am looking forward to the resulting space. Thankfully, Pater is happy to help and the Vanquisher tweeted similar willingness so my move should be pretty okay.

--

Right, I'm off to continue watching Bones. I find myself strangely attracted to her weird eyes. I guess I had better do a cig run first. Mornings without cigarettes are the worst kind of hell.

Schlaft gut mein Gertengrübers.

Don't panic. My pelvic floor seems to be intact. I'm talking about moving house.

I was just pricing up Sky, with Sky Sports HD etc. Like you do. Because I am a sucker for news, I checked out what channels I will get. And yes, we have CNN. I love CNN with a passion. Best news channel ever. The only downside is that it will probably be CNN International, not the US one, which is a damned shame. The journos and anchors on CNN blow every other news station out of the water. The first time I watched Anderson Cooper, I wanted to be him -- the chap is a genius. Jack Cafferty? What's not to like? He's a grumpy old git and makes no apologies for being about as cynical as you can get. Christiane Amanpour is about as rabid as it gets in her love of what she does. Wolf Blitzer has to be a hack with a name like that. And my personal favorite, Kyra Phillips. I could (and frequently did) listen to her all day, I don't know what it is about her (maybe the accent), but I was glued to the TV whenever she was on.

[Off-topic, but as comedy names go, Wolf Blitzer is second only to a German guy who I used to work with called Wolfgang Groover. I used to sign my emails Oswald Swinger. He was German and didn't laugh. I know. I have issues.]

I have just cross-correlated what is on CNN US and on the Sky TV guide and it doesn't seem worlds apart so I think I am going to be well happy. I doubt we'll get Kyra though. Bummer.

In other news, I went to the parental units' for lunch because a) it is mother's day and b) my niece was there. I am really smitten with the Gogglebot. Surprisingly she is smitten with me too. I am the recipient of all the hugs and cuddles that she denies everyone else. She wouldn't eat her lunch when being offered it by the Flip-Flop. Uncle Kenny stepped in and woosh, job done. Top kid. I think kids gravitate towards adults who have no business being adults on account of their complete and utter inability to take any responsibility (see Oswald Swinger above), hence the Gogglebot's obsession with me. She has my number and no doubt will use it mercilessly for the rest of my life.

I bought Mater some acrylic paints and what was termed a succulent for mother's day. The plant appeared to me to be plastic but upon closer inspection everyone agreed that it was actually some kind of cactus. If I had known it was a cactus, I would never have bought it. I hate cacti with a passion after a drunken evening many years ago and a soupçon of teeterage into a spiny bastard. I don't think the one that I bought Mater has any discernible weapons but I never trust a cactus. They are devious.

As I was stood inspecting various paints, I was wondering whether Mater uses oil or acrylic. As I thought this through, it suddenly dawned on me that I have no idea what the difference between oil paints and acrylic paints is. I think the words plastic, synthetic, oil-derived all went through my head. Anyone care to enlighten me or do I have to Wiki it? What kind of oil are oil-paints made from? From the smell, my best guess is linseed oil -- that wonderful aroma that takes me back to dowsing my cricket bat in the stuff as a kid (nothing triggers memories in me better than linseed and willow).

It's a damned shame that I am in Bristol next week because I actually feel like I have the energy to get all logistical on my move's ass. I have made a list. I might transcribe that list into a spreadsheet so I can keep track of correspondence. In mitigation of the thought that you are no doubt having. \"Kenny is not a child -- he has lists\", I will say that I have no idea how much I have in the bank. That would be playing by grown-up rules, and I steadfastly refuse to do that.

Enough of this merry banter. I have a Cisco white paper to read and meerkats to compare.

I don't often disagree with Barbara Ellen in the Observer. Today I really don't disagree with her, with a passion. I could not have put any of it better.

Link.

I wish she had a blog.

BTW, is it just my warped perspective? I love reading Xinhua news. It's a fiendishly good juxtaposition to what we are dripped by our press.

I have reached a new nadir in my intellect and career. I am dealing with blades at the moment. These things are not complex computer gubbins; they are unworldly prophets. In order to get them to do what you want, you need Faith. Someone once said "the dark religions depart and sweet science reigns". They were talking bollocks. There is no more science to blades than there is to levitation.

I spent yesterday working out how the two NICs in a blade could talk to two virtual connect modules (I'm guessing they are essentially fancy schmancy switches) and thence to 8 different resilient VLANs. It took hours of me trying to draw what I thought was happening then looking for something that was obviously wrong, redrawing, looking, redrawing, ad nauseum (and I emphasize the nausea in nauseum). I finally got to a point where I thought I understood what was going on and celebrated with a four-shot cappuccino and one of Silk Cut's finest. As I was finishing my cigarette, it dawned on me that on these blades will be virtual machines (courtesy of VMWare) and I had another layer of networking madness to deal with. I wailed and left the office.

My interest in networking is not extensive. I understand multiple NICs, firewalls, three tier security models etc. When you get down to pixie levels, which is how networks work, I lose interest very quickly.

What I will share is how I believe it all works. You open your web browser and this is kind of like prodding a local pixie to wake him up. If you are on a wireless network, he uses a transporter beam to go to your router where the he passes a message on to the VLAN pixie who decides whether to wake up the frontend firewall pixie (if he's not already awake taking other messages from the other side of the door) or whether to ignore the message from your pixie. If the firewall pixie is happy with the message, he passes it on to the internet pixie. These are special pixies that defy physics and just *know* what you want to do so they run and get what you want and pass it back down the pixie chain until it arrives back at your own local pixie, who gift wraps it and puts it in your browser window.

When you occasionally don't get what you want it is either because the pixies are talking different languages (say Welsh and Mandarin) or more sadly, because their time to live is up. Of course if they are French pixies, they might be on strike which explains all those random internet problems that some people seem to suffer. The best way to diagnose this is to ping somewhere. This exercises the pixies (I guess the exercise might extend their time to live) but achieves nothing more than confirming that they're not talking freaky-deaky foreign but good old English.

Sometimes people complain of DDOS attacks. This is when the pixies get pissed and petition your website for more benefits to the point that your local server pixie is just so overwhelmed that they give up on life (time to live is then negated). They do this when agent provocateurs (French -- no surprise there) have inflated the pixies' self-worth to the point where they mutiny. Next time you see a DDOS attack, note the faint smell of onions as it happens.

Occasionally, you get some pixies that send coded messages that are passed on to your local pixie quite innocently. This is kind of like the cold war. It's a dead letter drop. When the local pixie passes it on, within nanoseconds, he usually shouts "Oh, bugger". This is what we call a virus, malware or scareware. You can buy FSB software that is savvy to the threat -- if you use Windows, you should. If you use Macs or Linux the threat level is lower because the counter-intelligence pixies know their stuff -- you are not 100% protected but you can be pretty sure you're okay.

There are literally billions of pixies out there, slaving away to make your internet work. The more you believe in them, the easier networking becomes. Once you've mastered the Centaur pixie at the gateway, your army of pixies is ready to take on and retrieve the world.

--

I know. I need a holiday.

I had an uncharacteristic [isn't this city ace] moment as I limped across to Starbucks at about 7:30 this morning. The canal was so calm, I was compelled to take a picture on my phone. You could feel the dampness lifting like it was a real summer's morning in a proper climate. I can dream. It was the first day of Spring and it was cold. Cold but strangely beautiful. The occupants of the flats behind me looked at me like I should be sectioned. I half sympathized with them.

It transpires that I have to be in Bristol next week, the day (actually Tuesday until Friday) that I am meant to pitch up with a cheque/check (delete according to religion -- I swing either way on it) to secure El Paddo. I called the letting guy tonight, fully expecting to get an answer machine. Oh no, I got to speak to him. I am posting the cheque/check (DATR) tomorrow and all is good. The house is mine. We have scheduled me moving in for April 3rd. This kind of messes up the holiday plans but I'm willing to take that on the chin -- I have another five weeks to take during the year.

I am certainly not looking forward to the physical move. Weebles carrying heavy objects are a liability (remind me to tell you how I would have completely died if today's fire drill was a reality -- no handrail thanks to the mass exodus = Kenny stood being polite, \"after you -- dodgy legs you know\" -- emergency slides should be fitted). I may only have a room of kit to shift but there's a lot of it and most of it is heavy. I fear I may have to solicit some help. It's bad news when you have to retain the services of your 65 year old father because his legs are more sturdy than yours. I might try and rope the Vanquisher into helping.

Right, I have the small matter of telling Die Führer now. This is going to be difficult. I will need Mandelson-like spin to make this not an unpleasant moment. I have the sense not to attempt this in the middle of The Bill or Desperate Housewife Mistresses. I might try it tonight or I might bottle it and leave it until the weekend when the presence of company might dampen the reaction.

Anyways, in @Aleksandr_Orlov style, I am have house to move to. For travel between up and downstairs, I take Bentley. Room for corridor golf and park Bentley. New house has room for imminent Messiah -- what to color room? Always have kettle on so pop please round.

First off, thanks for all your kind wishes regarding my state of up-the-duffness. I will organize a baby-shower to be held at The Stag in Garswood in the near future. I'm having a devil of a time thinking how I might manage to put God down as the father on the birth certificate without attracting tabloid attention.

In the meantime I have been waiting for something to happen here so have been keeping my hand in on coding a bit. You wouldn't believe the work I put into the engine that stores posts in the database. It doesn't just do it to make the stuff go into the database, but it susses out what to translate into HTML tags and what should be translated into their HTML code (amp, gt, lt, etc.). I do this to make the page validate. Every now and again I drop a proverbial, but I fix it as soon as I notice. Anyway, the parsing software does automagic things, like automatically generate twitter links. For example, all I have to do is type @stephenfry and it will create a link for me. Not earth shatteringly clever, but it makes my life easier.

Coolest thing of the day by a million miles is Google's street maps going live. Grom's post shows you our office. Apparently if you look at his house on there, you can see Mrs Grom and a sproggrom. However, if you look in the carpark where we work, you can see my car! How cool is that? I have a famous car *and* I am about to give birth to the Messiah. My life is complete.

After <cough> number of years ignoring doctors, I had to give in and listen to them about 18 months ago. Since then I have. And where has that landed me? Yes, pregnant.

From initial measurements around my girth and a strict weight monitoring regime, I can now reveal that I am about four months pregnant. It doesn't show unless you catch me slouched in a chair, but it will become very apparent very soon. I had thought the kicking feeling in my guts was just gas from too much coffee and coke but it is so persistent now that I know for sure. A mother knows these things. I have never ovulated, but I think the fact that I have not ovulated recently might be a tell-tale sign. Maybe the eating disorder has fettled my ovulation for all these years. I'm jonesing for things like I never have before; (more) cigarettes, chocolate, food. These are surely symptomatic of being up the duff.

I am bemused as to how I ended up pregnant. I have not been trolleyed for ages so I can't have accidentally had a night of passion. I haven't seen any naughty pictures of Fiona Apple or Bryony Gordon, and God knows I have looked. My last threesome tryst was me, a Starbucks four-shot and a bacon buttie. It is baffling.

Maybe it's an immaculate conception? I could be carrying the second coming. How awesome would that be? Although I'm not too sure I would be thrilled by sandals all over the shop, the kid flaunting his full head of long hair and having a fan base to rival Take That. He'd wreck my blog hits, usurp my Facebook mates and knock Stephen Fry's Twitter following into second place.

Gals, what advice do you have? I'm not sure what Pelvic floor exercises are but I remember wives past talking about them. Do I need a tiler? I'm doing the breathing exercises through a Silk Cut Silver. I heard about Lamaze but I've forgotten everything I learned about Lamaze Transforms in my maths degree. It is all very scary.

To add to my woes, I am going to be a single parent. I would call my ex-wives to see how that whole deal works, but neither of them would know on account of their nefarious infidelities. Actually, that is not fair; wife 1 did that while we were engaged not while we were married.

What is a gal to do?

Town remembers colliery disaster.

Golborne pit was about a mile up the road from me. At the time my grandfather worked at Parkside Colliery as a miner. I believe the two and Plank Lane Colliery were all connected underground. I think it was that day when it dawned on me what a God-awful job being a miner was. I remember crying my eyes out because I didn't distinguish between which pit was which and thinking my grandfather could have been down there. Awful, stomach-churning day for a 9 year old boy. Strange that as the years go on, it takes more and more to make those stomach-churning moments happen but when they do, they do so with a converged force.

It's after 5am and I am sitting here, seething, plotting the murder of an innocent creature.

(No, not Evil Albert -- he is certainly not innocent. He is quite safe.)

It's the little feathered monster outside my bedroom window, who's been tweeting his heart out since 11pm or so. I don't even know what it is -- possibly one of those "blackbirds singing in the dead of night", that Paul McCartney tried to warn me about? Whatever it is, I am guessing it is male, horny, and desperately trying to attract a mate. By singing. For more than five hours. Can I just say: give it up, Romeo! She's not that into you. Do whatever it is males do when they can't get a female: go home, have a drink, have a w... (Wait! I already had a yellow card last week, on account of that post about Japanese girls, so I had better behave...) Have a... whiskey.

At times like these, I miss my little condo in California. The only thing we ever found outside our window there was a possum -- and they're dead quiet. I can only fall asleep when it's quiet. I thought the countryside would be just that: quiet. I can put up with the smell of poo six times a year (we are surrounded by vast quantities of agriculture, which requires manure) but I need QUIET!

So, I've been lying in my bed for hours, thinking of various natural predators for that noisy feather-brain. An owl? A cat? An owl and a pussycat? Too folksy. An anaconda? Too exotic. Throw a shoe? The little bugger would probably just move to another tree, and I'd be minus a shoe. A gun! Yes... But, with my luck, I'd probably shoot, miss the bird, the bullet would go through a window and lodge itself in the left buttock of an unsuspecting neighbour... In my defense, I could then say that I am American (naturalised) and... well... that's what we do: we shoot guns! It's in our Constitution! (OK, not really... I was making that up. Please don't shoot me, my American brothers).

Right! 5:30am, might as well make some coffee and try to de-zombify... I'll sleep some other day.

I went around to see a house tonight. It's about a mile away from here. It's the one my mate Emma has recently moved out of. I feel kind of bad for agreeing to take it for many reasons but deeds must. Emma was moving out before I found out about it so I'm not displacing her -- anyway she knows she's welcome to pop around whenever she likes. I feel really bad for Die Führer too but the thing is that a Kenny's wordly possessions need more than a room and she can pop in (et vice versa). Also, I have mates all over the place who I would quite happily invite but for the fact that I would have to stuff them into a hotel. If I have a spare room, for the most part, problem solved. So my mind was made up; I have to make one call tomorrow and I will probably be in there within a few weeks.

From my observations all I will need to buy in terms of capex are a TV, a washer/drier, Sky\+ HD and some kitchen utensils. Okay, maybe add some bedding and odds and sods. Nothing too horrendous.

A new dilemma surfaces from the ashes...do I really want to blow quite a bit of cash on a holiday when I have a household to run? I think the sensible answer is no. If I have ten days off over Easter, maybe I should consider just doing a four day stint somewhere and concentrate the rest on moving and sorting stuff out. I haven't done this for years. I have written a checklist of "stuff" that I need to attend to and it looks intimidating. Bank, doctors, council, electricity, gas, telephone (+ ADSL move), Sky, TV License, DVLA, insurance (car and house), water, electoral roll, pensions, brokers are the ones that I have thought of off the top of my head. There will be others. Is there not a service to manage this whole pile of admin hell for you? Then I need to wait in for Sky, deliveries of washer/drier, final readings etc. That is easily a week's work. I feel tired already.

The house itself is pretty cool. The thing that sold me on it was the dining room. By English standards it is pretty big and you get an enormous old kitchen table with it. I have always loved enormous tables. There is something utterly Bohemian about having a table that you could fit a family of five on. Space for stuff. I could stick every bit of computer jiggery-pokery on it and not occupy a third of it. Long term, I envisage a 24" iMac on it with associated peripherals. Also in there is a big old book case. At the moment my books are piled up in my room, next to my excessive DVD collection. I reckon I can fill that beauty in under ten minutes and may well have to buy another one. The room is big enough so I won't be over-populating it.

The floors downstairs are all wooden.There are French doors onto what is now called a courtyard but in yesteryear would have been called the backyard of a two-up, two-down. Upstairs, there's a stand-alone tub, separate shower etc.. The back has adequate off-road parking although I think the tracks leading to it describe off-road in its more accepted sense; another excuse for a proper car than the hair-drier I drive at the moment,

All in all, I'm quite excited. I hated living in a flat when I was in Leeds. This looks like somewhere that you can homify nicely and the rules are good; there is no law against hanging pictures, installing Sky, extending antenna feeds into other rooms. In fact it is positively encouraged. They want you in there for the long-haul, not for a tenancy minimum, which suits me at the moment.

Right, once again, I'm hitting the sack early tonight but probably not before I have costed up Sky etc.

Bonne nuit to all the Gerties (it will save me twittering that).

I know I'm a bit obsessed but...Aleksandr Orlov has made a compilation of his bloopers while filming his TV commercials. It is worth a gander -- once again I look like a prat for giggling hysterically in a quite quiet office. I cannot help it. Best marketing campaign ever.

I awoke this morning to be spooked by the clock reading 4:44. I did not have my glasses on so I could be wildly wrong there, but it was definitely three of the same digit fuzzying themselves at me.

What could have been a tedious day of meetings was actually quite amusing. There was the occasional nip outside to catch some rare sunshine and to facilitate some unwelcome vitamin D generation -- naturally this was offset by some cigarette smokage and Starbucks abuse. In fact, I think that today is the first day this year that I have been outside in just a teeshirt.

What news? Well, to be honest most of it is a bit Twitter-related. First up, @reginaspektor has rediscovered her Twitteriness. Next, @eddieizzard is up on there. Stand to attention for the head Gertie, @thomsog who is a legend in his own bathroom, not to mention an internet God and five times winner of the worst Glaswegian Polish accent contest, held weekly at 11:00 on Monday mornings.

I've long been a big admirer of Scary Duck (who is not scary and not a duck) but he seemed to have dropped off my radar since I moved back to the UK. His latest post about Kim Jong-Il's trip to Ikea had me in stitches. I had a certain burst of \"what the hell\" and bought his book -- I figure that if I can advertise Steve, I can advertise Scary Duck. Incidentally, he is @duckorange.

Right, I'm beat. I'll away to smoke a last tab, take my meds (wey-hey -- yet another PM will live another day) and try to rid my brain of the verb to Gertify.

Laterz.

Okay, today would have been ace were it not for the fact that I had to chauffeur Die Führer to the parental units'. Oh, and just as I was getting my serious antisocial groove on, armed only with iTunes and the Observer, it transpired that I was rapidly approaching zero on the cigarette front. This is totally out of character -- the Waaart will attest to the fact that I *always* have at least one pack of tabs in reserve, normally two. The shop is only about 100 yards up the road but it fails the test of stopping me from physically interacting with the world. Anyway, job done. I think that is the last blast of reality I need to deal with until tomorrow morning when I begin the merry dance of a working week.

I've been doing some Kenny analytics:

I'm surprised that Fiona Apple doesn't come out top.

While I was messing around with all that gubbins, I stuck on Ani DiFranco's Educated Guess. Sadly I am not impressed. Not A Pretty Girl blew my socks off when I first heard it. Her early stuff is a bit that; early. Like a teenage whine. I think I will hop onto MP3panda and download her latest album to see whether she has matured.

May be back later but am in debate about how ethical it is to be happy (How @Aleksandr_Orlov am I?). The irony is not lost on me. On both counts.

The reason for my dive to the keyboard is to update you all on the situation here. You will recall that I detailed some police activity across the road a couple of weeks ago. We're talking forensics, road blocked etc. I twittered the fact and was lambasted by someone for doing so. It turns out it is more sinister than even I could have imagined. Being where I am, I had assumed it would be a drugs thing. Oh no. Think murder. Yup. The guy across the road who I always said hello to has been arrested and charged with the murder of a guy a couple of miles away.

When I emailed the Waaart and Maestro to update them, I think I used the words stomach-churning. I think they are well chosen words. My guts fell when I heard. I can't get my head around murdering someone. At war, I probably could kill someone, but I can't imagine simply killing someone in day to day life. The lass who lambasted me for my tweetage said something along the lines of the last thing <name> needs is to see this kind of thing. Well, it's now academic since it's public domain. I understand her sentiment though. It must be awful for the alleged murderer's wife/partner and her kids. At the time I tweeted I had no idea what the hell was going on, and I took the tweet down as soon as I got the message. I guess my critic knew more about it than most -- hell, the media took their time to report it.

Back to the point. I really do feel sorry for the lass across the road and her kids, one of whom is disabled. She must be going through hell.

I knew a guy once who was a gentle giant who was set upon by a group of thugs; he defended himself and ended up smacking a guy who hit his head on the pavement as he fell, and died. My friend was charged with manslaughter and did his time. He came out of prison to find his wife had buggered off with someone else. They found him hung a couple of weeks later. I knew that guy well and I can say with hand on heart that he would never, ever have hurt someone in rage. He was about 6'7" and could have handled himself in any situation. He was admired for his happy-go-lucky way and the fact that he laughed off people who threatened him with violence. A group of idiots attacked him because he was the biggest guy in the room and wham, a series of events unfolded that culminated in him taking his own life. It was tragic. Whenever I drive past the graveyard where his enormous grave is, I think of him -- a real gent.

Compare and contrast. The guy across the road is one of two people charged with the murder. The chap who was killed lived about 4 miles away yet his body was found in Liverpool. There is nothing accidental about that. It stinks of drugs. Someone has stiffed someone else and the ultimate price has been paid. Not by the dead guy, or the accused, but by the families left and the kids. I wish I knew what to do to help her; she is in for some awful months and years if her chap is convicted. Actually, even if he is acquitted, she's still in too deep for it to be a happy few years. I suppose all I can do is carry on smiling at her whenever our paths cross. Very, very sad for all concerned.

I guess I'm struggling here. Where should your sympathy lie? There's a dead father of four, a guy charged with murder whose family still exist and probably numerous others who will be scarred with this awful moment all their lives. I don't understand what can be so important that you kill someone and crucify your family in the process. Money is transient. Betrayals happen on every level every day. What is left? I think I can only come up with defense. Defense doesn't dump a body though does it?

Horrible. For once I don't know what to think.

I first cooked for Albert and Kenny 14 years ago when we were all living in Bramley. I do plan to write about that time of our lives one day (perhaps using an Enid Blyton style title: Five Lived in a One-Bathroom House? Or the more Proustian Remembrance of Wives Past? Haven't decided yet.)

Ever since those days, it has been one of my perverse pleasures (and I have many) to get Kenny to taste food that is just a few semitones higher, on the spiciness scale, than his comfort level would allow (his comfort level having been pegged at HP Sauce).

This time I tried a new satay sauce recipe. There followed the usual routine: "Albert, do you think this will be too spicy for Kenny?" Chomp, chomp, thoughtful look from Albert, then "No, I think he can handle it" (we've perfected this over the years). Eventually Kenny got curious and asked to try it. He then proceeded to sneeze like a kitten about 4 times and turn a rather alarming shade of magenta-pink. Remorse gnawed at my vitals, as they say. But, by the end of the evening I had at least managed to get some veggies into him, so it wasn't all bad.

Kenny, if you're off the antacids by next month and feel brave enough for another dinner Chez Albert: HP sauce it is. Rest ye taste buds while ye may, and keep practicing your Russian.

It appears that I have had a few blonde moments over the last couple of days. As a guiding rule blonde moments only ever happen in my personal life and not at work, because I pay attention there (no sniggering from anyone called Gertie please). I leave work blonde moments to the pro's -- they know who they are. ;)

I have just had an email confirmation that something I had ordered has shipped. I had ordered Fad Gadget's Gag on CD because you just can't find it anywhere as a download, and I do so like my Fad Gadget. The question I have is whether I like it enough to order two copies, which I appear to have managed to do. So tomorrow I will have two copies of Gag. My avenues are limited. I could either try to send it back with a mitigating statement that I am dizzy and would they please accept one back (which would involve postage, meaning I would have a net gain of about £4) or do I risk sending an email to the peeps at work, asking whether they might want it. The chances are that 1% of the people I work with will know who the hell I am talking about but it might be worth a punt, albeit a punt that means I lose £6.99 but probably learn something about someone I would never have known (i.e. their musical tastes somewhat overlap mine).

I guess I'll throw it to the web here -- if you're in the UK and you are a fan of Fad Gadget but have not got around to replacing your vinyl with CDs, drop me an email with your address and I will post it to you (obviously don't do it in the comments). The first responder gets the goods. If no takers are forthcoming, I will simply add it to my shipment to Tasha. She might not like it, but she probably knows someone who does.

What else have I been diizzy about? Ah yes -- about six weeks ago my employers sent out an amendment to some benefits scheme, asking that I sign it and return it. It impacted some people but because I don't believe in private medical treatment and I have a horror of dentists that knows no bounds, it makes not a blind bit of difference to me. I would have just signed it on the spot had it been presented to me, however it was done via snail mail and I really cannot be arsed with that kind of burden. After several polite emails, I think I am now Mr Militant in the eyes of HR, so I have packed it into my bag already in order that it be dispensed tomorrow. Bad Kenny.

Sometimes, it's pretty cool to be vacuous. Over the weekend you will recall that I had a bit of a MP3panda orgy and was downloading music like it was rare vintage port. When Nicky Campbell started annoying me this morning I flicked on the iPod in shuffle mode. Bugger me if I hadn't downloaded a git load of Ani DiFranco, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Creatures, Roy Harper, PJ Harvey etc. My drive to and from work was full of surprises. I'd forgotten how much I liked Siouxsie.

Last point before I head off for the evening: I have arranged to meet the owner of the house that I am looking to rent. Having been there, I know I am quite happy with all but a couple of things. The steps up to the house need a functional railing because Kennys and steps are not too good anymore (ask the Gertrudes) and the gates at the back need to be gates not planks of wood. Other than that, I am more than happy to pay what they want. First order of business will be a 42" TV, Sky Sports HD, a dishwasher and a washer/drier. The rest I can cope with. The only problem with it is that I might have to take a couple of days off to organize utilities and whatnots. Nay matter. I have a mobile dongle and a cell phone so the rest is just waiting and paying. There is every chance that I will be in there by the end of the month. Woot.

Right, I have contract amendments to sign. I am away up to Evil Towers tomorrow evening so you might get a blartage from work, but the evening is probably completely occupied by Alberts senior and all the little Alberts.

Try the Ani -- it's pretty hoopy and froody.

Remember this?

Well, I think I am going to buy one that says "Hated by the Daily Telegraph". Two weeks on the trot I have posted a comment and two weeks on the trot it appears to have been moderated out of the ether. Neither comment was objectionable. Harrrumph.

I noticed the full moon last night while out having a smoke so rushed back in to grab my camera. It was a great sight because the various vapor trails from passing aircraft were striping the sky. Unfortunately, by the time I had figured out (nearly) the right settings on the camera, it was not nearly so impressive. Whatever, I'll post them anyway. If you click on them, you'll get a larger sized image which are cropped to eliminate the horrible lights from people's houses.

They're not bad but not brilliant. You can see where I was trying to go.

I'm still undecided as to where to go for my holiday. After I booked my time off, I realised I am a plonker -- I had booked Good Friday off as a holiday when it is a bank holiday in the UK. Quick as a flash, I emailed my boss and told him I was a plonker and rearranged. I now finish on April 2nd and return to work on April 14th so I have a good 10 days that I can use. The question is now where to go. I cannot decide. I think my choices are:

-- Phuket
-- Shanghai
-- Hong Kong
-- Moscow
-- Singapore
-- Somewhere else

Ideas people? Ta muchly.

Moonbat alert.

Gere: After Obama, a Tibetan leader of China?

Wow. You have no idea how much better I feel for having seen some bona-fide moonbat-tastic news.

I think I might issue a press release to add a corollary:

Kenny: After Obama, a Tibetan leader of China? After that, a nice family game of midget-tossing followed by Earl Grey and party sausages.

I know only 3 men who had an extended stay in Japan (more than a couple of months), and they all came back home with Japanese wives (one of the men was my brother). Granted, a very small data pool, but as a statistic, impressive!

Ladies, they may be on to something (uh... how many female readers have you got, Kenny? 4 or 5? Does that include Der Fuhrer?) The Japanese women I have met are all down-to-earth, well-groomed, unfailingly polite and ladylike; they talk little and smile often, and they attend to household chores with remarkably good humour. Hmmm...

Then, there is the issue of their cute, petite bodies: as Stephen Fry once said... Oops. Actually, I can't quote him, he was quite rude, and I cannot risk offending the delicate Victorian sensibilities of my gracious host (...that would be Kenny, if you're wondering). But I will tell you in the Comments area, if you request it ;^)

Regarding holidays. I haven't been anywhere to speak of since Nski, the kids, dogs and I went on a tour of South Dakota back in 2003. That seems an awfully long time ago. Since then, I have diced with death and am now promised a "cookie cutter" divorce -- how sweet! I think I owe myself a week somewhere nice. Given that Moscow has pretty much identical weather to Minneapolis, early April is risking it so I started thinking about warmer climes.

I could do somewhere in Europe but I am less than enthused by it. Whenever I hit Europe, I have ten minutes of joy while I try to understand the language and then I think I could be twice as confused in Wales for half the price. My evil brain then started revisiting places where I would have liked to have spent more time. China is obviously up there, as is Singapore. The one location that has been a recurring thought is Phuket. It was positively sublime for relaxation. When I was there, it was pre-tsunami and I was attending a sales conference so I really didn't get to spend that much time relaxing. I am sorely tempted to book a week there to experience what I missed last time.

Mrs Albert, before you start thinking I am going to return home with a very pretty Thai bride, I should mention that I have been to Thailand before so I am not so daft as to believe that the gorgeous Thai lass is actually a lass. I think there would be more chance of that kind of shennanigans happening were I to go to Japan because Japanese lasses are adorable -- then again you'd have to teach them to speak Wiganese or Manc which would be tedious.

I'm thinking I could head over to Phuket's J W Marriot resort for a week and just chill. Hmmm. So tempting. There is nothing wrong with quiet, peace, beautiful surroundings, a boat load of furrin' blogging and GBs of photos of somewhere that you could quite happily retire to.

In the meantime, I have arranged for my regular state visit chez Albert on Friday. Apparently the kids are short of Maltesers and Uncle Kenny must rectify the situation. I also left a pack of cigs there last time which must be recovered before Mrs Albert gives it to the kids. There will be the usual budding oligarch business talks with Albert, and I think I foolishly agreed to a game of Scrabble with Mrs A as well.

Alors, I must hit the hay. It has been one of those days that registers maximum on the tedium scale. I will retire and seriously consider Phuket. I must confess that the more that I think/blog about it, the more appealing it is.

I have decided that I will take Mrs Albert's advice for now. There is not enough time between now and my holiday date for me to learn enough Russian. Maybe later in the year. I decided that I would quite like somewhere warm to visit so I plugged in my dates and said "surprise me". It came back Lesbos. I cackled maniacally midst a very quiet office. Talk about juvenile...

Anyway, I'm planning on going somewhere from April 4th - April 11th (my birthday -- HINT!). Anyone know where I might get some decent sun at that time of the year?

The Supervisor texted me earlier to announce that he had arranged for his TV to be functional during the hour from 9 until 10, to see the Paxman series on Victorian art. i spent half the show watching it while talking to Mater as she watched it. We gasped in unison as some of our favorite pictures cropped up. As Beata Beatrice appeared, I got a text from the Supervisor -- apparently when he sees that picture, he thinks of me. I have always loved it. It is close on the best piece of art ever.

I actually saw the original of Beata Beatrice in Chicago. I am quite sure that I was speechless.

After Rossetti came The Lady of Shallot

It doesn't get much more wow than that. I still get chills when I see these.

I hate sprouts with a passion. Actually I don't but I am traumatized by childhood memories of Pater insisting that my life would end if I didn't experience discomfort once in a while.

He has just pitched up with some fodder for me -- apparently I cannot be trusted to feed myself. Look for the flag...

The one sprout on the plate has a yellow marker. My only complaint is that it should have been red.

'Nuff said. It has some Black Kale on there so I'm happy.

Nice one Pater; that's one of your better passive moves.

I think the combination of Campbell the human arpeggio, my prowess with a power drill and your ability to play with two hands on a keyboard make this version pale into insignificance.

I am once again Bunburying. I spent a few weeks last year avoiding the family Sunday lunch by going out to lunch with my mate E. Sadly I lost that excuse when I said something loaded with irony that did not get translated into E-speak. Bunbury died, the inconsiderate bastard. The advent of Emma's PC problems has provided me with the spawn of Bunbury, Bunbury Secundus if you will. The fact of the matter is that Emma is moving next week so probably has better things to worry about than her PC. That does not mean that Bunbury is well. In fact, I have just had an email demanding my presence as a matter of urgency. Sadly I will have to forego an afternoon of pensions, insurance and ailments in order to help Bunbury Secundus out.

I had a bit of a mad moment yesterday morning and hit MP3 Panda, where you can buy every CD ever made (and some that haven't been) for about $2. I downloaded the whole of PJ Harvey's back catalogue and then got started on Roy Harper. By the time I was done, I had filled my 8GB iPod Touch. What is a Kenny to do? I called the Vanquisher and we headed off to the Trafford Center where there is an Apple shop. Talk about swoon? I really could have spent the whole of a year's money in there. I nearly fell for a Mac Mini for media server purposes. I was so smitten with the 24" iMac that I honestly considered just buying one and to hell with two weeks of poverty. Thankfully I walked away with just the 32GB iPod Touch. Now that was self-discipline on a scale that I have never ever previously managed.

If it is humanly possible to achieve, the new iPod Touch appears to be even more gloriously sexy than the previous version. I can't put my finger on what it is that makes it even better than my old one, but it undoubtedly is. If my employers manage to break the O2 exclusive iPhone deal, I will be in hog heaven. It really is no wonder that people are so passionate about Apple kit. Twelve months ago, you would have got a derisory snort from me when they were mentioned. Now I'm a dictionary definition of a fanboy. Indeed I feel myself fill with rage when some of my colleagues make comments along the lines of "oh look, you have a toy computer" or "Why didn't you get a pink one?". It's frickin' BSD Unix with style -- it doesn't get much better. Oh, and by the way, it works for months without having to reboot it. Mine gets put to sleep twice a day as I travel and keeps working. Try doing that with your Windows box. A week tops and it would be in severe need of a control-shift-poke in the eye.

I digress. I think I got on here to say that I am playing hooky today and that I am rediscovering Roy Harper. Folkjokeopus is possibly one of the best albums ever. Shame there is no artwork available for my iTunes delight.

Did I mention I'm a fanboy? Good.

At ease.

Kenny, you're not dizzy -- just nearsighted. This line served me well for years, and I am hereby passing it on. Of course, now that I no longer have the nearsightedness excuse -- I had my eyeballs cut open and burnt with laser beams ten years ago -- my natural dizziness shines through.

True story: talking to my surgeon about the scary prospect of having the Lasik procedure done, I asked, "How many eyes have you operated on?" He says, "Human, or sheep?" Turns out he had practiced on hundreds of sheep's eyes before he even got to human cadaver eyes. Nervous, I kept twittering at him: "Oh! then, there must be a whole herd of blind sheep out there, wandering the fields, bumping into each other! Ha ha ha... But then, that's what sheep do anyway... It didn't make a bit of difference to them, did it?" He gave me a stern look. I gave him a sheepish look (what else). I made my exit and decided to let him practice on a few more humans. I later became his (live, human) patient #250... and I haven't needed glasses for 10 years.

I quietly cheered when you discovered Turner (then wondered why you rate Rossetti higher). Turner has a special place in my heart (especially his later works) because that's just about what the world used to look like to me when I took off my glasses or contacts (yes, I was that nearsighted). The world looks so much better in soft focus, doesn't it? (until you try to find your beach towel, husband, or child on a crowded beach, after a long swim.)

Not that keen on Rossetti (D.G.?) The man certainly knew what he liked: girls with full lips, masses of hair, short forehead, and a vacant look (is that look in his ladies' eyes meant to be chagrin d'amour? it often reads like "My corset is killing me"...) His models are fine, of course; it's the painter: I know he couldn't possibly have directed them to "just sit there, look pretty, and ovulate"... But that's all he seems to allow them to do in his paintings.

Bottom line: give me Turner, any day. I like his world. And not just because I used to live there.

I alluded to this in an earlier twitter but I have since tweeted something else (I forget what -- oh yes, something about it being a PJ Harvey day -- I have had two references to Shellelagh-Na-Gig about that, and I am mystified -- but not so mystified as to be compelled to look it up).

The deal is that last night I went to bed to watch Red Riding. I think by about 10:15 I was mentally blogging about how monumentally crap it was. Apparently I was asleep before I could even think of a post title. I awoke to the sound of what turned out to be the TV but was doing a rather fine impression of the 06:00 5 Live jingle. As soon as I hear Shelagh Fogarty, I am awake. I hate to think what would happen if she ever stopped doing Breakfast. When Jane Garvey finished, I was inconsolable. Anyway, I squinted at the clock sans glasses and saw blur:30. No matter whether that blur was 06 or 07, I was running late. I identified the source of the sound and switched it off, legged it into the bathroom, had a quick bath, shaved, dressed and ran downstairs. I had just put the kettle on and was preparing my brew and my travel brew when I looked up at the clock in the kitchen: 01:50. Fook, as they say. Back to bed for me until 06:00 when the whole shebang was repeated. I really am going to have to start putting my specs on when I check the alarm clock.

I feel like a royal plonker. There should have been so many tell-tale signs of it *not* being time to get up. Pitch black -- there is some light at 06:00. TV needed switching off, not radio. No memory of touching alarm clock. I missed them all as I went into auto-pilot. Maybe it's a Pavlov's dog thing? I wonder if you played Shelagh Fogarty at 14:00 at work, whether I would just get up from my desk and hit the shower?

As you can imagine, this has rather knocked me off my game today. It is barely 5 o'clock and I feel like I should be going to bed. I fear tonight will be a *very* early night but NCIS is on, so I must struggle on until 10:00. Wish me luck.

Classy.

Regarding that "Mr Brown Goes to Washington" story: sadly, Kenny, I think you have the American attitude toward the UK just about right (although, since I left that country 2 years ago, and have been getting my American news mainly from Jon Stewart's Daily Show ever since, I probably should not comment...)

I said I wouldn't make any more attempts to understand microeconomics, macroeconomics, or even medium-size economics... but this Quantitative Easing business worries me (the printing of money). Did that ever work, for anybody? Isn't that Zimbabwe-style fiscal policy?

In other news: I got a "no, thanks" letter following that interview at the University of York. No full time job for me. I think I'll try a different approach next time (a little less Facebook, a little more practice-interviewing). I have managed to quantitatively ease into my part-time library job, will keep looking for more...

Apparently there is something on the box at 21:00 called Red Riding. To my mind that means East Yorkshire although I could be well off the mark. Mater informs me that she watched Kate Silverton reviewing it this morning and Ms S thought it was dark and brilliantly done. I am going to set the PVR for it just in case I am well asleep by the end. I am told it has rave reviews aside from Kate's so if I don't see it all tonight, I can catch up tomorrow.

I hope it is not on ITV after all my whining today about how I would not miss ITV if it disappeared tomorrow. Bryony's column touched on that subject today and I left a comment to the extent that I probably would not notice were it to disappear. Sadly it never made it to the website. In retrospect I am glad. If it's good, I might have to cede 5% of that sentiment.

Just time for a smoke before I need to get my goggles on. The morrow!

Justice is seen to be done, albeit only documented with a very crap phone camera. The more attentive of you will see that the smaller car further back is the one that was the third photo yesterday, glorious in all its perpendicularity.

While I spent *three* hours driving home tonight, I started listening to Gordon Brown's speech to Congress in DC. I had to turn it off for fear that one of the wretches would cause an involuntary swerve into another car or a voluntary swerve off the road and into the reservoir. It was that bad. In fact it was worse. In the end the decision was do I slap on Regina Spektor or do I try to die? Common sense won over.

I am not going to go into any detail because I only heard the first five minutes and the post-match analysis. My God. I am not sure I have ever heard a more obsequious address in my life. Gone was Gordon "the whole of the financial crisis was born in America in the packaging of debt comprised of the resale of bundled sub-prime mortgages". Out came the new Gordon "special relationship -- we're all in this together". The first five minutes of proceedings were just shameless flattery of the US and its history where we "shared" common values etc.. I think I had my first little regurge about then. It has long been the case that the special relationship that we have with the US is a one-way street. We dote on them, they pat our heads. Special.

I'm not saying that the new Gordon was wrong in trying to rally the world and avoid protectionism, but the subject could have been touched upon without standing with your pants down and nether regions splayed.

I'm not even going to mention the honorary knighthood for Ted Kennedy.

Apparently it got worse. I heard the soundbites where the special relationship was extended to include Europe. On how many levels is that a pointless exercise? Even with the Messiah in the White House, it is a fact that 90% of mainland Europe hate the US and the feeling is mutual. It is a fact that the French economy is the most protectionist, has the least transparent regulatory laws and is closer to communism than China will ever manage. The French hide their communism very well in exactly the same way that the US pretend their finances are transparent. The UK operates, and always has done, with one foot in Europe and one stretched probably as far as Manhattan.

Corporate America does not really "get" anything outside its shores. I have worked for two publicly quoted US companies who tried to inflict the US way of doing business in their international dealings. They invariably fail because they are incapable of understanding other cultures. At times I ended up running enough disruptive interference to make the US masters and Europeans/Asians both think they were playing the same game. Gordon will learn that the exercise is a sure-fire path to madness.

As a Brit, I thought Gordon Brown's speech was about as large a capitulation as it could have been. As I predicted, the UK media think it was brilliant. I expect the US to ignore it completely while handing down a nice little Boneo. Europe will be sat with a Gallic shrug or a Germanic dagger. Nothing gained by the whole shebang.

This is what happens when you spend 3 hours traveling 65 miles and are sat blogging while listening to Man U drawing with Newcastle. The pathos level builds while your supply of Digestive biscuits depletes. I promise I will try to be more positive tomorrow.

The parking outside of work is at a premium since they built some swanky new apartments across the road. It has lead to some creative efforts. The following were acquired within the past three days. Priceless.

I am tempted to make an allusion to Grom's parking but I shall refrain.

I twittered something earlier on which got passed to Facebook. It was a statement of fact. There had been a heavy police presence in the area from when I left for work this morning until just after I got home. I did not speculate as to what had gone on because, quite frankly, I have no idea.

Within a couple of minutes, someone had commented on my Facebook status saying that the last thing <name> needed was this kind of thing to be on Facebook. I deleted my Twitter and Facebook status immediately because it contained the name of someone who I presume was involved in the whole deal -- which is seriously uncool. The person who was named is certainly not on my list of Facebook contacts and almost certainly does not follow me on Twitter so will never know that a) I twittered the police presence and b) that I saved their name from being visible to anyone who lives locally and is a contact (although that is moot, see below). I sent an apologetic email to the complainant saying that I did not mean to offend and that even with name I still had no idea who they were talking about. I expected an ACK but got nothing back.

I think I am now rather annoyed that I am the bad guy. Only four people (non-family) in my contacts know where I live, one of whom is in the US, two of whom live within 5 mins walk of here so will have seen what I twittered and one who will have spoken to one of the other locals, so I have not exactly exposed any family secrets. Either nothing of any import has happened in which case, my tweetage would have been just a statement of fact, or something has happened and the press will be all over it. Either way, I don't see myself as having crossed any hairy red scary line. I think the line was crossed when someone's name was mentioned.

I think I find myself in a Stan-like dilemma. My tweet has nowhere near the legal implications of Stan's magistrate's exploits, but I am struggling with whether I was ethical in being glib and stating some facts for the drama factor. As I say, the three people who live locally will probably be far better appraised than I. The rest of you, you probably quite rightly couldn't give a dingo's kidney.

Dammit, I have spent ages thinking through this as I typed my apologetic few paragraphs, trying to make sure I was being fair; so long, in fact, that I haven't even checked the football scores.

Waaart: I was going to say: Thanks mate. Just what I need on a Tuesday morning...Prefab feckin sprout echoing round my brain.

Kenny: And you're welcome on the Prefab Sprout reference. Consider it a little gift-let.

Waaart: "We're no stranger to love... you know the rules and so do I...a full commitment's what I'm thinking of.. you wouldn't get this from any other guy." Revenge is so sweet.

Kenny: I take your Rick Astley and raise you a "Too shy shy, hush hush".

Waaart: Bastard. If I can just find my "Kylie's greatest hits" guitar chord book you've feckin had it mate...

Kenny: In which case, I would have to pull out the The Cult and add a suggestion of Kenny Rhythm H singing "She Sells Sanctuary".

Maest: Please, no. I'll do anything. Please.

Update:

Waaart: Listen to this. (I can't get it to play ball as an xspf so you'll just have to use whatever you have.)

Okay, the gloves are off. My mate Emma's PC is once again stricken with the damned Antivirus Plus horror. I managed to clear it on Saturday but I knew there were still things afoot. She left me a message today saying it was back. The air by me was blue with expletives.

If you do a search for it, you get one of two things: (i) sites that offer fixes but in actual fact are a variation on the same theme of malware or (ii) legitimate antivirus software that is bundled with something else, "Antivirus plus Firewall".

I have combed the legit AV websites and am no nearer remedying it. It's been a long day so all I can think of is that while I might have wiped out the symptom, I did not hit the cause and it has left some port open thereby leaving the computer open to reinfection. We have an email list at work, unsurprisingly called Geeks, which has some of our better dev guys on it. I guarantee that if I email details of it tomorrow, within ten minutes, I will have three of possibly the finest coding minds on the planet scrambling to beat each other to the fix. What's more, it will take them less than nanoseconds to work out what the hell this thing is and what it is up to. Some days I really wish I had done a computer science degree rather than maths. Others, I wish I had done a degree in secular basket weaving.

Anyway, I am intent on getting to the bottom of this swine. If the lads at work don't come up trumps, I am going to deliberately infect one of my systems and have at it. Whichever way, once the answer is known, I will be broadcasting it on every forum available.

Up with malware, we will not put.

I am seriously considering writing an email to the people who run Facebook to suggest some really useful additional features.

-- Ability to "Add as nemesis"
-- Some form of logic that goes along the lines of "If friend of, then (void *)"

I know, I'm juvenile but I think they're winners. I think it was Prefab Sprout who wrote "some things hurt more, much more than cars and girls".

I'm not letting this whole divorce thing get to me at all. Honest.

I just caught some of Paxman's Victorian England in paintings. Apparently there were two before this one. I am left shouting Fry-like obscenities. I suppose that is another DVD purchase in the offing. The one that caught my eye was this:

Naturally I was on the old text to the Supervisor and Fashionista to alert them. Fashionista knew about the show. Supervisor does not watch TV so was amazed that there might be something that was worth his time.

Mater is an artist -- I can't imagine how I have never seen any Turner paintings. More investigation needed. Looking over the google images, I think we have a contender for third place after Rossetti and Waterhouse.

1 - Go to "wikipedia." Hit "random" or click here. The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to "Random quotations" or click here. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to flickr and click on "explore the last seven days" or click here. Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.

Kind of fun. More fun than chewing my leg off as I listen to the Carling Cup final.

One of my favorite Twitterers, Jemima Kiss (tech journo from the Guardian) is doing the Race For Life in aid of cancer research. She'll be eight months pregnant so as she says, she will be doing it slowly with her dog. Can I ask that you consider a small donation? It would only take 354 people donating £2.82 for her to get to a goal of £1000. I don't know about you guys, but I spend more than three times that on coffee on a work day.

Please? Thank you.

Well I spent 5 hours yesterday trying to rid Emma's PC of some nasty malware. Count 'em, five. Fortunately I took the Vanquisher around there with me. The longer I don't actively use Windows, the more I forget how awful it is so it was as well that the Vanquisher was there to remind me of some of the madness. Her machine was positively riddled with malware and Trojans, the most pernicious being two absolute b'tards called Antivirus Plus and SystemGuard 2009. Spybot could not recover the system after God knows how many attempts so we had to get a bit agricultural on its ass. It was seat of your pants stuff.

The AntiVirus Plus thing was a swine. I silently cursed Microsoft for allowing things to be über-modal as I tried to get at the process list to kill the b'tard off. I have never programmed Windows so I am guessing here. This is probably a question for the likes of John: please tell me that WIndows doesn't use a z value for depth to indicate what is on top of what in terms of modality. Actually, please tell me that if it does it is bounded. I should have done this after the first Spybot failure, but I ended up looking at all copies of rundll32.exe on the system, only to spot one that had been installed on Thursday (by a strange coincidence the same day as Emma's problems beginning). I blarted it and copied a virgin version over it. Hey presto. No more annoying crap to deal with. Again, another question: it is my understanding that rundll32 allows you execute a DLL as if it were a .exe -- is this right? And under what phase of the moon would that ever make sense? Maybe it's a Windows thing. I cannot think of a single reason for treating a .a file on any Unix/Linux system like an executable. It's utter madness.

I am not convinced that we have completely fixed it. There are still some tell-tale signs of some dodgy DLLs being around but it was getting late and the Vanquisher and I needed nosebag before we headed out. I think a second visit may well be required.

You will be relieved to know that Emma's kettle was fully functional and being load-tested all through the duration of the cussing exercise.

After a quick snout full of nosebag, we hit the road down to Garswood. The Vanquisher was a tad concerned that there would be homicidal scousers abounding thanks to Liverpool effectively gifting the title to us yesterday so we changed venue to the other pub, The Stag. It is at this point that I ask why no-one has ever mentioned this place before (because I know everyone who reads this knows the three streets that constitute Garswood like the back of their hand). The Stag is situated on the other junction in Garswood. If you sit outside, you would swear that you were miles away from any conurbations. It's like being out in the countryside. Idyllic. I bet the house-prices there are sky-high (I must check). As the Vanquisher pointed out, you have everything you need there -- a good pub, a newsagent and a chippy.

The pub itself is palatial. It's an amazing building. The first thing that struck me was the amount of space. It's more like something you would find in the Midwest than in Northwest England. Sadly for them, and I suspect ultimately for us, not a lot of that space was occupied. It must be a Victorian building with vaulted ceilings, curved walls and wooden floors. It was adorned with a stunningly pretty barmaid who sadly left after about half an hour only to return 20 minutes later in civvies (ref Twitter). My only complaint is that the barmaid needed to be shown where the chippy is.

On the subject of property, the house that Emma is renting will become vacant next week on account of her moving. It's the first time I have been there and it is absolutely top. I am seriously considering making enquiries about renting it myself. From the outside it looks tiny, but when you go in, it is enormous (by English standards). The dining room is bigger than most living rooms and the kitchen is larger than most. Downstairs is all wooden flooring. I didn't go upstairs but apparently the bathroom boasts a stand alone bath and a myriad other knicknacks. I can see myself being quite happy there. Apparently when she vacates, it will be up for rent or sale. I might see how much they want for it -- it would be lovely to have my own place again, and that house is something you could really do something with. If it's too pricey, I know I can afford to rent it. It has to be said though that the first fix would have to be railing as you climb the steps to get to the door -- weebles without railings are a liability.

Genüg. I have some chauffeuring to do before I pretend to be productive to the outside world. In reality I will be sat with the paper and some Shostakovich.