Well I met my new brother today and he was scared witless of me. Apparently he reacted the same way to a young lad in the street. He just flopped. I have a theory about these things. I think it's to do with height. Mater and Pater are short. Everyone he's met since he moved in on Thursday has been under 5'7 (my daughter is the tallest) so I guess having six foot of Kenny bumbling his way in, treating the place like he owns it must have shocked him a little. Towards the end of my visit, he became a little less nervy and licked my hand a few times, but with his legs in reverse gear just in case I decided to bite him.

I've spent the rest of the afternoon watching the A-Team and howling with laughter then watched the end of the Twenty-20 Lancashire game which Lancs absolutely breezed. They have a batsman called De Plessis who is about the best I have seen in a long while. Admittedly Leicestershire's bowlers would not have troubled even me. The ball never landed on the same spot twice -- no line or length. Before you start Mrs Albert, the football season is finished so cricket takes over for a few months.

I was horrified to find out that Barbara Ellen must be off on holiday this week as I flipped to page eleven of the Observer (the first thing I do on Sundays). This is truly awful, compounding the blow that was dealt on Friday when Bryony announced she was off for a week. I'm going to actually have to pick up a book for some literary entertainment.

Time to start the crossword and prepare for tomorrow. I have a love/hate relationship with Sundays.

Apparently Lewis has a kennel club name of Betrimus Night Runner or some such nonsense. He is causing some hilarity though amongst the family. As those of you who know the TV show Morse (featuring the dearly missed John Thaw) will know, Lewis is his sidekick.

\"Lewis, there's been a murder.\"

Whenever the evening news comes on and there's been a murder, Lewis (the sheep) is told. It must be a hell of a big burden for a 7-month old dog to shoulder, particularly when he's two inches too short to be taken seriously as a dog. In his defense he is a long wheel-base dog -- that must count for something. Apparently his bed is not big enough and the parental units are having to buy a new one.

Mater intends to take him to these doggy assault courses once a week because he's a hell of an athlete. Yesterday, he was stood in the middle of the front room and managed to jump, from a stock-still position onto Mater's lap. That is about 6 feet from a standing start.

Finally, you want to hear this from my new speaker system, especially when she goes all batshit double time on you half way through...

When Nski and I lived in Edina, I once went our for cigarettes and came back with a surround-sound system. I think at the time it cost me about $450. It was, for want of another word utter crap. I got about probably a night's worth of joy when I watched Black Hawk Down with helicopters flying all over my ears.

When I bought my Mac Mini, I just plugged in the Harmon Kaddon speakers that you used to get with Dell PCs. It was tinny and nothing to write home about. It quickly became a pain in the butt for me. Listening to piano without the bass is like missing half the awe.

Last week, I ordered some new speakers from Amazon. For accuracy's sake, they were the Logitech Z-4 set. Just two speakers and a sub-woofer. I have to say that I am blown away by them. I wish I didn't have neighbors because I would love to really crank them up. The sound is crystal clear. The bass is wonderful.

I have, so far, tested the whole kaboodle out on only Tori and Regina. As I type, Regina's Düsseldorf is passing through the house with ease and grace.

I get really annoyed by the fact that I am too quick on the early adopter front. I paid $450 for something that was pants. These speakers cost £50 and they blow the crappy $450 system out of the water. I'm a mug.

Alors, for you sheepdog lovers, my new brother is called Lewis. He is two generations removed from a Crufts winner. I think my parents paid handsomely for him. The only reason that he is not a show-dog is that apparently, at 7 months old, he is two inches too short to qualify -- don't ask me, that sounds like sterile donkey j**m to me. I've still not met him, but he sounds wonderful. When they went for him, they were told that if they wanted a guard-dog, he would be useless. He's put up with two kids mauling him and a new house for a night and not cracked. Top dog if you ask me. The only thing that has shocked him was the sight of a cat. Apparently he has never seen one before and went to pieces when he encountered his Aunt Katie's housemate (another sheepdog who I love but who would gladly rip my throat out given the opportunity). As with all sheeps, he is not happy being inside. M&P are thinking about a kennel for outside even though he's already helped himself to the sofa when people were not looking. Maybe tomorrow I'll meet him. He sounds about as ace as you can get.

Richtig, time to test my speakers some more and call it a day. Stuff to do tomorrow.

From an IM axchange with the Vanquisher:

Hornswoggler says: (15:55:28)
The number of 600 buses going into Wigan compared to those coming out is disproportionate. However, if you factor in the ambulances coming out of Wigan, there is some kind of cosmic parity. What conclusions can be drawn from this?

Rob says: (15:56:13)
now THIS needs thinking about.

Hornswoggler says: (15:58:03)
In a parallel stream of whatever, the number of hot lasses walking towards Wigan is disproportionate to those walking back.

Hornswoggler says: (15:58:11)
This is BIG science.

In other news, I have a new brother:

That is a real surprise. I never thought Pater would entertain the idea of a new dog after the last demented sheepdog they had. You can rest assured that I will be down there as soon as I can! I hope this one doesn't hate me quite as much as Evie did.

BTW, apologies for the size of the image -- don't know what's going on there. When I clock off working, I'll have a look.

I meant to say something about this yesterday but my devotion to staring blankly at Word documents overtook me.

Before I anger all my bed-wetting chums, let me preface this with the fact that I no way, in this lifetime, would ever vote for David Cameron. That said, I think yesterday's speech was brilliant. He took the bull by the horns and wrestled with it. There are so many things coming to a head at the moment politically, that someone needed to take a step back and look critically at what we are dealing with. I think the only words I disagreed with him on were those where he stated that \"there has been a lot of talk about revolution -- we do not need to go that far\". We all know where I stand on that one. It's not just a wish, but a necessity. His speech basically gave the argument for revolution.

It will come as no surprise to most that his \"power to the people\" Citizen Smith comment appealed to me. Ironic coming from a Tory. But his sentiment was right and it was what I have been lamenting for years now. We have so many levels of government that we feel like the state is our enemy. It shouldn't be. It should be an enabler and balancer. From Brussels down, we have vast swathes of regulation that impede any kind of progress. For Christ's sakes, I am not even allowed to fit a plug to an electrical appliance anymore. [Some might argue that that is not a bad thing given my manual dexterity -- after all I only *nearly* killed my brother when I fitted my first plug. He got his revenge when he only *nearly* shot me while cleaning our gun]. But seriously, even if you are not minded like I am, look at the layers of government we have. It's its own micro-economy and a pretty damned black one at that.

I had an interesting conversation with one of the guys at work last week. He's about as left wing as they come but we agree on so many things. The pathetic machinations of MPs that The Telegraph is out to make them all shoot themselves is nonsense. You make your bed, you lie in it. The interesting part of the conversation was when he said that the MP bit was intriguing but the real issue would be when the local council start being transparent. Local councils in the UK are the most corrupt organizations you can imagine. For every tired underpaid nurse there are a disproportionate number of parasites who drip placations to their public, and we buy them.

I think I mentioned a while ago a chap who is part of the Community Action Party here in Wigan. We had a spat on a local BBS. He appeared to think that I had no right to an opinion because I was not active in local politics as if just because I wasn't running for office, my views were inconsequential. This is the kind of thing that incenses me. He's just the one layer of government above me, telling me what I can and cannot do. There are a myriad more as you move South East and even further South East.

David Cameron hit the nail on the head. We need to strip out this culture of power. I don't really care where we strip it; you can do it at a national level or at a local level. With the workings of the world today, I am not sure it makes much difference but this has to be streamlined. We cannot carry on financing four tiers of government. If we subscribe to the model of 4+ tiers of government, we might as well just give up and call ourselves communists, which we effetcively have.

In summary, well said David Cameron. Sorry you will never convince me to vote for you.

I'll give you three guesses as to who sent me this, and the first two don't count...

You must - MUST - read Jasper Fforde's books.

It's as if Stephen Fry and Douglas Adams had a baby who was a Bronte historian obsessed with Vic Reeves.

I have done a number of things today that are potentially hazardous.

The first one was to commit to something at work that is either career-making or career-breaking. The jury is still out on that one although if I know myself well enough, I'll wing it. I do it out of love but I am not sure of what.

The second one was much more dangerous. Nski and I are conversing in civil tones for the first time in forever. I have to admit that it was her being supportive that facilitated reasonable communications so I will doff my cap in the direction of Iowa. It seems that we have reached a plateau where we understand each other's pain. It is not pleasant for either of us, but it's a start. If we can't be man and wife, we should at least be friends. Nski -- comment if you wish.

The rest of the day was dull. Documentation makes me want to nuke Argentina. And probably Iceland.

Bit o'Bones methinks and then the steep climby thing upstairs.

That was a cheap shot post title although rather relevant. I finally got around to cleaning out my car yesterday. It was a job and a half. A full bin-liner. I am the world's biggest sloth.

As if yesterday was not bizarre enough, today is proving even more out there. My email this morning yielded a message from Nski. She had read my previous post and wanted to know how I was. Right there, you have a myriad emotions just bursting with insanity.

I find it all rather bizarre that I am talking to my second wife about the first one given the state of play.

I took two pills last night.

I'm sure I will take two more tonight.

It pains me to say it but thank you Nski -- that email was well timed and well toned. When you're done being beautiful and young...

Well that woke me up.

I have spent the last 12 years avoiding my ex-wife. The one thing that we agree on is that the other is allowed to exist but not in the same space at the same time. Today is my paternal grandmother's 91st birthday so I nipped up there to give her a gift and say hello. I rang the doorbell and a strange chap answered it. He immediately let me in but turned around without saying anything. I entered to see my ex-wife, my eldest daughter and her sister. If anything could have clanged, it would have. I have long dreaded the day when we ran into each other because I feared for the consequences. As it turned out, I was thinking on my feet quite well. I shot out a hand to the chap and said "S?". The poor chap was so shocked that he just limply shook my hand and I followed it up with a "How are we all?". There was then a battle of civilities as we all tried to get the hell out of Dodge politely. "I've just popped in -- have to dash." "We were just going anyway."

It was amazingly civil. Too civil. Most disconcerting.

As for my ex-wife, I have to say she is still stunning albeit she could do with a few pies down her. Way too thin.

I'm sure you will hear more about this in the coming hours as I get over the shock. It was inevitable that we would cross paths, but I always thought it would be at my parents', where they have a priest-hole for such occasions. I tantamount walked into an ambush but came out unscathed.

I wonder what the hell my daughter made of it all. She is 13 now and man, she is tall. She still has a few inches to get to my height but she will be 6' soon.

My gast is well and truly flabbered.

Well my mission up to Albert Towers was a success. I managed to remember to take the mirror that I had for them and the DVDs of Bones for Mrs A, who appears to be as obsessed with it as I am. An added plus was that I took the new Tori CD up there and it was greeted with universal approval by both Mr and Mrs Albert alike. Result. Mrs Albert managed to sneak some carrot cake into my bag so I have foregone the usual Saturday lunch of a pie for that. Damned fine it is too. She doesn't seem to understand my reluctance to face food prior to noon unless it was once part of a pig. Cake in the morning, no matter how long I lived in the land of cake-for-breakfast still seems wrong. To her credit, she did manage to get me to eat salad last night, which is no mean feat.

When I arrived back the phone rang incessantly. Eventually I condescended to answer it. 'Twas mater. As it happens, it was a double win. Apparently I do not need to Bunbury tomorrow and she watched Regina Spektor on Later With Jools Holland so was keen to tell me how much I would love her. Hmmm. Smile politely Kenny.

I have an appointment with the hoover today that I may put back until tomorrow given the most merciful release I have been given re Bunburying. Speaking of putting things off, I think I will probably hit work on Monday even if it is a holiday. I have stuff I need to do after a conversation I had with our resident network Nazi on Friday -- honestly, you'd think we were MI5 the way .pl deals with these things. Sorry .pl, if you ever read this! ;) Anyway, deadlines do not move due to holidays so I guess I'm going to have to take this one on the chin and meander over to update some design (I use the term freely) docs.

I am considering breaking my own laws now -- a bit of a nap. The Waaart has long lauded the getting up early gubbins, followed by a small kiplet. I have never held with mid-afternoon naps but I feel like one would be ace today. Just this once mind.

Oooh. While I have been typing this, I appear to have got through Abnormally Attracted To Sin and into American Doll Possse. Tori -- Manchester, September. I'll be there. I haven't seen her since the Choirgirl tour in Chicago. That has to be remedied.

Richtig -- hope you all are trying your hardest to vanquish the image of the Waaart and I singing. I'm off for a well-earned rest.

Laterz!

I downloaded Tori Amos's Abnormally Attracted To Sin on Monday. Today is the first chance I have had to listen to it properly. As with all Tori albums after Under The Pink, it takes a good few plays before you really get to know them -- they are never just throw away pop.

Usually, the way she gets you to listen again and again is to throw you one completely blindingly catchy piece of complex genius. Little Earthquakes got you with These Precious Things, Under The Pink got you with Cornflake Girl, Boys for Pele boasted Caught A Light Sneeze, From The Choirgirl Hotel had Raspberry Swirl and my peronal favorite, which I think is a masterpiece, Scarlet's Walk had the sublime A Sorta Fairytale.

She's hit a winner on the new album with Welcome To England. That one song will drag me into the rest, just for its brilliance and hilarity. A chorus of \"Welcome to England, Bring your own sun\" had me literally laugh out loud. Given she now inhabits our fair shores, I guess she's allowed to moan about the weather. It's upbeat and your ears just glue themselves to it. Back in the late eighties, The Durritti Column (Vinny Reilly) did a couple of instrumental songs based on the same music but in different keys. Pol in B and Pol in G. The opening guitar-y riff melded with the piano sounds just like it, but a bit more up-tempo. It really is a delight and I found myself wandering around Sainsburys singing it after just two plays -- it is that infectious.

I can't dissect the rest of the songs yet because they are complicated. All I can say is that some sound like it is Kate Bush circa The Red Shoes, some sound like they were written by Regina Spektor and some sound like David Sylvian wrote them but they are being sung by Tori. I guess my spidey senses were at work when I wrote the previous post. Some of the tracks, even at first pass, sound like they are previous note formations transposed and set to a slightly different rhythm but I can live with that.

I don't know whether this is a good or a bad thing, but I still really do not get her lyrics, ever. Nski used to say they were obvious. I agree that some are but others just leave huge questions marks in bold italics over my head. I'm pretty good at abstracting what I'm thinking (sometimes) but Tori takes the biscuit. Then again, I'm the guy who completely misread the Barenaked Ladies' Conventioneers so what the hell do I know?

The Grommage mentioned yesterday that Regina Spektor was appearing on Later With Jools Holland last night. Naturally I completely forgot. At about 11:00 I got a text message from Stan saying he had just watched it and thought it was, and I quote, f***ing amazing. I cursed myself that I had forgotten.

Anyway, thanks to the gift of iPlayer from the BBC, I have just seen it here. It's about two thirds of the way through.

To say I concur with Stan is an understatement. With each generation of female pianists, they get better. Kate Bush kicked it off for me. Then came Tori, then Fiona Apple. Regina Spektor is the latest in a legacy of artists who I will not have a word said against. Unfortunately, as with all the cited artists, I suspect she will only ever play a niche part in the popular music scene. It really is a shame because all of those artists, while usually lauded by critics and the music industry itself, are B-list when the awards come around. I find that hard to swallow when blandness is rewarded so frequently. Watch your average rapper and then watch one of these (better still just listen) and tell me that Vanilla Ice T has more talent.

Tomorrow, I am going to burn the new Tori CD that I got from iTunes and ignore the radio on my way home. I have only a few days before the new Regina Spektor album is out so I need to get this one out of the way and in memory.

The Vanquisher informs me that there is a new Sylvian album out this year too. And you can always bank on Ani DiFranco releasing something at T-infinitesimal at any given point in time. 2009 looks like a top year for music in Kenny's world.

Written last night and I am unlikely to find any time today to write anything else...

I'm a bit miffed today because the only personal email I got was from the Waaart. I may not always reply straight away due to the stresses and strains of being sat in the big meeting that is my life, but I do appreciate them and when I have time, I always reply, eventually.

Today my mail has been mostly spam. Not everyday spam but some targeted spam. That kind of spam is the worst kind. I'm starting to get really miffed with people sending me advertising email just because I bought something from them once. Amazon blast you seven ways to hell as soon as you sign up. If you have bought something from them, they send you junk email advertising things that you quite obviously do not need because you've just bought one from them. If you buy a passport disk, lo and behold, via the gift of webtrends or whatever they use, for weeks you are bombarded with emails about storage.

With Amazon it is understandable because they have such a diverse catalogue of gubbins. When you get to the niche purchases, it really grates. For example, I bought my goose-down duvet from a company that specializes in such things. It is possibly the best sleep aid I have ever had in my life. I only need to look at the thing and I just want to go to bed. It is heaven. But do I really need another one but eight weeks after I bought the first? Thanks Duvet and Pillow Warehouse, but I am not kitting out Buck House. Likewise Interflora. I know you exist and I use you when I want to. I do not need to be reminded that Mother's Day or whatever means I can use your services. I will patronize your site when the need arises.

UK companies appear to be worse than US ones in my experience. In the UK it appears to be de rigeur to pass your details on as a legtimate sales lead. UK sites generally offer no opt-out facility. There are numerous US firms that I have bought stuff from who either provided an opt-out or who simply do not spam you at all. You'd have thought somewhere like Think Geek, where I have ordered from on many occasions, would have me pegged as a repeat customer and would flood me with offers but they don't. In fact I cannot think of a single spam email from them.

There really should be some mandatory internet code that allows the company to keep your details for if you wish to repeat buy, but that allows you to say no to their incessant cluster-bombing of your mailbox. In my case, I end up paying bandwidth and storage charges for dealing with their random punts. I fail to see why I should pay to be marketed to. The logic is akin to signing up to Sky just for the shopping channels. No-one in their right mind would do it.

I think I have a new rule. No matter how great the offer is that I get in my email, it will be ignored whether I want said item or not. Even if you are on my list of regular suppliers.

You should all email me more so my crap to interesting ratio is kept healthy. Today was a new low.

You might have noticed that I have been rather more quiet than usual. Unfortunately this is because work is interfering with my ability to surf and have a life outside of it which in of itself means I have precious little to blog about other than the politics of deception and how many yottabytes of SAN disk I need.

This sudden deluge of work is no bad thing since it is the fruits of what I would class as lobbying for the last 18 months. So in some respects, it adheres to the old adage that the reward for good work is more work. I prefer it this way even if it means that I will probably age five years over the next twelve months. When I first started this job, I wandered around with big question marks over my head as I tried to understand what the hell it was I was meant to be doing. I think I finally now get it and I think what I expected from the job is starting to align with the direction the company want to go so I think I can safely say that for the first time, I am actually enjoying it. I think we can chalk this one down to the other age old adage that Kenny is right and that the sooner people understand this, the better for the company concerned.

'Tis all. I must microwave, eat and then get an early one in without being tempted by some more Bones.

It's late and you are ditzy.

Your socks are in the drier and tomorrow is the release of Tori Amos's Abnormally Attracted To Sin so you have things to do. Get on with it.

I must confess, since I moved I have been really enjoying my space and my new TV. The amount of joy I get from it is almost immoral.

Yesterday I rose quite early and hit Sainsburys for the weekly shop. I love living a mile away from a Sainsburys. When you shout \"oh crap\", having forgotten something that was quite clearly on the list in front of you, you can spend ten minutes to go remedy your idiocy.

Anyway, after I had done with the shopping, I started unpacking yet more stuff and found a HP iPaq pocket PC that I had bought a couple of years ago. It shocked the hell out of me because I was convinced that I had given it away. So what do you do when you rediscover things? You play with them. I spent a couple of hours trying to get the damned thing to talk to my wireless network. The manual reckons it has a wi-fi card. It most certainly does not. The bluetooth stuff works after a fashion but is no use for internet connectivity. So I started looking for a wireless card on t'interweb. The only ones I found were SD cards which would mean that I could have either more capacity or a wireless connection: mututual exclusivity. There is another bay in the pocket PC but it is not a type I recognize. I'm sure that there must be a network card that I can buy somewhere that will fit this random connector but I have yet to find it. If I could, I could be wirelessed up, slap in an 8GB SD card and have a useful device. My iPod Touch is excellent for most things but it doesn't have things like spreadsheets (to which I am addicted for management purposes) so a small investment would be in order to get this thing to a state where it is an adjunct to the iPod would be justified.

That is not what I sat down to talk about. But I am sure you are all riveted to the spot with excitement.

What I set out to say is that I am, once again Bunburying. The closest thing to a romance that I have had in the last couple of years evaporated about October last year. This was probably no bad thing because she showed worrying signs of being both my first and second wife rolled into one with added sociopathy. While this non-romance was taking place I had alarm bells ringing in my head that I dutifully ignored. She has, however, proved very useful. Whenever I need a bit of a break from the usual family guff, I go for lunch with her. Like today! I am currently dining with her.

I guess when you're retired and time takes on a whole new meaning, these rituals are a nice segue from week to week. If you're out of the house 12 hours a day, five days a week, there are certain things that you need to get done over the weekend. I have no-one to do my laundry, clean the house, pay my bills etc. so I need my weekend to catch up. I refuse to stick in a day at work and come home to start vacuuming. That way lies madness. Weekends is when it all happens, and losing a large part of Sunday annoys me. I could probably stomach it every third week but not every week. Emma gives me a good, admittedly faux, excuse to catch up on all the things I have been either too tired or too lazy to do during the week. So today, I am Bunburying away with my vacuum, washing machine and unpacking.

If I can drag myself away from the computer, I may well be able to poison some weeds too.

You should all consider the Bunbury card.

The Daily Telegraph,

Honest to God. The boys are going to have completely repaired the Commons by causing mass by-elections at the rate these MPs are having to fall on their swords. The Sunday Times sting which has caused two Law Lords to be suspended (the first to be so in hundreds of years) seems tame in comparison.

Can we say crisis? Can we smell revolution? I think we can. It will be interesting to see how history looks back on the last six months or so.

I started watching Bones last night on the old Sky\+ computamabob but flipped over to the PC to see a tweet from @bryisahypocrite (Bryony) saying that she was watching QT which featured Ben Broman (Telegraph), Sir Menzes Campbell (LibDem), Theresa May (Con), Margaret Becket (Lab) and the MD of McDonalds UK, whoever he is (presumably representing big business, cough). Naturally the subject of the debate was MPs expenses. I had to pause Bones and watch the train-wreck happen. I was a ghoul on the pavement. Wow. It was horrifying.

You have never seen a QT audience bay for blood quite like this one. The three MPs were absolutely petrified -- the fear was palpable. You might have wondered what they had done wrong in their respective parties for them to be the sacrificial representatives. More odd than an MP being outed as mortal was the fact that they bonded together in an unholy love triangle, screaming in unison and panic.

The questions were the obvious. The answers were the obvious. The spectacle was the hunted being paraded in front of the hunters. It was an awesome piece of TV. Get on the BBC's iPlayer and watch it. Top stuff.

I ordered an Ani DiFranco live show DVD from Righteous Babe a few weeks ago. It arrived last Friday but I was off and the damned revenue wanted their cut so I finally took possession of it today, along with a teeshirt (I appear to be all about the teeshirts at the moment -- blame Grom).

If I was in love with Ani DiFranco before, I am twice as in love now. She is one amazing guitarist/vocalist and, as ever, she is my prefered side of batshit crazy.

Fiona Apple should do the right thing and follow Ani's example and just bugger the corporate stuff and start her own label, or join Ani's. I'm sure Fiona Apple has just as many rabid followers as Ani DiFranco who would buy her works no matter who the label was. After all, as music fans, we absolutely don't give a monkey's do we fellow middle-aged adolescents?

Advice: Ani DiFranco Live at Babeville (the church she bought and converted into Righteous Babe HQ) -- Babeville sounds trite but this is taking the piss in its finest form.

Some of you may have noticed that my Facebook/Twitter status posed a question earlier today. It went along the lines of shortly I will have 24 quad hex-core processors (576 cores), 3TB RAM and about 60-80TB of Fcal SAN storage at my fingertips. Truth be told, I have probably that amount and half again. Now I know what work *want* me to do with them. What I want to know is what *you* would do with that much sheer grunt power. I mean, by my reckoning, I could run a medium-sized country with that. In front of that grunt power I have two titanic firewalls and two monster switches, which could handle the whole of the internet traffic of Poland. As said by one of mi'learned colleagues yesterday morning, this is bordering on hardware porn.

That last word has me thinking. As always, most computer technology is driven by two industries. They are both on the bleeding edge. Defense invented almost everything yet porn seems to innovate too when it comes to streaming things or video or whatever. Being a data center that hosts defense kit is a respectable yet probably underpaid enterprise. However being a data center that hosts porn is hardly a respectable living but I would imagine is hugely profitable.

This makes me wonder who hosts and designs the dodgy sites? It takes a big team of highly educated people to design sites to do what the porn guys do. Are so many highly intelligent people that hell-bent on earning massive money that they will lose any morals they have and turn the other cheek?

I'm not going to get holier than thou and say that I have never visited a dodgy site but I think I would draw the line at being asked to design an infrastructure to support the purveyance of such stuff. I would never sleep at night without the aid of a bottle of Jim Beam and ketamine.

'Tis an odd world.

Anyway, I'm a bloody software/marketing guy. How the hell I found myself designing infrastructure beats me. The good news is that I have a little on the down-low side interest at work. Peeps from my office should look away now. Someone Darn Sarf has just rolled out a new little in-house thing that is based on PHP and MySQL. Can I say interested? Yup, I think I can. There were some teething troubles today so I have volunteered my services to help out in a strictly out of hours, from the comfort of home kind of way. I need to find an excuse to get down to Brizzle to meet the guys who are working on it and as I typed that, an excuse sprang to mind. I really like what they have done so far, but can see so much more that it could do. geekExcitment++;

Sorry. You came here to read about my utter outrage at the UK political system didn't you? Maybe tomorrow.

Okay here's the deal. I use the same login to iGoogle on my MacBook and my MacMini. The same widgets are presented on both screens but on the MacMini, the news is all American whereas on the MacBook, the news is proper news from the Telegraph, BBC, Guardian, AP etc. Could it be a Firefox setting that is somehow confusing iGoogle into thinking I'm in the States I wonder?

Anyone out there have any suggestions as to why this might be? Merci in advance.

Someone on the radio 5 Facebook page has come up with a suggestion for Prime Minister: Peter Allen. It's a winner.

It's a winner.

The good news is that I have signed up to the online Sky\+ gubbins and downloaded the Sky\+ application for the iPod Touch. Talk about sweet. Wherever you have a wireless connection, you can scroll through the TV schedule and set your Sky\+ box to record at your house. That, quite frankly, is superb.

I have laid off the subject of MPs and their gravy train run on expenses thus far but as the days go on, I grow more and more iivid. Today's pearler -- Douglas Hogg Expenses His Moat Being Cleaned. I think it is fair to say that the Telegraph have done an admirable job of exposing the racket that has been going on under our noses for years. Expensing a packet of sunflower seeds? Lord. It is quite obvious that some of the MPs have gone to extraordinary lengths to create expenses. It appears that virtually anything can be expensed. I find it hard to think of a suitable punishment bar the obvious vote them out next time. But then again, who is there to vote for?

You know when you are instinctively aware of a madness around you and certain facts spring to light that reinforce your instincts?

Well, figures on the radio this morning tell that membership of the EU costs the UK £40m a day. Forgive me while I clean my monitor and sit bathed in an aura of Kenny was and is right. Remember; chant it as your mantra.

I have been afflicted by some Chinese which has rendered me worse than useless today. I managed to drive Die Frau Führer chez parentals for lunch but sat and gritted molars while I was in the traffic en-route back. If ever you don't want to be caught in traffic, today is the day. It took me over 15 minutes to travel 0.5 miles thanks to the God botherers who were leaving church and crossing the road and leaving the car-park in a manner that will surely expedite their date with their maker. I would have happily mowed them down. When your guts are growling like polar bears, there is precious little that will stop you getting to the one place you want to be.

After my unkind comments about the N-word last night, I felt very guilty. I emailed her and said that I was sorry for being so rude to her in our exchanges. She responded very civilly saying "I'm not thrilled at the way things turned out, either - I'm sorry, too."

I'm not sure how much solace I should take in those words, but it is certainly a start. I know I'll probably never see her again in my life so it's academic. I suppose the easiest way to do this is by smiling while you're being stabbed repeatedly.

Gah. I guess my guts are playing up in multiple ways.

On the plus side, that win against City was priceless. After last season, I expected the worst. To come out of it with three points was way beyond my expectations. The Berb is, and I will say it again and again, sublime. I could watch him play all day. The deftness of his touch is breath-taking. Nice result for us. 7 more points needed.

On that bombshell, I am informed that I should be drinking weak tea, which we all know is anathema to Kenny's being. I have two teabags brewing their socks off as we speak, with a generous amount of sugar. Hopefully, I can shirk this before tomorrow morning. Wish me luck.

I've just seen the footage of Obama at his roasting ceremony. That was some funny stuff. For those of you that haven't seen it, the ones that stood out were:

\"In the next hundred days, we will design, build and open a museum dedicated to my first hundred days. It will be big folks.\"

\"In the next hundred days, I will seriously consider losing my cool.\"

\"In the next hundred days I will learn to go off the [tele]prompter and Joe Biden will learn to stay on it.\"

\"The next hundred days will be so successful that I will complete them in 72. On the 73rd day, I will rest.\"

Now, much as I am not an Obama fan, that was a good effort at self-deprecating humor. He won me over for a few minutes there.

Whole kaboodle here.

It is not a Cure album.

The N-word has been in touch again. I find the whole process tiring. I have taken the view that I am in no hurry to re-marry so why should I have to actively expedite things? The US courts will do what they want. I have no influence at all on that. Even if I had the money needed to do battle, I'm not sure I have the appetite. My only incentive is to never see her email address in my inbox again. That said, I am certainly not going to make anything easy for her. She can take a seat in the hell that I lived through for a while. I never thought I would wish the kind of anguish I suffered on anyone else but I really do. I hope she suffers as badly as I did.

</Bad Kenny>

In other news, my family here continue the bizarre ritual of dropping in with food. My grandfather started the daft ritual. He would always turn up to furnish an orange on Kidder and I. Fruit was currency to him. My father has upped the game somewhat. Mater is in London today preparing for her best mate's daughter's wedding so Pater has been at a loose end. The loose end culminated in him arriving here with a pie. Bless. A damned fine pie it was too. I do wonder sometimes whether I am worthy of such care.

I am having been returned to the safety of the North. It was a top night even if the ending was a little squiffy.

Drummer Dave, Stan and I battered the Guardian and Independent crosswords while munching on some rather nice food. The paper shop had sold out of the Times and the Evening Standard so we could not indulge in a quintuple. The highlight of my mad crossie skillz was SANGFROID in the Guardian. DD scored a 40-yarder with FEMININE WILES. I wouldn't have got that one in two lifetimes.

Nick Harper was good as usual but he wasn't as brilliant as he has been. Still, good to see him again.

The journey back was a little more eventful than I would have hoped. Recently at work, we all had to do a driving course and I bitched and moaned about grandmothers and eggs. How silly am I? I learned probably one thing during the whole shebang. And guess what, it probably saved me from writing off my car and maybe even killing me. For some mad statistical reason, the outside lane of the M6 ground to a very sudden halt. I was a good two seconds behind the guy in front as always. When he hit his brakes hard, he lost control of the car. When I hit mine, my brain went into instinctive \"miss it\" mode. I could see that he was veering into the central reservation but guessed that he would over-correct and end up in the middle lane so when my ABS kicked in, I steered into the central reservation. Anyone watching would have thought I was an idiot because I was sure to hit the guy in front. Thankfully my spidey senses were on form. I retrospectively think that everyone needs a refresher driving course once in a while. For all the experience we have, there are still things that we do not think about in advance. As I say, had I not been on that course and been aware of what was going on in front and behind me, today could have been pretty bad for quite a lot of people. I think we can safely say Kenny\++.

Anyhoooo, home and happy.

I am officially darn sarf, i.e. St Albans. I had prepared for the customary nosebleed just South of Stoke by traveling with a box of tissues. That is not a euphemism.

It took me precisely three hours, door to door even though my satnav tried to send me onto the M10. I found it suspicious because I had never heard of the M10 but ran with it because it is over 10 years since I drove in the South East so there may well have been one built. I cannot be bothered looking up whether such a beast exists but I am sure someone will be kind enough to fill me in on the dealybop. I ended up coming in from the Hatfield side (I say that like I know where in Purgatory Hatfield is, when in actual fact I have no idea). The South East is best done by train and tube but when I checked the prices two weeks in advance, they wanted £196 for a return fare. That is 50p a mile each way. I calculate that my petrol costs will be under 10p a mile. As my good friend @Aleksandr_Orlov keeps saying, simplez. I have only ever paid £200 for a gig to watch Sting with the family in the Quad Cities (that was about $450) and to watch Tori Amos ($400) in Chicago (although technically Nski paid for that).

Tonight, it is Nick Harper at the legendary Horn with Stan, Drummer Dave and possibly Psycho and Ray. I've also invited our St Albans office resident geektasticness who is pitching up. He texted me while I was half way down here and I read it when I arrived. In storing his number, I discovered that his surname is about the least cell-phone friendly name ever. Those of you who know who I am talking about will know who I mean. It took ages -- every damned letter seems to be third one you get as you cycle through the keys.

Looking at the clock, Stan should be leaving Hook (wherever the hell that is) about now and reckons he should be here by 18:00 so I have a couple of hours to kill, hence the bloggage.

I'm deliberately sporting a Dolly Parton tour teeshirt tonight because visiting the Horn deserves nothing less. If the old bar staff are still around it will provoke some giggles. If not, Stan will probably raise his eyes to the heavens and question my sanity again.

You never know, if I'm feeling really keen, I might bob into the office on my way back oop norf tomorrow morning to see some of mi'old muckers although I'm not sure many are left here and there is one that I certainly do not want to bump into. We'll see.

I'm like a kid waiting for Xmas. Great music, great people, great city. You can't ask for more. Damn, 90 mins until anyone gets here. Twitter sounds like a good idea. A better one is to buy the Evening Standard and get started on the crossword. We used to regularly do the big five (Times, Independent, Grauniad, Wellygraph and Evening Standard) over lunch. I managed the Welly in about 15 minutes while on a call this morning so that is check-boxed. Drummer Dave will have put the Times to the sword and Stan will have done likewise with the Grauniad. That leaves us two.

I will shut up now because I do sound like a child with a new toy.

Be prepared: there may be ramblings later that I fully reserve the right to pull.

I have no idea who this Michael Savage shock-jock is but from listening to him on the radio this morning, I am pretty damned pleased that he is on the list of people banned from entering the UK. The guy is a screaming idiot. The amount of pointless bile that was spewed was amazing. He ranted, and I paraphrase, "I want all of my 8-10 million listeners to cancel any trips to England that they may have planned. I don't know what they make in England but you should all boycott it". As I say, the bloke is a dribbling loon.

It did get me thinking about who is deserving of the ban in addition to those named. Might I put forward the Minogue? Eminem? Tom Cruise? Anyone who has any association with Desperate Housewives?

Ideas for more exclusions in the comments please and I'll have the Vanquisher get on the job ASAP.

Hands up who is already half way through their working week. Haha! I am.

In precisely 48 hours, I will be sat in the Horn in St Albans with Stan. There may even be an appearance by Freeda Gnome whose birthday it is on that very day -- she turns 0x29. I cannot remember the last time I saw Freeda. It must be 15 years ago. She turned all girly-Southern gnome quite early on in her life and never returned to her place of casting. Gnomes are fickle and, cue sad trombone, gnomadic.

While being wildly excited about something that involves a trip that uses a motorway that is not the M62, my joy is tempered by the fact that I have the exquisite torture of watching Utd and the Arse for the second time in 7 days. While nominally a goal up, just one slip up will be devastating for either side, so I have full license to be chewing my nails for England or, more specifically, Manchester. May the laws of decency grant the team with the highest number of British players the win (I haven't checked the teams yet, but I am quite sure that Utd will field more than the Arse). And with that last sentence, I have probably doomed us.

Again I have a crossword staring at me, dinner to make and not enough time between now and kick-off. I must away to do my duties. Telekenetics require calories.

Just a quickie...

Notice to anyone who comes around to my gaff -- if you start rifling through my stuff, no matter how closely related you are, I will develop a churl and you really will not like me when I am churlish. If you are not called Fiona Apple, Emily Deschanel or Bryony Gordon you have no right entering my bedroom uninvited. If you look at my mail, I am sure I have the right to shoot you. Okay maybe not, but it really is bad manners. Are we clear? Good.

I should have just left out the divorce papers as a bait and switch. That way, the errant unwashed cup would have become of secondary interest while hysteria overcame.

'Tis all for now.

I really should keep up with my meds. I demand that you all harass me on Tuesday to go get my repeat prescription.

I have been very @Aleksandr_Orlov all day. I took the Führer for lunch to the parental units. I hung around for about half an hour after dining before I made tracks. My legitimate excuse was that I needed to sort out my printer (read find the power supply) so I could leave the window-cleaner a note. Mater balked. "Why do you need to leave the window cleaner a note?".

"Because he keeps leaving me little pieces of paper telling me he has been but I'm always at work so am not in to pay him. His pieces of paper do not contain anything other than his name, Ian, which is kind of pointless."

"So how are you going to pay him?"

"Well, I will leave a note explaining that I am at work and that he should phone me so we can organize something."

"Where are you going to put it?"

"In the bloody window -- where else?"

"Well won't everyone know your house is unoccupied?"

"Yes...if they happen to be up a ladder cleaning my bedroom windows."

Kenny 1-0 Mater.

"Why do you not write a note then?"

Kenny 1-3 Mater.

Game over.

The fact is that I had not even considered writing a note. I am having idea for fine business transaction and need computermabob to complete it. I am driving home to complete deal. I am being very busy with important business. Laters. Orlov, I am. This combined with my sudden snooker referee lust indicates that I should be thinking about an early night and replenishing my meds.

PS -- Mrs A, I have secured the mirror that you require. We should arrange a visit so I can offload it -- it will only end up making my place look even bigger. Getting taxi from West wing to East in current climate is unaffordables.

I expected to chomp my nails off watching Utd vs Boro because Boro, while being my second team, are a bogey team of epic proportions. When I think Boro, I think of Brighton, York and other horrors. Thankfully today was not deja-vu all over again. As it happens, it was an exercise in watching how sublime the Berb is. I know he didn't score, but the man is an absolute genius. He actually ran today as well, so I expect Fergie to give him a rest and put him on the bench at the Emirates.

Domestic news.

I am unhappy with my fabric softener. I stuck a load of laundry in first thing this morning and now the house stinks of it. I used to be the master of getting my clothes to a point where they were suitably conditioned with no perceivable smell. Someone along the years has messed with my formula and I am not happy. I'm thinking I may just chuck out what I have and start again.

On the upside, I commissioned my goose-down duvet last night. My mother thinks it is a bit un-macho to have a pink duvet cover but I take the view that it's a bloody duvet cover, so what? I slapped the *pink* duvet cover on the goose-down gubbins and in the process probably worried my mother no end. I have no regrets. I think last night was the best nights sleep I have had in forever. It's light, it's warm and for once, when I woke up at about 08:30 this morning, I could not bring myself to just instinctively get out of bed. At 10:30 I finally accepted the fact that I had things to do and must leave my new love. People get all sorts of gratification from silly bits of life (for example foodies who will wart on about food until your ears bleed). My vice is my bed. Nothing contributes more to my happiness than being able to fall into something that is perfect. Having now adorned it with duck pillows and a goose-down duvet, all that needs correcting is the mattress. One half of me says that I should leave it as is, because I do need to get out of bed occasionally. The other says sod it: there are precious few moments where you are entirely happy so have at it. I guess I'll take a trip out tomorrow to look at mattresses. Work peeps -- I may be late on Tuesday and beyond.

It's Kenny approved so go to here and buy one of these. Your life will be infinitely better. I hate geese with a passion, having been cornered by four of them in my youth, armed only with a pitch fork (two did not make it), but they are obviously useful creatures. Much like ducks are God's tastiest creatures.

Oooh. Can you get duck or goose-down mattresses? There is a google that is going to happen in the next couple of minutes.

Here endeth the domestic nauseous cant (as he bins his Ariel and Lenor and heads out to Sainsburys for some Bold and Comfort).