I was going to shut up for today but a) The Vanquisher is indisposed tonight so I get to spend some quality time with my DVD player and b) I have been spooked. This one is for those with a logical bent.

The deal is this: in my car, I have a 12V "hub" thing that splits the cigarette-lighter into two sockets. I have three appliances that I regularly charge in the car: my cell phone, my iPod and my Satnav. At any given point in time obviously only two are plugged in, usually the phone charger and the iPod.

Over the last couple of days, even if my iPod has not been in use, but just hooked up to the power, it has been randomly switching itself on and then off again. I want to say there is a correlation between the sudden switched on state to my flooring it (i.e. maybe kicking a squiding more juice through the electrics) but I know that is insane. A boost to the power should not switch on the beast, unless there was a dearth of power to start with and it is suddenly picking up juice. I checked the connectors thinking it might just not be plugged in correctly -- no joy. I have monitored my Motorola phone charger which glows a bat-signal in electric blue and it has been constantly on, presumably due to an agreeable shot of liquid electrons.

Being that I didn't understand what was going on and it involving wires and electricity, I have been ignoring it. Like you do. Well, like I do -- it was annoying me but no harm, no foul. If it isn't causing me grief, it will do as is.

Tonight as I drove home with the iPod plugged in and batman chasing my blue Motorola charger, I looked down to check my speed then looked up again. Lo and behold, the Satnav had switched itself on. Under normal circumstances you have to hold the switch down for a couple of seconds to get the swine to power up -- it is a pet hate of mine and is proven beyond all doubt. I was nowhere near the switch (it's on the dashboard). It wasn't plugged into the outlet. There was absolutely no reason on earth for it to suddenly wake up but smack my arse and call me Sebastian, it did.

I am baffled. Random switching on of the iPod and disconnected Satnav...has anyone any ideas at all? Hmmm. I just thought that maybe the Satnav might be waking up to the Bluetooth from my phone or Mac but that is nonsense; when I have tried to get them to play nicely together in the past they have refused to acknowledge each other's existence. As I say, baffled.

'Leprechaun' insult case dropped.

If the Minogue ever happened upon here, I would be even more of a pauper than I am. The long arm of the midget law might frown down upon my derogation of God's little people.

Speaking of, God, while you're around, what is the deal with midgets?

Maesti and I have been back and forth on the old email discussing an ethical point. Maesti sent some scans of his photos to Waaart and I recently. While two of them are inanimate objects (a truck in a derelict building and a Waaart prior to 1990), one is of a friend of ours from yesteryear. She's been the subject of a few "Wonder what she's up to now..." emails over the past few weeks so it was a natural progression to send out the picture. I dated her for a while in my teens and then again in my early twenties so it was a bit of a trip down memory lane for me.

The ethical bit is whether it would be right to put the photo on the blog. It's a very nice photo and she was part of our little gang'o'villains back in the day. My question to Maesti was "I don't like taking liberties with such things [putting picture on the blog]. Dunno. What do you think? As long as we're not nasty about her (which I'm presuming we wouldn't be -- I certainly wouldn't), it wouldn't do any harm. But it just feels a bit funny."

Maesti's sage-like response was:

"Ethically it's a no - simply because when the picture was taken neither Emma or me would have known that it could be distributed so widely. If was taken last week on a digital then I'd have no problem, in that she'd have been able to understand that there was a likelihood that it could be distributed more widely.

BUT - would it offend, embarrass or upset? No - not unless anybody made a nasty comment. So I don't have any real objection - so long as we're nice about her!"

Fair comment. Emma, if you hit upon here, Maest, Waaart and I want to know what you're up to and all that jazz. And I think you should thank Maesti for a very good photo.

So I was messing around on Facebook doing one of the daft comparison-y gubbins (it's technical -- don't ask). During the course of 100 questions it was asking me to rate "who I would rather...<insert whatever here>" or "who is braver" or "who can drink the most" (that ironically for the peeps from work gave me the choice of our pet Scotsman or someone I would put in the amateur drinking category). There were a few that I skipped because even though the people in question will never know they were involved, I felt it grossly unfair to have to choose. Others I skipped because the idea was just too gross to contemplate without being paralytic.

For my trouble, what do I get:

I'm guessing the one person who has done this knows who he is, and his ninja skills won't help him here. Check under your desk before you switch anything on. Not cool? Who are 1-6 on being hard? We should all get together and duke it out. I think you'll find whatever odds you can get on me are worth having a flutter on, at least finishing in the top 3.

A side-horror of taking the test/survey was that I found myself selecting Maestro on a number of occasions. This would be fine if the questions were "Who is the second most ginger person you know?" or "Who can cartwheel Doc Martens at approaching Mach 3?" or "If you needed spiritual guidance, whose would be the last number you would call?", but they weren't.

I have now depressed myself and may well sue Facebook for defamation.

Update: I have fixed the bug in Facebook and will now be able to watch Alias without weeping...

Much better.

Not really.

On my way home, Peter Allen interviewed Fiona Graham-Mackay. She's an artist I have never heard of before but that should come as no surprise to anyone. She spent some time on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan painting what she saw. As it happens, she came across a couple of Taleban fighters toting AK47s. Her response was not to run; she calmly smiled at them, showed them her work and asked if she could paint them. They consented so she painted them, AK47s and all. She gave the painting to them to take away.

I cannot do her justice. She spoke very softly and confidently about the merits of the Afghan people. She was calmly detached from the war going on around her. Her view of her trip was so wonderfully detailed that I made a note to see if I might actually like her work. When it comes to art, if your name is not Rossetti, Waterhouse or Millais, you don't stand much of a chance of having a painting on a wall chez Kenny. As I write that, I realize that is not true; I do like some of my mother's art (her being of that persuasion). It turns out that I am strangely drawn to some of what is on her website. I'm not too keen on the portraits of various British bigwigs, but there's a picture called The Water Carriers which has mesmerized me a little. I love it.

Peter Allen was so taken with her grace and the fact that she has an exhibition in London but mentioned it in passing, he had to force her to say where and when -- even then she was totally disinterested in plugging her work. The exhibition (advertized on her website) is to be held from Nov 3rd-8th at a gallery in London (on Pall Mall -- I assume that is somewhere near Buck House, is it Charring Cross? I don't know.). If I could think of a valid reason for being in London, I would be tempted to take a trip. I think that, right there, speaks as to how taken I am by her work; the fact that I would voluntarily step foot in our shit-tip of a capital. Someone once offered me an obscene amount of money to go work at Canary Wharf back in the mid 90s -- I considered it for as long as it took me to say thanks but no thanks. Now I think about it, I'm pretty sure that the last time I went to London of my own volition it was to watch Depeche Mode, but we did tag on a trip to the Tate.

Is it really cheap and nasty to want a print of her work? I will ask the Supervisor. He is in the know about protocol on all things art-related. In fact, I think I may appoint him as Despot for the Arts in the new junta regime democratic republic.

I no longer feel like I should be in a persistent state of watching Alias DVDs. That is not to say that I wouldn't like to be in a position to do the same but sadly real life has to interfere with ones laziness every now and again. Anyway I'm back and nearly bereft of my cold, albeit briefly...

You will recall that a while ago I wrote about phrases that stick with me, whether they be from TV or from people I know. I seem to remember I cited "Bless" which is a phrase one of my mates uses whenever she doesn't want to say what she really thinks of someone. I have taken to using it when I need to express deep sarcasm. The same person often describes having "blonde moments". While I've heard that before, it has never really appealed to me because it's a bit of a ditsy nothing. I only picked up on it from my mate because if there is anyone I have ever met who does not have "blonde moments", it is she. She may well physically be blonde, but nothing could be further from the truth when describing the rest of her. The implied dappyness of the phrase only serves to reinforce the fact that she is anything but dappy.

I mention this because I have just had a telecon with someone who seemed to be on her game; efficient etc.. I have arranged to meet her tomorrow morning and she had sent me some directions. Shortly after this efficient conversation had taken place, she sent me an email that was quite obviously not meant for me, so I replied to alert her. The response? "Sorry about that, had a blonde moment." I now have a vision of turning up and meeting someone like my mate E, which will make professionalism very difficult to maintain. In a way I hope that she is like E; it will make the meeting a whole lot more interesting and fun.

As you were. Go read Bryony's take on the Ross/Brand crisis. She's summed up my view but stopped short of calling for a public hanging which is where I would have gone but not for the current crime; misusing the word "talent" would have been my justification. When the revolution is complete and I am His Grand Excellent-ness, I will have Rob the Vanquisher dictate a law stating that crimes against talent are capital offences (Kylie, check, Oddie, check etc.) and see if his interpretation of the law stretches to Ross and Brand -- I think if I buy him a pint tomorrow night he will come around to my way of thinking without too much protestation.

Right. It's lunch time. Hoisin Duck and fresh cream eclairs wait for no man. Laterz.

As Kenny has repeatedly mentioned, I'm a journalist. Part of my beat involves the local jail, which I recently had the opportunity to tour.

I wrote this story on my personal journal, but I think all of you would "enjoy it":

After putting my keys in a drawer and getting wanded, my group was off. Mysteriously, my whole group was made up of 17 and 18-year-olds who seemed to be on the edge of delinquency. The guards who took us on the tour kept drilling in the following points:

1. Jail sucks.
2. Don't go to jail.
3. Be a corrections officer!

There was one really well-dressed kid (nice pants, button-up shirt, big diamond earrings) who was dismayed to find that the male prisoners wear black-and-white stripes while the females wear red. The female inmates working in the kitchen clearly hadn't seen any cute guys in a while, because they were rating the kids in my group.

Side note: The jail carries jumpers for men up to size 10X. I have never heard of a 10X before.

My favorite part was when they were describing how the inmates were held. In Right Wing, inmates are in pods that are very much like the ones in the TV show Oz. It's two levels with stairs and activity tables in the main room. Inmates are locked into their glass rooms for six hours a day, which is where they were when we stepped into their basketball area. They all came out to look at us -- two COs, a group of future punks and me. It was quite the scene.

While we were there, the COs told the kids that they can room a person who murdered 20 people next to someone who didn't pay child support. I didn't have the heart to tell them when the last time there was a multiple murder in this town. Thankfully, I kept the eye roll to myself.

Then they were going to try to take us to Left Wing, where inmates are actually kept behind bars and could touch you as you walked by. No thank you. I went home.

I've got a cold so I'm grumpy beyond belief. I should have known I was coming down with something when I looked at the random capitalization from last night. This is the first time I've been ill since, well, the last time. I've also got rather a lot on at work.

So I'm going to hand over the helm to Tasha and/or Stan for a couple of days in the hope that they can come up with something that isn't a royal moan about being sick. I suspect the most you will get out of me is a "wow" about Spooks.

Update: Spooks -- "wow" does not come close. I want to sleep but in half an hour tomorrow's episode is on. I can resist anything except temptation...I don't know how I'm going to wait until part three. Stan, the answer to your question about British script-writers is that we still hold the Gold medal -- that was stunning/shocking/brilliant -- a complete adrenalin rush. Top viewing.

At this moment in time, I am so caustic you may well be burned being in the same room as me. With that in mind, let me ask:

Harry Redknapp = complete whore? Discuss.

Mine is awful. Feline carnage is inevitable.

The only plus point to an otherwise shite day is the news that there's a new Spooks on this evening.

What have I done?

A while back I picked up all the series of Alias on DVD. It was quite the deal. A number of episodes that is measured in similar magnitude to current deficits, all for the princely sum of a mini Mars bar. I started watching them today.

It is cheese. Pure and simple. However, unlike the more horrendous offerings the US throws at us, it is addictive Cheese. I have watched four episodes now and will try to squeeze one more in before turning in. Here's the deal:

-- Hot chick works for "a bank" but she doesn't really. She's a member of a group of baddies called SD6 who are part of the CIA. Only they're not the CIA. She's working for them thinking she is part of the CIA. When she finds out they are the bad guys (they stiff her fiancé), she approaches the CIA to act as a double agent, so she's now working for a bank, going to grad school, working for the bad guys *and* the CIA.

-- It turns out that her father works for SD6 and she never knew. Then it turns out that he too is a double agent. They have been estranged for years so there's that whole regaining of trust deal going on, endless contemplation and associated heartbreak.

-- Hot chick flies to exotic places on missions. Anywhere within the American continent is named by city only. Anywhere in the rest of the world has the city followed by the country, just in case we don't know where Malaga or Berlin are.

-- Mid show (I have it timed at precisely 26 minutes), there is some soul-wrenching music. So far Dave Matthews, Sarah Maclachlan, Kate Bush while Hot chick remembers fiancé, mother, friend.

-- Hot chick has combat scene shortly afterwards, usually against arch-rival chick from organization something 9.

-- Hot chick sprays gunfire, escapes, job done, returns to base and has one last part of the mission to clean up which lands her deep in doodoo. Cue the credits.

My God. I have about a month's worth of viewing here. All I can say is that I'm getting some kind of endorphin rush out of it and there are some corking one-liners.

Save me.

Driving back from Albert Towers, for once in my life I tired of music and couldn't be bothered listening to the Tyneside derby so I flicked the radio over to BBC Radio 4. The afternoon play was about Gustave Flaubert, author of Madame Bovary. I have never read the book although I am now minded to do so. I was actually grateful for the chaos on the M60 so I could hear all of the play. I'll put a link up to it as soon it gets put on iPlayer. If you do nothing else this weekend, spare an hour to listen to it. It's a masterpiece of radio programming.

After the play, Stage to Screen told the tale of the musical Oh What a Lovely War. I've heard of it over the years but have never seen it. I now want to see it. Apparently the film debuted the day before I was born, which is no great shakes really but for some totally unjustifiable reason compels me to watch it.

This got me thinking. I criticize Al Beeb quite a lot, but the more I thought about it, the more that I realized that I am a BBC junkie. If I'm not on the website, I'm on Radio 4 or 5. Quite frankly I would not function without the BBC. In the US, I was a NPR addict but I could never really get animated about it; it was the least bad of an admittedly pretty grim set of choices. The BBC is a national treasure. What do we pay in license fees each year? It's about £150 and worth every penny.

UK peeps, can you imagine a world without the BBC? I can't even conceive of what that would be like.

What a lovely drive back...I should do that more often.

Update: Link.

Medium-easy crosswords?

Guardian battered.

I'll now drive back from Albert Towers to put the Telegraph to the sword.

I'm getting vibes.

From the comments and email I have been getting surrounding journalism, I think I might be better cut out for the job than even I previously thought. For example, I write stuff and people quite obviously don't like it but they read it anyway and I don't give a jockstrap so carry on regardless.

I skimmed over the Wiki page on gonzo journalism. I've read quite few blog entries deriding Thompson for his lack of talent. I couldn't comment as I've never read a word he wrote. As we all know though, a lack of knowledge on a subject doesn't ever stop me from having an opinion. I spent a long period of my adult life being a shrinking violet and trying to avoid having strong opinions on anything because invariably at least one of them will be wrong (e.g. '''Michael Owen''' actually does score occasionally). I gave that up a few years ago when I realized it had cost me quite a lot. In this case I don't think I need to have read anything to have an opinion.

There's no right or wrong style of writing. I write in a style that is literally a transcription of what I'm thinking, so I'll take the "stream of consciousness" jibe on the chin and own that one. It strikes me that if '''Hunter S Thompson''' stirs up so much passion, he must have been doing something right, whether he was subjective, objective or as pissed as '''Dennis Thatcher'''. There's a time and a place for objectivity. That place is at work. Without a bit of subjectivity, life is dull. It's the same reason Hemmingway is famous really. Now I have read some of his work and, to be brutal, I loathed every second of it. I ended up hating the man (and his writing) but he achieved what he set out to do and got people talking.

Anyway, I didn't start doing this to win friends and influence people. If I'm tarred with the same brush as Hunter S Thompson (although nowadays you'd be hard pressed to find me pissed), so be it. As the Waaart once said to me, in an uncharacteristic moment of kindness, "you can't sing but people don't care about that; you try to sing and you have style so they like it". I'd probably say the same thing about my writing.

</sensitivity>

My boss thinks I should definitely not do a journalism course. He thinks I am too verbose and pansy up my written word too much. Get the Jesus H Christ, ever loving son of a gun with a hand-basket and extra mayo out of here. I gave him a loaded one-liner that he would never make it as journalist because his written skills amount to a couple of words from which creation should be made. Touché.

It would appear that popular opinion seems to be that I should hand over the keys to the blog to Tasha on the basis that she's much more entertaining than I am. I am allowed to say that. You lot are not. Remember this is not a democracy -- it's a social experiment (see below). In mitigation I will say that Tasha is a bona-fide journalist and I barely scraped my English O levels so up yer respective ones! ;)

While I was outside shivering with a sad looking cigarette this afternoon, I was chatting with one of our developer guys, telling him about the fact that I had started programming Java and moaning that it's not Java that's the problem; it's the damned IDEs. I suspect that once you get used to one you will love it forever and never want to switch. He's advised me to ditch the XCode and pull down Eclipse (which Evil Albert advised ages ago, I think). I will look into it. I told Mr Developer that if I failed to make it as a journalist, I needed a backstop, hence the Java interest. Cue guffaws.

"You are mad. If you're a journalist, you'll be the first against the wall come the revolution. And if you're a code monkey, no-one will ever know you exist. You want to stay where you are."

Harrumph. I had to point out that come the revolution, I will be the guy in the white coat organizing the damned thing and that he would do well to remember that.

Is this really all there is to life? Is it the case that all I have to look forward is becoming an old and totalitarian tinpot dictator? This sucks.

Every once in a while, my boyfriend proclaims that I'll start making my millions if I write books. I write every day at work and on blogs, so it shouldn't be that hard to craft a 300-page, witty best friend, right?

Indeed.

And so, every year since 2003, I've attempted NaNoWriMo. I always start with the best of intentions -- an outline of a silly or completely serious novel plot, a daily writing schedule and a propensity for posting on the forum to help others along with their stories. And then, at midnight on November 1, I sit down and start typing. One thousand, six-hundred and sixty-seven words later, and I'm ready for bed and hoping to do it again for another 29 days.

It never happens. I think I once made it to 13,000 words, but then I got busy. Writing professionally tires me out for major writing when I come home. Mostly, I just want to watch streaming TV and zone out.

An aside: I spent this evening watching *all but one episode* of season two of my very favorite British call girl show. How pleased I was to see a certain former dead guy starring in it! /barely topical squee over.

I'm breaking all of my rules this year. On midnight on November 1, I will be wasted at a bachelorette party. I have logged in to the site, but I won't be posting on the forum. An outline? Ha. Maybe these things will be the key to my success...or my undoing, four years running.

If you get the reference, increment your sadness level by at least a hundred.

The reason there is danger is that I have finally stooped to new depths. I spend my life decrying various things and then, as I become older and more mentally unstable, I fall victim to them. To wit, I am typing this on my Macbook. You would never have thought that would happen a year ago. Then again, there were a few things that I was certain wouldn't happen a year ago, specifically me still being on the planet.

My latest weakness is that I have started coding in Java. I've not done anything useful yet, but I reckon that if I have a couple of weeks messing with it, it will be enough to make me a moderately competent Java programmer. I will never be as God-like as I am writing PHP because in one form or another (i.e. "C"), I have been writing that style of code for 20 years. Java is this O-O nonsense that I despise. That said, I'll let you into my dirty closet of hidden mixed laundry secret metaphors and say that the majority of the code that powers the engine of this here site is O-O but in PHP. Anything clever is written in straight procedural code though.

There; after the heady heights of my BBC fame, my feet are now back firmly on the muddy ground. Expect more guest posts from our US correspondent, Tasha. As can be seen from her first couple of posts, she makes much more sense than I do and doesn't wart on about celebs, politicians, midgets, Fiona Apple or world domination. I call that a breath of fresh air. Speaking of Fiona Apple, I realize you are all probably suffering Apple-related DTs so I give you another one of my favorite tipples.

Well it has to be said that I've never had such an increase in hits for passing comment on wayward shadow ministers, and Lord knows I do it with some frequency. The BBC Breakfast blog appeared to have linked to my little rant about how disgraceful Alan Duncan was yesterday morning. Those of you who know me will be unsurprised to learn that I didn't hold my tongue. First I emailed Breakfast and congratulated Shelagh Fogarty on making Duncan look like the detached hooray-Henry loon that he is, then I emailed Duncan himself with a "disgusted of 'oop Norf" style comment. Finally, because I was still livid and because reading his cant sent me into early onset dementia, I emailed my favorite journo at the Telegraph in the hope that she might feel fit to pepper him with castigation.

While I don't make a habit of harrying public figures into an early career termination (with the exception of Alan Duncan, Jeremy Clarkson, Bill Oddie, Didier Drogba and Kylie Minogue), I am available for children's parties and/or contract character-assassinations.

Update: The Telegraph did pick it up, sadly without a suitable comment. I'll check the op-ed.

Hi there, Tasha here again.

I spent most of this weekend driving from Virginia to New Jersey for a wedding. Six hours after getting into the car in my Renaissance dress (it was a theme wedding), I arrived at a very large Roman Catholic church in a very sketchy area.

While I was waiting to use the restroom, I saw this sign on the bulletin board:

THIS IS A NEW BULLETIN BOARD
A new board was bought because the old one was marred by graffiti
PLEASE DO NOT DOODLE, SCRIBBLE OR WRITE ON THIS BOARD

Yes, like everywhere else in that town, the church's bulletin board was rife with scrawled names. Even the above sign was doodled on with smilies and stars. In the style of Homer Simpson, someone actually wrote "OK" on the sign.

Oh, New Jersey. If any of you ever decide to make a trip to the States, please avoid that one. If you need a further deterrent, it is this -- the state is the most densely populated, and the inhabitants have the equivalent of a Brummie accent. Yes.

All I did was mention that Fogarty and Duncan had a bit of an exchange this morning and I've had gazillions of hits on the subject. To recap, Alan Duncan is an arse. Shelagh Fogarty can do no wrong in my world. Anyone listening to Duncan this morning must be left wondering who on earth would vote for him to be pencil monitor let alone Shadow Business Secretary. Apparently the poor people of Rutland and Melton must have had a choice of Duncan or an international war criminal -- it must have been a close run thing. If you need evidence of a moonbat, try his website. I am resisting the urge to email him and tell him what a pompous prig he is. I want to see this guy in action with Peter Allen or Jeremy Paxman -- while I'm not a fan of blood sports, that is one I wouldn't miss.

Before this morning I had never heard of Duncan. I now know of him and will despise him for the next lifetime or two. This is coming from someone who asked for some kind of reason when discussing Sarah Palin, with the instruction that you cannot hate someone so passionately when you have only known of their existence for 6 weeks. I take it back. It takes less than three minutes to loathe someone's very essence. That said, Sarah Palin comes nowhere near this muppet for sheer unadulterated arrogance.

Note to self: close email client before you succumb.

Rob and I were no more than a mile away when this happened. Scary.

I can't find anything on t'interweb about this, but the Shadow Business Secretary (Alan Duncan) was on Radio 5 this morning, being interviewed by Shelagh Fogarty. I think it is not over the top to say that he was the most pompous, arrogant, self-important tw*t I have ever heard. At one point he asked Shelagh "Are you a serious interviewer?" and then laughed. I was livid. Fogarty needs no shielding though -- she has a magnicent technique that allows her to verbally KO anyone who dares to be a git -- so floored him in one sentence. He went away looking like the tit he is and Fogarty got to laugh about it. Love her to bits. If Duncan had tried that with one of the elder statesmen of broadcast journalism (I'm thinking Humphries, Paxman, Allen), he would have been crying for his mother for weeks while checking whether his arse had healed yet. I will make a point of following his career as it descends into dust, the prat.

Anyway, good morning all. How was your weekend?

I don't know why I feel compelled to let you know how I spend my Sundays but I do.

I tried to take some photographs of the Gogglebot this afternoon. I had my camera set to take continuous photos in the hope that I might get one decent shot. After I had downloaded 101 pictures and flicked through the blur that is Goggle I realized it was a pointless exercise. There is some comedy to be had from flicking through them at speed. They look like a slow-motion view of a blur. Some of them see Pater and Goggle walking forward a few steps, more or less in sync. I spotted this so flicked back through them, and then forward again. As they went backward, there was an illusion that my father was breakdancing. Naturally I want to take those and make a dance out of them, set to some highly inappropriate music.

I tried the video out on my camera. I had about 2 minutes of Goggle dancing. Rather I didn't because I had not pressed the button long enough. So I took about 30 seconds before she flopped, absolutely knackered.

Goggle likes Uncle Kenny a lot. I was the only one who could have kisses whenever I wanted. No-one else was allowed kisses. All I did was ask and I got smothered in them. While my mother tried to cuddle her, she broke free and came straight to Uncle Kenny. When she wanted to play, Uncle Kenny was the choice because he's more on her level. I suspect that by the time she is five, she will be telling me to grow up because she'll have outgrown me.

I've just spent half an hour installing a wireless printer/scanner. I've swapped my printer and scanner for the combined unit that my dad bought ages ago and has never managed to get working. I had it working with my Windows machine wirelessly within seconds. The Macbook is a bit more tricky. UNIX was always a pain for printers. I guess Macs are too -- guilt by association. Actually, that's not fair. I'm sure the print manager on OS X is much better than its ancestors. The problem here is that Lexmark do not provide drivers for Macs, or if they do, they are hidden away somewhere. By hook or by crook it will work but I have had enough for today.

There you go. Scintillating wasn't it?

Eddy has just received a text from my brother -- he's just left Teesside airport en route to China. Apparently he walked past the whole of the Chelsea team who were flying back to London.

I think he missed a trick. He could have decked Drogba and been arrested thus avoiding his trip to China. Everyone would be a winner.

Next time you're prostrating yourself in the direction of the Holy city, you would do well to make sure you are doing so in the correct direction. Mecca is actually the ancient Arab word for Wigan. But because there was no 600 bus to take the ancients to Wigan or show them which direction Wigan was, they made their own little infidel Mecca.

I say this only because I am drunk on my own success and have awarded myself God status, at least in my own home. I spent the afternoon fiddling and amongst other small victories, I rattled off that comment editor I was talking about earlier. It's pretty sweet. It's just a shame that all bar a couple of you will never see it, just like the ancients never saw Wigan.

There is the small matter of some footie to be dealt with now.

I'm so excited. My electronic cigarettes have turned up. The parental units arrived just as I was trying to figure out how to assemble it. Pater nodded sagely and advised that I use some common sense in assembling my first e-cig. I had to point out that common sense is an oxymoron when used in the same sentence as the word Kenny. He figured it out as I went outside to smoke a snail-cig.

Am I impressed? I'm not sure yet. I have discovered something though. I don't think I'm addicted to nicotine. That might be obvious if you know which cigs I smoke. I think I'm addicted to the sensation of smoke hitting the back of my throat. This might be why nicotine chewing gum and patches did squat-diddly for me. In that respect I don't think the e-cig will float my boat. You get a slight sensation of something in your mouth but not the harsh attack that a snail-cig gives you. Maybe I'm addicted to the arsenic in the paper. I should check that out by having arsenic patches while I smoke my e-tab.

I'm doing some coding today. At the moment, if I want to edit my comments, I have to jump through hoops and write SQL queries on the fly. I have been doing this for years and it bores the nads off me, so I'm writing a nice little GUI to edit and/or delete them. It's not rocket science but it keeps my hand in. I was minded to do this after seeing that Tasha managed to use my home-brew blogging software. After I had sent her a login I went into a small panic because other than Stan (who is of a techie bent), she was the first person ever to use it and I wondered whether it was usable. It is dead simple to me, but that counts for nothing. Anyway, Tasha didn't email abuse to me so it mustn't be too horrible and therefore my confidence in my own coding skills is restored and I will write this GUI.

My kid brother leaves for China this afternoon so his missus, Eddy, and the Gogglebot are descending for the second week on the trot. I have ordered some tranquilizer darts so I can get the Gogglebot to keep still while I take some photos.

Right, I've made both my parents' day. They were howling with laughter as I took my first drag on my e-cig. They want to know if I actually exist or am I a truly virtual Kenny. I explained that I am a very real pain in the arse to quite a lot of people and that because I am feeling very liberal today, that is all their fault.

First off, I'd like to thank Tasha for her insights into how well I manage to convince the masses that I'm really a nice guy. Those that know me will either have sore sides from laughing so hard or be hooked up to life support from the shock. I hope that she'll post as often as she feels like. We could be an unholy duo of cathartic pathos.

My silence this morning has been caused by me stopping to take a metaphorical breath of fresh air. I've had the guys from Redhat in to discuss some gubbins. I've always loved the Redhat. I've kind of taken my eye off what they have been doing over the last couple of years so this mornings little show and tell was quite the enlightenment. It felt like I had been transported back a few years as I heard about new products they have and started thinking about which markets they should be targeting, how you could tie them in with other technologies and then, naturally given I'm me, how you would end up ruling the world. I suppose I did pay just a little thought about the systems I am about to deploy too, but that was incidental. If you're of a techie bent, you may know this, but Redhat offer *so* much more than Fedora and REL5. They are an impressive company with some great products.

Alors, thanks Tasha. Feel free to update us all on how you managed to get back home. Did you get back in time to make the presses and break the story that Kenny is a complete bastard or did I manage to sabotage your journey so you missed it, thereby preserving my aura of niceness? Enquiring minds and all that...

Ahoy there! I am here to abuse my power. *rubs hands together* Muhahahaha!

There's something I ought to mention about my dream e-mail. Until Kenny left me waiting at the coffee shop, I did not think that he was a git. No, no, he seemed quite nice and I was looking forward to meeting him. We were having a good time until that whole debacle. I'm secretly hoping that the dream resumes tonight so I can find out how I got back home. Not only did Kenny leave me toothbrushless, but he had all of my luggage!

I've kept dream journals off and on throughout my life, although all you really need is a pen and paper and a crazy dream. Personally, my dreams tend to be adventures of various sizes that don't ever resolve themselves. For a long time, I used to wake up to music, which would fade in like it was the end of the movie. Since I'm an alt rock fan, waking up to tunes definitely got my day started.

This particular dream ended with me pulling out a card telling me how much I'd get for my item. It was not enough for a toothbrush.

Damn you, Kenny.

Our man with her finger on the pulse in the US has just sent me an email:

Kenny,

I just woke up from a dream that you were in!

I came to visit you, but I managed to come in October rather than December. A fair amount of the dream was spent trying to tell my boss that I had accidentally come two months early (so that they wouldn't think I was skipping work).

Among the weird things that happened:

- The lady at the credit union said that I couldn't use my card to get out money, basically limiting me to my credit card for my entire trip.

- At one point, you made me wait in front of what was supposed to be a coffeeshop, but what was actually some sort of male escort service. There were a few old women out in front who were waiting to meet up with the men, but rather than looking forward to sex, they wanted to do mundane things instead.

- After an hour in front of the shop, I crossed the street and met up with some people who you had introduced me to earlier. They agreed that I had been scammed.

- Soon after, I ended up at this weird auction place where you put items in machines and they automatically gauge how much they wanted to pay you for them. I was doing this to get a toothbrush, etc., but it was strange because I was actually putting items from my purse into the machine in order to have enough for these items. I think I came to England with four $20 bills.

- In the dream, you liked wine.

Thought I'd share. That was a very strange dream.

Hope you're well.

Tasha

I have responded:

Hiya,

Wow. Aren't I rotten? You'd have thought I would have bought you a toothbrush. What a swine.

The coffee shop in question is probably called "Mad Jack's" and is situated about a mile from my house. From your description, it operates exactly as you say with the only exception being that sex is the aim of the game. I went there once. I certainly wouldn't take anyone I liked there so, again, what a bastard I am.

The "auction" is probably the market around the corner from Mad Jack's. It is a truly mysterious place where one can trade anything and everything. The currency is usually pork or steak and kidney pies. In fact pies are currency everywhere in the North West. Your green-backs would have impressed no-one. Come to think of it, English notes don't impress anyone either. It's all about the number of pies to the pound (actually pounds to the pie).

Still, you've obviously got me sussed and appear to have some kind of inherited memory of Wigan.

Kenny

It's frightening that Tasha has never met me but has me pegged. For her troubles, I have provided her with a login so she can guest post and tell me how right I am -- you know, just as a contrast.

So I was due in Bristol today, only my meeting got rescheduled for tomorrow so I drove down after I'd had had the car serviced and eaten lunch. I figured I would get here just in time to check into the hotel, eat some food, watch the football, lounge around a while and then get a good night's sleep.

It took me 2 hours and 10 minutes door to door. That's only 20 minutes longer than my average commute to Leeds. How messed up is that? For those of you that aren't acquainted with the geography of England, from my house to Leeds (where I usually work) is 60 miles. From my house to Bristol is 155 miles. I know: different times of day, got lucky etc., but still, it's a big difference.

On my way down, I was listening to radio 5, which is my station of choice. It was quite educational in that I ended up re-appraising my view of a couple of people who were being interviewed.

The first one was Ricky Gervais. I'm going to go off on a "Kenny being controversial" again and say that I really don't like him. He's not funny and he's not even affable in his demeanor. I've watched The Office and Extras in the past and I just didn't laugh. Maybe there is something wrong with me. The Office actually made me feel quite depressed. Were I tuned in to watch what really goes on in offices as a non-participant, maybe I'd have laughed at the cheese-factor, but I wasn't. All it did was remind me of past jobs where I sat sapped of any humor watching "corporate" behavior all around me. I just didn't get Extras at all. It reminded me of very bad Two Ronnies sketches, except at least Ronnie Barker could always rescue a bad sketch. Gervais sounded like a seasoned media-player with bad delivery. He'd say something that I assume he thought was funny and append a "no, but seriously" after it, like we were all in hysterics; a sure fire winner with Kenny. Gervais: nil points.

Next up was P D James, or Baroness James if you prefer. What a lovely lady. I've no idea what her background is. She's in the Lords and has a posh accent so I'm assuming that she's not from the lower middle class that she claims to be from. You don't end up with an accent like that from attending your local comp, but I'll forgive her just because she is such a pleasant character. Given her take on the world around her (she was 19 when the second world war started), I am going to make a point of reading her latest book; it's fiction but a lot of the explanation of the plot indicates that some of what the book describes is at least partially drawn from her 88 years on the planet. I think the last time I "read" anything of hers was when I had just started secondary school and had to write up a book a week so I read the first chapter, middle chapter and last chapter and then spoke with great authority about the plot in a written report. Since then, I have learned to read. Anyway, she sounds like a national treasure and I thoroughly approved.

Finally Frank Skinner was interviewed. At first I was deadly disappointed because when I heard the word Skinner, I automatically thought of Dennis Skinner. I have never even got to the point of analyzing whether I have ever agreed with Dennis Skinner in my life, but I know I like him, just because he's out there. Frank Skinner is a bit of an unknown to me because I was away for a lot of his glory years and didn't really see anything he produced. Maybe I was here but he was off my radar. As a human being, he sounds like a reasonable man. He's not side-splittingly witty on most things but once you get him on the subject of football, the humor shines through, as does his passion for the game. It was an inauspicious interview but on the whole he seemed like a nice enough chap.

Now that I've discovered that the England game is on Setanta, I'm a bit torn as to what to do. I had assumed it would be on ITV so could sit in my hotel room and watch it. I have the choice of meandering or listening to it on the radio. Given that I hate Setanta (and Sky) commentary and that I can actually smoke inside (hotel room) for the first time in over a year, I guess the radio sounds like a good call, followed by the highlights.

Genüg. Nosebag time before the footie.

Note I wrote this before I saw Stan had posted below.

I have started writing why I disagree with Stan's view that a rights issue is the right thing to do. It currently runs at around 6 volumes. The problem with this kind of debate on a blog is that all sorts of misinterpretations are likely to be made. To be honest, this is really a down the pub debate where there's an instant response and ongoing dialogue. Doing it on a blog is going to be tedious. I know. I have started trying to explain why and, as I say, the seventh tome is underway.

I have tried my hardest not to patronize anyone in my reasoning but I felt it vital to my argument to go back to the first principles of under what circumstances rights issues are valid actions and what happens when it all goes pear-shaped.

So it's long. It's long and it's not finished. And then there's the outstanding question of whether anyone gives a fish's tit about what Stan or I think. We all know Maest (in his multiple incarnations) is happy so I'm sure the masses will sleep easy. I might post it tomorrow evening. I might not. As I say, I'm not sure it's the right forum for hotly disputed topics du jour. Actually thinking on it, I almost certainly won't post it tomorrow because a) I will be in Bristol and b) I will be watching football. Maybe Thursday, but then I'll be on the M6. Maybe Friday, by which time the whole damned thing could be moot.

I'm off to veg before my trip darn Sarf tomorrow, and I have all my gubbins to pack to cater for the allergic nosebleed I get as soon as I am South of Northwich. G'night.

... mostly puzzled.

Let me see if I've got this straight.

(1) Kenny gets a rush of blood to the head and instead of buying lots of cans of lovely make-feel-nice juice with his pay, he buys up a small piece of Accident-waiting-to-happen PLC.

(2) Kenny describes as "moronic" anyone willing to buy exactly what he bought last week. The only difference is that the morons would be paying less.

(3) Kenny is against Rights Issues, but that's probably because they push his portfolio further underwater.

Here are the alternatives to Rights Issues :-

(a) Government Loan - on the taxpayer's behalf the government have negotiated a punitive rate of interest for all these billions recently loaned. The banks are only availing themselves of it because the alternative is bankrupcy. It's an expensive option.

(b) Interbank loan - all banks are in a similar position and those with money are charging the earth. Expensive.

(c\) Sell assets - to whom ? And the debts massively outnumber the liquidatible assets so not a complete solution.

(d) Sell debt - in the form of bonds. Not a long-term solution and since quality of debt is so low, the interest rate would be high.

(e) Do nothing - go bankrupt.

So that leaves asking the shareholders in a Rights Issue.

Should have invested in beer - at least then you might get a deposit back on the empty can. Suggest you cut your losses and concentrate on your core competencies (IT, female singer-songwriters and medium-easy cryptic crosswords).

Mostly stressed.

Gutted that Annie got killed off in Murphy's Law.

Likely in transit.

Sick of fires on the M62 (see above).

Probably on his way down the M6 (see above).

Disagreeing with Stan's view on the rights issue for reasons that he will elaborate on later if he hasn't keeled over from stress.

A bit head over heels, or arse over t*t depending on your view of the world.

Wanting a nice sedentary job weaving baskets or baking cakes.

Tired.

Okay, here is where I part with conventional thinking.

The banks (poor dears) are a bit strapped for cash, so they're remortgaging with the government. Within a matter of days, UK PLC will be owned by the People's Republic of Britain. There will be precisely one high street bank that is not in debt to the government to the tune of a good few bazillion, and they are foreign-owned.

Not content with oodles of squillions of tax-payers money, and here's the kicker, they're planning on issuing new shares.

Now, smack my arse and call me Rupert, but is that not the maddest thing you have ever heard in your life? It beggars belief.

Let me go through the logic here.

Your share price is proceeding South with epic dispatch and your market cap is now in the single digit billions rather than double or triple digit. You're a bit short of cash so you borrow a stonking great wadge from the government, effectively handing over the company to them. But you reckon you might as well milk your current catastrophe for all its worth, because this is your very last chance to screw up and get paid for it. So you further dilute the share price by issuing new shares, which is tantamount to robbing existing share-holders while simultaneously raking in more gullible idiots (such as my good self) with the promise of what?

I'm just not seeing anything sensible or ethical about this whatsoever. Let me put aside the fact that I have lost money on this...I didn't have a great deal to start off with so I'm not going to jump off a building anytime soon (what I lost might have bought me a week in the Costa Del Tack).

Let's go through this in terms of an average person's finances. You're struggling to pay your mortgage because of credit card debts that you must pay off, so you call someone who offers you a nice wadge of cash to pay off your bills with a low monthly payment, all secured on your house. So you're now breathing easy again. What is the sensible thing to do? I know. Why don't you take all your newly paid off credit cards and spend them right up to their limit again. Happy days.

Heavens to Betsy. Someone explain to me why a new rights issue is a sensible thing to do. And once you have done that, explain to me who would be moronic enough to want to buy said shares.

Well, at this moment in time, Kenny is 30% down on his stocks.

You may all gloat.

Update: I can't even look. 40% and falling. To quote Mo's dad again, "Eventually everybody gets shot."

Update 2: You know it's a bad day when you hit refresh, see you're 30% down and think to yourself it's *only* 30%.

I'm on holiday today so why I'm up early I have no idea. I woke up panic-stricken that I may have forgotten to put out the recycling. Thank you greenies. The chap next door seems to have a better idea. He's been burning stuff in a wood-stove all week. It's been so frequent that I suspect he must have done the decent thing with the yappie that appears every couple of weeks and keeps me awake.

Nay matter. I'm awake and waiting for the lazy-assed paperboy to bring me a crossword.

I sat watching my niece yesterday in awe. She's a gem. She's also one very lucky kid to have the Flip-Flop and my brother as parents. She will want for nothing in her life because her parents absolutely dote on her. You might argue that she's lucky to have an Uncle Kenny who doesn't play by the rules. Yesterday I sat earnestly advising her how to circumvent the old "no pudding until you've eaten your main course" law. While the Flip-Flop echoed that maxim at length, I whispered to her that the best way to get around this little foible was to chuck her plate off the table and that it was a better option if there's an animal around to quickly dispose of the evidence, thus ensuring that cake arrived quicker. She looked at me like I was mad. I promised her it was a kosher move. Unfortunately she's too much like her parents and looked appalled at the idea. She's still young so there is hope that I can corrupt her.

As I tried to coerce her into the Kenny school of getting what you want, I got to thinking about what she has ahead of her. There is no doubt that she'll have a happy childhood. Kidder and Flip-Flop are entirely well rounded people who will assent to whichever direction in life she chooses.

There are two things I envy about the young. The first is the obvious. So much of being an adult is dreary. Waking up in a panic because it's recycling day is about as banal as it gets. I forget the last time anyone made me a brew in bed; how sad is that? I don't ask for much really; I can cope with global economic meltdown better if I don't have to jump out of bed to deal with trivia. As I say, dreary.

The second thing is, I suppose, a bit of a vicarious one. If there is one thing that I would change about my life, I would have taken music lessons. The trouble is that my formative years conspired against me. The well-intentioned recorder lessons that were inflicted upon us at junior school were akin to torture, so much so that I used to "forget" mine like clockwork and mime along with the rest of the class, playing mad solos on a ruler. I hated it. I vaguely recall that they tried to teach me how to read music. Whoever that teacher was, if they cared about their job they must have spent many evenings crying in despair. Conventional wisdom has it that if you are mathematically inclined, you should pick up reading music quickly. I beg to differ. To this day I can "read" music only if I have a half-hour to transcribe the notes into something I understand. When I was about 11, I went for an aptitude test to play the trumpet and was accepted. I remember thinking that if I could learn how to play the trumpet, it might kick-start an ability to read music. The problem was that the trumpet lessons meant I missed an hour of maths a week. Pater being Pater, he would never allow that. To him, the holy grail lay in a good education in the sciences and anything else be damned. I remember sulking for weeks as some of my mates disappeared to music lessons, while I sat in a corner with text-books that the 16 year-olds used because they didn't want to bore me. If there was one thing on the planet that I did not need, it was maths classes. If there was one thing that I desperately wanted, it was music lessons.

Fast forward a few years and I got taught a bit of how to play a synth (by the Waaart of all people). I tried to learn guitar but my heart was not really in it. Guitars bore me. They're a dull noise that, to be honest, I could live without. Electric guitars are truly the devil's own creation. The older I get the more averse I am to listening to anything that involves an electric guitar. The counter to that is I can listen to piano all day. There is something about the sound of a piano that rocks my little world. Give me a strong, angry bass line played on a piano and I will be like a rabbit in headlights. It rattles me something awful. And boy-oh-boy do I wish that I had been given the opportunity to learn piano as a kid. I think I can quite honestly say that if I have one regret about anything, it is that I never had the chance to take piano lessons. It's easy to say in hindsight but I suspect had that chance been around, I would have seized it with both hands (probably to the detriment of everything else). Instead I'm a bit of a self-taught amateur. I'm an awful lot better at playing a keyboard than I was in my teenage years. If I have one ambition in life now, it is to own a piano. I'll gladly drive crap cars for the rest of my life if I can have a piano. It really is the last thing on my list of check-boxes and must be done.

As I sat watching Gogglebot yesterday, it struck me that I should make sure that she got the opportunity to learn piano. My brother will, no doubt, have her playing guitar as soon as she can span the frets. I suspect it will be my job to make sure she gets her hands on a piano. How old do kids need to be before you start teaching them how to play an instrument? I recall that Fiona Apple started when she was about 4 years old. If that is the case, I have two years to get my act together and acquire a piano so I can baby-sit for Goggle.

In the absence of my kids, Goggle will get lucky. Even if she is not interested at all in the piano, she will always know how to get her sweet when she fancies it. Such are the benefits of having an Uncle Kenny.

Well, the small ginger one (and I'm not talking about Maestro) was as elusive as usual. I think I managed two decent shots out of 4GB of storage. She is what we call a wick'un in these parts. I'll download them tomorrow and stick the decent ones (very few in number -- I have many of Gogglebot in a blur) on Flickr!. I think the best picture I got was of Flip-Flop when she wasn't looking although she looks utterly miffed in it. I think she expected better banter and I could not oblige because the Observer crossword was still troubling me; some things just have to be done and sarcasm has to take a back seat.

My success for the day comes at golf. I went into the final hole at 1 under par but finished the round at par. It's still the best I've ever done on that course. I am, of course, talking about the Playstation. No matter, I birdied three holes, two of them from chips and I was a matter of inches away from a hole in one at the 7th.

Given I'm off tomorrow, I'm once again heading to Garswood with the Vanquisher to poke fun at anything that crops up. A bientôt.

You'll have to bear with me here because I've just got up, have had only the smallest mouthful of coffee and one cigarette. This is never a condition I would normally hit the keyboard in, but I have been riled.

My paper of choice (apart from Sundays when it's a horrific rag), the Daily Telegraph, have an article that is being syndicated all over the place about Gordon Brown's failing eyesight. It's a bit sickly in its implications.

Apparently Gordon lost sight in one eye in a rugby incident when he was a teenager. His other eye is now failing him and he recently had an operation to remove a cataract from it. He has trouble reading and negotiating unfamiliar places.

My disgust is the way in which the Telegraph have hinted what "some people" might think about the timing of this announcement.

There is enough flack in the policies and relative failure of the current government to sink a battleship. I'm not sure we need to start personal attacks. I'm comfortable with the odd jibe about politicians having "something of the night" about them, because that is our way of articulating what we perceive as an aura and, to be honest, it's amusing. It isn't said to offend; it's a light-hearted way of saying that someone is a scary bastard. We cross the line if we start spinning medical conditions. I'm pretty sure that not even the king of spin himself (Mandy) would use something as serious as going blind to claw back a percentage point in the polls.

This is not the first time that the health of our leaders has been touted as being of national importance. There was a story last week, admittedly a bit better buried in the center pages, talking us through Mandy's trip to have a kidney stone removed.

The Telegraph have done a number here. They know that it is distasteful to directly question Brown's ability to govern based upon a medical condition, especially given that it is one that doesn't directly affect his ability to make decisions. Instead, rather than take a cheap shot, they've taken a slightly less cheap shot and intimated that the announcement in itself is Brown or his team using the condition to their advantage.

No matter what you may think of Gordon Brown, he is not the devil incarnate just as Tony Blair was not a deity. We managed to rid ourselves of the devil incarnate when John Major took the helm. Brown is a competent politician who inherited the hangover after TB's ten year piss-up. I think his discomfort in public speaking and lack of skill in twisting words to his own advantage are actually quite endearing qualities. The fact that he cannot laugh in times such as these is probably not a bad thing.

It's amazing what they can do with eyes nowadays. I genuinely hope that there is some treatment that Gordon Brown can have that will correct his vision. Having watched someone I know and love lose their sight to cataracts over the years and seen the difficulties they faced, I have nothing but sympathy. If this is happening to Brown and he continues to lead, he has my utmost admiration. If I lost my sight, I would be a mess; there is just no way I would cope.

Honestly, that article has me nearly sending a letter to the Telegraph with a "livid of Wigan" signature. We should not do the politics of personality here like our US brethren appear to love. It's demeaning to all involved. I hope whoever wrote that sickly piece in the Telegraph is afflicted with insomnia from guilt for a very long time.

I will now grab my second coffee, third cigarette and attempt to make some headway on the crossword. I am off to see my niece, the Flip-Flop and my brother shortly (my brother has had a stay of execution on the China trip thanks to a post-office cock-up). I'm going to take my camera to see if I can master taking shots of a small ginger thing who is never still.

It has to be said that my boss, who is no longer my boss but still operates like the unprincipled ninja that he is, is bizarre. I called him bizarre before he became my boss. His randomness increased as the stress of management hit him. Unfortunately we think very similarly which means that innocent conversations can provoke muted giggles which are amplified when we realize the other has had the same thought. I woke up this morning and noticed that I had received a Len Ganley on Facebook from him. I about bust a gut. Probably one in a hundred people would understand the reference. Probably one in a hundred in that one in a hundred would find it amusing. Whoever came up with a Half Man Half Biscuit gift application is a genius.

I have been liberal in gifting Lord Hereford's Knob, a Competition Onion and a Dukla Prague Away Kit. I could have sent karma but I need to get to a level where I can send a 99% of gargoyles look like Bob Todd.

Update: Maesti will like this. HMHB describe Ian Dury as "a cubist version of Rolf Harris".

Ladies of Garswood, lock up your daughters. The Vanquisher and I will be painting Garswood a slightly sickly shade of pale pink later this evening. Given there is only one pub in Garswood nowadays, advise your daughters to avoid two scary looking geezers laughing uncontrollably in the Railway. Rob is taking his stick to beat them away just in case. I'm taking my stick to help me to walk. Honestly, we'll be irresistible.

I'm off to find some Jacques Brel to put on here. I figure that in this time of European tension, we will need some appropriate music to capitulate to.

Kenny has a few days of idleness in front of him. With only a couple of minor excursions to distract him, he has time on his hands. He could spend this doing constructive things that will make the world a better place for everyone. Instead he has decided (after reading about Objective-C) that developing on a Mac sounds like something he might be interested in. By all accounts if you can program in C, you should be able to use Objective-C fairly quickly. While Kenny's C++ skills are tantamount to utter donkey doings, he is quite proficient at writing C (not to mention a veritable God at PHP). Indeed he taught himself C during the evenings while he was studying boring, boring maths and for the first two years of his working life, he was a C programmer.

Armed with Xcode (which is installing as he types) and a soupçon of enthusiasm, he is about to test the water.

Well, after he's watched some Murphy's Law and had a good nights sleep that is.

Kenny has also noticed that he has started to refer to himself in the third person. He promises to stop that.

I am being punished for my brazen capitalism. I spent 3.5 hours on the M62 trying to get to work while some inconsiderate bastard stood watching his truck full of toilet paper go up in flames (I kiddeth not). I was doing under 10mph for so long that I lost my sense of humor. I then did under 5mph for so long, I ran out of expletives to describe my annoyance. I then did 0mph for long enough for me to consider running a Honda Civic off the road.

All that said, I was saintly. I issued only three fatwas in the time honored Italian gesture fashion.

After all this purgatory, I arrived here to a rather facile comment about my lack of regard for the rest of the working world's well-being. I would contest this strongly on the basis that in general if you are not human or a cat, you generally get a good deal from me. Sometimes even when you are human, I can be nice. Unfortunately today the odds are against humans and felines.

To cheer myself up, I hopped onto my TD Waterhouse account to revel in the glory of my immoral gains. And bugger me, I am truly blessed. After all the money I pumped into the system I am only down £13. What a blinding light example of capitalism I am. I feel so bad for only having lost £13. I think I feel so bad, I will go into Leeds during my lunch hour and hand over my debit card and PIN to the nearest poor-looking person. I really should have lost more. The guy at the desk next to me has made over £2k in the last 2 weeks. I feel so awful I will hand him my car keys.

Damn. I suppose I'd better use my Starbucks drink sleeves to pay for my coffee today. I have 54 of them on my desk -- at 25p a piece, I should be good for the day.

How cool is this?

Electronic cigarettes. I would be a fool not to try them. I have ordered their basic kit. Be prepared for a report as soon as they arrive.

Update: It also appears to get around the SM*ING law since it will be ESM*ING. Like it.

The government have today announced that they want to implement a smacking ban. This in keeping with their plans to ban anything that is sm*ing, which started last year with the ban on smoking. Kenny called his contact in the DUI (Department of Unintelligble Initiatives) and has found the following are next in line to be outlawed, punishable by a very hard stare:

SMILING
SMITING
SMARTING
SMASHING
SMEARING
SMEEKING
SMELLING
SMELTING
SMERKING
SMIRKING
SMOCKING
SMUDGING
SMUTTING
SMIRCHING
SMOOCHING
SMOOTHING
SMUGGLING
SMUTCHING
SMARTENING
SMATTERING
SMOLDERING
SMOTHERING
SMOOTHENING
SMOULDERING
SMALLHOLDING

I think I practice all of the above in quantity apart from SMUTCHING (although I may do that inadvertently). I am a bit panic stricken. If they extend this law from SM*ING to ST*ING, I will have to give up so many things that my life will not be worth living. STALKING, STRIPPING, STRANGLING, STROKING and STRADDLING are in my list of top pastimes.

In Lancashire we have about a bazillion words for shite-hawks, flying sharp-arses or meedlies. I just call them bessinger mücke, like the cosmopolitan git that I am.

I have scratched my way through today with an ankle that would rival Hillary Clinton's for size (sorry -- cheap joke, shamelessly stolen from Steve). In fact I think I have moaned more about my bites than I have about my stocks. As I came through the door, I legged it upstairs and dowsed the afflicted joint in the nearest alcohol I could find (cheap aftershave) and reveled in the stinging. It was heaven. I think I moaned in ecstasy -- I hope the neighbors couldn't hear.

I am saying this only to let you know how to deal with massively irritating itches. Scratch them until they bleed and then soak the afflicted part in something that makes your eyes water. Ooh, I've just had a thought -- lemon juice? Man, that would be sweet. That wouldn't just sting; that would really hurt. Bliss. Wait a minute...

Man, that really does hurt. That was a serious intake of breath, perhaps even a small shriek. Gorgeous feeling though. It reminds me of the erroneous application of toothpaste (rather than Savlon) to some rather tender injuries many years ago, the results of which are legendary in this neck of the woods. I will thank my learned colleagues the Waaart and Maesti not to elaborate any further on that.

Kenny is:

HBOS 94p down 40% -- boo.
RBS 90p down 10% -- boo.

VOD 126p up 0.92% -- yay!

And I had a limit order in on the RBS shares for £1.40. What was I smoking?

Seriously though, if you look at the P/E ratios of RBS and HBOS, they have got to be the most ridiculous numbers you have ever seen. Which do you think is more viable, RBS and HBOS with P/E ratios of between 2 and 4 or Google with a P/E ratio of 40+? I know where I'd put my cash based on fundamentals; in fact where I have put it.

You may all snigger away in the comments so I can look smug in a couple of weeks time.

Someone who reads this must be nerdy enough to help me.

I was going to tell you all that I have bought RBS shares this morning but I figured you'd all want the ability to throw more things at me as a result, so I'm not going to mention that. D'oh. I also considered telling you a sad tale about someone's incredibly bad luck with cars and work but I'm not sure her words on the subject are suitable for a family blog. I even contemplated trying to explain why a certain shade of white is more important than most things (as per my unlucky mate) but I'm not really sure I get it myself.

No, my problem is quite simple. I have a UK PS2 and a US game and the buggers don't work together. I have had conflicting advice on how to get around this. Question: where do I go to get my PS2 chipped in Leeds or Wigan? Failing that, where do I buy the component so I can chip it myself? Google appears to be about as useful as a kick up the eighties. Thank you.

I'm totally distracted today on account of a new mosquito bite on the same damned ankle as the last one. It is driving me nuts. I want it to hurt, not itch. I want to feel it sting so much it takes my breath away. I could go on...

It struck me on my way into work this morning that I have neglected your Apple needs. This is a particular favorite of mine. Enjoy.

My brother leaves for Guang Dong province for two weeks next Saturday. It is fair to say that he is not exactly enthralled at the prospect. In fact, it is fair to say that if you know him, you should keep the hell out of his way for the next week or so and if you're Chinese, beware of the various levels of red he gets when agitated because there is a certain shade that indicates imminent danger for anyone within a three mile radius.

I am jealous. He is furious and can see no humor in it at all. I had planned to have some fun at his expense but having spoken with him about the whole deal, I detect a bit of little boy lost about him. That in itself is quite an amusing visual because he's enormous and because I am cruel.

I sent him some tips by email. I took great pains to remember every little concern that I had before I went there. I followed it up with a phone call telling him not to delete the email I had sent him (his M.O. is open his email, pull down his email, delete his email without reading it) and I think I actually detected genuine thanks in his voice. If you think I'm an acerbic, sarcastic b'stard, you have never met my brother. He is a master of saying volumes by not saying anything at all, but oozing a very palpable vibe. When he does open his mouth, it's a minimalist sentence with enough impact to floor wildebeests. His parting shot was "Thanks Kenny. I still might break a leg between now and next weekend and I still don't want to go, but you've given me more useful tips in 10 minutes than the company has." There was a distinct tremor in his voice. I'd like to think he was getting all tearful with gratitude that I had shown some empathy but he's probably just got a cold or a hangover.

This kind of thing always has me debating whether I was adopted or not. I'm Mr Drop Everything at 2 seconds notice to go to new places, no matter how far-flung they are. I would *murder* for two weeks working in China. I'm currently looking at trying to go to Russia on my own for Christ's sakes. I've been all over Asia, Europe and the US. There is nothing I like better than to be pitched into somewhere I don't know and absorbing it all. My brother takes after my mother and father, who think Asda is a long way away. I can't remember the last time my parental units left the country. What I can guarantee is that when they did, they went to France. Neither of them have ever had the travel bug. My brother has just had a few weeks in France, which is pretty radical for him. I was looking for my Chinese phrase book to post up to him when I came across my neglected passport. I have stamps and visas for places you would never dream of going to and am all for increasing that collection of stamps. Travel, without question, broadens the mind.

I mentioned to my brother that he will find himself having a few very real life-affirming gasps if he looks closely at what is going on around him. He grunted, which is about as good an acknowledgment as you are going to get. Honestly, if I were him, I'd be on pins waiting for next weekend. He is dreading it, bless. How we can be brothers I have no idea. Maybe I just got all the mad bastard genes? That doesn't seem fair does it?

Speaking of genetics, my eldest daughter is now definitely my kid. There can be no question. She's after an iPod Touch. I know the moment she gets her hands on an iPod Touch, she will want a Macbook. She is cheating on games sites by altering the URL to pass increased pseudo-cash into the PHP scripts so she can buy her virtual pet more goodies. She is doing this in an environment that is most assuredly geared to the more bed-wetting pursuits (although I do strongly approve of piano lessons). Nature is taking its course. She is undoubtedly a Kenny-clone.

The Observer yielded after a slow start.

I thank you.

I am thrilled. You will recall I set off for a pair of reasonable footwear and a watch. You will also recall that I said if the Tissot T-Touch watches were half the price, I might consider one, and that I hate metal straps.

First the easy one; I wandered into some random sports shop to look at trainers/casual shoes and spotted a pair I liked immediately. I tried them on and decided on the spot to buy them. I then looked at the price and was delighted to find there was 70% off the RRP. Get in. Either they are last year's fashion, the shop is going bust or I am lucky. Whichever way, I now have a very smart pair of black trainer-y dealybops. Result.

Secondly, I stood in a jeweller's window for about 15 minutes marveling at the Tissot T-Touch that was on sale for about 40% of the prices I had seen on the web. I got accosted by the sales guy there who gave me a spiel. More for my own benefit I rhymed off all the reasons why I should not buy one; the face is too big, it's a metal strap, it's immoral to spend that much on a watch. "Fret yet not" cry-eth he "for they look bigger than they are, the metal is plastic coated so you won't even notice it's metal and if you buy it today, I'll knock off another £40."

Hmmm.

I had a look at it, tried it on and realized that the first two parts of what he said were true. It was smaller than it looked and the metal didn't feel like metal. And he'd knocked £40 off. I took it.

As he rang through the purchase and started filling in the guarantee or whatever, he went back over to check what the window price was and reduce it by £40. His face went ashen. He started putting in the value of the watch on the form he was filling in -- the value was the list price I had seen on the web. The girl at the side of him asked whether he meant to fill in that price. "Yes", he gupled and gave the girl a drained look. She smiled obliviously and told me I had a hell of a deal before it dawned on her what had dawned on me a couple of moments earlier -- the watch had been in the window at the wrong price. I was my usual embarrassed self and started apologizing saying I should have said that it was too good a deal to be true. To his credit the salesman said "Sometimes this happens. It is not your fault. It is mine. We agreed a price and that is what I will stick to." In a gesture of good will, I consented to taking out the accidental damage policy, so he would at least make a couple of quid.

In a further seizure of guilt, I also bought a ring. I had been considering replacing the one that I wear that Nski bought me years ago, before we were even married. I couldn't just turf the old one without a replacement because I am so used to it, it would feel like an arm had been amputated. I bought a very nice silver triple banded gubbins (I am *so* up on jewelry terms) for a reasonable amount mostly because I had been meaning to do this for some time, but partly because I was still feeling bad about the watch. I immediately put it on and put the old one in my pocket.

As I drove home, I pulled up at the side of the canal and, with little fanfare and no-one around to witness my melodrama, I took the old ring out of my pocket and threw it as far down the canal as I could. A more satisfying plop, I have never heard. End. Of.

A fantastic day. Let's hope the football doesn't ruin it.

I'm in the mood for a bit of shopping, this time not of the internet variety. There are two things that I will not buy from the internet; they are clothes (that are not tacky teeshirts -- I have oodles of them anyway) and watches. The weather is not conducive to leaving the house. It is that really crappy English Autumn weather where it's just gray, damp and cold. This is apposed to gray, damp and cool which heralds Spring, grayer, damper and freezing which is Winter and gray, wet and warmish which is glorious Summer. Yes, I really am feeling the love for the homeland just about now. Each time I have been outside to smoke this morning, I have come back in croaking about how awful it is. I say croaking because my voice has gone. It came as a great shock to me yesterday morning, while I was on the motorway, when I went to scream "arsehole" at someone and a random set of discontinuous scratches emanated forth.

I will overlook the weather in search of a few things. I need some new shoes. I say that when I have loads of them, but all except one pair that I brought back from the US are odious tat or are so knackered that I look like I am on welfare. They must be that bad because each time I pitch up for my prescription the lass behind the counter asks me whether I pay for my prescriptions. I nod my head despondently and hand her £40.

It doesn't help that I wear a $10 watch I bought from Target about 6 years ago. It's a really crappy cheap digital watch, the sort I would have been made up with when I was 10. I'm sure it has cost me jobs as they've looked at my expensive designer suit and shoes then noticed the quality of my watch. All I have had to do with the watch is replace the strap and the battery. Now rather than look like a cheap watch on a rubber band, it looks like an even cheaper watch on a leather band. The face of it is all mottled where it must have been caught by various sprays -- some days I have to use the backlight to see through the mottle just to tell the time. I bought it for one reason; I was doing a lot if international travel and this had two time-zones on it, so I could always know whether it was an appropriate time of day to call home. I think that with Manchester and Leeds having no time difference, I might be safe with a single TZ watch now. Given my age and my endless attempts to not look like I am just there to either pick up a dole cheque or fix your computer, I can probably ditch the digital facet too.

My biggest problems with watches are twofold. The first is that I have very thin wrists so anything a normal bloke could wear looks ridiculous on me. Wearing one of the classic mens' watches would be akin to me wearing a stetson hat that was as wide as I am tall or decorating a cake with a blanket. So I need to check that it's small enough in diameter and that the strap will fit around my girly wrists tight enough for it not to be a bangle. I spent half my childhood looking like I was wearing my dad's watch when in actual fact it was a kid's watch but my puny wrists made it look enormous. My second problem is that I hate metal of every description. I hate the sound of it (silverware, coins, keys), I hate the smell of it and I detest the feel of it. I mean I loathe it more than Antipodean midgets themselves. My brother and my first wife share the same problem so when it used to come drying the cutlery time, you can imagine the fights. This means I cannot get a watch with a metal strap, which may be moot in that they probably don't make small enough straps in metal for mens' watches.

I was suckered into visiting the Tissot T-Touch website a few weeks ago during half-time of a football match. I was wowed. I had the very model and color picked out before I hit the "Go to checkout" button and looked at the price. I cannot justify spending that amount of money on a watch; it is immoral. If they halved the price, I would probably think about it. That said, what the site did manage to do is plant the seed that I really am a scruffy bastard and I really should make some effort to look like I am not a pot-smoking member of the unemployed variety (not that there is anything wrong with that as long as your pot is good pot and your unemployment is not self-inflicted).

So I need a watch. And some shoes. I will partake of a small luncheon and then hit the heady heights of Wigan. I will set a limit on spending because I have a horrible feeling that Her Majesty's revenue and excise are about to slap me with a bill for an amount of money I cannot even begin to contemplate.

Not like any of you could give a rat's arse about it (unless it involves pitching fruit at my graven image), but I will update you with the results of my trip later.

As you were.

Just because I thought the state of my desk rather aptly describes the state of my life, I have taken the opportunity to try out the camera on my Motorola RAZR V8 phone. You will note the "Twin 'Starbucks' Towers" which are comprised of the sleeves they put around your coffee. You might detect a bag of maltesers. You will see more laptops/displays/keyboards/gubbins than is reasonable. You may also see ammo that I use to wake up Grom.

I am very pleased to see Peter Mandelson back in government. Whether you agree with him or not, you cannot deny he is one of the sharper cookies around.

While I'm here, I will self-deprecate some. There is a reason I am normally not allowed to get involved with logistics of moving things around; I have reinforced that undoubted wisdom this morning. On Monday I put in an order for about a squillion quids worth of SAN storage. Yesterday I received a call asking where I wanted it delivered. Today it turned up here at the office on three pallets, one of which was about 7.5' tall. Let's say we had to improvise since there was no way on earth we had enough space. I now have the task of organizing its transport from here to a data center. I'm guessing that the powers that be might want to involve a professional in this exercise for fear of it being stored in a parking lot overnight should my inimitable logistical skills live up to expectations. I used to think you live and learn. I guess I still do. I learn from my mistakes to the extent that I can repeat them exactly at the drop of a hat. I'm amazed I ever mastered posting letters.

I am starting to get more than a little pissed off with people in the UK slating Sarah Palin. The media question her every credential. People who know dick about US politics have suddenly become experts and have decried her as being "anti-women" and any other emotive ogress term they can think of.

There's a sickly sense of holier than thou all over the country as they all sip their tea, nibble their scones, watch their pension funds hit the floor but only ever get animated when they hear the word "Palin". You know what? If you're in the UK, I don't want to hear your damned assessment of Sarah Palin. Come to think of it, if you're in the US and you're running on a pro or anti-Palin ticket, I don't want to know either.

How you can feel so strongly about someone you almost certainly hadn't heard of about six weeks ago beats me. You'd think she ate babies, went midget-baiting with packs of hounds and shot black people on sight. Get a grip.

I think whoever ends up in power in the US is going to end up doing an utterly shite job. They've inherited a gargantuan mess that will not be fixable in 4 years. In fact I venture to say that whoever wins, will almost certainly not enjoy a second term no matter what. I don't think either candidate is up to the job of president and I don't know what to think about vice-presidents -- Joe Biden is a bit painful and I don't know enough about Sarah Palin to dislike her; in fact, if anything, just to piss off the rabid UK masses, I think I quite like her on a sympathy ticket.

And while my blood pressure is still at dangerous levels, I'm going to go fix a damned network to help me relax.

I rarely say this but I mean it. Any comments that even attempt to engage me in a debate surrounding Sarah Palin's character will be deleted. I'm not limiting that to those criticizing her -- if you worship the ground she walks on, they will be trashed too. My point surrounds the new found wisdom that we all develop when we're given a new political figure who, *shock*, might not be a nothing in a suit and who might actually have a real life beyond the corridors of power.

If you want to slag off Thatcher, that's fine. We have years of history to cite on that score, but leave Palin out of it.

Loyal (sic) reader Waaart requested that he be able to throw fruit at my picture. Maesti's hamster apparently chewed up post-it notes and spat them at the screen to splat me.

Never let it be said that I don't take these things to heart. You want abuse? I provide the facility for you to abuse me. Click on the image to the left to splat me with a tomato.

It will only do it once per page because I am going home now and cannot be bothered doing anything more to it. I might think about having a reset so you can do it over and over again to you heart's delight, but I will have to be feeling exceptionally generous.

No need to thank me. You bastards.

You'll remember I bought some HBOS shares? You'll also remember that I said I wasn't in it for a quick buck (I could have made 40% in 24 hours). You'll recall that I was warned by his Stannage not to cry when it went badly wrong.

Well, from my 40% profit, I'm now at 18% loss.

I just thought I'd mention that to prove that I am not crying. I'm remarkably ambivalent; all will be well eventually. As Mo's dad in the Simpsons said "eventually everybody gets shot".

Speaking of shots, will someone please shoot Nani. He is very highly paid PANTS.