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Those of you who don't know me probably won't find my blog that interesting. However, do have a read, and feel free to comment.
This page has the blog entries sorted in chronological order, based on the dates that the entries refer to, which might not be the order that the blog entries were entered. The RSS feed lists entries in the order that they were entered. If you'd like to look at older blog entries, then feel free to search the archive.
Category: Diary. Posted: 2008-05-02 07:48:20 BST.
It wasn't the most interesting day at work, but a bloke from a photocopier company came into the office to try to sell/rent us a photocopier. He was too late (we got a new one about six months ago), but at least he had the decency to bring some totty with him! Unfortunately, I wouldn't have placed any orders with a company that can't even spell colour correctly.
Anyway, I left work almost on time, and cycled to the station. As I was locking my bike up, my phone started ringing. I took it out of the pocket, and looked at the display to see who was calling. It simply said "Twat". A few months ago, some idiot with a foreign number kept calling me accidentally. All I heard whenever he/she called was background noises. Just so I knew who it was each time, I stored his/her number as "Twat". I simply pressed the red button, but that meant that he left an answer machine message instead. Gimmeration! Anyway, he/she called again while I was walking to the station, and again while I was buying my ticket.
I didn't have to wait too long for the train, but I remembered that Slough station has a Wi-Fi network provided by Cloud, so I turned on my iPod, and it immediately found the network, and connected to it. I then tried to type in www.bbc.co.uk into Safari's address bar, but the on-screen keyboard was very small. I didn't have long surfing before the train left Slough. I wanted to get some kip on the train into Paddington, but Twat rang at least two-dozen times during my journey - sometimes leaving a voicemail "message" while I was picking up a previous message! No sleep for me. I could have turned my phone to silent, but totty might have called me.
At Paddington, I was going to get a cuppa from Krispey Doughnuts, but the train arrived right next to the Hammersmith and City Line platforms, so it seemed silly to walk all that extra way just for tea. Obviously, I wasn't going to buy any tea from the little kiosk that didn't take contactless payments. I got to the stairs coming up from the Hammersmith and City Line platforms, and there was a bloke stopping anybody going down the stairs until everybody had come up. Five minutes later, people were still coming up the stairs. I was amazed how many people fitted onto one train! Eventually the bloke decided enough was enough, and led us down the stairs. I don't think I needed his help, but it saved me shouting "Keep to the left" at people. I hobbled down after him, and the train arrived soon afterwards.
There were people talking on their mobiles, who seemed to be making no effort to finish their calls. They abruptly had to finish them when the train went into the tunnel. I had a bit of piece and quiet while the train was in the tunnel, but wasn't looking forward to picking up all of Twat's voicemail messages when I got back into the open air. Fortunately, Twat must have put the keylock onto his phone, because the only person to have called me while I was underground was Sarah. She called me again as I was walking out of the station, and she was standing outside waiting for me (looking even more gorgeous than normal, if that's possible).
We had planned to eat in the BYO food pub, but it was quite a nice evening, so went off in search of somewhere to eat outside. We gave up in the end, and went to the pub. We drank our smoothies on the way, just in case the pub objected to us taking our own drinks (I'd had ten portions of fruit before we even started our evening meal). The smoothies and cheese bread were my contribution, and Sarah provided the rest of the food. The pub even provided us with plastic spoons to eat with. This BYO food idea is excellent- making an evening out much cheaper, and more healthy.
I can't remember much about the evening, but it was a lovely evening, despite us both being tired. Sarah had to cycle all the way home (about 45 minutes), so we didn't stay too late. There was some nice totty in the pub, but, of course, I only noticed her when Sarah had gone to the toilet. While she was in the toilet, I couldn't resist turning my iPod around, seeing the display tilt. I suddenly realised that this would have made the keyboard much bigger. What a gimmer!
Sarah had kindly brought my shoes with her, but I couldn't fit them in my bag with the remainder of the cheese bread, so had to carry them separately. I knew this would be a bad idea, because I was bound to leave them on the train, but it seemed silly to ask Sarah to take them back home again. I started listening to some music on my iPod on the Tube on the way to Paddington, but it wasn't loud enough, but I couldn't figure out how to increase the volume. Eventually, I realised that what I thought was a progress indicator was actually the volume control!
It didn't take long to get to Paddington, but I was busting for a jimmy by the time I got there. Fortunately, the next train to Slough wasn't for a while, so I had time to have a quick jimmy in the Map Bishop. I called Gimmer to see if he happened to be around, but got no answer. The platform was announced, so I got on the train, and found a comfortable seat. Sarah had made me promise not to fall asleep, so I had to keep my mind occupied. I then thought that there might be a Cloud hotspot at Paddington, so I got out my iPod. There was, and I had a quick look at the BBC News website. Unfortunately, the signal wasn't very good inside the carriage, and the train left soon after I sat down. Still, at least I remembered to rotate the iPod!
It didn't take me long to cycle home. Back at home, I made my sandwiches using the cheese bread, made a cuppa, checked my e-mail, and went to sleep.
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Category: Rants. Posted: 2008-05-02 07:46:51 BST.
Why doesn't Microsoft Outlook's calendar have St. George's Day in it? It has St. Patrick's Day in the list of holidays for the United Kingdom, but not St. George's Day. What a load of pants!
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Category: Diary. Posted: 2008-05-02 07:44:05 BST.
I remembered to bring my hair clippers in today, to show to my boss. I had hasty visions of having to cut his hair to demonstrate them working, but didn't have to in the end! Back at home, I had plenty of gimmering around to do. The sheets that I'd washed yesterday had dried, so I put on two more loads of washing, made some smoothies (4.3 portions of fruit per smoothy), made some cheese bread, and watched the ten o'clock news, and today's Holby City. I was meeting Sarah tomorrow evening, and we'd decided to go to the bring-your-own-food pub, so had to sort out food. I was going to supply bread and smoothies, and Sarah was going to sort out the rest. Hopefully the pub would be open this time.
I also found time to synchronise my iPod, and set-up an iTunes account. It copied all the music from my hard disk to the iPod, so I could listen to my music. Playing around with the iPod, it is such a lovely piece of kit. I couldn't connect it to my wireless network, because my router has MAC address filtering on it, and I couldn't find out what the MAC address of the iPod is. Although MAC address filtering isn't really much use, I prefer to have every protection method enabled, just in case. As I was playing with my iPod before going to bed, I eventually found something that looks like its MAC address. I do love the way that the screen changes between portrait and landscape when the iPod is tilted. The only downside is that iTunes doesn't have artwork for most of the albums that I copied, so the iPod's display doesn't look as snazzy as it should do. I'll have to have a look tomorrow to find out whether I can add the artwork myself. Also, the progress indicator seems to always be displayed in the centre of the progress line, and doesn't move (even though the song is playing).
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Category: Diary. Posted: 2008-05-02 07:42:48 BST.
It wasn't a particularly interesting day at work, but I did mention to my boss how much I'd seen hair clippers for in Argos on Friday. Back at home, I had a few hours to gimmer around before meeting Bird at the Harvester at 9PM. I left my multi-media PC copying CDs, while I started sorting out my finances. I was amused to look at my credit card bill - several entries for Hooters and Sarasota Brewing Company stood out! I also got to quickly chat to Jo on this MSN malarkey, which was nice, but, unfortunately, very brief. I think I'm going to have to go over to New Zealand to see them all again.
Bird wasn't in the pub when I arrived, so I ordered a Stella, and sat down to surf t'internet. I hadn't read much of the BBC News homepage before I got a text message saying, "Did I beat you here?". Gimmeration! I just stood up, looked towards the door, and there she was! Had she walked around with her eyes closed? Anyway, we had top meal, and Bird was looking as sexy as always. I even remembered to bring the receipt for the memory that I bought a month or two ago. I'm really going to have to sort her "new" laptop out sometime.
Bird had to leave at 10:40, to go back into work, so I left at the same time, and watched tonight's Gadget Show before going to bed.
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Category: Diary. Posted: 2008-05-02 07:41:44 BST.
I woke up quite late at about half-nine, and my foot was still giving me jip. I decided that, apart from going into Slough to collect my bike, I would spend the whole day resting my foot. This seemed like a good opportunity to sit in front on the TV all day, watching the TV that I'd recorded over the last three weeks. After two cups of tea, I was almost out of milk, so had to go outside. I walked into Slough (a 45 minute walk when I'm supposed to be resting my foot wasn't a brilliant idea), and called lots of totty on the way. I popped into Tesco to drop off the carrier bag recycling, and buy some milk (and get 30 bonus Clubcard points), before collecting my bike. I had a quick chat with the bloke about looking after the cogs and chain, and then cycled home.
Apart from watching TV, and copying CDs onto my hard disk, I did absolutely nothing all day. My foot still wasn't 100%, but it was a lot better by the end of the day. I got a bit carried away watching TV, and didn't actually watch the last programme until 01:30!
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Category: Diary. Posted: 2008-05-02 07:40:47 BST.
Not wanting to make any rash decisions about getting the cogs and chain replaced on my bike, I started reading my Haines Manual when I woke up. This agreed with MarkE that a chain should last about 1,500 miles, but the cogs should last longer. Well, I'd done well with the chain (I reckoned I'd done about 2,500 miles), but will have to make sure that I keep the cogs and chain cleaner, so that I don't wear out the cogs so quickly next time. Becky woke up fairly early too, so it was time for tea. I'd never realised how much tea Becky drinks. She's the only person, apart from Dindin, who stays at my house, and says "yes" to tea every time I offer. Since I had some mushrooms from my weekly organic delivery, Becky suggested mushrooms on toast. This seemed like a strange idea, but tasted really nice.
Becky was going to Cheltenham later on, and was going to go shopping for a wedding outfit. Being a woman, this was likely to be an outfit she would only wear once or twice, so I suggested that we walk up to the charity shop, and see what we could find. I remember walking past the greengrocers, and seeing buckets of bananas for a quid each. Excellent value, but I did have some organic, zero-air-mile, bananas at home. We didn't find anything suitable in the charity shop, but there is another one within walking distance of my house, but in the other direction. After giving up finding anything in the charity shop, we went into the cobbler's shop to buy some laces (Sarah still has my black trainers, so I couldn't wear them this evening). The owner was smoking inside the shop - I'll have to report him for that.
Having seen all the bananas, Becky mentioned cheese and banana toasties. This seemed like a really bad idea, but I was up for trying it. There wasn't time for lunch and walking to the second charity shop, and, of course, we chose lunch. The toasties could have done with a bit more cheese, and one fewer banana, but they still tasted OK. My foot didn't give me too much jip when we were walking, but it did start doing so when we got back home.
After Becky left, I made myself another cuppa, and realised that I had almost run out of milk. I'll have to get Becky to take less milk in her tea. I then downloaded and installed ITunes, ready to start using my iPod Touch. The software installed OK, but I didn't get around to connecting up my iPod. I starting copying one of my CDs onto the PC (something I'd been meaning to do for years), and then watched this week's Click (which the PC had recorded earlier). I discovered that watching an MPEG-4 programme and copying songs from CD at the same time wasn't a very good idea, as ITunes gave up after a few songs. I started it going again, and then went to do the washing-up (I don't think that the toastie maker would have coped very well in the dishwasher, and we'd also used my non-stick frying pan to fry the mushrooms in).
After finishing the washing-up, I left ITunes copying another CD, and then realised that it was almost time to leave. I quickly changed into some smart clothes, put the laces in my shoes, and walked quickly up to the station (fortunately, my foot didn't give me jip). The ticket machine at Langley still doesn't take credit cards, so I put 5p in the permit to travel machine instead. It took my money, but refused to give me a permit to travel. I'll be getting that 5p back from First Great Western, don't you worry! There was some gimmer smoking on the platform, but he was far enough away that it didn't really affect me, so I saw sense, and didn't say anything. Feeling knackered, I slept all the way to Paddington. I don't know what strange angle I slept at, but my foot was giving me a hell of a lot of jip when I got to Paddington.
I bought my travelcard, and then went to catch a Circle Line train to meet Sarah at Angel. After going through the barriers, I realised that the Circle Line wasn't running, so I had to go back through the barriers, travel up the escalator, limp across Paddington station, limp up and down the stairs, until I eventually got to the Hammersmith and City line. I didn't have to wait too long for a train, and really wanted a seat when it did arrive. Fortunately, it wasn't that crowded, so I got to sit down. I changed trains at King's Cross, and limped up and down more stairs to the Northern Line, to catch a train to Angel. It was only one stop, so could have walked, but decided against it.
We'd arranged to meet at half-five, but I actually arrived at just after five, so had a lot of waiting around to do (and some perving, of course). The Oddly Enough section of the Reuters website kept me entertained for a while, until I saw a woman arriving on a fold-up bike. I'd never seen somebody fold one up before, so watched her to see how easy it was. Unfortunately, she'd never done it before, and failed miserably. I hated watching her struggle, but knew that it would end in tears if I tried to help! After about five minutes, three people came to help her, but they were about as much use as I would have been. She eventually managed it, and got on the train.
Sarah arrived soon afterwards, looking as sexy as always. She said that there was an all-you-can-eat vegetarian restaurant near Angel that costs £3 each. This seemed too good to be true - there was bound to be a catch somewhere. She wasn't sure exactly where it was, so, when we were walking past a Police Station, I suggested we go in to ask for directions. After about a minute, two totty Community Support Officers appeared, but I had to ask Sarah to chat to them, because I didn't know where we were going. Oh well! We weren't actually that far away, and we found the restaurant quite quickly. It looked fairly cheap (as one would expect for three quid), but the food was very tasty. There were lots of posters on the walls, explaining how healthy vegetarian eating is. There was a good range of organic drinks, but they added quite a bit to the price of the meal. We should have stuck with tap water.
After having had two courses, I was still quite hungry, so asked Sarah whether there was time for a third. We were going to watch a mate of hers perform in an opera, but I didn't know what time it was, where the opera was being held, or what time the opera started. Anyway, Sarah said there was plenty of time, so I had a third course. Sarah decided that the best way to get to Highgate (where the opera was being held) was by bus, but when she found out how long the bus journey took, she decided we should use the Tube. We arrived at Highgate after 7 o'clock, which wasn't ideal because the opera started at 7, and we had no idea how to get to the venue! We asked for directions at a bar/restaurant by the station, and then walked back outside. Sarah and I had understood the directions differently, so both started walking in different directions! I was convinced that I was right, so we went my way. Fortunately, this was the right decision, although my foot was giving me jip as we walked quickly up the hill. The opera was held in a small theatre above a pub, and the blokes on reception let us go in, as long as we stood by the door, and didn't sit down until there was a break. We did this, but ended up getting in the way of half of the cast coming in! I didn't actually understand what was going on in the opera (even though it was in English), but did enjoy it.
At the end of the first third, we didn't rush downstairs to the bar, because there were two other friends of Sarah in the audience, and she wanted to find them. After finding them (they almost walked past us, because they didn't recognise her with her "new" hair cut), we went downstairs to the bar. Unfortunately, the bar was really busy by this point, and they rang the bell before I'd got served. Oh well! We walked back upstairs, and sat down. The women who was sitting next to me had put her coat on my chair, and sighed quite loudly when I politely asked her to move it! The second third was just as confusing as the first third, but there was some more totty to perve at! As soon as the lights went on to signify that it was the interval, I stood up, hobbled quickly down the stairs, and was first to the bar. I remembered what people wanted from the previous interval, but I got a bit confused by Sarah's orange juice, and ended up ordering a pint. Expecting this to be really expensive, I was impressed to see that a Stella, two lime and sodas, and a pint of orange juice cost me less than a fiver.
We found a table to sit at, and tried to figure out what was going on. Fortunately, the programme explained the plot, which made things a bit easier. One of Sarah's mates told me that their mate would be singing from a balcony in the next third. While we were sitting down, I realised that it is a Wetherspoon pub, which explains why the round was so cheap. A lot of Wetherspoon pubs have memorabilia from whatever the pub used to be, but, in this case, the signs to the theatre did actually point to a theatre. We took our drinks up with us, and, this time, the woman was standing right in front of my seat, and sighed loudly again when I politely asked her to move. Surely it's not that much too expect! At the end, Sarah asked whether I knew which one her mate was, and was surprised when I said, "Wasn't he the lad singing from the balcony?"! Afterwards, we went downstairs for a few more drinks, joined by Sarah's mate who was performing, and his girlfriend (with a nice low-cut top).
I lost track of time a little bit, and realised that it was about 11:20, and the last train to Langley was 12:30. We left fairly quickly, and I hobbled down the hill, and into the station. There wasn't a direct train to King's Cross, so I had to change at Camden Town. I always get confused at Camden Town, so Sarah very kindly offered to change with me. She's a top lass. We had to run for the King's Cross train, which then waited around for a few minutes, so I'd knackered my foot even more for no reason. Apart from limping, I had no problems changing trains at King's Cross, but arrived at Paddington at 00:27. The 00:30 was leaving from platform 1, so I had to run across the whole width of Paddington station, but I just about got there in time. Unfortunately, there wasn't a toilet on the train, but at least I'd caught it. I sat down next to some totty, and continued reading the Reuters news website. I was sitting in the middle of a group of people, and one of the blokes was trying to explain the "Way a pie" song. I smiled, and he said, "Look. That bloke knows what I'm talking about.". I smiled again, and said, "I do, but you really have been watching too many pantos". I can't remember much more about the journey back, but I do remember my fellow passengers being quite entertaining.
It was hard work hobbling back home from the station, and I was gagging for a cuppa when I got home. I watched one of the many programmes that I still had to watch while drinking my tea, and then went to bed (leaving ITunes copying another CD onto the PC).
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Category: Diary. Posted: 2008-04-23 00:52:18 BST. Updated: 2008-05-02 07:39:10 BST.
After having drunk 2 litres of water during the day, a pint of water before I went to meet Gimmer, and a pint of water when I got back home, I was amazed to find that I was dehydrated when I woke up in the morning. Perhaps I didn't drink enough tea during the day on Thursday. As with most Fridays, it was a fairly quiet day, which gave me a chance to catch up with things. I'd forgotten my sandwiches, so had to nip out at lunchtime. Before I popped out, Postie delivered a small package, which could well have had my iPod Touch in it. Excellent!
While I was out, I popped into National Car Rental to collect the CD that I'd left in the car on Sunday. On the way, I called Becky, who told me about her date last night. It sounded like the worst date possible! Anyway, at National Car Rental, there was no totty, and FastTrackBoy was serving. Unsurprisingly, it took ages, but I heard somebody in the pack say, "YMCA". I couldn't remember what CD I'd actually left in the car, but simply saying "YMCA" didn't narrow it down that much. Any normal person would have been embarrassed collecting a "Village People Greatest Hits" album, but not me! Not only was there no totty serving, but the collecting points scheme wasn't running any more. After collecting my CD, I went to Greggs to get a sandwich. A steak bake costs £1.14, so I handed over £5.20, the bloke typed £5 into the till, and then dropped the 20p. He picked up the 20p, and said, "Sorry, it's £5.20, that'll be.....", and then stopped, and stared at the till, hoping that it would magically subtract 1.14 from 5.2. After a while, I got bored, so I finished his sentence for him. He said, "That's right", and then gave me £1.06. Beginning to get very bored of his stupidity, I said, "No, FOUR pounds 6p, NOT ONE pound 6p". Implying that he was any more clever any other day, he said, "Sorry, it's Friday, I'll give you the rest when somebody else orders something". He then tried to get other customers to come to his till, but nobody wanted to! I eventually got my extra 3 pounds (he managed to work out 4.06 - 1.06 for himself!).
Then it was time to go to Superdrug to buy some dental flossers. While I was walking from Greggs to Superdrug, Danny called me. I still hadn't got around to transferring their domain name to the site that they've had professionally designed - I really ought to do it soon. A few minutes later, he called again, but all I could hear was him talking to Dave. He had put the phone down on the counter, opened the diary onto the phone, and redialled the last number. I shouted into the phone a few times, and he picked it up. It was a good job that he hadn't been slagging me off while talking to Dave!
Anyway, I was very happy to see that there was some top totty serving at Superdrug (I don't think it's the one that's been there before, the new one is even more gorgeous). Unfortunately, there were no dental flossers, so I didn't need to buy anything. For some unknown reason, I went to ask the middle-aged pharmacist whether they had any in stock, instead of the totty. I must be losing it! Anyway, she pointed me in the direction of the manageress (who looked about 12, but was hopefully older than that!), who called up the Slough branch, and found out that it had some in stock. Back at work, I quickly opened up my package (ooh-err missus) and it did indeed have a 32GB iPod touch inside it. I didn't open the iPod box, but even the box looked lovely. I sent Olly a text message to tell him so, and he said that he'd sold his, and bought an iPhone. Personally, I think that the iPhone is a waste of money, but I hope for Olly's sake that I'm wrong.
After work, I dropped my bike off at Stows Cycles to be serviced, and then went into the Moon and Spoon to collect Gimmer's cap. Somehow I remembered what it looked like without having to call Gimmer. One of the sexy barmaids said, "Is it a Nike cap?". I told her that it was, and the barman next to her smiled, and said, "Just tell him what type of cap it is, why don't you?". The was a very sexy redhead serving behind the bar as well, so I was tempted to persuade Becky to go into Slough later on. After collecting Gimmer's cap, I went to Tesco to buy some bacon, cheese, and tea (I had to spend over £1.20 on tea, so that I got 25 extra Clubcard points). I handed over the voucher for the Clubcard points to the totty cashier, and she handed me back another one! This time it was for 30 Clubcard points just for buying something from Tesco. It seems like a good deal to me. Not wanting to pay 90p on the bus, I then walked home. Gimmer called me, but hung up when I answered. Then, being a stupid fool, he sent me two text messages reminding me about his cap. I eventually got to talk to him, and told him that I'd already collected it. I then realised that I'd forgotten to go to Superdrug, so turned around, and walked back into Slough.
I was disappointed that there was no totty in Superdrug, but never mind. I then walked along the High Street (via Argos to check out hair clippers for my boss), and back home. I considered paying for a bus when it started raining, but thought better of it! Back at home, I quickly checked my e-mail, and then lay down on the sofa at about half-six for a quick kip before Becky arrived. 45 minutes later, I was woken up by Becky calling to check where she could park. [To be continued.....]
Becky was looking particularly sexy, having dressed up at work because she had some important meetings. I was really hungry, but Becky wanted a cuppa before we went out for a curry. Well, how can I say "no" to a gorgeous woman, and a cup of tea! I still hadn't opened up my iPod, so I opened that up while we were having tea. Becky then got changed before we went out for curry. It always amuses me when I take a new woman to The India. The service there is always excellent, but when I take new totty there, they seem to treat me a little bit better than normal. There were people sitting at my usual table, but there was another table free. I introduced Becky to the best mattar panner in the world, although last Saturday's mattar panneer at the Weymouth Tandoori came a very close second.
As usual, we didn't finish all the food that we ordered, so we got the rest packed away to take home. We dropped the curry off at my place, and then went to the Toby for a couple of drinks. The quiz machine swallowed by quid, and it took ages to get the barmaid to understand what I meant, but I eventually got my quid back. That reminds me, I still haven't got my quid back from Walkabout when Sarah and I went for a drink after the Theatre.
Back at home, we drank more tea (Becky wanted to drink tea to flush away all the coffee that she drank in The India), and watched Waking the Dead. Like me, Becky had watched Monday's episode, but not Tuesday's. I found Tuesday's episode amongst all the numerous other programmes that I have recorded over the last few weeks, but haven't watched, and we settled down to watch that. Having not had the siesta that I had, Becky was feeling quite tired, but managed to stay awake through Waking the Dead. I tried playing with my new iPod Touch before going to sleep, but it seemed very insistent that I should connect it to my PC before it let me use it. I don't know what I'd done to my foot, but it started giving me jip towards the end of the evening.
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