This post comes to you from Sunderland. I am working oop north for a couple of days.

It’s currently 2:30 in the morning and I am surfing the internet, whilst I wait for the video server card that I have changed to come back online.

However, I say surfing, but it’s really more of a paddle in the gently lapping waves of the www.  A paddle just up to my ankles.

I’m having to use my mobile broadband dongle to get access to the internet. But it’s slow. So, so slow. Both here and back at my hotel room.

I cannot get a 3G connection. It’s just… well, G.

Did I mention how slow it is?

Remember the days of dial-up modems?  Watching that little egg timer revolve for hours on end?  Well, it’s slower than that. Because todays web is built for broadband and contains so much feature-rich content, that anything slower than a 2MB connection renders it painful to use.

With my 20MB service at home, I guess I take it for granted. The web is something that is just… there. Waiting for me to spend more time on it, than is considered healthy by most doctors. And the World Health Organisation. And Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

Probably.

I’m looking forward to coming home.  I don’t like it here in the stone age.

I took Amelia and Harry to a children’s birthday party yesterday. It was held at a local open farm.

Once the kids had tired of stroking the rabbits and feeding the lambs, we all went inside, where they had one of those indoor playgrounds, and our little party of a dozen 5 to 8 year-olds spent the next two hours running around like loonies.

One of the biggest attractions was the big red slide: a quite daunting, polished wooden contraption about ten metres high, that gave a near vertical drop at the top but mellowed out to a gentle curve at the bottom.

Amelia surprised me by dropping down this thing, not just the once, but a dozen times. “Come on, Daddy, slide down with me”, she said, grabbing my hand and dragging me up the steps toward the top.  I’ve always enjoyed the thrill rides of rollercoasters and stuff, so I went with her.

But when I got to the top, I changed my mind. Logic told me it was obviously quite safe: hell, there were kids as young as Amelia throwing themselves down this thing, but something in my head clicked and I just didn’t want to do it. I wimped out and took Harry on the shallower blue slide, instead.

I’m getting old.

I had to scold Amelia yesterday.

She had written “Don’t come in my room. Because I said so.” on her bedroom door, in marker pen. Not on a piece of paper stuck to the door, but on the actual paintwork.

As I attacked the graffiti with a cloth and some white spirit, I had a right go at her about how wrong it was to do such a thing.

And then, I congratulated her on her spelling and use of punctuation.

Well, what’s the point of having kids, if you can’t mess with their heads?

She was the prettiest girl in the school, right from the very first day.

Her blond hair shone like spun gold and her eyes were a piercing blue. The smallest of smiles from her perfect lips were enough to send any boy’s heart a flutter and mine did so on many occasions.

Though I’d seen her around the school several times, our paths first properly crossed when I’d been sent to the Headmaster’s office for a dressing down – for what offence, I really can’t remember. As I sat on one of the chairs outside his office -crapping myself and convinced my backside was about to be caned into oblivion – she came and sat next to me, having also been sent to “see the Head”. We exchanged a few words, as we wondered about our impending fate, but sat mainly in silence together.

I’ve always thought that that first meeting, under stressful and worrying circumstances, forged a tiny and tenuous bond between us. I never took it any further though and just continued to admire her from afar.

We were only eight.

In High School, we never mixed in the same circles: she hung out with the cool kids and I… well, I didn’t. And so I continued to fancy her from a distance.

I developed (pun intended) a keen interest in photography and in our last year at school, I opted to do ‘O’ Level photography at the local college. I was surprised and pleased when I turned up on the first day to find she was also on the course. We occasionally worked together and got on well with each other.

I remember one day, the two of us were alone together in the darkroom. I don’t mean the print processing room with the red light, but the film processing room which was proper dark. Black. It was totally lightless. But despite the dark, we knew exactly where everything was, obviously… how else would we develop the films? We also knew exactly where each of us were standing, which is why it was so obvious when I turned and rather clumsily bumped into her, ‘accidentally’ fumbling a quick grope of her knockers as I did so.

To my surprise, no slap round the face or verbal rebuke was forthcoming and I suddenly felt that, just possibly, we still had that slight connection that we’d forged together years before. Something told me that if I pursued it further, there and then, there was a real chance that I’d actually get further. Ask her out. Ask her out, for Godsake!

But, I was nerdy: I lacked confidence when it came to girls and I was swathed in teenage angst and acne, so I never followed it through. For a long time afterward, I cursed my shyness and awkwardness around the fairer sex and castigated myself over the possible missed opportunity of actually having this lovely creature on my arm.

Several years later, I’d taken the day off work and gone up to the NEC in Birmingham with my mate, Dave, for the annual motorbike show. As we wandered around looking at all the bikes, I suddenly heard someone calling my name. I turned around and there she was, looking as gorgeous as ever and sexy as fuck, wearing just a white two-piece bikini and high heel shoes, with a sash going diagonally across her ample chest and slim waist.

We chatted together for a short while, talking about what we’d done after leaving school – I was still following a career in electronics whilst she’d gone into modelling. This particular gig – dolly bird draping herself over motorcycles – was just a temporary assignment while her boyfiend/manager sorted out some proper modelling work for her. Or something. I forget.

Our chat over – she had work to do – I went back over to Dave, who’d stood several feet away to give us some privacy and whose mouth was still wide open in amazement. “How…? Where…? Who…? How the fuck do you know her?” he eventually spurted out.

“Oh her?” I said as nonchalantly as I could, “she’s the one that got away.”

Arggh!

The quest to make my home PC into the computer equivalent of the six-million-dollar man - better; stronger; faster - has hit a major snag that I’ve been so far unable to resolve.

Windows 7 doesn’t bloody well come with an email client! Can you believe that?

Nope, Microsoft has dropped my beloved Outlook Express from it’s latest OS. Instead, they want you to use the full-blown Outlook, which comes as part of their latest Office suite at a cost of 4 zillion quid. Bastards.

So, what are my options? Well, there are plenty of very capable free clients out there. But, I have to find one that will work under 7 running in 64bit mode.

Two such contenders are the much vaunted Mozilla Thunderbird and the much respected Pegasus Mail. I tried both.

Thunderbird’s connection wizard scanned my settings and gave me an IMAP mailbox instead of the POP3 one that I require. I don’t seem to be able to change it. It also won’t import my old OE files that I spent ages getting off the old drive.

Pegasus seemed to work perfectly though and did everything I asked of it.  But… I just don’t like it.

There is a third option: apparently Windows Mail (part of Vista) will run under 7. I quite like Windows Mail and use it regularly as I have Vista on my laptop.

The question is: can I get it off the laptop and on to the desktop, without fucking up either, or both, machines?

If it all goes quiet round here for a while, you’ll know what’s happened.

I mentioned a few posts back of how my PC up and died a little while ago.

Well, the new bits arrived in the post yesterday and I hurriedly slapped it all together.

I made a few changes to my original shopping list by getting a slightly more expensive motherboard and a slightly more expensive processor… that’s what usually happens when I spend too much time thinking about buying stuff, as opposed to actually buying it.

The big change though, was the OS.   Bored of XP (good as it is, but soon to be no longer supported by Microsoft) I toyed with the idea of using Ubuntu as I really like the idea of open-source. I installed it on my backup machine and have been using it for a few weeks and I must say, it’s pretty good. But, I just seemed to struggle with several aspects of it - possibly due to a lack of knowledge on my part.  I could persevere and I’m sure I’d get the hang of it after a while, but in all honesty, I couldn’t be arsed. I know also, that the current Mrs Masher would have constantly moaned at me about it: she likes it simples. And so, I opted for the much vaunted Windows 7.

It’s early days yet, but so far she seems to fly quite well and 7 is rock solid and fast.

Now all I need to do is get round to installing my RAID 1 configured network drive, that has been laying under the bed for over a year!

I returned home from work yesterday evening, to an empty house: Mrs M had taken the mini-Mashers swimming.

I went upstairs and changed out of my work clothes, then came down again.

Just as I reached the bottom step, I heard my mobile phone ring and turned to go back upstairs to retrieve it. Then I realised it was actually downstairs as I’d already put it in the study. So I turned back round and stepped off the bottom stair. Without looking.

I stepped onto a McDonalds toy that had been left on the floor by either Harry or Amelia. It was a small plastic coffin with a mummy in it, from the terrible Scooby Doo 2 movie.

And just like in a scene from Scooby Doo, the plastic toy, with my foot atop it, skidded across the wooden floor of our hallway and I - arms flailing and with both feet in the air - landed flat on my back.

As I went down, I caught my head on the banister rail but, fortunately, not very hard.  But I partly broke my fall with my elbow, which is feeling quite painful.

I lay on the floor listening to the phone ring. It rang two more times then cut off.

I’d have gotten to it too, if it hadn’t been for those pesky kids.

I was pleased to read this yesterday.

I absolutely detest smoking. Always have. I hate it so much, I even dislike No Smoking signs, because they have a picture of a cigarette on them.

And I don’t like the word ‘cigarette’. I always use the shorter, slightly more derogatory sounding name of ‘fag’, because it sounds more disgusting and is better suited to such a disgusting habit.

Smoking kills thousands of people a year, that is a known fact. It makes your breath stink and your clothes smell. And at about five quid a packet, it costs a small fortune to do that to yourself.

And yet, it amazes me that young people still take up this egregious pastime.

Sir Walter Raleigh should have his knighthood posthumously revoked for what he’s done.

Yesterday was the sixth anniversary of the death of my mother.

I hadn’t even realised it until I spoke to my sister on the phone and she said she was on her way to the crematorium to lay some flowers.

I’ve never done that.  Ever.  The laying flowers thing.

I visited my grandfather’s gravestone once, as a mark of respect and because I felt I had to: I’d missed his funeral as were on holiday in Singapore when he’d died. But I’ve not been there since.

Mrs Masher goes up each year at Christmas to place some flowers on the stones of my mum and her parents. But I don’t go with her. I’ve never needed to.

And now, it seems, I don’t even need to remember the date.

It doesn’t bother me at all. But it does make me wonder why I treat it so different to my sisters. For them, January 31 is not a day they look forward to: it brings back memories and grief.

For me, it’s just January the 31st.

Maybe it’s the cold-bloodied logic of atheism that makes the difference.

Pie and mash and liquor has always been one of my favourite dishes.  My mum used to do it occasionally for us tea, but after I moved out, it was many years before I got to sample it’s savoury loveliness again.

It’s a traditional London food and the place where I’ve been working this week has a pie and mash shop just around the corner. So, if I can, I try to pop in there once a week to get my fix.

Although I call it a shop it’s actually more of a café as it has tables and chairs where you can sit and eat your meal. The place has no airs or graces and it’s clientele - like it’s simple fare - reflect this. Populated by mainly the elderly, the infirm and the feeble-minded, I feel very much at home there.

Today, as I tucked into my food, a chap rose from the table (having finished his lunch) and went to leave. But, instead of leaving he wandered behind the counter area where they were preparing the food.  Now, it has to be said at this point, that he was a bit mental. He had an obvious mental deficiency and wasn’t all there.

He had a bit of a look round and then was quickly ushered out and chastised by his guardian: “Nigel, come out of there! That’s very naughty!”

I found it most amusing: he meant no harm and he touched nothing. He was just curious.

But the counter staff (old(ish) women, I might add) all acted like he had transgressed some sort of unwritten pie & mash law by being there. It was like the holy minced beef pies had been tainted by his very presence and would now all have to be thrown away.

Once his guardian had towed him out of earshot, the well-I-nevers and the did-you-see-thats went into full flow.

I know there’s the hygiene issue and probably a Health and Safety one too, but they could see this chap wasn’t the full ticket; there was no need to berate him so. Even behind his back.

Maybe they should put up a simple sign: NO NUTTERS BEHIND THE COUNTER.

That might make things a bit awkward, though.

My PC died on Saturday morning.

Well, it didn’t actually die, but XP kept rebooting itself and nothing I tried would work (and trust me: I tried!).

I’ve taken it as a sign that I need to start afresh: well, I’ve had this particular setup for a few years now and I feel the need for an upgrade

So, I’ve been busy scouring the net, looking for new bits. I’ve settled on a mid-range Asus motherboard; a Phenom II processor; DDR3 memory and a 500GB HDD.  Well, I say ’settled’, in reality I keep changing my mind. But that looks a reasonable upgrade to me, so if I haven’t decided on anything better/cheaper by the end of the week, then that’s what we’ll be going for.

That also gives me a bit more time to tinker around with a different OS.  This very post comes to you courtesy of my Ubuntu powered back-up machine!

I really like the idea of Ubuntu, but haven’t really played with it much - until I was forced to! It’s very different from Windows and I’m struggling with many aspects of it. But I kind of want to get the hang of it and have it as the only OS on the new machine  (Deep Thought 6).

But I’ll be forced to go back to XP if I can’t figure out how to install Windows apps from CD using WINE !!

I’d appreciate any (helpful) pointers.

This week saw Harry’s 5th birthday and yesterday, we threw a party for him.

As he’d invited every kid in his class, we hired the local church hall to hold it in. On Friday night, I picked up the keys from the caretaker. “Ahh, yes” he said, thumbing through his diary, “you have it booked for tomorrow afternoon. Can I ask what kind of function you are having?”

“It’s a children’s birthday party,” I said, “there’ll be about thirty kids.”

He smiled as he handed the keys over. “Good luck,” he said.

“We’d better take a case of beer,” said Mrs Masher, as an afterthought on Saturday morning, “just in case any of the parents want a drink.”

Within an hour of the party starting, the beer had run out and I had to nip up to the supermarket to get some more. As I emerged from the store, carrying two cases of Australia’s favourite amber nectar, I bumped into the caretaker. He looked at me. He looked at the beer. He looked back at me.

“Kids, eh?” I said, sheepishly.

Along with her best friend, my six-year old daughter went along to the local scout hut tonight, to see what being a Girl Guide was all about. By all accounts, she had fun.

But you cannot join the Girl Guides until you are fourteen years of age.

The pre-Guide groups are the Brownies. But you cannot join them until you are about eight.

And so, she has had to join the junior group: Little Beavers.

Am I alone in finding that name amusing, yet, slightly inappropriate?

Every year it’s the same.

Every year the notification falls on the doormat, I look at it and say “Ahh, plenty of time to do that.”

And then the reminders start coming thick and fast, warning me that I’m liable for a penalty fine if I don’t meet the deadline.

And then I start to worry a bit. Maybe I should make a start on it sometime soon. The weekend: yes, that’s when I’ll do it.

But I don’t. I find excuses. Any excuse and every excuse not to have to make a start on it.

I’m just too busy.

I really need to catch up on all those old episodes of The Professionals I have saved on the V+ box.

The kids are being too noisy and I can’t concentrate.

I must read that interesting and lengthy article on capacitive sensing in Geeks Weekly.

The oven needs cleaning.

The list of excuses goes on.

And now I have just two weeks to get it done. I’ve made my mind up: no more distractions. I WILL get it done tonight!

The kids are in bed; I have fully caught up with Bodie and Doyle; the kitchen is sparkling and I’ve read all my nerdy magazines.  There is nothing going to prevent me from getting this done tonight.

“What’s that dear? You want sex? But we had that just last year and I really do need to get my Tax Return done befo… oh, alright then.”

Once again the snow is coming down and once again the country is grinding to a halt.

I’ve been working from home this last week or so, but decided to go into the office this morning as I’m starting to go a bit stir crazy being shut up indoors all the time.

The roads were a little bit slippy, but not too bad, so I decided to give it a go. It can’t be that hard to drive in: we only have a light snow coming down.

It took me half an hour to get ten minutes up the road and then I lost interest.  Sitting in a line of traffic which hadn’t moved for five minutes, I changed my mind and went home. Stir crazy or not, I wasn’t going to spend two hours getting to the office, wiith possibly a similar two-hour journey home, just so I could do exactly the same work as I could do sitting at my dining room table.

And then, at just after midday, we received a text message from the school saying that it would be closing early due to health and safety reasons. Stone the crows! When I was a kid, we used to put our wellies on and walk to school, no matter how much snow there was. And we used to play out in the playground during breaks, throwing snowballs at each other. And yes, sometimes we used to get hurt. But that’s all part of being a kid and growing up… and being British.

When Mrs M was talking to one of the teachers’ this morning, she (the teacher) admitted that the Health & Safety thing was a bit much, but “… if your child slipped and hurt himself you’d probably sue us.”  Of course we wouldn’t, you silly woman, we have far more common sense than that.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for many others, who would, given the opportunity, do their darndest to claim every penny they could in “compensation” for their little darling slipping over and breaking a nail.

And that’s just one of the reasons this country is in the state it’s in.

OK, so it’s not the best snowman in the world. I’m not the creative type and that took me bloody ages to build. Especially with the kids hampering helping me.

Last night was officially the coldest night in the UK since 10,000 BC. When I came down this morning, it felt decidedly nippy in the house. A quick check of the thermostat showed that it was only 14°C.  I felt the radiators: stone cold.  Oh great! Just what we need. For some reason the central heating controller had thrown a wobbler in the night and though it showed that it was on and working, it wasn’t. Luckily all it needed was a reboot and all came back on. Still, it will take a few hours to get the temperature back up to normal. My feet are freezing.

I suppose we’d better get used to feeling cold though, as the government said a few days ago that we only have enough gas in the country to last till next week.  And there’s no food in the shops because the deliveries can’t get through on the iced up roads.  And we can’t grit the roads because we’ll have run out of grit by teatime tomorrow.

It’s tough living in a third-world country.

In other news: so, you think the flash new 10 megapixel camera that you got for Christmas has impressive resolution?
Pah!  Take a look at this.

I’m working from home today. Because I can.

We have four, maybe five, feet of snow outside and I can’t see the point of struggling on the roads for several hours, just so I can get to the office to do some spreadsheets. I can log in and do them from home. Much more sensible.

In other news, I heard yesterday that John Terry, the captain of Chelsea Football Club - and current captain of the England football team, I believe - is the Football Premiership’s highest paid player, earning being paid twenty four thousand pounds a day.  A day!!

Holy fuckoly!

Now, that isn’t just ‘not right’, it’s wrong. Very wrong. In fact, it’s downright obscene. Criminal, even.

With just a dash of sour grapes.

Allegedly.

In order to celebrate the New Year and indeed, the new decade, I thought I’d have a revamp of the website.

I perused many different templates before deciding that I actually quite like the one I’ve got. So, I’ve just given it a bit of a facelift.

This latest version also supports widgets… should I ever decide that I want to install one. Or even find out what they are.

It’s still needs a bit of tweaking though. I’ll probably make it a New Year resolution to finish it before the end of 2010!

I’ve tested it in Internet Explorer 8 and the latest versions of Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Safari and all seems to work fine. In IE 6 though, for some reason the post body starts halfway down the page. I can’t be bothered to fix that though, so if you’re running an old version you’ll need to upgrade.

And I’ll take this opportunity to wish you both a Happy New Year.

Well, it’s all over now, bar the shouting.

The house looks like the aftermath of an explosion in Toys R Us.

We’ve bought enough batteries to push Duracell’s share price up three points when the market re-opens.

The plastic crate we use for recycling our glass bottles brimeth over.

We have enough cardboard and cellophane wrapping material to house most of London’s homeless.

And enough stale sausage rolls and mince pies to keep a small village in Ethiopia going for a month.

High School Musical and Ben 10  games, toys and paraphernalia infest every part of the house.

We’ve eaten far too much food. We’ve drunk far too much booze. And we’ve spent far too much money.

But that’s what Christmas is all about.

Apparently.

Took the day off work yesterday and we all went down to that London for the day, to visit the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. We took Amelia’s best friend with us, and my dad.

And it was really good.
And it was really expensive.
And it was very German. For some reason.

Unfortunately, the heavy snows that we’ve had here don’t seem to have happened in London - I’m sure the Winter Wonderland would have been even more wintery and wondrous if it had had a white blanket of snow covering it.

But even so, we had a great time… even when it started raining.

The kids went on lots of kiddie rides and me and my dad went on the scary rollercoaster thing and screamed like girls.

It was a great day out, marred only by the inability of our local rail operator to run a reasonable number of trains, on tracks that were now clear of snow. With cancellations and delays, we were left waiting on the platform for nearly an hour on the journey into London and at least forty minutes for the return journey. Bad enough when you are travelling on your own, but with three easily-bored youngsters, it was a right pain in the arse.

Anyway, I wish you both a very Merry Christmas and I’m sure I’ll post again once I’ve managed to get that fat bloke with the white beard out of my chimney.

Pah! Ne’er a sprout to be seen!

Our Xmas do, last night, was held in a large marquee. And if the marquee had had rafters, it would have been packed to them. I’m told there were about 700 people there, all in all.

They squeezed a dozen people onto each round table: tables that would have comfortably seated eight. The food was a bit noncy for my liking: chicken in a creamy sauce of some kind; mashed potato that had been shaped into a perfect cube; four tips of asparagus and two baby carrots all laid immaculately on the plate. Don’t get me wrong: it was delicious, it just lacked a certain something. Quantity, I think it was.  And, try as I might, I couldn’t get anyone to come with me for a kebab, afterward.

But there was much drinking and talking and laughing and drinking. And then there was dancing. On a dance-floor the size of a postage stamp. That was fun.

And then there were girls. Lots of girls. Girls with impossibly small bottoms. And improbably short skirts.
I didn’t know where to look.

And then we went back to the hotel and prevented the bar staff from having an early night. I think I finally staggered up to bed at about 03:30.

My head this morning was pounding but, fortunately, I’d had the foresight to pack some Ibuprofen. That, and a full monty cooked breakfast soon had me right as rain again.

It was a good night and I think a good time was had by us all.

Shame about the sprouts though.

I’m in Reading. For the second night this week.

The first was on Tuesday night, when I was in to do some out-of-hours work… that didn’t go particularly well.

Also, the motel I stayed at was a bit of a dive: cold room, soft bed, tiny bath. On the plus side, the pub restaurant next door was quite superb and I had my second Christmas dinner of the year there: a full turkey roast with all the trimmings followed by Christmas pudding in a brandy sauce. For a fiver! I know it was a proper Christmas dinner, because it had sprouts.

Tonight I am in Reading again, but this time it is for the company Christmas party. No work involved… apart from trying to keep up with some of the, shall we say, more talented drinkers in our little group.

The hotel we are all staying at is - it has to be said - a lot posher than the motels that I am used to staying in: the tea making facilities come on a tray that is hidden in the TV cabinet… that’s how posh it is.  And it was cheaper. And that includes breakfast in the morning.   But that’s the benefit of group bookings I suppose.

Hopefully, the Christmas meal will be just as good as the one I had two days ago.

It might even be better… depends how many sprouts I get.

Still a paucity of posts, I’m afraid.

Still vewwy busy… that’s why.

I’m no longer on nights and have shifted to early mornings, on a project in Lewisham.

Let me tell you: 5am  is just the best time to be travelling through the Blackwall Tunnel. Conversely, 5pm is not the best time to be travelling back!  Each night this week, I have faced my journey home with dread… and rightfully so. Accidents, breakdowns and gridlocked traffic have all contributed to my nightly three hour journey home and left me with no fingernails.

Conversely, the early morning journey in has been a joy - and only takes just over an hour.

Each morning and night, travelling along the A12 in both directions, past Stratford, I noticed the work on the new Olympic stadium. It didn’t look nearly big enough.

Today, I finished early, and on the way home I realised that I’d been looking at the wrong building and the stadium proper is actually set a bit further back from the road. And it’s bloody huge!  “How come, I didn’t notice that?” I wondered. Then I realised that I was travelling in daylight for the first time this week.

I have tomorrow off. I need it. I’m knackered.

I’m working away in Southampton again this week, doing nightwork.

I’ve picked a better hotel this time. A bit further away, but it’s a big improvement on the nosh front.

I woke this morning about 10:30 - having had four hours sleep - and lay in bed for an hour watching a documentary about Sir Francis Drake. Finally I dragged myself up and went out to get some fresh air… and also to let the maid in to do my room.

The company I work for have their offices in Southampton, so I popped in to introduce myself and scrounge a cup of tea. Which was nice.

When I got back to my room, I found the maid had indeed been and done her stuff. She’d made the bed - badly: just smoothed the duvet out. I could have done that!  She’d also switched the TV off from standby; emptied the kettle of the water I’d left in there (pointless, because I’m only going to fill it up again) and - most importantly - folded the edge of the toilet paper into a tidy triangle.
Must have taken her all of three minutes.

And, I’m annoyed. Why? Because some thieving git has stolen the aerial off my car whilst it was parked outside where I’m working.
It may sound a petty thing to complain about, but it’s me who’ll have to fork out twenty quid or so for a new one.
Which will probably just get nicked again.

I’m willing to vote for any political party that is willing to bring in Capital Punishment for murder and a range of car related minor misdemeanours.

Golly, I haven’t written anything for a week!

Been busy.

I’ve been working away this week, down in Southampton. To save on all the driving, I booked myself into a Premier Inn for a couple of nights. It’s just off the M27. Next to Rownham Services.
Which is where you have to get your breakfast and evening meal. So, I’ll not be booking there, again.

Actually, in truth, the food was OK - well, OK for me and my dull palate. But, having to pay two quid for a cup of tea seriously damaged my sensibilities!

I’m back out that way again, next week. Thinks I’ll try find somewhere else to stay.

There is a rule of thumb that states that if you drive in a straight line for more than 15 minutes, you will eventually come across a 24 hr Tesco. At least that’s how I generally find them, and I found one in Southampton last night using that exact scientific method.

As I walked in, I overtook a tall lady pushing a trolley.  A young chap walking toward us cast  her a low wolf whistle as he passed and, despite thinking how crass it was for him to do such a thing, I turned to look at her.Of course.

She dressed like a woman. She walked like a woman. But, ’she’ was most definitely a man.

And not a good looking man, either.

A good looking chap in a dress can generally pass himself off as an ugly looking bird.  But an ugly bloke in a dress…

Our paths crossed several times as we passed in the aisles and I was surprised at the level of nonchalance he showed, whilst he was obviously aware of the number of stares he was drawing.

It can’t be easy, being an ugly bloke in a dress.

I’ve been doing some night work this week.

Last night, I found myself flagging halfway through the night, so I nipped up to the vending machines to get an energy boost.

Chocolate is what I needed. Chocolate and sugar.

I grabbed a Coke from one machine then perused the display of sugary delights in the other. Aha! A Mars Bar! That fitted the bill.  I put in my 40p and punched in the number.

What fell into the collection hopper, however, was a low-fat, low-sugar, Special K, ain’t-gonna-give-you-no-energy-whatsoever bar.

Whoever had filled the machine, had slid the selection numbers along to the left, such that they were all one out.  Arrgh! A bleeding tasteless Special K  bar was of no use to me! I put in another 40p and this time made sure I selected the correct number.

The spiral arm slowly turned, bringing my bar of sugary, fatty goodness toward me.

And then it stopped… with the Mars Bar teetering on the edge, but refusing to fall.

“No!!  Give me my fucking Mars Bar!” I yelled at the machine, kicking it until it eventually relinquished it’s grip and dropped my bar of death-by-caramel into the collection hopper.

The diet gods may have been trying to do me a favour, but, at four in the morning, a bar of low-fat cardboard was not going to get the work done.

In other news, I have finally finished putting my Egyptian holiday diary together. Linky to the left.

The past three mornings, I have woken up with a mightily stiff neck: a result of sleeping on the sofa.

The current Mrs Masher has had a dose of the plague and I don’t want it, so, I have chosen to eschew the marital bed in favour of the sofa.

It’s not the most comfortable sofa, it has to be said. Oh, it’s fine for sitting on, but it’s not the best thing for a good night’s sleep. Consequently, I am a bit knackered at the moment, having not had a decent kip for three days.

In sickness and in health. Pah.

Holiday photos aren’t being catalogued and edited.

Diaries aren’t being typed up.

Why? Jack’s back, that’s why.

Being long-time addicts of the show, the current Mrs Masher and I are currently working our way through the latest offering from Bauer and co.

Four hours worth at a time!

Kids to bed, lights down, surround sound up… sorted.

Only another sixteen hours to go and I’ll be able to get some work done!