My next door neighbour died this morning.
He’d been ill for a long time and over the past year, there has been a constant stream of carers - and every so often, an ambulance - parked outside the house.  This morning was no different, except that this time, rather than a wheelchair, he was stretchered out [...]

It’s 2.30. In the morning.
I awoke an hour and a half ago to the sound of gentle sobbing coming from Harry’s bedroom. I went in and found he had fallen out of bed and was lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. I lifted him back in to bed and pulled his covers over [...]

Up and down the country, England flags are flying at half-mast - or being torn down in disgust - because our brave lads the bunch of useless, overpaid tossers that we call the England football team, have once again rolled over and died before our greatest footballing foe: Germany.
It wouldn’t have been so bad, had [...]

I was recently asked to take part in a long term study (20 years, I think it is) looking at the health effects of mobile phone use. The study is being conducted by Imperial College London and is backed by the Department of Health, so it’s obviously a serious piece of research.
I readily agreed to [...]

It’s been a quiet week here. Well, you could be forgiven for thinking so, based on the number of posts I’ve made lately: ie. zero.
But things have happened:
I’ve finished decorating the study. Almost. It’s just the little things that are outstanding: lampshades; pictures on the wall; books back on the shelves; four external hard drives [...]

So, what’s been happening this weekend in Chez Masher?
Decorating, mainly.
I have moved everything out of my small study room and placed it around the house. The computer desk and bookshelves are in the living room; there’s crap stuff under the stairs and in the kitchen, and the spare bedroom is chokka. I swear that study [...]

Mrs M has taken herself and the mini Mashers off on holiday.
They’ve gone to France to spend a few days at EuroDisney before heading further south.
They haven’t gone on their own though: Amelia’s best friend’s family have gone as well. All except the dad… who, like me, has to work.
Can’t say I fancied EuroDisney much, [...]

I don’t do spooky.
Although I like to keep an open mind on such things, I tend to look at the more logical and reasoned explanations for things like telepathy, ESP and all that paranormal nonsense.
But something that happened yesterday certainly had me wondering.
I’m currently in the midst of tidying out my study, in preparation for [...]

I had the rare occurance of having the afternoon to myself yesterday.
Mrs M had taken the kids to a birthday party; the sun was shining and I thought it would be a good idea to get my bike out of it’s winter hibernation.
Unsurprisingly, it didn’t start, as the battery was flat. I’d expected that though, [...]

A few of us were looking at Google’s Street View t’other day.
One of the chaps at work, spotted his neighbour gawping at the camera. Even though her face had been blurred out, you could see from her stance that she was staring at it, thinking “What the …?”
So I started looking around friends and relatives’ [...]

Following a somewhat huge bill for gas and electric last month, I decided to look at ways of saving a few quid.
One way, was to sign up for British Gas’  EnergySmart scheme. The main advantage of this, is that you take the meter reading yourself each month and then enter it on the British Gas [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

… I’m Home!!
Have I missed much?  Well, yes: it looks like I have.
Us winning the Ashes; Arsenal coming second in a game of football; Button crashing out of the GP; a new series of Shooting Stars at last, and lots more besides, I’m sure.
Did you miss much?  Well, yes. You missed ten days of glorious [...]

The rest of the family return from their holiday today, so, no more lounging around for me.
But, they return to a house that is just as tidy as they left it (marginally tidier, in fact); that still has the same food in the cupboards (I had a lot of takeaways!) and still has the same [...]

I promised my sister that I would fit her a new TV aerial at the weekend.  It needed to go on the chimney, which meant I needed a roof ladder. The mate who normally lends me one, let me down, by lending it to someone else. Hmm, what to do? My days of just walking [...]

I have a Monty Python desk calendar, that Mrs M bought me for Christmas. It sits - of all places - on my desk, where I spend much of my time being a nerd and writing this rubbish.
This morning, I tore off the top sheet to reveal the next day - as I do each [...]

At about lunchtime, the current Mrs Masher bundled the two mini-mashers into her car and took them for a week’s holiday on the coast. I’m too busy at work at the moment to be taking time off, so I’m home alone. Again. Mrs M hasn’t gone on her own though: she has taken a couple [...]

We are finally all Wii’d up.
The missus bought one yesterday. The kids love it. So does she.
Me, I think it’s OK.
Actually, I think it’s a wonderful piece of kit - from an engineering point of view. But as for playing the games… (and some of them were quite fun, admittedly) well, that does little for [...]

I came home to a tidy and silent house.
I poured myself a glass of wine and put some Frank on whilst I went through my emails.
And then I had an idea: ‘er indoors has been on about re-decorating the bedroom. This would be a perfect opportunity, with everyone out of the way.
I swapped Frank out [...]

Sort of.
Faced with the prospect of going stir-crazy, stuck at home with the kids during this half-term week, Mrs Masher booked us all into a holiday park down on the south coast.
However, I am currently so busy at work that I couldn’t go, so she has bundled the kids and her bruised foot into the [...]

Each year, Keech Cottage - the local children’s hospice - come round the streets over several nights, towing a big red train with Santa in it.
The train is covered in lights and plays Christmas music so loud that it can be heard several streets away. Santa waves as his ‘helpers’ knock on the doors collecting [...]

Mrs Masher’s car has been playing up for the last couple of weeks - keeps cutting out and losing power randomly.
And so she has booked it into the local dealer for them to look at it.
‘Looking at it’ starts with a 50 quid charge for plugging in an analyser - which supposedly tells the mechanic [...]

As I write this, I am listening to the birds twittering and singing. My ornithology skills being virtually nil, I’m not able to tell one bird from another. But I can hear other sounds as well: a horse occasionally blowing through his lips (I have no idea what the correct term for that is!), as [...]

Today is my daughter’s 5th birthday. She’s very excited.
She’s picked her own birthday presents: everything on pages 328 to 342 in the Argos catalogue.
This afternoon, she is having a bit of a party with some of her friends from school.
A dozen 5 and 6 year-olds. Running around, screaming. As 5 and 6 year-olds are wont [...]

I mentioned on these hallowed pages last year that we’d recently had a water meter fitted, and that subsequently, this would allow me to be charged a much fairer amount for the water that we actually used, as opposed to a fixed sum based on the rateable value of the house.
I was verbally lambasted by [...]