Aw, BUG-gger ...Boo!

So with only a short forecasted seven weeks to go, we're in baby planning mode.

At home, we're clearing and preparing the spare bedroom -- transforming from P's 'boudoir' to GF's nursery -- as well as thinking about how grown-ups things can be moved and stored to accommodate the nipper.

But babies also need loads and loads and loads of stuff -- and damn, much of it is expensive.

Thankfully, there's a marvelous man called Mr. John Lewis who'll kindly take care of everything.

You just go online and create a list -- kinda like a wedding list. The difference -- for us, anyway -- is that ours is a personal 'work in progress' and not for friends and family to contribute to. ..Why would they?

The great thing is that you can just browse the Web site and keep adding things, edit as you go and then take said list to one of the nice Mr. Lewis' many national outlets where a munchkin will guide you around, help you 'kick the wheels', refine to the essentials, add and delete and then a few weeks later, a gang of chaps from an assortment of Europe's expansion states rock-up at your door with the haul.

And of course, the biggest -- and in many ways -- the most exciting item (for Pa anyway) is the buggy.

It's a kinda new car substitute -- because, heck, I ain't gonna get a new one myself anytime soon. Indeed, with P off on maternity (read: one income for the next year), she gets to have the 'Drover full time and I get to dust-off the Oyster card. The indignity of it..

So we peruse the wibbly-wobbly for what's on offer. You'd think it simple. After all, it's just a buggy -- baby, for the transportation of. But no, there are hundreds out there, all across the price scale. And the best of the lot is (apparently) a Bugaboo Chameleon -- a snip at a few measly shillings under 600 nicker.

Which is, of course, the one we've chosen. A nice one too in natty 'denim' which is the hip way of saying, ehem, mid-blue.

But if it's not harm enough for me to be robbed blind for 'baby, the transportation of', must the nice people at Bugaboo (I have no idea, but for some reason I'm sure they're Scandies or Cloggies), in cahoots with the ubiquitous Welsh shopkeeper, have to patronise me too?

This is how the grammatically challenged blurb in Mr. Lewis' catalogue sells to me ...the already sold.

Distinctive design, intuitive handling plus mix and match colours. No wonder funky new mums (and dads) love Bugaboo! They make traveling with baby simple and stylish. Whether you're nipping out for a newspaper, strolling on the beach or planning an adventurous walk on rough terrain, Bugaboo won't let you down.

Makes it sound like a cross between a 911, a Defender and a Lear jet ..or something.

Utter cock.

Does it change the nappies too?

I'm sure it's a great thing with lots of adaptability, accessories and add-ons etc., but it seems to be more of a status symbol for the self-consciously smug Observer-reading parents (us), than the wee chap or chapette. Dads get to replace eyeing one another's respective motors at the lights by displaying conspicuous baby-related consumption at the local organic caff or gastro-creche.

Thank God I don't have to deal with breast pumps and maternity bras.

I shudder to think at how the copywriting monsters at Mothercare and the like spin these devices of torture to the poor novice mothers.

Cold Day In The Sun

This was such a magnificent morning, I felt it necessary to take some pics on dog & I's stroll. Frost on the ground, the temperature hovering just above zero and bright blue sky.

Indeed, per the previous entry, the city's so wonderfully quiet at this time of the year. As everyone's retreated their respective Shires, this corner of north London is practically deserted.

Perfect - unlike the quite poor definition of the iPhone's camera :-(

A view into the rising sun across Butterfield Green


Frigid bench on the Green (too cold and too early for the winos to take position)


As above, but a more ornate style


Thawing frost in Clissold Park


A gentle frosty Clissold slope


A duck-type creature on Clissold's icy pond


Mid-morning sun on the icy pond

Silent Night

Heck. Is this Stokie?

It's just past midnight and all I can hear is the twittering of a bird. And what kind of bird sings at night in December in England?
(must Google that one..)

No police/ambulance/fire sirens; no helicopters hovering; no boom-boys in their hot hatches a-boomin'; no drunks a-staggering; no hoodies a-geezering; no domestics a-flaring; no fireworks a-bangin'; no fish wives a-hollerin'.. you get the drift.

London really does slow down and shut-the-funk-up at Christmas and it's wonderful.

And one day, someone in the so-called top four will score a goal and win a match in the Prem..

Peace and good will to all men - tho' not Gooners, of course.

Carefree

Cockney Reject

Rats.

My submission to Popbitch's weirdly apt names section was rejected this week :-(

Ho hum, if I can't get recognition on PB's weekly slander-mail, then I'll just have to publish here.

From this week's news of the QEII running aground in Southampton harbour, the name of Cunard spokesperson was:

....Eric Flounders

Clearly too poetic for the tittle-tattle merchants..

Don't Believe The Hype

However you look at it, Marrakesh, in my humble, is way, way, way overrated. If the truth were told, it's a shithole.

**I must state upfront, that these are all my own opinions and in no way reflect those of my good lady wife -- who is a pioneer, traveller par excellence and woman of exquisite taste. She loves the place BTW.

If you're a consumer of British media - everything from weekend broadsheet supplements, lifestyle, fashion and travel magazines - you can't have missed gushing photo-spread feature after fawning photo-spread feature PR-ing this noxious little outpost in deepest Morocco. For the last four or five years it's been building a reputation as *the* place to go if you crave easy-to-get-to poverty, street hassle, sickness and tourist crap.

We went there last week and it was poo.

It has no architectural merit. It's not picturesque. It's not even quirky. There is seemingly no point to it.

Why would one go? It's dirty. Smelly. Overcrowded. Intimidating. Irritating. Dangerous.

I mean, how many brightly coloured slippers can a person reasonably have? Who needs a tatty carpet, lantern, bowl, necklace, lamp, shawl, drape, belt, bag, photo frame, rug, tagine pot, dervish knife or sword, tribal mask, joss stick, joss stick holder, rucksack, plate, saucer, vial, soap dish, soap, oil, incense…

All this -- and lots of it -- is available for haggle at the infamous souks.

But buyer beware. Souks are narrow, poorly lit, overcrowded hellholes where you're overtaken by the deafening bids of shopkeepers on all sides pimping their shoddy wares. That and all the random people -- milling tourists; just looking tourists; on the trader's line tourists; being reeled-in tourists; and poor, resigned-to-the-rip-off tourists. Not to mention the locals -- flitting hither and thither; pulling carts; leading over laden, broken donkeys; panhandlers; beggars; chancers and thieves. Oh, and scooters. Thousands of then. Toot toot toot. With their collective exhaust, the place smells like a lawnmower convention held in a sewer.

And then there's the food. Tagine. Big wow. It's not a culinary epiphany, it's a pot. Into which, the Moroccans put principally chicken or lamb. That's it -- lamb stew. Intriguing n'est pas? Stand down Heston, it's not the discovery of the century..

I'm being unfair, of course. Very unfair.

But the problem is -- I got food (or water) poisoning mid-way through the visit and have carried it for eight days now. The experience (I'll spare you) does, ehem, colour the experience. I lost half a stone (~3 kilos) as indication of the voracity of the viral or bacterial infection of my guts.

All this is most unfortunate, as I did manage to ape those Conde Nast Traveller-type shutterbugs with some damn fine pics taken on the iPhone's meagre camera, see below.

Anyway, that's me done with the exotic. In future, I'm not straying far from the tried and tested golf resort in southern Spain.

"I'm Caliban-I-Am I-Am,
I'm Caliban-I-Am I-Am."

**Expression of jaundiced views is a raison d'etre here. But editorial wilfulness can sometimes get me in trouble Chez S.

Random alley

Random alley

Door -- down a random alley

The Square

The Square

Donkey looking very forlorn and forlornly, ehem, very sad

A souk -- shudder to think..

Ceiling of our fancy room in the Rihad

Courtyard in Rihad

Pool and private courtyard in suite No.1 in Palmerie

Blossom In pool, suite No.1

Flower at our 2nd suite in the palmerie

The pool, suite No.2 -- a Hockney-esque study, innit

Wall of 2nd suite in the Palmerie -- A shadow play(ish and -esque;-)

Wall in suite No.2 courtyard in Palmerie ..Isn't the blue divine?

Cactus against [magnificently blue] wall of Palmerie suite No.2

Le posh hotel thingie

Graffiti -- Gooners get everywhere ..and probably pissed up the wall too

Airport -- brilliant architecture and a vitally important and welcome route home!

Airport -- another view. Quite magnificent

Ever Feel Like You've Been Cheated?

I suppose we should count ourselves lucky that we havn't been touched too directly by the rampant crime of grimy north Gotham.

We aren't completely untouched, but nothing bad. P had her phone snatched from her hand on the street a couple of years ago. Some dullards pinched three topiary planters from our light well. A moron broken into the car over the first May Bank Holiday, but only caused a broken rear passenger window and nicked the TomTom from the glove box. ..And last night I was scammed at my front door.

At about 20:15, half-way through a (homealone)dinner consumed in-front of a rerun of British Style Genius, I was disturbed by a knock at the door. A very apologetic smartly-dressed (business casual) gent in his late 20s/early 30s introduced himself as our new neighbour (on the right). Not completely implausible as the house next door has been sold and this same chap introduced himself as such to P on Monday evening too.

Him to me (and also on mobile phone to supposed wife): "I'm very sorry, but we're awaiting a delivery and I have no cash and my wife is stuck in traffic. I wouldn't ask, but the delivery will be here in a few minutes and I need £7."

My mind: Tick. Tick. Tick. He seems OK. P did say that she'd met the new neighbour. He looks tidy and is neutrally well-spoken. Does he want me to take his delivery? I'm kinda pissed off as I'm half-way through my food. All I want is for him to go away -- and quick. OK. Here's a tenner.

Him to me ('corrected' via mobile phone by 'wife'): "Oh sorry, that's £27 not £7."

Me: "OK, as your going to be living next door -- heck, I know where you live. Here's £30. Pay me back next week sometime."

And about 15 minutes later, our neighbour (a real one this time, on the left) knocked on the door and asked me about my ...brother.

Me: Eh? I don't have a brother.

Legitimate neighbour: "That's funny, a guy saying he was your brother knocked on the door a few minutes ago asking for money to cover the cost of -- yep, you guessed it -- a delivery."

Thinking back too, a couple of bobbies did come by on Monday evening responding to a call from two doors down regarding a man asking for money at their door..

Ddduuuummmmmm. Eureka moment. I've been done up like a kipper.

And here's me, Meldrew of the North, out of the goodness of my heart and against my better (or worse) nature, being taken for thirty quid on my own doorstep.

So as an additional security precaution and should matey boy be planning to inflict greater injury to my property, the heavy wooden doors in the lower ground floor bay are tightly shut until the pooch returns at the weekend.

And I never thought I'd be actively welcoming the return of the dog's most annoying habit -- loud, incessant barking at the front door. But it's a great deterrent to n'er do wells of all stripes.

And if I ever see that 'neighbour' of mine again ...I'll call the cops, of course.

The Fall

Dobbin the horse accidentally slipped and fell in the exercise yard yesterday.

....


Vets were quickly on the scene and by all accounts, old Dobbin is in a stable condition.

Oh Boy

We had scan #2 this morning and I'm very pleased to report that baby S is fine -- the right size, weight, brain OK, spine good, the right number of fingers and toes and is 'swimming' in the right amount of amniotic fluid, fed from a right sized placenta.

Oh, and he's a BOY! Yay!

And the Easter Island angularity of the first scan seems to have passed to more naturally human features.

..So now we throw away the baby name books (we were undecided on girl's names) as George Frederick Haymer S is alright as he is thank you very much.

(Haymer, btw, is a name given to the males on my wife's side of the family).

While all I wanted was for a healthy baby and its sex was immaterial, I am looking forward to a more evenly balanced gender spread at home.

"Oh My, And A Boo Hoo"

Well, the England football team wasn't entirely convincing against a plucky Kazakhstan, but 5-1 is a comfortable victory in anyone's book. And in football, it's the result that counts. You grind 'em out and take the points, right?

Take a trip to a trip up Stamford Hill to N17 on any grey Wednesday afternoon and ask the residents of that grotty postcode how they'd feel about achieving a few dire victories with a four-goal advantage -- or even for that matter, a paltry one-goal up. I'll wager they'd swap the entertaining but goalless worst start in over a century for a bit of that as quickly as you can say, erm, Danny Blanchflower very quickly..

And that's my point and why I'm so incensed at the cowardly and unsporting booing by the Wembley crowd -- and the equally banal bleating of the tabloid backpages -- of Messrs Cole (A), Lampard and Gerrard whenever they don the lilly white Three Lions.

Yesterday, Ashley Cole was booed at every touch after haphazardly gifting the visitors a sitter. Hey, everyone makes mistakes, and I'm sure Cashley would be the first to admit he's made more than his fair share. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of the puking, preening adulterer either, but he is giving it a go on the left.

But frankly, I resent the griping, booing and hissing of 'fans' from Scunthorpe, Market Harborough or Telford -- or whatever God-forsaken parochial hole these morons come from.

In football it's club firmly over country.

The boys, more habitually in Blue or Red, have more important priorities in their obscenely over-paid day jobs. These silly national games are a mere distraction and potential threat of costly injury.

I was pleased -- pleased, I tell you -- when England tumbled out of Euro 2008. No more of this international silliness. For what's the point? If the nation hates Super Frank and Stevo, then why should they bother? What thanks do they get for their efforts?

Zip. Zilch. Nada.

So chaps, let's just throw it all away, again, and get back to what's really important -- the Premiership and Champion's League -- and leave the provincials to their piffling Conference League tedium.

Carefree.

Are You Receiving?

So here I am happily taking advantage of the weekly luxury of working from home on Fridays. Yay. :-)

It gives me an extra couple of hours a day without the commute and affords a bit of a lie-in and a really good long walk avec pooch first thing, while providing a sense of an extended weekend. All this, and I still get started earlier and run a wee bit longer into the evening. All in all, very efficient and most equitable. :-))

However, all this efficiency is rendered merely theoretical as the VPN from my work laptop don't work too well today. Actually, now I think of it, the VPN hasn't worked very well for nearly a month now. And without a VPN I have no email or network connection - therefore the point of efficiency is somewhat compromised and I can't actually do any work. (Well I do have a connection of sorts, but it's very intermittent - 2 minutes on, 10 minutes off, and impossibly slow and narrow-band when on). :-(

Of course, my connection via the pretty iMac is perfect, but then I'm not using this machine to send and receive kilobytes, megabytes and sometimes gigabytes of data..

Lo. Instead of doing anything productive, I'm just getting more and more irate. :-((

So I begin the arduous and frustrating task of locating and fixing the problem. :-[

The IT guys at the office can't see a problem with my equipment. So I determine to check my broadband speed with Virgin, my ISP. :-p

After nearly 15 minutes negotiating the Kafkaesque complexity of Virgin's automated call centre, so-called customer service operation, I finally land in Bangalore or some such place on the Indian subcontinent. And after another 10 minutes of re-treading my 'problem' and listening to muzak, the 'fault' is detected. :-]

Virgin, in its infinite wisdom, decided to upgrade my already 'Large' broadband package to 'Gargantuan' with effect start of September. ..Which is nice. :-)

The only problem is that they didn't think to inform me of this service enhancement. Nor did they think it relevant or necessary to arrange delivery of a new modem capable of handling the monstrous bandwidth hike. :-[[

Doh!

Thanks for nothing, Mr. B. you arse. :-L

..And the Apple bugs reappeared yesterday with the iPhone needing its first re-boot after freezing. Not bad though -- an Apple device that lasted six weeks before its first stall.

Damn, I sometimes hate technology. Or rather my reliance upon it..

I wonder how on earth we managed before the Internet.

I know. I'll Google it.

Aw, Bugger

You've go to feel for the poor [sic] geyser quietly going about his digging business this morning when he haphazardly located the Victorian water pipe..

..And if the weather isn't bad enough.

Speaking In Tongues

I received this nonsense as a pitch for an advertorial this morning. ..Well I can't fathom its meaning, but then I am suffering a virulent bout of manflu.

You have a go.

"We are reaching a wide audience who may or may not understand the opportunities that exist in the industry and really hit home with a number of key benefits geared to transform curiosity into action."

Eh..?

And Here We Go Again..

Parking suspended on our street from midnight tonight to midnight Tuesday.

Now wondering who will be digging up the road and why and even if anything will happen at all.

Moreover, I'm wondering at why the midnight limits. Do these works happen at night? I hope not as they're just outside the bedroom window.

Mmmmm..

Dumb And Dumber 2

..And lo today, the parking suspension signs have disappeared.

Clearly, that very special olympic torch handover planned for Brighton Road was diverted to Mare Street at the last minute..

Chaos averted, but will those poor sods ticketed overnight be able to successfully appeal? Will they ****!

Dumb And Dumber

So Hackney Council - in its infinite stupidity - has struck again.

There are notices the length of Brighton Road that parking is suspended along the whole street for two days from midnight tonight to midnight Friday.

And the reason for this wholesale suspension of parking privileges? ...Unknown and unfathomable.

Are they going to resurface the whole road in two days? ... Highly doubtful.

Is one (or more) of the nation's magnificent utilities going to dig a very long hole, effect necessary works, refill and resurface in a couple of days? ...See that flying pig?

These are typically the two reasons for suspending parking. And when there are works, suspension is usually phased.

So why close a whole street for 48 hours?

Surely not to generate revenue? Tsk.

The same thing happened on our street too -- you may recall my giddy note about a few months ago. Parking was suspended then for the better part of a week and through all that time there wasn't a hint of works, repairs, deliveries, police actions, protest marches ot ticker-tape parades. But still PCNs were liberally issued.

I shudder to think how many weaselly little parking wardens the council has drafted-in to patrol (erm, skulk around) in the wee small hours and stick in-disputable penalty notices on the unsuspecting homeowner's Mini, GeeWizz or (ehem) Land Rover..? A small army I'll be bound.

And closing off parking in Brighton just means that everyone from zone E must move their vehicles and park half a mile away. ..Because of course, if we were to park conveniently around the corner, we'd be in the wrong zone and liable to further penalty. ..Probably clamped given the council's malicious, inept and preposterous planning strategy.

Damn. I really hate Hackney Council.

I could, of course, be proven wrong and there might be a brilliant, logical and wonderfully altrusitic reason for this 48 hour disruption.

..But then we're right back to those porkers upon high.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Apparently it's not enough to merely home, feed, water, walk and generally tend to the every need of one's furry friend. No sir-ee.

As Kate Muir noted in her Sunday Times magazine column today, the right-on PC brigade demand that our critters are afforded a level respect hitherto reserved for royalty and the mega-elite.

So for fear of offending the delicate sensibilities of our canine and feline companions, they are no longer to be classed as pets, but animal companions.

Are they soon to be awarded suffrage too?

Has the world gone mad?

Gang Of Four

P had her first trimester scan yesterday and this is junior S at week 14. ..Humm, it's not exactly flattering is it?

And while mum and (evolving) 'grub' are doing nicely thanks, we're hopeful that the angular, squared features are on account of the poor scan quality, not some unknown and distant hereditary disfigurement. But, hey, this image does bear an uncanny resemblance to an Easter Island statue.

And as for dad? On the strength of this evidence, I now must fulfil my promise and quit smoking. And it's so easy to say with grand pronoucements weeks in advance, but damn it's hard in practice. Am weaning with very infrequent puffs on mega, mega lights.

Sweet And Dandy

A colleague returning from vacances delivered a large packet of the Gallic delight, Carambars, to a desk very near me. Yum.

Entente cordiale is alive and well in NW1.

SCB v2.4

Yet another in my very randomly observed series of Stupid Corporate Branding (SCB).

Spied in Bloomsbury this morning, an eCourier delivery van with the legendary tag..

"Happieness Delivered"

What cock.

Chelsea Dagger

Magnificent. Absolutely magnificent. Chelsea 4, Portsmouth 0.

What a way to open the season.

That's Pompey thoroughly humbled. And they're a decent side too.

Scolari really has made his mark and boring, boring Chelsea looked like a Brazil squad on top form (hyperbole dictates that I compare them to the 1970 World Cup winners) -- quick, open, forward, energetic, tight, inventive, entertaining..

And unless ManUre get one more against the Magpies, then we start top of the table -- where we'll stay until Sunday, 24 May 2009.

Oh. They didn't (ha) and I'm liking this a lot..

Carefree.

Isolation

Home alone ..and for the whole weekend. Yay.

I should be enjoying things at my own pace -- and I am, I guess -- but damn, I'm bored.

I'm not completely alone. There's still the dog who's minxing it up as, ehem, top dog and demanding a LOT of attention. But pooch doesn't exactly qualify as stimulating adult company. She's a dog, can't talk and is happier licking her arse and rolling in poo than discussing the pressing issues of the day -- like the sublime brilliance of The Last Shadow Puppets (beyond debate and just statement of fact); whether Gabby Yorath is hotter than Kirsty Gallacher (did I say that out loud?), or is Natty really that good or is it just very good PR (mmmmm)? And of course, the MASSIVELY CRITICAL start of the footie season.

Actually, thinking about it, I don't think P would be terribly interested in any of these topics of conversation -- they're really only my own personal pressing issues ..but you get my drift and I am home alone..

Home alone. Yay.

I can stay up late. I can lie-in late. I can listen to loud music. I can eat junk. I can grow a (wispy) beard. I can go days without washing. I can watch all of the Godfather films (well, the first two anyway) and I can generally behave badly (heck. I'm not a father yet). In short, I can go completely feral.

..But then that's the order for every weekend. P isn't exactly a meanie authoritarian and kinda lets me be ..me. Sweet thing that she is.

So enough, what have I achieved to date all on my lonesome since P departed at 08:00 yesterday? quite a lot.

I've:

- Eaten two pizzas (large)
- Drunk three pints of larger (strong)
- Drunk two and a half bottles of average Australian Chardonnay (circa £6.00)
- Smoked two and a half packs of Marlboro lights (see below -- caning it)
- Had one packet of crisps (Walker's cheese & onion)
- Ate one chip butty (with curry sauce)
- Ate English breakfast amid foul Gooners (and wished them all food poisoning as well as a drubbing by West Brom)
- Ate one ham and cheese sandwich from the local Ukranian cafe
- Watched three crappy horror DVDs. The Hills Have Eyes (remake but good), The Wicker Man (the original and totally excellent) and To The Devil A Daughter (very poor apart from the nubile Nastassia Kinski dressed as a nun -- which is disturbing, but I'm working on it with my therapist..)
- Listened to bad-to-the-bone rock music (Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Nirvana, Oasis, Lynyrd Skynyrd, (eeks) Meatloaf and ..I admit it, MIKA)
- Cleaned, weeded and watered the garden
- Had four very long walks (avec la Moo)
- Did quite a lot of work and had two conference calls (yesterday -- I work from home on Fridays. Yes, I do work..)
- Done four loads of washing
- Done a bit of clearing in the VERY scary second bedroom -- the boudoir (a mad person lives in there..)
- Washed the car (well, paid a gang of Russians to do it)
- Laundered my shirts (well, took them to the Turkish laundry)
- Googled a bit to resolve the Gabby / Kirtsy question (still unresolved, and it's subjective and sexist -- blonde or brunette. Don't start me on Davina..)
- Watched the Olympics a bit
- Read The New Yorker (liked it too)
- Tried reading Harvard Business Review (got bored)
- Read The Guardian (all of it apart from the pointless Family, Your Money and Travel sections)
- Dowloaded apps for the iPhone (lovin' the London tube map with service alerts and PacMan)
- Tried and failed to get some sense from local estate agents re potential sale of the house (it'll happen one day ..really!)
- Pondered the ineptitude of local estate agents (with the credit crunch, have they all gone off to be tour guides in Georgia or running bars in Malia?)
- Bought The Mighty Lemon Drops back catalogue from iTunes (why..?)
- Bought a new pair of Golas (check em -- gorgeous)
- Oh, and missed P (quite a lot)

Busy boy. Well done. But still bored.

So what's on for tonight? More DVDs (Dog Soldiers, yay!) and a curry I think..

Disappointed in the content? Look at the masthead, dumb dumb. It clearly states pointless musings on minutiae. Deal with it or click onto something else.

Home alone. P comes home tomorrow. Yay!

Oh, and as noted, the season started today..

How many trophies? It can't be any worse than close second in everything last year ;-)

CAREFREE

The Final Countdown

Eleven days to go and counting...

I've set Tuesday, 26 August 2008 as the day that I give up smoking once and for all.

This is not a wholly arbitrary date. It's the day that P has her first trimester scan to check-up on the progress of little S. And at week 14, we're as confident as we can be that all is going well in wombland.

P has already paid a visit to a midwife and has been subject to much medical prodding and poking and all is at it should be.

So why set a date? Why not just quit now?

Well a pedantic creature of habit where all things are ideally diarized long in advance, it seems the best way for me to prepare for the loss of an old, if dangerous, odious and undesirable 'friend'.

Not just that, but for the last two months, P -- avec Roo -- has been a paragon of virtue.

No smoking, no drinking, no fun.

Heck, if she can just go 'cold turkey' at the flick of a switch, or rather a pee on a chemical stick, then so can I.

Alex A too has kicked the fags into touch and replaced his addiction to the weed with an obsessive half marathon habit.

..And of course, it's illegal to smoke anywhere nowadays, so why would you?

So here I am a dinosaur. A throwback. A social outcast. Last man, ehem, smoking, if you like.

But my motives are far more fundamentally founded. It's a very very unhealthy thing to do. And becoming a Pa in my (very ;-) early forties, I'm already going to be nearing retirement when junior departs for university or popstardom, or whatever.. So the very least I can / should do, is make every effort to stay alive for as long as possible.

So while I can, I'm caning it for the next week and a half. I'll either keel over with nicotine poisoning (defeating the point of it all), or even better, become thoroughly sick of the evil things. Either way, Tuesday, 26th is D-Day.

While I'm looking forward to a life sans wheezing and with a renewed ability to smell and taste, for now at least, you'll find me behind the proverbial bike shed ..for a few more days yet.

Shiny, Shiny

Last week I bit the bullet and have completed the triumvirate of shiny Apple gear. The iPhone really is a marvel and it's sooo cute.

I could and maybe should say more, but my pretty new precious demands attention..

Definitely, Maybe

I have frequently grumbled about Steve Jobs and all his works, but I am, I fear, tightly ensnared by Apple Inc. -- and, if truth were told, always have been. A sucker for great design and bloody-minded champion of the underdog, that's me.

The recently ranted death saga of iPod #2 was resolved some weeks later with the purchase of a replacement pod (three time lucky?) and a very very cute new 20" iMac (again, a third in a series). It's big but slim, it has a nimble brain and huge capacity, and the internal airport wireless thingie is top notch. Additional expense was incurred with a Scandyna amp to connect and power the Minipod speakers. And of course, there was the wasted ££ on the Leopard OS that didn't take to the iMacG4.

..But now were back online, happily wired and running down a dream. Just a shame that >£1,200 was the not-so-trifling sum to get it all up and running again.

And while I was some time ago 'dissing' the iPhone for its obvious shortcomings, I am succumbing to a rabid craving for the soon to arrive 3G model -- which I sense will live up to the promise that v1 failed to deliver on.

I just hope there are still some left in London the week following next Friday's global launch and inevitable retail outlet feeding frenzy. There's no way I'm going to queue for hours outside the Apple Store, O2 or Carphone Warehouse..

..am I?

Holiday

No nonsense from me, my dear three readers, for the next two weeks.

Pigs In Zen

Isn't this little piglet adorable?

Six-week-old Cinders suffers from mysophobia, a fear of dirt -- an unusual condition for a pig. But her owners found these booties fitted perfectly and now Cinders is as happy as a pig in ...

On An Island

I know the weather is glorious across old Blighty at the mo', but it is wont to change -- quickly and dramatically at that..

This below is the forecast for Kastellorizo, the idyllic little Greek island we're of to for a fortnight from Saturday.

Isn't it boring in its consistency?

And the ultimate horror -- I might just cheer-up for a week or two..

Tell It Like It Is

Today, P sent me a CV and cover letter application to her firm from a post-graduate student. She sent it [saw this and though of you] because the grad used that most horrid of platitudes -- innovative solutions -- in the letter.

And beyond the use of this pointless phrase, the rest of the letter was rendered near-illegible by its dense use of other such double-talk. How not to get a job -- offer your blessed innovative solutions and creative ideas and transpose your committment and ability at the union bar to the internship. (I'm being mean, I know..)

Anyway, I'm not immune to receipt of illiterate bollox in my own line of work and have just received this balderdash from an IT supplier's PR agency as a draft quote attibuted to one of my execs.

"Our customers rely on us to be ahead of the game so that they too stay one step ahead of the competition and can grab the bull by its horns."

Fair play. At the end of the day and when all's said and done, we are afterall, dedicated to enhancing the perfomance of.. ehem, matadors..

;-)

Sweet Thing

The dastardly concession-istas at Marylebone Station have installed a very, very large Haribo pick'n'mix stall. My staple diet is now Happy Cola chews.

I'm in gummy heaven, but feel nauseous, racked with self-loathing and fear for my few remaining teeth.

Thick As A Brick

More, ehem, wonder from those wonderful WAGs..
[Click on image for bigger view]

Speak To Me

I will SELF-HARM if I hear anyone gobbing on about Innovative Solutions ever, ever, ever again!

Catalyst: A radio interview this morning with a Hammersmith councillor discussing his borough's spiffing wheeze to open post offices in churches and libraries as counter to Royal Mail branch closures. These aren't his words per se, but you get the 'MBA-babble' point..

"This proposal is an innovative solution to a complex and challenging paradigm shift in our societal organisational structure. We've assembled a core team of key members to brainstorm strategies, scenario-plan, think outside the box and examine what will stick. Clearly there are synergies here that are win-win going forward and optimally leverage community assets while achieving significant economies of scale." Blah, blah, blah..

It's time we removed idiotic mid-Atlantic corporate double-talk from everyday life. It's bad enough having to live with the meaningless twaddle at work five days a week..

Plain English everyone, please.

I only want bandwidth from my broadband provider.

Idiot Wind

Stupid Celeb #1

Sharon Stone, bad Chinese karma and the utter f**k-witted arrogance of the C-list Hollywood liberal in need of a PR hit.

Poor cow lost the Dior fragrance contract as a consequence of stating that the 70,000 killed in the recent earthquake was karmic pay-back for China's treatment of Tibet..

The sheer bloody arrogance of the woman and the sheer bloody naivety of her statement!

Of course, no animals are ever harmed in the manufacture of cosmetics right? So while la legs-akimbo-slapper's bank balance takes a hit, her precious, bollock-headed karma is intact.

Durr..

Stupid Quazi-Celebs #2

Bloody hell, bank holidays just keep getting worse. A Monday when decent God-fearing folk set about making Arks, the rest of us retreated indoors with the heating on high and waited-out the deluge in front of the goggle. And what do we get for our sins? WAGs on The Weakest Link.

What a great idea, gather a load of self-obsessed cretins and ask them simple questions -- about something other than themselves, shoes, handbags and football players.

A modern variation on a visit to the asylum as the 18th century equivalent to a day at Alton Towers. Let's laugh at the loonies 21st century stylee..

Genius.

Ha. And Danielle Lloyd won!!

An example of this tremendously entertaining hogwash:

Q. Anne Robinson: What is the childhood game in which boys and girls dress up as hospital staff called? Doctors and what?

A: Charley Uchea (who??): Oh, oh my God.... Doctors and Wives!

Can this scourge of preening subhumans be exterminated in the interests of generations to come? It doesn't have to be humane, for fish I sense are more cognizant than this batch of plastic bimbos.

If not, then at the very least, can they be rounded-up and exacted to lab experiments? There must be something deeply intriguing to medical science for surely the missing link is there for all to see week-in, week-out in the pages of Heat, Grazia et al..

Love Is A Losing Game

OK. Chelsea lost. You don't score, you don't win.

All the agonising over JT sending Van der Sar the wrong way, but slipping and hoofing the ball high and right -- right to the outside edge of the post -- is past. I promise.

Well, nearly..

I'm still angry at Drogba for getting pointlessly sent off and not being available for penalty duty and Anekla's pathetically poor effort. (The odds are long on either of them being in the squad in August).

All-in-all, I've been feeling rather forlorn about the whole thing for the last four or five days. After all, it was far more painful than the previously famous English penalty farces of Pierce and Southgate. This time it was one lion on my shirt -- and one lion is far more precious (to me) than three.

But time is a healer and with nearly a week passed I'm getting over it (I am petri). Also the powers that be have moved quickly to rebuild. Grant is out -- no silverware, second in the Champions League, second in the Premiership and second in the Carling Cup -- doesn't cut it these days on the Fulham Road. A bit harsh I feel, but that's life with the oligarchs. And reportage in recent days of speculation and scramble for a replacement have at least wiped the sports pages of weasels in red jerseys.

Personally, I'm encouraged by revelations of a warming in Russian/Portuguese relations with news of The Special One's role as 'off-line' counsellor to team owner and key players in recent weeks. And the fact of Roman gifting the George Clooney of footie a rare Ferrari -- a snip at £2million -- isn't exactly indication of utter hatred and an intractable difference of opinion.

But reports are that Jose is near to signing with Internazionale. Don't do it!

So if he does, the list of contenders is enticing. Didier Deschamps, Frank Rijkaard, Luiz Felipe Scolari and erm, Sven-Goran Eriksson.

Scratch the Swede from the above list and bring in Gianfranco Zola as understudy and the season's disappointing under-performance (it's all relative ;-) might seem a success after all.

Carefree

Been A Long Time..

Now work, football and influenza madness have passed, as the honourable guvn'r used to say..

"I'll be back"

All Or Nothing (or Something..Maybe)

Two heroic performances at Stamford Bridge leave us equal on points at the top of the Premiership (behind on goal difference with two games to play) and in the Champion's League Final on 21 May.

A Carling Cup defeat to Tottingham and the FA Cup semi loss to Barnsley are distant memories, and given the current situation, meaningless piffles.

I knawed my way through the nails on my left hand as we beat ManUre on Saturday, and I chiselled away at nearly all on my right hand during last night's CL victory over Liverpool. I've saved a right thumbnail for Monday afternoon's away game at Newcastle and plan a programme of accelerated regrowth for a fortnight's time..

What now? Is an historic double in the offing? Can ManUre drop a point in the last two remaining Premiership games (West Ham and Wigan -- home and away respectively) and can we win both games? Moreover, if we both win both, can we narrow the GD by scoring >18 goals in two games -- on Tyneside and home to Bolton?

Tantalising..

And, given our owner's heritage, surely the CL final in Moscow gives Chelski a home advantage ;-)

I just love the brattish whinging of Fergie. Oh, and Rafa -- who let the Drogs Out? You did, dickhead.

Avram -- you're clearly a winner and certainly have more gravitas in your left earlobe than your 'Big 4' peers. My apologies for doubting.

Of course, we could only win one, or then again, we could win nothing. Either way, a -- literally -- nail biting spectacular and magnificent close to the season.

Carefree

Butthead

It's bad enough that a generation of be-thonged women parade brazenly around sporting the 'whale tail' effect over the top of their jeans.

But why is it that today's male yoof insist upon wearing their trews halfway down their arse as well?

In a parallel universe, M&S boxers must have pinnacled as the fashionista's ultimate accessory to warrent such ubiquitous public airings.

London (Still) Calling

All that stuff about houses, space in the country, fresh air and no crime -- well it's nice in theory, but we've decided that we can't drag ourselves away from London ..just yet.

There's just too much uncertainly in the money markets at the moment and why would we put ourselves under unnecessary professional and financial pressure? A move 90 miles from the city does present logistical challenges, threats and compromises. It's just not worth it.

Right now, we're comfortably ahead. We're professionally and financially secure and we have a lovely home with more than enough room for two adults and a medium-sized dog. Guest do have to bunk-up on a pull-out in the rear living room, but that's no real hardship for one or two nights..

Oh, and I know that I whine on about the incessant grime and fairly frequent crime, but we do have an awful lot of good things in old Stokie too.

For the time being -- at least -- we're staying put.

..And so the story, erm, stalls

Baby You Can Drive My Car

Watch out road users of England. P passed her driving test last week -- first time on both theory and practical no less!

And as of today she's insured to drive the Land Rover.

..So expect carnage on the streets of north London.

Ems and I are taking the bus ;-)

Up The Hill Backwards

It ain't easy, this technology thing. What should be simple, is in reality, akin to a great big nasty squabble of Machiavellian proportions.

I'm trying to move 50Gb of material from iTunes on an old iMac running OSX Panther to an HP g-wizz PC tablet thingie running Vista. The extremely sophisticated method of transfer is a 2Gb memory stick. It's kinda like filling a bath from a sink using a shot glass ..with a hole in the bottom.

Now I know Jobs and Gates don't speak. I fully expect Mac to PC and PC to Mac to be a holy war. Problem is, I do expect Jobs to talk to Jobs. Apple to Apple should be warm and very cosy.

Ain't necessarily so.

I'm moving the material -- only ALL of my music -- to the PC because my 14 month-old iPod up and died. And unfortunately, its £150 replacement doesn't like Panther so won't synch with the old gal. The nasty little silver critter, however, does get on with Vista.

So to rectify, I've spent a further £80 on the snazzy new Leopard OS upgrade. but that won't load to the old Mac. This is apparently a common problem (blue screen), but fixes gleaned from online forums really aren't easy ..actually, they're bloody unfathomable.

Seems the uppity little shit of an current gen iPod is a snob and won't talk to any Apple OS older than Tiger, but as mentioned, it will cosy-up to new Windows.

And the rub is that I don't even want to continue running the crappy Mac. I want it retired and then destroyed. But it houses the last four years of downloads and burns -- some legal, some otherwise -- and took a considerable time to compile and catalogue.

Oh, and I don't consider burns an infringement of DRM as I paid the record companies a small fortune for the CDs in the first place, so feel perfectly within my rights to change the format of what's mine.

Thank God I hadn't yet begun the even lengthier process of ripping from my 1,000+ vinyl collection!

Country House -- This Time, For Real

After months and months thinking and talking about moving -- and running down quite a few dead-ends -- our departure from Gotham is (hopefully) imminent.

With no additional mortgage burden, we're swapping this


..for this

If the stars are favourably aligned, we're hoping to move mid- end-May.

..And so the story (really) begins

Country House, Redux

We're in the throes of negotiating the purchase of a lovely house in an Oxfordshire village. Yay, we're actually doing something about the move instead of just tittering on about it incessantly and spending every free hour pouring over Internet house porn..

Given this, a brief misunderstanding this morning between me and P sent me off looking at the BBC's morning TV schedule.

I emailed P to inform her of a brief exchange of views with the selling agent.

She replied with the message "on TV today".

!!!

Because the house we're after has recently been photographed by the BBC for consideration for one of its myriad homes and interiors shows, I thought she meant it had been featured on today's edition of Moving To Somewhere In The Country, Home Makeover Of The Year, Pigsty To Palace or whatever..

And because I feared that a glossy BBC treatment of the place would weaken our negotiating position -- i.e., that the sellers would reject offers and demand heaps more money -- I scurried off to the listings to check.

Anyway, no crisis. P was referring to one of her clients being on the TV news, not the house.

Phew.

I am however, a bit gutted at having missed today's scintilating To Buy Or Not To Buy. From the today's listing:

The property series which gives couples a chance to try before they buy. Presenters Sarah and Simon help a couple from Cambridge find a house with a garden big enough for a donkey.

..Beats mowing the lawn, I guess.

(iP)e(o)ple That (D)ied

Scratch the previous post. The flickers of life are false. The iPod passed away on Friday. It's dead and there's no resuscitation.

We'll have a private family burial in the garden on Saturday -- by which time I'm hopeful it's replacement will have arrived. Moreover, I hope the new one lasts a wee bit longer than deadboy..

I do take back my criticisim of The Genius Bar though. A very nice medico tried hard, but in vain, to repair the beast today. ..And I didn't have to wait long either.

"Teddy sniffing glue he was 12 years old,
Fell from the roof on East two-nine.
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
On 26 reds and a bottle of wine.
Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old --
He looked like 65 when he died,
He was a friend of mine."

Pretty Hate Machine

It'll be an Apple -- that's for sure.

Fourteen months into ownership of an 80Gb 'Classic', the pretty little white and silver music box has died.

It's an ex-iPod with a severely knackered hard drive. All it wants is to be 'restored', but it's circuits are fried and no-can-do.

Of course, this also means that the 12 month warrantee has ended now too. Doh!

The Apple Store on Regent Street has a great technical support facility where you can book online for personal time in-store with an expert fix-it dude. Steveo's bricks and mortar outlets brand this facility 'Genius Bar'. Personally, I think that's a tad ambitious and it would be better christened something more realistic like 'Waiting and Waiting and Waiting Bar'.

Online the experience is great. You book your 'window' just like Ocado -- today, 12:30. But in practice, like all things Apple, it's utter pants. With my name 8th in the queue and 50 minutes past my appointment, I gave up are returned to the office.

If the intention is to upsell loads of other non-essential peripherals to the terminally bored and pissed-off -- it failed.

Of course, I am now a bit adrift without my beloved iPod, so have re-booked for a new drive to be installed at 10:10 tomorrow (only a few minutes after opening) in the hope that there won't be a backlog of other, less deserving, customers ahead of me.

Of course, if the damn things weren't so buggy in the first place..

Grrr.

Licensed To Ill

Just when I'd become accustomed to my TV licence only funding about two hours of worthwhile entertainment a week -- currently, Ashes To Ashes and The Last Enemy (my fondness for Hotel Babylon is an aberration, I admit) -- the Beeb throws up something very special.

OK, the annual appearance of a new Poliakoff or two notwithstanding, quality drama output from the luvvies at Television Centre and White City can be very scarce indeed. Sorry guys, Lark Rise To Candleford just doesn’t count. Outfitting the cast in Edwardian costume and bolloxing around in a pastoral idyll doesn't make a drama and it certainly doesn't equate to quality. It's a period soap and not very good either. Move along..

But last night's White Girl was something else altogether. Part of the BBC's controversial 'White Season' and influenced, it seemed to me anyway, by gritty English dramatists a la Loach and Leigh, it examines the co-existence of white Christian and Asian Muslim working class in Bradford and how the 11 year-old Leah found balance, order and meaning in Islam in contrast to her negligent, destructive quasi-single parent white family.

Enough plot examination. If you saw it, you'll have a view. If not, then I urge you to catch it again on your TV provider's replay service or the BBC's wonderful iPlayer.

A welcome antidote to the standard 24 hours of meaningless crapola like Holby and In It To Win It.

Milk And Alcohol

I have absolutely nothing at all to gripe about. The rain only arrived overnight and no-one's dug up any major roads between home and the office over the weekend -- so all's (kinda) well. ..Although Saturday's simple kitchen tiling job did result in a whole lot of additional plastering and a week-long delay.

So for the sheer bloody hell of it and as demonstration of my more chilled and relaxed outlook, here's a picture of drunken panda cubs. Well, they could just be glugging milk, but I like to think there a wee nip of bamboo hooch in there too. Cute, though however way you cut it.

..Now off to Google for cocaine-addicted badgers and passive aggressive weasels.

No Entry

Having toured Abney Park Cemetery with Ems yesterday afternoon, P and I fancied a small post-walkies libation.

Due to its 'no dogs allowed' policy, we had to eschew The Rose & Crown on Church Street in favour of The Lion. And in complete contrast, not only to its neighbour, but every other pub in N16 it would seem, The Lion has the most enlightened and reasonable policy going. It operates an 'all dogs welcome, children not' policy -- which suits we three just fine. Even the exceptional Shakey lets the feral neighbourhood brats run wild until they're banished at 8pm.

The Lion's simple guiding principal is that pubs are for adults and kindergartens are for children. Moreover, that a man and his 'best friend' (wives too, of course), should be able to enjoy a pint or two together in peace and without prejudice.

The Lion also has a nice and secure rear garden for its poochie patrons to wander and sniff. Indeed, so welcoming is it to its canine clientele, the pub garden's bushes are well stocked with dead squirrels as a hearty snack for those inquisitive enough to find them. Well, Ems found one yesterday and ate the whole thing in a matter of minutes..

P had a nice glass of the house red.

I had a nice cold Belgian lager.

And dog had a mangy old squirrel.

Everyone's a winner. Brilliant.

Addendum: As I'm rather inconsistent, the sentiments expressed here of course, don't apply to my nephew Charlie and niece Maddie who are very welcome to join me down the pub at any time ;-)

Dog Soldier

OK, one more. Eeks..

Beefheart SleeveFace

Stop. NOW.

Costello SleeveFace

PIL SleeveFace