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!