It’s sunday morning, there’s a car alarm constantly going off a couple of hundred yards away making an intermittent racket and being really annoying. The sky is cloudy but for the time of year it’s quite warm.

I’m sitting here on my sofa trying to ignore the car alarm in the near distance as otherwise it’d send me rather potty.

So, on to happenings…

I did stay for Happy Hour in the department on Friday evening and had an enjoyable time talking to those who were there, most of whom were flying out to Caan(sp?) in the south of France to pick up a couple of 35ft yachts to sail to Nice to use as floating accomodation for the AGU/EGS/EUG combined conference there. As it turns out, it’s cheaper to hire these two yachts for a week than it would be to stay in a cheap hotel in Nice! (There are 12 people, 6 to a yacht.)

Yesterday turned out to be very productive. I managed to get my hair cut, get some new shoes (well, trail shoes, Columbia Sawtooth), buy a replacement timer light switch for the living room and fit it. It was also a very nice, warm and sunny day. You have to take the opportunity to make the most of these sorts of days when they appear at this time of the year. I even needed to turn on the sir conditioning on my car at one point to cool the inside down!

This morning, I was going to wash the car but it’s a bit too windy. Not only would I get rather wet, but conversely, the car would dry too quickly for me to wash it properly. I will probably cut the moss in the back graden this afternoon. The bits of grass which ar eleft are getting a bit tall. I’ll also probably do the washing and hang it outside.

Well, I went to see a film last night, “The Life of David Gale.”

It’s not a bad film. It definitely didn’t drag. In many ways, the style reminded
me of Erin Brokovich. There were one or two places where the story seemed
a little contrived though I’m not sure for what reason. The main one being
that the hire car had a faulty cooling system causing the end (and the beginning)
of the film to be a little over dramatic. Oh, and why did Kate Winslet’s
character bother to watch all the video in that bloke’s house when she was
on such a tight schedule? Surely in that situation you’d find the right video
cassette from watching a couple of seconds, eject it and run?

Anyway, these are minor quibbles. Even the sexual scenes were done with taste
and very little actual nudity or explicit flesh of any kind. On the whole
I’d give it an 8 out of 10 score as the story was mostly transparent so you
could guess what was going to happen at the end mostly by the time you got
half way through the film.

Now, I’ve no plans for the rest of the week. I’ll probably watch Buffy &
Angel tonight. I doubt I’ll turn up to Happy Hour in the department tomorrow
evening as none of the people i talk to will be here. The weekend will be
taken up with chores which need to be done before I go down to my parents’
place in Cornwall for Easter such as getting my hair cut, washing the car,
getting and fitting a security timer light switch for the living room. That
sort of stuff. Oh, and I may give the rear moss^H^H^H^Hlawn the first cut
of the year.

A – Act your age? It depends upon whether you take chronological age or mental age. You’re only as old as the *add member of opposite sex* you feel. In this case I’m therefore of indeterminate age.
B – Born on what day of the week? Well, cal(1) tells me it was a Saturday.
C – Chore you hate? I think washing up is amongst the worst.
D – Dad’s name? Raymond
E – Essential makeup item? None at all.
F – Favorite actor? Matthew Broderick, if only for Ferris Bueller and WarGames.
G – Gold or silver? Gold, it’s the most ductile metal, is great as shielding against ionising radiation and is a wonderful conductor. Oh, and some people think it looks nice.
H – Hometown? The closest town to where I lived when I grew up was Ampthill. The village was Houghton Conquest, Bedfordshire, England, UK, Europe, Sol3, Western Spiral Arm, Home galaxy, Andromeda group. That should tie it down.
I – Instruments you play? I got up to grade 1 classical guitar when I was 11.
J – Job title? IT Systems Administrator
K – Kids? None, I don’t breed goats.
L – Living arrangements? Alone with many old computers to support.
M – Mum’s name? Patricia
N – Number of people you’ve slept with? It depends upon whether you mean slept next to or had sex with. If the former, a couple. If the later, it’s something that happens to other people and not to me. Sex is as much a myth to me as storks bringing babies with only slightly more evidence (storks don’t live in Britian).
O – Overnight hospital stays? When I was 6 I stayed over with concussion for observation.
P – Phobia? I’ve no fears I could classify as a phobia as such.
Q – Quote you like? Well, it’s not a real person, more a character’s words… “It’s too late for the pebbles to vote. The avalanche has already started.” Kosh.
R – Religious affiliation? I’m not affiliated with any religion. You could call me a humanist, or an agnostic, or an atheist. Then again you could call me a duck or a dolphin, it has as much meaning to me.
S – Siblings? None at all. (Which, funnily enough, is the amount of damage a bulldozer would suffer if it ran right over a person.)
T – Time you wake up? Weekdays, 7:28am. Weekends, as late as possible.
U – Unique habit? None. I don’t wear habits and I’m not unique.
V – Vegitable you refuse to eat? It’s not a vegitable but a fruit.. Gooseberries.
W – Worst habit? Procrastination, when I can get around to it.
X – X-rays you’ve had? Chest, teeth, hand. I think that’s it.
Y – Yummy food you make? Well, I do a decent banana and walnut loaf. Give me the algorithm, sorry, recipe and the components, sorry, ingredients, and I’ll fabricate the desired gastronomic item.
Z – Zodiac sign? Aquarius. The age of which dawned and then faded away.

Well,
the weekend was not what I had envisaged mid-afternoon on Friday. However,
it was generally what I envisaged when Alec invited me over to help with
his gardening, except for the lack of post impaling.

Friday evening was spent trying to recover from Thursday night. ie. it was
quiet and chilled. I can’t exactly remember what I DID do but I didn’t do
much.

Saturday morning was spent quickly getting the weekly shopping in Sainsbury’s.
It’s a whole lot of no fun, really. Still, I don’t have to worry too much
about thinking about what I need to get as much of it is habitual and automatic
these days.

So, it was off to Alec’s place in the afternoon. We weeded, we dug herbs
up and planted the same herbs elsewhere. (And I’ve just realised that I forgot
to pick up that mint root I’d put to one side to take home.) Food followed,
a nice roast vegitable and bacon toasted sandwich made from freshly baked
bread etc.. Thence it was on to watching last week’s Buffy & angel which
neither myself nor alec had seen due to other commitments.

Sunday started roughly at 9am.. or rather it should have been 8am, well according
to my biological clock it was, anyway. So, it was go downstairs, listen to
Broadcasting House on Radio 4 and drink some coffee. Wash, have breakfast
and then more gardening type stuff.. Well, mostly roughly pegging out where
Alec’s going to put his new bike shed.

Various other things happened, including sitting in the sun watching cats,
taking photos, going to Waitrose and knocking on Rachel, Graham and little
Christopher’s door and then going away again as they weren’t in.

Anyway, all this fun finished around 4pm as it was time to go home.

I got home thinking that my video was watching Time Team for me… but then
I realised with horror that it was still on GMT and so would be an hour out.
Time Team was already half way through by the time I got the telly on. Not
that it turned out to be that good an episode anyway.

I just slouched for the rest of the evening, still stuck on GMT in a BST world.

This morning it was SO hard to get out of bed!

At least the notification of my jury duty expenses came through the post
this morning.. £28. Not bad for three week’s not work (on top of my
normal salary).

Well, I’ve just got in after a rather nice evening out with friends.

It started after work with me cycling home quickly, dumping my stuff, sitting down for a few minutes and then driving back to the department.

Having deposited my motor vehicle in the car park, I wandered over to a cash machine, got some money out, as you do and then preambulated to the Royal Oak public house to meet up with Paul and Jenn.

Others subsiquently arrived and much pepsi and other beveraged were imbibed. We then wandered as a group over to the Bombay curry house in Walton Street and had a jocular time eating and merry making.

Leaving the Bombay, the group split up and went their separate ways. I went along with John as Katie was wishing the two dutch girls who used to live at their house goodbye and I’d offered to give everyone a lift home.

So, off to the Tapas bar in Little Clarendon Street we did go. I was surprised to find in the aforementioned establishment not only Katie and the dutch girls but also Sam and a number of others.

I had to be sociable, so I sat down with the group and had a thoroughly good chat.

Following this, we all just had to go over the road to George & Davis’ Ice Cream Cafe. Well, you have to do these things, don’t you. Once there lots of ice cream was eaten. I just had some mango & passion fruit.. yum.

We said our good-byes, John, Katie and Sam wandered back to the departmetn with me and I dropped them off at home before coming back here.

I call that a good night out.

Well, it’s Wednesday and seeing as I’m off jury duty there’s not a great deal to talk about.

Yesterday, when going into town to pay those bills I’d not got around to
paying whilst on jury duty, I passed the Magdalen Road Odeon cinema and saw
that this Friday (28th March) they’re showing the Rocky Horror Picture Show
and that it was to be introduced by Richard O’Brien himself.

When I got back to the department I decided to e-mail a number of the people
around here to see if any would like to go along. I’ve never actually got
around to going to one of these showings though I almost did a couple of
year ago when I was going to visit a friend in Liverpool to do so but family
things on her end got in the way so I never went. (She suggested that I wear
a lab coat, fishnets, high heels and not a lot else, by the way.)

Anyway, the responce to this posting was not encouraging. of the few people
who replied a number said that it wasn’t their thing but hoped I would have
a good time, some more merely said that they weren’t going to be around on
Friday, one said that she’d not be around but wanted to see photos of my
costume if I did.

Anyway, as no-one else wants to go and it’s probably sold out by now anyway and
I don’t have anything kinky to wear, I guess that wraps it up. I’m not going
to even bother thinking of going now. You have to be in a group to go to
one of these showings, in my opinion. It’s a sort of group humiliation fun
type thing. Going on your own dressed up is just sad and a little on the
dodgy side.

Here’s a link to the local newspaper’s web page giving details of the case I was on. They’ve spelt the name of one of the people found guilty wrong. They say it’s “Mechan” when it’s actually “Mechen.”