Tuesday, February 25, 2003

I can't believe I last posted only three days ago! We've done so much in that time it feels like much longer ago.

The decorating is well underway now. A quick splash of paint on the ceiling and a second coat on the walls and we'll only have the woodwork left to do. Then carpets to buy. And flat-packs to assemble, and sofas to choose and curtains .... It's a never ending cycle, but one I'm enjoying at the moment. Give me a couple more weeks at this pace though and I'll probably be saying the exact opposite. It's amazing how the first few sunny days of the year can totally lift my enthusiasm for physical work.

In the outside world, botox injections can give you wrinkles. And Tony is going to do a Youth Forum on MTV in a couple of weeks.

posted at 9:08 PM

Saturday, February 22, 2003

My PC isn't talking to me. A couple of days ago I booted up to be told that my profile was corrupt. I've got most of my data intact, but I haven't managed to resurrect my e-mail. This is particularly annoying as I had been e-mailing myself lots of bits and pieces for a nice post and I've lost them :-( Hopefully I'll find the time to sort it all out over the next few days, but it's going to be busy.

We've just had a couple of days off work, and I've worked even harder than normal. I spent most of Thursday sanding down skirting boards in an attempt to get a flatter surface for painting. As our house is about a hundred years old the skirting boards have been painted a fair few times over their lifetime. It would appear that they have been pink, blue and green at various points in time.

Yesterday we hired a transit van for the day, and so Friday was mainly spent driving around London and moving stuff. We started at Ikea and purchased units for our utility room and shelving for the front room. We also got a new computer desk for me (currently oin and I share a desk and he constantly asks me to stop piling my junk up in his mouse area. However, I don't get to put my nice new desk up until we've finished the other two rooms, as there is a massive pile of flat packs where it's going to go :-)

Today's plan is to carry on with sanding and other repairs in the front room. We have the paint on standby in the hope that some of it will meet the walls today. By the end of tomorrow I'm hoping to have the walls all painted up so we can do some of the woodwork (skirting boards, picture rail, two doors and a fireplace surround) over the course of next week. Before and after photos should appear soon. There may even be another decorating animation :-)

posted at 8:57 AM

Thursday, February 13, 2003

The blog of the week part two - welcome to linksville.

A tad old now, but I've been meaning to read the transcript of the Tony Benn interview with Sadaam. Worth reading purely to admire the well practiced art of talking for absolutely ages on a subject without actually saying anything at all.

This one made me laugh - a fantastic example of jumping on a tabloid-esque bandwagon by two MP's that nobody's heard of in an attempt to get their names into the papers. And yet having just re-read this article a whole 3 minutes ago I've forgotten who they are again :-)

In the UK, the census revealed that more people listed Jedi as their religion than Judaism or Bhuddhism.

On an even more frivolous note, meg is my weblogger twin (via Bel).

I have concluded my Thursday by surfing round my usual blogroll and following links to people I met last Sunday. I've even added a few new blogs to my ever-increasing reading list. Oh dear! I seem to have ended up still surfing a long time after I meant to go to bed - goodnight :-)

posted at 11:42 PM

Yet another week has flown by! I just can't understand where the days go. Mind you, since the last time I sat at this keyboard I have achieved a lot.

Last Friday I went to the London blogmeet and met all these lovely people, as photographed by cal.

Saturday saw me up bright and early to walk across part of the countryside with oin and cath. I can now exclusively reveal that the countryside contains trees and mud and sheep. And lots of fresh air. I had a lovely day - I could even be persuaded to go outside the city again sometime.

On Sunday we went to Canterbury to see O's bro and family. We have two nieces - one aged three years and one who's about 6 weeks old. We don't see enough of them, but it's great to see how the kids are growing up and developing into little people over time. Another lovely day, and all in all, a top weekend.

Monday was back to the office, as ever. Did some serious planning in the evening - we decided to take some well earned time off from working on the house over Christmas. Unfortunately, considering February can hardly be described as part of the festive season, it's time to get organised and get going again. Monday rolled into Tuesday and an evening in Ikea. Don't ever say I don't know how to party :-) By Wednesday I was knackered. Having been full of blogworthy intentions I ended up on the sofa, mainly watching the beeb hold a debate on Iraq. It was an interesting program - the background information provided by Peter Snow was highly informative.

On top of all that, I've spent a good 50 hours in the office and about 35 hours asleep. If only it had been the other way round :-)

posted at 9:34 PM

Thursday, February 06, 2003

Just watched Paxman roasting Blair alive - if it wasn't so scary it would be amusing. I lost count of the number of times Tony came out with "No, that's not what I said." You have to give him credit for saying absolutely nothing despite using lots of words.

Meanwhile, the government spam filters have been hard at work recently blocking all mail relating to the sexual offences bill which is currently being debated.

And the Vatican has been hoping some of the Harry Potter magic will provide some positive publicity for a change.

posted at 11:06 PM

Monday, February 03, 2003

Aunty beeb has started linking to "this day in history" type stories, which are kind of interesting. Some of the links are to things I was too young to get at the time, and some just demonstrate to me how fast time is passing. This article, which is from 12 years and 1 week ago, amused me (if amused isn't too flippant a word in this case). When I was just 6 years old, Robert Mugabe returned to Zimbabwe (then called Rhodesia) from exile. In his speech, in an appeal to white farmers to stay in the country he said "We will not seize land from anyone who has a use for it. Farmers who are able to be productive and prove useful to society will find us co-operative." Hmm.

Of course, expelling farmers from their land and creating a massive famine which threatens thousands of people in Africa is not as exciting to the headline writers as a potential conflict which is not about oil. This piece is about the history of the treatment of Iraq by the UN. The question posed is whether or not we would be heading towards this war if the Florida recount had gone the other way.

posted at 7:11 PM

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