"And then he said..."

[Read more →]

[Read more →]

Beloved Other Half took a trip down to see friends on the Isle of Wight recently, and came back with intriguing tales of a fort on a shingle spit, part Tudor and part Victorian, poking out into the Solent from the mainland and almost touching the island.
This was Hurst Castle, and earlier this week we [...]

[Read more →]

Kwok – a picture he's almostcertainly forgotten I ever took
Another appeal for money in aid of another good cause, folks. My old coding buddy at the Royal Mail, Kwok, is doing the London to Brighton Bike Ride on June 19 in aid of the British Heart Foundation.
On the plus side, he lives in Brighton, so [...]

[Read more →]

Somewhere out there, within a couple of miles of me as I sit and type this, is – I hope – a young bloke whose day I comprehensively ruined.
Earlier this evening we visited my father-in-law in hospital and got stuck in traffic at the last couple of sets of lights. And as I sat there [...]

[Read more →]

For reasons that make a long and not very interesting story, I had to travel into work by train on Tuesday instead of driving.
This was wildly inconvenient, as a 20 mile / 30 minute drive north west was instantly transformed into a two hour marathon that took me eastwards right into central London before I [...]

[Read more →]

Telephone conversation this morning:
Caller: Hello, my name is Mr —–, I want to complain about rubbish collection in Wembley.
Me: I'm afraid you need to call Brent Council about that, this is a private house in the London Borough of Hounslow.
Caller: But I dialled the number for Brent Council.
Me: No you didn't – if you had, [...]

[Read more →]

Sunset over Vauxhall Bridge, on the way home tonight.

And here's a post I wrote last night in the lobby of the hotel after the wedding reception, on a PC with coin-operated internet access which ran out before I could cross-post it here.

[Read more →]

As a kid, I pretty much taught myself to read on a collection of books owned by my parents from an organisation called the Companion Book Club. You can still see dozens of titles from this club, which seems to have operated through the 50s and 60s, and into the 70s, languishing unloved in charity [...]

[Read more →]

Wedding rehearsalA jolly female vicar, firmly in the Dibley mould, leads Sarah and Dave through the rehearsal of their vows for Saturday.
Up to my hometown (or rather, a village nearby) this evening for the rehearsal of my sister's wedding. Given the sort of service we feared we might be going to when she was diagnosed [...]

[Read more →]