Here's a top tip I heard on the radio the other day (one which I employed, to great self satisfaction, last night):

If you receive any junk mail that contains a reply envelope, tear up all the contents and stuff them into the reply envelope then send it back to them. If enough people do this, then in time they'll hopefully get the message. They should be obliged to recycle it too!

Give it a go.

It's my last day at work until 5th Jan. I'm back at 'corp HQ' today though. Just waiting to see if I can get out early because I'm going back home with a friend tonight. Unfortunately, Christmas is going to be tainted by the fact that I have to write up three assignments as part of my 'goals' at work. These count towards my performance - related bonus, so could be worth up to £1000.

Anyway, must get back to reading the news.

GR.

Sorry for the lack of updates, it's a combination of me being really busy and me managing my time badly. However, I've now finished the HUGE website job I've been working on so I'm massively relieved.

There's only one more working week until the Christmas holiday (woo hoo!) but I've still failed to get any Chrismas presents for my family. I'm going back up north next Tuesday night so I'll probably end up shopping in my home town centre, yeah like i do every year...

I went back to see the homeopath the other day (when was it now?... ah yes, Outlook tells me it was last Tuesday). I've just received and taken my remedy. Tiny, like the last one, but different. This was a very crumbly chalky thing. The instructions said to let it dissolve on my tongue. It seemed to dissolve instantly. Let's see if this one has more of an effect.

I think I might be a difficult patient as I don't have any real physical symptoms. I justy want to sleep better, relax a bit more and improve my memory. We shall see...

Anyway, off to get an early night.

Goodnight, whoever you are...
x
GR.

I finally gave in and bought a new Playstation 2. The previous one (my housemate's) decided to stop reading discs a few weeks ago. I'm not a massive games fan, but I was rather into SSX Tricky. I've had sequel, SSX3, on hire the last couple of days and it's blaahdy good fun.

Oh yeah, some bloke came round and 'fixed the roof', the day after the last entry. Not sure exactly what he did, but there's an even bigger hole in my ceiling now. The main thing is that there's no water pouring through it...

GR.

Have they fixed the roof then? Have they heck... I got a call this afternoon: "...the thing is he did say he was going to be in the area but now he's not going to be available 'til thursday."

I had rehearsed for this. I wasn't going to stand for it, but on the spot there and then, I did my "Mr. Nice Guy" trick and gave it all that "OK, well that's fine I suppose as long as it does get done as soon as possible..." Weak. If I were my dad, I'd have it fixed by now and I'd have a letter of apology from the landlord... Gah.

The same thing happened last year. Then I waited for about a week then someone went on the roof and shuffled a couple of tiles around. It's not really rained heavily much since.

It has stopped leaking now but I don't trust it enough to move back into my room in case it starts dripping again in the night.

Oh the joys....

GR.

So bored! I'm working onsite at our major retail client's HQ again today... It's still very dull and corporate. I think this computer was constructed in the stone age. I actually have nothing to do at the minute, so I think writing this is a completely legitimate use of my time.

I got a good night's sleep last night - despite having to sleep on my sofa due to the roof leak. It's actually a sofa bed, and I think it might be more comfortable than my own bed. Maybe I'll move permanently to the living room. I had a strange dream about going with my brother to an amateur dramatics society meeting, housed in a small room, under some rubble... The ceiling was very low and it was lit by a couple of old gas lamps. I introduced myself to everyone but didn't get as far as doing any acting before waking up. I also had a dream about crash landing a huge passenger jet in the middle of a city.

GR.

Apologies if some of this seems a bit needless, but I'm keeping a record of how I'm feeling over the next few days to enable a clearer analysis of any effects at my next homeopathy meeting.

Right now I'm feeling kind of stressed and I seem to have a high heart rate. I've just gone and blitzed the flat because I just can't stand the mess any more. I think the fact that 90% of the mess is the result of my housemate's absolute inability to tidy up after himself, coupled with the fact that he spent the time sitting in his room listening to music instead of helping, has added to my annoyance (though I don't think the dripping sound behind me right now, at an increasing frequency, is helping). I feel I may need to broach the subject with him AGAIN fairly soon.

I may feel stressed but I also feel quite energetic and like I want to get things done. I'm looking forward to going out for Sunday lunch with some friends later; hopefully then I'll feel more relaxed.

GR.

I didn't get to sleep until 05:30 this morning because of that darn dripping. It's falling right next to my bed by my head. I would have gone and slept on the sofa but my mate T was staying over so that was taken. I tried several techniques to dampen (no pun intended) the dripping sound, such as tying a piece of string to the source hole so the water poured down the string. The pin kept falling out under the weight. I eventually managed to break the fall with a pan lid propped up inside the bucket. That dulled the sound enough for me to sleep.

I feel much better today. I did eventually get to sleep and I seem to have now emerged from my bad mood. It's STILL raining though. I don't normally mind the rain but when it's dripping into your bedroom that's a different matter.

GR.

Drip...


Drip...


Drip...


Drip... God that's driving me mad already!

So where are we up to? OK so I was chatting to her again on Wednesday, on MSN Messenger and it was driving me nuts so I just dropped the question, "Do you want to meet up tonight?" She said yes. We met up. She was cute and we got on as well as we had been over the net, but there wasn't really any spark there. We got some food and drank in a few bars in Covent Garden. We ended up doing shots in an Aussie bar. We got very drunk. It suddenly started to get a bit awkward and I was aware that I kept glancing over her shoulder, to where these guys were doing crazy motorbike stunts on a widescreen TV, just to avoid her gaze.

She asked me what I was thinking and I thought, "What the hell", so came out with, "I was thinking, 'do you want me to kiss you?' ". She said yes. So, to cut a long story short, I kissed her and we got a cab back to hers and, well, I didn't get ANY sleep. It felt good.

I was worried that she'd think I'd sort of used her, but she said she was worried about the same thing. I think the feeling was mutual - it had been a while for both of us, and we just wanted a bit of fun. We're still in touch on the texts and stuff so that's all cool. She is cute but I don't think it's relationship material. Still, it's a good experience for me; I've never been on a date with a stranger before.

So, yeah, I had to go straight to work from her house on Friday morning. My clothes stank from sitting in bars the previous night, but I felt good. To be frank, I don't mind getting no sleep when it's because I've been having sex all night...

- - - - - -

I got home, very tired, on Thursday to find that my homeopathy remedy had arrived. I had some food, got changed, relaxed for a while then took remedy number 1. I had been sent three of them - tiny clear tablets like plastic granules. The instructions said to take one today, one the next day and to keep the third as a spare, for possible future use after my next appointment with the homeopath.

I took the tablet, watched some telly, hung out some washing to dry and went to bed. I had a difficult night's sleep; I was quite excited about what effects the remedy would have. Despite having had no sleep the previous night I think I was awake till about 2am.

I awoke just before my alarm told me to, at 7.30am. I felt very alert and sprung out of bed (no usual three uses of the snooze button). I even had time for breakfast, and so went to work feeling very chirpy. I was looking forward to what further effect the second remedy might have. I told the homeopath, by email, about how I was feeling and was told that I should now hold back on taking the second remedy, as it usually either works or not - i.e. it's not incremental. This, I guess, makes sense because the idea is that the remedy contains a tiny amount of an active ingredient and it's the smallness of the dose that's important.

I spent the rest of the day actually getting gradually pissed off (I think due to the fact that I had shed-loads of work to do). I got out at about 19.30 (on a Friday, yeah - thanks) and went to meet up with a couple of friends in Clapham, one of whom had come to visit from my home town for the weekend. We had a few pints then went back to my mate's house for a few reefers.

I woke up this morning feeling uncomfortable (and sleep-wise unsatisfied) on his living room floor. I caught the end of the Rugby World Cup final (we won, yay!) and we all grabbed an unhealthy café breakfast. I made my way home and spent the day working on my new website, and trawling a couple of dating websites for potential matches (after the sucess the other night, I think this could be the future for me).

Tonight we went out to a local cheesy 80's night. Throughout the afternoon I seemed to fall into an incredibly bad mood. I thought at first that it was because I was hungry, but I couldn't shake it. I'm starting to feel a bit let down because the initial apparent effect from the homeopathy has gone and I'm starting to wonder whether it's worked at all. Maybe I'm expecting too much...?

Anyway I just left the club early because, frankly, it was doing my head in. I left my mates there. I couldn't be arsed waiting around on the off-chance that they would play something god like an old Michael Jackson record or some other 80's gem like Ride On Time by Black Box. 90% of it was just pissing me off.

So here I am... And water is dripping from a crack in my ceiling into a bucket. Drip... Drip... Drip.... Aghhh! It leaked last winter and the landlord claimed to have fixed it. Yeah, right. It bet it just seemed fixed because the rain stopped.

<sigh>

OK, well that's enough from me. Sorry if I sound a bit negative but I've just had a few beers and I'm quite tired. I'll probably log on and take it all back in the morning ;) Now I just need to try to ignore this DRIPPING SOUND and get to sleep. Goodnight.

GR.

Not written much recently as have been busy chatting on messenger to a girl who randomly contacted me. She seems really nice. I've not got much work done though.

OK then, so it was my birthday on Saturday (I'm now 26). I had Friday and Monday and Tuesday (today) off work. Thursday night was a company meeting followed by free bar. People discovered that it was my birthday on Sat, and also that I had Friday off, so made me drink lots of tequila. Lets just say: I woke up somewhere in Upminster. That's the END of the District line. Arse. Got in at 4am. That's the second time I've done that. Arse Arse.

AAAnyway, had a great weekend. Both my brothers were round and we had a party. About 30-40 people came along. We had the decks set up and several people DJ'd. It was great. It went on till about 7am when I finally removed the last of the revellers and crashed out.

I've spent the last two days getting my brother's website up and running. That's all done. Looks good. Apart from that I've been chatting to this girl A LOT, and texting. Looking forward to hopefully meeting up with her soon.

Back to work tomorrow so now sleep...

Night night,
GR.

I went to see the homeopath last night. It was just round at her house. I spent about three hours telling her, with some prompting, everything about myself and my upbringing. She asked me what things I didn't like about myself - things I'd like to improve. These are exactly the sort of questions that I'm not very good at dealing with, so I think it did me a lot of good just to talk about it with someone impartial.

I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders when I got home afterwards... and I've not even had my treatment yet! The possibilities are quite exciting - the chance to exorcise all my skeletons - I just hope what she comes up with works!

GR.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention; I've got a homeopathy appointment tomorrow after work. It's with a friend of a friend who has been studying it for a few years and needs a case to work on as part of her course. I get a cheap session (only £25) in return. Hopefully it will help me sort my life out. All that stuff I was ranting on about (slightly over-dramatically) a few weeks ago needs to be ironed out. Besides all this though I'm really quite interested in the idea, and whether it does me any good or not I think it's worth a go.

GR.

I've stayed in most of this weekend and made a lot of progress with my brother's website. I just need to code it all up now... Went round to my mate's house last night. We had a few beers and watched Nuts In May. You MUST see this film before you die - it's absolute comedy genius. My favourite bit was the "I want to see the zoo" song. I nearly died with laughter.

GR.

You've heard of Blogger.com, well now there's Blagger.com. It's my mate's new site. The idea is that you can check out who's good and who's not in each industry sector before hiring a company. You can submit a new company or add comments and ratings to exisitng companies.

GR.

I'm absolutely knackered; had to work late AGAIN. I suspect it may be my own fault though for not working too hard throughout the day recently. The website I'm working on was supposed to have been finished by tomorrow but that just ain't going to happen. Then again we're still waiting the client to send us some assets so it's not entirely my fault. I'm off to bed. Lots to get through tomorrow...

GR.

My parents came to visit on Saturday. We went on the London Eye with my brother. It was surprisingly enjoyable; the view from the top was amazing. My dad bought me a new monopod for my camera (it's my birthday on the 15th) so I got some really good photos. We all spent the rest of the afternoon in a pub near Dulwich in South London, engrossed in some unusually jolly family banter.

An old mate of mine and my housemate's came down to visit that evening and we went out to Fabric. I was having a really good night up until my day's drinking caught up with me and I ended up falling asleep, slumped in a corner of the dancefloor. I don't remember much from then on (owing to being asleep), but apparently I didn't want to be moved. Gah. I must try harder to stop doing this.

Sunday involved a delicious roast chicken lunch, courtesy of my female friend Q. This was washed down with a generous helping of red wine then - am I an alcoholic ? - we all ended up in a pub in Stockwell.

So, I think I ought to get down to the gym this week - it's been too long!

GR.

I can hear Big Ben from my bedroom. I kind of like that. I discovered it last night when I heard it strike midnight. It's the timeless regularity and reliability of that bell and clock amongst the chaos of London that appeals. And, to me, it's such an icon of Britishness. I particularly like way that the pause between the melody and the first strike is slightly too long, almost as if it's saying, "Pause for a moment, wait for it..."

GR.

Check out this website: http://grouphug.us. It's a genius idea. I wish I could come up with ideas like that.

GR.

I gave a woman on the street £2 earlier. I can't work out whether that makes me a helpful compassionate human being, or just a fool. She was quite old, appeared to be crying and said she was diabetic and urgently needed something to eat. However she insisted that she wanted a sandwich and that she would need about £2.

I half felt like going and getting her the sandwich just to be sure that that was was really what the money was for, but it was a bit of a walk back to the shop, and she was quite convincing (with an original plea) so I just gave her the money.

I really hope I wasn't conned. There's too many people who blag money under false pretences, so it's a bit of a boy who cried wolf scenario for those few who aren't going to spend it on booze. If I was religious I'd probably say that 'I'll be rewarded in Heaven', but I'm not. Maybe I'll get some good Karma credits instead.

GR.

So, (I keep starting with 'So...' don't I?) no more Concorde eh? I'm a bit gutted that I never got the chance to Fly on it. Today was the last flight for the British Airways Concordes. They landed three of them in quick succession within five minutes at Heathrow this morning. Maybe it's a bit geeky but I get into that sort of thing. And it was a pretty awesome plane, especially considering how long ago it was designed and built. Almost brought a tear to my eye today....

The spending plan's going well. Not sure if I'm saving anything but at least I'm more aware of where it's all going. I've spent £80.14 since Monday and that's being careful! I wish numbers wouldn't add up so readily! Tomorrow could cost a lot, and it will mostly go on beer, though that's fine as I've not done much boozing this week. I've stayed in tonight too, which will help. Right now, I'm off to bed anyway. Goodnight!

GR.

Money - Gah! My account is down to approximately zero pounds and zero pence already, and it's still more than a week until I get paid. I do have an overdraught facility but I've been dipping deeper and deeper into it over the past three months. I suspect that buying random crap may have something to do with it. That and beer, anyway.

So... I've resorted to keeping a spending record:
- Small, Indiana Jones-esque, notebook with me at all times.
- Pen
- Spreadsheet

So far it's kind of worked. I only spent £7.50 yesterday, and £5 of that was travel costs. In a kind of my dad way, it's quite satisfying. Hopefully this way I'll be able to sort out my rather large credit card bill...

GR.

Sorry it's been so long but, to be honest, I've not done anything noteworthy all week. I discovered a local Jazz night on Friday. I went down with my bro. It was pretty cool apart from the fact that lots of people were talking over the music so the musicians started to look a little pissed off. My housemate's brother and some of his friends, AKA "The Dogs", turned up later that night along with the usual excessive amount of 'stuff to smoke'. Yesterday was pretty much written off for me beacause I had a few tokes on a phat one first thing in the morning. We then went to a cafe to the pub to watch the rugby (England beat South Africa 25-6). After that we met some other friends had several more beers and some food. I was home in bed by 21:00 (such a wuss).

Today I'm going to meet an old mate from uni. Not called him yet but I'd quite like to go and see Finding Nemo or Kill Bill. Failing that, I would imagine beer and food will be involved at some point. God, gotta start going to the gym again...

GR.

I'm at it again: time wasting. Just spent half an hour brightening up this blog's colour scheme, instead of working on my brother's website. Anyway, it was all shades of grey, but I thought that might give the wrong impression of my personality, so I've gone for this kind of orangey-yellow.

It's a closely guarded secret, but as this is semi-anonymous, I'll let you know: I'm actually red-green colourblind. I hate the name 'colourblind' because everyone's first reaction is, "Ok, what colour is this ?" (pointing at some grass, for example). I've had tests and I'm about 30% deficient in GREEN sensitivity. This does actually impact quite a lot as most colours contain a mixture of red green and blue light, so the balance of all colours is offset. Dark blues are the worst - I can't tell if they're pure blue or whether they're tending towards purple or turquoise (i.e. whether it's mixed with red or green). The reason why it's a closely guarded secret is because I'm a designer. I get round the problem by sticking to colours I'm confident with, and by checking the numerical RGB values on the computer. I don't think some of my big name clients would be best pleased if they new that a visually disabled person had designed their website.

GR.

Football today - England v Turkey. I've never been a massive footy fan, but it's been growing on me over the last few years. Apparently they've never scored a goal against us, but then again we've not played each other for years and Turkey are pretty good right now. Anyway, that's about the extent of my football knowledge.

Watching the match in the Pub at 6pm then going out to a couple of clubs with friends. Hopefully it'll be a bit more sensible than two weeks ago...

GR64.

Well, Mr Richard D James turned up allright (that's Aphex Twin, for those who don't know). He was appearing under the name Bradley Strider, one of his early pseudonyms, and as a result it wasn't too rammed. I think half the people in there were just randoms who had wandered in off the street.

It was quite weird seeing him behind the decks in a small bar at a fairly low key night. He did his set off a laptop computer, I assume mixing mp3s or something similar. I didn't recognise any of the tunes - it was 80s tinged electro-ey kind of stuff. I couldn't work out whether it was his own music or not; perhaps it was some of each.

Unfortunately I drank too much Red Stripe and felt obliged to go and congratulate Richard for generally being very talented and for having written the tune Come on you Slags. He said thanks. I've never grown out the habit of slightly embarrasing myself at clubs by drunkenly insisting on shaking hands with DJs I admire. Never mind eh? I'm sure they're used to it.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I got back here with my housemate, scoffed pizza and then we got into one of those weird 'open' drunken conversations, not dissimilar to the one I had with my brother a few weeks ago. This time I was on about myself and self confidence. I can't remember how I got onto the subject. I'm not sure what came over me; maybe there was something in the beer.

Seriously though, I seem to have some surfacing issues. I think it could be the fact that I'm writing about myself fairly openly in this log that's making me more self aware. I suppose the fact that this is now all coming out is probably a good thing, as I've always been one for keeping things to myself.

I'd say one of the pressing issues (or symptoms?) is the fact that I've been single now for 14 months (since August 2003) and I've not really had any successes with women since then, except for getting off with a girl on New Year's Eve. It just doesn't really happen for me, and to be honest it never really has. I've only ever had one serious girlfriend (we lived together for thirteen months), and second to that my next best innings was two months.

Something must be missing in my approach but I'm not really sure what that is. It illudes me. I'm quite good looking; I'm not overweight; I have fashion sense; I'm intelligent; I'm funny and I'm still young (25). It just doesn't happen. I think it's first impressions. I don't think I make a good one. People often don't remember meeting me at all, which is really annoying. It's something I need to work on. My housemate reckons I should try homeopathy. He's tried it and claims that it's turned his life around for the better. He says he feels much better about pretty much everything since going for a few sessions, and taking one herbal tablet. It sounds crazy, but I think I might give it a shot. After all, it's only cost him about £100 and that's a small price to pay if it really works.

Anyway, I was back to my jolly old self today. I got quite a lot of work done for a couple of clients, and they were both really pleased. Unfortunately I've failed to make any progress on my brother's website this week. Maybe I'll do some tomorrow. I stayed in tonight and watched Dragnet on video. It's a cheesy 80's cop movie with Dan Ackroyd and Tom Hanks, and thus was quite entertaining. I wish the PS2 was working again though, missing the DVDs and SSX Tricky.

GR64.

Tonight I'm going out to see Aphex Twin playing at The Social. Apparently it's a semi-secret event as he's playing under a different name. I suspect, however, that it will still be packed and / or he'll not turn up, as it's something that I've heard about through the grapevine. Still - fingers crossed - I'm really looking forward to it because I've only seen him before in a large festival arena, and The Social is really small.

GR64.

I didn't start work until 3pm yesterday afternoon and as a result finished at about 12.30. I have to do something about my habit of putting things off... So - just a short entry today.

I just washed my stricken foot for the first time since 'The Incident'. My God, it felt good! For nearly two weeks I've been showering with my bandaged foot held out of the way, tied up in a plastic bag. It's a bit of a balancing act and I've nearly lost that balance a coupld of times.

Popping out to get some supplies (reaping the benefits of not being at work) then it's straight to work on my bro's website. Honest.

GR64.

I'm back at my parents' house, relaxing. They're actually out at the moment, walking across the low-tide sands at Morcambe. I'd be doing it too if it wasn't for the foot (it's an 8 mile walk and, as you might expect, very wet). I've just removed my bandage for the first time since it was put on last Wednesday. It's not hurting as much as it did, but it sure don't look too great. It's still kind of skinless and the flesh underneath now has imprinted on it a criss-cross pattern from the dressing. I'm hoping that an hour or so with it in the air will do it some good. Unfotunately they neglected to supply me with a replacement for the innermost part of the dressing so I'm going to have to put that bit back on (erk).

It's nice to be out of the big city for a few days. My flu-like illness seems to be abating as a result. I saw me old mate 'T' last night and am seeing some more friends later today. It's a bonus not to have to worry about work in the morning tomorrow.

It's also been nice (note to self: must use better adjectives) seeing my family. I've been taking photos of my bro playing his keyboard, with my new digital camera. They've come out really well. I'm going to make him a website when I get back down to London next week.

Bye for now!
GR64.

Yes, I'm still alive!

My lack of updates this week has been due to feeling really rough all week. After writing Sunday's entry, I started to feel really ropy (Friday night catching up with me) and my foot really started to hurt. I hardly slept that night and awoke early in agony. My foot appeared to have further blistered and looked, well, pretty grim. Not having a GP, I decided to go down to the hospital. I waited the customary few hours and finally got it seen to. It's a 2nd - to - 3rd degree burn.

I went back on Wednesday to have a re-dressing. The blisters had gone to reveal a largely red and outer-skinless foot. Ouch. Therefore I've been hobbling around and STILL have a huge bandage on my foot. This, combined with apparently having some kind of weird virus, has made for a pretty bleak week so far.

On Tuesday I went to a bar to discuss doing them a website, also an old friend came over from his city of residence to see a few of us. A friend of his (who I had met a few times) died a few days ago, and he had been to the funeral with some other people who lived in London. It was good to see him and catch up. He said the whole thing had made him realise how long it had been since he had seen us (i.e. me and everyone else from back home), and how it had reminded him not to take old friends for granted.

Anyway, I'm knackered so need to go to bed. I'm off back to my hometown (I'll let slip where it is one day) tomorrow night and I need to get my stuff together before I go to bed tonight. Sorry there's not been much in this week's blog, but basically I've spent the whole week feeling shit at work with a burnt foot - which would hardly have made great reading anyway.

Goodnight,
GR64.

Jeez,

Went out on Friday to see a load of mates i know from uni. Some of them live in London but I don't see them that often because they're on the wrong side of the river. Anyway they don't seem to have slipped out of uni habits and I think that's partly why I don't see them that often - they're a bad (good?) influence on me.

Things were much the same this weekend. I went along because it was a mate's birthday. He'd hired out a bar so we all got fairly muntered in there till 2am then went back to his (about 20 of us).

To avoid going into specifics let's just say it went on 'til the following midnight. It's not something I do often but it was damn good fun. We spent most of yesterday in the pub where about half of us trailed off throughout the day. The remaining eight of us kept on going and we finally got some much needed food at about midnight in a Kurdish restaurant.

I'm sure I'll pay for this at some point early next week (so please excuse me if there's a slightly negative, depressing blog entry) but apart from that, I'm feeling OK today, if a bit distant. The only real wound of the weekend occured when I kicked over a kettle that had just been boiled and had been left camouflaged (at least to my, less-than-beady-at-that-time, eyes) among cans of Stella. Most of the hot water poured over my left foot that was in a sock but no shoes. It fucking hurt...

I spent the next 20 minutes with my foot in the bath under the cold tap, then had it bandaged up. When I had a look at home last night, it had exploded into multiple large blisters. As a result I'm walking with a bit of a limp. Oh well, only myself to blame. I hope it doesn't scar too much.

GR64.

I suppose that, with hindsight, it's obvious that I would start this blog with a regular frenzied update about everything i'm doing, then trail off to a rate of more occasional updates. This is also probably a good thing because my day - to - day life is rather samey (see log on Monday, September 15, 2003, part 2 - though notably, I've not drunk any beer so far all week). So there you go; this way hopefully you'll not get as quickly bored.

OK then, what's been happening? Well, not an awful lot. The weather's become very suddenly much colder and that (combined with the fact that my new bike has started to feel like it's falling apart), has meant that I've been back on me old mate The Tube the last two days. The amount of will power that getting on one's bike in early the morning requires increases sharply when it's freakin' cold too.

Oh yeah, the girl at work: I think my madly in love statement (Fri Sep 19) was a bit OTT. I'd now class it as mild intrigue. I must have been feeling emotional or something the other day. You'll be glad to hear I'm back to my stiff upper lipped usual self today.

GR64.

You know when you half listen to, and subsequently ignore, the morning weather forcast ? Hmmm.... Riding home in my shorts and t-shirt was less than pleasant...

GR64.

I just spent two hours fiddling about with the CSS of this page. That's the code that formats the text (colours, fonts, position and stuff) for those who don't know. Why do I do these things? It's only fractionally better than before. I think I must just like wasting time.

Oh yeah, you can now email me, using the link at the top right.

Hey ho, tomorrow's Friday and my housemate is DJing at a fairly big club in London. It's his first gig there so I'm going to go down and drink a few over-priced beers and listen to his set with some friends. Just one day at work to deal with in between. I think I should start going to bed earlier. Working on this blog doesn't make feeling knackered in the morning worthwhile.

GR64.

I've never kept any kind of diary before. The act of doing so (and reviewing my entries so far) has made me realise quite how cynical I really am. I dunno, I just derive great pleasure from that slant on things. I do have fun too, honest! Hey, check this site out. The wankometer is quite good. It detects all that business bullshit language that I so hate.
..............................................

Night in on the programming tonight. Rock and roll baby... I got the game scoreboard thing finished so tonight I'm working on a nightclub's website. I'm the first to admit - I find this sort of thing satisfying. Does that make me a geek ? A total one ?

Tonight's soundtrack: Tom Middleton : The Sound of the Cosmos - highly recommended listening.

GR64.

Morning! I'm working over at the HQ of one of the UK's largest retaillers today, in central London. Our company has a contract to provide people to work on their website, and someone's away today so...

Let's just say, "It's corporate." One of the most annoying things is that I'm used to a free run of the net and my computer, wheras here everything's locked down - you can't install anything, you can't look at anything, you can't even access your desktop settings to turn off the annoying corporate messgages screensaver.

Anyway, nothing exciting to report...

GR64.

Well, my brother's not having much luck: He's been in London for under a month, moved to a place about ten days ago, and last night was bitten by a rat in his bedroom! The phrase not ideal springs to mind. I'd heard that rats could be a problem in parts of London but I'd never have thought that one could get into your bedroom and want to bite you. He said it was crawling on his chest when he woke up then went down the bed and sunk it's teeth into his toe.

The place looked OK (i.e. it was clean and tidy) when I helped him move in. I guess it was a very cheap area to live but you don't expect serious rodent infestations for any price now do you ?

Nedless to say, he's never going back there, so he's back round at mine on the sofa for the time being... Oh, and yeah, he's working at a hospital so a doctor had a look and said it was just a scratch and he didn't need a booster tetanus injection.

Oh the joys. Some good news soon, honest! At least I'm OK!

GR64.

Cycling too and from work is a bit of a nightmare. The traffic in London, though not as bad as it was before the congestion charge was introduced, is a 'hazard' to say the least. No one ever leaves any space by the kerb for cyclists to pass so you end up being forced to weave through the traffic (at which point everyone accelerates without checking their mirrors) or onto the kerb to fight through it.

What's in some ways most insulting is the nature of the 'cycle lanes' that they've introduced. At best there's a 30 metre strip on the road leading up to the junction, where there's a space in front of the stop line. However this space is mostly populated by motorbikes. However, far more common is a short lane painted on the pavement that promptly ends at a driveway or bus shelter. So, right, I'm supposed to stop my bike (doing the "I'm stopping" arm signal of course), dismount, carry my bike onto the pavement, get back on, start riding along, then stop again, wait for a gap in the traffic (which is driving right up to the kerb), and finally continue up the road. Yeah right. I mean it would be fine if the lane was half - a - mile - or - so long, but at best they're about 30 metres long.

...And (while I'm at it), I then turn into a park and decide to ride along the river, to avoid the dangerous, lead and CO producing traffic, and I promtly get reprimanded by the parks police for riding my bike in the park - it's pedestrians only! Maybe I should just give in and go out and buy myself a big MPV to drive (alone) to work in like everyone else seems to do. One with bull-bars on the front in case any cyclists get in my way i think...

I dunno, you try to do some good... I mean I'm not anti - car or anything, I used to drive and loved it (until I moved to London and hit gridlock), but I just think everyone could be a little more considerate, and the government could build some proper cycle lanes.
</rant>

GR64.

A new personal cycling-to-work record: 34 minutes...
... but why is it that when you make the effort and get into work early your boss is never there to see it ?

GR64.

Just went to see Belleville Rendez-Vous at the cinema. Very funny, very strange - I recommend it...

No beer today - this is a good thing.

Shit - I just heard that two of my friends, back in my home town, ended up getting attacked on Saturday night (along with several other people) by some guy who did a real Jekyl & Hyde act after drinking too much beer at a house party. Apparently he kicked down some doors, punched several people and tried to push his thumb into my mate's eye. He ended up getting restrained, arrested and is now in police custody, and now claims not to remember anything.

My friends had to be taken to hospital, one of whom had had his arm bitten... All quite frightening stuff. It begs the question, had this guy done anything like this before and if so should he really have been drinking ?

It's a dangerous world out there. Maybe that's why David Blaine is hiding in a box up a crane ??

GR64.

I've developed a new computer programme to define my lifestyle:

10 print "work, beer, sleep, ";
20 goto 10


GR64.

Today was really rather great. Met up with two friends (a couple) and their mate from back up north, got a tasty lunch then went round many bars in Covent Garden and Soho. Drank several cocktails, and then went onto some Belgian beers. Nice... I much prefer drinking at a leisurely pace throughout the day to the friday-night binge sessions. For a start I don't end up falling asleep so easily. Had I started this blog a few weeks earlier, I would have reported one evening when I got home five hours later than planned due to falling asleep on the tube and waking up somewhere in Essex. Let's just suffice to say "It wasn't the best".

Work in the morning then (ya...y), and I'm getting there by pedal power. Guess I'd better get some sleep.

Out,
GR64.

Ughhh. Well, last night was a bit... different. It was at a posh bar that had been hired out by a an old school-mate of my brother. She appears to now have lots of very wealthy friends. There were rose petals sprinkled on the seats - i.e. these crazy kids weren't exactly 'keeping it real'. We paid £20 in return for free drinks, which, naturally, ran out fairly early on.

I basically got drunk, chatted to a few people, failed to pull any girls, danced a bit to an ok-ish DJ then bought myself another drink (admittedly a double vodka and redbull) that cost me £9.50 and 25 mins queuing time. I then pomptly decided that I didn't want it anymore and so stumbled out onto the street where I, nicely, found my night bus home waiting. Got home about 3am.

Anyway, off to meet some friends for - hey get this - some *beers* and sunday lunch. Rock on.

GR64.

The photo-taking didn't go as well as planned - everyone decided to descend on the South Bank as I arrived on my bike, so I was somewhat caught up in the 1MPH tourist crawl. Got a few nice shots but I think next time I'll go find some older, more delapidated areas as they make for more interesting photos.

One of the morning's highlights was a street performer who went by the name "BUDGIE-MAN". Utterly bizarre bearded bloke. He sang songs about how he's "...a very very budgie man..." and the like, while budgies perched obediantly on his fingers. He also explained that it took, "...years of leaving his hand in the cage at night with all the lights off...", to train his feathered friends. O....K then. He did pull a bit of a crowd - maybe I'm in the wrong business.

Out to a party tonight, somewhere expensive out west. Could be good, could be rubbish...

GR64.

So - What's this Blogging thing all about then? Seeing as I work in the web industry, I thought I'd better find out what all the fuss was about. I decided that the obvious way to do this was to set up my own blog, though at present I've no idea WHAT I'll write in it or WHO the hell will read it. We shall see...

GR64.