Do you hit a certain age where you instinctively lick your finger before leafing through papers? I remember at school the secretary used to do it and I thought she was odd. Now I find I’m doing it, too.

I have no idea when I started. Maybe I need to moisturise more?

Wow! I just discovered you can buy heat-transferable road markings. You just need to clean the road, possibly prime it, apply the transfer and heat with a rather large blow-lamp until it sticks down. Think of the fun you could have.

“Makes the world a safer place”? Not in the wrong hands!

Isn’t it great when people perform translations on your behalf. Yesterday I was presented with a problem from a colleague to which I didn’t know the answer but said I’d look into it starting this morning.

Around lunch-time, an email went out to the important people bearing the words:

“I’m waiting for Stu to tell me how [x works] but he’s promised that he will have an answer very soon…”

I can’t remember promising anything, nor mentioning any ‘very soon’ness. No pressure, then!

Well, the clocks changed again, and my server went weird again. I’ve always had problems with Linux and the time due to the number of different places the time is held - usually at least the hardware clock on the computer motherboard and the system clock running within Linux.

Well, I found a page at LinuxSA which finally describes a whole lot of clock-based information in one place. It doesn’t cover NTP, which I use to keep my clock synchronized to the US Navy or whichever other atomic clock my server finds on its travels around the intermagoogle. However, the basics on UTC, timezones and the like are all there.

Oh, and I’ve decided to follow in the footsteps of a family friend who refuses to switch his watch from GMT to BST and back every year. Although I’ve only done it to the server, and I picked UTC as the time zone. So posts and comments will appear an hour out for half of the year.

On Friday we hired a car and tried to go to Brighton for lunch but the people bringing the car back did so very late so we were still near Luton at lunch-time so then we decided not to go to Brighton and decided to drop in on Henry and Trouty which was lovely and they fed us tea and macaroons which were yum and then we went to Bognor for a bag of chips for tea and it was the slowest chip shop in the world and we were there for twenty five minutes waiting for our chips and then we ate the chips and then we went to Winchester and then we went to bed.

On Saturday we woke up and then we went to Havant and I bought some fudge and an apple from some people on the market and then Sarah went to see one of her invisible friends who turned out to be real and quite nice and then my back hurt so I looked around the musuem instead of sitting down and I saw a real moving crab and a clock and some gloves and then it was time to go so we got in the car and went to Portsmouth and found some Thingers and one of the Thingers called Sam counted to the biggest number in the world which was bigger than one hundred and then found the bottom of a tower but the top was missing because it was cloudy but we went in anyway and went up in a fast lift and then looked at a cloud from the inside then the cloud went away and we looked at Portsmouth from very very very very high up and then we went higher and then we went back down and met some more Thingers and went to a pub which was loud and had some naughty football people who looked like they were going to steal each others dinner money and then we went to Lois’s’s pub and met Lois although everyone else called him Nigel which isn’t his name and then we ate some really nice real food and had a chat and then we went back to Winchester and then we went to bed.

On Sunday we woke up and looked at a map and saw a ‘Duck Decoy’ and went towards it but the police said we couldn’t so we went another way and found it but it was closed because it isn’t Easter yet and then we went up a big hill and found a windmill and a great dog called Dan and I asked the lady if we could take him home but she said we couldn’t and then we went to Twyford which is funny because it’s the name of a toilet then we sat in a traffic jam and then we came home.

–

So, anyway… Dan was the best dog in the world and kept pestering us to throw things. I tried to get a close-up but he wouldn’t stop nudging the piece of dry grass he’d brought for me to throw - or more accurately, to let go of and let the wind do the rest.

click for full view

click for full view

The tower was, of course, the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth. Anyone who has known me a while, particularly anyone who has seen me try to go up a tower will probably be quite surprised to see a photo I took of my foot on Europe’s largest glass floor, a cool 100 metres above Portsmouth harbour.

click for full view

I did actually walk across the floor a few times, and once I got used to it, it was fascinating to stand there looking down and seeing all the little dots of people walking and even seagulls flying around hundreds of feet below.

And Lois’ pub, the London Tavern comes highly recommended; a great atmosphere and proper home-cooked food.

A good weekend.

Today in town, I saw a box upon which was the legend “Fat Balls”. I found that statement rather surprising, not to say boastful. Then I realised the box was filled with balls of fat, rather than being a statement of anatomic superlative.

Unfortunately, I then saw the contents of the box. There were, not surprisingly, plastic vacuum-sealed packs of balls of fat. Upon those was the legend “HJ pet products - Fat Balls for your Wild Birds”.

It was then that my brain returned to it’s original line of thinking and began coming up with advertising slogans.

“Wild birds flock for HJ’s fat balls!”
“HJ’s fat balls are great for satisfying wild birds.”

I blame TV. Or my parents. Or … um … I dunno.

Last night, Sarah went off to play our twice-weekly game of badminton. Since I’m still rather wonky, I couldn’t play, so I stayed at home but just before she got back I had the job of getting some gentle exercise by walking, and picking up our reward of take-away for having played sport (shhhh… I know I didn’t play, but don’t tell).

Anyway… I poddled off to the chippy and on my return, decided to take a slightly different route. Now, the trip to the chippy and back would take a non-wonky person about ten minutes. It took me about eighteen - so not too bad. What I’m trying to get across here is the relatively small space in which these events occurred.

As I rounded the corner from Queens Road into Freehold street, I suddenly heard bells. Lots of them. They were ringing peals faster than any human campanologists would manage. But the strangest thing was that in the entire eighteen minutes, I’d been no more than 500 metres from where I was standing and hadn’t heard a thing. They hadn’t just started either… they were obviously in mid-peal. Aren’t bells normally more audible than that? They are, after all, designed to be heard for miles around to focus the far-flung faithful flock for their fulfilment of fidelity*.

Well, I know Loughborough quite well, and I knew that John Taylor’s Bell Founders were on Freehold street. What I had never considered was the fact that bell founders must soak-test their bells. That’s like when you make a technical thing with lots of buttons and before you sell it to someone you leave it running all weekend with things automatically poking its buttons to ensure that it works properly when the person you sell it to pokes its buttons non-stop for a whole weekend.

The inaudibility had to have been caused by a sound-insulated room of some sort. As soon as I was one street away, I could no longer hear the bells once again.

So there you go… if you want to hear manic bell ringing of an evening, pop down to Freehold street on a night when they’re testing the bells. Alternatively go into town when there’s a Carilloneur up our tower and listen to an altogether different sort of manic bell ringing. It’s often even recognisable as music (last time I heard it, he was playing ‘Master of the House’ from Les Miserables took me about five minutes to realise it).

(*sorry … I got carried away there)

It has come to my attention (thanks to Simon’s Tall) that Betty Boo is back.

Oh yes, she’s back. With Alex James, of Blur fame.

Video here (Windows Media Player, Broadband)

At the moment, I don’t think it’s a patch on her older stuff. However, I do find I can’t stop humming it.

Last Tuesday evening during badminton, I made a bit of a lunge for a shot. It was game point to the other team, and we had everything (ok… well, a game anyway) to lose if I didn’t return their shot. It came close to the net, and low. Since I was playing front, I lunged at it and got it, but my momentum carried me and I was forced to roll out of it - a neat skill I learned during Aikido training.

On Wednesday evening, my back started to hurt a little. I hadn’t really linked it to the badminton, but that’s all I can think of as a cause. Anyway… over the next twelve hours it got worse. I had a sleepless night and couldn’t tie my shoelaces in the morning. But I figured it’d pass.

Friday came and went. And Saturday. No real signs of improvement, but no real signs of worsening. I’ve had back trouble before and a good mix of gentle exercise, lying flat on my back and walking have always fixed it eventually.

This morning, I decided it’s been going on a little too long, so booked my doctors’ appointment. I went to work on the bus because folding into a mini isn’t currently an option (it took me five whole minutes to get in after work on Friday). After work, I had my hot bath with rosemary oil, ready for an evening lying on the floor doing gentle stretching and flexing exercises.

I wondered about my posture and so stood in front of the mirror. I stood up straight to attention and allowed my arms to relax by my side. That’s when I said “fussocks”. Since it isn’t half-nekkid Thursday, you don’t get the photo I took… but I did trace round the outline. Something looks a little amiss to me…

One day Happy Eater began to exist. We went in one once - we couldn’t work out why it said Happy Easter everywhere. Then one day they stopped existing.

That is the sum total of my knowledge of Happy Eaters.