Ok… this one is bugging me.

There’s a film, American, not sure what era, not ages old, but not new… and the ending has a guy who is going to prison for a very long time… his dad is taking him there in the car, and there’s a moment of choice - does he cross the bridge and go to the prison, or does his dad take him off somewhere and he lives in secret and sends for his girlfriend in 10 years etc.etc.

Argh. It’s doing my head in. I can’t provide any more details I’m afraid.

10 points and a gold star for information leading to a conviction.

Had a great Christmas… hope you all did, too.

Incidentally, does anyone know how to get cranberry jelly out of ceiling tiles?

A great weekend at my dad’s, and what seems like is becoming an annual pilgrimmage to Dungeness.

Anyone know how to get coffee out of a carpet?

As someone who wants to deal with his well documented fear of heights, I instantly accepted the other day when we were invited to go up the Church Tower in the village I work. The trip was to have a look at the clock workings, since my company has donated money towards an electric winding mechanism.

Immediately after accepting, I then regretted it and the fear began to build. But there was no way I was chickening out of this one.

Well, it seems the access was via a tiny, and very steep spiral staircase (one of my least favourite methods of changing my height above ground) and a ladder (my absolute least favourite method of changing my height above ground).

Stairs…

Ladder…

My favourite bit (irony in use there) was on the way back down - stepping over the hatch and trying to find a working rung for my foot, while holding on to the incredibly wobbly top of the ladder.

But considering that I had paused on the way up the first spiral and nearly fell at the first hurdle, I am definitely rather pleased with myself. Deep breath, count to ten, get on with it…

And even people who aren’t scared of heights had trouble with some parts of the outing.

Oh… and the clock was quite interesting. We’d seen photos and expected this monstrous piece of olde fashioned engineering, but in fact it was rather dainty.

Isn’t fear a strange thing?

Fear of fear is far more powerful than fear itself. Especially when there’s really nothing to be afraid of.

And fear is more about the past than the present. It brings up a stronger reaction than it should because of past feelings.

So overcoming fear is about putting the past in its place, assessing the present, and getting on with the task.

More in an hour or two…

So, I was mp3ifying one of H’s CDs to take on the Great Trek South™ on which we are about to embark. I put the CD in the computer, loaded up the mp3ifying software, pressed the button to go to the intermaweb and look it up…

Hmm… I’ve never heard of Linkin Park being described as any of those genres before. Well, maybe “Misc”, but that’s not so descriptive now, is it?

But Blues? New Age? Jazz?

You can just see the 1960s edition of Top of the Pops…

“And now put your hands together for the new number from the popular beat combo - Linkin Park”

I own a house! Hooray!

Well… I own the bits that the rich businessmen don’t own. But I don’t think they’re going to come round and expect me to make them cups of tea, so I don’t mind them owning the bit they own.

The compulsory life insurance was interesting… because I’ve changed mortgage, they had to change my policy. But they couldn’t cancel the old policy, so they told me to cancel the direct debit instruction at the bank, and after two missed payments my insurance would cancel itself. Doesn’t seem like the most efficient way to do things.

But anyway… I own a house! Woo! Yay! and Houpla!

So with becoming not married on the 4th and completing the house transfer today, I think I am now eligible to get very drunk. Which is a shame, because I still feel too rough after Friday’s antics.

I know that Japanese Yen tend to come in big numbers (there are over 200 to the pound), but I’ve found a very big number today. I was looking at hotels in Tokyo, and the first which showed up in my search was the Park Hyatt. Ok, so it’s quite swanky, and the room I’m looking at is the ‘Diplomat Suite’ but I was still rather surprised by seeing the number 6,689,200 as a price.

That’s £29,537.47 at today’s exchange rate. Or just under £15k per week. Or £1.46 per minute.

And, even with that price, they have the gall to offer mineral water ‘on request’. I’d expect GOLD mineral water coming out of the shower for that price.

It’s got to be about 10 months since anyone phone the house and asked to speak to my ex wife. The person I least expected to do it was my ex mother-in-law!

I was so bemused all I could say was “Uh… you’ve got the wrong number.”

How strange!