One Man's Notes

I'm heading home this evening with a to-do list as long as your arm. The remarkable thing is that I'm looking forward to every single task on the list.

This is the view from my new office:

View from the 8th floor

About a decade ago, I was a restaurant journalist, working for a now defunct magazine. During the couple of years I worked there I had the opportunity to meet several of the UK's celebrity chefs, including Gordon Ramsey, Jean-Christophe Novelli, Michel Roux and Anthony Worral-Thompson.

They're obsessive and ego-driven individuals, but they make great food.

New companion announced

Making good use of promotional tat in the office

I suspect that memory cheats with fireworks. Objectively speaking, the year 2000 fireworks over the Thames was probably the most impressive display I've ever seen. However, those small, local fireworks shows in Dollar while I was growing up have more awe about them in my memory. That's the great thing about being a child: you enjoy things so much more intensely.

Friday night was Conspiracy of Ravens night (that's Friday night, ellefurtle), a gathering of our WoW guild. I lured lornabear along under false pretences (I didn't tell her it was a WoW drinks night), but she had a good time despite that.

Saturday was a day of doing stuff. We sorted out much of the remaining work on the kitchen, leaving us just a touch of paining to do. We took advantage of the quiet streets created by the England vrs Portugal match to go shopping and get me some new threads for my new work role. We then settled down for some serious Cyber action in the penultimate episode of Dr Who. A bit more flat work, and then back to the TV to watch one of our Amazon DVD rentals The Wedding Crashers. Not a bad movie. I did wish that the focus had been on the Vince Vaughn/Isla Fisher couple and not the lead romance, though, and not the dull lead couple. Ah, well.

Sunday, we slept in, mostly due to the ludicrous heat. I toodled off to Sainsbury's and B&Q for food and DIY supplies, and then did some serious eBay listing. I whipped up some Tuna Linguine for dinner, and we watched the excellent Lord of War (another Amazon rental).

Not the busiest weekend ever, but pretty enjoyable.

I am clearly a warm-blooded adders, as all this hot weather is not making me happy.

Or letting me sleep.

Grrr.

Oh, to have something like this in the garden:

The Stream

Silly phone grab while out shopping

02072006.jpg

Warning: here be the worst of the 80s. This is a music video calling for the return of Dr Who after it was put on hiatus.

The management accepts no responsibility for damage to sanity or taste inflicted on viewers of this 80s horror.

World Of Warcraft The Roleplaying Game (Warcraft)

The only video games that stick in my mind from my childhood were The Hobbit and Stargate, on the good old ZX Spectrum. Ah, those were the days, text adventures and blocky action games.

My favourite game now is, unavoidably, World of Warcraft.

Go, Ravens, go!

When I was born, Rod Stewart's Maggie May was Top of the Pops (ho ho). It's a pretty good song, and certainly beats the Slade track that replaced it the following day...

When I turned 21, End of the Road by Boyz II Men "topped" the "hit parade". It was the only No. 1 from that year I have no memory of - at all.

This weekend, I went to sell books at a charity fund-raising event in Suffolk. I spent Sunday browsing a food fair. More on my other blog.

In all likelyhood an odd, unpredictable selection of mainly mainstream stuff, that would all clash really badly with each other and make the soundtrack album unsellable.

I have a really odd taste in music. It's eclectic enough that people will see albums they love and hate sat next to each other happily.

A quick test of Vox's new Flickr intergration.