This weekend’s agenda:

• soak in the bath (done that)
• trip to the bank and Waitrose
• lunch of poached egg on bagel
• paperwork for PFE, largely rejigging the financial forecasts to reflect the money-saving office plan (thanks to everyone who sent advice on that, especially Dave
• dinner
• down to the Fountain to hear Don Eduardo’s band playing – not to be missed kids!
• sleep
• down to the cinema to see Smultronstället (a.k.a. Wild Strawberries), Ingmar Bergman’s classic 1957 road movie (11am at the New Park if anyone wants to come along)
• lunch at The Nags (anyone want to join me? I’ll probably be there by 1pm)
• a walk after lunch if the weather is good. If the weather is bad, then maybe sit and do some updating of radio grayblog
• cooking a fine roast dinner with all the trimmings, to be enjoyed with a good glass of red.

Hmm. A bit behind schedule with the day so far, not least because I have spent longer than anticipated in the city centre, poking about the shops. However, I completed my bank errands, bought some stationery for PFE, purchased a new paperback as I’ve nearly finished A Cook’s Tour, bought some odds and ends in Boots, did a full-on shop at Waitrose and spied a pair of really smart boots in Russell and Bromley. But although I am tempted to go and try them on, I shall resist until I’ve finished my paperwork.

Let’s not mention today’s football result for Brighton, ok?
Doing my figures has taken me longer than I thought, so I haven’t got back to the shoe shop. This will be a good thing as far as my credit card balance is concerned. And the figures look pretty good too.

This site cropped up in my referral logs and made me smile.

Went to see Ted’s band play The Fountain. I saw the first half of their set, which was good, filled with good bluesy rock tunes. But, I have to say, though the band was good, the singer wasn’t as good as Paul F – he just didn’t carry the (very packed and hot) audience with him.
After that, beer in W2 with Cat and Nicky, with sightings of DA, Kearn, Stein, Matt and several others.

An impressive URL. via LMG.

I do not find this at all surprising. Making museums free of charge is, in my opinion, a good thing. However, doing so does not make them cool in the minds of people who, regardless of background, get their culture from The Sun and Corrie. Perhaps the museums could try to broaden their appeal by getting support from a few icons of popular culture. Getting Posh and Becks to take Brooklyn for a day out to see the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum would make a great photo opportunity. And, let’s face it, the dinosaurs are cool.

The film was excellent. More on that later. Only had a pint in The Nags, as I’d forgotten that they don’t run a lunch menu on Sundays (only the excellent carvery, and I didn’t want that when I have a full-on roast planned for later), so came home stopping at the pastie shoppe on the way. But it’s a lovely afternoon, so I’ll definitely take a walk.

When will IDS listen? When you have figures that are as popular with the general public as Portillo, Clarke and now Chris Patten saying the sort of things they have been saying, combined with an extremely disaffected party chairman and a 1922 committee that is said to be "incandescent with rage", surely it is time to go, for the good of the party?
Honestly, I can’t see anyone voting for them at the moment, certainly not me. At present, Charles Kennedy has my vote. I can’t be the only person who thinks that way.

Had a brilliant walk by the canal down to Hunston and back, admiring the newly-cleared banks (all done with volunteer labour – respect due to the Canal Society) complete with scattered patches of yellow celandines and nodding daffodils. I spotted a pair of extremely brightly coloured kingfishers flying fast and low over the water, and a little grebe doing that funny submerging trick that they do when disturbed.

urf. I’ve just eaten the biggest roast dinner in history. It was delicious, but now I can’t move. I’m pretty good in the kitchen, but sometimes I think it may be bad for my health! I was going to go down to w2 for the live music that’s on tonight, but I think I’ll skip it. Still, I can reach the pinot grigio without leaving my seat, so shouldn’t complain.
Anyway, I promised to say a bit more about the film. It was excellent. When you consider that it was made in 1957, the year that The Bridge On The River Kwai swept the board at the Oscars, and Peyton Place and Gunfight At The OK Corral were filling the cinemas, it can’t possibly have had a huge audience even then. Today, the New Park was about one-third full – maybe fifty people. All I can say is that a lot of people missed an opportunity to see a great piece of cinema on the big screen.
Woody Allen used Wild Strawberries as the basis for his film Another Woman, which I’ve not seen. Watching it, you can see Bergman’s influence on European and Hollywood cinema. This is a road movie, but not in the usual style. It’s more a journey of self discovery, as opposed to the American ideal of a journey into a great white future. The main protagonist, Isak Borg, confronts his past and discovers himself, rediscovering friends and family as he goes. The story relates a single day in his life, when, as an old man, he travels from Stockholm to Lund to collect an award. Along the way, he bonds with his daughter-in-law, befriends some young travellers, visits his mother and confronts his own demons through dreams and flashbacks.
The script, cinematography and acting are all brilliant. There is subtle mixture of cold hardness and heartwarming tenderness, moments of sadness and moments that are genuinely funny. The highlights for me were the performances by Victor Sjöström as Isak (Sjöström was an important director in his own right) and the phenomenally beautiful Ingrid Thulin as his daughter-in-law, Marianne. Both were good friends of Ingmar Bergman, and it is obvious that the three of them were able to communicate well in the making of the film – there is a natural rapport.
I suspect the print of Wild Strawberries I saw today is doing the rounds of art cinemas in the UK at the moment. If it comes to a cinema near you, go and see it.
(EDIT: Wild Strawberries received an Oscar nomination in 1959 for Best Screenplay.)

Looks like being another madly hectic week. But fun, so no complaints.

The AOL welcome page always features their "deals of the day" from their shopping service. Today’s featured items are:

• a bagless vacuum
• a Gossard bra set
• software

A packet of crisps and a firm handshake to the first person that comes up with a joke linking those three items.

Happy birthday to Sarah, my bestest pal, who is [signal interrupted as we pass under a low bridge] years old today.

Following the Sri Lanka v South Africa match currently underway in the World Cup, and with rain falling, I thought cricket fans might find this explanation of the Duckworth/Lewis Method to be useful. Another (simpler?) explanation can be found here.

A leaflet has been dropped through my door and I’ve seen several posters in the city centre promoting a Stop The War march to be held on Saturday, from Northgate car park through the city (presumably to the Cross), starting at 11am. Might go along and spectate, although these things tend to be embarrassingly small in Chichester, and generally dominated by a few strange types and not the mainstream. But this might be different.

If you’re wondering about the long-promised update to radio grayblog, I have been working on it, honest! I’ve got twelve new tracks ready to go, and another nine in progress. Of course, that leaves me to choose which 21 tracks get dropped from the playlist to make room for the new additions.
It’s going to take at least another couple of days to finish the update, so rush over and listen now if you want to catch the current playlist before I change it. Don’t forget that you need to log into live365.com before you can listen.

I’m not normally that excited about going to trade shows, but one where Rachel de Thame is likely to be present does tend to make me more interested, even if it is utterly irrelevant to my business. Who says celebrity doesn’t sell?

Is it me, or is there something slightly Jane Austen-ish about the whole teenager and policeman story? She’s obviously got herself all wrapped up in this talk dark friend of the family. PC Darcy?

Strange girl. Not sure I like the idea of being shot at.

To go with this story, I present today’s Matt cartoon:

OK. The world has gone mad. Or more specifically, my PC has. I hadn’t planned on spending the whole day reinstalling everything.

Well, I’ve just reinstalled Windows. My data doesn’t seem to have been damaged, but my cookies are all gone, half of my mail archive has disappeared and several applications, including Office, don’t work any more. Looks like I have more work to do here.

Just what I need after a day like today – a list of trains on the information screen at Barnham that is marked with the words “delayed” and “cancelled”. A broken down train and power supply problem at Aldrington apparently. At least there is a member of staff on the platform to help people, although there is little he can say or do in the face of 75 minute delays. It’s something that would have only rarely been seen back in the days of Connex (a member of staff that is – the delays were commonplace).
You can tell I’ve been standing around for ages, as I’ve had time to key this post in using Wapblogger! And joy! An extra train is being sent from Littlehampton to rescue the stranded.
EDIT: gave up in the end. Went back to the nursery, got the car, and arrived in Chichester just in time to see the train arrive. guh.

Beer tonight in W2 and the Nags. Not very exciting, but had a chat with Peter about A level French lessons, and managed to spill a pint of beer. Which goes to prove that you can’t stop me from having a good time. Oh no.

Well, it’s back to fighting with this recalcitrant PC. So far this morning, I’ve had the blue screen of death four times, which is slightly worrying. I’ve managed to reinstall Office, although we’re back to 97 instead of 2000. But it works. PaintShopPro, IE, OE, Actinic Catalog, AOL, MSN Messenger and MailWasher are all functioning nearly normally. Still to do are HLS label software and HomeSite. I seem to have most of the drivers functioning again, although I’ve yet to test them all. I still have to reinstall drivers for the Iomega Zip drive and the digital camera. Interestingly, the little beauty that is WinAmp has continued to function throughout, bless its little cotton socks.

Right. Just the Zip drive and camera left to do. Everything else seems to be working (hurries to touch wood). It’s taken me pretty much a whole working day to put all this right.

Almost forgot the anti-virus software – soon remedied.

Oh dear. I think Brighton’s fate has been sealed tonight. Division Two, here we come.

I asked the other day if any of the locals had been to or heard about Mango, a wine bar in Arundel. I can report that it’s really very good, a bit like Woodies used to be, only filled with a much younger crowd, mostly 18 to 20.

Readers might like to check out Red Cardinal. This online store for DVDs, books, CDs, clothing and goodness knows what else has been put together by the lovely Claire.

I’m pooped. I slept really badly last night and had a very strange dream involving some large white marble cubes on a red sandy plain under an orange sky. I needed to open them but couldn’t figure out how to do so. Goodness knows what that means.

Went for a walk after work this evening, down the canal to Hunston and back, again seeing a kingfisher. It’s good to be able to walk after work again, although it was only just light enough. If it had been cloudy, it would have been too dark.

AFF: in readiness for the FA Cup quarter finals, and knowing that my team is the bookies’ favourite, I’ve made a few judicious transfers:
OUT: A Cole (to keep within the rules for the number of players from any one team), Winterburn, Malbranque, Solksjaer
IN: W Bridge, Lazardis (to keep within budget), Kewell and T Henry.
That leaves me four transfers left, which should be enough for me to deal with any injuries, and to bring in another Leeds player for the next round (assuming they go through), safe in the knowledge that there will be a vacancy when either Arsenal or Chelsea are knocked out.
The Cup is as good as mine (famous last words).

Update to the story about the swotty prefect from yesterday: today, The Sun reports that the great British institution that is Phil The Greek has made a brilliant insult to the lad upon meeting him:

Utter class.

I wonder if we’ll get to see the pictures that the bloke took?

Why must the Inland Revenue make everything so complicated?

Yay! I’ve got my first mail addressed to Plants For Europe Ltd.
Boo! It’s an invoice.

Beer tonight with Paul F, Lady Bren and Lord Percy. Pooped. Need sleep. Mind elsewhere.

Chicory: food of the gods? You decide! Vote now in the comments to this post!

Hmm. Contemplating the weekend. Plan at the moment looks something like this:

• soak in the bath (done that)
• bank and shopping. I’ve decided to hold back on the boots for a while – my finances are still not perfect by any means.
• since the weather looks a bit pants, I may stay in and actually finish the long-awaited upgrade to radio grayblog
• down to Percy Towers for sausage and mash, Beano stylee, before heading out to (whisper it) Thursdays for dancing and stupidity to celebrate Michael’s 40th.
• Might go and see a film tomorrow morning. Persona is on at the New Park, but I’m not sure if I can cope with a hangover and a very bizarre film as well
• Maybe a walk? Depends on the weather. Either way, a Sunday roast will almost certainly be called for

Chichester’s Stop The War march seems to have been pretty well supported, perhaps more than most people (myself included) might have expected. I watch it proceed along East Street and past the Cross to the rally on the Cathedral Green. I’m not an expert at counting crowds, but I would say that there was between 750 and 1000 people there. Notable was that although the usual Chichester "cranks" were present, so were an awful lot of ordinary couples, families and pensioners – people of all ages and backgrounds – undoubtedly a good thing.
Quite a few other people gathered around the crowd at the rally, but they seemed to drift away after about fifteen minutes of speeches, probably hastened by a little light drizzle and the thought that the banks were about to close for the day.
The pity is, I really doubt that Chichester’s rally will make much difference to our illustrious leader’s desire to let off the fireworks in the Middle East.

I’m rubbish at this.

Brighton 2 – Rotherham 0. More please.
Slightly alarmed that Seaman has already conceded one goal in the FA Cup match after less than three minutes. Not good for my AFF Cup-winning hopes.
EDIT: and Thierry Henry has missed a penalty! AAAARGH!
FURTHER EDIT: he’s made up for it.
EVEN MORE: and now he’s been substituted.
I’ve come up with a strategy though – I’ll need to make at least one substitution in my team tomorrow morning.

Oops. Forgot the kick-off in the FA Cup was early today, so haven’t made the transfer I was going to. Oh well.

Last night, sausages and mash with Lady Bren, Lord Percy, Julie, Paul and birthday boy Michael, followed by strutting of funky stuff at Thursdays, which was particularly awful, even by Thursdays standards, with a pretty appalling music selection – evidenced by the number of people queuing with us for a taxi at 12.30.

Took a very pleasant stroll down to the harbour this afternoon. I had intended to walk across Fishbourne Meadows and follow the high water path to Dell Quay, but the meadows were more like a swamp, so I walked past Fishbourne Mill, past the millpond and through the reedbeds to the high water path on the western side of Fishbourne Channel. Very pleasant indeed.

Apologies if you’ve tried to use the archives in the last 24 hours. I updated the template of this site at Blogger whilst browsing using Mozilla, and it’s completely chewed the code. I think I’ve fixed everything now, but if you find anything wrong, let me know.
I’m not sure if I like Mozilla or not. It is faster than IE, that’s for sure, but maybe I’ve got too used to the way that IE works – which, let’s face it, is pretty good in the latest version.

Bora has just popped round. The last time I’ll be seeing him for at least six months. Still, knowing Bora, he’ll turn up one evening when I least expect him.

AFF: through to the semi-finals of the Cup. But not by the wide margin that many pundits were predicting. I don’t think this is going to be easy at all. A lot will depend on this afternoon’s draw.
UPDATE: phew, glad the remaining Premiership teams didn’t get drawn against each other.

To the person who came here by searching for celebrities living in Sussex, you’ve come to the right place, as I am THE leading internet celebrity in the county. Oh yes.
Cough.

Who hasn’t been in this situation at some time or another? Mind you, I usually just dive in with the L-word and scare the bejeesus out of the poor unsuspecting soul, which is probably why I’m approaching 32 and still single.

Why is it that carving a joint of roast pork has me thinking about Warren Mitchell saying (of Wall’s sausages):

?
Bless.

For all the people coming here looking for photos of Freddie Ljunberg, I suggest that you try Arseblog, as it’s fuckin’ excellent.

Looks like I’ll be in Charlotte, NC for the weekend of October 3-5 for David and Andi’s wedding.

Children are being put off of train travel by Thomas The Tank Engine, apparently. Meanwhile, adults are being put off by stupid RMT strikes.

Oh joy. I’ve just discovered that the nursery’s online catalogue has been lost in the PC-crash debacle of last week. This does not make me a happy bunny.
EDIT: I’ve managed to recover a backup version. Phew, woo and yay!

My attention span is very short today. I’m finding it hard concentrate on anyth

Deleting 73 text messages takes a lot of thumb work.

Waitrose spicy Indonesian vegetable crackers – yum!
Beer tonight with Greg, Paul F, Kearn and Paul C, with sightings and conversation with Lucy, Kristian, Peter, Phil and DJ. Marvellous.

It was beautiful and sunny and clear as I walked to work. Now it is grey and cloudy. I feel like I’ve been cheated.

New Weebl of sorts. Very funny. And you saw the Elvis one didn’t you? Good.

Class. via B3ta.

Blogger has been dysfunctional all day. Apologies for lack of updates. More later.

Bizarre moment of the week came last night, as I was driving along Western Road in Hove. On each side of the road, chewing gum removal teams were working along the pavements, large pressured jets of steam spilling across the pavement and roads, their vans half blocking the street. Waiting for me to pass between them, travelling in the opposite direction, was a huge, enormous truck, all polished blue paint and chrome, bearing the number plate "1 KO". At the wheel, a well-known lisping celebrity sportsman.
As was said at the time, it was like something out of Ghostbusters.

Incidentally, current mood rating is somewhere around 87% and rising, an extremely high level. A pleasant sunny day always helps.

radio grayblog listeners will be interested to know that I’ve made some progress with preparing the 21 new tracks I promised ages ago. I may get around to uploading them at the weekend, although that is dependent on whether I’m busy (highly likely, I’m glad to say). Listeners may also be interested to note that I’m using some spiffing new software which seems to offer better sound quality than the WinAmp2 plugin I was using, and certainly a lot more functionality.
This weekend’s activities – on Friday night, a leaving dinner bash thing for Melanie, a member of staff at the nursery who is going on maternity leave. On Saturday, hopefully lunch with Penn, then drinks in the evening with my cousin Gemma for her birthday. On Sunday, probably a walk, especially as the weather forecast is good.

Be warned. I am in an incredibly good mood this morning. Let’s just hope that my reasons for being cheerful persist. Chief amongst them is the fact that it is a glorious sunny morning, so much so that I was swayed to wear my shades on the way to work, which, when combined with my stubble and hooded fleece, make me look like Unabomber.

Just been to the amenity tip to recycle a couple of old knackered monitors and things. I’m a great fan of recycling, but some people seem to get a bit mixed up about what it means. As I was unloading my waste (no puns please), an elderly man, clearly being driven by his daughter, arrived. He got out of the car, and walked towards the attendant, clutching a single copy of the recently replaced telephone directory. He handed it to the attendant, turned, got back into the car and left. The attendant looked at the man, then at the phone book and shrugged before hurling it over the wall into the waste area.
(Pollution caused by car on journey to the tip) – (Reduced landfill from recycling phone book) = Still a net loss to the planet, I reckon.

Cats have it made. Seamus is just being a total sun sponge today, soaking up the rays on the carpet by a window in the house. Wish I could join him, but I simply have too much to do.
Anyway, how are you lot? You’re all being a bit quiet.

Cricket commentary, but not as we know it. via soon-to-be-a-dad Steve.

Dinner tonight with the folks and staff. Very pleasant and free of charge, which is always a good thing..

Expect quiet here today, as I’m off to The Smoke for the day.
Normal service, whatever that is, will resume tomorrow.

It’s too nice to sit indoors, so I will give you a full report on yesterday’s battle with public transport later, as well as trying to link stories about talking fish and Thora Hird in an amusing fashion.

Blogger has been arsing about. I typed a lovely long post about my day in London, only for it to be chewed and disappear. So I’m currently too miffed to type anything much here. But, in the meantime, feel free to wonder why anyone would search for this.

Sorry for the terribly short notice, but radio grayblog will be offline for a while this evening whilst I upgrade the playlist.

radio grayblog is now back on air, after more than three hours of uploading, recoding and cursing here. 22 tracks removed, 21 tracks added. I’m far too tired to update the playlist this evening, but I promise to do it soon.

I was going to make some sort of humorous comment about New York’s Fish of Doom, but reading today’s news about the war and the virus, I’m beginning to wonder if it wasn’t right.
However, it is a glorious sunny day and life is (otherwise) very good, so I’ll not worry about it. Much.

All quiet round here. Busy, as usual.

With conflict looming, this article reminds me that it would be a good opportunity to update my list of worldwide media sources.

I’ve got quite used to the fact that Blogger doesn’t log out users during long periods of inactivity (when, although server activity is nil, I might be typing a very long post). That seems to have changed now that Blogger is under Google’s ownership – I seem to get logged out after just a few minutes. Perhaps it tightens security, but it would be nice if there was a message on the Blogger Pro homepage to say what the new parameters are.

Beer last night with Arron, Al and the lovely Lucy, with sightings of Ruth, Hamish and Terry.
Today has that "long day" feeling to it already, partly engendered by an email I got last night which gives me a slight cause for concern about potential minor hiccups with work. Nothing that is insurmountable, but something that potentially will only be resolved in a satisfactory way by me doing work which other people should do. And, to be honest, I have enough on my plate already.

I never thought I would say it, but on this occasion I am 100% in agreement with Robin Cook.

Strange search for today: stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop.
Hmm.

It’ll be interesting to see what the implications of this new law in South Africa are on ornamental horticulture. South African flora is an important source of plant material in western commericial horticulture, and whilst I disapprove of patenting or PBR on plant material sourced directly from the wild, that plant material still has an important rôle to play in the development and breeding of commercial plant varieties. I’ll be watching this one with interest.

I’ve updated the radio grayblog page with the new instructions for listening, and the revised playlist. Enjoy.

Inevitably, just when life is all sunny days and perfectness, something comes along to take the wind out of your sails. sigh.
UPDATE: but a long phone call from one of the Good People helps make things right.

Another utterly gorgeous morning here, ruined only by the fact that I’d rather not be working.
There was some quality about the light and warmth this morning, as I walked through Chichester, that reminded me of Lisbon or Barcelona. Maybe it was because I’m also in one of those bloody-minded moods of self determination and independence, with a nice icing of f***-you attitude?

Well, even before a shot has been fired, it looks like the Fog Of War is already descending, and getting accurate news (or, at least the best approximation for that) gets harder. At lunchtime, the BBC reported that US-led forces had moved into the UN-declared DMZ, a report that was pretty quickly contradicted by the US command. Now, Sky News is reporting thay Iraqi deputy PM Tariq Aziz may have defected to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, something that none of the other news sources I’ve checked are reporting.
Having said that, the fact that I can sit at my desk and access news sources from all around the world is a marked change on just about every previous major conflict. And with al-Jazeera launching an English language web presence by the end of this month (if not before), the sources just get more numerous and varied, which is a good thing.
I think I may spend this evening getting my news sources list updated, as promised. But the existing one can be found here.
UPDATE: Reuters: US rubbishes Aziz story.

The perfect tribute. Radio 4 is now playing Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads monologue A Cream Cracker Under The Settee, performed by Thora Hird.

Nico has switched on the lights at my2p. It no longer seems like a black cat in a coal cellar.

The BBC is blogging the Gulf conflict.

The Straits Times, bless ‘em, are currently featuring this image and caption on their front page:

Why don’t we get protestors like that here?

Interesting. As the BBC seems to be putting as many journalists into the Iraq area as possible, the Americans are leaving.
Mind you, I’m not sure I’d be particularly keen to hang around the Iraqi capital at the moment.

Timeliness is the key: my new online news resources page is online.
I’ll be adding to this over the next week or so, and will probably add some non-English language resources too. Tips welcome.

Sticking with media news, I see that Wallpaper magazines, a division of the AOL Time Warner behemoth, has scrapped production of Wallpaper’s sister magazine Spruce after just three issues. I have to admit that I struggled to see how a bi-annual fashion supplement in the Wallpaper mold could either succeed or fit within the existing Wallpaper roster. Clearly the editorial team (and marketing and finance bods) have come to the conclusion that it is best to serve this part of the remit within the pages of Wallpaper. Which is a good thing, in my view.
As compensation, we subscribers will be getting a one-off extension to our subscription, and all future issues of Wallpaper will be sent to us with a special subscriber-only front cover, featuring less clutter on top of the cover image. Supposedly, these will be worth more than the high street copies to collectors of the magazine, and as a set of issues 1-10 recently fetched US$1000 in New York, I’ll be looking after mine more carefully than I have done.

via Wallpaper comes news of a forthcoming exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London by artists Langlands and Bell. The exhibiton includes a piece called The House of Osama Bin Laden, an interactive digital model which allows virtual exploration of the house and its surroundings. It is profiled in depth in this month’s Wallpaper, or you can find information about the exhibition here. Certainly looks well worth visiting.

Happy birthday to Dave Beasant, Brighton goalkeeper, 44 today and surely the oldest player in the Nationwide league.

News sources page updated.

Another glorious sunny morning – long may it last, although there is a thought at the back of my mind about the lack of rainfall.

Interesting and pretty picture of the Earth at night, which I’m sure has been linked elsewhere before, but is worth looking at again. Thanks to grayblog reader Simon for reminding me of this.

The BBC war log seems to move to a new URL each day. Strange. Today it is here and makes for compulsory reading.

Most distant black hole weighed, presumably with a very large set of scales.

There is a small anti-war demonstration at the Cross this evening, maybe fifty or sixty people.

Not that it is terribly useful to post it here, but croftway.co.uk, the website for the nursery, seems to be down. Easyspace told me that they were transferring it to a new server today, but that service would not be interrupted. This clearly is not the case.
Thankfully, at the moment, traffic is fairly light, with an average of around 30 unique visitors per day. However, our first adverts of the season hit the shelves next week, and then our traffic will rocket. I sincerely hope that the site will be restored very quickly. If it isn’t, there will be trouble.

I’m working continuously this evening, with redoubled effort in light of ongoing events, to update the news sources page. I’ve just uploaded a new revision, which now has links to more than fifty sixty English-language news sources.

croftway.co.uk remains offline. I am not best pleased. Additionally EasySpace do not have a telephone number, at least not one that they make public. But they’ll be running out of fax paper very soon indeed.

The BBC war log continues its migration. Today it is here.

Why do I feel like someone has tied my shoelaces together today? Everything seems to be much harder work than it needs to be.
Anyway, croftway.co.uk seems to be back to normal.

The railway station electronic displays have a new message on them:

Wine and food with Kate, followed by beer with Kate, Bren, Greg and Paul F, with sightings of Hamish, Alex, Ruth, Terry, Dave, Ali, Nikki, Tim, Lucy, Helen, other Helen and numerous others. A good night.

In a way, I’m sad that the Presidential Palaces in Iraq have been bombed. Architecturally, these are significant buildings, and it is a shame that they are being damaged and destroyed.

The BBC war log is here today.

Urf. My head hurts.
Beer, vodka, port and wine with Fi last night to celebrate her birthday, along with Jools, Fiona, Julie, Nic, Katy, Mark, Helen and Steve. Sightings of DA, Kearn, Clive and Matt.
I have a monster hangover. Why must the day be so bright?

BBC war diary thing, here today.
Going to stop nursing you on this. It is linked every day from the BBC News homepage. But it remains essential reading.

I’ve been slack. I’ve not fulfilled my blogging duty to link to other bloggers in a the-world-consists-only-of-blogging-and-nothing-else-matters kinda way. So, in order to make up at least a little bit, here is a small selection of recent posts that I’ve enjoyed/endured at other people’s weblogs:

• Luke tells us of his fear of spandex
• Darren points out that the best-known Baghdad-based blog has not been updated since Friday
• Steve goes gardening, and sets up a sublog to record it
• Vaughan discovers purple washing-up liquid
• Dave gets excited about double glazing contract management software
• Robyn reveals the cover artwork for the new Harry Potter novel
• Scary tells a shagging dog story

I note that this site will probably receive its 100,000th visit sometime around next weekend. Wow!

It seems incredible that I can sit here in the comfort of my safe, warm and peaceful home, and watch live video with sound from Baghdad.
It’s 11.20pm on a Sunday evening in the Iraqi capital city. It seems very quiet.
UPDATE: 11.35pm, and the sound is filled with the noise of gunfire and distant explosions. I’ve spotted a few flashes in the sky, probably anti-aircraft fire. It is so strange to be able to watch and hear this unfolding from such a distance.
FURTHER UPDATE: the transmission has been interrupted. The BBC website warns that the webcast may be intermittent, which is barely surprising.

I’m not usually one to get excited about celebrity women as some other bloggers do (no names mentioned, Kenny), but I do hope we get to see more of Aishwarya Rai, former Miss World and extremely beautiful and successful Indian actress. She’s just about to star in her first British film, Bride and Prejudice, which takes Jane Austen’s Bennetts and transforms them into a modern Indian family – which I reckon could be somewhat amusing.

The good thing about Kenny is that you can take a friendly sideswipe at him, and he doesn’t take offence. However, in spite of that, his is still not the best site for spandex opinions. That may be a good thing.
Of course, I’ll now expect him to exact revenge on me by blogging the movements of the two girls who live across the street from me, although he’d have to come round to my place to spy on them effectively.
Meanwhile, I’ve spent the morning in an important meeting, after which I found that I’ve been given the task of entertaining a transatlantic visitor this evening with no warning at all. Thankfully, I’ve been able to improvise some original entertainment at a moment’s notice – yup, drinks and food at W2. Let it never be said that I’m not innovative and can’t think on my feet.

Excellent dinner last night at W2 in the company of Karen from California. Lots of gossip started in the bar at the sight of me entertaining an attractive lady, but dispelled (I hope!) when I pointed out the rather large lump of carbon on her finger.
I’m looking forward to getting back out to California already. I should be going there again in July.

Work is going very well today. How rare. It’ll never last.
Meanwhile, the BBC does a feature on the famous Baghdad blog, as the Guardian has also done. If I was the author of this site, I’d be laying pretty low by now.

To prove that Aishwarya Rai has normal lips and teeth, here’s another pretty picture:

For Weebl fans, a Chris the Ninja Pirate game.

I keep seeing people wearing the same style of jacket as my pimptastic jacket. Does the world need that many pimps?

For those of you (and there seem to be plenty) hungry for more pictures of Aishwarya Rai, then I suggest you visit aishwarya-rai.com and get your fill, as it were.

The BBC seem to have finally got a clue about the whole concept of blogging (in the sense of a web page that is regularly updated and arranged in a chronological order, just to make things clear for the pedants) and created a single bookmarkable address for the war reporters’ log. It can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/reporters, which strikes me as a very simple, blogger-friendly address – deliberately so, I suspect, judging by the unusual phrase that has appeared at the top of the log:

Linked everywhere and in incredibly poor taste – but bring it on anyway! The Gulf War Drinking Game.

Have you noticed that western journalists seem a little two-faced at times? Oh, not just me then.
Over the last few days, I’ve noticed that whenever the Iraqi authorities have claimed something, the BBC/CNN/ABC/whoever journalists are quick to point out that they have no way of verifying the claims. Examples: number of dead in today’s market blast (or even, whether it was a missile or some other cause), or the Iraqi troops said to be active in southern Iraq. Yet, whenever the coalition forces make a claim, the western journalists swallow the whole thing. Examples: Umm Qasr captured (nope, not yet), Iraqi TV stops broadcasting (for about ten minutes), local uprising in Basra (evidence anyone?). In the case of the Basra "uprising", the Daily Telegraph gave the whole of the front page to it today, yet as the day wears on it is becoming increasingly clear that either the uprising was small and quickly quashed by the Iraqi authorities, or it never happened at all.
I appreciate that it is difficult to get objective reports and information. There is a war on after all. But I wish that journalists would be a little more circumspect and remember that information given to them by the coalition military authorities is just as likely to be spun or simply wrong as the information given to them by the Iraqis. Perhaps, if we can not rely on the "independent" media to consider this, it is up to us to be circumspect in our interpretation of what they report.
And, as a reminder: my news sources page may help you get a slightly broader view.

UPDATE: maybe I’ve been a bit harsh. This is a quote from BBC reporter Tim Franks, published on the BBC’s reporters log thingy:

Which suggests that Mr Franks, at least, is not accepting everything he is being told at face value.

I notice that my posts about Aishwarya Rai have attracted far more comments than my posts about the war (or anything else for that matter). Maybe Kenny has the right approach after all?

British Spin is interesting. I’m not sure that I agree with everything (or even most) of what the author (about whom we are told nothing) writes. Nor am I sure that the chronic lack of proof-reading is not a distraction. But it is worth reading if you’re interested in British politics.

I’m trying to figure out whether it is worth trying to get to work on Friday and Monday by train whilst the guards are having their stupid, pointless, irrelevant, stuck-in-the-dark-ages strike. According to the announcement I heard on the way home this evening, South Central will be running no services west of Barnham. South West are not involved in the strike and will be running a "very limited" service, but if they run the scheduled 0845 to Brighton, I should be able to get to work just ten minutes late. Guards on Wessex are to be re-balloted, but if they run their normal service, the train that I use to get home will still be running.
But there are rather too many "if" factors in there for my liking.
UPDATE: asked at the station, and it seems that I will be able to travel. by train without too many problems.

After devoting yesterday’s front cover to the uprising in Basra that didn’t happen (or at least not on anything like the scale that was reported), the Daily Telegraph devotes today’s cover to the counter-attack by the Republican Guard consisting of 1000 tanks and armoured vehicles.
Ooops. Seems that is wrong as well. Apparently the Republican Guard are still dug in, and the armoured column near Basra consisted of probably not more than ten vehicles, according to the reporting I’ve seen.
Doesn’t look like the Telegraph even attempts to verify any of its stories before running them, does it?

I need something cheery to write here. This blog is getting all too serious, what with war, train strikes and Indian actresses. What we need is more silliness and frivolity, less seriousness – a lighter look at life.
Yes! What we need is cheese!

From Darren comes notice of the internet urinal. hmm.

Apologies for yet another BBC link, but this article is well worth reading, as it helps to explain the rôle of oil in the current conflict – and it may not be what you think. Certainly has made me think about the issue again.

I really should kill the CV page (linked under "gissa job" in the sidebar), what with starting my own business and all.

My train journey to work this morning went ok. It was notable that there were a large number of school kids milling around the centre of Chichester who’d obviously decided to "miss" the only train to school for an hour. But milling around Chichester in full school uniform is not subtle, it must be said.

Today’s Telegraph reports an exodus of 300,000 refugees from Basra. Everyone else talks of a several hundred yesterday, plus maybe 2000 this morning. So the Telegraph’s reporting continues to maintain its high standards of factual accuracy.
Matt, on the other hand, is brilliant:

By my reckoning, the 100,000th visitor to this site should pass by on Sunday evening or early Monday morning. If it’s you, say hello.

Huge fire engulfs West Pier.
Sad.
Mind you, it’s a wonder that there is anything left to burn at all.
And how could a fire start there, at the seaward end?

Thank goodness it’s Friday. I’m really keen to get to the pub and relax a bit tonight.
However, to help Friday sufferers around the world, there is a new Weebl for your delectation.

What’s the old saying about grape and grain? Whatever it is, I know that I’m decidedly delicate this morning. So much so that I may even stay in tonight.
Anyway, beer and wine last night with countless people. Can’t be arsed to type all their names.

Stop whatever you’re doing and go and play this utterly brilliant Flash flight sim game until your eyes bleed. Found via Totally Flabbergasted.

We’ve got a vacancy at the nursery. Anyone interested in working in horticulture? Give me a shout if you are.

The lovely Bella has been hard at work with her fella. Oi! Stop sniggering at the back! They’ve created this silly animation with a serious message. Go see.

Bored of stories of my lovelife (not that we’ve had any for a while)? Go sort out Dave‘s instead!

Yay! It’s officially European Summer Time!
Now all the timestamps for the winter time posts will be one hour out, because Blogger is pants like that. But hey.
EDIT: stop the world, I wanna get off! Blogger have finally implemented code that automatically revises timestamps for Summer Time. Yay!

Noted.

We haven’t had any pictures for a while, so here are a few for you.
Firstly, you may remember that I went to Kew Gardens a few weeks ago with my friend Rachel. Here she is, stood on a gantry on the walkway around the roof of the Temperate House, fiddling with her camera.

Last Sunday, the sky was very blue indeed. So much so that I took a photo of it.

Granted, not the most exciting photo I’ve ever taken, but it was really blue! Not sure where that piece of fluff came from though. Unless it wasn’t fluff, but a very small plane doing aerobatics.

I’ve noticed recently that the council have numbered all the trees along the side of the road and in the parks. Presumably it is easier for them to keep records of the trees this way, as it must be easier to find tree number 00412 than send someone looking for the maple near the top of the steps by the junction of Orchard Street, Chapel Street and North Walls.

I noticed that if you stand at the bottom of the steps that lead up on to the wall by the junction of North Walls and Tower Street, you can’t see anything at the top except sky. For some reason this amused me.

Gaby Rado, RIP.

This site could be useful if you travel by rail within Europe or beyond, which is conceivably something I’ll be doing more of.

urf. Just eaten a huge but superb roast dinner.
I need to diet. One month to lose 6lb – whaddya reckon?

Visitor 100k expected very soon. Say hello! (counter in the sidebar).

Still haven’t got to 100k yet.

Three items from today’s Telegraph that are worth a look:

• Kirsty MacColl’s family are furious that the guy driving the boat that killed her has been given a fine of just £61
• Gaby Rado obituary
• Tupperware party turns into a wake

There is also a feature by a man about being stalked which is interesting, although not archived on the website lamentably.

Visitor number 100,000 didn’t say hello, but visitor 100,001 did.

A long and busy day at work. And guess what?! Yep, more work to do this evening now that I’m home. Still, it is work for me and my business, so it isn’t bad. Progress is being made.

This is better than popping bubble wrap!