Me, in the shower this morning:

"Why?", I ask you.

Thoughts with Brian and Julia and the whole blogging family today.

Reading this site whilst you should be working? This site is now equipped with a
fire escape. Just click and it’ll take you to a page that looks like work.
More details here. via LMG.

Sorry. Been quiet. Been very busy. Now cooking dinner, then heading to the pub. More tomorrow.
I still love you. Obviously. Don’t forget that.

Beer and cocktails last night with Lord Percy, Lady Bren, Helen N, Helen, Sarah, Paul, Kearn, DA, Hamish and Ruth.

In a Lord Percy-quality humour moment this morning, I got an envelope from the bank with a PIN number in it marked "tear along dotted lines", so I put it on the floor and ran up and down over it.
You had to be there. Or not.

I’m sure you are all wondering why my post frequency is down on its normal level. Well, it’s just sheer workload I’m afraid. I did a presentation on Thursday evening that meant I didn’t get home until well after 10pm. And last night I was out putting up (illegal) signs to promote my forthcoming plant fair in East Sussex and Kent, and didn’t get back until gone 7pm, working in and driving through absolutely foul weather.
Today, I am in the office again, as there is a lot of work here to be done (nursery stuff), but hopefully tomorrow and Monday I’ll be able to take a bit of time to do some PFE work. My horoscope urges caution when making large purchases, which is timely, as I’ll be ordering a laptop this weekend, most likely from Dell.

Hmm. I see the Inland Revenue has caught up with my new business already. There is no escape.

Another amazingly simple yet fiendishly difficult game can be found here. I’ve yet to win at this one.

Forgot to say that my letter of complaint to South Central Trains yielded a written apology and £10 of rail travel vouchers.

I thought the weather today was supposed to be awful? Unfortunately, I’ll be spending most of the day indoors, in preparation for my parents coming round for dinner this evening.

I’ve just walked thorugh the city - it is a glorious sunny and warm day, actually feeling like summer. Lots of people were sitting and lying on the Cathedral Green, enjoying lunch in the sun - pensioners, families, young couples, groups of teenagers - some even wearing skimpy summer clothes. Several people were looking up at the Cathedral spire to see if there was any sign of last year’s peregrine falcons, but I’ve not seen them myself.
And more scaffolding has been taken from the south side of the Cathedral - if I have a moment and the weather is good, I’ll take some photographs.
And I’m trying not to think about the football (a goal down! yipes!).

Stoke have won. Brighton are relegated. Bollocks.
And I reckon we’ll be looking for a new manager and new striker soon, as I don’t see either Coppell or Zamora staying.

Online quizzes - harmless fun or a stupid waste of time?

You are the Low-Fidelity All-Star. You were born with your cool, and it’s totally natural. You run the gamut from Hipster Supreme (only they can ingest as much coffee as you) to the geeky hipster (Mario Kart, anyone?).

What Kind of Hipster Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

The Dante’s Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Take the Dante Inferno Hell Test
You won’t be surprised to learn that I’m particularly proud of these results.
Tests via Dead Kenny/Robyn and Gert.

Today’s highlights so far:

• Looking for boots, still. Failing, as ever.
• Walking aorund the Cathedral - I’ve got more pictures showing how the south side looks now that it is mostly scaffold-free. Watch this space.
• Sitting in Priory Park, reading and people-watching in the sun.
• Ordering PFE’s laptop from Dell - an Inspiron 8500 with 512MB RAM, 40GB HDD, plus bells and whistles. Had to use my personal flexible friend, as PFE’s debit card has not yet arrived, and I can’t really wait any longer. No doubt that will create a minor accounting headache for me.
• Erm. That’s it really. A quiet day.

I’m not kidding. At least it is warm and sunny whilst I stand reading the paper here.

My train was 53 minutes late in the end. Seven minutes short of the delay needed to trigger fare rebates.
And all on a day when I have so much to do that I really didn’t want to be late. I think the next couple of weeks are going to be like that.

Someone came here today searching for pictures of clean shaven pussies. I like to help random referral people, but in this instance I can not, even though I rank sixth for that search. Instead, here is a link to a page about completely bald pussies.

My Tiny Garden. via flabber.nl.

…blah blah blah… birthday .. blah blah …. next Monday …. blah blah blah blah …… Amazon wishlist ….. blah

shameless.

Hmm. Dell said 7 to 10 working days for delivery when I placed my order. Now the estimated delivery date is 2nd June. That’s quite a difference.

Busy busy busy here today. So expect more quiet.

Pooped. But shall try and do a little work for PFE. Or flop on the sofa. A difficult choice.
Meanwhile, links du jour:

• Baghdad’s most famous blogger updates. I wonder if his site will get the same level of interest now that the main conflict is over.
• BBC News: Digital divide is holding back rural businesses - and how! We desperately need broadband in Barnham, not just for the nursery and PFE, but also for the many other small businesses in the area. Related: Countryside Agency "State Of The Countryside" report in full.
• BT says government efforts on broadband are "too slow". I wouldn’t say that BT always acts with equality and alacrity either - why is 128k ISDN more expensive than 500k ADSL?

I’ve spent the evening looking up the best prices and reviews for some of the office machines that I’ll be needing for PFE. As always, anything you guys can throw into the fire is welcome.

• Standalone fax machine: Sharp UXP400H £79.78 inc VAT
• Cordless phone with answering machine: BT Synergy 2150 £79.99 inc VAT
• Mono laser printer: HP LaserJet 1150 £215.78 inc VAT
• Mulitfunction colour printer/scanner/copier: HP PSC2110 £129.95 inc VAT

My comments: the PSC2210 would be nicer, as it includes a memory card reader for quick printing of digital photos, but I can’t justify the extra expense. The LaserJet 1150 gets good reviews, and HP laser printers are fairly rugged in my experience (still using a 4Plus that is ten years old, reliably churning out reams of paper on a daily basis). The BT Synergy has all the features I’m looking for - remote access digital answering machine, plus digital cordless phone so I can sit outside with the laptop in the summer (there has to be some advantage to having a rural office location!). The UXP400H seems to be the pick of a (very large) bunch of similarly featured and priced machines.
So this evening hasn’t been entirely productive - but four hours trawling the web has allowed me to gain good product knowledge and find solutions that will cost me £160 less than I had budgeted. Add that to the savings I’ve made this week on my budgets for telecommunications, insurance and the laptop, and PFE already needs to borrow less money that I had feared (and yes, I’ve already had to spend some of it on accountant’s fees, and some is allocated to legal expenses, but I’m still showing a gain).
Now I’m looking at digital cameras, those in the 3MP class. I’m keen on the Kodak DX4330 as that is closest to the DX3900 that I use at the nursery. But the Fuji FinePix S304 looks good too. Have to admit that the price tag and 10x zoom (plants often need close-ups) on the Kodak do incline me towards that. Anyone got any knowledge/experience they can share?

The telephone man has just been to carry out a site inspection. Thankfully, he didn’t call me "baby" and he didn’t tell me that he could put it in the kitchen or put it in the hall.
Who did that song?

Busy busy busy here again today, but good busy, which is nice.

I plan to attend this, which I promise you will be a lot more interesting than it sounds. The fact that it is in California will help.

Beer tonight with Aris (very long time since I last saw him), Paul F, Mich (even longer since I’ve seen her), Lucy, Alex and Nikki, with sightings of Anthony amd a few others, and a lift home from Julie T, who I haven’t seen since the last time I saw Aris. So good to catch up with people I haven’t seen in ages.

What did this girl do wrong? Go to her local when she was 18 years old and attractive? Like this girl and countless others? I dunno. I see so many girls like these two every time I go to the pub. Why would anyone want to violate and destroy their lives? It just seems all wrong.

Time for bed. My thoughts are far away.

Goodness. Looks like I was nearly three years ahead of the pack. It’s so hard to be a trendsetter.

Today and tomorrow, I shall be driving a 7.5 tonne Cargo lorry. I’ll be stopping by a sweet shop later to pick up a Yorkie.

Good news: the forecast delivery date for my laptop has been changed from 2nd June to 16th May - much better.
UPDATE: it has reverted to 2nd June now. grr.

I’m knackered. Sorry, not much to say at the moment.

Stood in a car park in Windsor, selling plants. It’s a great lifestyle. Not. Still, party tonight at Sarah’s to look forward to. Being awake for 22 hours is always a winner. Zzz.

An update in bullet points:

• Yesterday’s plant sales at Savill Gardens were ultimately very successful - one of the best ones we’ve had there for a while, which would have been even better if it hadn’t been quite so chilly in the afternoon.
• Went to Sarah and Paul’s party last night, which was most pleasant. In evidence: Kev, Andrea, Kate, Pol, Jo, Dave, Damian and a bunch of Paul’s friends that I hadn’t met before. Just about everyone was already paralytic by the time I arrived, but being tired I was able to catch up fairly quickly with just a couple of beers!
• Up early this morning to walk down the canal to Hunston, passing assorted fishermen and dog walkers, plus coots, moorhens, mallards and swans, all with chicks/ducklings/cygnets. Lots of flowers down there at the moment - irises, hawthorn, buttercups, cow parsley, herb robert.
• Looked for the falcons on the Cathedral. Apparently they are there, and have just hatched two chicks. But I still haven’t seen them flying - last year they were constantly on the wing, gathering prey for the young.
• Now busy ordering equipment for PFE and then starting work on the website.

Why have people got it in for the West Pier?

I think that we can breathe a collective sigh of relief at this news, Tories and non-Tories alike.

Anyone who would like to assist me in celebrating my birthday tomorrow should join me in W2, from around 8.15 onwards. Bring pie.

Well, as I "enjoy" the last few hours of being 31, it’s awfully quiet here. No email, no calls, no visitors, no SMS, no IMs. I think I’ll retire to the sofa and listen to the Versatile Records DJ set on netmusique.com.

Happy birthday to me.
32 years ago today, in the Zachary Merton Maternity Hospital in Rustington, West Sussex, late in the afternoon, a boy was born.
Meanwhile, in St Tropez and at roughly the same time, Mick Jagger married Bianca Perez Morena de Macias.

These two events were not related.

This from the eternally lovely Lizzie:

Click here to see Lizzie’s poster in all its 640K glory.

Then go and do your duty, and be sure to be at the performances.

Birthday beers with Greg, Paul F, Kearn, Arron, Cat, Dave and Claire. Thanks guys - it feels good to spend your birthday with good friends.

Busy busy. Thunderstorm outside. Doesn’t bode well for the weekend (it’s my plant fair at Pashley Manor on Sunday).
Tonight I have to drive to Harpenden to give a presentation. Oh joy. Should be back home around 12.30. At least I’ll be able to listen to John Peel on the way home.

Didn’t get home until after midnight last night, but it was a good presentation with a receptive (and large) audience. I was so tired on the drive home - I really should have pulled over to take a break, but the thought of getting into bed was quite a motivator for getting home and keeping alert.
Today: two BBC News articles worth a read for different reasons:

• The Weapons Of Bloodless War - a look at so-called "non-lethal" weapons.
• Letwin says Tories need miracle. Joking or not, I think this is very much the truth, and I’m inclined to agree with a lot that David Mellor said earlier in the week.

Three out of five ordered items have now arrived for PFE. Dabs, Comet and BT all win credit for prompt delivery, with two printers, some cables and a cordless phone/answering machine between them. Empire Direct should be delivering a fax machine on Friday. Which just leaves Dell. Frankly, all the rest is fairly much useless without Dell’s piece of the jigsaw -and they’ve now put back delivery from 2 June to 5 June. GRRR.

Question: does viral marketing sell more product?

Whilst you’re thinking about that, you may want to try and figure out how this numbers trick works.

Boring.

Pretty game. And, eversobriefly, Graybo is on the highscore list.

Cool snake game. This and the previous link both from flabber.nl

Train spotting simulator. Actually, you could save me some time and go find these links yourself over at flabber.nl

Cows With Guns.

Monumentally busy (or just mental, not sure), hence quiet. Also going for dinner at Sarah and Paul’s tonight (strange referring to Sarah in a "Sarah and…" way when referring to her home - I guess I’ll get used to it) for dinner, so expect more quiet. Unless I get completely paralytic on the vins blanc, in which case there may be amusing late night ramblings.

I suppose I should be encouraged that Dell are now predicting 27 May as the delivery date for my laptop. It is an improvement after all, but it isn’t 16 May, the date they originally said. Let’s just hope that I get a pleasant surprise tomorrow.

I think we should all persuade Scaryduck to go and see Ronnie Ronalde play. He was on in Worthing recently - I wish I’d known, as it would have been great to see him, although I can’t imagine anyone else I know that would go to see him. Other than possibly Ted.

Excellent food, wine and company at Sarah’s last night. I’m not ever so slightly hungover. But there is much work to be done, so no delay.

More encouraging news from Dell - my laptop has moved from "pre-production" to "production" and is still scheduled for delivery on 27 May.
UPDATE: it has been despatched! Although it doesn’t yet appear on the carrier’s tracking system.

I’m knackered. So I’m off to the bar, just to get my weekend’s quota in, as I’ll not be going out tomorrow evening due to getting up at 4am on Sunday.

Note to self: link Penn’s event. Forgot to do it.

Looks like I have two trips coming up to Holland - one to a trade show in August, and one to see a potentially important client contact in the first week of September - the two trips will probably be no more than five or six days apart. Bring on those air miles.
Wouldn’t mind being in Holland now, actually. I’m told that the tulips are lovely.

In the end I didn’t go to the bar last night. I realised that I was fighting a losing battle with tiredness, so took an early night instead. I had a pretty solid night’s sleep, punctuated only by a dream about being in a huge bed in a huge house on a grassy hill, looking out over a vast and beautiful forest - all very restful.
I think the bed may have been by Minotti. And, yes, I’m saving pennies for their furniture. And for the lovely big warehouse apartment to put it in.

This will be linked on every blog by the end of the day - mark my words: Dating a Blogger, Reading All About It. I’ve written stuff here before now that may well have offended people, and certainly I’ve written stuff of a deeply personal nature. Why? Well, driving traffic is not a consideration, although I love it when people read this site and give (nice) feedback. Mainly it is because writing grayblog is a cathartic exercise that provides a useful outlet, a place to think if you like. Additionally, I tend to write in the same way that I speak when face-to-face with friends (although with marginally less candour), and I do tend to talk about the things that are going on in my life at the time.
That doesn’t mean to say that everything that happens in my life is written down here. There are several threads of my life at the moment which haven’t been mentioned here, or have only been hinted at. That is either because I don’t want everyone to read about it, or because there are other people involved who I’m thinking of, or because the thread itself is still unfolding and is not yet resolved into something complete.
Furthermore, if something is not written about here, it does not mean it is unimportant. In fact, one or two people have noted before that if I don’t say anything about a particular subject, you can be pretty sure that it is really important to me. So watch out for the gaps.

I’m totally underwhelmed by the current "big" movies. I enjoyed the first Matrix, but Matrix Reloaded seems to be getting consistently poor reviews, mostly criticising the dialogue as been particularly cardboard-ish in character (i.e unexciting in character and of little real substance). And then there is X-Men 2, which belongs to a genre that doesn’t grab me in the first place, and according to Dan

Actually, based on that summary, it may actually be worth seeing, just for over-dramatic comedy value.
What I need to do is get my pimply backside down to the New Park and see some decent cinema. Must check out what’s on.

I love those Nigerian money-scam e-mails. The quality of writing is just superb. I’ve just got one from a Nigerian princess (how lovely!) that promises I will be in the "anals" of her life if I agree to assist.
I’ve always wanted to be in someone’s anals. Errm.

Apparently, my laptop is now in Raheen.
Hmm. Reminds me of it3c. If anyone lives near the Thames Barrier or Mount Fuji, keep an eye out for my laptop.

Interesting discussion of the policy positions of the main parties with regard to university education by Mike Baker of the BBC. I’m not sure how valid his discussion is, as I’m no expert, but it does raise a few issues that I wasn’t aware of.

I am, officially, pooped. Goodness knows what state I’ll be in by this time tomorrow - I’ll be driving home by then, and this time I promise that if I’m that tired, I will pull over and take a break.
I soooo need a holiday. Just a short weekend break would do. Maybe a few days in Brittany. Or a trip to Lisbon. Or Italy. A quiet Parisienne café. Anything. Even staying at home for a few days would be good.

From the potentially interesting/useful department comes The Election 2004 Blog

Incidentally, I’ll be at Pashley Manor all day tomorrow for the plant fair. If anyone wants to come along and say hello, I’ll be glad to see you. I’ll be on or around the Croftway Nursery stand. Pashley is in Ticehurst, East Sussex, and is a beautiful garden with a café that serves the most fantastic lunches and delicious chocolate cake.

I’ve hurt my right wrist somehow - lifting something, or maybe using my mouse on my new desk at work. Either way, hopefully some sleep will cure it, not that I’ll be getting much, as I have to be up at 4am tomorrow.

Cinema update: must see this.

I’m absolutely shattered. Yesterday was a very long day in the teeth of a cold wind and the occasional shower. In spite of that, it was reasonably successful, not least due to the hard work that I put in along with the people at Pashley in promoting the event.
Today I have a shedload of paperwork to do, plus a meeting this afternoon that I’d rather not go to, it being with a client who is somewhat pennypinching and time consuming - a bad combination. But hopefully I can extract some useful work out of him for the nursery.
On the plus side, I’ve just had a call from Pashley to say that they’ve made an error with my fee, and I’m due an additional £37. It’s good to work with people who are so helpful and honest.
They also have a new puppy at Pashley. I’m not a dog person generally, but this chocolate labrador is utterly gorgeous.

For those following the progress of my new laptop, it left Raheen yesterday and progressed on the late ferry from Dublin to Holyhead. From there it went on to Coventry. Apparently it has now left Coventry and is still scheduled to arrive here tomorrow.

Last year, I’m sure the 26th box on the P35 was entitled "box Z". This year, it is "box 26", which doesn’t quite have the same degree of finality to it. Either way, I’ve succeeded in filling it with the word "nil" once again, much to my satisfaction.
(This will mean nothing to anyone that has never had to do PAYE paperwork for the Inland Revenue).

Why would anyone read “The Best Of British” magazine, complete with sepia-toned cover? I wonder if there are other similar titles. Nostalgia Today? The Best Of Yesterday? Social history is one thing, but navel-gazing nostalgia is something else.