I subscribe to dictionary.com’s Word Of The Day email thingummy - which, usually, throws up interesting and unusual words that might broaden one’s vocabulary. But today’s word? Hmm.

Well, EURid has put the .eu domain registration process into the LandRush phase. I made my application some weeks ago (on Valentine’s Day, in fact) for a domain for my company under the Sunrise procedures (having a prior right as being a registered limited company under UK law), but have had no acknowledgement and no news. Should I be panicking? I tried to look it up on the EU WHOIS site (which is where the EURid site suggests I should go in order to track my application), but the server that runs that is clearly melting in some office somewhere in Europe. (In this case, it’s Diegem in Belgium - did you know that there is great competition to host EU offices? The French will battle with the Germans and the Spanish and all the other nations to host EU offices - which is why I spend a lot of time in communication with an EU department that resides in a rather grand converted hotel in the French city of Angers. But do you ever hear of British towns and cities battling for these honours? No, because the British tend to be happier sniping at the EU from the sidelines rather than actively getting involved, thereby missing a great opportunity for prestige and employment. Ooops. Ranting. Sorry.)

Meanwhile, north of the border, the avian flu strain H5N1 has been found in a dead swan. The police are reminding citizens to report any dead swan, goose or duck, or any three dead birds in the same place, to DEFRA. What they forget to say is that DEFRA is woefully under-resourced (it’s not health or education, so HMG doesn’t throw money at it), so I forsee a situation very soon wherein the inspection services will be under immense strain (they are already) and will draft in support from every other department within DEFRA. So my local PHSI (Plant Health and Seeds Inspectorate) guys will be sent off to some dingy hotel somewhere, given a crash course in avian flu diagnosis, and sent out to farms. Of course, as plant health guys, they have no jurisdiction and no powers and can’t actually do an awful lot - they won’t even be able to impound birds. Sound implausible to you? Well, it is exactly what happened during foot and mouth a few years ago - PHSI was denuded of staff (they already are terribly under-staffed as it is) who will have to work very long hours achieving not an awful lot.

Whilst all this is going on, Mrs Housewife will stop buying chicken and eggs, spurred by horror stories in the Daily Mail, and agriculture (which is already struggling terribly - oh, sorry, that’s not newsworthy at the moment, is it? - you know, the fact that HMG has promised to pay grants to farmers who have made their business plans on that basis, but have yet to actually deliver money that was due months ago, leaving farmers with huge debts to the banks and no income) will become even more depressed. Gah.

So, this weekend - get a British chicken, have a roast with some British veg. You’ll enjoy it and you’ll help a farmer somewhere (particularly if you go to your local farmers’ market and buy direct).

UPDATE: I managed to get on to the .eu WHOIS, although it is mind-numbingly slow, and it shows my domain name as "application pending". The application and documents have been received, although they are yet to get beyond the "Initial" stage (i.e., the documents are in a filing cabinet and nobody has looked at them). The good news is that I am the only applicant for my requested name. Yay!

Monty on the roof of the Global Headquarters.

Dreaming of being a superhero?

Bob’s handy guide to housework.

April 10th - 1.5 to 2 inches of snow. Hmm.

Two items of food-related news (I don’t post anything like enough food news items here):

• world’s most expensive sandwich goes on sale. I like the sound of this. Of course, it’s a splendid publicity stunt and well done to Selfridges for coming up with it, but I would like one. Or two.
• we’ve just booked to go to Preuvenemint, (one of?) the largest food fairs in the Netherlands. This strikes me as an excellent plan - food and Maastricht in one go - hurrah! Sadly, we can’t find a decent hotel in the city - it seems that they are either all booked up or have trebled their prices in anticipation of the crowds (or both) - so we’re staying at a lovely auberge across the border in Belgium.

Whilst I don’t agree with Gordon’s erudite comment about the £85 sandwich (look at the ingredients - it would never be cheap, and you’re not likely to buy two - well, I might), I think even I would draw the line at a £50,000 easter egg. Mind you, Montezuma’s aren’t cheap, but they’re worth it.

We have two cars. My car is, as you might expect, a messy hellhole most of the time. Occasionally it gets cleaned. It rarely gets serviced. It has done 120,000 miles and it shows.

Hels’s car is more of a "family car" and features the following accessories:

• a "baby on board" sticker
• a "GB" sticker
• a baby seat
• baby toys
• and now, most humiliatingly, a roof box.

I feel thoroughly middle aged.

• get up early
• study BBC online weather forecast - observe white fluffy cloud symbol and yellow sun symbol and assume the day is set fair
• saw logs so as to make them more woodpile-friendly
• create new border in the garden
• go to nearby farm to purchase a sack of well rotted cow poo for said border for one of your fine English pounds
• apply poo to new border
• get changed from poo-ey clothes
• welcome brother-in-law to house
• drive to extremely nice nearby public house
• park car
• strap small child to chest in slightly bizarre harness device
• walk in opposite direction to public house wiuth a view to making a large circuit, returning to said public house with hearty appetite for fine ales
• observe rapidly deteriorating weather conditions
• wade through mud, fight brambles, attempt to pacify child - all in steady rain and a cool breeze - whilst cheerfully reassuring one another that the weather "will blow over in a minute and surely improve"
• reach a farm with a large barn
• take shelter in said barn
• change child’s nappy and then eat sandwiches whilst heavy rain continues, whilst regretting not bringing any sort of waterproof clothing for anyone other than small child - the same small child who, whilst being only 12 weeks old, has already developed the ability to laugh and point at his soaking wet father from within the warmth and dryness of his red waterproof
• decide that the rain is not going to stop
• run back through the mud and rain to the car, leaving brother-in-law, wife and child in barn
• drive back to collect rest of party and then home, to glorious sunshine
• head to the pub next door for a pint or two
• return home, eat pie
• search for hotel for stay in Budapest - realise that no hotel there has been renovated since 1967. Decide to seek advice from the only person I know with much experience of the Hungarian capital.
• read the best post in ages on Parallax View - end the day contented

Black arm-bands all round.

For those that were concerned about His whereabouts, Vaughan is currently exploring that which is humdrum.

I’m not sure that I follow the logic that is suggested in this news report that a speed camera in road works is not there to reduce speed but to increase revenue.

Have you ever walked on a motorway? I have. I had the misfortune to breakdown on the M27 once and had to walk about 500 yards to an SOS phone (this was in the days before mobiles). It is not a pleasant experience.

Each year, many people are killed on the hard shoulder in similar circumstances. The news article gives figures for the number of road workers killed and injured each year. I never feel any envy for the blokes putting out cones and signs when people are passing them at 80 - 90mph.

Speed limits in roadworks are there for the benefit of those people working to maintain the roads you drive on. There is a simple and effective way of reducing the danger to them and avoiding getting a speeding ticket and penalty points - SLOW DOWN. There, it’s not rocket science. Leave ten minutes earlier, check the web for roadworks information, use any of the dozen or so mobile advice services (they are free on my phone).

Incidentally, I saw a very effective use of technology recently to overcome the perceived problem of bunching and "panic braking" (which is caused only by those who think it is smart to speed up between cameras, because the speed limit only counts where you might get caught, obviously). On the roadworks on the A1(M), they have erected the cameras that read your number plate when you enter a section of road and read it again when you leave (the section of road in this case being the three miles or so that are currently being resurfaced) - and, by so doing, calculate your average speed on the section. I only saw one speeding driver (who deserved his ticket) - everyone else was observing the 50mph limit without bunching or panic braking and the traffic was moving freely - probably adding only a couple of minutes to the journey time. Perhaps this type of camera should be more widely used instead of the familiar Gatso.

Rant over.

Following some silliness over at Gordon’s site, I’ve finally updated the support grayblog page.

Yesterday, my laptop automatically downloaded updates from microsoft.com. I reviewed the updates and installed them all. Nothing unusual there.

But now I have a problem which, prior to that installation, I had never experienced. If I try to open or save any file in any Office application, the file directory window pops-up as normal, but if I click on any folder in that window, the application locks up and I get an “application not responding” error.

I use Office applications about, oooh, 50 times a day. So this is a serious problem. Suggestions? (If anyone says “buy a Mac”, I’ll tear them limb from limb). I’ve reported the error to Microsoft and also requested email support.

EDIT: I’ve performed a system restore back to the restore point created when I booted up yesterday morning, and all now seems to be working correctly. When Windows Update offers up the updates again, I’m going to decline them, I think.

FURTHER EDIT: updates installed, problem solved. Thanks to Mr LMG (see comments).