Hiding in the Bunker

Major disagreements between Monst and Cal today. I'm due to be tidying upstairs....it's the saest option! Deposit the pair of them in Woolton to get the boy's glasses repaired. End up watching darts as I clean the bedroom - weird.

A Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Black Pencil

The other place features on Heriot-Watt's Internet Resources Newsletter 158. Cor, that's posh it has an ISSN! Cheers to Roddy, Catherine and Marion for the plug.

If you're not familiar with it I am of course referring to the Fade Library blog which had been taking up my blogging time recently. It's loads less scurrilous than here and seems to be going well.

If you hadn't realised the new years resolution is to try and get a daily post here. Been neglected for too long, been a bad blogger. Must try harder.

I Ain't The Walrus

The heating remains sick but is getting better I think. Here's hoping our lodgers will have gone by Monday.

Day goes by without major events, get to chat to some fine people.

Return to Siberia

First day in and as reported to me yesterday by Helen the heating groundfloor Reggie is still knackered. Worse than that the penguin family that are inhabiting the library right now seem to have invited a nuclear outfit of polar bears to join them. If a Walrus moves in too then I'm off.

Wake late so car to South Parkway and then train to Reggie. No sign of the Ushanka.

The heating (or lack of... if you prefer) engineers appeal to us to let them do some welding. We're up for it, we could crowd round and get some heat and apparently it's needed to complete the heating repair. A risk assessment holds it up. The suggestion that the risk assessment should read, welder = sparks = fire risk = be wary when you do it ain't good enough. Fairy Nuff. The Walrus may arrive anytime tomorrow. We arrange for everyone else to be elsewhere while I hold the fort. With any luck the heating will be fixed tonight and I'll be in a version of the tropics..... Not gonna put the 'Toucan perch available' sign up just yet.

Work wise, a tickle from the pre-crimbo sexual health gig we did (how can you compete with a Durex stand?) brings work and cold cure advice that matches my usual advice (currently being put into practice with some Bushmill's 1608). The folk at Halton sort some stuff for me as a result. Do a little blog wrangling. FoI is busy. Chat to the Queen of Mortality (usual sick level of conversation which amuses the pair of us) who helps me sort a nice man from the Beeb. Sorts the request. MEN raise their head above the parapet and the Liberals get in on the act to. Some blog advice to Sue. Chat to the other end of the St Halton gig too. So good to chat to some fine folk while sorting stuff.

Meanwhile back at home Monst sorts the decs and does a stunning clean up job on downstairs just leaving the kitchen to me. Shove on some Seasick Steve and sort it.

Paisley Underground

It's kinda inevitable, it's my age, nostalgia kicks in. Good stuff. Not a starting point but an early marker I feel. D-day is good. Spend the day keeping Cal amused. We discover the delights of Mahjong, it wastes the day nicely. Snow is forecast, one of the more bizarre outcomes of the cold snap and my public transport experience is I have an Ushanka on order. Bet it arrives post cold weather. Still my ears will be warm as a result..... when it does. Yet to begin 'Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks'. However 'Fallen Idle', 'We All Live in a Perry Groves World', have been consumed and I'm 4/5ths through 'Berlin Soldier 1945: An Eye Witness Account of the Fall of Berlin'.

Happy New Year and All That

Hootenanny.... Rab C. .... Monst at work calls, world explodes with fireworks, Bicycle Kid and the Lemmings piss me off .... usual start to a new year then. Resolutions.... bah! Still feel rough following traditional Christmas cold.