Oh my gawd this week went on and on and on. It's had highs and lows, we had a very nice Indian meal last night with Jay and Laura at the Viceroy in Sunninghill. I don't know how a naan bread and a passanda managed to be too much, but it was extremely filling. Perhaps we should have skipped the poppadoms?

Jay and Laura were thinking of going to Australia next winter. Who isn't? But they had some good advice, suggesting a stop off on the way in Mauritius, or Hong Kong. I'm wondering if that will be worth doing. We'd need to give either place enough time. I think Hong Kong would be more interesting for us, Mauritius might be better for a relaxing / beach holiday, but I haven't checked in detail! There's apparently not too much tourist stuff in Brisbane itself, but somebody wants to go to Melbourne to check up on the Neighbours.

I've already been to Asia and Australasia though! Why can't we go to Africa or South America? OK, that's not a real issue, I'm just ticking off continents that I've been to. Whatever happens, we'll make the best of it. It's very exciting!

Ah, no, I haven't dropped off the weblog world. Although I'm starting to think that it's just me left! I have in fact had the misfortune to buy a wonderful, amazing, challenging computer game of late. Batman - Arkham Asylum is the bestest thing on toast. I'm not going to say too much about it, but please do buy a copy.

In it, you play Batman who has to go round Arkham Asylum beating the crap out of everyone and solving mysteries. One tiny little touch of brilliance was when the Batman character is travelling through the ventilation shaft. Normally in computer games this is a dull, routine way to get to hidden places. But in this game, I got a shiver down my spine when Batman's shadow with the two bat ears appeared on the wall... it was such a small thing but it made me go 'Ooooooo!'

We had lots of people round this weekend for recording our new Doctor Who audio MASSANICASSA. The session went phenomenologically well. Everyone was so good, it would be a shame to pick on any person in particular.

We may need to do a couple of pick-ups though, some of the stuff we recorded on Sunday came out a little distorted. Poor old Paul Monk, we're always dragging him back!

On another note, I don't think I swear very much. So why is it that when kids are around I turn into Malcolm Tucker? I need to put a peg on my tongue.

Where were the Trick Or Treat people last night? I complain when they knock on the door demanding sweets, but I feel left out when they don't show up! Just goes to show how fickle we are.

We took Luke and Annabel to Winnersh to see 'Fantastic Mr Fox' today. We picked them up in ghastly weather, it was tipping down. In a way I'm glad to see that Autumn weather has actually arrived.

I was looking forward to another Roald Dahl adaptation on the big screen, though I still think we should have gone to see Up! Sadly, Mr Fox wasn't a great film, certainly not for Annabel who fidgeted all the way through. It seemed to be squarely aimed at an adult audience. A case in point is an early scene where fast-talking Mr Fox and his family are moving into their new burrow under the tree. Instead of simply digging a hole, Mr Fox goes to visit a Badger Lawyer, who tells him that the house he wants to buy has nine percent interest and a is in a dangerous area. So we get a cool, hip joke about lawyers and mortgages delivered at maximum talking speed. That's supposed to appeal to children how, exactly?

A lot of the things that are annoying in Hollywood movies were there, from the aforementioned Lawyer to the ubiquitous father-son reconciliation scenes. These are all very worthy things when done well, but they seem to turn up in far too many movies, as if they were the only subjects worth talking about. To top it all, the burrowing animals find salvation in a modern supermarket, which is presented as a nirvana, a place of dreams and joy. I wasn't entirely comfortable with that! Roald Dahl's original ending occurs about 30 minutes before the end of the film.

OK, the script may have stunk to the rotten end of a hypermarket's 'Secret' dumping area, but then there was the animation. The film looked spectacular. All the character designs were gorgeous, complete with fur that bristled beautifully. It captured Quentin Blakes' spiky, scruffy illustrations in a way that no film has managed previously.

The lighting was impressive too, particularly in scenes that start off in semi-darkness as the Fox team sneak around but are suddenly bathed in ultra-bright whiteness when somebody switches on a light switch.

And what was that business with the Wolf about? Why did there have to be scenes set in an American high school? And where did the rabid beagles, mini-motorbikes and Kristofferson the yoga-practicing, karate-kicking cousin come from? It was as though they took the original story and buried it under a tonne of earth.

I don't know where the phrase 'Piss on my chips' came from, but it's proved useful lately. It refers to a situation when you think you've got things set up nicely, just the way you want them and everything great, like when you're about to eat a big plate of chips, when somebody has to come along and cover them in piss. I suppose it's a bit like 'Rain on my parade', only a bit nastier.

Um anyway, there's been a few examples of this sort of thing at work and at home over the week. Like when a designer spends months designing a scheme, only for somebody else to come in at the last minute and say 'Oh we need safety barrier there too!' Although safety barrier might be a good idea, it costs twenty times as much as the original proposal.

I had an idea about changing my working arrangement. Moving from one company to another like a chimp swinging into a new tree. Only now, I've been told that I've got to go back and ask the chimps in the old tree if it's OK if I move into the new tree. Which is fine, but if they realise that I won't be able to gather nuts for them any more they might go into a CHIMP FRENZY and do something silly. Really, I wanted to be accepted by the chimps in the new tree before announcing it to the old tree chimps. The net result is that I could end up out of the branches and on the jungle floor, being chased by tigers. Although that might be better, I could find a really good new tree. The trees are out there!



I also had an idea that they could come over here and we could have a second celebration in this country. We could all chip in for them to come over. It would save everyone about £1,000.

The greatest fear is losing control and for everything to descend into chaos.

Windows 7 seems to be OK, exactly like XP only WHIZZIER. The icons are LARGER. The taskbar is SEE-THROUGH. There's a whole bunch of features that they've nicked from Apple, Firefox and Opera that are SUPER.

The overall impression I've got from it is that Microsoft have a staff of about seven people and they spend most of their days asleep in deckchairs.

This is probably monstrously unfair, but they could have re-released Windows 95 with a new interface and who would know?

Compatibility mode is nice, at least things work. Although Quake isn't playing ball. Quake 3 runs OK, but Quake is incredibly c-h-o-p-p-y. It's funny, I'd have thought that a modern operating system would be able to run an old computer game in it's sleep, or in a tiny emulator. But this seems to not be so.

Every day I'm watching the good job I had at Basingstoke slip further into murk. Maybe it'll pick up. But it'll take an effort.

In other worlds, Babylon 5 arrived again. It's Babylon Squared!



And this Cheesecake is five times as delicious as it looks. And it looks yum!



It's a good thing we've got a nice cheesecake because we're both coming down with a miserable cold.

Franz Ferdinand - Brixton Academy 23 October 2009

In a world where indie acts seem to be increasingly rubbish, Franz Ferdinand are reassuringly brilliant. Their recent album 'Tonight' was an improvement on their previous two, which both had a couple of weak dirges. But 'Tonight' is excellent throughout, with killer single 'No You Girls' following on from 'Take Me Out' and 'Do You Want To?' as a pop song with a repetitive chorus, but at least a little bit of depth to it. That's what really bugs me about most other modern acts, it's the way their songs sound like they're supposed to mean something, but they're gibberish. Franz Ferdinand manage to stay ahead of that.

They also put on a good show, like at Brixton Academy on Friday. (Sorry, I mean the Brixton 'O2' Academy.) Their set-list seemed to work backwards, front-loaded with their biggest hits before moving on. I usually expect bands to hold back their big selling singles to the end, so that you spend the wait for the encore going 'Oh but they haven't played...' The final song of the night was 'Lucid Dreams', a long synth-led mosh that was extended out for what felt like 20 minutes. It went on and on. And this was fantastic. It built up to an hypnotic groove.

A couple of things to note; my beard seems to attract violence. Perhaps people think that because I now have a beard, I want to have a fight to go with it. So this guy decides he wants to stand EXACTLY where I'm standing, even though we're pretty near the back. I ask him if he wants to get past, so I can move out of the way. He informs me that I have a 'problem' and that I'm a 'joker'. I tell him I haven't got a problem and ignore him. He tells me he's killed someone today and I nod politely. And in the end he goes away. I spend a lot of the concert pondering how poorly I'd covered myself if he'd decided to hit me and thinking of how it could have gone. He was probably goading me, taking the mick and stuff. The thought of violence can be very alluring, even if it is only asking yourself how you would defend yourself. I think I'd get my backside kicked if it did break out in a fight. Although I was more upset by the social awkwardness of the situation than by the possibility of a fight.

Saturday we went to see 'The Woman In Black' in London, with Richard Beeby who was celebrating his 30th, plus Mike and we met John, Gemma and Jess. The Woman In Black was absolutely terrifying! It helped that there were a bunch of schoolgirls in the audience who screamed at all the startling moments. I spent a lot of act one examining the inside of my eyelids, but with the aid of a packet of Minstrels, act two kept me riveted. Excellent stuff, very well performed by Julian Forsyth and Christopher Naylor. (Oddly enough, for those who have seen Doctor Who: Image of the Fendahl, they look just like Fendahlman and Colby).

We went out for a Malaysian meal - http://www.jommakan.co.uk/ - after that and had a jolly old time chatting away. I was impressed with the food, although the service wasn't great. The food came out in a random order at five minute intervals, which was worse for me as I was the last to get served. Richard didn't get his starter until he'd finished his main course. Still, I've got no complaints about what did turn up, it was delicious.

Today I installed Windows 7. It was fairly frustrating at first, but I soon got it working fine. I thought I'd lost one of my drives, but it turned out that it had only lost it's designation letter for some reason. And what do I think of this miraculous panacea? It's about the same as before. And 'Ooo! I could get Halo 2 now!'

Amazon are sending us a new Babylon 5 - we got as far as disc 5 when we found a fault. The disc had the last two episodes of the season on it, rather than the four it should have had. Seeing as these eps were 'Legacies' 'A Voice In The Wilderness parts 1 and 2' and 'Babylon Squared', where the series really kicks into gear, this was extra annoying! So, the first Babylon station is about to disappear through a time warp back into the post.

This evening I made a cheesecake and we watched Pom Poko - http://www.onlineghibli.com/pom_poko/index.php . It's a film about a den of Raccoons, whose lives are threatened by the march of humanity. They try to survive, but their efforts are gradually defeated by the strength of the humans and by the raccoons own playful nature. It's a fairly ordinary story that could be about any group of displaced people, so it carries that extra resonance. And the ending reduced me to blubbing emotional jelly. It's not Studio Ghibli's best animation, but it hit all the right emotional buttons in a more affecting way than 'Princess Mononoke' or 'Howl's Moving Castle'. I haven't cried at a movie for ages!

Dabs informed me that the edition of Windows 7 I had ordered was 'obsolete'. For some reason they didn't Email me with this information, I had to log-in to check my account and where my copy of this modern technological obsolete marvel was.

I suppose that no-one's to blame, except that it would have been nice to have been told.

It's been an annoying old week at work. Things that shouldn't be getting under my skin are driving me absolutely up the wall. As ever it's the little petty things that get to me, the big things I can cope with.

Like - we have to produce this annual document for our client. It's a big important document that we'll call the BSAP. Last year it was obvious who would be responsible for writing this document, everyone had their section to write and it was clear what needed to be done. This year however, there are several people spread over different offices who 'want' to write it. Because they feel that they are in charge and that they want the accolade of producing the document really well. So I haven't got a clue which bits I'm supposed to be doing. It would be so much easier if we were all based in the same office, but I can't cope with it being run from two different offices now that the delineation of work has become murky. So we're starting to slip behind.

I have a new boss and this makes things difficult too. Although I disagree with some of the things that they've done, I can't say anything because as soon as I do, I'm afraid the whole thing will turn into an enormous bunfight. I like to keep office politics at arm's length whenever possible. It's fucking poison.

On a lighter note, Si came back from Cornwall on Thursday evening, having had a lovely time with his gran. I'm impressed that he coped with the five hour drive down south and back! Si has been showing his gran how to use the interwebs, demonstrating things like I-Player, which his gran wasn't sure that she had installed. All of us computer-philliac types will say 'Of course you've got it installed!' but it's not as obvious as all that. People take I-Player and YouTube for granted, but it's not unreasonable to think that you'd need to install something or buy software to make it work. It's amazing how quickly new things get accepted. Although I don't know anyone who's said it, what's wrong with the question 'Where can you buy Twitter?'

Went to the pub in London with Stuart, Chris and Buller on Wednesday. (Poor old James, only ever gets a surname! I don't know why!) I had a good chat with James actually, moaning about work as ever, but he was practicing a management thing of asking questions to find a solution. I was impressed and frightened! But it was fair enough. Stuart seems very happy working for his lighting design company and Chris seems very happy living with Michelle and um... looking for work. Still, he is getting interviews so it seems positive.

I've re-ordered Windows 7 from somewhere else. I'm pleased it hasn't turned up actually, we've got a busy weekend ahead.

We're on holiday today. Not a huge trip to the other side of the planet kind of holiday, more a sort of at home and not caring kind of holiday. A bacon sandwich and walk after lunch holiday.

There's a fancy dress party this weekend, for the sake of which I have grown a beard. It's slightly itchy and uncomfortable and I am now fighting a constant battle not to suck my bottom lip.

However, it looks fairly good.

I was thinking that hardly anyone has beards these days, but looking round my office and at my friends and acquaintances, I may have been wrong. Perhaps it's an engineer thing. I always thought at University that Civil Engineers had a fairly uniform look, with close cropped hair, smooth chin and general tidiness. Now that we're all thirty it seems that beards are the essential accoutrement.

There are loads of people who have made facial hair look good. There are loads of people who look great without it. Women, in fact, have benefited without facial hair for millennia, perhaps longer. So there we go.

Wow! Politics and Geekery. My Blog hits are going to be going up by two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night.

I bought the boxset a few months ago when the whole complete series on DVD came down to about £65. This was an important psychological barrier because I once paid £75 for the whole of series four on VHS. I remember well that day in 1999 when I popped into HMV and came home with an enormous bag stuffed full of Babylon 5 goodness. Used to be Babylon 5 would take up a whole shelving unit on it's own. These days you can tuck it under your arm and take it to meet your mother.

We're 10 episodes into series one now. And it's been astonishing. I remember it being fairly good, with some dull episodes and boring moments. But they've all been fantastic. 'Infection' is usually picked out as a rubbish episode, but it's not that bad, it's just very clumsy. All the other episodes have been confident and totally entertaining. Perhaps knowing what's to come puts a different light on things, but everything crackles along in a fascinating way.

What's really struck me though is how intelligent the series is. It's never about the action or the sci-fi device, it's been about the effect on the people and the arguments they use. We've just watched 'Believers' which is a great example. There's a simple set-up; a child is dying, but the belief system of the parents mean that they will not consent to the life-saving surgery for the child. Doctor Franklin isn't prepared to let the child die and from that point everything proceeds logically to the brutal conclusion. (spoilers below, but never mind)

I could imagine Star Trek Voyager having done a story with a similar set-up, but it would have been awful. On Babylon 5 the characters were allowed to behave in a realistic way. When Franklin thinks that he's saved the life of the child and proved everyone wrong, he becomes unpleasantly smug and self-satisfied, which infuriates Commander Sinclair. The exchange goes:
'I'm waiting for an apology.'
'You'll have to check the temperature in hell first!'
Which, although not quite entirely realistic, is a great antidote to Star Trek. In real life he'd have simply told him to F*** off.

The question is, does Babylon 5 exist only as a reaction to Star Trek? Is it only 'good' in that context? Modern dramas such as Lost, Heroes and er... Battlestar Galactica (GRIM!) have taken the story-arc idea and built it up to attract large audiences and critical acclaim. And yet none of these series have won me over. I couldn't commit to watching the whole of Lost. Or even one episode. I watched a few episodes, but they were all so interconnected that they were impenetrable. With DVDs and the like it would be possible to start at episode 1 and watch them all the way through. But in the end they're more like 24 hour long movies. Babylon 5 started with a run of 'familiar' one-off episodes, then started building the arc. In some ways, it earned it's arc.

Anyway, there's lots to look forward to in B5.

Other things that have happened lately - my family was in the area for Ascot, so we took them out to the Cinnamon Tree for a curry. It went down very well, but it was a touch expensive. We met up with the Culley's again and today, Si took them into Reading to meet John Barrowman. Si got a copy of John's autobiography signed to 'Simon and Steven'. Apparently he asked where I was upon seeing the post it note with our names on it. 'He had to go to work' said Si - John replied 'I had to send Scott to work today, someone's got to earn the money!'

What a nice guy! Pah - I was the one who asked for his CD for Christmas!

We're paying less interest on our mortgage.

Quick! Click on something else! Run for the hills! Rob's written a mortgage blog!

Normally I wouldn't care, but we've dropped about 4% off the interest rate. Despite the mortgage advisor trying to get us onto one of their 'better' products. Swings and roundabouts, this whole game. It'll all change come the general election.

Initially, I thought David Cameron was going to be quite good. A website described him as 'Liberal' which I have no objection to. In fact, as someone who's consistently voted Liberal Democrat in my 12 years of eligibility, it could be said to be right up my hustings.

But he made a speech today. On the one hand he said "for every problem there's a government solution" which had led to a "steady erosion of responsibility". (quotes from the BBC website). But he also said "If you're frightened, we'll protect you, if you risk your safety to stop a crime, we'll stand by you, if you risk your life to fight for your country, we will honour you." So his government would do everything for everyone.

"We all know how bad things are, massive debt, social breakdown, political disenchantment." Really? I mean, really? Yes, there are problems, but social breakdown? It's tucked away at the top there as an excepted fact. And I agree that it is a problem, but what about all the people who are building communities and working for their local, or in the computer age, non-local societies? I've been told that society is totally breaking down, but based on personal evidence I've seen very little of that. People change, move around different social circles and the like but I'm not convinced that our society is breaking down. And if it is being damaged, it's because we're continually told what an awful bunch of drug-abusing, violent thugs we are.

"Devolution; the minimum wage; civil partnerships, these are good things that we will we keep." Well hurrah. They're not going to keep and build on these, just keep them, but at least we won't be moving backwards in these respects.

"It was you Gordon Brown who designed the system of financial regulation that helped cause the financial crisis." I don't know, I think that's like blaming an ant for not building an anthill capable of surviving a hurricane. I seem to remember that the recession started through over-optimistic lending in the US, billions and billions of dollars worth. If the CERN reactor really had turned into a black hole (which was impossible) it would have had a similar effect on the UK. Everything would have got sucked in.

"And in that fight, there's one person this party can rely on. He's the man who has dedicated himself to the cause of social justice…and shown great courage in standing up for those least able to stand up for themselves."

Who is this philanthropist? WHO?!

"Iain Duncan Smith"

OK, it's easy to take the mick. But we've already decided that we don't want IDS, haven't we? Did he even make it to an election? And William Hague was on the TV this morning. He's in the Shadow Cabinet! Next thing you know they'll be bringing back Michael Howard. Umm, anyway, that's personalities. If they're competent and capable of doing the job, then why should they be ostracised purely on past form? Why haven't I heard about Iain Duncan Smith's marvelous endeavours?

"To be British is to be sceptical of authority and the powers-that-be. That's why ID cards, 42 days and Labour's surveillance state are so utterly unacceptable and why we will sweep the whole rotten edifice away." Oh I do hope so. It won't be as easy as sweeping, but they can have a go. If they get in, I'll hold them to that.

An inoffensive speech. Something to appeal to everyone, a few bland assertions and a hint of a few actual policies. I'm concerned about the Conservatives, but if they aren't going to introduce ID cards then that's a plus point. He also promised harsh cuts in public spending. A minus point. I don't think you can build a stronger economy by saving money. Even if we are in debt, the best way to pay it off might be to make enough money to negate it.

The Lib Dems still have my vote.

Right! The new Doctor Who logo for 2010 was revealed today on the BBC website. They made a bit of a 'thing' of it, announcing the time and date that it would be revealed in advance, giving everyone a chance to salivate over the possibilities. Would it be on one line or two? Would there be a dot between the two words? Would it be an animated logo made out of the bodies of the production team, with a moonwalking Steven Moffat forming the bridge of the 'H'?

Unusually, I was in the house at 8 this morning so I got to see it as it arrived.

OH MY GOD IT'S A NEW WAY OF WRITING 'DOCTOR WHO'!

I'm sure the people at Nike, Orange or Google will tell you how important branding is. But even a new Google logo couldn't have been met with as big a reception as the NEW DOCTOR WHO LOGO. It set knees jerking up and down the country in a kind of vitriolic 21st Century National Morris Dance.

GalifreyBase and Roobarbs, those two thermometers up the backside of Doctor Who fandom, gave positive early results. People seem to like the words 'Doctor' and 'Who' and even the initials, 'D' and 'W'. They are pleased that Steven Moffat has come up with a new logo and not that evil philistine purveyor of farting aliens, RT 'The Devil' D. It's better than the old logo. It's not what they were expecting.

So there are some people who were 'expecting' it to look a certain way. I don't know quite what they were expecting, but the only certainty was that it wouldn't look the way that anybody expected it to. Nobody made the comment 'Yes, that is precisely what I expected it to look like.'

Of course, I'm over-reacting to the fan reaction here. It's always worth stopping to consider the reaction to the reaction, as Einstein probably realised.

I want this to be the first blog that examines the fan reaction to the fan reaction of the logo. So here are some opinions:

Forbidden Planet Blog

Forbidden Planet seem to have a blog that no-one ever guessed at the existence of before, clearly typed inbetween hand-rubbings as another fan orders a £25 Jon Pertwee Model. Foolishly, they allowed comments. Silly!

Greywulf

Greywulf had another go at remaking the insignia to be an actual Police Box - which looks good, but misses the point of having an insignia which looks like a Police Box but isn't, because the image of the Police Box already existed, but the image of 'D' and 'W' forming a Police Box is a 2009 invention. (probably).

Blogspot blogger

This blog reveals that the logo didn't appear until 8.03am, a full three minutes later than advertised. Or perhaps his F5 key was a bit wonky. Or maybe the BBC site had heavy traffic for three minutes.

National Fanzine The Guardian

Those saddos at Doctor Who Fanzine 'The Guardian' (so obviously based on the old Doctor Who Magazine column 'Galifrey Guardian') have produced a complex and engaging poll to intrigue, delight and mystify readers, while at the same time giving us a peep into the inner depths of the soul of the nation.

"Do you like the new Doctor Who logo?
X Yes
X No"

Anyway, as for the logo itself. And the age old fan-hobby of extrapolating beyond the point of sanity. It's silver, which suggests that the Cybermen will be back. There's lens flare, which indicates that the logo cost a lot of money. There are some funny 'hooks' on the 'W' and the 'H', but that's probably so that they can form the ridges at the edge of the TARDIS 'insignia' of the logo. For this is the first Doctor Who logo to come complete with an insignia. I can imagine them laughing as they came up with the idea 'We can make the D and the W look like a Police Box sort of!'

So later this year I'm expecting them to carry this forward with the other mainstays of the series. You can make a Dalek out of the letters 'D' and 'K' without too much difficulty. A Cybermen could be two 'C's in mirror image, either side of an 'M'. But an Ice Warrior from 'I' and 'W'? A Sontaran Soldier from two 'S's? Where will it END?

Fans on You Tube have already made new title sequences with the new logo. Slightly less technically advanced fans have filmed themselves talking about it. I watched one and it made me go 'Awwwww'. I am so glad that You Tube did not exist when I was eleven. All my childish home video taping is hopefully lost forever.

So, to summarise here are the scores out of ten. I would have gone with 11 because there will be 11 Doctors Who next year, but then giving anything nine out of eleven might have been offensive. It's only a number.

The New Logo - 8/10
The initial fan reaction - 9/10
The more considered fan reaction - 7/10
The letter 'D' - 4/10
The letter 'W' - 6/10
The speed at which the BBC got the logo online - 3/10 (3 minutes late!)
This blog - 2/10

Now LOOK AT THE LOGO! And imagine...

Si came into the 21st Century proper yesterday with a new computer.

I'd done the research and considered several types of PC that would suit him. The first thing that struck me on looking for new PCs is that the PC is dead. Well and truly, utterly choking to death, like the dying days of the ZX Spectrum.

I really mean the traditional home Desktop PC, which has been ousted by the proliferation of new netbooks, notebooks, laptops and handhelds. People use PCs to browse the web, check emails and play the odd casual game. When you've got a phone that does that then what's the point in having a nano-fillament-edge PC?

But I'm a Ludite, machine-smashing traditionalist. I yearn for the days of two years ago, when desktops were the way to go. There are some smart developments in the field, most interestingly the new 'Touch-Screen' technology, or 'Arse-About-Face-Laptop'. These are PCs that cost around £1,000 and have a basic PC unit welded onto the back of a touch-screen display. The advantages are manifold: now if the monitor breaks down, you have to get a whole new computer. From keeping well away from the screen, we're now invited to smear it with sweaty fingers, tomato ketchup, dirt and grime. I notice that these touch-screens aren't supplied with windscreen wipers, which is what they'd need.

There's also the Acer Veriton series.



This is a delightfully designed little piece of loveliness that can be mounted on the back of the monitor. Tiny, solid-state (no moving part) tech makes this a real beauty. But they seemed a little under-powered to me and they don't really avoid the problems of having wires everywhere.

So we went for an Acer Inspire.



This is one third the size of the previous PC and makes about a tenth of the noise. Allegedly it 'runs faster' with 'loads' of RAM and 'high' processor speeds. Of course, seeing as it's running Vista and is mainly being used to browse the WWW, it's impossible to tell the difference.

We're hoping that the sound recording features will be quite good, because that's largely what it'll be used for in a few weeks from now.

Having identified the PC, we had to identify a place to get it from. PC World? Currys? Amazon? Dabs?

None of those. We went for John Lewis, for two main reasons. Firstly, we could pick it up straight away from the store. Second, the internet let us down. Dabs only had 'refurbished' versions of the PC we wanted, while other websites were actually more expensive.

We drove to High Wycombe, continuing our policy of avoiding Reading. In a moment of genius, the town planners have allowed John Lewis to be built right next to an Asda. The very top of the scale of nice places to shop (JL) right next to the very bottom (Asda). I love John Lewis and I have ever since we used to go to Brent Cross in the 80's. It's startlingly clean, well laid out and it smells good. It's also barely changed in 30 years. The TV's have got shinier and there's a bit more glass and steel, but it's essentially the same brand, the same shop, all the same. Of course, it's probably as tawdry as every other large commercial chain, but it feels smart, shiny and inviting.

Asda, on the other hand, is filled with rotten garbage.

We went to the Asda, in search of a white, short-sleeved shirt and a red tie for a fancy-dress thing we're going to. As usual, Asda had nothing I want.

Eventually, we got the PC home and set up. It was as simple as that - no complications or confusions, but no sense of achievement either. It used to be that after a week, you might finally work out how to get a signal from the PC to the monitor. These days it all works straight away. It's not plug and play - P&P was actually complete rubbish and never did what it said. The new computer simply worked. (Touch wood!). They tried to make it not work by pre-installing McAfee, but they're attempt to make it not work didn't work and it did work without effort to make it work.

Hopefully, it'll be quite good.

I've hurt my foot. Technically, this happened a few months ago when I jumped off a Bridestone in Yorkshire. I bounced and twisted my right foot to the left when I landed. That was in August and it's never been quite the same since.

I was out running today and twisted it *again*. This lead me into a well-executed roll, followed by a pick-up and clutch and "OW!" So I limped home.

James Skinner. There's someone who I don't see that often, but this has changed over the past few months. He was at Chris's wedding and last night we met up with him in Guildford for what turned out to be his 31st birthday. I thought he was 30, but it turns out he's the first of the gang!

It was interesting being in Guildford again. The place has obviously changed, but much of it is untouched by the ravages of time, particularly the lower street by the Friary which has been done up. James Buller had been to a Sabbatical Reunion and was able to tell me how the University of Surrey had been developing - much the same, bits knocked through and altered, the Union has expanded, all this kind of stuff. But the banning of indoor smoking is playing havoc with the door policy. People need to go out to smoke, so keep having to go in and out of the Union with their hand stamped. I'm sure they'll get it sorted out.

Started off at Old Orleans, where we met some of Skinner's friends from school and college, then we moved on to The Star where they were having an excellent pub quiz night. We were too late for the quiz proper, but we did all gather round the pub quiz machine and tried to answer both the shouted questions and the screen questions at once. Despite there being eight of us we did terribly.

Came back to watch a bit of Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe, a look at the history of Computer Games and the way they've been portrayed in the media. Only without the history of Computer Games. It was very much an outsiders view of games, but I was only really disappointed that it didn't reflect the horrific treatment of staff in the modern Computer Games industry where 'Staff Retention' is something that happens to other people.

We may return to Guildford soon. Si needs a new PC and I think we might have to get it sooner rather than later, as we'll be hosting a recording session at the start of November and we need time to iron out any problems.

Well, here we are 6 days since my last blog.

I've been to Bristol for a Fest and very nice it was too. In fact, it was astonishing. I got up there on Friday night, driving from work. I stopped off on the way to pick up a new pair of shoes at Newbury (I'd forgotten to pack my shoes in the morning) and a pair of speakers. Currys and Sports Direct came in very handy.

Got there and went to the pub with James and Tim, plus a fairly good curry. I ordered a vegetarian Thali, which for the record is a selection of little dishes, a bit like meze. It wasn't entirely satisfying, though it was filling and fairly tasty. Perhaps I should have gone for meat after all. I'm in the habit of going veggie when I'm eating out these days.

We stayed up till 4am playing computer games. I felt like a man ten years younger! In fact, even when I was 20 I rarely stayed up that late. The others arrived around 11pm.

We had an awesome time, getting in good rounds of Half Life 2 Deathmatch, Quake I and III, Halo, Supreme Commander, Command and Conquer Generals and even a spot of Unreal Tournament 3, which everyone was busy downloading and installing. Chris's copy of UT3, which he had bought legitimately, had a CD key that didn't work. It told him that another copy was using it somewhere. Copy protection is highly irritating for the genuine user.

We had a barbecue on Saturday. None of the supermarkets were stocking disposable BBQs anymore, it's all Halloween now, but we found some in a Total service station. Typically, there was too much. Everyone got to try Halloumi though, which I quite like. It was identified as 'Squeaky' cheese that made a noise against one's teeth.

I won some games, including a round of Quake I - amazingly! It's usually between Paul and Chris, but for a change everyone seemed quite happy to run into my rockets.

Came home on Sunday feeling a bit tired, but happy. I think a weekend is quite long enough for that sort of thing. My bottom was slightly sore from the chair and my ears hurt from the headphones resting over my glasses. Plenty of time to recover before the next one though.

We celebrated Annabel's fourth today, which means we've been in this ol' house for four years. And we still haven't replaced the carpets!

It's strange to think of the good times we've had here and the day we've moved in and that we've been here FOUR years! Is that right though? Fourth birthday. The mortgage is up for sorting out and we've had two lots of two-year deals. So it's been four glorious years.

Things that have happened in those four years:
Luke has gone from 4 to 8.
None of my siblings have moved out of home.
I've moved from secondment to London to Basingstoke.
Si has moved Great Hollands library up the local rankings.
We've inherited a rabbit.
David Tennant arrived as Doctor Who and now is leaving.
I've read War and Peace (amongst others).
I haven't written a book.
My good friend Chris has got married.
Jay and Laura, Kevin and Emily have got married.
We've redecorated every room of the house, kitchen and bathroom excepted.
We had the boiler serviced.
My weight has stayed at 12.5 stone.
We've been to New Zealand, Rome, Morira and Sitges.

So there's still a lot more to do. Onwards!

I'm worried about spending too much. Not that worried, mind, I'm fulfilling Mr Micawber's edict of not spending more than I earn, but it does seem that I'm always having to buy things.

Today's food bill was around ninety quid! And that was at Morrisons! And there are only two of us!

In truth, I feel excessively guilty about spending any money at all, an old hangover from my student days. The days when buying a £2 Pork Hock from Tescos for a Sunday roast seemed like a fantastic idea. You got loads of meat and - get this - about 400g of crackling! When combined with five roast potatoes, peas, carrots, broccoli, gravy and Yaaarkshire Puddings, it made a meal that would keep you full for a week. On the minus side, I could always feel the grease exuding through my face on a Monday.

I could get Batman: Arkham Asylum off Steam and I'd play it, I'd really enjoy it, it'd be fantastic and it wouldn't put any real dent in my finances. I'm still in a quandary over whether I should actually do it or not. Si is thinking about a new PC to replace the old one downstairs that was originally built by my Dad's friend Lionel back in 2003(?)ish. The processor fan has been making a grinding noise for ages and it's ever so loud. Plus the networking has fallen over, as have the USB options. I finally found the WinXP install CD to get it all fixed, but it's really time to get a new one. In addition I'm lining up for Windows 7 on my own PC. It's almost exciting, Chris is talking about a W7 launch party with balloons and um... I don't know. A very long install process, probably.

We went to the pub last night, we went by train so we could both drink. Very good night out, we went to the Wellington at Waterloo with Jonno, Paul and Ant.

We were supposed to be going to a show at Bloomsbury. Our friend Dave Tudor is part of a comedy trio who have a little show. Sadly, the organisers didn't advertise their show and as relative unknowns, they didn't sell nearly enough tickets. In fact, I suspect that outside of the ones we bought, they sold very few indeed. The show was canceled.

The five of us met up at The Wellington, which both Paul and Jonno had difficulty finding. Too many exits from Waterloo is the problem, I reckon. We talked of the recent Doctor Who poll in DWMag and how fair or unfair the results were, we chatted about a possible gaming night with Talisman and Block-Mania and various other things. It's always good to go out for drinks with friends. Well, 9 times out of 10! Though I can't think of the last night out that has truly been a disaster. Fingers crossed for the future!

We were looking forward to seeing Iain Banks at the Camden Roundhouse this evening, he was doing a talk and a book signing for his new book, Transition, which Si has read and says is very good. I'm reading another of his, a book called 'Whit' which I'm enjoying as well.

Unfortunately, I got home too late from work after a site visit. Absolute nightmare. Everything had been delays, and cock-ups and people changing their mind. I finally got away at 4:40, but I still had to drive back to Basingstoke to return the pool car so I didn't get away from there until 5:40. Too late to get home and get to Camden for 7:30.

Frankly, it drove my stress levels through the roof and Si was very cross as well. I feel really bad that he missed out on it. I'd like to be able to make it up to him, but short of begging Iain Banks to come and do a talk at South Hill Park I don't know what to do.

Si has been a huge fan of Iain Banks since reading The Crow Road - whereas I've been a fan of Iain M Banks since reading Excessioｎ！I have read most of his non-sci-fi works as well, in fact there's only a few left that I haven't read. But The Crow Road is possibly Si's favourite book.

I hope we get another chance to see him in future.

Saturday was spent tidying up. We took some stuff down the tip and we shredded around 1,000 documents, mostly old bank statements. I felt like I was in a big accountancy firm when the auditors are coming! The shredder had the decency to pack up a couple of times, but I was able to get it working again each time. It's only a domestic little shredder and not up to these Enron-Level destruction of documents.

I dreamed that I was in Sheffield last night, at the top of a hill, talking to someone. Suddenly I noticed the sky darken and there was ash in my hair. "Something's not right" I said. I looked over the hill to see mushroom-shaped clouds over the south of England. For a moment I wondered if Sheffield would be safe, but I was quickly answered - there was a rush of wind and a blinding flash, then I woke up. I don't know much about the inner meaning of dreams, but I do know what these dreams are. They're bloody annoying, that's what they are.

Sunday has been a lot more jolly after that apocalyptic start, we went to Chiswick for a Doctor Who event again, only this time it was actually on! http://fantomfilms.co.uk/events/monstersandmayhem/monstersandmayhemmain.htm

There were loads of great guests, though disappointingly a couple had pulled out at the last minute. Where was Victoria Burgoyne? We'll never know. But it was a joy to see Geoffrey Bayldon, the man who played 'Catweazle' and was Organon in the Doctor Who story, Creature From The Pit. For a man of 85 years he is in remarkably fine fettle. He was very amusing too, he got some of the biggest laughs from the crowd. He was offered the part of the First Doctor, thought about it for 10 minutes and then decided he didn't want to commit to 56 weeks of playing an old man. Did he have any regrets? Certainly, when he found out how successful it was!

As usual with these events, you get a lot of the actors who played slightly smaller roles in Doctor Who as well as people like Mary Tamm who played Romana, or the inescapably pleasant Colin Baker. So we had Tony Osoba, David Gooderson and David Sibley, lots of less well known names but all with interesting stories to tell. David Gooderson was responsible for one of Si's earliest memories of Doctor Who. He played Davros in Destiny of The Daleks and Si will always remember the bit where the apparently dead Davros' hand came back to life with a spider-like twitch of the fingers...

The best bit though was the K-9 panel, at least from Si's point of view! They had Bob Baker who invented the character, John Leeson who voiced him and Matt Irvine who got the metal pooch to rove around the studio. There's a new series of K-9 on the way, as well as further appearances in Sarah Jane Smith Adventures.

Everybody mentioned the Acton Hilton, the BBC Rehearsal rooms where Peter Halliday was the latest person to claim that he met Morcambe and Wise in the elevator. I'm surprised that Morcambe and Wise ever made any programs, because if all the stories I've heard are true they must have spent all day going up and down in the elevator. Perhaps that was their rehearsal room and they got terribly frustrated with all these people coming in and interrupting them?

Tony Osoba mentioned about meeting two people from The (now unmentionable) Black And White Minstrel Show in the lift. They were all dressed up in the slap make-up and white outfits. They asked Tony what he was appearing in and he said Doctor Who. Then he asked them what they were appearing in.

So anyway, a very pleasant day out. We spoke to Gillian who tried to make us buy photos, and met Mr BHT from the Planet Skaro forum. His real name is John and he's from Doncaster. And what a nice bloke he was too! Maybe he'll be able to make it down to the PS meet...

And we bought the Benny Summerfield book, written by Simon Guerrier, the man-who-once-liked-a-story-what-I-wrote. And of course who has done a million other things. I haven't read much of it yet, but it smells very nice.

But we didn't get Mono, hahah.

Yes, The Beatles turned up at our house this week in glorious stereo. {sick} They would have been in surround sound but sadly John and George have passed away. {/sick} I liked the box set as much for it's glorious packaging as for the new versions of the albums and to be frank we'd be hard pushed to tell the difference anyway. But with the packaging it's instantly obvious that you've got something quite nice in your hands. Shame there's no new Vinyl version.

Busy old week, we've got a lot of uneaten food in the fridge which we bought from Aldi last weekend. Not because the food wasn't any good - Aldi came up trumps with some very tasty stuff - but because we were out on Thursday and Friday.

Thursday we went round to Jonathan's, because Si's dad is finally moving in with Sue. In Blackpool! We probably won't see as much of him now so we had fish and chips together as a bit of a send-off. Very nice evening.

Friday was local group meeting, with a rare guest appearance by Ash (Fatso The Wombat). The last time he turned up to a meet was so long ago that he entirely missed out on Mike! I told him off for that, but he has fathered some children so understandably that takes up a sizable amount of time.

We're looking at a new PC for Simon. His current one is my second-hand cast off, originally put together by my Dad's mate Lionel though since upgraded with new motherboard and processor. And graphics card and ram. And everything. But it makes a gargling noise now, in fact it has done for years. Windows XP is slowly packing up and refusing to do things like network or recognise USB devices. The whole thing is due to be replaced... once Windows 7 comes out.

And I'm even going to part ways with XP and get W7 on my own PC upstairs. I will compensate for this by installing Open Office. Haha!

Saturday we achieved some good things. We fixed the roof of the shed and put some new felt on it. An easy task in theory, but the shed is stuffed right at the corner of our garden so getting to all the bits of it was a struggle. I think we managed it without any major injuries though.

We also bought Charlie a new hutch and we put him in it for the first time today. Guess what? He's not keen.



Charlie no like it!



His arch-nemesis, the Evil Robin has come to taunt him. Grrrr!

On Sunday we went to Monsters and Mayhem. I was very careful to check the time, so that we'd arrive not too early and not too late. Si was looking forward to it and so was I. However, we had neglected to check the date.

So at around 10:45 we were sitting outside the George IV pub on Chiswick High Road wondering where all the Doctor Who fans were! Fortunately, Si discovered that the internets worked on his mobile phone so we were able to check the details. Monsters and Mayhem was on the 13th September, not the 6th!

In a bizarre twist of fate, I'd phoned Chris to ask if he was near an interwebs connection. He wasn't. He was on a bus to Brent Cross - so being halfway there anyway, we went to meet the Hallams for lunch! It all worked out quite well. They had to sort out some details of their wedding list because John Lewis had been a bit rubbish. While they were doing that we went shopping and bought a new frying pan, I got a new jacket, Si got some jumpers in Gap and we got some Pak Choi, which we hadn't been able to find in Bracknell on Saturday. We were also able to give Chris and Michelle a lift back to their new flat. They'd bought a new TV, so it saved them having to carry it back on the bus too.

Chris and Michelle's new place is very nice, looking a little bare at the moment but in a way that's really good, it's clean and minimalist! Once they get a dining table in there they'll be well away.

We played a few games on the Wii, my Wii fitness age is sticking at 57. We also tried the High School Musical singstar game. I quite like Singstar, but as it turns out High School Musical is absolutely horrifying! I suppose it's uplifting in a way, but I found it bland and irritating. The mantra is 'Everyone can reach their dreams, nothing is impossible' - which seems to apply to good looking US High School students and no-one else? And yes, for some people getting straight A's and a place at Havard is actually impossible. But never mind!

Chris cooked us a roast. Lamb, potatoes, parsnips, broccoli, carrots, gravy and cauliflower. It was a roast from the top branch of the awesome tree. It's been a long time since I've had one of Chris's roasts and I was long overdue!

We got back fairly late, but it didn't matter because we had such a nice time. It was also great to see the two of them settled in together. Another fantastic weekend.



MONSTER!



MAYHEM!