Same old same old

"We trained hard, but it seemed that everytime we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization."

This was written by a chap called Petronius Arbiter in about 210BC. You can file it under "nothing new under the sun". This is precisely why I stopped being a government slave a few years ago. I couldn't stand the thought that even after twenty-two hundred years we still hadn't learned this basic lesson.

I take great pleasure from the fact that it's twenty-five past ten in the morning and no-one can tell me off for writing this instead of earning money.

----------------------------------------

Edit, 14 March 06: rather boringly, one of my favourite quotes appears actually to be not a genuine quote at all. According to this spoilsport there's no record of your man Arbiter having wrote it at all. It may be as old as the first war, but no more than that.

Arse. I still like it. If it wasn't genuine we'd have to make it up anyway, and that's good enough for me.

The furniture shop

"Ok, Lee, we've finally made a decision. We'll have this corner unit sofa in this colour, and that chair and footstool in 'earth'".

"Brilliant, brilliant. I'll just get my calculator ..... what we can offer you now is a full home service for cleaning. Obviously, if you spill something on the leather you hope it will wipe off, but if it doesn't then we can come out and clean it or repair it for you, as many times as you like, for five years. All in, with the cleaning this comes to [a number considerably more than we were expecting]."

"How much is the cleaning service, sorry?"

"The total bill would be [the number I just told you]"

"Yes, Lee, but how much of that is the cleaning contract?"

"It's [a large but not extortionate amount of money]".

"It's a good service, and we don't want our furniture ruined by a stain ... mmm ... I can't quite get this to add up. How much is the cleaning, altogether, again?"

"It's [a large but not extortionate amount of money] for a unit like this".

"Yuh, you said that. That doesn't add up, though. So the chair must be extra?"

"The total for everything is [the big number again]".

*grits teeth* "Lee, straight answer please, how much is the cleaning contract for the chair, alone?

Pause.

"[A chunky sort of number]"

"And how much is the footstool, alone?"

Pause. Lee looks like he's about to give me the all-in number again, but catches the look in my eye just in time. Sighs.

"[An almost equally chunky sort of number]"

"Thank you. I'm tempted by the contract on the corner unit, but I think we can leave the chair and footstool. I don't mind so much if they get stained, because ..."

"Sorry. If you have the one you have to have the other, as we're already coming out to you, you see ..."

"Not really, no ..."

"We can only do one cleaning contract for one property, so it's all or nothing, really, you see, and everyone usually buys it, I think you'd be taking a big risk not to. The only thing you're not covered for is turmeric."

"I don't really see why I can't just have the corner unit covered by the contract, if I stain the chair I just won't call you ... hang on, did you just say turmeric?"

"Yes, turmeric, we can't get that out so you wouldn't be covered for that."

"Yes, but ..."

"So be careful with the curry, ha ha ha."

"Yes, but I still don't see ..."

"Everyone sits on their leather sofas and eats curry. Coffee, now, we can get that out, and if we can't we'll come and replace the entire panel."

"That's good, I probably will spill coffee at some point ..."

"That would be no problem, red wine too, can do that. The panels are saddle stitched: they stitch them once and then stitch them twice more onto a ribbon behind, it makes them really strong ..."

"But why can't you replace the panel for turmeric ...?"

" ... yes, as I was saying, if they do have to replace the whole panel it's a long job, would cost the earth otherwise, but we'll do it as often as you like for five years ..."

"... but ..."

"... so, just plump the cushions up every day so they don't sag and like I say wipe the whole piece of furniture over with a damp cloth, no cleaning fluid or anything, once a week ..."

My head is starting to hurt. Lee spots his opportunity and like a good salesman, leaps in.

"Put it this way, every person I've sold to this month has taken it up ... we have three people based at this store who do nothing else but go out and do repairs ... what they can do is replace the whole leather panel ... normally that would be three hours work plus materials, say three hundred quid ... the leather's got open pores ... stuff can soak into underlayer ... scrubbing removes surface colour ... blah ... green stuff we give you ... blah ... gets most things out, but if it doesn't ... fibre stuffing ... blah ... leaves a white ring, you see ... just wipe it over weekly ... blah ... use our green stuff for conditioning every six months ... blah ... lovely piece of furniture ruined but needn't be ..."

Glassy eyed, head spinning, I hand over my credit card.

Good / bad

Today's GOOD thing: my new site meter reveals that you ARE out there and reading this. Good. Some of you even read more than one page, so you must have liked something about it. Welcome. Especially the foreign people; I hope you get the sense of humour, such as it is. I'll try and follow the links back when I get the chance, to see what's happening in your lives.

Today's BAD thing: illness not over, not by a long chalk. I've been up since 3:30 am with fiery itching pains all over my skin. And I've got a rash, in weird patches in places like on my ribs and on the back of my right hand.

Now, I hate it (in what I admit is an insensitive, irrational, bigoted way) when people go on and on and on about being a martyr to their bladder, or protracted food intolerance, or whatever. Just shush, will you, enough now. Not interested. Buuuut .... I think I may be sliding down the slippery slope into their world. I notice that even this blog has had quite a lot of 'I'm ill' posts on it. So, sorry about that. I won't whinge on any more; I'll keep taking the steroids and no more than a brief update in future.

So, today's no-illness-here subject. I have a Sofa Dilemma. We have a plethora of sofas. Mrs Tony Bloke took to calling our place Sofa World a while back. We've got rid of one now, but still have three. Here's what it looks like:



Now, I'll grant you that this looks like a shitty mess, and you'd be right, it is one. BTW, the cards on the mantel are for the LOML's birthday, not left over from Christmas. We've had the blue covered sofa since before we were married, when Pontius was still in flight school, so it's really due for replacement by now.

The plan is to turn this into a sleek contemporary living room by replacing the sofas with one of these:



thus creating an ambient conversation and telly watching area. We'll put the telly (currently out of shot) where the papery-shaded lamp is, in the right hand corner. Obviously I'll still have to tidy up the shit to get the look, and I don't think you get the bird on the sofa with it, but I'll check. Here's hoping, anyway. The bloke they can definitely (spelling, Pete) keep. I'll part-ex him for a footstool or something.

Perceptive readers who have managed to drag their eyes away from the herculean amounts of clutter in the first photo will have noticed a piano and the third sofa in the mirror. I think we should replace this sofa with an armchair and create a quiet, tranquil, piano-playing and Sunday-paper-reading space. The coffee table should just fit nicely against the wall.

What do you think?

Do not allow your opinion to be swayed by the fact that the leather sofa is half price this week only. Like I'm not. At all. Oh no.

crisis countdown: 96 days and counting

Allergic

I've been to the doctor (advantages of living in small village, number oooh, high, lots, in there: you can see a doctor within 2 hours of phoning) and he says that I have a typical allergic reaction to something I have ingested. Ok so far. I have to take a powerful dose of steroids (6 tablets at a time) for 5 days, or all the skin in the itchy places will fall off. Less ok re this. He continues and mentions skin fissures, infection, hands like claws (it was like a fucking claw, as Frank so wisely said) and so on, and the ok-ness goes out of the situation altogether. Now I'm trying not to compulsively examine my palms and shins every few minutes for incipient flesh-falling-off-ness.

I also have to make a list of everything I have ingested over the 24 hours before the 'episode' (think this means eaten or drunk, better put down paint fumes etc just in case) so that when (note, not 'if') it happens again I can try and isolate to what I am allergic (grammar). I had no idea how hard this is before I tried it - just what did I put in the roast chicken gravy this time? Honey, mustard, Worcs sauce, soy sauce .... or was that last time? Give the remaining gravy a tentative sniff, but no real clues there. It tastes great, but that's not really a help, is it. Arse. Anyway, I've done my best, and it's in the 'medical' file in the filing cabinet, so if I can't find it later I can just look it up on here. Might as well us this blog for something more useful than satisfying the indulgent ramblings of my inner idiot. Whom, unfortunately, bears a remarkable resemblance to my outer idiot far too often for my liking.

Anyone know how to ignore your hands and face itching?

Not agaaaaaaiiiiin

Guess fucking what? I'm ill again. Yet a fucking gain. I must have done something really bad in a past life to have karma like this. Not that I believe in karma.

Up half the night with bits swelling. Hands and feet started itching yesterday. During the night my hands swelled up interestingly - fingers like sausages - and they still itch constantly, and scratching makes it worse. Can't get my ring off, and it normally comes off quite easily. May have to cut it. Typing not easy, hence terse syntax. Now my face is swelling up a bit too, round the eyes.

I'm going to the doctor. Again.

Fuck.

crisis countdown 97 days, assuming I don't die first

'Friends' Reunited

I had the strangest phone call the other day. It was a bloke from school, whom I hadn't heard from in, uh, *adds up on fingers* twenty-one years. He'd emailed me a while ago on the strength of my entry on Friends Reunited.

I'd got bored, you see, with all of the 'divorced, live in Commuter Town, Home Counties, work in IT in London' which was what every single one of my school contemporaries had put as their entry on the site. So, as is my wont, I had a bit of a rant. 'Hated school', I said, and 'couldn't you all just tell?'. I went on: 'Spent a couple of years after school being depressed and doing dead-end jobs, before finally going back to college and doing A-levels again and scraping into Uni.' It went on in a similar vein, and then cheered up as it went on to describe the LOML and how she saved my life, really, and how much I loved the kids and my job now.

All true. Was depressed, for a long time there. I was so messed up by the experience of single-sex public school and parents who had ridiculously high expectations that it was inevitable, I suppose. I don't have very many memories of my 19th and 20th years on the planet, the ones just after I left - not just not many happy memories, just not many memories. Blanked it out. Spent the time being drunk, riding big motorbikes in the dubious company of the local biking fraternity, most of whom were extremely unintelligent, very aggressive, xenophobic, misogynistic, poverty-stricken, smelly, and drug addicts. Introduce an immature, opinionated, fast-mouthed, left-leaning public schoolboy with a trust fund into this mix and it's an absolute wonder that I wasn't stabbed.

Aaaaaanyway, enough beating up on yourself already. (Do that bit in an American accent and you can forgive me the hideous syntax). I had this email from, ah, we'll call him Mike*. He said he liked the candour of my Friends Reunited entry; had found it interesting. I replied, and then so did he, and then about Christmas time he rang me. We had a nice chat, to be fair, despite the fact that I felt like I was at school again and talked too fast because I was nervous. Despite the upcoming age crisis, I still sometimes feel like I am still a kid trying to speak maturely to grown-ups, and that any minute someone's going to tousle my hair and say 'My, how you've grown'.

So, we'll meet up for a pint sometime. He's still in touch with any number of people from school, and my emails had created a lot of interest with them, and they would love me to go to the summer barbecue thing they have. Some of them I didn't leave on the best of terms with. So this could be interesting. He also told me that three of my friends from that time, two of whom were close enough that I'd kept in touch with them after school for a while, were dead. One unexpected collapse and two suicides. Great.

So I suppose I'll see what happens. We're all forty-odd now. The old prejudices must have washed away by now, surely. If not, I can just walk away again. I will do that without hesitation if there is any sign that the old problems haven't completely gone away.

I'll let you know.

*because his name's Michael.

crisis countdown: 98 days

Back

I'm back. Huzzah. Welcome to Monday morning.

I've been skiing, did I mention?

It was a damn good holiday, to be fair. There's nothing quite like the entertainment of watching a seven-year-old in a bright yellow helmet hurtling down the middle of a piste in a full racing crouch, cutting right across the front of a group of slightly-overweight-and-a-bit-mannish middle-aged German women so that they all crash into each other and fall over. Shadenfreude.* That'll teach them to leave their towels all over the loungers by the pool so no-one else can sit on them. I know that this is a cliche of Stan Boardman-like dimensions, but it really is true. They really did. And the pool was indoors, with a plastic curtain to an outside bit, before anyone gets clever.

The whole Crisis family returned with no significant injuries. *breathes big sigh of relief*.

We had all the usual s-things. S-un, s-now, s-kiing, s-ledging, s-hocolate s-haud (this is phonetic and therefore counts, ok?). All except the other one, s-??**. We were too knackered.

I took some action video on the camera of me skiing down behind the LOML. It's all whooshy noises and lurching views of the sky, to be honest. But you can make out the LOML falling over, which is quite funny. You can hear me laughing quite loudly on the soundtrack. Especially as it was just about the only time she fell over all week, and I got it on film. I'd post it up here but you'd be able to identify me from it, so I can't. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Anyway, I've come back and calculated that I am now in the final stages of crisis-countdown. By my calculations, today is Crisis minus 99 days and counting. Though I reserve the right to randomly add or remove a day later if my maths is off, which it might be. Anyway, expect more reviews of what-might-have-been and other such maudlin talk as the countdown numbers decrease.


*This is probably mis-spelled. Never mind.

**You're expecting me to put 's-kating, what did you think I meant?' or something witty here. But no, I meant sex. We really were too knackered. Except for once.

crisis countdown: 99 days

2/10 More effort required. See me.

I wish I could entertain everyone with the rollicking adventures of what I did yesterday. If only I'd been cursed by a gypsy like JonnyB the day before yesterday. Or had both a new antimacassar and a new fire grate on the same day like Greavsie. (You can see a couple of my oh-so-amusing bon mots in the comments pages on both of these).

Unfortunately, all I did yesterday was go and see a new client, who was nice but not worth any more of your attention, and pop to town to get some photocopying done and get the LOML a birthday present. I can't even tell you what it is because she'll read this at some point. It's nice though, she'll like it. AND I've got her something coming in the post, as well. She'll like that too.

Actually, I had to get her something nice because (a) last year I didn't get her anything on time, thinking that I'd get her something while we were skiing, but then I didn't. (I'm going skiing, did I mention? Etc., repeat until funny). So she got to wander about the resort on her birthday and buy herself a top. Not great. And (b) she bought me an iPod Shuffle for my birthday, at the behest of Mrs Flash Pete, who'd also bought him one. Which is an ace present, and I need to raise my game to compete.

I just put a paragraph in about having to get the first iPod replaced, but it was boring so I've cut it out again. Just thought you'd like to know.

Talking of JonnyB and Greavsie, I can't help noticing that there are an inordinate number of links on their pages (not to me, you'll notice, but never mind). They are dwarfed by my boyfriend is a twat who has a list as long as your arm, provided that your arm is about three screens long, which *stands up and contorts self into weird pose to try and compare length of arm to depth of screen* mine isn't. As long as your arm and half the other one, then. And all in tiny weeny font as well. She writes well, though. I've gone for the quality over quantity approach - people who make me laugh out loud only.

I'm sure if I did more research I could lengthen it a bit. Perhaps I'll do that today. I need to put more work into this blog. *sigh*

The LOML has just come in and said that Mrs Marcus the worm farmer was going to book skiing to the same resort as us next week, because there was a cheap deal. But she didn't, because they didn't have time to sort themselves out. Which is a shame, because I and the worm farmer would have made up half an offpiste guiding group, whereas by myself I am merely a quarter. *sigh again*

It's just doomed to be one of those nearly nearly days, isn't it?

Is anyone there?

Feel free to leave a comment if you are.

Though I enjoy writing this, it's got a limited shelf life if nobody at all is reading it apart from me. I'd check, but I can't work out how to download a visit counter like all the really good bloggers do. I'll give it another go, perhaps.

French France beckons

I'm going skiing next week, did I mention? I did? Sorry.

So if you're a burglar, now is the time to work out whom (grammar) I am and where I live. I'm afraid you'll be sadly disappointed once you got inside, though. And the alarm's going to be on. And the neighbours are on alert. And the neighbour's a big aggressive bugger. But apart from that, go for your life.

I phoned up France today, to leave a credit card deposit for the kids' ski lessons. I have been working myself up to this since yesterday afternoon, when an email came saying, uh, phone up and leave a credit card deposit. I worked in France for a bit in my gap years [errata (pl): for 'worked' read 'dossed about selling doughnuts on the beach'; for 'gap years' read 'years between failing A-levels and retaking them'] and developed a bit of conversational French as a matter of necessity. Are you reading, Mr Johnston? You who said 'Hopeless. You'll never be able to get by in France, boy' in about 1981? What a wanker you were. God, I'd forgotten all about you until this moment.

So anyway, I had a few useful phrases prepared. 'Good morning', 'You sent me an email yesterday' and 'I wish to leave a deposit for the ski lessons for my children for next week' and stuff like that. I'm pretty sure they were right. Deep breath. Rang the very long number beginning 0033.

'Bonjour, ecole du ski.'

'Bonjour. Erm, erm .... je desire ....parlez-vous ....parlez ....uh .... does anybody speak English?'

'Of course sir, my name is Pascale, how can I help?'

Arse. At least she sounded fit. I guess I'll let you know whether she is or not when I get back.

Beliiiiieve .....

I sit and watch Richard Dawkins comprehensively debunk religion. Now, I don't want to offend vast tranches of my massive readership *inserts tongue firmly in cheek*, but it strikes me that he makes a powerful case for not believing everything you are told just because you are told it by an Authority. Faith is the belief in anything you can't prove to exist. Bear with me on this, it will become important later.

While sitting there, I have a sudden, immediate urge to gag. I can't breathe. I'm going to barf on the sofa cushion. The most noxious odour has spread across the room and crept up on me. If it had a colour, it would be pale greeny-brown. Texture? Watery slime. With lumpy bits in. Quickly, before the metaphors become too graphic, I pull the front of my O'Neill hoodie (yes it is new, thanks for asking, only twenty quid instead of fifty in the sale) over my nose and stare at the only possible culprit. She looks at me with her big brown eyes in a 'who, me?' manner. And wags her tail. It appears that the long-established playground law of Only Your Own Smell Good applies to dogs as well. I'm definitely locking her in the kitchen tonight.

Mind you, oftentimes I could give her a run for her money. I can fart for Britain, me. I have an, ah, slow digestion. I bloat, bluntly. My abdomen goes in and out like a ..... actually, I was going to put a rude sexual metaphor there, but it's too early in the morning. Fill in the blank for yourselves. This means I can blame Wind for the size of my stomach, justifiably citing the fact that it will be half the size in the morning.

Trouble is, that even at half the size, it's still too big. The LOML and I see a thing on the news that most people in the this country are in denial about their body size. I pontificate that I am Overweight but not Obese. So then nothing will do but that we calculate our Body Mass Indices (plural; spelling). So .... my height squared is a tadge over 3, being on the short side of average, and my weight is hrmmhrmmhah, and carry the four and take off a bit for my shoes and ..... there's no getting over it, I am over 30 on the BMI scale. I can't get it down to less than 30.4. And any reading over 30 is Obese. (The LOML, by the way, cruises in at 27).

Bollocks. I am NOT obese. I Will Not Have This. I play rugby nearly every week (and I'm not one of those super fat waddly boys who still abound in amateur rugby - I play back row and you have to be the Duracell bunny to play there). I ski (and indeed, am doing so next week, hurrah). So, in true Richard Dawkins manner, I decide not to believe everything I am told by Authority and find some Evidence. And I find out in short order that, and talking of rugby, Lawrence Dallaglio and Jonah Lomu both have a BMI higher than mine. It was in the paper last week but I can't find the link now, sorry. Something to do with army admission criteria being extended up to a BMI of 32 for just this reason.

It becomes clear. BMI is calculated by taking your height and then suggesting what weight you should be. There is a gross assumption here - that any extra weight you have over the average consists of fat. Hah. I am a stocky sort of chap - I have broad shoulders and a big chest. I can run (slowly, but proper running) for well over an hour without stopping even a little bit. I know this because I did so on Sunday. Obese people could not do this. I can therefore state with some conviction that I am Not Obese, just a bit muscly. I will be the first to admit that I am overweight, I do have love handles (what are valley girls calling that now? Oh yes, 'muffin-top') and a bit of a tummy. But I do not have man-boobs, or happy knees (you know: how fat people's knees look like they are smiling?). I am not obese.

So, having tenuously but successfully linked last evening's three most pressing subjects: the dog farting, Richard Dawkins debunking religion, and my BMI, I reach for another biscuit.

The root of all evil?

Rarely, if ever, in my life has someone vocalised what I have been thinking as eloquently and persuasively as Richard Dawkins in tonight's programme.

"We are all atheists about almost all the gods invented by man; it's just that some of us choose to go one god further."

More power to his elbow.


(Crisiswhatcrisis would like to apologise for the occasional lapse into seriousness on this blog. Jokes about farts will return tomorrow).

Grumpy

Crisiswhatcrisis is grumpy this morning. Had a rotten night's sleep, for no apparent reason. Couldn't get to sleep for ages, and then when I did I kept waking up. Then Child Two was mithering about something. Then the dog came upstairs, which she never does unless there are fireworks or she's about to barf and/or shat on the carpet. I think she came up because we left the computer on - I've come to the conclusion that she gets disturbed by the bleep of you've-got-email-we-sell-the-cheapest-medds-viagra-cialis-softtabs-visit-our-secure-site-here in the middle of the night.

So this morning I've got a headache and a jumping nerve in my left eyelid, which I get when I get tired and stressed. (God, listen to him, sitting at home drinking coffee, surfing blogs, what's he got to get stressed about? Git).

I've also got an amusing squishy swelling on my left elbow. This is a throwback to my amusing skating fall over Christmas. It had got better, but I smacked it on something again last night and now it's up again. It was the size of half a tennis ball then: unfeasibly, comically large, and now it's maybe the size of half a [thinks: the size of ... of ... half a ... grape? no, it's larger than that ... half a .... lychee? no, right shape and size but far too middle class and poncy, and prickly, wrong image altogether ... half a ... half a ... something everyone can relate to ... half a .. got it] walnut shell, but squishier. The kids had much amusement poking it this morning, accompanying the exercise with loud 'eeeeeuuuuw' noises; the LOML declined, citing it making her feel sick as a completely feeble excuse.

The LOML's got no work on this morning, unusually. What I would do, under these circumstances, is curl up on the sofa in front of a film, coffee and biccies at elbow, fire lit, rug over feet. What she does is to completely reorganise the kids' playroom - tidying up, throwing broken and outdated stuff into charity box or bin, move the old sofa and the shelving units around to make better use of the space. She'll hang selected bits of the offsprings' artwork in clipframes later, you just watch.

And therein lies the difference between us. Vive la difference, I suppose. If you must.

Hey, if we were both like that we would be insufferable.

Thank whatever deity you believe in for that ...

..... Christmas is over. No, I'm not doing the Bah Humbug thing, Christmas as an entity is fine, even if you're areligious (that's probably not a word, but as far as I'm concerned it is now). It's just the nonsense of trying to persuade one child to turn off the frigging playstation and relate to the rest of humanity from a point below eleven out of ten on the anger scale for once in his life, and the other child to stop dragging her duvet, blanket, the shirt I was wearing in bed last night and her two rabbit teddies with her wherever she goes so that she can be properly snuggly, and put on some freaking clothes before tea time.

I'm an ace parent, me.

So, you will appreciate, it was with considerable relief that I packed them both off to school this morning. I then got stuck into a stack of utterly mundane stuff that doesn't earn any money but has to be done. I phoned the airport car park people to say that they had confirmed the wrong time for my departure: it's twelve midday and they've put 00:00. The bloke who answered the phone twenty minutes later informed me that nah, this was 00:00 pm, and that was lunchtime, so everything's okay, innit. There is no such time as 00:00 pm, even on a twenty-four hour clock. I know this, you know this: he didn't know this. I can quite clearly see how their computer system could be set up so that this could happen, and like an idiot tried to explain this to him. Gave up, inevitably, after several brave but fruitless efforts. I will learn one day, I will.

So, I try and get this PC to turn on this morning. It appears that the LOML has pressed the little crescent moon symbol again, which means that the computer is dozing but not fully asleep, and that a little jiggle of the cordless mouse thus ... should set it working again. But no. This never works. The PC is now awake, but Mr Screen he stay black. The LOML knows this. I told her about this, again, as recently as last week. So, I hard boot the PC with the 'Off' button, wait for it to load everything up again, decline to send a report about recovering from a serious error to Microsoft, reconnect to the interweb, delete several messages from people enquiring whether I wish to buy Cialis cheaply, and write this.

You want my advice?

Never sneeze while you're hiding.

And .....SNAP, back to reality

I go back to work. This involves walking through the dining area and going into the office, and as such is not the most onerous commute in history, but mentally it's a big step. I have a different head on today.

I haven't made any resolutions; can't see the point as you never stick to them anyway. I do intend to stick with my more positive lifestyle - I'll go for a run in a bit, try to fend off being sad, carry on eating properly - but that's about it, and I was doing that last year, so it doesn't count. Can you have a resolution 'keep up the good work'? Maybe. If you can, I have.

Flash Pete's given up alcohol for January again. He does it every year and swears he loses loads of weight and feels loads better. I did it one year and didn't lose any weight and got bored. So I just reckon he's being selfish and avoiding snurking out with me to the posh pub for a quick one. So on New Year's Day, when the LOML announces that she's going to give up as well, I can't resist a little cynicism. Considering we're going skiing in a couple of weeks and it's her birthday while we're away, this seems a little precipitous. Sure enough, she has a sherry and a glass of wine during our visit to my mum and dad yesterday. I waited until we got home to mention this, being (a) a sensible husband and (b) the sort of chap who learns from his mistakes if he makes them often enough. She says she's going to cut down instead. Right. Glad that's cleared up.

I had a beer even though I didn't really want it just to show how silly these resolutions are. It was nice.

I may have another one tonight.


this blog was brought to you via a new Belkin wireless keyboard and mouse, Christmas present from the LOML, and courtesy of Today's Special Value on QVC sometime in December.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year Blogland. Lickle bit pished. Got all me mates round - did roast goose for everyone and they all said how much they liked it. Feel all warm n cuggly. Flash Pete's giving it 'Angels' on the karaoke accompanied by the mass chorus as we speak. Mumbling Nige just did 'Let Me Entertain You', and I wish he had. Bless. Thank god he brought his girls with him: they keep my kids in check. Marcus the worm farmer is karaoke king tonight. He's called that because he grows worms for a living. Seriously. It takes all sorts.

1-30 and all the kids are still up,including Flash Pete and Mrs Flash Pete's little'un, who's 4. Great days. I love my mates.

See you later in the year.

Snogs

Mark