My sister called and pointed out that I haven't updated my code on the sidebar to Mike's new address at troubled-diva.com. I will, honest.

Quick note to say it was fabulous having you, you're a great houseguest, come again any time.

TIME Magazines 50 Coolest Websites - Lifestyle and Culture. FOr your delight and delectation.

Whoops. Like everyone else using YACCs, my comments are down. Sorry (they are great, btw, no diss intended, obviously just having some shade of technical difficulty).

It's Tube Strike Day. Talking with a friend just now, I asked why the tube drivers wanted a four day week. "Obvious," he said to me, "they want to spend time on their writing."

Tickled me purple: the image of the whole of the RMT working collectively on their novel.

alt.muslim - muslim news community and zabihah.com - guide to halal eating.

(posted by Mike)

OK, I'm outta here.

Heartfelt thanks to Sasha for allowing me to sprawl over her fixtures and fittings for the past week or so. I really have enjoyed my stay here immensely. Short, sharp, snappy and frequent (with the occasional longer blather when the mood strikes) - there's a lot to be said for it. I shall try and bear this in mind when I'm back at my place.

Ah, yes. The inevitable site plug. Troubled Diva has now been relaunched, with a new domain and new a hosting provider, at:

www.troubled-diva.com

Yup: it's the old URL, with a hyphen stuck in the middle of it. Creative, huh?

If you even remotely care about such matters, then please spread the word by updating your blogrolls, bookmarks, link lists, Kinja digests and the like with the new URL.

Sasha: the place is all yours again. I'll let myself out. Key's on the mantelpiece.

*sniff*

*slam*

pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter...

London Tube Strike Chaos Shocker

I can't help thinking that the whole of central London must have a Christmas Eve/erev yomtov feel about it, with everyone rushing home before the tubes grind to a standstill.

Anthony Buckeridge R.I.P.
(posted by Mike)

obituary · interview · random excerpts: 1-2-3-4-5

As a boy, Buckeridge's Jennings & Darbyshire books were my absolute top-of-the-pile favourites. Better than Enid Blyton (with the possible exception of The Faraway Tree) - better than the C.S. Lewis Narnia books - better even than Norman Hunter's hilarious Professor Branestawm series.

Hysterically funny is an over-used term, but for once, the Jennings books were just that. Heavingly, tearfully, painfully, "if I read so much as one more sentence I might just have a Little Accident" funny.

And there were dozens of them to chomp my way through, stretched out on the shelves of the Doncaster junior library in Waterdale. Jennings & Darbyshire must have been big in Doncaster back then. Indeed, two of my classmates at prep school were snapped up by Radio 4 (our elocution mistress had Connections), performing the characters in a weekly dramatised adaptation.

(One of them has since gone on to do quite well for himself. He was quite the sensitive Am Dram Luvvie back then, you know.)

- I... I... I... Corwumph!
- Fossilised fishhooks!
- You addle-pated clodpoll!

Ee, it's a Vanishing World.
Young 'uns today. They wouldn't understand, would they?

(posted by Mike)

From Portugal: Unkempt Women: Vitriolica Webb.

Hand-illustrated blogs: they're the new rock & roll MP3 blogs, you know.

I particularly liked the Fadista (I think we saw a few of her in Lisbon a couple of months ago), and the Guide to British Tourists (starts at the top of here; continues at the bottom of here).

(posted by Mike)

...whereas by comparison, our local surgery has just moved down the road, into a brand new, purpose built, spacious, airy, cheerful building, complete with its own dedicated pharmacy next door. This morning, I was seen for my 10:15 appointment at 10:20.

Hooray for the marvellous, efficient NHS! Hooray for caring, practical New Labour and their forward-thinking health policies! Hooray for everybody! Hooray, hooray, hooray!

I think I may have done something very bad (or very good, depending on your perspective). That is all.

See, this is how I've been getting it wrong for oh so long.

Copy This Article & Win Quick Cash! Oh, another icon shot down. I always beleive these things, mug that I am.

The Cincinnati Subway System great undergroundness across the water. Eat your heart out, Subterranea Britanica.

(posted by Mike)

No, no, no, no, no.
Not Sashinkies.

Sashinkistas.

(posted by Mike)

Ah, Barcelona.

I came here expecting a bit of a doss day: quick meeting, one hour tops; write it up; get it agreed; toddle off to enjoy the sunshine and the 32 degree heat. Scarcely worth my coming over, but it would have taken forever to resolve all the issues by e-mail (they wanted it done one way; we wanted it done another).

As it turned out, the job in hand took me all day, loads of re-writes, Ah But What Ifs, Good Points, Hadn't Thought Of Thats. All conducted inside a heavy-duty industrial plant near the airport, with equally heavy-duty security (passport checks, armed guards, the works). With everyone from factory workers to office bods clad in regulation blue, I was the only person in the entire compound in suit and tie - but better to be over-dressed than inappropriately casualled, in my experience. You never can tell.

After work, a cab back to the swank hotel off the Ramblas, followed by a pleasant hour in the Placa del Bonsucces round the corner: nursing my beer, idling through the Herald Tribune, dodging the showers of frilly orange blossoms, doling out Euros and cigs to accordionists and down-and-outs, trying (and mostly failing) not to goggle too conspicuously at the endless strolling, strutting, swishing, sliding parade of loose-limbed, economically clad Glories.

Then a desultory mooch round the Modern Art museum. As ever, the building's the Star, the exhibits yawningly, unyieldingly tiresome. (Room after room of creatively typefaced, oh-so-rad Dada/Futurist pamphlets, of the sort which impressed me to hell as a wannabe avant-garde teen.)

A late night flight back in a few hours. Wonder if O-Zone will be playing in the cab again, as it was on my arrival last night. Ma-i-a hi, Ma-i-a hu... Ubiquitous summery Europop - you gotta love it, really.

It's still way too unfashionably early for dinner... but needs must. Adios, Sashinkies.

For the person who just surfed in here, looking for "how to remove calgel at home": you can't. You can pay your manicurist a hefty sum to soak them off, or you can wait till they either fall off, or grow out. Both are unattractive.

It's a cult, I tell you. If you don't pay them money, you're buggered.

Talks over Tube strike break down. Looks like my plans for tomorrow night are cancelled, then?

So for a host of reasons I've already bored you with, largely to do with technology, mailbox limits, IT departments and general hassle, I'm homeworking. Except, because I'm on the company email list I get "the sandwich lady is here" and "Fred in accounts is leaving, down the pub" type emails every day. It's odd: kinda like being chained to a desk, and a company, and kinda like I can look out on my garden. Modernity is weird.

OK, so someone at Stupid & Bumble (my building society) obviously reads my weblog, because no sooner had I posted my little rant than Helen phoned back all apologetic that the "system had eaten her notes" and yes they had agreed that, and they were sorry, and it's all fine.

See. Some things do work.