Am currently in Plymouth with my d.ear chum Kat,. and. we’re meant to be working. on our NaNoWriMo novels. – s.he’s. up to about 37000 words. already………………………. whereas. I’m on about 2000 – only a few words. s.hort,. it s.eems………..
However so.me of the more as.tute of youl will have noticed. the so.mewhat unorthodo.x punctuation that appears. in this. pos.t alread.y – for reas.ons. known only to its.elf,. my ag.ing. Tos.hitba laptop has. elected. to mete out further sp.ite upon me by rand.omly ins.erting. full s.tops. into my text as. I …

Spiders and I have a bit of a non-agression pact going currently.  It wasn’t always this way, but then in Australia they’re usually going into the argument a little better equipped.
It started when I was about 8 or 9, and Dad made us a sort of cubby house in the back yard which was essentially a wooden motorcycle crate with 4 corner posts to raise it off the ground, and then we lined the underside with cardboard-box walls to create the requisite fortress.  The trouble was, being outdoors and next …

A bloke just walked into the office and asked if he could check our airconditioning after lunch.
Now, last time anyone futzed around with our aircon (“cleaning it”, I think was the term they used) it stopped working for about 4 weeks.  It wasn’t all that long ago either, really.
General consensus in here is therefore that systematically breaking, then repairing, the air conditioning unit in our office is some sort of modern day indoor equivalent of the Keynesian cornerstone theory of stimulating the economy by paying people to dig holes in …

A new coffee vendor has opened up around the corner from the office.  In light of the fact that Mystery Sandwich Girl has now been verified as an utterly unsuitable pursuit (she smokes, doesn’t drink, and she obsessively enjoys Dan Brown novels), and also in light of the fact that their coffee was rubbish anyway, it seemed reasonable to give the new mob a try.

The first hurdle to overcome was natural cynicism: why the cart?  Were they trying to get on board with this whole “quirky, independent coffee retailer” thing, …

Another absolutely excellent weekend judders past and highlights how much fun it’s possible to have if you really put your mind to it.
Friday night I went to The Bloomsbury Theatre to see a standup gig from Al Madrigal and Janeane Garofalo.  Both were in excellent form, however the crowd was really fired up for Garofalo, and there was a general air of disappointment when she got to the end of her allotted time and had to leave the stage – we all wanted more, and she had plenty more to …

That’s a bad Beatles paraphrase.  Seemed relevant to mention The Beatles at the minute, seeing as everyone else is.  As I understand it the hype’s been whipped up surrounding the release of 2 “new” products: the Beatles Rock Band console game, and a remastered £180 14-album CD box set.  Not owning a games console (or for that matter, a working TV) it’s a little hard to get too geared up for the former.  Regarding the latter, however…
Maybe it was George Lucas who ruined the term “digitally remastered” for me with …

Does anyone know what it is that makes a good pint of Guinness?
I guess it isn’t difficult to assess a bad pint, but what categorically puts a good one over a mediocre or even average one?
The question’s prompted mainly by my meeting in Dublin on Wednesday – in the cab to the airport my distinguished cow-orker said to the cab driver “There’s nowhere at the airport you can get a good pint of Guinness, is there? Can you drop us somewhere near the airport which does a good pint?” (thereby …

Office airconditioner’s knackered.  Ordinarily I’m not one to be worried about such things (unlike some of my co-workers, who regard 16 degrees as “a heatwave”), however it’s presently got 2 particularly useless options.  You can either get it to dispense warm air, or it’ll put out hot air.
We rang the building maintenance people last week about it, and received the entirely unhelpful response: “Yes, we know about that – everyone on that floor’s got the same issue, so rest assured it’s not just you.  We’ve got engineers working on it …

OK so one of the joys of living in Camden (and indeed in London) is that there’s plenty of tramps about, and occasionally they’ll leave bits & pieces about the place.  Found this lot out on our doorstep this morning.

Looks like a nice night – couple of cans of Kronenbourg and an Onken mousse…  Kroneys aren’t as strong as Carlsberg Special Brew, so it won’t have completely overpowered the light & subtle taste of the mousse.  Looks like they’ve hooked into a packet of menthol fags, for the post-dinner treat.  …

Following on from the book list @Mooley made me make the other day, I thought I’d step out into further territory of subjectivity and cliche, and make the obligatory list of my 10 favourite films.  So here we go.
It’s worth mentioning at this point that the exercise wasn’t so much trying to work out what to put in, as much as what to leave out…

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off — this is an absolute no-brainer, and really I wondered if this still qualifies as a film: it’s more of a set …