rather snappish

Ink whore

2007-01-21T20:01:00.000Z

A whole bunch of things have happened since I last posted. Most recently, i.e. since yesterday, I have more tattoos: eight to be precise. Since I never posted about the previous two inkings that means I've had seven new ones since I posted about my first. For a recap, here they all are:

Run that by me again?

2006-10-10T13:44:00.000+01:00

Erin and I were in the supermarket other day and the guy at the checkout said the greatest thing ever. I was buying some wine and when he scanned it he looked and up and said "Are you over eighteen?" I was nonplussed for a second before saying "Uh, yeah. I'm 40 in six weeks".

I know I look younger than I am - people usually take me for about ten years younger - but this was totally new. Excellent!

Nobody likes an overachiever

2006-08-07T21:30:00.000+01:00

So, yet another productive weekend at Snappish Towers. I was on call so I couldn't really go anywhere, like to the movies or into London. I spent an hour or so yesterday evening rearranging the living room so the sofa was closer to the TV - I have a 24" widescreen Sony, which isn't really big enough for the size of the room - and putting the dining table on the other side. Apart from that when I wasn't either asleep, eating or out buying season 5 of The Sopranos and a present for my baby, I spent the entire weekend watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 24 episodes - all of season one and half of season two - so you can't say I wasted my time in idle, worthless pursuits. I called Erin in Portland yesterday - we've been married five months as of yesterday - and for some reason she thinks my watching a whole pile of Buffy is the greatest thing ever. Heh, did I marry the right girl, or what?

Another wedding in the family

2006-08-06T02:22:00.000+01:00

It's 2.18am right now which makes it 9.18pm over in the US, where my mother in law is getting married right about now, on a boat somewhere in Maine. I was supposed to be there but with airfares running at over £600 to Boston at this time of year we couldn't afford for both of us to go, so only Erin is there. I'm really sorry I couldn't go. I think my mom-in-law is great and I wanted to be there with Erin, Patrick, David and Maeghan to see her get married.

So anyway, to Kim and Dave, I wish you all the happiness in the world and the best of luck.

(Is This The Way To) Alfred, NY?

2005-11-20T17:55:00.000Z

I am currently sitting in a chair in a university house in upstate New York. I arrived very late last Wednesday night in Rochester, thanks to a delay in excess of two hours on my connecting flight from Chicago to Rochester. This is the first time I've ever been to the United States. I've wanted to come here for twenty years and never got around to it. And yet here I am having booked a flight two weeks before I came, using my last five days' holiday for the year. It's amazing how quickly you get your narrow behind in gear when there's a girl involved. Funny, that. Ah, yes. The Girl. I haven't mentioned her before. She's the primary reason I have posted only once since I got back from Berlin at the beginning of September. I didn't feel I could talk about her because she reads this thing and I didn't want to jinx it.

I met Erin in London on September 9. I knew her from a German music mailing list we're both on. In late July she emailed me to say she was going to be in London in early September for a friend's wedding and the list owner had mentioned I lived fairly locally so did I feel like hanging out while she had spare time. So I met up with her at Oxford Circus and we hung out all day. She needed to buy clothes for the wedding so we did that first and then I gave her a little tour of central London on foot. I had no clue what to expect when I met her. Lots of awkward silences, probably. All I knew was she was a college student in the US, way younger than me, a German major and what she looked like. I had no idea whether we'd get along or find stuff to talk about. As it happens, we got along famously and talked all day about all kinds of everything and when she had to go she said she would be back two days later after the wedding if I wanted to hang out then. So I met her on the Sunday and we just hung out, wandered around central London, went for Chinese food in Soho, saw a movie and sat in Trafalgar Square talking for hours. It was so nice to talk to someone cool and interesting for so long and so naturally. It felt like we had known each other forever, not two days. We wandered around until about 3am and then I drove her back to her friend's flat in Islington since it was a schoolnight and I still had to get my narrow behind back to Reading. It was pretty obvious to both of us that this was the beginning of something really great.

She flew back to America the next day but she beeped me on IM when she got back and we immediately started chatting for hours on end. We missed each other pretty bad. Within a few days she called me - at 2:30am on a Sunday night when I had to be at work for eight! - and so our relationship developed rapidly on the phone as well as by IM. We talked on the phone and with ever greater frequency and length. My phone bill made interesting reading for October. There was a call of six and three quarter hours one weeknight. Just as well it's only 2p/min to call the United States. It quickly became a high priority to come see her, something she assured me she very much wanted too. We needed to confirm the chemistry we both knew was there and felt right from the start. Which of course it is. And so here I am. Friday was my birthday and I can tell you that I have never spent a better birthday than I did this year in a tiny town in upstate New York with a girl who brings to mind the line in the movie Singles: "If I had a personal conversation with God, I would ask Him to create this girl". She is everything I've always wanted.

I have to go back to England tomorrow. This is not something which fills me full of joy at the moment. But I'm going to come back in January, so it's not so bad. We can do this. The world is full of people in happy successful long distance relationships. She has a college radio show with her housemate Friday evenings. This Friday it was me and her on the show because her housemate was away in DC. Among the songs Erin cut out of her playlist for the evening was one I wanted to play for her. So since it bit the dust, here's a little snippet. I love you, honey.

Und wenn ich geh, dann geht nur ein Teil von mir
Und gehst Du, bleibt Deine Wärme hier
Und wenn ich wein, dann weint nur ein Teil von mir,
Und der andere lacht mit Dir

All roads lead to Google

2002-03-28T02:11:00.000Z

Or maybe that should be Google points to all roads. Here are some of the search terms people have entered recently, mostly in Google, to reach Rather Snappish.

a little mouse with clogs on	new jersey scum swamp
oven chicken burgers	say hello say goodbye
pvc miniskirts	pierced tit
hard drive removable racks	klagenfurt snow report
babes in fishnets	babes in miniskirts
lesbian drummer	bill bryson fucking bricks
you have the nerve to call me coloured	euphemisms swear
i saw a mouse there there on the stair	micropig and photos
cigarette virginity every game	clogs pierced

And my absolute favourite - God knows what Gwen is going to make of this:

gwendolyn porn

I can see your house from here!

2006-04-02T21:32:00.000+01:00

I chanced upon Google Local yesterday. Been having fun finding various landmarks with it. The level of detail on the satellite imagery is impressive in some areas, such as London and other places.

The hills are alive with the sound of....

2002-01-22T13:37:00.000Z

....people pissed off about the lack of snow.

I'm working in Austria this week. Villach, to be precise. It's a small town in the Alps and is, naturally, a winter sports resort too, there being seven ski slopes within half an hour of the town. In fact it's good for water-skiing too, because there are 20 lakes nearby. It's also home to one of our operating companies and requires a monitoring system rollout, hence my five-night stand here on the on-going Rather Snappish 2001/02 European Tour. There would be pictures too - I brought my shiny new digital camera - but naturally I left the USB cable at home, so they'll have to wait until the weekend.

Needless to say the office is very nice, very airy with loads of room and good facilities, as in every single European office I've been to and none of the UK offices. Why does this not surprise me? Oh yes, because the abject quality of life in Britain compared with Europe extends to the workplace, where providing an environment conducive to happy and productive workers is considered a risible luxury. Sigh.

But I digress, as usual. Some observations....

Vienna Airport

Strange how differently people view the same place. The Evil Taskmaster Mogsy thought Vienna Airport was a hole. I liked it. Nice clean building, easy to find your way around, didn't require a hike of Lyke Wake Walk proportions to get to the gate for my connexion to Klagenfurt, liked the round design. Plus there was the little al fresco bit with a few plants. And pissing rocks, too. Fantastic, just as Meg mentions here.

Taxi for Ljubljana, guv?

What a miserable git the taxi driver was. In Germany the taxi drivers will talk to you. This guy looked about as happy to get my custom as if I'd asked his daughter for a blowjob. Still, the road signs were interesting. When in Germany I'm used to seeing the occasional sign for, say, Basel, or Plzen, the first major town inside the Czech Republic when heading for Prague a year ago. This time I was treated to signs marking destinations in three different countries: Villach, Udine in northern Italy and Ljubljana which lies in Slovenia. I also saw a sign for both Italy and Germany. By which I mean Italy and Germany on the same sign. How can that be? They are in opposite directions. Like geometrically opposite. Strange. But this is one of the little things I love about being in central Europe. I love the idea that you can just decide to keep going on the same road and the next major town you hit will be in Slovenia or Italy. All you need is your passport and enough gas to get you over the border. You can just keep going through country after country until you reach the Mediterranean or Adriatic Seas. What have we we got to match that on our small island? Wales. Hard to think a better reason to stay home, really.

What do you mean, "there's no snow"?

Goddammit. It's fucking cold here. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that there's snow in an Austrian winter resort in January, but still.... I left my fleece at home. Because I am a moron, before you ask. Well, actually it's because Tasha told me there was no snow in Austria at the moment and I was stupid enough to believe her without checking for myself. What she meant was there was no snow on the ski slopes, hence the wailing and gnashing of teeth belonging to people up the mountains. That does not, however, mean there's no snow in the towns, as I discovered upon arrival. I was going to have a wander around the town centre in Villach on Sunday night but it was just too damn cold, so I went and got a pizza and some beers in a place attached to the hotel instead. I have to report that to my mild surprise, the local piss is pretty good.

Mind I could have done without the sight of a Bayer Leverkusen sticker on the beer pumps when I walked in. Leverkusen of all teams. Jesus wept. I was a bit surprised. I figured supporting German teams here would be like supporting English teams in Scotland, especially as Villach is about as far south as you can go in Austria without stepping into Italy. Especially a plastic works team with a plastic stadium, a plastic atmosphere and about two dozen real fans. Still, no accounting for taste (or lack thereof).

The Euro in my pocket

<rant>
Sunday was the first time I've used the Euro in anger. What's the big deal? Why do so many people get their panties in a bunch about it? Gee, I pay for stuff in Euros which provides a ready calculation for the cost - divide it in two thirds and you've got the Sterling price. I'm used to using German Marks which involved dividing by three. Just as simple. If we'd come to Austria two months ago when we were originally scheduled to do so, I'd have a wallet full of Austrian Schillings and I'd have had to divide everything by 23. Sounds like progress to me.

Of course I know why people get hot under the collar about it. Because the last Tory government were so mindlessly little-England and anti-European in the conduct of their government that they managed to completely subvert the real issue about joining the single currency, which is whether it's good for the UK on an economic basis. On that basis, though I am decidedly pro-Euro, I accept that Gordon Brown may be doing the right thing in exercising caution and waiting to see if makes economic sense. Instead of which the fucking Tories managed to make the whole thing a sovereignty issue - don't let those snail-eating Belgian bastards govern Britain from Brussels! - instead of an economic decision. For God's sake, grow up! Nobody's being governed from Brussels except the Belgians.

OK, the notes look a bit funny for now, but that's just unfamiliarity. It's only money. It performs that same function. What the F.U.C.K. does it matter whether it's got the Queen's boat race on the freaking notes, for Christ's sake, or an etching of some bridge in Italy? No one even respects the bloody monarchy any more! What's so precious about the pound? What matters is the country's ability to compete on a level economic playing field which soon or later it won't with a minority currency. And anything which helps to highlight how much more than the going rate anywhere else in Europe we have to pay for every damn thing we spend money on in this country is extremely welcome. I am sick to the back teeth of being embarrassed to be British every time I set foot on mainland Europe because I come from a country which persists with the risible fiction that we know so much better than everyone how to do everything and that we have nothing to learn from the rest of Europe. The standard of living in the UK is crap compared with France, Austria, Holland and particularly Germany. It wouldn't be if we pulled out heads out of our arses and joined the rest of the world instead of maintaing this idiotic and self-defeating isolationism. Jesus.
</rant>

The hills are alive with the sound of....

2002-01-22T13:37:00.000Z

....people pissed off about the lack of snow.

But I digress, as usual. Some observations....

Vienna Airport

Taxi for Ljubljana, guv?

What do you mean, "there's no snow"?

The Euro in my pocket

OK, the notes look a bit funny for now, but that's just unfamiliarity. It's only money. It performs that same function. What the F.U.C.K. does it matter whether it's got the Queen's boat race on the freaking notes, for Christ's sake, or an etching of some bridge in Italy? No one even respects the bloody monarchy any more! What's so precious about the pound? What matters is the country's ability to compete on a level economic playing field which soon or later it won't with a minority currency. And anything which helps to highlight how much more than the going rate anywhere else in Europe we have to pay for every damn thing we spend money on in this country is extremely welcome. I am sick to the back teeth of being embarrassed to be British every time I set foot on mainland Europe because I come from a country which persiste with the risible fiction that we know so much better than everyone how to do everything and that we have nothing to learn from the rest of Europe. The standard of living in the UK is crap compared with France, Austria, Holland and particularly Germany. It wouldn't be if we pulled out heads out of our arses and joined the rest of the world instead of maintaing this idiotic and self-defeating isolationism. Jesus.
</rant>

Mogsy spricht Deutsch!

2002-01-22T16:12:00.000Z

The Evil Taskmaster Mogsy has just learned another German word. He just asked me the meaning of "genau", a word he heard Gerald, the network manager here, saying on the phone. His curiousity was piqued because apparently, Miriam, our hyper-efficient, hyper-helpful, hyper-nice PA, says it all the time too. It means "exactly", as I'm sure you were dying to know. This level of fluency in a managerial type is quite impressive. That means he now knows two German words. The other is "Quittung" (pronounced "Kvittung"). It means "receipt", which we all know is the most important word in a manager's vocabulary, no matter what the language is.

Shallow end of the gene pool

2005-06-06T14:04:00.000+01:00

You know how sometimes when you get on a plane, you get to your seat, clap eyes on the incumbent next to you and think "Oh, for fuck's sake. I do not want to be stuck next to that for the next [x] minutes/hours"? Something which, in my experience, almost invariably occurs when the plane is full, thus precluding you from seeking alternate accommodation.

On Saturday evening I boarded my flight to Heathrow at Frankfurt and found my travelling companion was a shell-suited Geordie in a Glasgow Rangers shirt with a Newcastle United baseball cap glued to his skull. Excellent. Three forms of life I least like all rolled into one. Naturally, as if this came as any surprise, this guy turned out to be a moron. Listen, Geordie, even in Newcastle the superlative of "boring" is "most boring", not "most borin'est".

More airmiles!

2006-03-20T13:11:00.000Z

Yay! I'm going to see my baby again. No - better still, I'm going to see my wife! Man, I love that I get to say that :-)

*Does a little dance*

London Heathrow (LHR) To Chicago O'Hare International (ORD)
Airline: UNITED AIRLINES (UA)
Flight Number: UA 929
Departing: 08:00 Thu 20 Apr 2006
Arriving 10:30 Thu 20 Apr 2006
Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) To Rochester (ROC)
Airline: UNITED AIRLINES (UA)
Flight Number: UA 472
Departing: 13:10 Thu 20 Apr 2006
Arriving 15:53 Thu 20 Apr 2006

Rochester (ROC) To Washington Dulles International Apt (IAD)
Airline: UNITED AIRLINES (UA)
Flight Number: UA 7137
Departing: 14:36 Mon 24 Apr 2006
Arriving 15:59 Mon 24 Apr 2006
Washington Dulles International Apt (IAD) To London Heathrow Apt (LHR)
Airline: UNITED AIRLINES (UA)
Flight Number: UA 918
Departing: 17:58 Mon 24 Apr 2006
Arriving 06:20 Tue 25 Apr 2006

So, what did you get up to last week?

2006-03-14T23:06:00.000Z

Once again I find myself apologising for my abject lack of posting. This time I've been quiet almost three months. Part of it is I haven't really had a lot to post about. Well, that's really not true - I could have posted quite a lot about Erin. The real reason is that so much of my spare time not spent sleeping has been occupied with Erin: time spent with her, talking with her on the phone or chatting on IM. So I've had precious little else to talk about other than Erin and I thought I would keep quiet.

That said, I should probably have mentioned that she was here for two weeks at the beginning of the year. She arrived December 30 and we spent New Year together, went up to my parents for a couple of days, during which time she saw York and witnessed her first ever football match (at Newcastle - she claimed to be bad luck when Boro gave away an undeserved 94th minute equaliser, until I pointed out that the last time I saw us get anything there was Boxing Day 1991). Overall it was a great relaxed time, it felt very natural her being here, we are extremely well-suited and it was very hard leaving her at Heathrow on January 14, although a bit easier knowing that I was going to Portland the first full week of March.

It didn't take long before we both came to the conclusion that we wanted more than a standard long-distance relationship. However we couldn't make any plans until we knew the outcome of her application to go and teach English in Japan for a year from the summer. The interview for that did not work out, so we figured we'd think about the summer, or late May to be more accurate.

But we got impatient....

And thanks to the relaxed and civilised requirements for a marriage licence in the State of Maine (photo ID and thirty Yankee dollars) it's possible to bring forward your plans without fuss or warning.

Yes. We got married.

I will save the details for a subsequent post, so without further ado, I present a few pictures from our weddding day, March 6, 2006, of myself and my beautiful bride.

We will kiss goodnight under a starlit sky

2005-12-19T01:39:00.000Z

Like everyone, I imagine, I have favourite songs. Songs which are meaningful to me for all kinds of reasons; because they remind me of times or places or events. Some songs of course remind you of people. The songs which mean most to people I think are generally those which remind you of the person you love. I'm no exception. There are songs which remind me of my ex and songs which remind me of other girlfriends. And of course there are now songs which make me think of Erin.

In many cases such songs are simple declarations of adoration or longing or loss into which people often read whatever they wish. Dido's song "Don't Leave Home" is an excellent example of this. People commonly miss the point entirely and play it at their weddings, oblivious to the fact that the subject matter is actually drug addiction. The song which makes me think of Erin, "Hollow As A Bone" by the Cowboy Junkies, feels very different to me from most songs which make you think of a person because it's rare for a song both to put into words, save for one line, exactly what you're feeling and to express well a quite adult and complex feeling, that of being smitten with something so that you feel the need grasp it very tightly lest it slip away.

He could not help but hang his eyes
Her beauty held him so
If this was not a state of grace
Then grace he'd never know
I want to yell farewell from a crowded pier
Just me and a thousand goodbyes
The tears will be bittersweet
'cause soon she'll be back my side

If I lost you now
I would feel as hollow as a bone.

Merry Christmas!

2005-12-24T21:41:00.000Z

Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,
Alles schläft, einsam wacht
Nur das traute, hochheilige Paar,
Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh'!
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh'!

— Franz X. Gruber, December 24, 1818

I am the one in ten

2005-12-16T10:01:00.000Z

It was our company Christmas party last night. I have no tales of predictable debauchery to share, not least because I did a runner at 11pm. I'd had enough to drink and I had to be compos mentis this morning to run a training session. I was there long to witness two of the sales guys occupying the dancefloor for a few minutes in a rather impressive American Wedding-style dance-off. This cavorting brought to mind the statistic our CEO quoted at the end of the year-end company presentation that afternoon.

He said he had been reading an article in a management magazine which among other things claimed that 10% of employees have had sex in the office. He commented with a grin that as we now have 70 staff this had caused him and our CFO to wonder which were the seven among us. All of us, including of the dancing salesman who went a curious shade of red because everyone was staring at him, had a good giggle at how preposterous this idea was. Later, though, it did occur to me that, umm, I am actually one of the seven... ;-)

Knight in shining armour

2005-12-17T00:49:00.000Z

The thing I love most about the Internet is the opportunities it affords for communication with people you would otherwise never have the chance to meet, to get help and give help. Here's a trivial, but in my opinion, excellent example. This afternoon, thanks to the Internet, I helped someone three and a half thousand miles away find her mobile phone.

I was chatting on MSN Messenger with the fabulous Michelle, Erin's friend from college in Alfred, NY, when she asked me for a favour. She couldn't remember where she had put her mobile phone so she asked if I would call it so she could hear it ring and locate it. A simple thing, right? Everyone's probably called their mobile at some time or other to try and find it. But in this case tricky because Michelle doesn't have a landline. No problem - just use the Internet to get someone on another continent to call it instead. Simple!

Ol' Big Nose puts it rather well

2005-12-07T01:42:00.000Z

On Monday I wished it was Tuesday night
So I could wish for the weekend to come
On Tuesday I wished that the night would pass
So I could call you on the phone
Now a man can spend a lot of time
Wondering what was on Jack Ruby's mind
And time is all I have without you here

From one of my all-time favourite albums. Aye, cheers Bill. God, I miss that girl.

Online ordering is great

2005-12-02T09:53:00.000Z

You can't beat shopping on the Internet. I love buying books, DVDs, CDs etc without ever getting out of bed. Except...... when someone cocks up the order. I've had a book called Easier Fatherland, about life in 21st Century Germany, on order for a few weeks. Got an envelope from my friends at play.com this morning. I thought, that looks suspiciously thin. This was because it contained Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures volume 1 instead. Cute, but of no interest to me. Sigh.

Arriving on a jet plane

2005-11-30T01:09:00.000Z

Part of me cannot quite believe I got to buy a wonderful girl a transatlantic plane ticket tonight. Part of me cannot quite believe she wants to come here to see me. Part of me cannot quite believe she really likes me. Part of me cannot quite believe any of this has happened. The rest of me just accepts it. All of me cannot wait for her to be here; to meet her at the airport, to hold her, to hug her, most of all to kiss those beautiful lips.

Oh I am what I am,
I'll do what I want, but I can't hide
I won't go, I won't sleep,
I can't breathe, until you're resting here with me
I won't leave, I can't hide,
I cannot be, until you're resting here with me

- Dido, "Here With Me"

All kinds of everything remind me of you

2005-11-23T00:24:00.000Z

Rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated

2005-10-18T01:55:00.000+01:00

So, where in the blue fuck have you been these last two months, Bubba?

You might very well ask. Well, first of all I went to Berlin for two weeks which was fantastic. Then I came back all refreshed and ready to roll and found myself enduring a nightmare September at work. In between there's been some very cool stuff and some not so cool stuff. It's been a really surreal few weeks since the middle of August. Currently my shit is all apart, as Henry Rollins would say. When it's together again, I'll tell you about it. Soon, I promise. In the meantime, here's a pretty picture of the Brandenburg Gate, icon of Berlin.

Beware of the gators on the greens

2005-08-16T01:26:00.000+01:00

My very good friend Princess Gwendolyn of Bennington lives in southern Florida, land of eternal sunshine (certainly when compared with the frequently dispiriting weather for which England is rightfully famous). I'm not sure she likes living there all that much, judging by her complaints about the hostility of people there and her longing for the relative dramatic changing of seasons encountered in places at latitudes with more temperate climates. At least I sometimes think that to a certain extent, as many of us do who live in the places we do more by accident than design, she sometimes doesn't notice the attractions of such a location.

This idea struck me some years ago when I was reading Notes From A Small Island, Bill Bryson's account of a farewell trip he made around Britain before he moved his family to New England after living in Yorkshire for many years. One of the things which leapt out at me from the pages of this book, apart from the obvious affection he had for this curious little rock off the north-western corner of continental Europe and its curious people, was that for all the complaining we do here about everything in sight (and complaining is almost a national sport here; at least it's something we excel at) was that it took a foreigner - in this case an American - to point out to us Brits that this island is blessed both with a bewildering variety of landscapes, some bleak, some beautiful, and with a people civilised and tolerant, welcoming and polite. It gave me a whole new appreciation for this sometimes beknighted isle.

This notion of not seeing what is before your eyes occurred to me once again last week, which brings me back to Florida. I'm currently reading The Orchid Thief, Susan Orlean's fascinating book about the strange and obsessive collectors of these beguiling plants. Early in the book she launches into an opulently phrased description of the manifold contradictions and polar opposites to be found at every turn in Florida which made me think of Gwen and her resident's-eye view of the state and made me wonder if she would have the same reaction as I did upon reading Notes From A Small Island. Perhaps she will, perhaps she won't.

Notes from a small island of tranquillity...

2004-08-27T17:09:00.000+01:00

... which is what my desk is today seeing as our mail server is, as we techies say, fucked.

So, the UEFA Cup draw was made for the first round earlier today. Boro got Baník Ostrava at home. I'm not thrilled about this. We could have had LB Châteauroux (France), AZ Alkmaar (Netherlands), IF Elfsborg (Sweden) or FH Hafnarfjördur (Iceland). Personally I fancied the last. A trip to Iceland would have been very interesting. Still, the Czech Republic is cool, even if Ostrava is a long way east of Prague, and I always swore if we ever got into Europe I'd go anywhere we played, except Turkey. Baník lost 7-1 on aggregate to Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League 3rd qualifying round and I would expect us to compete well against Leverkusen so there is plenty of cause for optimism, especially after Tuesday's highly efficient and professional dismissal of Fulham's feeble challenge.

I must say that Firefox just pulled a very interesting stunt indeed. I was trying to view an interactive map of Mannheim with a view to finding a place to stay near the Maimarkthalle in a couple of weeks when the Java applet clearly died. So I killed the tab the site was in and then found that when I went to another tab when I typed the URL in it went in backwards, i.e. ku.oc.563llabtoof.www. Which is, to say the least, odd. Other windows weren't affected so I assume this was Firefox. Dunno if it would have worked, though. That looked like a good moment to give the machine a three-fingered salute and start over. Still, curious indeed.

Goodbye to the information goat path

2001-08-23T03:11:00.000+01:00

So finally, finally, after six years of dialup hell - especially recently, when BT's initially great Anytime service has been next to useless, due to inability to connect remotely reguarly - the broadband revolution has reached my little corner of Oxfordshire, thanks to the fine folks at NTL. I now have a 512Kbps cable modem connexion and boy am I pleased with it. I've gone from 48Kbps on an analogue modem and downloading stuff at 3.8KB/s if I was lucky to getting the full Windows 2000 Service Pack 2, all 101MB of it, in about 25 minutes, at over 67KB/s. Bit of an improvement there. I got an mp3 off the Guitarist magazine web site last night at 85KB/s. I'm sure that shouldn't be possible. But I'm not complaining.