A Minor Change
You'd have to be pretty eagle-eyed to spot it, but I've taken out the 'Photo of....' link over on the left - the sad truth is that I'm just never out and about enough with the camera to keep it regularly refreshed. Maybe if I ever get round to the redesign I keep talking about I can find a way to incorporate it.
Fog
The world outside my window is quite remarkable just at the moment. I can see two street lights, and literally nothing else through the serious fog out there. I don't remember ever seeing it so thick - it's the kind that if the window was open you can imagine it visibly creeping into the room. It's Bleak House-type fog, is what it is.
MP Performance
I notice that FaxYourMP.com have published league tables of MP response rates for the period April to September this year. How well did yours do?
That’s Entertainment?
In the other TV voting situation last night, I gather Goldie was evicted from the Celebrity Big Brother house, which doesn't really surprise me, as the odds bits of it I've seen suggested that he was a bit too hyperactive - I can see a lot of people being glad to see things a bit less frantic, especially the celebs, who seemed to be getting a little worn out by his constant need to get them all doing something.
Elsewhere, while I'm doing a round up of enteratinment-related stuff, I also noticed that The Mousetrap celebrates the fiftieth year of its continuous run tonight. I've seen it twice, and while it's okay, and not unduly taxing, its longevity seems eternally surprising.
And Steve Spielberg is going to make a live-action Tintin movie.
Depends How You Define ‘Great’
Watching the latter half of the Great Britons Debate last night (shambolic as it was), nevertheless demonstrated that on at least some levels, the thing did exactly what it was supposed to do, which is provoke debate. Three of us watched together, and our respective loyalties shifted, we argued with each other as to the relative merits of the contenders, and incredibly, we were swayed by (some of) the debaters.
Observations: Alan Davies looked woefully out-of-place defending John Lennon, who in turn looked out of place on that Top Ten list anyway, though I won't make the mistake of resorting to the arrogant attitude the man defending Newton adopted and that Rosie Boycott demolished so well - everyone was on the list because of the public vote at the end of the day.
Jeremy Clarkson's programme on Brunel was excellent TV - he was passionate, articulate, and knowledgeable on the subject. Pity he's turned into such a thug about the whole thing ever since.
AA Gill, standing in (I'm not sure why) for Fiona Shaw, who had originally presented the case for Shakespeare, stood out as far the best debater in the bunch (not saying a huge amount, but considering there were an MP and a former MP in the group, a bit worrying). He was also the sharpest and wittiest, though Andrew Marr ran him a close second.
So - Churchill then? Well, he wouldn't have been my choice (in the end I was wavering between Newton, Darwin, and Shakespeare), but of the final three I suppose he was the logical choice.
Been Away, Almost Back
I've been trying to catch up on a bunch of things today that have been set aside during to madness of the last week. (While also trying to catch up on some sleep....) One of the things I haven't had a chance to do is get caught up on a reading of the various blogs I usually visit, so if I've missed any events of great import in anyone's life, I apologise profusely, and promise that I'll be stopping by for a catch-up as soon as possible.
Back On Track?
Well, today was possibly the first in over a week where pretty much exactly what was supposed to happen happened. We'd planned weeks ago to have a pre-Christmas shopping trip, and even though Chris still wasn't well enough to go, (I did say 'pretty much' what was supposed to happen), he did want Dolly and I not to miss out. So we ferried to Calais, bought wine, cheese, other bits and pieces, ate a meal, and came back.
Now I'm back in the flat with a large Jamieson's beside me, feeling the need to watch something mindless (hello Celebrity Big Brother), before heading off to bed. And even my bed holds particular promise tonight, as tomorrow is the first morning in a good long while when I won't be woken up by The Fattest Cat In Christendom(tm) jumping on my chest wanting to be fed. Yes, in what would probably have been a highly entertaining exercise to watch, but a slightly painful one to experience, I shifted Dillon over to Chris's new flat yesterday. In traditional manner, it took her less than five minutes to be entirely at home and crashed out on the living room floor.
Unrelatedly, when I first turned on Big Brother on a few minutes ago, I caught them midway through a 'pick a random question and discuss it' game, and the question I came in on was "Is it possible to be in love with two people at the same time?" Which triggered a major flashback for me, as I was asked this very question myself by my first partner, seventeen years ago this month. But by some uncanny instinct, I immediately knew that I wasn't being asked something so much as I was being told it....
What A Crappy Week
It's been a really bad week, one way and another.
Apart from the all-night hospital stint on Sunday, hospital visiting has meant that I've spent an annoying chunk of each evening stuck in rush hour traffic (in the rain), and although obviously it couldn't be helped, had to miss seeing both the new Harry Potter film and What The Night Is For. On top of which I've been about as insomniac as I've ever been, and because of matters outside our control, we've had no end of technical issues to deal with at work. It's been one of those where a 'Do Over' button would be really useful.
Service Interruption
Many apologies, but the site was down for a few hours late morning/early afternoon today while some server movement was going on - I know from Mike that at least a couple of comments were lost as a result, so I'm sorry if anyone else was affected. Hopefully normal service is now resumed.
Two From The Archives
Chris has a space on his site to show the postings which have been most recently commented on, and which is a very useful tool for spotting when a posting from a long time ago has suddenly been discovered and returned to life - his "Will Young wins Pop Idol" posting, for instance, is now up to 83 comments, the first of which was posted in February, the most recent of which went up last week. When I finally get round to the redesign that's been on my mind, I'm thinking of implementing something similar to highlight occasional similar occurences.
Like today, I noticed that suddenly a posting from May this year had received a comment. Not a particularly nice one, but then, 'Damion' doesn't strike me as a particularly nice person.
On a better note, one of last months postings, about the comics documentary Sex, Lies and Superheroes has managed to attract two comments from people actually involved in the production, which is pretty cool.