Occulomency

Ah. Gunpowder.....

I like blowing stuff up.

Geoffrey Perkins

Geoffrey Perkins, the man probably most responsible for my warped sense of humour, has died after being hit by a flat-bed truck in London.

He wasn't terribly well know, but his legacy is profound and terribly long.

I first came across him, along with Angus Deayton on Radio Active, the Radio 4 comedy show if the eighties. He created Mornington Crescent, produced the Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, Father Ted, Spitting Image, Saturday Night Live and Friday Night Live, The Harry Enfield Television Programme, Ben Elton - The Man From Auntie, The Fast Show, Happiness, My Hero, 2 Pints of Lager, My Family, Coupling, and Big Train.

I remember him most fondly as Mike Flex, the young DJ who was steadily ruining Mike Channel's (Deayton) life. Episode one of series three contains the Euroquiz, it's worth a listen.

The Mark of Genius

Lest I forget Jacques' Neapolitan period.

Promotion

Three notables on this photo. Second from the left is my paternal grandfather, Jack Levey. Middle, Brian Clough. Second from right Stuart Dryden, post-master extrodinaire.

I went, with Max & Chris, to see Forest play Yeovil at the City Ground on Saturday. Forest needed to win and needed Doncaster to lose to Cheltenham in order to gain automatic promotion to the Championship (2nd Division in old money).

Forest won 3-2. Doncaster lost 2-1.

I've never seen 28,500 people go so nuts en-masse before. It was an incredible atmosphere. Probably one of the best games to watch, just for the atmosphere in the ground, that I remember. I will be going a bit more frequently next season.

Really happy for Forest, it's a long way from the glory days of the late 70s and 80s, but it felt as good as the time we won the European Cup in it's own way.

Anyway, thanks must go to Nigel Doughty, the chairman who has pumped more than £40m into Forest.

York, so good they named it once.

Now I'm trapped in York....

Please release me, let me go.......

Eye of the Tiger.

We did survive, so don't worry. I understand that Market Rasen has been left a flat featureless expanse of bugger all, so no change there.

Surviving this life-changing experience has made me re-evaluate my life, and I have come to a couple of conclusions. Firstly, I am amazed that some vegetablist, plastic shoe wearing hippy type hasn't tried to link this to global warming, although there is still time.

Secondly, I think that we can be proud of this earthquake as a nation. Britain has an area of about 80,000 square miles, whilst California has an area of 160,000 square miles. So if the earthquake last night scored 5.3 on the old richter scale in the UK, it would have scored 10.6 if we were the same size as the Yank's quake hotspot. Bearing in mind that the California quake of 1906 was only an 8.0, taking area into account, we've won (technically).

So, time to start chanting one - nil towards the west.

No sign of my car being repaired yet (sniff). Still a bit worried about job security, and the Prof has gone down with Bird 'flu. Fortunately I found some medicine in Tescos which hopefully will do the trick.

I'm mixing small amounts in with her lentils......

Pretty Things

This new camera of ours, mainly thanks to the advice of Richard and his lens expertise, is truly wondrous.

Even makes Hucknall look pretty don't it?

Anyways... we have put a low offer in on a cottage in a small village, but the cottage needs some work to make it habitable. It's been rejected, but I reckon they might be back. the housing quandary continues as there is a better house in a less desirable location.... Who knows? Not us that's for sure.

Zoom zoom.......

Got one! Pick it up in a week. The Prof got a very nice Focus in blue as well. So the name the car game begins.

Previous names, as requested by Beevers have included:

Bob the Renault 5,

Mike the Renault 4 (caught fire outside the  Isreali embassy in Dublin and nearly got me shot).

Fast Eddie the Peugeot 205GTi.

Elvis the 200SX.

Son of Eddie the Peugeot 206GTi.

Horseradish Vindaloo

House hunting continues apace. So far, all the nice ones have turned out to be sold just prior to us actually looking at them, which is a tiny little bit frustrating. Anyway, more houses to look at today.

Haven't got round to actually looking for a job yet, but I'm sure that'll happen once we (and more importantly the kids) are sleeping properly. Hmmm.

Early days I suppose, only been here for two full days, so we've done alright so far. Going to take Ali G to a steam engine museum on Saturday or Sunday. He'll go nuts.

Lots of folk have visited my geocache in Brisbane Forest park, which is nice, and my travel bug is on the way to see me. And Psuedo-geek, you know the answer......

House keeping

It's happy prof-wife birthday!

We are going to a party tonight. I'll post piccys tomorrow.

So, it looks like we've sold the house, I've resigned from my job, the Prof has resigned from hers and we are only three weeks from our triumphant return to blighty.

This is a busy time, as you can imagine, and I've not mentioned it in this forum before, so to those who didn't know... Surprise!

Oh, and by the way.... Woot! I've just finished upgrading to Vista, and I've finally got it:

A) Stable
B) To recognose my old iTunes playlists
C) To stop bugging me about stuff I already know.

The experience has been less of "the wow starts now" and more of "why the frak are you provoking me when I'm already stressed enough and I'm likely to kill"

Anyway, it's quite nice and very pretty, thank you very much.

I'm also fairly sure that I forgot Cam's birthday, or that it is actually today. Anyway, happy birthday for some time around now.

Everyone needs to get Battlestar Galactica (the new version) good, good TV.