Had another great weekend (the last one away for a little while) with my mates Rich and Soneva in Newcastle-Under-Lyme. Rich has just taken that remarkable leap and bought a house. And what a nice pad it was too. The kitchen is big enough to cook, eat and dance about in (all three are just about possible at the same time) and the lounge is big enough to house a host of the most comfy and luxurious, black leather chairs you’ve ever seen. I even got my room with an emperor sized double bed. I was impressed.

Saturday’s rain defeated our attempts to go to the intriguing sounding Monkey Forest and bowling was booked up so we went to the movies and saw “V for Vendetta” which I quite liked and I now really want to read the original comic (or should that be ‘graphic novel’). I’d deliberately kept my expectations low as I’d heard it was being directed by the 1st AD from the Matrix movies and had been fraught with problems but it was quite exciting stuff with CGI explosions that actually meant something and a shaven Natalie Portman (no, not like that). A thoroughly glorious weekend and a long overdue visit but then often the best visits are!

Did a bit of public service yesterday in quashing someone’s poor attempts at hilarity or scaremongering. The warning about an ‘Invitation’ virus has been rehashed so that you now ought to be on your guard lest you receive an Olympic Torch forward from one of your friends. The person who had sent it to my mum’s boss obviously hadn’t checked it out first before sending it to everyone in their address book. A quick check on the major news sites, McAfee and then a trip to trusty ol’ Snopes reveals that they were had by a hoaxer and not even a new one as the same gag has been around since 2000. I then felt obliged to write to everyone on the forward and put them straight.

What I don’t understand is how the source of this kind of trick gets anything out of stunts like this? Is it just designed to ‘shake things up a bit’ in a sad display of frustrated angst or do they genuinely believe it’s funny? Twats.

This morning’s job-hunting yielded some rather intimidating vacancies amid the Grauniad’s arts and heritage section. Anyone reckon they could become “Keeper of Asia”? I assume you get deputies to help you, as the job must cover a lot. The other daunting position was that of “Director of Public Understanding” which sounds impossibly difficult and probably quite thankless. I think I’d prefer the former but then decided that at this point any job will do. This gave me the idea of putting my morning’s questing to music using the tune from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s (spit) “Any Dream Will Do” with more of a vocational theme. Then I decided that would just be silly.

Hatch: Congratulations to my cousin Christopher and his wife Elizabeth on the new arrival of their bonny, bouncing baby boy, Hamish. Born on Monday 6th at University College Hospital, London and weighing in at 8 pounds and 1 ounce he looks to be on fine form. Great stuff.

Popped to Brum on Wednesday night for Miriam’s leaving drinks. Miriam has been on Doctors a lot longer than I had been and being frustrated with the lack of opportunities to move up she’s taken the decision cut loose and have a well deserved break. The evening was partly about remembering the good times and making it clear that everyone would miss her but also about celebrating the next phase of her career, and indeed life, now that the world of Letherbridge (the fictional Midlands town that the GP’s inhabit - it’s all on the website) is behind her. It was a bit like a New Orleans street funeral where people are sad and sombre and then explode into wild and euphoric dancing. There was drinking, and then there was more drinking. And then there was karaoke. I had actually got the courage up to sing but the song I had chosen wouldn’t play. Which at the time, seemed a shame but the next morning had a been a cause for rejoicing.

On the way to Selly Park from the city centre I was awestruck as we drove past Pebble Mill…

Or at least, where Pebble Mill had been. This mammoth (albeit profoundly ugly) building had stood for about 33 years and now it was reduced to a few modest banks of rubble, waiting the developers who are soon to move in and begin work on the science park that will eventually appear in its place. I can remember that anyone new to Pebble Mill always got an overwhelming sense of the history of the place. The BBC in Birmingham had facilitated a vast host of great programmes of every genre that helped to reflect the midlands and give programme makers a way of showing viewers that not everyone in BBC in England was London-centric and that people in the regions could have there own voice and, to some extent, identity in the same way that people in Cardiff, Glasgow and Belfast had enjoyed. I had only worked there for a few years before it was closed but I still remember being impressed by the many pictures that adorned the walls including Warren Clarke in Dalziel and Pascoe, Richard E. Grant in The Scarlet Pimpernell, Pete Postlethwaite in Martin Chuzzlewitt and of course the assembled casts of Doctors and The Archers, and that was just the drama. I’ve yet to visit the guys in the new Drama Village in Selly Oak and it really does sound comfortable and well designed but won’t ever be as remarkable in the way that Pebble Mill was. And it probably struggles to double for an ancient and neglected hospital exterior. But anyway, enough of all this moping - best of luck Miriam! Enjoy Palm Springs and enjoy the future!

Ah Bristol, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways… This weekend was another resounding success. Despite the struggle to actually get to the place - about three and half hours going through Hereford and Newport; contending with the hoards of Welsh fans off down to cheer Wales against France at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff and the bitterly harsh winds on Saturday (not to mention the fascist ticket inspector that frequents the Hereford to Birmingham line) - I got there eventually. Rocking up to Number 8 I found that everyone was still asleep or in no state to emerge from their respective pits. The door was finally answered by a random. I introduced myself and stepped inside whereupon I encountered at least three more randoms. These strangers then proceeded to explain how they infact lived there now. It seems the change I believed the house to have undergone had been somewhat understated and these FNGs were not squatters but the new residents. And what lovely people there all were. Max and Rob have clearly landed on their feet and hustled themselves some very friendly and wholly charming new housemates in the shape of Jenny, Becky, Si and Annette. The apathy and quiet resentment that had been allowed to ferment in the house before had been replaced by something more positive and akin to mutual respect. It was a real breath of fresh air. It transpired that the reason everyone was feeling under the weather had been to do the previous night’s drinking session that had ended at four am and had comprised of the whole house apparently (apparently they had been in an establishment I know only too well called Sloanes). My Friday night had been somewhat more restrained in comparison but I did my best to enthuse about the solitary Guinness I’d enjoyed before dinner.

Rob was just about capable of sitting upright and talking (sometimes both at the same time) so we chilled out that afternoon. We then all got ready to go and out and er, went out. We stopped off in the Cotham Hill which had shed the “Cotham” part of its title and was now just known rather ominously as The Hill. Then we paid a visit to the Roo Bar which is an amusing Australian (no, really) Bar that has been installed in what was part of the Clifton Down railway station buildings. Feeling suitably brave enough to venture down to The Triangle we made a move and ended up in a bar called Mbargo which surely had the most pleasant bouncers anywhere on The Triangle (in that they didn’t refuse us entry and try and to break our arms) and got on with the serious business of having a good time. I think I must have blinked at around three because I suddenly found myself back at Number 8 with everyone who was from the house and everyone who wasn’t. The tunes were on and people looked as they still had a lot of energy in them so we sat around, smoked, drank and did a lot of laughing (not least when Max decided he wanted to do nothing more than climb into Jenny’s pink dressing gown and rampage around the house unloading a fire extinguisher at stuff). What a classic flourish! I think I got to bed (in what had been Shannon’s ridiculously small room) at about eight which was a good result for me. Since one wall of the room comprises of an entire window and is east-facing I was awake shortly afterwards wondering where I was, who I was, what year it was and who the president was. I then stumbled around trying to make sense of everything and generally feeling sorry for myself as one does in these situations. I could only now empathise with how everyone had been feeling the day before; except they were almost certainly feeling worse having been wrecked the night before and the night before that. And the night before that. This seems to happen to people in Bristol - it almost makes no sense to not do a lot of drinking. The place seems entirely suited to an alcoholic lifestyle and there are no shortages of great places to gather people together and drink till you’re sober again.

Fortunately it was a beautiful sunny day in Bristol (which really looks its best when it’s bright) and the addition of a heavenly breeze meant that starting the first leg of my homeward journey proved far more pleasant than I’d thought it would. I left knowing that the future of Number 8 was secure and I don’t doubt I’ll be back when my system has recovered. Thankfully the trains behaved themselves and I was home in time for the fantastic roast that my stomach had been crying out for. Everything it seemed was alright.

Apologies to Liam if you had already used this title when the DV Stork visited you recently, but I felt that this post deserved it. And anyway, we’re both indebted to a Polish gentleman called Dziga Vertov for his film and more recently The Cinematic Orchestra for reminding us of it anyway. All I wanted to boast about say is that I am now the proud owner of a Panasonic NV-GS280 which is the little distant cousin (whose family probably only ever visits at Easter) of Alex’s NV-GS400. I plan to spend time familiarising myself with the machine so that I can get the most from it. Having dedicated pretty much my whole life to being crap at using a camera this will be no small achievment. At this time I will also be using the camera in conjunction with Le Big Mac to transfer as much stuff from VHS to DVD as poss whilst leaving a healthy and satisfying residue of good stuff on the ol’ hard drive for my own delectation. Fortuitously today is one of those days where it actually is about two seconds away from snowing so all I neeed now is an old Tesco’s carrier bag to remind me how much beauty there is in the world.

This does now represent the last of the Big Spends of the moment. I had been saving for a rainy day and whilst it hasn’t been a downpour, it has been a continual drizzle for a good few months now and I am acquiring useful stuff I’ve wanted for some time. I’ve always been good at justifying purchases to myself or maybe I too subscribe to Yuzu Daimon’s theory in number9dream that Whoever dies with the most stuff wins.

In addition to attempting to invent a few additional Rules to Mornington Crescent (in this case taking Mornington Crescent to mean the entirety of the London Underground and that there could be no clarifications of any statements made between Waterloo and London Bridge on The Jubilee Line on a Sunday if you didn’t posess a valid form…)  I encountered much strangeness this weekend. Dave explains the great Mammal Cheese Debate of our time better than I ever could but in addition to these important issues was the notion that we are all using far too much management-speak and pat phrases around and if the trend or habit of using them instead of bothering to think of the words that would serve you better, then we are in danger of becoming a society that is inarticulate and insincere (alright more inarticulate and insincere, then). We attempted to construct phrases that consist of nothing more than popular phrases and metaphores (hybrids were allowed) something like; “Grass never grows on the tip of the iceberg which will never boil at the end of the day but could in a perfect world because the bigger pictures reveals it can jump through hoops if brought to the table.” Then everything is followed up with, “That’s really the thin end of the wedge” as if to imply that it can get a lot worse, which of course it can, as afterall it’s only the “Square slippery slope in a round edge of reason”. This could even become a drinking game if more of the Rules of Mornington Crescent were involved. Wait, it gets worse.
I continued this thinking (pointless musing) on the train home last night (after Kelvin and I had managed to come up with a cookery show about maths hosted by Tom Selleck that had sprung from changing Magnum P.I. to Magnum π and then ultimately Magnum Pie) and decided that if you had a good knowledge of actors, politicians, sportsmen, authors, musicians, scientists, religious leaders and the Christmas Special of Father Ted you could play the “Mrs Doyle tries to guess Todd Unctious’s Name Game”. Bet you’re curious now, huh? Each player takes it in turns to say famous (or infamous) people’s names prefixed by the word “Father” e.g. “Father Eamon Holmes”. The other player retorts with another famous person from a different background such as “Father Pol Pott”. At any time a player can play a wild card by using the name of one of the Fathers Mrs Doyle actually guesses such as “Father Neil Hannon” or “Father Hiroshima Twinkie”. When they do, the other player must counter with another one of Mrs Doyle’s guesses. The player who loses is the one who is forced to guess “Father Todd Unctious”. I’m going to go and look for a job now…

The year is really picking up. As you can see in the below post and here if you crane your neck a bit, Saturday was Benj and Ros’ house warming. This was excellent for many reasons. Firstly I just got to see their last flat before they moved and while it was well appointed and homely, Ros was able to give me the tour to entire place without requiring me to move anything except my eyes and my head. A bit. This upgrade has a bit more breathing space and enough room to swing Molly. I think it’s great that the whole family (pictured below; left to right - Benj, Molly and Ros) now has a more permanent, not to mention larger, space to entertain me in get on with their lives in. I know there is decorating afoot (the wardrobe is coming along nicely) and I’m sure the place will be thoroughly resplendent before too long (the red wine skirmishes notwithstanding).

Secondly, since Alex and Soni (and Jill for that matter) now have their own Isle of Pleasure too and Meg and Kelvin are plotting their own domestic set-up in Brighton things are really starting to come together and I’m delighted for you all. The weekend heralded a sense that hopefully we can all start seeing more of each other soon. Of course there were absent friends as there invariably are with these situations all of whom were missed.  Do try and see that it doesn’t happen again, would you, there’s good people.

And before you ask, no this nothing to do with porn, thank you very much. The weekend was an absolute triumph; veni vidi, er, I ate a lot. We’d all arranged to meet at Alex’s place and upon arrival, she and Soni continued their aggressive entertaining campaign which involves the guest being caught off-balance by the opulent surroundings before they are made as comfortable as possible and subsequently plied with as much good food as they can take (in this case upwards of six - count them - types of humous, pitta, salad and some lightly fried chorizo). My personal theory is that they plan to prevent all of their guest from leaving, it’s a sort of “Isle of Pleasure” surrounded by Canada Water, Surrey Water and The Thames. Later Alex, Dave and I crossed from the Pleasure Isle to the Spice Island, which is the girl’s local, to meet Meg and Kelvin fresh from their flight from Swansea (I use “flight”  in the sense that they were fleeing the place rather than they arrived in a plane). After a few drinks (two pints of Hoegaarden) we decided to eat before the party - here I made the mistake of assuming that The Spice Island’s tapas would be substantial. Three shrimps, five button mushrooms and a couple of olives later I was ready to (eat more, actually) party. We all piled into Alex’s car and drove down to Brixton stopping off for supplies (a bottle of Ernst & Julio Gallo Zinfandel and six Kronenberg - yeah, I was impressed…). On reflection the lack of food to weigh me down freed me up to bounce round Benj and Ros’ new place and talk utter rubbish at people all night. I also got to thank Dan’s girlfriend Audrey for the recipe she gave to Ros for butternut squash risotto with oranges that Ros and Benj prepared last for me last year. That had been the night that Ros had proudly shown off her electric peppermill with an inbuilt torch so you could illuminate what you’re seasoning, or would help you find your way to the fusebox during a powercut and leave a trail of spice to prevent you getting lost on the way back. Next morning in order to combat a terrible hangover (I blame the Spice Island) we bought in a Full English Kit and some Resolve (a but like Pro-plus with chalk). Dan was giving me a hand with cooking and we realised that since two men were tending more than one type of sausage and suitably attired (I was wearing an apron and Dan had his Russian hat) and everyone was waiting around expectantly, it was virtually a barbeque and so we armed ourselves with Kronenberg. After consuming bacon, sausages, scrambled egg, mushrooms, tomatoes, beans, toast and coffee Dave and I just had time to get our stuff together and head back to The Isle of Pleasure on the Northern Line (taking time to argue a few of the rules to Mornington Crescent) before the roast chicken was served.  This was accompanied by stuffing, bread sauce, potatoes, carrotts, parnips, peas,  gravy and a side salad washed down with twelvty bottles of good red. We finished off with ice cream (chocolate and black cherry) and a mini chocolate muffin. Everyone then seemed to feel that what was needed was a shot of lemon liquor but at that exact point I felt as if this would have been the wafer-thin-mint that exploded the fat man.