• what i’ve been up to

    busy busy busy lots of late nights at the office, and usually late mornings at home; i have started to get into a more organised regime for waking-up, involving the today programme on radio 4, freshground coffee and a pummeling shower. it makes life somewhat more pleasant. thursday/friday night, crashed-over at a friend’s place in

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  • “Powell fails to rule-out use of tactical nuclear weapons.”

    …he also failed to rule-out use of inflatable bananas, but it’s wise for America to get a grasp upon what it is looking at getting itself into.

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  • ps…

    Try an exercise in changing your perspective: when you get home, get down on your knees so that your head is at a child’s height from the ground, and then crawl once around the house. It’s really illuminating to literally see your world from the perspective of someone smaller than you.

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  • idea for a paper

    I’ve made a hypothesis that the reason so many of my thirty-something friends are so angst-ridden is that they’ve lost their sense of whimsy and playfulness; for instance, the following title of a white-paper struck me, over coffee this morning… Bagpuss: ur-Deity of a Solipsistic Universe. …and it just sounds so much like fun that

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  • 1986 all over again

    Surreal. Sad. I remember clearly 1986 when the Challenger exploded on take-off, as a first-year Astronomy student at [www.ucl.ac.uk] going into the residence common-room and finding some Americans girls I knew, weeping, and everyone in a state of stunned shock. Yesterday I opted to skip my planned trip to London in favour of getting the

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  • Prodigal Cat

    Suzi’s back! She got found at a local builders merchant about 500m from the house! Picked her up from the vet this morning! Following the advice of a friend, i gave her a small meal which she wolfed down and then spent the next five minutes burping. Happy++.

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  • maybe cat?

    I got a phone-call today from someone who may have seen Suzi at about lunchtime; an elderly guy he gave a description which was (say) a 60% match for Suzi. Looking at a photograph he wasn’t certain, but then few people are trained observers, nor learn the discipline of astronomers and birdwatchers to write down

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  • ‘No sex please, we’re too busy’

    Today’s women have less sex than their 1950s counterparts, a survey suggests. Researchers in the United States believe the demands of modern life are to blame – leaving women with little time or energy. … Amusing little article at [news.bbc.co.uk] which is improved by its reader comments: We’re seriously asked to believe that “a random

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  • thought for the day

    here’s a thought – will the rise of a (significant proportion of a) generation of children with exposeure to home breadmakers cause the following generation to (mostly) do away with prefabricated, sliced bread? if so, will things become measured as being the best thing since we got rid of sliced bread?

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  • weekend news

    things that have happened this weekend: suzi’s not come back, nor been found, nor is there any sign of finding her; i suspect that barring a miracle, i shaln’t be seeing her again. i have no idea what happened to her, but being a security person i can imagine more, stupid and gross explanations for

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  • still no cat

    still no sign of my cat, suzi. i don’t know which is worse – the not knowing what has happened, or the artificial expectation and dashing of hope every time i get home and open the door to not find her home. the local vet has not had any car-accident victims, and apparently if she’s

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  • garden planning

    it’s approaching feburary, and now is the time to start prepping the garden for all the things i want to do to it; first up is the raised bedding that i want to build, to absorb some excess soil that is in my garden, and so that i can plant-out herbs and salad vegetables in

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