Month: April 2004
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A little bit of toast
I have discovered a weakness in the work-from-home plan. That weakness is in the next room. It is called "toaster". It may have to die.
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Trolls
When trolls kill a weblog. Some people have more time than sense.
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An Englishman’s home
Yesterday, we took a little jaunt down to Bodiam Castle. It looks like this…
As you might expect on Good Friday, it was full of holidaymakers and tourists, including any number of small children with plastic swords and shields, running around the ramparts and giving their parents heart attacks as the charge up and down the tightly winding spiral stone stairways.
I last visited Bodiam when I was very young. It’s an interesting place to visit, although I think it is more likely to be interesting to a five year old than an adult – I think it could do with a few more interpretation signs, rather than relying on visitors to buy the fancy glossy guidebook.
And it’s a shame that our post-castle picnic by the Rother was spoilt by mindless people who let their dogs run and crap everywhere. Still, the tranquility, views of the valley and steam railway and the sounds of the skylarks overhead went some way to making up for that annoyance.Today we took a trip to London to visit Greenwich and Borough markets. We have plans for a foodfest trip to Borough in the not-too-distant future.
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MadDespotWatch
It’s soooo long since we had a round-up of news stories coming out of Turkmenistan. As you may recall, the President-For-Life, Saparmurat Niyazov, is completely barking mad. Who could forget when he renamed the days of the week and months of the year after himself (first reported here), or when he decreed that youth lasted until the age of 37 (here). So, to bring you up to date on the latest mad happens in Turkmenistan, I present a Niyaozov News Update:
- "Those of you whose teeth have fallen out did not gnaw on bones. This is my advice."
- Midwives and nurses to be replaced by army conscripts.
- Turkmen leader inspires love towards watermelon.
- Turkmen leader hands out free Mercedes cars
- Man makes giant shoe in honour of Turkmen leader
You can catch up on all the "latest" news from Turkmenistan through the official Turkmen news agency – shame there hasn’t been any news since October.
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Look away now
Readers of a nervous disposition may not wish to read on….
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In the land of the living
OK, the computer is back up-and-running, and it appears that all of my data is intact, thanks to good back-ups. Phew! That, amazingly, includes my email archives, much to my relief. I’m now working on reinstalling software and getting everything just-so.
I’m supposed to be guesting at Uborka this week. I’ve been a bit crap, really, though not through any fault of my own. -
Borked
My laptop has been dysfunctional for the last 48 hours. I’ve now isolated the cause, thanks to protracted calls with the very helpful Dell technical help staff. The switch that causes the machine to go dormant when you close it is broken, and a replacement hinge cover (with which it is integral) is being despatched forthwith. The problem is that, in order to discover this, and with the tech staff’s advice, I reformatted the hard drive and reinstalled the operating system. Before I did that, I backed up the documents and settings directory, but I suspect that it means that I’ve lost my email archives. I’ll also have to reinstall a shedload of software. I’ve also lost my music files, as I never bothered to back them up (they are easily replaced after all).
It’s more of an annoyance than anything, and also rather time-consuming. If I have lost my email archive, then it could have some serious implications, although hopefully nothing that I can’t get around. We shall see when I attempt to reinstall my backed-up data tomorrow. -
Momentous
I’ve just applied the final dollop of paint to the last door in the flat. The redecorating is, finally, complete. Here’s a tally of what we have done:
- repainted the front door
- replaced all five internal doors, fitted new door furniture and painted them
- repainted the bathroom, hallway, bedroom, kitchen and living room
- ripped up the carpet in the living room and repaired the floorboards
- new carpet in the living room and hallway
- new carpet tiles in the kitchen and bathroom
- refitted the curtain pole and added new curtains in the living room
- replaced the bath panel
- painted the kitchen cupboard doors
- added two new prints and a large mirror in the living room, plus a new potted plant
- removed shelves and considerable amounts of "stuff" to storage
- removed old sofabed and taken loan of groovy green sofa from Lord Percy
As Hels says – basically, the place has been gutted, and it looks a gazillion times brighter and fresher, which has certainly added many times more to the value than the £800 – £900 that it has cost me.
Estate agents on Tuesday – let’s see what they have to say. -
New toy
Still haven’t had much time to play with the new toy, but here’s a portrait of Seamus that I took with it yesterday. Click on the picture to get full-on biggification.
