The first part of SCD has just ended. They expect me to make a decision from that?! The lowest scoring couple with the judges twice received 36 out of 40! Going to have to wait until the freestyle of the second part, I think.

John Spencer, the actor who played Leo in The West Wing died yesterday at 58. That’s sad. If you’re like me and have only seen up to the end of series 5, I’d avoid the articles as there are numerous spoilers.

I was christmas shopping for much of today. I also picked up a phone and two lampshades, which pretty much completes my list of Things I Need. I was shopping with a couple of other people, who I’ll avoid identifying for reasons that will become obvious.

I was standing near the toy department of Debenham’s when a mother and child walked past me. The kid must have been about five, I think, and I saw it point to a toy, then heard the mother saying:

Oh, not a chance. I’d poke my eyes out, and yours.

I wish I knew which particular item had elicited that response.

Late in the afternoon one of people I was with started to feel somewhat faint in the lampshade shop, and sitting down didn’t help. She didn’t feel she could walk, so I headed to the flat and drove back around to pick her up. It took me about five minutes, but as I turned into the road I saw an ambulance outside the shop. Not nice.

After quickly parking I discovered that she’d become much worse just after I’d left, and both the shop owner and the other person agreed that they should call an ambulance. The crew checked her over inside the vehicle, and after ten minutes or so she was much better, so didn’t need to go to the hospital. It was likely just too hot underneath the large lights in the shop, but the whole thing was somewhat unnerving. We came back to the flat afterwards and she was fine, so hopefully it was just a passing thing.

The hospital was literally in the next street, but nevertheless I’m very impressed with the speed they responded to the 999 call. I was moving pretty quickly, and they can’t have phoned straight away.

This evening I watched rather a lot of television, but laughed very loudly at Have I got News for You, QI and Jonathan Ross.

A surprisingly time-consuming meme spotted at normblog.

1. My uncle once: fell into a volcano, but managed to climb back out
2. Never in my life: have I seen ‘The Great Escape’
3. When I was five: I broke my arm by falling from the arm of a chair
4. High School is: on the whole, bloody awful. College is much better.
5. My parents are: exceptionally reasonable people
6. I once met: a man who asked, repeatedly, “does your husband work?” I eventually answered in the negative, and ran away
7. There’s this girl I know who: sent me an anthropomorphic orange
8. Once, at a bar: I told a joke and slowly became aware that every table was quietening down to listen
9. Last night: Lynsey and I danced to three successive sambas
10. Next time I go to church: I’ll become annoyed by the gross exploitation.
11. When I turn my head left, I see: a puppet, a sofa and a small, rather cute, christmas tree
12. When I turn my head right, I see: some washing-up that needs tidying away
13. How many days until my birthday?: 154 (hint)
14. If I was a character written by Shakespeare I’d be: Mercutio
15. By this time next year: I hope to have written a novel I’m happy to show people
16. A better name for me would be: Zacharias Randallian
17. I have a hard time understanding: spiteful people
18. If I ever go back to school I: will study more science
19. You know I like you if: I find rather spurious reasons to talk to you
20. If I won an award, the first person I’d thank would be: my parents
21. Take my advice: if something doesn’t feel right, don’t do it and don’t apologise - it’s the only way to sleep at night
22. My ideal breakfast is: a fresh baguette with jam, and a cup of tea
23. If you visit my hometown: come say hello
24. Why won’t someone: tell me whether I’m allowed a minidish outside my flat
25. If you spend the night at my house: we should take a walk around the streets while they’re quiet
26. I’d stop my wedding: if something awful happened in the world. I think.
27. The world could do without: scientology
28. I’d rather lick the belly of a cockroach than: go to a boxing match
29. Paper clips are more useful than: imperial measurements
30. If I do anything well, it is: resist eating Easter Eggs until they go off
31. And by the way: there’s a new Katie Melua song on her latest single; it’s called ‘Pictures on a Video Screen‘, and is lovely.

Penguin books are releasing A Christmas Carol as a free podcast download, read by Geoffrey Palmer who’s best known to UK readers as the guy from As Time Goes By¹. That’s a really great idea. As mentioned by the BBC and Boing Boing, amongst others.

There are countless versions of A Christmas Carol - what’s your favourite? Personally I adore A Muppet Christmas Carol - “this is my island in the sun!”

1. two new episodes of which are being broadcast this christmas [↩]

Anybody reading via the RSS feed will note that it’s gone crazy. Sorry ’bout that. Should be a one-time only thing. I’m playing with the FeedBurner settings, you see.

The heating has now been fixed, and the radiators are, happily, working well. The engineer says that the boiler has a bad service record and wasn’t a great model even when it was installed, let alone ten years later. If it were his choice, he’d get a new one. You could argue he would say this, but in his next breath he recommended that if I decide to change it a local plumber may be cheaper. I’m getting a quote tomorrow, although that’s some serious expense and I really doubt I’ll be able to afford it.

Speaking of expense, a new aerial suitable for digital broadcasts is apparently ~£200 on its own, excluding any fitting costs. So perhaps not. I’m looking at freesat from Sky¹ as a cheaper option, and have emailed the housing association to find out whether they allow mini-dishes on the side of their buildings.

It’s so nice to be back on broadband Can catch up on my podcasts, now.

1. not to be confused with Freesat from the BBC and friends, which hasn’t launched yet, and may be as late as christmas 2006 [↩]

In tomorrow’s Times Oliver Kamm berates the Plain English Campaign for intellectual snobbery. And he makes a good point. I never did understand why the famous Donald Rumsfeld quote about ‘known unknowns’ was quite so reviled. Sure it was convoluted, but I understood the point. Because of the aren’t-we-superior facade, though, I just assumed I wasn’t understanding something. This year, the winner was:

The only thing which isn’t up for grabs is no change and I think it’s fair to say it’s all to play for, except for no change.

That’s the best they could do?

Couldn’t they concentrate on matters of linguistic import? Language is frequently manipulated for the purpose of deception, and outing these examples would be far more use. Why not expose the no-win-no-fee adverts from companies who give every impression of being legal representatives, when in fact they’re only trying to sell people insurance against losing? Or there must be countless political phrases that seem clear but are in face entirely ambiguous. Or even something as seemingly innocuous as car manufacturers who, banned from promoting speed as a virtue, say “the only thing you’ll be overtaken by is adrenalin.” They could expose the loopholes so that rules can work as intended. Or they can just make fun.

I keep thinking of a line from David Mamet’s State and Main, in which the ditsy Sarah Jessica Parker adopts a furiously indignant expression, and exclaims:

…I have something to say, and I think you know what I mean!

before storming from the room, convinced she’s won the argument. Given the media attention lauded upon the PEC results each year, it’s a shame the whole exercise is little more than pseudo-intellectual sniggering.

Broadband is up and working a day early! Great It was strange how little I could do offline - am definitely reliant on my internet connection.

There’s also a man here looking at the boiler…Given the service log, it seems to be somewhat broken. Urgh.

After checking out the prices for boiler repair etc., we decided to get a British Gas contract. It’s ~£300 per year, but it’s likely that the initial examination and repair would have cost that much anyway, and the BG contract includes all parts and labour. That wasn’t built into the budget, though! The BT engineer should be around tomorrow morning to work on it, which is great as it’s a little chilly in here this evening. Am glad I didn’t phone two days ago…

Is it me, or are ITV dramas generally disappointing? Yesterday’s episode of Secret Smile was so promising…Ah well, never mind.

Somebody I vaguely know just sent me a helpful email with news of a fantastic website for avoiding speed cameras! I had to delete it before I replied rather bluntly. Bastards. [deletes rant].

Four days were all I had to last on dial-up internet without muppetry, but I just left it connected for three hours by accident. Dammit! My excuse is that I was cooking at the time, but that doesn’t really cut it.

I have a christmas tree! It’s most pretty. Doesn’t take up *that* much space, either
Things keep exploding outside my window, in the street. It’s either fireworks, kamikaze fairies, or I should get ready for an evacuation.

Expensive day. The initial shop at Tesco for food, cleaning stuff and general supplies came to more than I was expecting¹ and I also picked up a couple of christmas presents that needed early posting.

The boiler here is desperately in need of a service. It keeps turning itself off, which is annoying, and hasn’t worked at all since about 2000 this evening. I haven’t been able to do any washing up yet² - how annoying Actually it is bloody annoying. The flat’s actually quite warm generally, but my inactive computer habits don’t help with keeping at a reasonable temperature. I won’t want to get out of bed tomorrow morning!

After reading on various forums that indoor aerials could work well for freeview I tried one out, but still no joy. The analogue picture is pretty dire, too, so I’ll need to do something. I have the number for a local aerial company who will apparently give me a quote for a proper loft installation, but I dread to think how much that’ll be…Given that the signal checker for Stratford recommends an “amplified extra high-gain” aerial, it’s probably best to let the experts handle it. Either tha

I went to pick up a christmas tree this evening, but B&Q didn’t have much left. I’m back in Solihull tomorrow for my guitar lesson, so will pick something up from one of the massive stores there.

Ooh, I received a letter! A bill, naturally, but a letter for me nonetheless
Kinda lonely today, although I deliberately kept myself busy whenever I felt it coming on. I’m hoping this is something that passes, rather than one of those things you just have to get used to.

It’s getting chilly in here, so I’m going to curl up in bed.

1. and I was being thrifty, really! [↩]
2. I could just use cold water, I guess - or does the heat help to kill germs? [↩]

If I search google for “freeview forums”, I get a “403 Forbidden” page, with a message from google saying:

we can’t process your request right now. A computer virus or spyware application is sending us automated requests, and it appears that your computer or network has been infected.

Only on that one search, though - everything else works fine. Maybe they’re being spammed by this particular search string. Annoying…

32,000 litres of foam per minute!? Wow.

Also, British Gas workers are staging a strike today. That can’t be safe…

I’m in! After all these months, I’m finally spending the night at the flat.

We loaded up the van this morning, grabbed a flat-pack bookcase from Argos, and then with some help from my uncle and grandmother moved it all into the flat. It’s now all tidy, amazingly. After borrowing Nod’s modem (thanks again!) I’m up and running on dialup. It’s strange not being permanently connected! I must remember not to connect much during the daytime, or it’ll cost me a fortune.

I need to pick up a fair few things tomorrow, and am trying to keep a list as I think of them. The more expensive items I’ll subtly request for christmas Speaking of which, tomorrow’s decorating day, and I’ll be getting the largest tree I can find - if you don’t have to chop the top off to fit it into the room, it’s not big enough!

The freeview reception is weird in Stratford as the broadcast frequencies are higher than normal, requiring a wideband aerial. I have the box, but it seems that the building aerial isn’t the correct type. I’ll ask in the local TV shop tomorrow - it must be a fairly common request. Maybe they can install a loft aerial.

Mum and Dad went home a couple of hours ago. I keep thinking of an episode of Ballykissangel I saw years and years ago, in which somebody left home, and the final shot was of an empty room, with the faint sounds of both parties crying. I’m very close to Mum and Dad and don’t like leaving at all in that respect. I’m happy to have my own place and to be in Stratford and everything, and I know they’re happy for me too. But it can’t be pleasant when your kids leave home, and I hope they’re ok. I’m a mixture of excited, scared, sad and nervous tonight.

I just took a walk into town, which was very pleasant. It’s cold, but misty so the christmas lights are beautiful. I took a fair few photos before my camera battery started to fail, and I’ll put some onto flickr, while saving others for the advent calendar.

Am going to settle into the sofa and watch a dvd, I think. Goodnight!

Much is unpacked, much is not, must has yet to be transferred. We¹ built a bed, wardrobe, chest of drawers and bedside cabinet from flat-packs, too. Half-dead. Hopefully I’ll be in a position to stay there tomorrow night. We’ve given up on painting for the meantime - I’ll live with the bright pink wall for a while
Darren and Lilia made it to the Strictly Come Dancing final - woo! I like them.

Gotta get some sleep.

1. Dad and I, but mainly Dad [↩]