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.

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? [↩]

Serenity is #1 in the UK charts, and #2 in the US. Fantastic. My enthusiasm hasn’t waned since last Friday. The DVD is rumoured to be coming out on December 20th in the US, too. I don’t buy many DVDs these days, but that’s a certain purchase!

The Argos purchases arrived today, and they’re all boring. Well, not boring boring, just only as interesting as non-stick oven trays, ironing boards and pillows can be. I ordered two sets of plates by mistake, and rather than have crockery for 8 people who wouldn’t fit into the room all at once returned one via Argos’ 16-day no-quibble promise. Hell, this is riveting stuff.

I still haven’t heard anything about said flat. If the current owner pulls out now then, well, I’m screwed.

Daylight inspection of the damage from yesterday’s car prang has resulted in news both good and bad. The good is that my car is pretty much ok. There are a couple of patches where the paint’s gone, but nothing that can’t be filled in with touch-up paint, or a blue felt-tip pen. The Focus, however, is scratched more deeply. I’ll ask the local ford garage to take a look tomorrow, since they owe me a favour or two
Waxy points out today that the Cary Grant / Audrey Hepburn film Charade is now in the public domain due to a clerical error, and can be legally downloaded here. I haven’t seen it, but Miss Hepburn is always engaging imho.

Google Reader is now (almost) fully Opera compatible, although saying that it’s not actually loading for me atm.

I caught The Daily Show on more4 for the first time this evening. It’s a ballsy show to schedule, as it doesn’t really fit into the UK advert-break system. At one point there was an obvious jump-cut, and another time the title graphics appeared briefly. The NTSC av quality is noticably poorer, too. Thankfully, the content more than makes up for it. I don’t know how accessible it is to anybody without a rough knowledge of the US political system, but, frankly, I don’t much care Extra digital channels are perfect for this kind of show.

Yesterday’s Daily Source Code had a particularly creepy moment when Adam played a listener’s audio comment about how to chat up women in the gym. Noting their exercise bike inputs of age, weight and stamina is apparently great because you can “see how long they’ll last in the sack”, as well as the best chat-up line to use - “you look slim” if they’re particularly overweight, for example. Ugh, sometimes it’s embarrassing to be male. Adam was also rather unimpressed. Then, though, one of the podcast promotional clips was from two young women clearly trying to attract a certain kind of audience - ‘we don’t know RSS feeds from our tight little asses!’ - and was similarly degrading. It was an interesting contrast.

Finally, my friend Lil is moving to Devon to live with her boyfriend, which makes them the first couple I know to move in together. Congratulations, Lil and Tom!

Despite only starting at lunchtime, I did have a productive afternoon. I spent a good few hours on the Argos and eBay websites, and have ticked many items off the Stuff Needed for Flat list. Choosing cutlery, oven gloves, plates etc. was strangely fun! It’s great to be able to put my own mark on a place right from the beginning.

I’m quite impressed with the Argos website. Three items were unavailable for home delivery, but the site gives you the option to check stock at local stores and as a result all three have been reserved at the Solihull branch, providing I pick them up tomorrow. I wish they saved the shopping basket server-side, though, as a crash (wtf, incidentally) emptied all of my items - thankfully I’d been making a note of the product numbers just in case, but it was still a pain.

While we’re talking web shopping, buying furniture online is such a pain in the ass! Almost every website decides that the best way to subdivide their catalogue is via brand. So when you click on ‘desks’, the subcategories consist of ‘ventura’, ‘dingleberry’, ‘flarkledoyk’ and ‘romplestein’. Usually they all look exactly the same anyway, but having to check each one is irritating. The product pictures and descriptions are godawful, too. Does anybody actually click ‘buy’ after looking at a 200 x 200 image and the words ‘700×1000x700 beech corner desk’? I swear somebody could make a mint by designing a website properly.

Hmmm, it appears late-night blogging causes me to rant.

It’s Fleet Week in San Francisco apparently. I guess that means it’s exactly a year since I was there. Cripes. My wanderlust was sated for a while, but thinking of that day brings it back with a vengeance. I’d best start making some money!

I should probably be going to bed, but am not feeling tired yet. I think I’ll watch a Scrubs episode then head upstairs…Night!

Obviously there’s a Bureau de Change in Marks and Spencers. Obviously.

In John Lewis. The fastest wins £250!

I was proud of myself this morning when I made a couple of phone calls and achieved what I wanted. I renegotiated my car insurance, as well as talking to the seller garage and changing the method of payment. Nothing much for most people, but I’ve been poor on the phone for much of my life, and this was quite an achievement Life coaching has certainly helped in this regard - I wasn’t terribly nervous before making the calls and didn’t come off the phone convinced that the recipient was thinking me a moron.

We’ve been told that my mortgage has been approved and the offer paperwork was put in the post on Tuesday. I was hoping for it this morning, but with luck it’ll arrive tomorrow. As a result I’ve been researching broadband, phone lines and home insurance. Good grief. It’s not particularly complex, but the sheer range of offers boggles me. Martin Lewis’ MoneySavingExpert.com is an excellent resource for saving money, but it’s easy to become bogged down in minutiae. I’m hoping to find an uncapped, decent share-ratio, 1mb broadband package for under

We still haven’t received the mortgage confirmation, which is both worrying and irritating. I can still go on with purchases, but don’t want to start arranging the gas / electricity / broadband until moving is certain. Hopefully it’ll arrive tomorrow! I’ve ordered the sofa and bed - the latter is arriving next Monday, the former in 10-12 weeks. I don’t think there’s much chance of moving in the weekend of the 24th now - there’s not enough time to arrange everything.

Ben and I have been looking at cars for the past week. We’ve narrowed it down to a Ford Ka, Toyota Aygo or Citro

Just a prototype atm, but I want one!

I’ve never been attracted to car racing games. They’re always interesting for a few minutes, but I quickly get bored of racing around tracks with 2D spectators and dull surroundings, no matter how good the graphics. The breakthrough game for me is Trackmania: Sunrise, which is great fun. The race tracks include loops, 600mph corners, breathtaking jumps and bouncing across water like a skipping stone, all while on top of skyscrapers, or Hawaiian islands, abandoned airports…The physics is good enough to be a challenge, but not so realistic that it takes weeks of practice to improve.

Playing with a keyboard is fine for a while, but Ben frequently kicks my ass with his gamepad. So I figured I’d get one myself, as that was clearly the only thing standing between me and Glorious Victory*. Ben’s pad is the Logitech Rumblepad 2, but was either out of stock or overpriced when I searched.

Then Ben spotted that the PC World website have the Cordless Rumblepad for

Shopping this afternoon was fairly productive. We walked around most of the retail park and found both a bed and a sofa in the anticlimactically-named ‘World of Leather’. I need to double-check the measurements of the rooms to be sure they’ll both fit, but barring any major memory lapses on my part I should be able to put the orders in early next week. The bed’s available within 1-2 weeks so will be around as soon as I move in, but the sofa is only promised before the end of November, so I’ll have to make do with a deckchair or something while waiting. I’m not sure why sofas take so long - are they made specially? Oh, I also need to decide on colour schemes. Heh. My design skills normally work around the principle of ‘try combinations until it looks good’ (that’s how I designed the website layout), so I’ll have to use my imagination and Just Hope
The flat’s kitchen is fitted apart from the dishwasher, for which there’s a space. I don’t really need a dishwasher, but it’d look silly to leave a big hole…I wonder whether you can get slimline washing machines that would fit in the gap? We looked around Comet to get prices on dishwashers / washing machines / vacuum cleaners / microwaves, and once I got home I looked them up online. Turns out the prices are pretty much the same - what’s with that? I expected that, like most electrical goods, I’d be able to find significant savings. Weird.

The major things left to decide upon are the wardrobes and a desk. The latter is tricky, as few places have the kind of corner unit I’m after. I’d like to be facing into the corner so I can rest my right arm on the desk, but be able to extend the desk’s length in each direction. This is nearly there, providing the keyboard tray is easily removable (I hate keyboard trays) and, thinking about it, I’d want to ditch the monitor stand too. I’m not sure about wardrobes yet - maybe a trip to Ikea is called for. I’m hoping to be able to afford a large set of bookshelves, although they’ll likely get full up within weeks.

Sorry, my blog appears to be morphing into UK Style. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Coincidentally, my sister and her boyfriend have just bought a house together; Mum and Dad can hardly move without being asked for advice or help from one of us kids!

Am on my own this evening and there’s little on tv, so I think this calls for some gaming.

My uncle works in a children’s bookshop in London, and has a fantastic flat full of books of all types. He often recommends titles to me, and as he and I have similar tastes I try to read as many as possible. He mentioned The Amulet of Samarkand, by Jonathan Stroud, a few weeks back, and I picked it up from Books Etc. a few days later. It was in the ‘young adults’ section, an area which seems entirely arbitrary to me - most books could easily be found in the ‘adult’ section of the shop in terms of their content. Anyway, I thought The Amulet of Samarkand was great. In a world ruled by magicians, a young apprentice summons Bartimaeus, the world’s most sarcastic djinni (pronounced genie), and commands him to perform various tasks, more detail of which would spoil the plot. Despite the two main characters not being particularly likable initially, I really enjoyed the story and found the book very difficult to put down. The plot continually turned in unexpected directions, and Bartimaeus’ chapters were perpetually smile-inducing due to the presence of ‘explanatory’ footnotes from the djinni himself. I found the entire book delightful, and agree with my uncle’s comment of ’something interesting in every paragraph’.

So. Yes. The Amulet of Samarkand = Recommended by me. It’s the first in the Bartimaeus Trilogy, and the sequel, Golem’s Eye, is now available in hardback. I couldn’t resist the temptation, so headed into Solihull yesterday to pick it up. I eventually found it in the 9-12 section of Waterstones (sorry Tony), but by then it was too late for me. The 3 for 2 table (also known as The Epitome of All Evil) contained the newly-released paperback of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which I’ve been wanting for ages, as well as Noughts and Crosses, which Jo recommended a while back. Naturally, Golem’s Eye wasn’t in the 3 for 2 offer. So, instead of being a good little homeowner and frugally fighting temptation, I found a third novel and bought all four. Sigh. I just can’t help myself when it comes to books!

I’m not very good at walking around towns. Whether it’s shopping or just sightseeing, my legs and shoulders start to hurt after a while (much worse if it’s hot) and I get irritable soon after. I don’t know whether this is a common problem, but I guess there must be other people afflicted. I’ve been trying to figure out ways around this recently, and I think I’ve nearly solved the problem. Here’s what worked for me.

• Stretch before leaving the house. It sounds silly, but this has had by far the greatest impact for me. I don’t know the names of the muscle groups, but I stretch the back of the lower leg, the front and back of the thigh and roll my shoulders. If you feel yourself tightening up again then stretch while you’re out. If you’re uncomfortable doing this in public, do it in the changing room while trying on some clothes While you’re there, yell ‘Er, I’m out of toilet paper’. Ok, don’t do that.
• Breathe properly. I realised that I was taking fairly shallow breaths while walking around (probably because crowds make me nervous). No need for hyperventilation, but making yourself take normal breaths can really help.
• Have enough to drink. Carry a bottle of water, or regularly stop at cafes.
• Don’t get too hot. By all means take a coat if you’re worried it’ll get cold, but do take it off and tie it around your waist if you start to feel uncomfortable. For whatever dumb reason I didn’t do this for years. I must have been attention-seeking or something
• Start looking for somewhere to eat as soon as you start to feel hungry. Sometimes it can take a while to find the right place, and I always get very irritable when I haven’t had enough to eat.
• Related to #5 - carry a small Mars bar or similar to tide you over and boost your sugar levels. It’s amazing how a burst of sugar can help!
• If you’re carrying a bag or anything that you hook over one shoulder (a camera, in my case) swap shoulders fairly frequently. This eases the pressure and can stop one particular shoulder hurting.
• If you’re driving, park somewhere that gives you a ticket that you pay on your return. This stops you having to rush around, and you can have drinks etc. when you feel like it, without having to worry about what time the parking expires.

I’ve been wanting a man-bag for a while, now. With summer coming up I don’t really want to be wearing my coat, but I still need to carry around all my bits and pieces. A simple bag with an across-the-body strap would be great, but I’d rather it didn’t look particularly girly. They’re surpisingly difficult to find. Most shops have laptop cases (which are *nearly* there, but are excessively heavy and bulky for general use) and the next step up is a small rucksack, with maybe some briefcases too.

Earlier this week I remembered that my uncle had a cool bag when we were in Paris, so I emailed him to find out what type it was. Turned out to be one of these, which seems pretty much perfect. I had a look at their retailers, and the closest store is Beatties in Solihull. I know that they don’t have this particular model, however, as I was looking at their stock last week. The other major chain was Rohan, the easiest of which for me is in Stratford. So I had a trip out today to pick one up. But, I’d forgotten one thing.

It’s Sunday.

Rohan was closed. Most other shops in the town centre were open, but no other outdoorsy type shops. Damn the church. So after wandering around, taking some photos and picking up a couple of other items I was after, I headed home. On the way out of Stratford I spotted the small retail outlet area next to Tescos, and figured it was worth a look. It had a Matalan, which was a possibility. Actually, though, it was the large Next store that had one of these, which I bought straight away. At