Nothing quite like shopping...with three weddings coming up we spent yesterday looking for suitable outfits for my other half. After 4 hours and her trying on at least 20 dresses, we think we have found the winner. Thankfully!

I am feeling jinxed. I never really gamble, but always put a few quid on golf - the Masters and the Ryder Cup. Last Ryder Cup saw me on a roll, and won a shed load but it would seem my touch has gone as all the people I've put money on are struggling. Have 2 quid on the boat race - it's something I've never really "got" despite having gone to watch it a lot in recent years as the start is only a couple of miles from the front door. Today we'll watch i from home, but on my recent form I'd be putting money on Cambridge (unlike me...)

The art of conversation

The next time someone strikes up a conversation and you don't fancy it, this could be a good tatic!

A stranger was seated next to a little girl on the airplane when the stranger turned to her and said, "Let's talk. I've heard that flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger."

The little girl, who had just opened her book, closed it slowly and said to the stranger, "What would you like to talk about?"

"Oh, I don't know", said the stranger. "How about nuclear power?"

"OK," she said. "That could be an interesting topic. But let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat grass, the same stuff. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, and a horse produces clumps of dried grass. Why do you suppose that is?"

The stranger thinks about it and says, "Hmmm, I have no idea", to which the little girl replies;

"Do you really feel qualified to discuss nuclear power when you don't know sh*t?"

Thai it up

Well, bit of a funny day yesterday what with the usual changes in government IT projects. Looking forward to the weekend and the bank holiday and some chill out time.

Great result for Liverpool last night, much fun abusing my mate after his now infamous "Barcelona can beat Liverpool easily" text. Oh yeah?

Went for a great Thai last night - hadn't been there in ages and the food was superb and the staff great. Am suffereing a bit of a cold setting on so a three chilli soup had the sinuses working overtime!

Worn out

A bit of a chill out day yesterday, call it recovery from the abuse I've put myself through the last few days. I appear to be coming down with a cold, which isn't really surprising given the sleep deprivation of the last few days, and the hectic last two weeks.

Been planning some alterations to the house as well, new floor in the bathroom is on the cards, although I'm trying to work out if I'm brave enough to tile it myself.

Recieved this by email, tickled me on a day of rediculous project news.

Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and, with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him (Oh, man, this is so bad, it's good) a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

Ride on

I've just got back from a weekend in Lithunania, in the city of Vilnius. The occasion was a stag weekend, and with 13 of us on our way from Gatwick much fun was had. Of course, the rules of the weekend are that I can't reveal details, but the weekend consisted of beer and dancing, going to bed at 5am, karting, and riding about on a segway. Segways are brilliant, much fun was had!!!

Will maybe write some more once I get the use of my eyes back, as they are a tad bloodshot at the moment.

This is my kind of music!!!

Absolute joy and music to my ears - Ferrari F1 cars through the years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qT_q8PXFrw

Nightmare trip

Phew, what a long day yesterday was! Trip to see some potential suppliers in Devon. All very useful. The scenery and sense of space down there was brilliant, loved it.

Got into my hotel at nearly 9, and (having left a different hotel at 6:30, was desperate for a good nights sleep) was greeted by the news that I'd been upgraded. What a room! Teweksbury Park have done up a lot of rooms, and this was just great with an ENORMOUS bed! So sat back, ordered some room service and watched Scotland get beat by the Italians. Good overall perfromance from a bit of a makeshift team.

Put it this way, we lose 2-0 to the Italians(that's the world Champions btw - last time we played the current world champions (france) we got beat 6-0), everyone agrees we played well but were realistic about the likely outcome. Unlike some other neighbouring countries we could mention...

I mean, if your team isn't playing well, your not going to beat anyone 6-0. Gerrard showed his class with a typical driving performance (even allowing for him dropping out of the game for a bit). Don't think he would have played like that had Lampard was next to him.

Knackered

It's been a long day. Up at the crack of dawn (it was still dark actually) and drove up to Worcester. Busy day, lots of meetings, some of which actually had positive outcomes! Off to the hotel now then some dinner and some much needed kip! Tomorrow offers no respite - a 7am departure to drive to Devon for all day meetings. Can't wait for the weekend at the moment, can't come too soon!

Prescott

I know someone who will like this quote....

"I've been told that my job as deputy pm is a bit of a knob-job"
John Prescott, before correcting himself. Personally, he may have been right the first time...

Write Off

I should have said yesterday - Sunday was a complete write off as a result of to much port and not enough kip. Still, we only need to do it all again for two days this weekend on the stag do (same people!)

Today being a work day will see me trail through reems of paperwork for expense submissions, so today is looking like a write off too. Total joy. There are better ways to spend my time.

Port

So a bit of a boys weekend has been had. We all got together in the morning and then went off and played squash for a bit. A bit turned out to be 90 minutes. Which is a LOT of squash. Not having played in about 8 years, I am today a physical wreck. My back hurts, my legs are sore but it was great fun so I'm going to play more (although, maybe not for a few days!)

Afterwards, we watched England struggle against 11 defenders, went for a curry and ended up playing some random dice game until 2am drinking port. One of those days...

Scotland had a cracking result against Georgia, although I think it's all going to come off the rails on Wednesday. I think the best we can hope for is a draw as we are missing so many players, but you just never know.

Phone home

I've been negotiating to purchase an PDA style mobile phone for work purposes from a friend. It's not the most modern of devices but will do the job for me. I mainly want a Microsoft Mobile client so I can download documents to it, for example, maps and the like so I don't need to boot up my laptop every time I think I've gone the wrong way. Personally, I think work should give me something like this but apparently I'm not senior enough for that. Anyway, she is not the most reliable and has, at every step, tried to stop the deal happening (not on purpose!)

First, she threw the software and manuals away in a recent house move. No problem thinks me, I can get it from the 02 site. Nope, they don't let you do that. So a quick email or two to friends who have the smae phone came up trumps.

Second, I confirm I want it and she says now she can't find the charger. Eventually that turns up. Now, she's lost the stylus for it.

Still, I'm willing to wait as it'll make life easier and replacement stylus can be bought on ebay for less than a fiver. As it turns out she has just posted it to me, so hopefully I should get it early next week, although the software will be a week behind as my mate is on holiday now. Still, got to love new toys [:)].

Guiness

Survived two days in Ireland. Dublin is a crakcing place, really enjoyed being there (although with work you don't see much of it!) Managed a couple of pints of Guiness and it's so true - it tastes better in Dublin. But a good trip with excellent information picked up.

Had an amusing taxi home with a cab driver who just talked the whole way home. He'd actually picked up my other half the week before and had to wait 3 hours for her at Heathrow after BAA had lost the bags (actually, that's not true. They knew where they were, but as they had already towed the plane to it's parking stand for the night (with bags in it) they didn't fancy crossing both runways with trolley bags...).

The other half is off a mates hen do, so (true to form) the boys are getting together for moutain biking, beer, football and curry. What can you do ;-)

Tax

Fuel tax sucks big style.

I don;t have a big car, it's pretty fuel efficient, but not emmision friendly it would appear. As a band F, I'm almost at the be "strung up and quatered" stage from a tax point of view.

Time to invest in a diesel...

Cider

It's just after 7am. I'm at Londons busiest airport awaiting my flight to Ireland. (mental note - one hour check in for Dublin, no matter what they say it is...). Anyway, I'm sitting in a coffee shop/bar place as all good airports have open at this time of the morning. And the guy next to me, in a suit a full work clothes, orders a pint of Magners. Now, how can anyone drink anything such as cider at 7am? Why is it that if your at an airport people always seem to order booze!

I suspect it's a particularly British thing, a bit like only liking tennis for two weeks in the summer. Come on Tim!

(Note: I don't actually like Henman, good player but blew it. Could still whip my arse though on a tennis court.)

Spurs

Gutted for Spurs last night (mainly as they should have the first leg, but there you go). Lennon was marked so closely by Mikel he just couldn't influence the game. Occasional flashes of brilliance though. It's interesting, people say you can snub out "flair players" but having watched a fair bit of Ronaldo this season he never seems to be snubbed! Berbatov looks class (and there are rumours of a huge bid coming in for him in the summer from the NE of England...) and Spurs seem to have hit a bit of form at the right time. Could yet win the Uefa cup. Good luck to them.

Favourite moment last night was watching Cashley Cole get booed everytime he got the ball. At one point amid the boos all you heard was a broad London accept shouting "wa**er!!!" Just amused me a lot [:)]

Packed a lot into the last couple of days it has to be said! Yesterday was spent amusing the niece and nephew (well, "to be" once I get married) and family. 4 year olds are hard work! But supreme fun. The little one was cute as well, he can walk for ages now on his own and has very funny likes and dislikes - he hates standing on grass for example. Random, but really amusing when you put him on grass to see what he does.

Last night we went to the local theatre (we times it - 3 minutes 27 seconds door to door - that counts as local in my book!) to see The New Statesman with Rik Mayell. Absolutely hilarious, with some very dodgy lines and completely not politically correct and all the better for it.

Today I spent 2 and half hours in the gym working out how I can get fitter quicker with a trainer. The end result was that I could hardly lift anything when I got in but feel much better for it. So to celebrate I've made a curry for dinner ;-)

Quick note on the return of F1 - great to see Lewis Hamilton doing well in his first race. Heidfeld is lucky to still have a head after Coultard nearly swiped it off with the underside of his car. However I watched the race in sheer desperation for a good showing and it was duller than the M25 in rush hour. The sooner they introduce the new rear wing the better - no overtaking after the first corner until the pitstops. Going to see some DTM and F3 races this year - plenty of action there! Even F2 is a better series now than F1.

Calendar Entries

OK, for a while now I've tried to work out how to get my Lotus Notes calendar onto my mobile phone (a Sony W810i). I've even thought about buying a new PDA just to do this. I use the calendar as my main one for both work and socially, so having it on my phone would be great, but it never works as I use Notes and nobody ever supports that for the syncronisation.

Yesterday however, I had a euraka moment.

Having hunted about on Sonys web site, there is an application called Sync Station which syncronises "stuff" to your phone. It's aim is mainly Outlook (of course, as everyone uses it). However, in the very small print it says it supports Notes 6. Hmm thinks me, wonder if it would actually work with Notes 7? So I downloaded it and installed it and tried it out.

Nada. Doesn't list the Notes client as an option to sync with. So, thinks me, where is it getting the info from that says which version of Notes I use? A quick google throws up a possible solution. So I copy the Notes 7 reg key and create a new one called (wait for it) Notes 6. I then re-open the Sync Station client.

It now lists Notes as a valid source of calendar!! So I configure it (love this software for this) and it allows you to chose a date range for syncronising - I only really need the next 14 days on there, so it does this and will clean up old entries as well. I hit sync.

It works an absolute treat. My phone is paired to my laptop via bluetooth, and my calendar is now on the phone. I'm a very happy man.

Wilderness

I apologise for the late posting of this entry, however last night I stayed at a place a mere 10 miles out of Worcester and yet it felt like the back of beyond. No phones, no wireless, no mobile coverage....

So, I spent last night in the bar in the "pub with rooms" I was staying at. I'm sitting here with my laptop in the bar writing this up, listening to others peoples conversations as it's more interesting than the options papers I'm writing. However they are very funny and I can't help but listen in.

For example - Bloke to new girlfriend (I cant help thinking she has a boyfirend and shouldn't be here, don't know why)

but you tick all my boxes. Ooops, really shouldn't have said that. Did I say it out loud?.......really like this pub. Well, it's not really a pub.

Such a bad line... and her reaction was priceless. He then went on to his singing ability and how he could "hold a tune". I suspect he means he has once held in his hands a Nat King Cole CD.

There were also two dotty old birds in the restaurant. Took then 25 mins to eat a bowl of bloody soup. Talking about somebody called "princess" and horses. "Has he still got his ponys?", "no, just the stallion". Too many jokes so I'll stop...

Good result

Very pleasant drive up this morning, amazing the difference leaving a little bit earlier can make (although, I just know I'm going to be knackered later!)

Great result for Aberdeen last night, 2-0 win over Motherwell. Hopefully it'll let the chairman (wiggy) open the purse strings a bit and we can keep Gary Dempsey (who's been offered a contract from Yeovil!). I see we're getting a new centre half, just hope that means we're not flogging any of our current defence who've been brilliant this season.

Off to stay in the middle of nowhere tonight in a little village as I couldn't get a decent rate in any of the usual hotels. I've stayed there before, cracking food but looking forward to some home comforts on Thursday. I suspect it'll be full of drunk Irish guys going to the horse racing at Cheltenham.