I went to get some proper coffee from the shop as opposed to the vending machine slurry I usually consume and found I had lost my frequent caffeinator card. Clare who works there asked me how many stamps I had on it and I told her 3 which was true. Anyway she gave me a new card with 6 stamps on it!

I don't know why that should make me so happy but it did - and not because I got 3 extra stamps for nothing J

Last night Phil and myself arranged to go for a drink but manged to miss eachother through sheer disorganization and incompetence rather than an unfortunate chain of events.

I really need to take charge and become one of those organized and efficient people I pretend to despise but secretly admire. I could start by sorting out my flat - I don't mean my flatmates ;-) I mean the steadily encroaching chaos.

You'd think that after all these years being responsible for the day to day aspects of my own life that I'd have learnt the basics wouldn't you? Huh-uhh.

Basic errors still committed by YT that only cause more work later.

1) Dropping dirty clothes on the floor
2) Not putting books back on shelves
3) Piles of videos, DVDs, games, system disks & CDs all jumbled up behind the teev
4) Leaving clean clothes in the machine so long they have to go round again (12 hours)
5) Not putting CDs back in boxes
6) Dropping clean clothes on the floor
7) Can't be bothered to program my mobile phone properly (sucky Motorola. Motorala! Yuk!)
8) Not paying utility bills till the final demand arrives. Why?? I have the money - it's not going anywhere?????
9) CV not updated as I go along.
10) Dropping dirty & clean clothes on the floor and getting them mixed up looking for a book. GODDAMMIT!!

Can't work much out from that except one I already knew - I hate doing the laundry.

Presumeably people other than me have taken a big swig of coffee thinking it's tea before. Do you guys then think 'oh I thought that it was tea but actually it's coffee' or do you immediately start to suffer strange conscious / unconscious brain conflicts.

I just did exactly this and my brain was saying 'that's tea' but my mouth was saying 'that's coffee'. Somehow this resolved itself as my brain deciding 'That's tea, but it's the most disgusting foul tea you've ever tasted.' So I found myself gagging on this hideous brew. Having choked it down and still with a strong bitter acrid taste in my mouth logic re-asserted itself and I thought it must be coffee.

And indeed it is so - going back to the cup, a peer, a sniff, a cautious sip. Yes - it's coffee. Entirely normal, inocuous coffee. But just because I thought it was something else it was transformed into something horrible. Just goes to show - physical experience is entirely subjective. But I guess we probably knew that already.

Actually I'm quite glad now we don't have Double Deckers in my vending machine. I've just eaten 2 (making up for last time) and feel a bit yacky. No-one to blame but myself I suppose.

Tchh - both the vending machines in the tea bar are now defunct so I was forced to wander over to building 6 to find refreshment. Those fiends have got double deckers in their chocy machine. It's discrimination if you ask me.

NB Double Decker = Cadbury's Chocolate Bar "filled with smooth chewy nougatine and crisp crunchy cereal" not a large red omnibus. I'm in a silly mood now. Probably because I haven't done anything today and I have a ton of committments at the moment.

Actually we had quite a lot of sensible discussions, along with the usual drivel. I've been kind of envious in the last couple of years of people who have managed to get it together enough to acquire they're own mortagages and property in London. I'm not so much referring to the smug marrieds (®Bridget Jones) who have 2 salaries but those people who managed to do it just on their own.

However I was slightly less envious when someone mentioned that if mortage rates doubled and she couldn't sell her house she would go bankrupt. As she has neither the highest debt nor the lowest salary I wondered how many of the other kids are facing a mountain . . .

A quick straw poll amongst my chums indicated that they are spending about £300 per month just servicing debt not including mortgages.

Frankly I'm shocked. I know we live in a world very much built on credit but all the same . . . .

I was talking to Mac late on Saturday night and the conversation strayed (as it will after that much alcohol) onto the topic of God, and not just God but organised religion as well. For some unknown reason I kept trying to get across the idea that something like Methodism is intrinsically more sensible than Catholasism because you don't have to worry about trans-substantiation or deadly vs venal sins or holy relics or papal infallability or all the rest of it.

Mac however made a very good point which really put me in my place. As soon as you believe, as soon as you have faith you've basically crossed the line. Once you are happy to stand up and say you believe in something for which by definition there can be no proof it really doesn't matter if you're a Lutheran or a Jesuit - it's all a matter of degree.

Once you've agreed to start believing in things with no proof per se, what you actually believe in is the least of your worries. And what right has anyone else to dictate where this leads you. Aliens from Andromeda - fine. Earth has a hallow core where dinosaurs roam - fine. Endless rebirth on the circle of life - fine. It doesn't seem to work that way though - the more exteme your own behavioural psychosis is the less likely you are to be tolerant of other peoples.

Well that was an interesting night at the opera - I've never been to the ROH before and it certainly is impressive. £200M worth of impressive I'm not sure, but definitely quite something. The production, Madame Butterfly however was fantastic. Pretty good seats for £40 as well - pretty much the best available for the money.

Went to Mac's for dinner Saturday and it is totally safe to say we drank too much. Bottle count : Champagne x 1, Proseco x 2, red wine x 7 and there were only 4 of us. We definitely set the world to rights. Hari has just returned from Peru and apparently even there they are reading all about the Hutton Enquiry and seem to be better informed about it than we are.

We wondered about this a while and then pretty much reached the same conclusion. Basically poeple who don't live in the UK assume that the enquiry is in some genuine way independent and it's report will accurately identify cuplrits, expose puppet masters and make genuine reccomendations to avoid a repeat of this in the future. Those of us who live here think the following will happen:-

1) The BBC & Gilligan will get a minor bollocking. They will promise to do better. Gilligan will be sacrificed on the alter of charter renewal.

2) The Government will be largely cleared of deliberately misleading the public. There will be some vague talk about lack of transparency and poor communications. A couple of insignificant civil servants will fall on their swords. Nothing will change.

3) That's it.

It's basically a whitewash to get Tony off the hook while allowing the BBC's enemies a field day of cheap shots and that's why outside of the media itself no one cares. Murdoch and Black can smell the opportunity to make some money by attacking those with genuine standards and a genuine committment to public service. They are circling in to kill off the BBC, nauseatingly attempting to disguise their naked greed with some kind of 'public good' defence. Everyone knows it, no-one thinks it can be changed, so we just don't care.

If it wasn't so disgusting it'd be laughable.

Soundtrack for the day Spit by Kittie. Suits my mood.

Am so not looking forward to the opera tonight. I love the opera but somehow seem incapable of going without a hangover that could fell penguins at 20 paces. The world record was Trstan & Isolde during the summer when my entire party fell asleep during the first act and basically never really recovered. Mac even fell asleep on a neighbouring Wagnerite not of our acquaintance and drooled.

At least this one is a corker - Madame Butterfly at the ROH. Bling bling-tastic. I'm going as I'm currently dressed - Jeans, trainers, and a t-shirt that says "Road Trip '98". Class.

Am feeling very confused today and not just because I have a blistering hangover and got exactly 0.0 hours sleep last night. Was up till 5pm and went to bed then, but no sleep. I might be in danger of having to handle an adult situation.

Not to mention a few flying brickbats.

Am I as dull as my colleagues?? God let it not be so.

Today (being Friday) is a big day for congregating in excitable chattering groups and going to the canteen for communal horror food. The DB boys started milling about behind my cube about 12 and talking so loudly about fuck knows what I was forced to start listening to the Donnas and thinking dark thoughts.

In the end they were forced to continue to their destination without one of their members. Where oh where was Derek? Seriously, the absence of Derek was causing major consternation! Just when I thought they were about to send out search parties Raj came by. By lucky chance he knew the whereabouts of the missing team-mate - he'd totally blown off those raggety-ass Oracle programmers and gone into town to buy a tie. BEDLAM ensues.

If I ever end up like these guys I might as well just get myself a noose because it'll be ALL OVER FOR ME.

Now I've done it.

Today is really turning into a non starter. My work is, like, rilly rilly dull. Metadata. I don't mind the concept of it, I just don't want to have to produce the stuff myself. I am after all a 'free text & intelligent categorization' kinda guy and having to manually edit and add words to stuff to make them searchable seems like 17th century suregery - ugly, nasty, and pointless.

Having said that it's also really boring (the metadata) and I don't suppose watching someone have their leg cut off by an entrepreneurial hairdresser was. Imagine it :

Surgeon
Good morning to you Sir. My name is Mr Cakeworthy I shall be perfoming your amputation today.

Patient
I see Sir. . . . and what are your qualifications?

Surgeon
I am priveledged to own my very own set of Sabatiers and I have just this very week acquired a new hacksaw made from the finest Sheffield Steel.

Patient
A new hacksaw you say! That's the stuff - I'll just drag myself on the table here, and then have at me Sir."

Didn't Douglas Coupland once define the concept of the desire to travel in time but only with the benefits of modern medicine? Weird thought - if we were living 200 years ago approximately half the people you currently know would already be dead. Eeesh.

My seafood pasta has pretty much reached perfection. For 2 (I’m assuming you know how to prepare pasta) :-

Finely chop 4 shallots, ½ a red chile, 3 cloves garlic, add the leaves from about 10 strands of fresh thyme, season and set in a frying pan over a low heat with the best olive oil you have.

Sweat for 5-10 minutes being careful not to brown the shallots. Add 1-2 handfuls of cherry tomatoes, 2 handfuls of prawns, 1 handful of cockles and cook on a higher heat until the seafood is done.

Add the juice of 1 lemon and 1 glass white wine (optional) and cook till the liquid is reduced (this won’t happen that fast as the tomatoes will expel liquid as they cook).

If the pasta isn’t ready you can hold it at this stage on a very low heat. Add a large chunk of unsalted butter and melt in. Drain the pasta and combine with the sauce.

Believe me – it may not sound like much but it’s pretty fantastic. I can’t decide if it’s better with or without the white wine – it gives it a little more sharpness. If you miss out the tomatoes you have to add the wine. And you can of course try different seafood. I just really like cockles though - weird I know.

Woo hoo! I just met the guy who fixes the vending machines and he showed me the ‘waste bucket’. I’m totally tripping – it’s medieval. The machine isn’t plumbed in at all – there’s just a bucket underneath a spout which comes from the grille below the cup dispenser. It’s not even covered. It must take months to fill up. Surely this can’t be right.

Bizarrely I want to use the other machine now – even though they are utterly identical and logic dictates that it too must have a bucket.

Lunch combos that don't work : Sweetcorn and Rice salad. Still - not as challenging as last year's (and I'm really not making this up) Sausage and Turnip.

This is fun : yourface.

Phew - its a whole week since I've been anywhere in the evening!! Some sort of record for me, unless you count Waitrose as going out which personally I don't as even I'm not that sad.

Watching Jamie Oliver last night I was struck by his incredible patience. The man is £2M down on the deal to help these rotten kids out (albeit whilst garnering some not inconsiderable publicity for himself) and they're still dicking him about, turning up late, slagging him off and constantly moaning and he's still helping them out and bending over backwards to accomodate them.

OK in his role as the Sainsbury's poster boy for twat you do sometimes feel like picking up the TV running onto the roof and hurling it 5 stories down onto a passing lorry transporting an unstable consignment of semtex just to make him shut the fuck up but even so . . . Jamie for your next series why not foget the disadvantaged yoof and instead open a restaurant staffed entirely by 30 year old IT professionals?

I can see the TV series now : "This week on 'Jamie's Kitchen : the Professionals' Jamie is embarrassed by being the last person in to work 3 days running and has to work the bistro as punishment. His lack of opinion on Andy and Steve's 4 week debate '5 door VW Golf Diesel vs Mazda Tribute Semi SUV' further fails to impress. Meanwhile Lisa has Bluetooth enabled the grill station and Roger cooks a hamburger with blue cheese via his pda whilst navigating the North Circular during rush hour."

Alright its a crap idea but so are the kids in Jamies Kitchen.

Uggh - the tea&coffee vending machine at work is displaying the following message: SORRY NOT IN USE. WASTE BUCKET FULL. Somehow the thought of a swilling vat of rancid droppings bursting to overflowing inside the machine I drink from 10 times a day is not very nice. And I don't undestand - the thing is connected to the mains. Surely the spillages just go down the drain. Is this some other type of waste bucket - the meta bucket for waste other than liquid. And is there a guy from the vending machine company whose only job it is to empty THE BUCKET? I can hear him now "Those selfish bastards - they've been putting lard down the vending machine again!"

A very lazy weekend. I fully intended to get round the full suite of babies that my friends seem to have produced, but instead I managed to make it absolutley nowhere. Was slightly embarrassed by Teej telling me she wasn't really expecting me on account of having known me for 15 years, but I guess you just have to live with your reputation (mine = being really unreliable).

Suffice it to say I didn't actually get out at all really which is good from a penny-pinching point of view but bad from a having a life point of view. On the plus side I did get over 30 hours in bed so not all bad at all . . .

Q. Why can you password protect a word doc but not a ppt presentation?? Not that I'm going to lose sleep over it.

Phil is incredibly pleased with himself. He has a brand new Nokia 8850? and who wouldn't be happy? There's nothing like a new mobile to put the spring back in chap's step. Alright, he has just become single again, is unemplyed and currently lives on his sister's sofa, but he has got a new 8850. Go figure.

In fact he seems on cracking form. Just goes to show - the pursuit of intellectual freedom and socialist ideals will make you happier than any amount of cash.

Didn't go to work yesterday - stayed home instead.

My train journey to and from work certainly can be lively. It’s been a continual learning experience since last August and I feel I’ve made great strides - I have come to accept the continuous and unceasing lateness of the trains. I have learnt to merely shake my head at the lack of any reason ever being given for this (“The train is running late because it has not yet left Liverpool Street” is not a reason guys). The fact that the trains themselves seem to be have been designated ‘safe spliff’ zones for the under 16s raises merely a shrug.

However even I was a bit pissed off last night when someone threw a large jagged rock through the train window missing me by 1 seat.

I mean I don’t want to look like a big girl’s blouse here. After all I’ve learnt to hardly hear the heroin dealers expressing their displeasure at their recalcitrant debtors; the more generally addressed imprecations of the schizophrenics – well that’s care in the community for you, and on one occasion I was threatened with being doused in petrol and set on fire by a man wielding a ball hammer. Maybe we should ignore that last occasion – he was, after all, clearly in the right if I had indeed been ‘looking at his friend’ as he so clearly believed.

I wonder what it’s like on the late trains when everyone’s been drinking?

At least I seem to have provisionally sorted out my Islington Council problem. Like so much in life its unpleasant threats and uncaring manner was molified by the application of £££ and of course the offer of plenty more of the same in the near future. My flatmates are gonna blow a gasket when they find out. However 'tis not my fault if they are such paupers - bills have to be paid :-(

It seems to have taken all afternoon to get the basics of the deal down and then make sure I have enough money to cover everything else. Have had much discussions with my lovely Agents (BTW - those don't look like any IT people I've ever met) and a variety of HR people. I guess we can be thankful we live in the modern era and such things can be done online - sing YEA! for Fieldglass. Of course if it was still 1834 I wouldn't have had to pay so fast so wouldn't have had to raise the cash so fast. Swings and roundabouts. On the other hand I'd probably be dead if it was 1834, so shouldn't really complain.

Normally I wouldn't get so uptight about this but 1) I'm going to Japan next month and need the money 2) Flatmates are driving me nuts - always hanging aroud in the kitchen cooking & complaining that I haven't done the washing up / bought bin bags / taken the recycling out.

It's probably all my fault. Just so long as no-one talks to me during University Challenge and is suitably amazed when I get the physics questions right I will fulfil my manly role.

My God work can be a funny thing . One minute there you are merrily editing meta data files and the next thing you know you’re driving down a country road with your old friend Simon. But hold on – Simon doesn’t even have a car, let alone the large BMW this seems to be. And he’s driving it from the back seat sitting on a high chair! Uh oh. This can only mean one thing – yes – you’ve managed to fall asleep at your desk again.

And it’s not even 5 o’clock yet.

Fortunately I am an expert at this by now and generally remain completely upright with no more than 15° head tiltage and a maximum of 6” down the seat slippage. Plus I normally retain a tight grip on the old mouse as well. So basically provided that I don’t stay there so long that my desktop locks up, no-one need ever know. It’s not good tho – this is what it must be like to have narcolepsy

Mood – in pain but strangely content.

Seem to have been spending quite a lot of time with Yip-Yap lately. Not good for one’s health or peace of mind, but she is an island of savage beauty in a sea of mediocrity. Actually watch this space she rang me up on Saturday and suggested we head out somewhere tomorrow. Tuesdays are my undoing. Or at least they were last week. I got so hammered I had to call in sick to work on Wednesday. Bad. Very bad. It wasn’t like I was trying to swing the lead – I was upfront about it but it’s still quite a long way from ideal. BTW have given up giving up smoking. Lasted about 5 days and was so unbearable my flatmates begged me to start again. I was only too happy to oblige. Still will have to give it up properly soon.

Looks like things are going badly for Teej. At the moment she’s staying with her Mum and that looks like being a semi permanent arrangement. Very bad – most unfortunate all round. Ho hum – can’t be helped.

So what else is new – we’ve finally found a new flatmate. She seems lovely – very keen to move in which is a bonus, and she has now paid up, so that’s all fine. It’s going to be hectic this weekend – have to get my bed out of storage and move all the other stuff all over London – what a pain – still has to be done.

Went to see Tosca on Saturday – that’s a good opera! Really need to go more often – next up Tristan & Isolde. I’m a glutton for punishment aren’t I ;-)

Mood : Bleak.

Well, not a whole lot been going on here. Having some difficulties finding a new flatmate – there just doesn’t seem to be anyone who wants to rent it. Seen a couple of people, but no-one that leaps out at us . . . ho hum.

Had a merry old night out with Yip-Yap on Friday. I think technically I may snogged her at some point – definitely a fairly random night out . . . odd.

Feel a bit out of sorts – depressed and ill. Have done something to the nerve in the back of my knee – keep getting strange numb sensations in my shin + non specific muscle pain. Have taken to sleeping 10/12 hours a night, but don’t feel better – continuing low level headache. Probably something to do with the fact that I’ve given up smoking. Had to happen at some point, but strangely depressing to think that that’s a pleasure to be forever gainsaid now – starting again would be weakness.

I’m reading Christiane F again after many years – probably not helping with my hypochondria, but still gripping + monumentally depressing.

The news has of course been completely off putting as well. I just so want this war to be over, but of course it never will be now. I don’t mean that this stage of the campaign won’t end, of course it will, but then we’ll have 3 years of American puppet regimen + increasing terrorist activity . . . in 10 years we’ll still be fully engaged fighting a full blown terrorist holding action . . . it really is enough to make you despair. I guess the Americans are so deluded that they think shooting people is a good way to control terrorist activity. They’ll learn eventually I guess . . . or not as the case may be :-(