Steven Paul Allen's Stories of Woe

Got my house key cut today, two of them. The price was £3.99 for one copy or £6 for two, so I opted for the latter. I just seemed to prefer the latter. Much like Steven Covacs seems to prefer the Chip Douglas being his worst enemy.

The reason for having the key cut is simple really. You see, I gave the plumber my house key so he could get into the house whilst we were in Poland and install the new boiler. Unfortunately he was unable to do this and he hasn't been able to return the key as yet, although he's coming over at the weekend to carry out said installation (I hope). All this has meant Tash & I are sharing her key. This has been alright up until today as she is going out with her work colleagues and I am probably going out down the pub, to play darts. One key, two people in different places neither of whom know who'll be home first. It is just an impossible situation.

It is for this reason that I proceed with caution to the key cutting machine and request a cut. When I get my key back from the plumber I'll have two spares. I'll have gone from rags to riches key wise, from relative obscurity to well know purveyor of keys. I may distribute one spare to my Mother & Father, so they can access the premises if there's an emergency. Also they will be able to pop round and water the plants when we go on holiday, that would be so nice. This key cutting has come with some nice side effects, I like very much.

This afternoon at work I went totally over board when I purchased a hot chocolate from the Kiosk, here at work. I had squirty cream in it and marshmallows, I looked very foolish carrying the monstrosity from the atrium up to my desk and this caused me to chuckle to myself. It really was an act of decadence and frivolity all rolled into one.

Right, I've reburnt my compilation CD & I have replaced track 13 (corrupt little bastard) with the following track:

13. Ralph Myerz & The Jack Herren Band - A Special Morning

I hope this clears up the whole sorry mess, I really do.

Last night I watched a program about the money markets on BBC2, hosted by that chump from Dragon's Den who everyone seems to dislike. It was a very interesting program which I watched in bed. Tash, however, tried to spoil my viewing somewhat by continually saying it was boring and asking "isn't there anything else on?". Eventually after I refused to turn it over, on numerous occasions, she went to sleep and I was able to absorb the program in a silent atmosphere.

The program finished at 10pm and I was so tired that I decided to put my new compilation CD on and go to sleep. This was very successful and I believe it was Ryuichi Sakamoto's offering on track 3 which eventually saw me off to the land of nod. At 11.10pm I was rudely awoken by some rather loud interference emitting from the stereo. This had been caused by the Makoto tune on track 13, clearly it was corrupt. I quickly pushed the CD along to the next track and was asleep in, well, no time at all really.

This morning I tried the CD again and the same thing happened. This has confirmed to me that I will need to reburn another copy excluding the Makoto track and including another. Quite an inconvenience, I think you'll agree. Corrupted mp3 files are a scourge on our society. My noble CD has been ruined by vandals. My CD has suffered at the hands of a mindless minority. My CD has fallen foul of a sick little puppy. My CD has been rendered obsolete.

Heard this on the Tommy Boyd podcast yesterday afternoon and it made me laugh:

I just made up a CD to listen to in bed whilst reading my new book "From Here to Infinity" by John & Mary Gribbin, no less.

On this CD I have written "2nd Compilation of 2009". Here is the track listing:

1. Air - La Femme D'Argent
2. Daft Punk - Make Love
3. Ryuichi Sakamoto - Father Christmas
4. Bob Dylan- The Man In Me
5. The Rolling Stones - Time Is On My Side
6. The Specials - I Can't Stand It
7. Kinobe - Slip Into Something More Comfortable
8. Pacific State - 808 State
9. Roy Ayers - Everybody Loves The Sunshine
10. Azymuth - Morning
11. Edson Frederico E A Transa - Bobeira
12. Bebel Gilberto - So Nice (Summer Samba)
13. Makoto - Black On Blue
14. Psychedelic Research Lab - Tarenah
15. The Prodigy - Your Love
16. City - Your Life

I’ve had the last couple of days off work as I wasn't very well after arriving back from Krakow. My personal belief is that I was poisoned by the Krakow McDonalds, and consequently after a very uncomfortable flight home I was sick. I feel a bit better now, but am far from 100%.

During my time off ill I watched four films, these were: There will be Blood, The Last King of Scotland, Pineapple Express and Rambo 2. Apart from Pineapple express I had seen all these films before. I found Pineapple Express to be distinctly average. I also watched the special features on these DVD's, of which There Will be Blood's were utter tripe. A dedicated special features disk for this? It simply isn't right.

Other than these films I have been flicking through what Virgin Media term the "Factual" channels. In particular I've been watching a lot of programs about the WW2. Here is a list of some of the programs I've watched:

Nazis- A Warning from History
Century of Warfare
Auschwitz- The Man who Told the World
Planes That Never Flew
Hitler's Generals
Tank Overhaul
Horizons- Einstein's Equation of Life and Death
Horizons- Time Lords

It's amazing the amount of TV you can watch over two days if you're under the weather and are not up to anything other than sitting or lying down. It was good watching the programs, I feel like I have really learned something. It is however quite harrowing and last night I woke up at 3.50 thinking about the Auschwitz program I'd watched. I then couldn't get back to sleep for a while as I couldn't stop thinking about how horrible it was.

Today I put together a little overview of the lease settlement process, it wasn’t much fun. I distracted myself and those around me throughout the day by various means including:

Carefully unwrapping a Kit Kat and the rubbing the foil against the desk with my thumb to make it really shiny.
Disguarding paperclips on Rob’s desk so that he would have to unravel them and then bend them into new shapes. He must do this as he has OCD about it.
Rubbing an eraser on my desk and making loads of shavings.
Talking about biscuits a lot.
Discussing cheese sauce and our own methods of making it.
Talking about the availability of car parking spaces when returning to work from lunch.
Taking a picture of my breakfast and then emailing it to my team. This provoked a conversation about Marmite that was quite lengthy.

Also today I found a little notebook that I bought in Barcelona. In it various things are written.
Here are some examples:

“I called a Smart Car a little squirt for driving 20mph- sustained”
“Feet cross pollination- process of changing socks over halfway through the day”
“Idea for a song:
-Park
-Ignition off
-Key out
-Lights off
-Disembark
-Lock
-Walk”
“Sketch about dress code: Get job, great. Say, what’s dress code? Got to wear a suit? Shove the fucking job in the case. Cunts! And run out”
“I always find the first staple of the day the most satisfying”
“The Yorkie diet”
“Idea for a film: man phones the gas company and gives a fake name to put on the bills. He is subsequently arrested and a lengthy and hilarious legal process ensues”
“Mo Harris is Ray Winstone’s mother”

Tomorrow I am getting up in time to go to Gatwick airport at 7.30am so I won’t have time to do a post, nor Saturday either as I’ll be in Krakow. Normal service will resume on Sunday night.

Today I didn't do very much, oh sure I had my cold shower as usual after a good cycle in the spare room. I used Pantene Pro V 2 in 1 for normal hair and some of the Imperial's Leather of the Icelandic Spa variety. It's looking very much like the boiler will be replaced this weekend whilst I'm in Poland so hopefully I'll only be having two more cold showers; one tomorrow and one on Friday morning before we set off for Gatwick Airport.

At work today I arranged my change into chronological order. The oldest coin I had is the one penny at the beginning of the picture below, it has been on this planet 3 years longer than I have. It's a 1977 coin of the realm. The newest is a 2008 ten pence piece, a specimen that is in tip top condition, as you'd expect.

After work I did some washing up and hung my washing out to dry. Currently the heater is pointed at them, I want those items dry from my trip to Poland so help me God.

I then watched that new Colin Farrell and Edward Norton film, Pride and Glory. I watched it till the end but I didn't like it. I don't think I have ever really seen a film about police corruption that is that good. I don't know why I bother. I will sight Copland with Sly Stallone as another of these crap films about bent coppers. Actually I just thought that Training day with Denzel was pretty good, but that's the only one I can think of at the moment. Let me know if you have any thoughts on this one, won't you?

I am now having a beer and listening to some of my vinyl. I just sorted it all out into some sort of order and found this greatly satisfying.

Please look at the below picture. This is what I see when I look out over the office from my desk. Please note the Paddy Power Diary and rather fetching desk fan; this is invaluable on those hot summer's days. Normally we get given a company branded diary but because of the credit crunch those nasty purse strings are being tightened. I also have a little foam arm chair and a coaster of frivolity. Please just see for yourself:

Managed to get my haircut at lunchtime, but I was in the barbers for a full hour. Bit of a pain, but it's done now which is a relief. The haircut itself was £11, and I gave Yousef a £2 tip as my hair was a real mess and he did a good job. Afterwards I had a sausage roll and a packet of Quavers from the bakery.

In other news the plumber's coming round today to drain the system and rip out the old boiler, I'm glad this is moving forward as the cold showers are hideous in this climate. This morning I couldn't get up at 7am and so I had a shower without having worked up a sweat before hand. Putting my head under the shower for even a short period of time made it feel like when you eat too much ice cream and get a head freeze. It was highly unpleasant.

In order to battle the cold in the house without the boiler we bought a little fan heater from Argos on Saturday. It's a good little unit and does a sterling job of heating the room in goodly time. Yesterday I plugged it in using the extension lead. As I was doing the washing up I was sure I could smell something funny, like burnt hair it was. I went to investigate and the extension lead was really hot and the heater wasn't on, so I unplugged and then threw the extension lead away. The smell had been coming from the extension lead which was, like, fried man.

I also had to flip the trip switch in the coat cupboard as the whole of the electrics in the living room had cut out as a result of my foolishness. The heater was pulling too much power, see. I hadn't even thought of that. I was happy when I plugged the heater in again and it worked, situation remedied.

Today was very unproductive really, I booked about 50 or so contracts in the morning (a modest effort) and that was about it. You see, I had to attend this kick off event from 12.45pm to 2.45pm. That’s two hours of listening to various characters banging on about what we’re going to be doing in 2009. Oh, and of course a bit of chewing the cud on the results of 2008. This would have been acceptable to me had it lasted the allotted time, however this charade went on until 3.07pm. The bastards then went on to make a joke about it, oh this presentation over ran ha ha ha. No, not ha ha ha. It was bloody ridiculous; I was supposed to be having my lunch after the kick off and I was bloody starving.

Because of this travesty I didn’t have my sandwiches until 3.30pm. If you say something is going to last two hours that is how long it should last, not two hours twenty five. Especially when you’re crammed into the auditorium with you knees squeezed up against the chair in front. One of the best bits was when one of the speakers said we could stand up, I was so stiff it was a real treat. He then wanted us to punch the air and shout “activity”, because this is one the objectives this year, to be more active within the market. My effort was half hearted but I thought it would have been funny if someone had really screamed it as if they were in an army drill. That would have given them something to think about.

The only woman who presented had a really weird accent and instead of listening to what she was saying I found myself trying to think of what country she was from. Initially I thought she was Irish but then her accent kept sounding American and then Australian at times. I ended up deciding she was American, but having discussed this afterwards with some colleagues we thought she could be from Canada.

I kept closing my eyes during the whole ordeal as I just wanted to go to sleep. It was like torture.

Once I got out of the event I went for my lunch break straight away. I’ve been meaning to get my hair cut for ages so I went down to Yousef’s but discovered a queue of about 5 people. I just don’t get how people have got the money to get their hair cut at the end of the month, especially in January. It’s really starting to annoy me, every time I go down there I find a bloody massive queue of people. All I want to do is go there at lunch time, walk straight in and get my hair cut without having to wait. I mean, look at how bloody long my hair is at the moment, it’s really starting to annoy me:

I did go to Tesco today. I got myself a sort of canvas type coat and a fleece, total of £20 spent which was nice. I also went to Comet and got some new headphones for my decks, used my bonus bonds on them; what a right treat. I like them because the ear cups can be inverted.

When I got home I had a pepperoni pizza and then went to bed and watched that new Robert DeNiro & Al Pacino film, Righteous Kill. I actually fell asleep during the film, about half an hour in I think it was. When I awoke the film was still playing and so I checked the time and it was 1 hour 10 mins in. I kept watching and found I had missed surprising little and was still able to watch the end of the film without feeling as if I didn’t know what was going on.

It’s a forgettable film, but all in all wasn’t as bad as I was expecting having heard quite a few people bad mouth it.

After the film finished I thought I better do a bit of exercise given that I had a few beers last night and I had just had a rather large pizza. So, I went into the spare room, got on the exercise bike and watched the new Richie film, Rocknrolla. In an hour and a half I cycled 38km; I did however have a few breaks just after the hour mark to intersperse the cycling with a few sets of press ups. In total I did 200, 4 sets of 25 and 2 sets of 50.

The film was alright, nothing special compared to Lock Stock and Snatch but more of a return to form considering the tripe that is Revolver. It was an archetypal Guy Richie film, that is all I have to say about it.

I worked up quite a sweat with the door and windows shut in the room which was ideal, given my next activity; which was to have a cold shower. It wasn’t actually that bad and I found it refreshing, despite the fact that given the chance I would have loved to have a hot bath.

Since then I have had a bit of Marmite on toast, some Walker’s French Fries and a toffee yoghurt. I ate most of this whist watching the snooker final on BBC2, which I am finding highly enjoyable. Oh yeah, and I also located my passport on a shelf in the bedroom, which was nice.

Here are some pictures I just uploaded from my phone:

I’m going to Poland, Krakow to be precise, next Friday for a couple of nights. I hear it is very cold, -13 Celsius to be precise, so I decided to go and buy some appropriate footwear. This I did in the week by going to Millets and getting myself some Peter Storm lowland walking boots. However, yesterday something quite marvellous occurred.

This marvel was that the department at work had achieved a target for which the prize was £100 per person in bonus bonds. I got my bonny bonds given to me in an envelope yesterday afternoon and this caused me to think. What I thought was that I should take the Pete Storms back and get my cash refunded and then go and spend the bonny bonds on some shoes. This is what I did today.

In Millets I simply gave the Pete Storms back in the original packaging and said they didn’t fit very well. A refund was forthcoming. The problem I then had is that Bonny Bonds are not accepted everywhere, and so the only shops I could really get shoes from were the following: Clarks, Debenhams and River Island. Eventually I got a rather spiffing pair of walking type boots from Clarks. I’m wearing them now and they are well comfortable. My feeling is that they are going to be a sure fire hit with the Poles.

Generally I really don’t like the brand Clarks as they are the shoes your parents always get you for school shoes, which is a bit sad really. I just think they are a bit gay. Still, the boots I got are just the ticket, and you can’t tell they are Clarks at all, so I’m happy.

I still have some of my bonny bonds left, so far I have spent £60 worth. As well as the shoes I also spent £10 worth of bonds in Boots on e45 products and hair gel. Another £10 bond was spent in Argos on a heater. It’s a good one; it can also be used in the summer as a regular fan… what a treat.

The neighbours were out earlier so I played some really loud music, happy days. It was a good chance to really give my new vinyl a good airing. I did this whilst enjoying a beverage with Ging. We then had a roast beef. Tash cooked the beef and I made the roast potatoes and yorkie pud. It was a real beauty, to be sure.

Tomorrow I am considering going to give my wind copter its maiden flight, it’s quite windy at the moment so it seems like a good opportunity. I’m also going to pop to Tesco.

You see, Tash and I did go to Tesco earlier today and I found a coat I quite liked. However, I didn’t want to buy the coat as we were going to some shops afterwards that I thought might have better offerings. They didn’t and so I want to go back and try to find the Tesco coat again. I’m glad Tash hid it in amongst some other clothing, hopefully no one has spotted it.

Here be a collection consisting of scans of little bits and pieces that I've had up on my pin board at work. I don't really display them anymore as we have so many desk moves and it is a pain in the neck to keep taking them down and putting them up again. Instead I keep them in my sundries file in the bottom draw. It's good this, isn't it?

This is a picture cut out of a stationary catalogue that David N Smith thought looked like me. He put it on my desk one morning.

Found out on Tuesday that the boiler has finally had its day, the piece of shit. I hate this boiler and when it is removed I'd like to take a sledge hammer to it and smash it to bits. Only a couple of months ago we spent £450 getting it repaired, and now this. This is absolutely ridiculous.

Luckily a plumber by the name of Cowbow Mark is going to give us a good deal on a new one, better than half price. But it's still going to cost a smidgen over a grand, which will cover the cost of the new boiler and the installation. Bloody great isn't it? And, in the meantime we have to suffer with no boiler which means no hot water and no heating. In this climate this is not a pleasant experience, I promise you that.

My workaround given the situation is as follows:

I get up at 7.00am and have a vigorous workout session for an hour or so and get myself all hot and sweaty. I then leap from the spare room to the shower and brave the icy cold shower. You see, it's not all that bad if you've worked up a good level of internal heat; makes it a little more bearable.

The other major problem is doing the washing up. To do this I fill all four of the saucepans with water and boil them all up on the hobs, I also boil the kettle with a full load of water. This hot water is then transferred to the kitchen sink and washing up commences. It's a pain in the backside, I tell thee.

The other irritation, although this pails into insignificance when placed against the already mentioned problems, is the amount of time it takes your washing to dry without the heating. I tell you, in this cold weather it takes forever for your garments to dry off. I've had a batch of recently washed towels hanging out for two days now and they are still not dry. It's driving me potty. Last night I washed the bed linen, god only knows how long that'll take to dry.

On a positive note the last of my vinyl arrived, from the various discogs sellers I'd purchased from, today. This has lifted my spirits ten fold. I'm going to have a good mix tonight and maybe a wee dram drop of whisky. That should warm me up.

It was my birthday on the 3rd of January and for a bit of a change I actually arranged something. Fortunately this year the old birthday fell on a Saturday and even more fortuitously there just happened to be a race meeting at Lingfield. We trained it up on the day from Earlswood, about £10 for a return billet. I started proceedings at 10.30am with a couple of bottles of Carlsberg Export on the train, delicious. At East Croydon station Tash got me a vanilla flavored coffee, it was well sugary I tell thee.

Lingfield Station is actually a ten minute walk from the race course and also boasts a couple of shelves worth of books to read whilst you wait for you train and mooch about the place. They're just available to pick up and read and then put back, very trusting. You wouldn't find this sort of community spirit in Redhill, it's a completely different way of life down there in Lingfield you know.

It was £13 to get into the race course and the first race was at 12.35, with the last race at 3.55. I think there were about 7 races in all. I proceeded to lose every race until I decided to lump on the last race in an attempt to recoup some dosh. I decided the best tact was to place £20 on the nose on number 2. The little beauty romped it! I went a bit mad, according to Thomas there were people looking at me, and then went to collect my winnings, £180. Not bad at all, and left me over £100 up on the day.

The train ride back to Redhill was a little bit troublesome. Tash pressed the emergency button in the toilets and the driver announced over the loud speaker system, "could the nit wit who has pressed the emergency button in the toilets go and reset it". Tash seemed unco-operative in achieving this task and in the end the conductor came and remedied the situation. I suppose we should all count ourselves lucky she wasn't fined.

Eventually we made it back to Earlswood and went back to mine to watch the darts final with a few more beers, a highly enjoyable time I think you'll agree.

Here is a list of films that I watched over the weekend:

Friday:
1. The Transporter 3
2. Ruthless People

Saturday:
3. Changeling
4. Babylon A.D.

Sunday:
5. Defiance
6. Traitor

Of all these films I thoroughly recommend giving Babylon A.D. a very wide berth indeed. I was watching up in the spare room whilst on my exercise bike whilst Tash was watching Sex in the City downstairs, I would have turned it off after half an hour but it was something to watch whilst exercising and the idea of watching Sex in the City made me feel quite angry.

On the plus side Defiance and Changeling are well worth a watch, whilst Traitor wasn't bad and The Transporter 3 was substandard; but having said that was pretty much what I was expecting. You see you set your expectation levels low and you don't get disappointed.

Ruthless People was on BBC1 on Friday night and is an 80's comedy with Danny DeVito and none other than Judge Reinhold. I laughed but I didn't cry. I would tell you to watch it if you haven't seen it before as it is good and hearty. I liked all the japery that was connected with a certain video that was taken of the chief of police and a lady of the night.

Since the weekend I haven't watched any further films, instead I have been watching sport and a series called Medium. I've also tried watching Celeb Big Brother but can not as there is this horrible fat scouse woman in the house called Tina who makes me want to smash my television through the floor when she appears on the screen. It's a shame because I don't mind the other characters in there, I just can not stand that nasty excuse for a human being.

On Sunday morning I went to rather a swell garden centre known simply as Squires. I went there with Tash and Ging, for breakfast no less. I had a nice frothy strawberry milkshake and some scramby eggs, sausages and toast. It was rather scrumptious and I sucked my milkshake through a straw with a certain amount of joy, it has to be said. After consuming breakfast we had a perusal of the centre’s offerings. It was then that I had the idea to buy a Yucca plant for the living room.

In squires the Yucca’s were somewhat pricey, so we had a fleeting visit to Homebase on the way back to check out their prices, man. It was a good thing we did as well, the Yucca they had on display were much more reasonable; they were in the flipping sales for Heaven’s sakes. We picked one up for £7.49, what a bloody deal. The Yucca now sits in the pot that was vacated by the Christmas tree on January 6th.Everyone’s a winner.

Incidentally, the Christmas tree was one of those potted numbers. It’s outside on the patio w awaiting plantation in the garden outside the shed. The plan is to bed the sucker in and nurture it until next Christmas, when I’ll dig it up and use it as the Christmas tree once again. It’s just your biggest plan.

Earlier today I was playing Wii Fit and trying to do the tightrope walk on the top level. It was really annoying me as I couldn’t get past 17 meters for ages as I would get blown off by the wind or the evil muncher would get me. So, I shouted out in annoyance- I think the neighbours may have heard.

I am currently typing this on a lappy topster whilst watching 24 on Sky 1, it’s a double bill special to kick of the new series and I have to say it is splendid. Tony is now a baddy, unprecedented. The only problem with watching on the television is that you have to put up with the scummy adverts, oh well never mind.

Last night I spent a few hours on discogs.com making some purchases in the marketplace. I must say that making these purchases isn’t as troublesome a process as I have envisaged.

You see, payments are made to sellers via Paypal. I had a problem with them before with regard to my subscription to pay for this very blog, no less. What happened was that I lost my switch card and had to get a new one sent to me, and therefore my issue number went up by one, from 6 to 7. Would Paypal let me amend this detail on my account with them? They wouldn’t shift for toffee, the stubborn bastards, Every time I amended the card detail a message came up telling me I hadn’t changed the card number or expiry so updating wasn’t required. This is absolutely ridiculous.

In the end I was forced to remove the card all together and resubmit a new entry from scratch. The act of doing this caused my subscription to fail, and made me so mad I chose another way to pay for the blog and left Paypal in my wake.

The discogs marketplace method of payment, however is much more reasonable. You simply click on the send monies button, put in the sellers email address and you’re off. Easy as pie, I am so far very pleased with the end to end process, although I haven’t actually received any goods as yet.

These are the records I bought:

DJ Stompy, Supreme & UFO - Stay With Me / Ticking Of The Clock (12")
Midas - Waiting For Gold / Break On Thru (Remix) (12")
Eruption - Pop Bang Lovely / There Goes The Boom (12")
DJ Seduction - Itch It Up / Samplemania Remix (12")
Sy & Unknown - The Remixes (12", Ltd)
Timespan, The / Luna-C - Remix Records & Kniteforce Present 'The Remix's' Part 5 (12")
DJ Seduction (Meets) Billy 'Daniel' Bunter* - Hop On The Dance Floor / Rhythm Flow (12")
DJ Seduction - Never Let You Go / Here It Comes (Hardcore Heaven Mix) (12")
D.J. Synergy* - Only Love '96 / Imagine (12")
Billy "Daniel" Bunter & J.D.S. - Come Alive (12")
DJ Fury - All I Ever Wanted / Soundflow (12")
Helix - Get It Right / Before Your Eyes (Remix) (12")

Here are my resolutions for the year:

1. Make more jelly
2. Get my car battery changed
3. Build a permanent BBQ in the garden, with bricks
4. Always pair my socks, even more so than usual
5. Have the toilet repaired
6. Get Canon to make loads of money so I can have a bonus
7. Hoover the house on a weekly basis
8. Listen to more music I like for good vibes all round
9. Buy more DVD’s
10. Get really good at Wii
11. Copy lots of good compilation CD’s for my listening pleasure
12. Try to get Gordon Brown evicted
13. Embrace News at 10 & get more involved with Newsnight
14. Go to Yousef’s more regularly
15. Play more darts down the pub
16. Destroy Elton John
17. Nurture the flora in the garden, whilst simultaneously weedoling everything else
18. Write something on my blog everyday, even if it is menial
19. Make a film of me in my house in the style of MTV’s cribs
20. Put up more shelves
21. Make my shed an emporium of tools
22. Enjoy the credit crunch because it is fun
23. Go to New Orleans and sing in a jazz quartet
24. Make sure that Tash washes the sheets and makes the bed at least once a quarter
25. Get a massive bath of jelly snakes in and eat them systematically
26. Go and watch darts at the Ally Pally
27. Go and watch the masters snooker at Wembley
28. Get a DAB radio in every single room
29. Listen to James Whale like it is the best thing since sliced bread and then some
30. Convert everyone I know to DAB
31. Give Andew Marr A big chance
32. Fire rockets more often, I’m talking once a month minimum
33. Just get a wicked shelf to display like some sort of monolith
34. Never buy a magazine
35. Shun all celebrity culture
36. Make sure Ging never sings “you’re too good to be true”
37. Don’t smash any glasses
38. Buy some really intriguing ornaments
39. Construct a huge indiscrimiate quiz
40. Become a football hooligan
41. Grow a really weird beard
42. Reenact scenes from films I like in real life
43. Drive more like driving Miss Daisy in an attempt to irritate fellow road users
44. Learn visual basic
45. Touch a frog
46. Watch more David Attenborough programs with gusto
47. Get patio centric
48. Look after my plants
49. Watch the film Leon once a month
50. Download or buy all the Louis Theroux documentaries and then hold a Louis Theroux night with cocktails and toast
51. Play more Bowie
52. Trivial pursuit- make people play it into the night for a bit of fun

I have decided that I will post my new years resolutions tomorrow, this is due to the fact that the resolutions are on a word document on the laptop at home. Currently I am at work and I didn't bring the resolutions with me on some sort of memory stick apparatus. Compounding issues further is the fact that the laptop is not connected to the internet, so I will need to uplift the resolutions from the toppy lapster at some point regardless of everything else in the known universe. My aim for tomorrow is to publish these resolutions and also publish a few photos that I have taken of late. One of these photos is of a carton of egg nog.

I've also had an idea to scan in all the items I've had up on my notice board, here at work, and post them. I may attempt this next week, I feel as if I really should. As far as future planning goes that's about it for me at the moment.

Last night I went to Tesco, second time this week. I needed some bread and I ended up spending £33 on various bits and pieces. I spent a little while thinking about purchasing a wash bag for my up coming trip to Krack one off in Poland; I then realized that I had been totally wasting my time as you can't take toiletries on the plane in your hand luggage. Chris, of Monty Christo fame, would have loved it. He accompanied Tash & I to a trip to Tesco over the Christmas period and didn't like the way we aimlessly drifted round the shop for ages with a distinct inability to make our minds up about anything. It's just something we do.

Yesterday in Tesco I had a Belgium chocolate milkshake whilst I perused. When I had finished this rather tasty beverage I deposited the empty container behind a pizza. It was just the ticket. When I got in from Tesco it was 10.30pm, can you believe it? So, I unpacked my new spoils and then sat down to watch a bit of Nat Geo Wild, it was a program about Giant Hornets in Asia. Those hornets are vicious beasts, they really are. Then at 11pm I went upstairs and made a compilation CD which I burnt onto one of the new blank CD's that I had just purchased from Tesco. The CD was labeled "a mixture of DnB, on the mellow side". I then went to bed and listened to my new compilation on the Pure DMX20 whilst I drifted off to sleep.

Now, you may notice that I have been rambling on a bit, this is simply because one of my new years resolutions is to write something on my blog every day, not matter how menial. So, there you have it.

I have decided that I want to buy some sort of lidded basket or storage stool in which to contain a duvet and pillow, this I will keep in the living room and that is all. At lunchtime I went to check Homebase and found their storage options to be inadequate, on my way there I got stuck in some traffic which irked me.

I left Homebase circa 1.50pm and was at my very own home for a spot of spaghetti and sausage of toast at 2pm. I buttered the toast with some Country Life and added a layer of mild cheddar before pouring the spaghetti & sausages on top. It tasted delicious and I woofed it up a veritable treat. Then I inspected the duvet and pillow again and measured them for size. It is becoming an obsession.

Now I like to tell you, just a little bit, about my radio routine:

1. I currently listen to Nick Ferrari in the mornings on LBC, this takes me to 10am
2. At 10am I switch to TalkSport for Ian Collins. If Ian isn't on I refuse to listen to TalkSport, and I won't listen to LBC either as I find James O'Brian quite annoying
3. All being well I will have listened to Ian Collins till 1pm, in this instance I will listen to Hawksbee and Jacobs to a time of 1.30pm when I leave for my luncheon appointment
4. When I get back from lunch I like to listen to my podcasts, of which there are several weekly ones I find I must listen to. These are:
a. The Iain Lee Sunday night show on Absolute
b. The Adam & Joe show on BBC6 Music
c. The Tommy Boyd show on Play Radio UK
5. At 4pm I switch back to LBC for the drive time show with James Whale. If James is not on form I'll check out Wrighty & Durham on TalkSport, but I'll invariably stick with James
6. Come 5.30pm I leave for home. This is pretty much completes the bulk of radio's input into my day
7. In the evening if I have a bath I'll listen to LBC, a bit of Nick Abbot is usually order of the day
8. For bedtime listening I stick on Clive Bull on LBC, with the Pure DAB DMX20 on the sleep timer for 60 minutes

n.b. If at 10am Ian is not on TalkSport I will get on the podcasts early. Simple, and sweet as that.

You may notice I have switched my alliances quite markedly from TalkSport to LBC of late. This is because TalkSport upset me by sacking Gaunty, which caused me to totally boycott talksport for a number of weeks. It is only recently I have been listening to a smidgen more of the station.

That will be all for now, I think I shall be posting my new years resolutions tomorrow.

Today I shared a pod with monk boy as I entered the building, it was nice to look at the back of his head and study his strange monk hair. In the mornings I always park nearer the lower ground entrance to the building as there are normally ample parking spaces and no queue to enter the place of work. I do this because the lower ground entrance is nearer to my desk.

After I have returned back to work from my luncheon appointment I park further away and use the ground level entrance to enter the place of work. This is because the lower ground entrance normally has a massive queue at the pod door come 5.30pm and I hate standing in this queue. At 5.30pm sharp I march myself at brisk pace to the ground level pod door. There is a bit of this journey where there's cover from the working populous and at this point I run, but only if there are no onlookers.

The only issue I sometimes have is if my path to the pod door is blocked by some people walking two abreast. If this happens I just get really anxious and curse the selfish fools in front of me inwardly.

I then enter the pod door and leave the car park in my conveyance at maximum speed. All this is in an attempt to beat the 5.30pm exodus, and so far it is working

Went to Currys yesterday and let off a little bit of wind when I squatted down to look at the freeview boxes. There was someone standing next to me when I did the obligatory check to see if anyone would have heard. He was a middle aged man in a green jacket & jeans with shortish brown hair perusing the blue ray DVD players. I immediately left the shop. The thing is it just came out, I didn't even feel it coming.

Another little incident that occured yesterday happened at the local household waste site. Due to the rubbish not being collected for about two weeks we'd collated quite a stack of rubbish, so I decided to go and deposit some of this down at the dump. Now, one of these bags contained empty pizza boxes. When I got to the skip to chuck in this particular item one of the little skip inspector nazi types said to me, "hang on a minute, mate, that's cardboard in there". I started to say "but..." and then I thought oh sod it and just gave him the sack of pizza boxes and said "here you go then". He looked in the bag and said "oh, it's just fucking pizza boxes" and then slung them on the tip. Why is it that you can't just go to the tip to throw rubbish away without some twat watching over you making sure you are throwing away your rubbish properly? It makes me so very mad, it really does.