Wednesday 4th April

Sleep outside and not take fright

Whaddya mean you want some updates? OK I'll get round to it over the Easter Holiday. Promise. In the meantime I've got a stack of Will Oldham CD's, that Charlie lent me, to work through.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Monday 19th March

How Did That Happen?

I had a rare free Saturday the other weekend, as Crewe were away and Nantwich Town didn't have a game. I was briefly tempted to make the trip to Gillingham to watch the Alex but the thought of a 9-hour round trip on the train soon put paid to that idea. So I ended up catching up with all the tidying and washing and stuff that I've been putting off over the last few weeks because I've been away or ill or working. It still felt rather strange to be standing in the kitchen at 3pm doing the washing up instead of being sat or stood somewhere waiting for a game of football to kick off. That said, I still didn't manage to get round to doing an update for this site, which had been about number three on my list of things to do. Fortunately I've had to wait in today for a someone to read the electricity meter and another chap to replace the gas meter, so I've had time to get this done today.

Having skipped the defeat at Gillingham and the subsequent mid-week draw at Millwall I was looking forward to Saturday's game against Bristol City, even though I was expecting Crewe to get a bit of a pasting. In the end they performed well and with a bit more quality up front could have taken at least a point from the game. Clearly, although Higdon and Jack try, they are not up to the same standard that Varney and Maynard have set this season. I'd have preferred to see Ryan Lowe up front with Higdon, to be honest, but with the injuries mounting, Crewe are short of experience for the midfield too. Still, Vaughan and Maynard might be back for the upcoming game against Rotherham. Let's hope so - we need the cutting edge in front of goal that hopefully Maynard will provide.

Having lost a couple of days at work earlier this month due to this horrendous cold-cum-flu that seems to be getting everyone, I followed that up with an attack of the comedy disease of the 17th Century - gout. I get occasional bouts of it - mainly if I don't eat properly and then get a bit dehydrated. Just the sort of thing that might happen if you've got a cold that kills your appetite, in fact. Of course, I couldn't have gout and the cold at the same time obviously. So I had a couple of painful days limping into work until the drugs took effect. And then finally, having recovered from the cold and the gout I managed to twist my ankle in bed. Sadly, I was alone at the time. Or perhaps fortunately, as I awoke with a start to find my left foot pointing in a different direction to the rest of me. Ouch! How did that happen? Well, I could blame the heavyweight duvet, crammed into an undersized quilt cover, but I'd surely be spraining my ankle every night if that was a factor. The worst thing, apart from ther pain, obviously was the knowing that I'd got a support bandage somewhere, but could I find it? Could I heck as like. Cue more comedy limping into work.

Things I never thought I'd say: (Number 1 in an occasional series.)

"I must buy myself some smaller trousers."

You know, people laughed at me when I bought a rowing machine. Well, the joke's on them, because despite the fact that it's now tucked under the bed and hasn't been used for the last five months, I've still managed to lose weight. The real secret behind this is actually no secret at all - move more, eat less. I walk round to the bus stop in the morning, get off a stop early and walk to my connecting bus stop (or the railway station, if I've got up early enough) and walk into work. Then, obviously there's the return journey at the end of the day. In my previous job, I used to get a lift from door-to-door, which is obviously very nice but didn't really do me any favours in the fitness stakes, especially as I'm too lazy to do any proper exercise. And of course, now I'm living on my own, I have to walk to the shops and back if I want anything, rather than relying on my sister. Plus the fact that my recent bouts of illness and the long days I've been putting in at work have drastically reduced my intake of post-work booze. Anyway, whatever the reasons for the weight-loss, it must be doing me some good - some young lady slipped her phone number into my coat pocket on her way out of the pub on Saturday night!

Ethical dilemma time. The day has started badly. Your first bus was late and your second one doesn't show up. Abandoning the bus idea in favour of the (slightly) more reliable train, you trudge off to the station. On the way you pass a cash machine (ATM) and it's bleeping. Whoever used it previously has somehow forgotten to take their cash. Do you:

• a) Pocket the cash and walk on?
• b) Take the money but determine to find a way of getting it back to the rightful owner? Or
• c) Simply walk on?

Well, I have to confess I simply walked on by. I'm still not sure that was entirely the right thing to do, but I would have felt guilty pocketing the cash and I didn't have time to hang around waiting for the bank to open. Well, actually I did, because my boss wasn't in, and playing the good samaritan is a much better excuse for turning up late for work than crappy public transport. I didn't do that though and now despite everything I still feel a teensy bit guilty I didn't rescue the money and try to return it. Mind you, I would have looked a bit of a twat if it had turned out to be a SWAG-TV style set up. Anyhow, I did think ATM's were programmed to take back any cash if it wasn't claimed within a certain time limit... I could be wrong.

Last week, after a number of near-misses and close things, team Amanda Huggenkiss got back to winning ways in the quiz at the Cronkinson Farm pub. It kind of makes up for the week we lost by a third of a point (yes, a third!) and the week we won because someone had added up our score wrongly and we pointed out the error, thus relegating ourselves to third. A strong performance in the last two rounds was enough for us to nick it by a point. For those who are new to this I should explain, the quiz is provided by professional quiz providers Redtooth and consists of six rounds. The first round is a picture round. The second round is based on current news. The third round has two questions with five answers each. The fourth round is 'Trivia trail' with the last letter of the previous answer being the first letter of the next answer. Round five is Connections - four answers all with a connection, obviously. The final round is the killer - Wipeout. Get all ten answers correct and get a five point bonus. Get one answer wrong and lose all your points for the round. Of course, you can also play it safe by not answering any question you don't know and just getting points for the answers you do know. We had a stint of "going for it" on a regular basis and wiping out on an equally regular basis. In fact, I don't think we've scored the bonus five points since our first win although those months ago. Still, it's not the winning that counts but the knowing that if we had max-ed out in the Wipeout round we would have crushed your puny scores into the dust.

I've been trying to curtail my habit of buying armfuls of CDs when I've got no money but it is very difficult. Especially when you pass the local record shop and they've got a b-movie compilation in the window. Well, it'd be rude not to pick up some more stuff while I'm in there so I picked up the following:

• b-movie - Platinum (Best Of) - I have to admit that there's something a bit wrong about a 15-track, 'Best Of' from a band that only actually ever released three singles. Especially when one of those singles (Marilyn Dreams) is conspicuous by its absence. Still, the other two singles (neither of which troubled the top 40) are here - 'Remembrance Day' and 'Nowhere Girl'. I remember them as being a bit more electr-pop than they actually were. Their sound as it turns out is closer to that of The Chameleons than early Talk Talk, if you know what I mean. And if you don't, well, I'm sure there's enough material on the Internet for you to find out what I'm on about.
• b-movie - BBC Sessions - More of the same although as seems to be the case with a lot of bands, the BBC sessions are better than the official studio recordings. This is probably because they only have about eight hours in the BBC studio to do four tracks, so the focus is on getting the tracks done as quickly as possible. Whereas they've got considerably longer when doing it on record company time, so they can spend more time arguing over whther they need an E flat trumpet or a D sharp one. Some interesting stuff here although only Nowhere Girl features of the singles. Also offers a glimpse of what might have been if the band hadn't split in the face of continued public indifference.
• Catatonia - International Velvet - I have to confess to being partial to the Welsh warblings of Cerys Matthews, although I have to say that overall this is a bit of a disappointment compared to the later 'Paper, Scissors, Stone'. True, it's got the hits on it, but some of the other tracks seem a bit half-formed and under-arranged.
• Danny Wilson - Meet Danny Wilson - another cracker from the 80s. This time it's that soulful pop that the Scots seem to be very good at. Features 'Mary's Prayer' which was their biggest hit, I believe. I've had this on cassette for years but had never seen it on CD, so had to snap it up.

I watched probably the least funny comedy I have ever seen last week. How unfunny? Well, it contains fewer laughs than 'Carry on Columbus' for a start. It's about as funny as 'Welcome To The Dollhouse'. I'm even prepared to say it's got fewer laughs than Eddie Murphy's similar-sounding 'Norbit', which looks to be a real stinker. To which film am I referring? 'Borat'. It's a stunningly tedious exercise in stretching one unfunny joke further than you can possibly stretch it. Not one redeeming feature. Not even the mankini shots. Please, don't be suckered into buying this on DVD just because it's cheap. It's cheap for a reason and that reason is that it sucks big time. I'm surprised the studio even let this see the light of day. It makes 'Ali G In Da House' look like a work of genius.

The only interesting thing that came out of this was that it did start me thinking about the worst films I have ever seen in my life. And how do you qualify what makes a bad film? Clearly it's not just about bad acting or a poor script or a lack of budget. Welcome to the Dollhouse, which I mentioned above, must have been made on a shoestring but it's a great work. Unremittingly gloomy and depressing but a great film. You can watch stuff and you just know it's going to be rubbish - Eddie Murphy comedys, low-budget horror, teen comedies, any Schwarzenegger film, that sort of thing - but it takes a special awfulness to transcend the expected boundaries and just be a total waste of time and space. So here, ladies and gentlemen are my current five worst movies of all time:

1. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace - surely the most unnecessary prequel of all time? Filled with George Lucas' trademark clunky dialogue, Ewan MacGregor's terrible beard and accent, the bleedin' obvious fact that whatshisname was also Emperor Palpatine. Oh, and Jar Jar Binks.
2. Borat - for reasons already stated.
3. Wolf Creek - based on a true story apparently. A true story where even the dimmest of the dim would surely have spotted that the bloke who turned up to rescue them in the middle of the night was a frickin' lunatic.
4. Carry On Columbus - actually probably not the worst Carry On film ever (..England and ..Emmanuelle must vie for that, but given their heritage I expected them to be poor) but a lavishly-mounted, loudly-trumpeted affair which fell flat on it's backside. Largely because, despite the guiding hand of the original series producer, the director fairly obviously forgot to tell the newcomers to the cast that they were meant to be playing it straight and not pausing for the laugh or archly raising an eyebrow at the camera every time there some some innuendo or double entendre in the dialogue.
5. My Little Eye - yes, another horror film and one that if you've got any sense you won't bother checking out. Blatantly poor. Badly lit, terribly acted, woefully edited together. You can spot the twists coming a mile off and not one of the characters is at all likeable. A big, fat, waste of time.

Feel free to add any of your own.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Monday 5th March

A man's best friend is his duck

Apologies for the lack of updates recently but I've been doing loads of other stuff and somehow not managed to find the time. Mostly, it has to be said, I have been being poorly and working like a dog. Following my trip to Doncaster (more of which below) I caught the evil cold that seems to have been doing the rounds and was laid up at home for a couple of days. Having fought off the worst of that, my gout then flared up just as I had to put in some long, hard days to finish off the User Guides for an imminent release. I finally got them finished last Friday and sent them out, feeling that usual mix of relief, anxiety and anti-climax. Relief that it's all over, anxiety that there might still be an obvious blunder in the guides that no one's spotted despite the review process and anti-climax as there was no fanfare, no parade, not even a trip to the pub to celebrate the documentation release. Anyway, I got in this morning and checked the documents again and they were fine apart from some minor cosmetic changes. All I've got to do now is get them on the corporate intranet and my first set of user guides for the company will be complete.

Anyway, enough of me, on to some local footballing news. Following the fog-bound farce of Nantwich Town's game against Formby (see below) common sense fortunately prevailed in some measure and the NWCFL ruled that Nantwich's 5-0 win should stand. However, the common sense stopped there as they also ruled that Nantwich player Adam Beasley had to serve a further one match suspension as the Formby game was not actually completed, so he had not missed one complete game. For the sake of seven minutes, Beasley's suspension had been doubled. Not exactly a fair result. Anyway, having dispatched Formby, a couple of weeks later Nantwich took on Bacup Borough at home. A comfortable 2-0 win ensued and a decent performance, setting things up nicely for the long-awaited league clash with FC United of Manchester last Saturday. It was a grey, rainy day and my gout was still playing up but I still managed to drag myself down to the railway station to meet up with my ex-colleague Tim and the rest of the FC travelling army. We repaired to the bar of the White Horse to quaff some ales and take in the Manchester United game on Sky. From there it was up to the Nantwich ground, which once again was packed. The game was a pretty good one, to be honest, with Nantwich shading the first half and taking a deserved lead through Andy Kinsey. In the second half FC United threw a few more bodies forward and looked the better side. They scored a deserved equalizer but Nantwich held on to take a share of the points. The right result on the balance of play, I thought. On a final Nantwich Town note, the last home game this season clashes with Crewe's trip down the road to Port Vale. This would be the cause of a dilemma if it were not for the fact that this is likely to be the last ever league game at Jackson Avenue because Nantwich are moving to a new ground next season. And, weather permitting, tomorrow night should see the last ever mid-week game at Jackson Avenue. I'll be there, boyos, as Max Boyce might say.

Following my other football team, Crewe Alexandra has been a bit of a roller-coaster ride in contrast. Having managed to hold Doncaster to a 3-3 draw at our place in the first leg of the Johnstone Paints Trophy area final, we travelled hopefully to Doncaster for the second leg. They've got nice new ground have Doncaster - the Keepmoat stadium - so this was a good opportunity to tick it off the list. Somewhat against the run of play, Crewe found themselves 2-0 up at half-time and we were all dreaming of Cardiff. It wasn't to be though, as Crewe wilted under a second half onslaught and Doncaster scored three goals without reply. That doesn't really tell the whole story - one goal was deflected in, another was from a soft penalty and Crewe had a legitimate leveller in the last minute ruled out for offside. It was heartbreaking, really, as I thought we deserved something out of the game, even if it was only to lose on penalties at the end. And just to rub it in, we got back to the car to find a flyer for coach travel to Cardiff, tucked under the windscreen wiper.

Still, my little smashers bounced back and won away at Bradford for what seems like the first time in years. We then followed it up with a small piece of revenge by beating Doncaster at home in the league. Michael Higdon, whose late goal in the Cup game had been disallowed, popped up to score the winner. I was really pleased for him because the lad had been taking a rather unfair amount of stick from a small section of the crowd at Gresty Road. The Alex followed that up with another win on the road at Huddersfield before facing league leaders Scunthorpe. Well, for an hour we gave them a good game, but our defensive frailties came back to haunt us. Having already conceded a soft equaliser in the first half when both Cox and Baudet inexplicably failed to get a boot on an innocuous-looking cross and then, just before half-time, giving Beckford time and space to pick his spot to put Scunny ahead, we shot ourselves in the foot again by giving the ball away on the edge of our own penalty area. A quick ball to the byline for a deep cross and Billy Sharp had time and space to pick his spot for Scunny's third. The fire and fight seemed to drain out of the Alex then and they never really recovered. The last ten minutes were particularly disappointing as we didn't even look interested in rescuing the game. Mind you, if that was disappointing we had an even worse performance against Brighton on Saturday, although we still managed to get a point out of it. We started brightly but things tailed off in the middle of the first half and got gradually worse in the second. Bas Savage, who had looked like a donkey of the highest order whilst on trial for the Alex pre-season, turned out to be not such a donkey after all. He wasn't skillful or even particularly good but he was effective in a limited role. Annoyingly, he even got the Brighton goal. I thought we'd showed enough in the first half to suggest there were more goals in the side and Varney did have a couple of chances late on, but he was looking even more knackered than usual by then. The effort of leading the line single-handed for the last few weeks, and getting booted up in the air for his troubles, just seemd to be catching up with him. I'm glad we haven't got a mid-week game this week because that poor boy deserves a rest. Anyway, back at the game Higdon also blasted an effort straight at the keeper from a tight angle, but really we were hanging on - Brighton were throwing men forward, our midfield had retreated alongside the back four and there was no outlet from the seemingly constant string of corners. Anyway, we managed a point and that's OK. I'd given up on the idea that we'd make the play-offs around Christmas, so whatever happens for the rest of the season I'm just going to enjoy it and not get too wound up whatever the result.

You know I used to think that procrastination was the thief of time but it turns out that actually, it's Broadband Internet. I even started this update yesterday and then decided to "just check my e-mail" and then ended up on the Internet for ages, "just looking at this" and "just checking that out". In order to make sure I get this done tonight I've even gone as far as unplugging the modem so that I'm not tempted. Of course there's no guarantee I'll not get distracted when I get round to uploading this and checking the links I've put in...

Anyway, talking of wasting time on the Internet, I've discovered that whilst myspace used to be a big draw for the dedicated procrastinator, YouTube is in fact the biggest. But then who wouldn't want to waste their time on there when you can discover gems like The Goodies singing A Man's Best Friend Is His Duck, or watch the adventures of Chad Vader, Dayshift Manager. True, there's a lot of dross involving teenagers dancing and/or singing badly, or earnest young men playing their guitars, but theres also still plenty of good stuff on there. Most of it probably infringing copyright but hey, I like to live on the edge. For example, check out this lovely clip of Stoneybridge's 1996 Olympic Bid.

On the music front there's not much to write about. The Nantwich Jazz and Blues Festival will soon be upon us. Although there are usually some classy acts playing at the Civic Hall (and this year is no exception) the reality is that the whole town and most of the surrounding villages pack out the pubs on Sunday afternoon, listening to the bands playing for free and getting very, very drunk because few people work on Easter Monday. I'll be staying tuned to the website to see who's playing where and when and making sure I avoid the Bob Dylan wannabes and tribute bands. Of Nantwich's other two music festivals, the Folk festival which used to take place on August Bank Holiday appears to have died the death of a lack of funding. On the other hand, the Acoustic Festival appears to be building on the success of it's inaugural year and has lined up a lot more entertainment and Jethro Tull. Hopefully, the atmosphere and the weather will be as good as last year and the beer will be cheaper. Not holding my breath on the beer, to be honest.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Tuesday 6th February

Bit of a cock-up on the ticketing front

Last Saturday (3rd Feb) I popped out round the corner to watch Nantwich Town take on the town of my birth, Formby. The weather wasn't looking too promising in the morning as there was a heavy mist that hadn't burned off. Anyway, about one o'clock the sun came out and the mist lifted a bit, so I thought we'd be set fair. It was still fairly misty when the game kicked off though and as the match wore on it got steadily worse. At one point, it was difficult to make out the stand on the far side of the pitch but then it lifted again and things were OK. Especially as Nantwich had taken advantage of some slack defending by Formby to take a deserved 3-0 lead. At half-time though, the fog came down and got steadily thicker. It was difficult to tell who scored Nantwich's fourth and fifth goals from where I was, about five yards the other side of the halfway line. It was getting impossible to see the other side of the pitch and any time Nantwich attacked down the far side of the pitch the players disappeared into the fog. It was getting to the point where it was probably worth shooting from distance as the keeper wouldn't see it till too late. Anyway, with about fifteen minutes to go, Formby had their keeper sent off for, we think, a professional foul on Andy Kinsey. It was all a bit farcical really and the referee could have called it off anyime after about an hour as conditions were pretty bad by that stage. In the end, he abandoned the game with about 7 minutes left. Sadly, we don't yet know whether the result will stand. Hopefully it will as the game went beyond 70 minutes and, to be honest, I'm sure neither side will want a replay. I await the adjudication from the North West Counties League with interest.

Sunday I took a trip to that there London. The idea was to meet up with a few people and to take in the wondrous Ted Chippington appearing at the Bull & Gate in Kentish Town. First up was a meeting with stroppycow and The Boy and her favourite Canuck, all of whom were splendid company and very entertaining. We spent the afternoon-slash-early evening chatting about all kinds of stuff and quaffing ales in the Doric Arch by Euston station. Can't be bad. From there it was off, via a small, diversion, to the aforementioned venue in Kentish Town. I was due to meet up with my brother, Eddy, and his girlfriend, but Eddy was off in Spain interviewing John Cale for work-related purposes. And then the replacement mate I'd fixed up to meet blew me out too, so I ended up in the gig alone. Well, I had a good time anyway. Support act Violet Violet were an entertaining riot-grrrl-cum-punk trio in the mould of Sleater-Kinney. Ted himself was on top form and very funny, despite the handicap of not really having any jokes in his repertoire. Top of the bill act, The Nightingales sounded pretty good, although I have to admit I'd repaired to the bar once they came on. Mainly in the hope of getting Ted to autograph a copy of the CD boxset I'd just purchased, it has to be said. Well, he came out and we had a bit of banter (I'm afraid the effects of all-day drinking were beginning to catch up with me) and then he went off for a beer or two. Fortunately, he came back later and did the honours and was a true gent. Top man. And then to finish the night on a true high, he joined The Nightingales on stage for a rollicking, climactic, show-closing rendition of 'Rockin' with Rita'. Cheers Ted, thanks for rocking.

Anyway, a true story now. I was walking down the road the other day when this bloke came up to me. Actually he didn't come up to me, he rang me on my mobile phone, but I didn't hear it, so he left me a message on my voicemail. It was my brother Eddy, ringing to let me know that he had a bit of bad news. Oh dear. Due to a cock-up by the organisers of the Tedstock event, (a Mr Arse and a Mr Elbow, I believe) they'd sold all the tickets including those reserved for the press and the guest list. Stewart Lee had rung Eddy to give him a personal apology but quite frankly, not really worth the paper it was written on. So instead of seeing a line-up of top comedians last night, I was back home having a nice cup of tea. Incidentally, I note that of those self-proclaimed "good mates of Ted" on the Tedstock bill, I spotted precisely none in the audience at the Bull & Gate. Turns out Ted himself and The Nightingales did turn up at the Tedstock event anyway, which makes it doubly gutting that the ticket cock-up deprived me the chance to see him again. Still, he is playing in Birmingham on the 24th Feb...

I did feel a bit bad about not meeting up with Eddy, especially as I'd gone down there to see him, but when he gave me the bad news I was stood on Oxford Road, freezing, with a the remnants of a bad hangover, a horrible cold developing and sore feet from traipsing round London all morning. So thought I'd take a chance on getting home before too late in the day. I failed though because, as it turns out, despite being charged more than fifty pounds for my ticket to London, that wasn't sufficient to allow me to travel on a half-empty train, simply because it's designated as running during peak hours. I could have bought a single ticket for £60 or so but decided I'd rather get a paper and spend ten quid or so in the bar waiting the extra couple of hours till I could get home. And, as if this wasn't frustrating enough, I also missed out on picking up 808 State's Optibuk DVD for a mere three quid from Fopp. I'd seen it earlier but when I popped back to purchase it, the two copies they'd had had been sold. Not surprised though - at that price it was a right bargain.

Got to just point you in the direction of this incredibly cheesy dub reggae podcast-type thing. Right-click and save it to your PC - it's a 10MB file some make sure you're on the old broadband. Tis the second track you need to checking out. I wouldn't necessarily be tuning into this sort of thing myself, so it's a big up to me old mate Burnz for bringing this to my attention.

Finally, here's one for the techies - if you don't fancy having to check your website against several different browsers, or even different versions of the same browser, you can get someone else to do it for you. Simply upload your site URL to browershots.org, set the timer for the job and sit back and wait. The results are only available for a short time but ashould be there long enough to reveal any fundamental flaws in your programming, which might render your site unusable in some browsers, for example. Enjoy.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Wednesday 31st January

Halfway to the 21st Century

Well, as discussed last time, I finally got myself hooked up to Broadband Internet. However, because it was me, it was not without it's problems. First up was a realisation that I don't really have enough sockets in my bedroom to plug everything into. Not a real problem though because as I was waiting for the hub to settle down (as advised in the Start Up guide) I nipped out to the shop and bought another multi-socket board. Which was definitely to come in handy later. Anyway, the hub had settled down - the three green lights were steady, so I connected up my wireless adapter and booted up my PC. I slipped in the Installation disk and started following the on-screen instructions. Ah, hitch number 2 - the installation disk didn't recognise my wireless adapter. Good news though, I could connect via Ethernet. Great. I unpacked the supplied ethernet cable, but wait - hitch number 3, no ethernet port on my PC. Ok, I've still got a fall-back plan - I can connect via USB. Hitch number 4, the supplied USB cable isn't long enough to reach from PC to hub. Arse. Well, I can stretch the hub away from the telephone and power sockets to about halfway across the end of the bed and the USB cable will reach that far if I just move the CPU a bit, so there I am with wires and equipment close to breaking point, stretched across the room to complete my installation. But wait, what's this, a dialog requiring my new Broadband telephone number? Well, I haven't downloaded the email that had this, so now I'm starting to think I'm cursed. Fortunately I can connect to t'Internet so I retrieve the number and carry on. Bingo! I'm in. And apart from the ridiculously positioned equipment, everything's fine. Now I just needed to manually configure my wireless connection and I'd be laughing. Here comes hitch number 5 - once I configure the connection it becomes apparent that I can either have Wi or Fi but not Wi-Fi. When using the wireless connection my PC crashes more often than Barry Sheene... It's fine when using the USB connection, but there is the "comedy" wiring problem. I bite the bullet and nip out to get a telephone extension cable. I'm in Woolworths and faced with a choice of lengths, 3m or 10m. I think the 3m might do the job but am not sure whilst the 10m will definitely do the job and have plenty to spare. I go with the 3m. Luckily, with the cable from the hub to the microfilter added in I've got enough cabling to route uder the bed and re-postion the hub next to my PC. Sorted, even if the assorted lengths of trailing wires render my bedroom a Health and Safety nightmare. From delivery of kit at 11 a.m. to final tweaking and settling down for Internet browsing has taken a mere five-and-a-half hours. And there's still a final twist - I changed a few Internet Explorer settings when trying to combat the numerous warnings thrown up by the BT Yahoo homepage and now, for some reason, both the Shockwave Jigsaw page and Russell Grant's homepage crash my browser. Arse! Oh well, it gives me something to do when I'm not out enjoying myself, I suppose.

And I have been out enjoying myself over the last couple of weeks. Last Wednesday, for example, my old mate Charlie dragged me up to Manchester to take in the alt.country delights of Bonnie "Prince" Billy. Well, I'd heard of him but not really invested any time in seeking out his music. Charlie, who is a big fan, assured me it would be anjoyable evening and the ticket was a Christmas present so I couldn't really turn it down. It has to be said, though, that about halfway through support act Faun Fables' set, I did feel like ramming it down his throat. I have a fairly low tolerance for the single, white female with acoustic guitar, but tack on sub-Leonard Cohen dirges and folk twee-ness and I start looking for my gun. Having abandoned her guitar after a few numbers (Hooray!) she proceeded to "entertain" us with some a capella stuff (Boo!). A nadir was reached, I felt, as the "Greek War chant" (sung in Greek with stomping as accompaniment) was followed by "a Polish folk song" accompanied by the banging together of two sticks. I could stand it no longer and swiftly repaired to the bar. Charlie bravely sat through to the end and was rewarded by an apparently climactic finale which involved circular breathing and screaming. Probably mostly in the audience... Anyway, undeterred we returned for Bonnie Prince Langford, who turned out to be an engaging entertainer, despite resembling an English teacher, even down to the embarrassing dancing and the sub-Benny Hill banter with his keyboard player. Suitably impressed, I may well be investing in some of his back catalogue now.

And last Friday I found myself in the unlikely setting of Crewe Golf Club and the even unlikelier company of South Cheshire Harriers running club. The aforementioned Charlie is a member of said club and had roped in the rest of Team Amanda Huggenkiss in a blatant attempt at winning the quiz. Well, it almost paid off. We knocked up 57 points out of 60 but I let the side down by not being quick enough to answer in the tie-break. To be honest, I was still confused by the instructions the quizmaster gave for the tie-breaker. Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. You can see a lovely picture of my svelte form and also of the smug-looking winners here.(Of course, they have every right to look smug - they've just won a big box of goodies in a quiz.) It's OK, I'm not bitter.

I tell you what I have found as a result of my newly-acquired, superfast, Information High Street. That Youtube.com - it's as addictive as crack coacaine. You can never see too many clips of skateboarders and BMX-ers coming to grief.

The other thing I've found as a result of Broadband is that I've been browsing a few more shopping sites than before. Mainly because I don't have to wait forever for the product images to load anymore. As a result, I've spotted loads fo gadgets that I'd like including the following - a USB turntable, a USB cassette converter, a USB drum kit and, of course, to make sure you've got enough USB port-age for all these goodies plus your digital camera, mp3 player and flash drive, a TARDIS-shaped USB hub. Hhhmm, where's my credit card?

Go on, stick your oar in:

Tuesday 16th January

Shiny headlice stray into my eyes

Well, finally I've decided to join the rest of the Internet community and get myself hooked up to broadband. There wasn't much of a decision to be made, to be honest. I've been on a Pay As You Go dial-up for the last few months, mainly because I thought it would discourage me from spending all my spare time on the Web, especially given the likely cost and the frustrations of waiting hours for things to download. However, given that my telephone bill for the last quarter tipped over the 160 quid mark, about 140 of which were spent on t'Internet, that obviously didn't work. So it was a simple choice - continue throwing my money away or get broadband for about half the cost. So I signed up for BT's Option 2, which is their mid-priced offering. It looks alright and it'll run on my creaky old Windows 98 PC (subject to the installation of a network adapter). On reflection I probably should have gone the whole hog and paid the few extra quid a month for BT's top-of-the-range, all-you-can-eat offering, but I guess I can always upgrade if required. I've not got it installed yet, so things could still go wrong, but provided it doesn't, I should be up to the same speed as everyone else by next Thursday night.

Of course, I can continue using my steam-powered PC to connect to the web and that but, frankly, it's starting to show it's age and whilst I've patched the software to buggery and it's fairly stable, the hardware is beginning to creak and whirr in unsettling manners. The onboard CD-RW drive in particular is struggling. Add to that the fact that none of the recording software and hardware I've looked at supports Windows 98 and I'm now in the market for a new PC/laptop. Obviously, for recording I need at least 1GB of RAM and the best sound card I can get, and I'd also like Wi-Fi capability and an enormous hard drive (200GB). If I go down the PC route I'd also like support for a two monitor display. And if I go down the laptop route I'd like extended battery life. Whichever I go for I'd also like it as cheap as possible, preferably under 500 quids. Anyone got such a device they can sell me? Please?

In other news, the Tour De France committee have announced the routes for the English stages of this year's Tour. The opening ceremony takes place in Trafalgar Square on Friday 6th July. On Saturday 7th July there's the Prologue which is a quick sprint down Whitehall, through Green Park and then a loop through Hyde Park. A run-out totalling a mere 8km. The routes through the parks ought to bring out the spectators but given that the fastest of the sprinters are likely to be hitting something in the region of 50km/h+, I supsect that most people are likely to see little more than a succession of blurry flourescent tops as the riders whizz by. The first stage proper, on Monday 8th July, rolls out from London, down through Greenwich and Woolwich and on out into the garden of England (Kent, obviously), through Tunbridge Wells and finishing in Canterbury. Looks good. Anyway, you can check out all the routes and get information on road closures from the Official Tour site. Stick the dates in your diary and get yourself along to see some of the world's leading practitioners of virtually-undetectable doping, er I mean, cyclists.

Finally. no shots of me in action yet, but here's a nice picture of "The Beast"

Go on, stick your oar in: