Tangential Ramblings

The contents of my pockets are reaching mammoth proportions, and that's not me boasting!

As I posted some time ago, summer exacerbates the issue surrounding pocket contents, as there are more things to carry with you (sunglasses) with fewer pockets across which to distribute the contents (owing to the lack of coats and the like). Of late, my pockets are asked (at various parts of the day) to support some or all of: iPod, wallet, BlackBerry, phone (a chunky MDA Vario 3), keys, loose change, sunglasses.

Having done a benefits analysis, a pocket rationalisation programme has been commissioned which aims to significantly reduce the volume of artefacts that will be supported by my pockets. The programme will include a stream to assess the number of necessary objects, one to understand the most appropriate transportation device for the objects (pocket or other), and one to assess the volume of each—there is thought to be scope for reducing the volume of both the wallet and sunglasses case. There will be an underlying change management piece aimed at instilling new ways of working in myself to avoid future Costanza-esque wallet proportions.

My daughter rarely sees the dishwasher being loaded, as most of this activity is conducted after she's fast asleep. So she only ever sees it being emptied, something I often do with her 'help' at 6.30am while her breakfast is warming. Given that she only ever sees clean dishes being taken out of the machine and loaded into the relevant cupboards, maybe she thinks it's a kitchenware delivery machine, new crockery and cutlery being delivered to the house every morning. How cool would that be?

About a week ago, I unsubscribed from the digg feed in Google Reader. The move has added immeasurable value to my life, saving me from navigating through pages and pages of tat in search of that mediocre gem of a story on my morning bus journey to work. I can instead spend the very time saved writing similarly tatty posts to contribute to the wealth of information and drivel that is the internet. Everyone's a winner.

I used to estimate that the average shirt took five minutes to iron. Tonight, I added some science and accuracy to this. Below are the results.

Dress-down Fridays meant that tonight's quota of creased-up shirts totalled four. And tonight I decided to iron to music (iPod and earphones), something I rarely do but something which brings with it a mechanism for time-based accuracy.

Shirt two was a cerise, difficult-to-iron item, the ironing of which took exactly the same length of time as the first: the first 3m 27s of 4Hero/Minnie Riperton's Les Fleur. Third up was a very simple purple-check number, complete in a lightning 2m 44s, accompanied by Dolly Parton's 9 to 5. And the blue shirt that used to have a twin came last, reverting to the three and a half minute standard, this time to The Human League's Together In Electric Dreams.

I think the 2m 44s shirt was a freak, and I'll probably find out in the week that one of its sleeves remains unironed. So the verdict is 3m 30s for a shirt, 30% quicker than the original estimate.

The nights are drawing in.

That was my favourite saying that my Dad used to say during my childhood, usually within a couple of days of 21 June.

For the last hour or so before leaving work yesterday, I was longing to leave the building, plug in my new in-ear earphones (in-earphones?) and blast The Libertines' Can't Stand Me Now into my head while walking along sun-drenched Whitehall. I have no idea why. But I was. And I did. And I loved it.

Yesterday evening marked a first. I got into a Streetcar that I'd hired and adjusted the seat so that it was further away from the steering wheel than when I got in. Bring it on!

Yesterday, I had my day in court. Actually, my day in court lasted about six minutes. But 'day in court' sounds a lot more impressive. So yesterday, I had my day in court.

It came about after being metaphorically screwed by a drain-unblocking company back in October. For their 3h 30m visit, they felt it appropriate to charge me a staggering £975.

Having previously completed and faxed across a form adorned with my debit card details, I had no recourse with the bank after they'd stung me.

So I filed a claim for £539 with Money Claim Online to cover the disputed amounts, including a premium they charged as a result of their doctoring the completion time after the invoice had been signed. Scum.

Money Claim Online is associated with Northamptonshire County Court and provides a mechanism for getting a claim filed online. They then process the paperwork necessary to invite a defence (which the company filed) before the case is referred to your local court (in my case Wandsworth) for the hearing.

My hearing was scheduled for 10.15 yesterday morning. No one from the defence showed, and after walking into the courtroom at 10.35am, I was out by 10.41am. When I say courtroom, I actually mean a guy's office laid out in a T-shaped table arrangement, him sitting at the T-bar, with seats either side of the stem allowing the warring parties to face one another to discuss their dispute. For a few moments while readying myself in the sparse, uninviting waiting room, wondering whether any of the fellow occupants represented the defence, I felt like Atticus Finch.

The judge (for that's what I think he was; no wigs or hammers though) reviewed my case, asked the odd question, and summed up (for my ears only, since beyond his, there were no others in the courtroom/office) by saying that I'd put forward a strong case and judged in my favour.

The company has until 1 July to pay the £589 owed (including the £50 fee that I paid to Wandsworth for the privilege) before the nasty boys are sent in.

All in all, it was a pleasing experience, despite some nerves on Monday night. The end-to-end process took too long, and it was irritating that Money Claim Online was not integrated with the local court system (hence having to pay court fees twice), but all in all, I have few complaints.

Let's see whether the money comes through. As soon as it does, I'll name and shame the organisation in question, mainly to warn others of their unscrupulous ways.

They only took one official photo of me during the Bupa 10km run. Here it is. Not my best side, I don't think.

My friend Francis posted some pics on Facebook, and I couldn't help but reminisce when seeing this one. The view from our old office window, a view that includes our old apartment. Happy days.

I stumbled across a pair of black knickers on the path while walking my daughter across Clapham Common on Saturday morning. (I initially started that sentence "I came across…" but redrafted.) So refreshing to see everyone enjoying the joys that the Common has to offer.

I absolutely love buying stuff from Amazon. I rarely do it, but when I do, everything about it (save the revised user experience) is unadulterated pleasure.

On this occasion, I bought a variety of things: a present for each of my wife and daughter, a new pair of earphones to use with my iPod, Sideways on DVD and a fabulous nasal clipper a month shy of my 35th birthday (one that I'd recommend to anyone in need—fabulous little tool).

By choosing the free super-save delivery, I saved money but more importantly the anticipation of the delivery increased with each passing day, culminating in the delivery itself today.

My ears were treated wonderfully on the bus home; I can't wait to read my daughter her new story in the morning; Sideways is making me laugh, and pine for New York; and my nose has never been clearer.

Among others, I have two identical shirts. One has a slightly dodgy button on the left sleeve, you know, that button that closes the gap between the cuff and the mid-forearm.

The other morning, I stood at my wardrobe having decided to go with the pale-blue, double-cuffed shirt. I selected one of the two on offer, but then chose the other one, deciding that the day's events were sufficiently important to warrant an unblemished cuff-button.

That evening, while running for an 87 bus having popped to Robert Dyas after work, the shirt caught on a shard of metal on a lamppost on Whitehall, tearing the sleeve to the point that the shirt now resides in the bin. Half an hour beforehand, I'd paused outside work wondering whether or not to go back in for the raincoat, deciding against it given the balminess of the evening.

My question is this: if I'd selected the dodgy-buttoned shirt twelve hours earlier, or if I'd popped back in for the raincoat, would the shirt now be in the bin? Or would I still be the owner of a twin set of shirts? To what extent do tiny decisions in life affect things downstream?

On a much grander scale, if I'd not managed to achieve the B-B-E A-level grades that Newcastle-upon-Tyne, my university of choice, was demanding of me, I would have instead gone to Swansea University, would not have been able to choose a rather niche third-year module that Newcastle had to offer, would not have gone on to study for a Masters in that very subject at Warwick, would not have joined the first company I worked for (for they specifically targeted the Warwick course), and I would never have met my wife who worked for that very company.

For the record, I no longer own any identical shirts.

This evening, I shut the fridge door just as my daughter lunged for it, her slipping on the tile floor in the process. She hit her head on the corner of the fridge handle, and I've never felt as bad, as she wailed with the shock and pain. I'm so sorry, little lady. X

Bupa has published the unofficial results from today's race. Here's how I fared.

Overall, I came 511th out of 6,079 (8.4%), I was the 468th male out of 3,266 (14.3%) and came 86th out of 1,135 (7.6%) in my 30-34 age group. (That means 43 women beat me, btw.) My official time was 45m 39s, with 5km splits of 22m 32s and 23m 7s respectively, making my second half 2.6% slower than the first. I certainly felt that.

This morning marked the culmination of the rather lacklustre training of the last few weeks. This morning was the Bupa 10,000.

And my was it wet? It rained solidly for the vast majority of last night, hard rain that continued up to and throughout the race. My trainers and socks were soaked through, long before the race even started.

I headed to the start line quite early, and being in the first wave I was three rows from the very front of the amateurs, watching the pros and celebs warming up just in front. (The only two I recognised were Liz Yelling and the chubby guy that Jack and Vera looked after for a while on Corrie.)

The occasion got the better of me, as I completed the first km in a stupidly fast (for me at least) 4m 13s. I then settled down to a more reasonable pace of around 4m 30s per km as we headed down the Embankment, urged on by the throngs of spectators, their enthusiasm not dampened by the weather. I completely missed seeing the 4km and 6km time checks, but passed the halfway point at 22m 35s. Then the homeward leg, across the slippery cobbles of Leadenhall Market before passing St. Paul's Cathedral as it chimed for 10:30am. Then on to the Embankment again. I was starting to slow just before 8km, but was picked up (not literally) by a guy running for the Children's Charity (huge thank you!), and we spurred each other on (he did most of the spurring) until he dropped me (again, not literally) with a hand-slap at 9km. Then a steady last km, neither the 400m nor 200m to go markers instilling any form of energy burst from me.

The skies were noticably clearing as we walked up past Buckingham Palace to collect our bags and twelve-packs of Raspberry Lucozade Sport, a little late for my liking.

My time: 45m 40s. Better than I'd expected given both my inadequate training and the lousy conditions. And I was home and the rain had stopped by 11.45am. Overall: happy and wet. Roll on next year!

I thought I'd tipped 10km in Monday's run with the additional leg up to the Common. But I was 100m short. So I extended the end of tonight's run by a trivial amount to ensure that I could interpolate my time—and to claim that I'd run 10km in training. The distance was 10.09km; time: 47m 5s. That interpolates to a 10km of 46m 40s.

So I achieved my recently-set personal target of 10km in under 47m, which I'm happy about. I didn't expect it, expecting the time to be significantly slower than Monday's. It's pleasing to notice the times coming down while the effort seems to stay pretty much constant.

I'll head out for a light 5km jog on Friday morning and take the weekend off in preparation for the run Monday morning.

In terms of time of day, I think I prefer running in the evening than in the morning, although the glorious smells of food that waft from the restaurants and houses of Clapham on the balmy evenings certainly makes me want to stop running in favour of eating.

Last night's run felt like a proper run. Partly because it was a decent distance; partly because I felt pretty good in myself while doing it, even deciding at around 7km (on exiting Battersea Park) to extend the loop a little beyond the 9km of the previous outing to take me close to the 10km, if not beyond.

The distance ended up being 9.89km, rounded off with a haul up Cedars Road (quite a hill) before the gentle downhill round the side of the Common and all the way home.

The day hadn't started well. After my 1.37am mid-night bathroom stop (they seem to become more prevalent the older I get), I decided to can my 5.35am alarm call in favour of an extra hour in bed. The evening, however, offered ideal running conditions: cooler than of late, with a little wind, perhaps a little too breezy if anything.

The time was 47m 30s, a tiny bit of extrapolation taking this to a 48m 2s 10km. And despite this relatively quick run, I experienced a first for this training preparation: an overtaker. Some guy lumbered past me on the north side of Battersea Park wearing a Pray I'm Not Your Doctor Number 5 rugby shirt. The awkwardness of his running suggested I should be outpacing him, but his taller stature (it's not that hard after all) meant his legs were working about half as much as mine. Nevertheless, he provided a target to hunt down before he turned out of the park and I headed for the river.

Lastly, apologies to the guy crossing Albert Bridge carrying what I think might have been a biscuit tin in a bag. I thought he was being an awkward bastard by standing stock still next to his partner. In retrospect (and after a sarcastic thank you from me), he may have been creating a diagonal gap between the two of them—not the most intelligent move on such a narrow path, but my bad nonetheless. Fortunately, the biscuit tin seemed to be empty, as my leg clattered into it while passing him.

Oh, and lastly (really this time), for some reason when I stop running, my knees start itching. Very strange.

The longest training run to date this evening. 9.02km in 43m 5s. That extrapolates to 47m 45s for the 10km. I have to say I'm surprised. All in all, it was OK, but there were a few moments when I just wanted it to stop. Eventually, it did, when I heaved myself up our front steps and staggered through our front door, and I fully expected a rubbish time. But the longest distance to date brought about my quickest extrapolated 10km to date. (By the way, I don't take any form of timepiece with me. Instead I look at the analogue clock in the lounge before my run and again after it. In my sorry medical state, I then take an age to calculate the difference between the two.)

So the profile of extrapolated times to date are:

• 5 November: 51m 0s
• 18 November: 50m 6s
• 10 February: 50m 32s
• 9 April: 51m 25s
• 27 April: 48m 27s
• 10 May: 51m 6s
• 12 May: 48m 48s
• 14 May: 48m 54s
• 16 May: 47m 46s

Shit. That's only nine training runs so far. Three more before the race will make twelve. Making the race run 13. Hm. Double figures at least.

Today was the first run over 9km, and the first under 48m for the extrapolation. Today's best run was 7% faster than my worst. It would be good to get another 2% to bring it under 47m as part of my training.

As for the race itself, let's see. Whether adrenaline will kick in sufficiently to get me closer to my predicted time of 45m is doubtful.

Yesterday marked a major milestone: I finished all three The London Paper sudokus on the 87 bus journey home.

For those not familiar, each edition brings with it a simple, medium and difficult puzzle alongside one another. If I pick up a copy, I often set myself a personal challenge of finishing all three before hitting my bus stop, solving them in that order.

To gauge progress, I set myself mile stones (of the traditional roadside variety) by which I feel I have to solve each one. I try to get the easy one completed by the time I pass Brian Haw in Parliament Square (0.6km), the medium one before Vauxhall Station (a further 1.9km) and the difficult one before the end of my road (another 2.3km).

If it's touch-and-go on Wandsworth Road, it can get as exciting as Anneka Rice or Annabel Croft running from their helicopter towards a small castle watched by bewildered, aged onlookers to shouts of encouragement from Wincey Willis and words of ambivolence from Kenneth Kendall, all while a clock ticks down in the corner of the screen. Quite literally.

This morning's run was good. I extended it a little, with a minor inroad back into Battersea Park, plus a return route up Queenstown Road instead of Silverthorne, forcing me back down Wandsworth Road home. All in all, an extra 1.16km, taking me up to 8.35km in total. Time: 40m 50s, extrapolating to a 48m 54s 10km.

Friday, I intend to do the Queenstown Road route there and back, which should take me up to 9km. Then 9km runs on Monday and Wednesday followed by an easy jog Friday ready for the big race the following Monday. Training has been slap-dash, but I now know I'm able to run the distance, and should get a semi-respectable time.

I had an open and frank discussion on Sunday evening with my wife. In a nutshell, I told her that my life was not panning out in the way I'd expected. She took the news well, considering.

The conversation followed her sharing news that Minnie Driver was pregnant. (I can safely vouch that I was not involved.) This, so soon after Beyonce's marriage to Jay-Z, was a little too much to take. Does Minnie not remember me following her into a deli on Broadway a few years back? Did it mean nothing to her? And I would have hoped Beyonce would have at least mentioned Jay-Z. Not a bloody word!

I said that all I needed now was to hear that Reese Witherspoon had met someone following her separation from her husband. My wife filled me in on this front, with the news that she had, and that apparently he was very good looking.

All in all, not a good day on the ladies front.

A much better run this morning. I repeated Friday's 7.19km circuit, taking in the glorious morning along the Embankment stretch, the Thames glistening beautifully. Today's time was a much more respectable 35m 5s, extrapolating to a 48m 48s 10km. (BTW, what is the opposite of extrapolating, for example calculating a 10km time from a 12km run?) Setting off at 5.45am, the first and only other runner I saw was at 4km, when I passed a girl on the stretch opposite the pagoda. It was a nice cool morning for it, but the run only started to feel enjoyable, like I was meant to be doing this, at 3km. On Wednesday, I need to up the distance a little.

My daughter has recently discovered the delights of solid food, her favourite being little squares of toast topped with peanut butter. Today I was encouraging her to pick up the food from the plate herself, and on the whole she obliged.

She was quite perplexed, however, when instead of pinching a piece between two fingers, she stuck her index finger out on its own, the square sticking to it through the adhesive power of peanut butter. For a few moments of giddiness on her part, I think she thought she'd overcome gravity, as the square rose and fell with her finger. Maybe she had—who am I to argue?

We're now on a severe countdown to the 10km run. It's two weeks on Monday. Or 16 days from now. Eeek.

I went for a run last night, 7.19km in total, a loop of Battersea Park with Albert and Chelsea bridges included for the extra distance and wonderful views on what was a beautiful night, even if it was a little warm for running. 36m 45s in total, extrapolating to a 51m 6s 10km. It wasn't the best of runs, but I'm headed in the right direction. I'm now aiming to do a decent run every other day (Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday), then doing a couple of easy runs on the Tuesday and Thursday before the big day.

The other worrying part is that I've been allocated the number 303, and they've been handed out numerically based on estimated completion time, mine being 45m. Shit it!

We have just taken delivery of a new stroller for our lil 'un, given that the old one now sounds like it's been dredged from of the bottom of the Regent's Canal. Its instructions inform me that it can't be used for (among other things) horse riding, water skiing or acrobatics, nor can it be used as a flotation device.

If I'd known these severe limitations before buying it, I would've thought twice.

I watched a programme about child geniuses last night. Channel 4 has ben tracking them as they grow older, and they're all around 13 now. With the odd exception, they were all annoying little shits. One girl and her family, who I remember from the last catch-up (their family celebrated 11 plus results as oposed to birthdays), was too busy with exams to partake this time. (I actually think the last episode left the poor girl so ravaged by bullying because of the fucked-up life her parents had engineered that they chose not to partake.) One other kid, Dante (what hope did he have in life) needed to be smacked so hard into next week, but his parents had no intention of questioning any one of his disrespecful, precocious ways.

My daughter picked up and ate a Cheerio (several, actually) for the first time yesterday, at the age of 12 months! I've written to C4 today to ensure she's included in the next episode.

Imagine my surprise in walking into the room to find that my daughter had arranged her new bricks in her toddle truck such:

My wife does our food shopping on Ocado, a nice man arriving every two weeks with bags full of goodies. With each such delivery, a few bottles of Robinson's cordial arrive, my wife wanting to capitalise on their being on special offer. (Buy one and get the second half price, or something.) The trouble is: the bi-weekly quantity purchased always exceeds the bi-weekly consumption.

Last night's delivery brought our stock-pile up to 19 two litre bottles, plus the one that's currently on the go. If there's a war, come round to ours for soft drinks.

Pretty shit day in the office today. Some of which has been offset by listening to Take That's Shine on the bus. Oh. The Ramones' Baby I Love You has just kicked in. All is forgotten.

Today I shifted close on two tonnes of gravel. I cleared into bags the majority of the now green Cotswold Buff that adorns our back garden. And I shifted this morning's one tonne delivery of loose Cotswold Buff (all beige, bright and lovely) down the half a dozen stairs at the front of our house, and through the house to the back garden. Rewarding, but hugely tiring.

Today was the first time I've had a haircut in which they've trimmed my inner ear-hair as well as my scalp-hair. (They often buzz off the downy hair round the ear's helix (the outer bit).)

Geez. Tonight saw training run 3, despite runs 1 and 2 being far in the distant past. It hurt, and wasn't at all impressive. Below are the vitals:

• Distance: 6.32km
• Time: 32 minutes and 30 seconds
• Extrapolated 10km: 51minutes and 25 seconds

That's assuming I could have continued for another 3.68km.

More training needed. But right now, my calves hurt.

This evening, I sat on a left-hand aisle seat on the upper deck of a crowded, homeward-bound 87 bus. The lady in the window seat next to me had something bulky in her right coat pocket (a George Costanza-style wallet/purse, I'd wager), which was preventing my not-overly-sizeable arse from sitting comfortably. I shuffled a little, trying to sidle far enough over to allow fellow passengers to pass down the aisle, while trying not to offend her too much despite her encroachment into "my" space. (Not MySpace, I hasten to add.) She rose in a huff. I rose in response, moving back down the aisle to let her out towards the steps and off the bus. I didn't detect that her intent was to move further towards the back of the bus to find a smaller-arsed person to sit next to. Daft wench.

Yesterday I assisted in the decommissioning of some data centre kit. One of the tasks was for a colleague to read out (by torchlight) the serial numbers (initially typed "cereal". Yikes!) of each of 450 pieces of kit, and for me to capture that data. Quite a mundane task, but one made far more enjoyable by the military-style use of the phonetic alphabet in relaying the information. It wasn't entirely for enjoyment—it was made necessary by the significant background noise of servers and air conditioning.

There is something strangely satisfying about knowing (and knowing that other people know) the phonetic alphabet. And there's something similarly satisfying about using it. Quite likely a boy thing, one possibly confined to the more geeky among us. But that's fine by me.

Mum on Underground platform: stand back.
Four year-old daughter: why?
Mum: because the train's coming and if you go over there, you'll get killed.

This morning's random ordering of my five-starred tunes on my iPod started as follows:

• Take That's Shine (actively selected)
• The Libertines' Time For Heroes
• Dolly Parton's 9 to 5
• Talking Heads' And She Was
• The Streets' Dry your Eyes
• Eta James' At Last
• Belinda Carlisle's Heaven Is A Place On Earth
• Blur's Charmless Man
• Tiffany's I Think We're Alone Now
• The Ramones' Baby, I Love You
• Westlife's World Of Our Own

Not a pup among them. ;-) On which note, I've now responded to my previous post about embarrassing iPod tunes.

Tonight I sat in a rib bar in Clapham, drinking a Sam Adams and watching March Madness on ESPN. It's moments like these that bring it home how much I miss America sometimes.

I've recently enrolled on a correspondence course in proofreading and copy-editing, spurred on by Steve's recent enrolment and the private interest (and bemusement) I've always had in the hieroglyphic markings of a proofread, error-strewn document.

I'm midway through the proofreading section, and was busy doing some example exercises, getting frustrated at my own idiocy and, at times, at my sheer lack of detail-focus. (Not spotting, for example that the word caret was missing both an r and an e, instead assuming the author was referring to some feline beast.)

I was annoyed, however, when confronted with the following one-liner to edit.

Moses basket.

That was it. I ummed and arred for quite some time about whether this was a basket belonging to some modern fella called Moses, perhaps one he'd picked up on entering Tesco; or whether it was a reference to the traditional basket in which babies are laid, named after, er, Moses, he of biblical fame and no doubt proportions.

After the arduous consternation, I plumped for the latter, convinced that I'd be right. (After all, if it was intended as a test in whether to add apostrophes to names ending in s, why wouldn't they use a different name Jesus, for example, as opposed to one after which baskets are named.) On checking the model answers, I was wrong, and somewhat livid. Ho hum. Let's hope Moses finds what he wants in Tesco.

I went for a run this evening, my first since the initial burst of enthusiasm back in November having registered for the Bupa 10km this May.

Here's the run.

It felt quite good, and it's always nice to get some London bridges in there. I completed the 7.24km in 36m 35s, which extrapolates to 50m 32s for the 10km. Not lightning fast, but a good base from which to improve.

I was quite impressed, particularly given it's the first exercise to speak of that I've done since the last run on 18 November. And also given that today I read that your collapse point (the distance you can run before collapsing) is three times the distance you run on a daily basis. Three times fuck all is a similarly small number.

The race organisers have asked me to submit my expected time for the race, to best place me at the start I expect. I've gone for 45 minutes. Should be do-able. 106 days and counting.

I'd make a lousy salesman. A colleague said that I was too honest to be a salesman, but this post is about an incident of incompetence, not dishonesty, that highlights my lack of sales acumen. Plus two further incidents of incompetence for completeness.

I was at the Jean-Michel Jarre Destination Docklands concert in London's VIcoria Docks on 8 October 1988. My dad had taken me and my friend, Richard Harvey.

I'd gone to the merchandise stand and bought a hat. (Black baseball cap with yellow concert logo as far as I can remember. One of the nastier varieties with the plastic size adjuster at the back.) It was crazy-busy, and the salesman, trying to simultaneously facilitate purchases from three or four people, thought he'd taken my £10 when he hadn't. I tried twice to insist that he take my money (that'll be the honesty kicking in), but he was similarly insistent.

So, I did something daft, something I realised only a few days later. I sold the hat to another waiting enthusiast for £7 before getting myself to the front of the queue and buying my own hat for £10.

After the first transaction, I had a hat and £10; after the second, I had a hat and £7. This was the third stupidest thing I have ever done.

The second most stupid thing I ever did was while fitting the back panel on the vanity unit below our twin basins in the bathroom. Having cut two holes in the panel to accommodate the waste pipes, I removed the U-bend, reached up and poured its contents into the basin above, covering myself and the contents of the unit with water.

But the most stupid thing I ever did was repeating the second most stupid thing I ever did not five minutes later, with the U-bend of the second basin.

There is a 3G coldspot across the whole of Vauxhall Bridge and all the way up Millbank. The heat returns just before Parliament.

Can make for a very annoying 87 bus journey.

Instead of measuring queue time at Alton Towers and the Post Office, for example, in hours and minutes, they should do so in Sudokus. My 23 minutes in the queue of the Trafalgar Square Post Office this evening were occupied completing 2.06 Sudokus. The two were the Simple and Medium ones that appear in The London Paper. The extra 0.06 was down to the first four cells being completed of the 66 empty cells of the Difficult one, upon which Cashier Number Eight was free. Given that 37 people that made up the queue on my arival, that equates to 0.056 Sudokus per person in the queue.

Update: Jon is right in his comment, something that I thought about at the time, but didn't have either the time or the inclination to allow for. Assuming the Simple Sudoku takes 50% less time than the Medium, and the Difficult one takes 50% longer, then my Medium Sudoku took an estimated 14m 28s. So I was 1.59 Medium Sudokus from the front of the queue, as opposed to my estimate of 2.06. Or else 3.18 Simples.

Over the last few months, I've started trying to access things using entirely the wrong access keys. I'll wander down my street, up towards my front door, readying my work access card to flash at the non-existent sensor. Or I'll get my house keys out on the way into my local Tube station, leaving my Oyster card safely in my pocket-clad wallet.

Quite a frustrating habit. I guess I'm getting old.

The Snail and the Whale was the first book I bought for my daughter, and what a great book it is too. My only regret was not buying the board book, instead going for the easily-chewable paperback.

I've realised recently that I can now recite the entire book off by heart, all 695 words, or 3,450 characters. Which will be a blessing when we're out and about and she needs a story.

I am only able to recite 22 digits of pi, each being a choice of only ten, compared to 695 words, each having so many more choices. But sentence structure, coupled with the associated rhymes and the memorable storyline, make the challenge a different kettle of fish altogether. If only pi had some order to it...

Among other things, my brother bought us six Duralex Picardie drinking glasses for Christmas which we were given today, not having managed to meet over Christmas. One of them had a chip on the rim (despite their spiel marketing them as chip-resistant), so we left them for him to exchange.

I have no idea why, but I completely forgot to look on the base of the glass that I adoringly inspected for the circled number that identifies each one. He's since confirmed by text that the glasses do indeed sport the numbers, which makes me yet more giddy about the present.

For those unaware, Duralex glasses were used to hold the water that accompanied my infant and primary school dinners. I have fond memories of them, and always checked the base of the glass to see which number I'd been given that day.

I realised on Thursday that I look up when people mention Excel, as if answering to my name being called.

Slightly worrying.

Nauseatingly loving new couple on the bus, girl holding the finger of the guy.

Guy: oh, there's a programme on tonight that I want to watch
Girl: what is it?
Guy: a documentary about Pink Floyd
Girl: oh, I want to watch that programme where Mark Philippousis gets to choose a woman.

Here's our Christmas tree 2007, our daughter's first, complete with 500 lights. I'm excited. Very excited.

I've never really thought about this until recently, but evolution stops at procreation, I believe. So the only developments that my daughter might inherit from my own evolution have already been defined. (There's a joke quite close to the surface there about regression as opposed to evolution, but I'll leave that to the lesser people.)

I thought about this while cutting the skin off a couple of salmon fillets while preparing dinner yesterday evening. I thought how convenient it was that salmon skin is so resistant to my über-sharp knife, allowing me to slice the meat cleanly off the skin in one fell swoop.

Maybe people would be less likely to eat (and therefore kill) salmon if the salmon was less easy to skin. But salmon will never evolve to have more cuttable skin specifically to give chefs a headache, because the culinary experience not only happens after procreation, it happens after death.

And a side question: do events we see other people experience feed into our evolutionary pass-down? Or is it purely based on our own experience? If the latter, then surely humans will evolve at the detriment of people older than procreation age. It's just a thought.

My daughter mastered the art of multi-tasking this morning, combining the activities of having a bath and having a shit.

Not pleasant; but very impressive.

Good luck, Karen. Thoughts are with you for today.

Yesterday's run was marginally better than that two weeks ago. The same 6.32km run was completed in 31m 40s, a little over 1% faster than the previous run, extrapolating to 50m 6s for ten kilometres. It was certainly a chilly run too, although I'm glad I'm not out in it today.

Still a long way to go on the time front. I think I'll build the speed up on the 6.32km route before starting to increase the distance. Eventually, I want to get to a position where I can consistently run 12.5km within the hour.

Last Christmas, I didn't give you my heart, nor did you throw it away on Boxing Day. Instead, I published a list of stuff that I would like for Christmas. Here's an update on progress against each of these.

• The Tosagata Hocho 6" Santoku Hocho kitchen knife: not got, but got a similarly great knife from Ben for Christmas
• A Your Retarded t-shirt: not got, still want
• A relatively cheap, small, zoomy, high-res., digital camera: got the Canon Ixus 70 from my mum for my birthday. Fabulous little number
• Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner: Christmas present from Ben. Great book
• Lily Allen's Alright, Still: not got, although downloaded LDN last week from iTunes. Not sure I still want the album
• The Guardian Stylebook: still not got, still want, but in the meantime have read Strunk and White's The Elements of Style which was a marvellous read.

This year, I'd like the following.

• XKCD college-style unisex t-shirt (small)

More to follow, I'm sure.

All in all, I like Ocado. They're reliable, good quality and everything's very convenient. (My wife does the shopping itself, so I can't comment on the user experience on the web front.)

I do have two gripes however, both to do with substitutes:

1. If you send a substitute for an item because the ordered item is not in stock, tell me how much the ordered item would have cost me as well as the cost of the substitute; and

2. If the substitute item is more expensive than the ordered item, swallow the additional cost. After all, it's your fault, not mine.

The first request is a seemingly trivial invoice display issue. The latter is a point of principle, one which would drive loyalty and bring a feel-good factor to customers suffering at the hands of your stock issues.

Shortly after my daughter was born, I made up a little tune that I sang to her. Actually, tune is flattery; ditty would be better. It consists of a mere two bars (or measures, as I just found out they're called in the US), and if sung in D major, would read as follows:

(My lack of perfect pitch means that I don't know whether I'm singing it in D major, and indeed the key probably changes from one rendition to the next.)

For some unknown reason, no matter what's upsetting her, singing this ditty to her over and over again seems to mesmerise her, and her tears always turn to smiles immediately. The more tearful she is, the faster I sing it. And it never fails to work.

Give it a go on your own children, and let me know whether it's my dulcet voice or the tune itself thats working miracles. Or my easily-pleased daughter.

I just bought a nose-cleaner for my daughter. It's basically a plastic suctiony thing, allowing you (me) to suck snot of the poor little mite's nose without getting it in your (my) mouth. (That was last night's method of choice. Classy.)

Its stapline reads as follows:

One of the greatest milestones is when little ones learn to blow their noses, until then Baby nose-cleaner will be an invaluable part of baby care.

Yeah, it's right up there with walking, first day at school and birth itself.

Congratulations little blog of mine. This is your thousandth post. I thought we'd celebrate (or celibrate as Holly Golightly says at the end of the White Stripes' Well It's True That We Love One Another) by combining two of my loves: numbers and words. So here's a potted statistical history of the first 999 posts. (This one's not included because I've not finished it yet.) Here goes!

There have been 999 posts in 1,220 days, attracting a total of 1,301 comments. That's 1.30 comments per post, 0.82 posts per day, 1.07 comments per day.

The 999 posts are made up of 168,016 words, 758,040 characters (excluding spaces), making an average of 168 words per post; 4.51 characters per word. In total, there were 16,299 unique words and numbers, including hyphenated constructs and spelt-out URLs. My most populous word was the, its 10,703 occurrences accounting for 6.37% of the total, followed by to (2.90%), of (2.65%), a (2.56%), and and (1.78%). The most prevalent 123 words accounted for 50% of all words.

There were 625 instances of it's, but only 402 of its, all 1,027 used correctly, I hope. 525 theres, 409 theirs and only 92 they'res. Beer and wine were mentioned seven times each. 58 footballs compared to eleven soccers and 17 baseballs. 167 Yorks (most of them preceded with New, I expect) compared to 151 Londons. And 140 Googles compare to 15 mentions of Yahoo! Four fucks and three wanks.

The most populous non-trivial word was people, with 284 occurrences, followed by great (225), day (217), little (193), good (181) and number (180). Excel, its capitalised and non-capitalised forms combined, warranted 89 mentions. Twelve was graced with 43; Seinfeld with 14.

α, β, γ and δ got a single mention each. The 4,300 occurrences of a were equal first alphabetically, zoomy rounding us off with a single mention. My longest word was plimpplampplettere, the beautiful Dutch word meaning to skim stones. Compartmentalised won the English record together with indistinguishable, both with 17 letters.

During the 105,282,240 seconds between the first and 999th post, I have married my lovely wife, moved country twice and had a beautiful daughter. Roll on another thousand posts.

I've entered the BUPA London 10,000, a 10km run through the streets of London on 26 May, 2008. Although I'm not training specifically for it just yet, I thought I'd give my trainers an airing yesterday, and undertook the following run.

It was hard. I completed the 6.32km in around 32 minutes. If I'd carried on at the same pace, I would have managed a 51 minute 10km, or else a three hour 34 minute marathon. Neither would have been possible, as my wife and daughter would no doubt testify, both witnesses of my distressing breathing and general fatigue on returning home.

I'm hoping that by the time May comes around, I'm sub-45 for 10km, ideally sub-42. Let's see.

I quite like spaghetti. There are certainly better pasta types out there (rigatoni, farfalle, tagliatelle to name but a few); but spaghetti has its place in the pasta family. (As an aside, feel free to check out my US pasta-buying habits.)

My main annoyance with spaghetti, however, is its length. Both when cooking it and eating it. The diameter of the pan of choice is always less than the length of the spaghetti, so it's always a faff trying to get it all submerged. And while eating, I'm one of those uncouth types who likes a knife for my spaghetti, such is the danger of eating it in its natural, full-length form.

My solution: half-length spaghetti. Easier to cook, easier to eat and safer for your whites. It will be called spaghettini.

Thoughts?

Afterthought: shit. Just found out that the word spaghettini is already taken. It means thin spaghetti which cooks quicker. Need a new brand name.

A colleague recently started a conversation with me such:

"No offence to you, but the guy back there had small man syndrome."

Why would I take offence? I'm a giant compared to some. And I'm tall enough for my feet to reach all the way to the ground.

It's been 13 days and twelve hours since my last post, probably the longest single hiatus of service since records began on 6 July, 2004. The reason: man 'flu'. (The apostrophes can be construed as the double abbreviation of in-flu-enza, or as an implication that what I actually suffered was something south of 'flu'.)

I've been battling through it, but it's taken it out of me, leaving no time, nor indeed inspiration, for blogging. I'm back now, you'll be happy to hear. Normal service will resume.

Paxman: what's the definite integral of x cubed between the values zero and one
Dan: a quarter
Paxman [responding to silence from the teams]: no? It's a quarter
Mrs. Dan: that's why no one wants to have sex with you.

Colgate occupies a little over half of the toothpaste-dedicated shelf-space in my local Sainsbury's. The Colgate toothpastes in stock today are as follows:

• Advanced White
• Sensation Deep Clean Whitening
• Anti-Tartar plus Whitening
• Oxygen Pure Freshness
• Time Control Gum Strengthening
• Sensitive Fresh Stripe
• Sensitive Whitening
• Sensitive Multi-Protection
• Total Fresh Stripe
• Total plus Whitening
• Total
• Total 12 hour Fresh Breath
• MaxFresh Cooling Crystals (Cool Mint)
• MaxFresh Cooling Crystals (Clean Mint)
• Cavity Protection
• Triple Cool Stripe
• Total Advanced Fresh

That's toothpaste only. Mouth cleaning "systems" and mouthwash are not included in that list.

They should have some form of Benihana-style approach, whereby you choose the attributes you want of your toothpaste and they make it there and then for you. That is, of course, if there is any difference between the contents of the above-mentioned tubes.

I was quite confused, so I bought some Macleans.

I bought my daughter a 100th birthday card on Bastille Day, to celebrate 100 days on the planet. She is 128 days old today. Happy birthday! Thank to both my wife and daughter, for making those 128 days the most fabulous I've ever experienced. (They don't do cards for 128.)

Her 256th birthday will be on 17 December.

Me: do you know where the nearest post box is?
Numpty: oooh, I'm not sure. I've seen one somewhere.

Me: oh bugger
Lady wife: what?
Me: oh, nothing
Lady, wife: go on, tell me
Me: [reluctantly] I missed a programme about the atom on Thursday night
Lady wife: [raucous, somewhat uncontrollable laughter]

Me: they should do Law and Order shorts: five minute show, solved straight away and you're done. What do you think?

Wife: [short pause] I think you're an idiot

The jury is out over whether Virgin Media or 3 takes the crown. My Virgin Media saga is frustrated the hell out of me. Yet tonight's hour-plus conversation with 3 was equally banal: my trying to cancel a contract that I actually cancelled three months ago. Only they've decided to continue billing me on a monthly basis ever since.

It's tough to decide on a winner, but they're both losers in my eyes.

Parents will be all too familiar with walking backwards and forwards in the nursery, cradling their baby to sleep while wearing out a specific area of the carpet. I spent the best part of three hours doing exactly this the other night, and most nights involve at least some time walking the line, from one corner of the nursery to the other, while the little one hopefully falls asleep.

In an aim to try and assist with the onset of sleep, I often whisper pi to her, to the 21 decimal places of which I am capable, over and over again. It seems to work. If nothing else, later in life she'll be able to calculate the volume of earth to the nearest tenth of a cubic metre. Or its circumference to the nearest four attometers. Or the circumference of the universe to the nearest 1.26 metres.

Once asleep, she's rocked left to right, right to left, 128 times, which is aimed at settling her into a deeper sleep before being put down. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Maybe I need to up it to 256.

Apparently, bathtime isn't a word. It's either hyphenated or treated as two separate words. Anyway, I'm making it a word. Similar to my use of eleven and twelve mid-sentence. (Incidentally, I've used the word eleven in 22 posts to date (make that 23) and twelve in 25 (26). They come up quite regularly.)

Anyway, just a short post to say that I love bathtime, as does my daughter. She's not reached the try to get as much water out of the bath as possible phase yet, but nonetheless, she seems to personify happiness and contentedness. Which in turn makes me very happy.

Originally, this post's title had the present participle of the F word neatly nestled in between the and cheek. I removed it for Francis' benefit (NSFW), but I'm often torn in such situations. Now, having raised the very subject of sweary things, a strange urge has come over me to type the C word. Scunthorpe. That'll do.

Back to the point. A few days ago, I was sent a lovely little email from our friends at Ocado, our online supermarket of choice, part of the John Lewis Partnership, don't you know. (My wife practices the John Lewis religion, their Oxford Street store being termed The Mother Ship.)

They informed me that they were introducing a "small delivery charge to some of [their] slots. Charges will affect busy periods but quieter delivery slots will remain free.

"All customers spending over £75 will have the opportunity to choose a free delivery slot at a quieter time of the week, otherwise the charge will be up to £4. If you spend less than £75 the charge will be no more than £6."

(I'd have preferred a semicolon after week, but that's beside the point.) I was grateful, almost eternally so, for the opportunity to choose a free delivery slot at a quieter time of the week, although recall having enjoyed that very opportunity before receiving the email. Indeed I'd had the opportunity to choose free delivery slots at any time of the week, which was more enjoyable still. Overall, I feel the Ocado's elevated prices, their lack of the need for a physical shop (for me at least), and the overall value of our shops (c. £135 spent on each delivery) should together contribute towards a strong argument to allow us free delivery regardless.

Anyway, we chose 9–10pm this evening, the slots between 7pm and 9pm being deemed to fall in a busy period. When the guy arrived at 8.50pm, I wondered whether a surcharge would be levied. (I think I'm safe in assuming it won't. Though stranger things have happened.)

Thinking again, given my annoyance at the very concept of a delivery charge, I was sorely tempted to levy one to the delivery chap in return for hitting our busy period. (In reality, it wasn't that busy, as bathtime was over and the little lady was tucked up asleep. But that's not the point.) Maybe I'll write a letter to Ocado detailing my proposed inconvenience charge.

Number 2.5 round the sides, blended into the top, take a bit of length off the top, leave it messy and chop into it. Natural at the back, not square.

It's great being a bloke.

A colleague recently won a £500 meal at a London restaurant of his choosing for buying some San Pelegrino water from Ocado. Tonight, I was given a 330ml bottle of Highland spring water (still) as a reward for my Ocado loyalty, which was delivered along with our £145 order. And he recently complained of bad luck for not winning the lottery.

Ho hum.

I wandered up to Sainsbury's this afternoon, with my daughter strapped to my chest looking delightful. On my way there, I overheard quite an attractive young lady whispering to what I assume was her boyfriend.

"Men with babies are so attractive."

I smiled broadly, taking the compliment as intended; she looked sheepish at having been overheard. I'm not sure whether the boyfriend looked pissed at her third party admiration, or petrified at the prospect of a conversation about their impending procreation.

She did have a point: I did look hot!

My very good friend Elise is coming to London town in the not too distant, which I'm very excited about. (I've only met her once, but what with the wonders of the internet, I consider her very highly.) However I'm torn.

She has expressed enthusiasm at the coincidence of her trip and the Tour de France's kick-off in London, and would like to go see it. Now most years, I would have bitten someone's arm off to join her, given my thorough enjoyment of the Tour, and the particularly mathematical nature of the prologue stage.

But Floyd Landis won the tour last year, thereafter failing a dope test. (Apparently, he's still the official winner, which surprised me.) And meanwhile Bjarne Riis has just been asked to return his 1996 yellow jersey, having admitted four days ago to taking banned drugs between 1993 and 1998. Rumours are rife, as are positive tests and counter-claims.

Given the state that the sport's in, I'm not sure I want to honour it with my support.

This weekend has been a chore-fest. Cleared out a load of stuff from a couple of rooms at home (which admittedly I'd put there over a period of time), took said stuff to the tip, made a couple of trips to Homebase (new ladder and new turf), laid said turf in the pouring rain having removed a couple of sections that had previously been irrigated with cat piss (not my choice), took my daughter to the fair with her Uncle Ben (again in the pouring rain) and generally kept myself busy around the house, given the Bank Holiday weather.

My laptop repays me for my hard work by dying. Bastard! Thanks. Not sure if it's the power supply or the laptop itself. Hopefully that will be diagnosed today...

"I can't believe you kept going all night. I just can't believe it!"

Context? Who knows.

A lady on the Number 3 bus this evening answered a call on her mobile phone. For whatever reason, no one was speaking at the other end.

She rattled off eleven hellos, each with a questioning tone, interspersed with confused looks into the mobile phone, before hanging up. I think I would have suffered two before giving up.

A guy on the Tube just asked a fellow passenger the following question while we waited on board the southbound Victoria Line train in King's Cross St. Pancras station:

"Excuse me, can you tell me if this train's going the right way?"

The best she could do was point in the anticipated direction of travel saying "Well, it's going that way".

As a young child, I used to think that the only way to get back to the start point of your journey was to retrace your steps. So if I went a mile north, a mile east, then a mile south, if I then went a mile west, I would end up in a different place than that whence I started. The only way back would be to go a mile north, then west, then south.

I soon learned this not to be the case. I think it clicked when we went to my auntie's house via the M62 and came back on the A58, surprisingly ending up at home.

This morning, I walked across sun-drenched Lambeth Bridge with the Thames glinting below me, The Arctic Monkeys' When The Sun Goes Down on my iPod, while smiling outwardly at the beauty and wonder of my wife and daughter. Life is beautiful.

I have spent the best part of two days on the phone with Virgin Media. For the record, it's not affected my work, as the vast majority of the time has been spent with a phone wedged under my chin listening to inane hold music that's a hangover from NTL days. (Doo-bee-do-bee-do-bee-do-bee-do-do.) I now even know the point at which the recording will stop and revert to the beginning.

In two days, I notched up 13 separate complaints, and spoke to an estimated 35 people. (The guy I spoke to last night confirmed the complaint number, but indicated that although Ofcom monitors that sort of thing, the customer doesn't hear any more about them.) I questioned why Steve Birch, their Director of Customer Services had not called me directly, what with a single customer being so disgruntled, but I was told that he doesn't speak to customers. No surprise given how pissed off they are, no doubt.

After unprecedented incompetence and a silo mentality like no other, we've finally got broadband and TV back, after close to a month without. My next campaign will be written, in an attempt to be reimbursed for having my IQ lowered through exposure to such high levels of incompetence, and for my inability to serve my blog-reading public to the level to which you've become accustomed.

I was woken this morning at 3.30am by my lovely daughter. She was focused on being fed, her mouth making a crying noise indicating such, so I woke to calm her down and take her to the food.

I woke mid-dream, however. Or at least I think it was a dream. Kylie (Minogue) had taken me aside in the street (it was the corner of Godwin Street and Thornton Road in Bradford, just outside the Odeon cinema). She was telling me that she had too many friends, and having gone through her contacts in her mobile phone, she'd decided to sever links with me.

As you can imagine, I was devastated.

Today is my first day back at work since taking a little over two weeks off for paternity leave. (For the record, I've loved every minute of it. But that's not the point of this post.)

People in the outside world are already pissing me off. I make my way to the top deck of the 87 bus, to find just one seat unoccupied by human buttocks (or butt-ocks, if you will). (I've just noticed that I'm using the present tense for enhanced story-telling. I think I'll continue.) Instead, the window seat is occupied by a white plastic bag, sporting green typography. (I can't make out the shop whence it came, but they have stores in notting hill, soho, stoke newington, all lower case by all accounts.) Beside the bag is a grumpy, dozing youngish woman who very reluctantly removes the bag on my asking. (In this case, the use of the present tense is apt, as she's still sat there, much to my annoyance. My sincere apologies for interrupting her morning nap. The interruption didn't last long, as she's gone back to Monday morning snoozeville.)

Instead of shuffling across for me to take the aisle seat, she puts the bag on her lap,with an effort which seems to bely the weight of its contents, and swings her legs round allowing me to edge my way into the window seat. This I do, giving her a healthy nudge on her legs with my own bag en route.

Since when have people's bags been more important than my arse?

My daughter was due to be born today. Instead, she arrived two weeks ago yesterday, giving us 15 days' unbridled joy, for free.

She's looking at me right now, as I type this post into my mobile phone keyboard. She's staring at me with her beautiful big eyes, and I have now developed a connection with her that I cherish. I sit here on a Friday night, with a Nastro Azzurro on the changing table and a beautiful baby daughter in my arms, and I am truly happy.

Is it fuck.

They seem perfectly happy to leave me waiting ten days without TV and internet. They were actually happy for me to wait 17 days, but after a two hour phonecall, I managed to pull that in a week. Their current slogan reads "Guaranteed Happiness". I wonder what the service credits look like for their failure to meet this SLA.

Rob, please add this to your list of shit companies. I would have linked to your such post, but can't, because I'm typing this on a mobile phone and (a) am not sure how without those pop-up dialogue boxes and (b) even if I did know how, it would probably be too much effort. Suffice to day it's the "a blog about nothing" link over there to the right.

I was in Sainsbury's the other day, wandering down the aisle that housed, among other things, feminine hygiene products.

A girl was perusing the options for panty-liners, when she turned to her boyfriend uttering "Oooh, what's the silky ones?", holding up a particular pack. I remember the phrase partly because of its grammatical inadequacy, but mainly because of the boyfriend's doubtless lack of expertise in this area. We shared a WTF glance.

Yesterday, 5 April 2007, was by far the happiest day of my life. Thank you to my beautiful wife and our beautiful daughter for making it so.

I just missed the 77 bus. But an 87 came along just behind it, which follows the 77 all the way up Wandsworth Road before the two go their separate ways. I need the 77. I told