Category archive: personal

Hello dear technically-inclined reader, I wonder if you could help.

I have been using email as my main means of capturing and storing information. Started with Outlook, switched to Gmail for a while (loved the tags and no-directory structure) but then went back to Outlook when I got an HTC Tytn II that syncs with it in real time.

I send myself dozens of emails every day, whenever something crosses my mind (easy for me, as I'm online on my mobile every single waking hour – from the moment my it wakes me up in the morning to the movies I watch on it or feeds I read in bed before falling asleep).

These emails look something like this:

• bitful backlog link to answers.com absent from single post page
• cal wed vegetable samosa 37g*320cal/100g
• money wed 2.50 leaving collection for x at work
• weight mon 13st 11lbs 21%
• task 1 feb register for glastonbury tickets

Then every now and then I sit at my machine at home and transfer the data into Outlook, MS Money or my weight/calories spreadsheet. Yes, I could enter the info straight into my mobile (it syncs with Outlook and has Mobile Word and Excel and all you can dream of) but if I'm at work it's much easier to email myself. Large fingers love large keyboards.

My question is: does anyone know of any application or system that lets you email a specific worded syntax to yourself and it gets entered into Outlook as a task/appointment/note/contact? I have fooled around with Sandy for a bit and although she's definitely a very smart cookie, her Outlook integration does not stretch that far.

Thank you.

Today's phrase is

Finalmente è venerdì
At last it's Friday
Literally: At last is Friday

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

It's been a short week (I worked on Monday, went out on Monday and Tuesday night, had a day off work on Wednesday and was back to work yesterday and today) but I'm very glad the weekend is here again anyway.

I have absolutely nothing planned for the weekend, so I will probably hit the gym for my favourite workouts. I love exercising on Saturday and Sunday mornings, there are not many people around and I have plenty of time to go through all I want to do without rushing. Quite a change from the usual hit-and-run ones before work or occasionally during my lunch break.

So yes, Finalmente è venerdì, which means the weekend is only a few working hours away.

Cosa fai questo weekend?
What are you doing this weekend?
Literally: What do this weekend?

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

If you want to find out more

• 'Finalmente' means 'at last'. 'Finally' is not translated with 'finalmente', but with 'infine' or 'alla fine' which mean 'in (the) end', 'at the end'. Nothing to worry about, many people get these wrong.
• The names of days and months are not spelled with an upper case initial letter in Italian.
• An accent is used in Italian to indicate that the last syllable needs to be stressed (venerdì) or to distinguish two otherwise identical words: 'è' (with an accent) means '(he, she, it) is', whereas 'e' (without an accent) means 'and'.

Today's Italian phrase is

Ho comprato gli occhiali su internet
(I bought my spectacles online)
Literally: 'Have bought the spectacles on internet'.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I'm shortsighted, I hate wearing glasses (I generally can't stand anything on me: rings, wristbands, watches, sunglasses…) so I usually keep a crap pair at home to put on last thing at night and first thing in the morning.

I would not be seen dead in them, and yet I need to have some, just in case. Of course the tatty old pair I had decided to snapin two just before going on holiday last August. That is why when a fire alarm woke us up one morning in our New York hotel room I had to walk down all 44 flights of stairs of the Hilton Times Square and stand in the street wearing little more than geek spectacles bound together by a plaster. Charming.

It's not that I can't afford new glasses, but I simply refuse to spend hundred of pounds for something I wear around twenty minutes a day. The broken ones were free from the NHS when I was unemployed all those years ago.

Then one day I saw a big ad in the tube for glassesdirect.co.uk. I selected a 15 pound frame, entered the results of the eye test I'd just taken(free because I'm over forty and my mother suffers from glaucoma), paid 18 pound 75 pence and a few days later my glasses arrived and they fit perfectly. If they hadn't, I would have been able to return them free of charge. Oh, and the standard clear correction lenses were free (tinted, graduated, sun-reactive are a little extra). And they threw in a piece of candy that looked like a huge eyeball.

You can also select some frames, pay 3 pound 75 to have them delivered at home with blank lenses so you can try them on, then send them back for free and order one of them with your prescription lenses.

Also, you can upload your photo and virtually try the frames, and enter the measurements of your current pair to be shown all those that match.

I don't know and don't care what their business model is. It just works for me.

If you are reading this from the US, this excellent article at 43folders.com (Adventures in $40 eyeglasses) has several links and tips to buy your glasses online.

Compra anche tu gli occhiali su internet!
(Buy your spectacles online too!)
Literally: Buy also you the spectacles on internet!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Yesterday morning we drove from London to Birmingham to spend Christmas with Dr B.'s parents.

I have been doing absolutely nothing for exactly thirty hours and loving every minute of it. Right now Dr B. is sleeping off the lurgy in his old bedroom, his parents are out, and I'm sitting watching telly.

The last few months have been intense, busy and terribly exciting. A lot to do with work, I'm afraid, so I shan't really bore you with it. Except for one detail that makes me very proud: I found out on Friday that I did not get the job that I was interviewed for at the beginning of the week.

I am very proud indeed, because I was not even going to apply: the job in question is within my team, one level before my current one, and I was highly encouraged to apply by my colleagues even if I'd only been in my current position for exactly one year.

I am also very proud because I have been marked as equally suitable as the chosen candidate, and this is something that I was not expecting. I had some feedback from the panel and what played against me was the lack of experience in the advertised role, which I am determined to acquire during the next month or so, as I am temporarily filling in until the person who was recruited is free to join us.

So a few days' rest for me. Doing nothing is a rare pleasure that I intend to enjoy fully. And yes, of course I'm all laptopped and mobiled up, connecting to the world via the in-laws wireless network, with the Xbox 360 we brought from London and tentimillion channels courtesy of Sky.

And that's exactly what relaxing means to me.

December 9th is traditionally the date when Christmas starts in Dr B.'s family, as his brother's birthday is on the 8th and it would not be nice to steal his thunder.

So I popped into town to see if I could find a nice fake yet life-like tree to match my wallet. No, I did not think either.

I thought there could be nothing worse than the unbelievable crowds I had seen in pedestrianised Oxford Circus the previous Saturday. There is actually. It's manic crowds with umbrellas.

So we picked up a Streetcar and went to B&Q in Peckhakm. The website said they had trees on stock. Someone had obviously beaten us to them, and we ended up getting a cheap real one.

We could not see much in the badly-lit outdoor garden section, what being blinded with guilt and all. But when we got home and put it up we saw that it was perfectly proportioned, a pleasure to look at and decorated, its evenly spread out branches forming the perfect conical shape.

Dr B., always the inquisitive scientific mind, had a closer look and noticed that most of the branches had been trimmed, probably in an infernal contraption with rotating blades worth of the scariest Dr Who Christmas episode:

But we won't let that spoil the magic.

I thought only a couple of friends knew about La Terremoto de Alcorcón and her YouTube Madonna spoof video 'Time Goes By (Con Loli)':

Last night at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern it appeared that the whole Spanish expat community knows her well.

It was a riot, with Spanglish banter and a handful of songs (Can't Get You Out Of My Head, Hung Up, Two Hearts, Let Me Out) sung with Spanish lyrics (Let Me Out became Enajena, for instance) along with the adoring crowd.

She also sang the English version of Libérate, the official hymn of this year's Europride in Madrid.

• Lyrics of Time Goes By (Con Loli)
• A few pictures of La Terremoto I took last night

So tonight I was coming home from work, totally absorbed by the book I'm reading (A Spot of Bother), I got off the train and walked along the platform to the exit, instinctively. A gesture you don't think about because you repeat it every day.

Most people were walking the opposite direction, so I realised I was walking away from the exit. My mind must have thought I was in a different carriage. It happens.

I took the exit and turned left towards the three escalators. Two were going up (as is the case in the evening). Only this time it was the two on the right instead of the usual ones on the left. They must be working on something, I thought.

Once up in the ticket hall, I noticed that the tills were on the left instead of on the right. Hang on, they can't have moved them since this morning.

I got off one stop too early. Trivial, I know, but it was absolutely wonderful to feel the mind tingling because of this tiny variation on a trite pattern.

Air France, said the reservation. And the check-in counter, and the boarding pass.

And the crew's uniforms at the gate. One of them looked at my boarding pass, then projected "Le six" across the queue to her colleague entering boarding pass numbers into a machine.

So imagine my surprise when the terminal bus delivered me in front of a Dornier 328-100 by Scot Airlines – operated by Air France (or was that Air France – operated by Scot Airlines, I never know which one is which).

31 seats. 11 passengers. One cabin crew. One pilot. No make it two – it had to be two, as mid-flight the pilot crossed the aisle to go to the toilet at the back).

Somebody had thrown up tartan everywhere. The seat and the crew were upholstered with the same material. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what I call classy.

I was sitting right next to the propeller. I feared the worst. But as the plane flew right over the O2, so low I could make out what was on the circular screens around it, and then over fireworks, and pitch after pitch of little men playing football, I was giddy with excitement.

Our lovely Michelle (both on the way there and back, probably sleeps on the plane in tartan PJs under a tartan duvet) was charming. She offered me a free newspaper (choice of four), and drinks. Being a Ryanair boy, I almost cried for being showered with such luxuries.

I think I might treasure the Air France cocktail napkin forever.

I owe you an explanation, don't I?

Weeks without a proper post on these pages, apart from Word of the Day, My Week on the Web and sometimes 7 Things I Did Not Know Last Week.

Not a lack of time per se, but rather a shift in priorities.

A new position at work that's briliant and absorbs me so much I've been enjoying working through lunch almost every day for over a month now.

And when I am not working, I am likely to be playing with the Tytn2 a.k.a. HTC Kaiser a.k.a. T-Mobile MDA Vario III. It's so good it turns heads. One fellow passengerand the cabin crew on the flight tonight asked me where they could get one.

Speaking of the flight, I thought I made a mistake when, after booking, checking in and boarding at gate all with Air France, the airport bus left me in front of a minivan with wings emblazoned with Scot Airways and a lot of tartan everywhere.

Flight surprisingly smooth, and leaving from London City Airport is a treat. We flew very low over the O2 and I can't wait to fly back tomorrow night and peek into the top floors windows of Canary Wharf.

And in between, lots of work meetings.

When I heard Barclays was releasing a three-in-one Credit, Oyster (London transport) and OneTouch (cashless purchases under ten pounds by waving the card on a reader) OnePulse Barclaycard, I was the first in line to get it.

The accompanying leaflet showed the logos of some of the retailers that will be accepting OneTouch payments soon: Books etc., Coffee Republic, Yo! Sushi, Krispy Kreme, Thresher and Eat.

I decided to give it a go on Friday morning, as I was in Paddington station going to Cardiff for work and was as usual too early.

I went to Krispy Kreme, asked if they were equipped for OneTouch payments, was met with a quizzical stare. I left. My blood sugar was safe.

I was glad to see Yo! Sushi was still closed (raw fish in the early A.M.? Gaaah).

I got a coffee and a bottle of water at Eat, went to pay, asked for OneTouch. Yes? No? I showed my card, enquired about the reader, explained how I wanted to pay.

The kind, serviceable, customer-focussed till operator tilted her head, arched her eyebrows and rebutted 'You wanna do wha'?'

The queue was building up behind me. I fished for some coins. I wondered when the future would catch up with me.

I've had Yahoo! Mail account for as long as I can remember, and I've always been very happy with it.

I've also had a Gmail account since the time they were still only in invitation-only beta. I forward all my other mail to it so it acts as a searchable permanent reference. I also set it up with filters and labels and use it to email stuff to myself (reminders, notes, todos…) so that everything is filed away automatically.

Until recently, I never used it to email anyone, but scarily over the past month I've been using the Gmail web interface so much that some days I don't even run Outlook. So, if I've forgotten your birthday or if you were expecting me for dinner last night, I'm sorry, but Google ate my Outlook.

Unfortunately, I am still incapable to take the plunge, give up on Outlook and trust the web with all my mail. Perhaps listing the pros and cons on 'paper' will help me make up my mind.

Reasons why I like Yahoo! Mail:

• intuitive, Outlook-like drag-and-drop web mail interface
• Yahoo! sends emails to my phone every five minutes, and lets me compose emails offline and send them when connected
• it has been my main address for a very long time
• I like lots of stuff Yahoo! is developing (Fire Eagle, for instance)
• unlimited storage!

Reasons why I do not like Yahoo! Mail:

• only fifteen filters allowed, more if you pay
• having to switch to their standard interface every time you want to access mail options
• I do not understand their spam filter: last week it blocked two genuine personal messages, and even killed a message from Yahoo! itself updating me on the process of moving the photos I have at Yahoo! Photos (which is closing) over to Flickr. However, it happily let through to me a filthy message from a lady of dubious moral qualities wanting me to order from her the leading remedy against erectile malfunctions. Go figure.

Reasons why I like Gmail:

• it pushes email to emoze, no need to keep the home computer switched on during the day
• it has a Java mobile application
• it uses labels
• search is impressive (that's what they do best, after all)
• it has an impressive list of shortcuts
• it can be infinitely customised with Greasemonkey scripts (I highly recommend BetterGmail)
• the look and feel of the UI can be changed (I use the Super Clean skin)
• infinite email addresses (you just add '+something' after your username)
• it lends itself very well to GTD (I use GTDInbox, a Firefox extension)

Reasons why I do not like Gmail:

• the never-ending rumours of Google reading your mail
• the built-in email client on the old K700 phone I am using at the moment does not work with Gmail.
• I do not want to switch my main email address

Perhaps Yahoo! Mail has exactly the same features as Gmail, but they are not as evident or talked about, and today it's all about how much people talk about you.

Yahoo! Mail vs Gmail: the jury is still out.

I am trying to save the world, but they sure do not make my life easy.

The kitchen scales batteries had gone. It cost nine pounds to replace them. New scales, batteries included, cost as little as nine pound 99. I insisted in buying the batteries instead. Yes, I know there are scales that run without batteries, but they do not do five-gram increments, and they cannot be reset to zero every time you want to weigh another ingredient to add to the mix.

The kitchen tap handles have cracked and needed replacing. I've had no hot water in the kitchen for months now, and now the cold tap handle has gone too. Fifty pounds to replace handles and cartridges. New complete tap unit, as little as 49.99. We went for the handles only, also because we do not risk flooding half of South London while replacing the whole tap.

The hoover head is broken. Alright, I took it apart to clean it thoroughly (it was clogged with pine needles in early January) and could not figure out how to put it back together again. That particular model is discontinued and is nowhere to be found. I hope the nozzle diameter is sort of standard, and I shall try not to think too hard of that sexy Dyson I've set my sights on a while back.

It was not without apprehension that last Saturday I set off to go visit my mother in Italy. She had been ill for a while, was taken to hospital for six weeks of tests last spring, but they could not find anything wrong. She was ill again recently, and this time the local hospital sent her to Bozen, a lovely German-speaking town where a little Austrian efficiency must have seeped through the border, helping doctors find what was wrong with my mother and fix it.

Once back from hospital, she sounded in great shape on the phone. As I arrived to her place, I was expecting the usual pasta salad she feeds me when I get there (recipe: overcook pasta, mix with jar of pickled carrots and olives, do not refrigerate so that the warmth makes it all coagulate – serve lukewarm with fork and knife). Instead, my brother had talked her into cooking proper pasta (cooked in advance of course, then kept warm on a plate placed on the pot of hot water it was cooked in) and a bolognaise sauce.

Now, you must be aware that her bolognaise sauce is pretty much the only edible thing she prepares. So un-bad that even I use her recipe when I make it.

Only thing, this time she forgot to add tomatoes. That's alright, since even the original recipe only calls for a couple of tablespoons of tomato concentrate. But she made a lot of it. My nephew was staying with her and my brother, and the four of us ate tomato-less bolognaise overcooked pasta for lunch and dinner on Saturday, for lunch and dinner on Sunday and for lunch on Monday. I peeked at the pot and there was still a fair amount of sauce left. Mother wanted me to take it back to London. I silently thanked the authorities for the ban on liquids on board and politely declined her offer.

She's obviously in form and back to her hopeless cooking ways. I can't wait to be eighty-two and get away with anything.

The father of a friend of mine is dying of lung cancer.

He was always bursting with energy, one of those people who can possibly get on your nerves because they keep you constantly on your toes, but who leave an indelible mark with their humour (and the way they cook fish).

He was the incredibly strong centre of the family. He organised everything, took care of everything, did everything, and this is why his wife and children now feel completely lost. He got much worse yesterday and was taken to hospital. They told me that they are simply waiting for it to happen now.

My friend is trying to be strong and put up a brave face, but I can't help wondering how she feels. She lost a very young aunt (whom she adored) when she was little. Her own mother survived breast cancer a few years ago, and now her dad is going.

It looks unlikely that I will see my friend when I am in Italy this weekend: I want and need to give my mother, who is just out of hospital after surgery, my undivided attention. But I wish I could hug my friend very tight, and let her know that I am there, even if words fail me.

By Jove I think I've cracked it!

Last week I wrote about planning to clean a bit every day. Ten minutes every day, to be precise.

So:

• on Monday night I cleaned the kitchen
• on Tuesday night I dusted everywhere
• on Wednesday night I cleaned the bathroom
• on Thursday I cleaned our desks in the office
• on Friday I mopped kitchen and bathroom floors
• on Saturday we were away
• on Sunday we were away
• on Monday I went out
• but on Tuesday I hoovered, dusted and cleaned the kitchen
• and tonight I cleaned the bathroom

The flat was never totally gleaming clean on any single day, but on average it was on the whole cleaner than it has been in months.

Of course, to start with I had to accept the fact that even when fractioned, I would have to spend approximately five hours per month cleaning. If you are not prepared to do so, get a cleaner.

I overcome (but only slightly) my laziness to paste an email Dr B. sent to his friends yesterday to comment on the last issue of David Hoyle's Magazine that we went to see on Monday night:

Well that was fun. For those that missed it David Hoyle was back on form last night – we had the return of one of the guys from Crime and Punishment with his partner and their new baby followed by a 70 year old reformed alcoholic and ex tramp. He had a very interedting story to tell and importantly this time David shut up and let him speak. He was also quite witty. All in all it was the best one I've seen. He is next on at the RVT on the friday before worlds aids day with a show about unprotected sex and gay life in generally entitled something like 'the worlds largest suicide sect'

TTFN

S

I have already written about how two days into my holiday my mobile phone reset itself and all data was wiped out.

I saw this as a sign to let go and try not to make a note of absolutely everything, and also told myself that I might not need to keep a food diary any longer. It's been years since I was overweight and surely I can now listen to my body and stop eating when I'm full, right?

Right my (huge again) arse! I have put on almost a stone in a month. If memory serves me right, it will take me twice as long to get rid of it (and it gets harder and harder as I get older). I know from experience that it is going to be a pain, with privations and sacrifices – and this is exactly why I had been keeping a food diary for years, so I could monitor my weight and take action immediately if the scales showed their unhappy face in the morning.

I had a previously planned dinner out tonight (absolutely delicious, I've got very talented friends who can do wonders with vegetables), and a previously planned weekend away visiting friends tomorrow and Sunday. And then it's probably going to be nil by mouth until Christmas.

IMG_1264.jpg, originally uploaded by astrx.

If you've been paying attention, you'll have noticed that lately I've been enjoying getting rid of things.

What you see in this picture from Flickr is for me (at the moment at least) unconceivable. I wish these were my belongings but they are not. The're all Elliott owns after reducing his possessions to the very essentials. You can read more about The Rucksack Life's 'Visual Inventory of Everything I Own'.

But if I do try and imagine what it would feel like to only own such a small amount of essential things, my heart jumps up with joy, my lungs fill up with air, I imagine how much extra space we'd have in the flat and I feel like giddily hopping up and down.

Dr B. and I live in a medium-sized two-bedroom flat. And we never clean.

I like keeping it tidy, but do not like cleaning. He likes it being tidy, and does not like cleaning. But that might be stating the obvious, as who on earth likes cleaning?

Every so often I decide it is time to get a cleaner, and start decluttering so that the cleaner can clean easily. Then I realise that it would not take long to clean ourselves, do a good clean myself and I forget about it for another week, or two, or – ahem – five.

Last Saturday it was a case of one of those impromptu 'All back to ours' things. And the flat was absolutely filthy. On this particular occasion I did not mind too much because we were all coming from a memorial service for a friend who recently died, and we were all in need of companionship, a drink and some general silliness. So frankly I could not care less.

But then on Sunday, along with twenty-odd glasses, and wiping my PC from what looked like a poured vodka-cranberry (no harm done), I cleaned the whole flat in about seventy minutes. Alright, I timed it. And then I thought well, what if I cleaned 10 minutes a day every day? The flat would always be acceptably clean, instead of getting more and more filthy as weeks go by, and the task of cleaning it more and more daunting.

I did a bit of research and of course, plenty of other people had come to the same conclusion, among which my zen and simplicity guru:

Simple Systems: Clean Your House as You Go (with an added burst)

So on Monday night I cleaned the kitchen again (not much to do), last night I dusted everywhere and tonight I re-cleaned the bathroom. Very easy tasks, considering they had recently been cleaned, but each was performed in under 10 minutes.

Tomorrow night I'll clean and dust our desks, on Friday I'll mop the kitchen and bathroom floors and on Saturday I'll hoover. I'll put things away every day (but I'm used to do that anyway so no change there).

We'll see how this one goes. I'd do anything not to pay a stranger to rummage through my things.

Two days into my holiday my mobile phone reset itself and was wiped out.

I back up all my contacts daily with my desktop and online once a month, so information was not lost and easily retrievable away from home.

However, my notes on how much I had spent so far, on what, and how to split that with Dr B. was gone forever.

I had been thinking for a while that now that I am not a nineteen-year-old student any longer, I could perhaps become a little bit less obsessive about logging my expenses. And so I decided to enjoy the rest of the holiday and spend away.

Once I returned home I continued not to log any cash expenses, and I was particularly proud of this great achievement.

Until yesterday morning, when I overheard the woman behind me in the queue at Tescos muttering 'I don't fu**ing believe it!' under her breath when I paid for a banana and a tin of tuna with my debit card. And I realised that I was doing it because I knew that Nationwide sends automatically each transaction to Microsoft Money, and I have trained Money to tag each transaction coming from Tescos with 'Groceries'.

So, well, same disorder really, but now managed electronically online.

This graph shows all the music I have listened to in the past six months in a pretty visualisation.

Click on the picture to view it at Flickr, then click on 'All Sizes' and select the original picture for maximum detail.

From lastgraph via plasticbag.

See the music I listen to, originally uploaded by bitful.

I have always preferred sparingly furnished rooms – probably a reaction to my parents' house where whole rooms were dedicated to collect clutter.

However, I am guilty of buying cheap throwaway clothes, mostly at charity shops, some at H&M.

This means that once a year I take half of my clothes back, so last night I took a trip to my local clothes collection recycling facility.

The eight bags below contained:

• 16 t-shirts
• 9 polo shirts
• 4 shirts
• 3 trousers
• 3 jeans
• 1 pair of shorts
• 2 jumpers
• 4 pairs of shoes
• 1 duvet
• 3 cushions

They all went in here, not without considerable effort, as the four containers were rammed to the top:

And then I crossed the parking lot to Sainsbury's and bought more stuff.

It should come to no surprise to all who know me well that whenever I am under duress I develop a fixation about one thing.

[UPDATE 11 Sept 2007 at 08:29 - of course above I meant to write 'under distress'. You can tell I'm under stress, right? And funny how I realised my mistake on the train on my way to work.]

This is why for the past few days I spent all my non-working waking hours researching duvets in order to buy a summer one to replace the one that came with Dr B.'s dowry and which is, how shall I put it, a bit tired.

Tog, down, all-seasons? Ask me anything, I am unbeatable now.

We have a luxurious winter duvet, a gift from a kind friend, and I wanted the same but lighter, so I went to the shop where he had bought it – and discovered the hidden paradise that is House of Fraser in Victoria on a Sunday lunchtime. Very few customers, wide spaces, smiling salespersons willing to help. They did not hesitate to open packages to show me duvet cover patterns, went into the stock room to check if there was something else not on display, and I was treated to a scientific explanation of goose vs. duck down and how each reacts with oxygen.

So I went home with a 125 pounds duvet. As in price, not weight, of course.

I then realised it was only marginally lighter than our winter one, and went to exchange it last night. They did not have anything lighter and offered a refund straight away.

I love good service. I might never go back again to the cesspit of hell that is Oxford street.

So now I'm told that my mother has been in hospital for a week. Same medical problems she had a few months ago. She is waiting to hear what they think she has this time, hopefully in a few days and not after weeks like last time.

I could not sleep last night, snoozed on the couch for a bit then gave up and had a Studio 60 marathon.

And right now I am about to engage in the most therapeutic of activities: decluttering. The mood I'm in now? I'd get rid of everything and sleep on a mattress on the floor.

I have been away for a bit (500+ photos for the brave and bored among you, at NYC Flickr Photoset and Iceland Flickr Photoset).

When I came back I was told that a friend had died while I was away. I went through the week in a bit of a stupor, not quite believing that it could be true, always hoping that someone would call me and let me know that it was all a big misunderstanding and he is alright, really.

Every day a little something reminds me of him. The tube strikes earlier this week meant that I had to walk past his street. After the strikes, the normal route has me walking past his workplace, and I even noticed a picture of him in one of the ads printed on posters outside the establishment.

Every night I still expect to bump into him and stop for a quick chat on my way home and his way to work. The realisation that this is never going to happen again is very, very hard to come to terms with.

Broken glasses with sticky tape, originally uploaded by bitful.

I broke my spectacles one week before going on holiday.

I was due my annual checkup anyway, so I went to have my eyes tested – for free now, because my mother has a glaucoma, my father had diabetes, and I am over forty. Let's say that I'd rather pay and not have a genetic timebomb in me.

Anyway, the old peepers are very well. Still shortsighted, but no change in prescription for five years now. A lovely optician at Boots showed me photos of the back of my eyes, and explained every single line and dot and how neat and crisp they are.

They had a 99 pounds offer for frames including lenses. I tried some, sent a picture to Dr B., then found out they would not be ready in time before my trip.

I also saw exactly the same frame as the one I broke, and they said they could try and fit my old lenses into it, saving me 55 pounds. But again, they'd have to send them off and it would take a while.

So I went to Vision Express, well known for putting together your glasses on site in one hour. Lots of lovely frames, a very cute (and flirting!) assistant. But of course the frames I liked were 149 pounds. Plus lenses (can't remember now, but I think around 60 pounds for both). Plus, they'd have to make special thinner lenses because the ordinary cheap ones are too thick for that frame. Add 40 pounds on top of that. Per lens? For both? Honestly, I can't remember, for at that stage I'd stopped hearing – I have this ability to blank out prices over one hundred pounds: one hundred and two pounds? One million and two pounds? The same to me.

I sighed, I looked up into the salesman piercing blue eyes and said I'd come back. Then I went round the corner and bought a tube of superglue.

The contents of our fridge, originally uploaded by bitful.

I am considering buying a new compact digital camera for a forthcoming trip, and was not too impressed with anything that's on the market at the moment (and that does not cost so much that I leave it at home for fear of ruining it, because if that's so what's the point?).

So I thought I'd use Dr B.'s, which is a bit better, and started taking pictures around the flat to compare quality and settings.

Then it dawned on me that our fridge is full of mostly insubstantial fluff, and that it has far too many low calorie products, contradicting what I posted earlier about having given up most diet food. You can read more information on all the items by clicking through to the photo on Flickr.

So perhaps another wave of ditching some more artificial stuff is due.

And I also must try and remember what all those supplements are for. Because this morning, believe you me, I look (and feel) every single one of my forty years.

I was searching for info on how to dump entries into a database via a csv file (or something like that), and Google's autocomplete revealed that the world is a sad, sad place.

How to dump…, originally uploaded by bitful.

If you cannot see the image, here's what Mr Auto Complete told me:

• How to dump someone
• How to dump your girl…
• How to dump a guy
• How to dump a girl
• How to dump your bo…
• How to dump a boyfrie…
• How to dump a girlfrie…
• How to dump a friend
• How to dump girlfriend
• How to dump a boy

Last night we went to see David Hoyle's 'Magazine' at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. I'd declined an invite the previous week, and I had to see why so many people are raving about the artist formerly known as the Divine David.

Well yes, he's smart. And very eloquent, which for once is a very welcome change from tired old queer routines with the same few innuendos.

Part one was very good. Stand-up stuff on immigration (last night's theme), probably mostly unscripted, great humour, and a fantastic command of the audience.

Then in part two he interviewed a man from Uganda who was imprisoned in his own country on grounds of being gay, then came to the UK, claimed asylum and was imprisoned again while waiting for a decision from the Home Office. If this sounds very vague to you, do not be surprised. I would know more about what happened to this man if David Hoyle had let him finish a single sentence while interviewing him. Also, you had the very distinct feeling that he did not know where he was going with this.

I found this very annoying and some of the stuff that was said made me feel uncomfortable. But I guess if that's precisely what was to be achieved?

I did not stay for part three though. I must ask Dr B. what I missed, but judging from a friend's description from the previous week ('there's some very loud music, and David Hoyle paints a picture), maybe not much.

I will definitely be going back though, perhaps next week.

This morning at 7.30 I was exactly forty and a half years old.

Which means that that moment on I am closer to being forty-one than I'll ever be to forty again.

Strangely, the thought does not worry me at all. I seem to focus all my worry on how on earth I am going to cope with turning fifty in – oh crap – just under nine and a half years' time!

The very same thing happened when I turned thirty: I could not possibly imagine myself at forty, and frankly dreaded it. Instead here I am, not doing too bad after all.

So what do I know huh?