'The sky is blue, the grass is green, have you got a penny for Halloween'

When I went from door to door as a kid that was the ryhme I used. I didn't make it up myself, it seemed to be something passed down from kid to kid since the dim distant past. Quite pathetic when you think about it. It's Halloween, it's dark and it's spooky so what do you put in the rhyme you use? Blue sky and and green grass. What was going through the mind of the person who made up that little couplet I have no idea. Yet we didn't think a thing of it at the time, just said the words and held out our hands for the money.

Yes, money. I don't know if it was something peculiar to my part of the world but Halloween was not about getting sweets or candy or whatever other food you might think of. It was about money pure and simple. Small change for sure but go to enough doors or the right doors and those pennies soon mounted up. Enough to buy yourself sweets you actually liked the next day. Or put it towards something else. Which sort of made the Halloweens of my childhood a night to be more temporary beggars than scary ghosts and ghouls.

Today things have changed. For some reason just the past five years have seen the whole idea of Halloween boom big time here in the UK. Spending on it has just gone haywire and apparently it is now second only to Christmas and Easter in regards to spending. Costumes, pumpkins, sweets, mugs, cards, teapots, cuddly toys, soap on a rope, in fact anything and everything which can be even remotely connected with Halloween by any means possible I have seen for sale this past few weeks. It is just plain crazy.

Like Christmas it seems to be not so much about why Halloween is Halloween but more about selling stuff we don't need at inflated prices. But without the time off from work which makes up for that somewhat. If it is going to be turned into a consumer holiday the least they could do is make it a bank holiday too.

Another rainy day. This has definitely been the rainiest October of the three I have been here. The phone line is still dead and the DSL playing up so today I spent most of the afternoon reading. Nothing better than the rain lashing down outside and being inside in the warm curled up on the sofa with my Better half and a good book. What was that book? Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

I know everybody and their pet cat have probably read that book by now. That is certainly the impression you get if you were reading LiveJournal blogs when the book actually came out. Everyone it seemed had to get the book that first day it came out. I've never really felt the need to get a book on the first day of publication. Especially not in hardback. I usually wait a while to get it. There are so many books to read or reread that I can wait. Unlike certain films or tv series where I absolutely, positively cannot wait.

However after reading the book I really wish I had bought and read it that first day or weekend. Not because it was so good that I wish I hadn't waited until now. I did enjoy it but that is not the reason. The actual reason is that two of the big plot points I got spoiled about. Which initially I found strange as I've never before been spoiled about a major plot point in a book unless I've looked for it. And I never have. Again with films and tv I expect a certain amount of spoilers. Indeed I often try and find as many as I can about them. For Revenge Of The Sith I read every spoiler, saw every trailer and searched out every screenshot I could before I saw the film. It didn't spoil it for me just increased the excitement for it.

With books it is different. I don't know if it is just me but any book which is any good I like to read at least twice in a fairly short space of time. The first time I don't want to know what is going to happen. I want every detail and every plot point to be revealed to me as I read not before. And I tend to tear through the book at speed as I am quite a fast reader. The result of a childhood spent more with my nose in a book than the outside world. The second read through is when I slow down and enjoy the book at a slower pace. That is the time I look at things in depth and appreciate little clues, snippets and red herrings knowing what is going to happen.

Being spoiled for the Half Blood Prince took away a little of this enjoyment. Reading through it the first time I caught the red herrings too quickly, read too much into situations this first time round and generally lost a little of that first read experience. It was still an enjoyable read just not exactly what I wanted. Likewise when I get round to reading it again over the next week a little bit of the enjoyment will be gone as I've already done some of the analysis the first time through.

It is annoying. More so since the spoilers weren't just from people excited and shocked at what happened but from people who simply wanted to spoil the book to some random person. Throw out a juicy plot point because they were bored and the net makes it easy to do to someone they will never meet. Strange to get enjoyment from that. What is certain that when the next and final Harry Potter book comes out I will be getting it on day one as well. Not because I absoltely have to read it as soon as possible but because I want to enjoy it unspoiled.

Summer officially ends tomorrow. Or at least British Summer Time does as come 1am the clocks go back and so for one day of the year we have a day which lasts 25 hours not 24. A whole extra hour gained that you don't have on any other day. What am I going to do with this whole extra hour? Sleep it through. Not perhaps the most exciting or life changing thing to do with it but my body needs as much sleep as it can get this weekend. I definitely feel sluggish. Plus I remember back to when British Summer Time began this year and we had a 23 hour day. I had to get up at the same time as usual so lost an hours sleep. I want it back.

The clocks going back also mean the dark nights will be that much darker. It already seems to be getting dark so early now and that will seem doubly so come next week. Which is good I suppose for all those kids going trick or treating Monday. Just got some sweets in in case of callers but I am rather hoping that we don't get that many this year as those sweets do look rather tempting.. Just got to keep them out of the hands of the two chocoholics in this house just in case we do get some callers.

Jack is feeling

This morning when I tried to phone home from work all I got was a recorded voice saying 'Sorry there appears to be a fault on this line' Which was strange as according to my Better half she could phone out and the computer was easily connecting to the net but try as I might on several phones I could not call home on the landline. Must be the exchange I thought. I did give thought to waiting until the week end was past to report it to give it time to either correct itself or get through the weekend when the problem was least likely to be sorted quickly. However with my Better Half's gran still in hospital and recovering slower than expected we really wanted the line working as well as having our mobiles. So I reported it.

It took until late afternoon but BT did end up doing something. Now we can neither phone in or out on the landline. Fortunately the DSL is still working but it seems to be very unpredictable and fragile. Sometimes I can lose the connection after a few minutes and have to wait for it to restore itself or it might keep on going for twenty minutes or so until it has its little failure. It has done it twice just getting this far in this entry.

Hopefully things will get sorted out sometime tomorrow though given that it is the weekend I wouldn't be surprised if it stretched on until Monday or maybe later. A real pain and slightly worrying given the situation. It also means that I will probably be spending less time online until it is sorted given it is a pain at the moment having to wait for the reconnection. Almost reminds me of being back on dial up.

Still that is probably not a bad thing having some enforced rest from the computer. I have three or four books waiting to be read, still working my way through the learning to draw book and I could even *gasp* go outside just that little bit more this weekend. That is this rain lets up though it is nice heavy rain so I actually quite like it. Time will tell.

Over the past couple of weeks or so I have been obsessed with trying to find this



A Gromit mug which has been advertised no stop or so it seems on TV as being given away with certain packs of PG Tips tea. Not my favourite brand of tea but then I prefer coffee anyway. Still as soon as I saw this mug advertised I knew I hd to have it. Pour in your tea or any other hot drink and the nose gradually turns red. Little things please little minds maybe but I still had to have it. So for the past couple of weeks I have been checking the tea section of the local supermarkets. Nothing. Despite that advert running morning, noon and night there doesn't seem to be a single one anywhere in this town. or if there is then they must be being snapped up as soon as they hit the shelves.

Of course take a closer look at the actual advert and you see in tiny writing at the bottom 'Available in selected stores only' meaning probably a limited release. So I gave in to the dark side and went to have a look at ebay. Surely there must be a few on there. No. Not a few that is. Just it seems hundreds of the damn things. It looks like every Gromit mug ever made is on there there are that many. People must have been buying them by the dozen when they came out so they could flog them at an inflated price. Who would be mug enough to reward them for that?

Okay me. I ended up paying double the price in the end for just the mug instead of being able to get it free with the tea in the shops. Still it's nose does go red when hot. Little things...

Day off today. At least from work. With the rain a falling and the wind a blowing all day it would have been perhaps best to stay in and relax. catch up on some sleep and recharge my batteries. Alas that was not to be the case. I booked this day off for a reason. Christmas shopping. With only eight weeks to go until Christmas my Better Half has decided we have to get the rest of our present buying sorted out. So shopping we did go even if it was more a wet autumn day than a crisp winter one. Then again more times than not Christmas day is like this as well ratther than the picture postcard version in my head so you could say it was this is Christmas weather.

The idea too was to zip around the shops mid-week when it was least likely to be packed and there was still an abundance of stuff. Unfortunately this also happens to be half term week so despite the weather the shops were pretty full of kids being dragged around by their parents. Still we did get a heap of stuff and it was very nice to spend the day wandering from shop to shop with my Better Half rather than being at work.

Or at least we started off wandering around together because she suddenly announced that she had to go off somewhere to have a look at something. What this something was she was very vague about except for the fact that I wasn't allowed to come with her. Obviously despite her previous claims that she was all finished with my Christmas and birthday shopping she was going to get something else. Not that I think she wasn't being completely 100% truthful about having finished her shopping for me weeks back. It is just that knowing her as I do I know that being that organised is a double edged sword. With a couple of months to go until either day I knew she would break sooner or later and buy one more thing. Or two.

It just goes to show that there is an advantage after all in not finishing all this time in advance. Still I didn't let on that I knew what she was doing however obvious it was. So while she went to do whatever a woman on a shopping mission has to do I decided, daughter in tow, to have a look at some books. Kill a bit of time, maybe get something of my own for her. As it turns out I didn't end up buying anything. Got virtually accused of shoplifting but didn't buy anything.

It happened as I was leaving the shop after having spent a while browsing and buying nothing. I take one step out of the shop and *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* the doorway alarm goes off and instantly a man appeared at my side asking if I would like to step back inside. Not having actually done anything I was both bemused and puzzled and agreed. Then comes the question can I just check your bags. Bags full of stuff we have just bought in various shops. So in front of people passing backwards and forwards I proceeded to empty the bags. Nothing. As expected, at least by me.

Take a step out of the shop and... *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*. So we check again. I have to say the guy was very polite and very nice about it and did explain that if i was going to set off that alarm I was going to set off the ones in every shop I went into. Except I had been in a few and not had anything go off. But one at a time he waved things past the door security scanner. Typically he went through almost everything until we found the culprit.

A bikini line wet and dry shaver.

Not mine. I look fantastic in bikinis anyway. My better Half who had just bought it in Tesco because it was a bargain price. So Mr Friendly holds it up and shouts over to the woman on the till can she run it through the de-magnitiser or whatever that thing that takes off the security tagging is called. Problem solved and me straight out of that shop. With no book, no criminal record but with a slightly red face.

Today I had to fill in an official form. Nothing too important so a full 50% of the questions were actually relevant to the reason why i was filling it in. In my experience the more important the form the more totally irrelevant questions they ask you to answer in order to bulk it up a bit.

The ones I considered the most able to be deleted from the form were the ones asking about ethnic origin and religion. neither of which had any bearing whatsoever to anything else I was forced to answer yet I had to fill in. It even said these two questions would be detached from the rest of the form before being given to the person who would handle the rest of the information. So why ask them? Anyway as usual I just ticked whatever boxes I felt like ticking on this bit. So today I happened to be a Chinese Moslem simply because I refuse to give any correct answer when presented with these two questions on a form as to me they shouldn't be on there. They should have about as much relevance as the colour of youe eyes or the length of your hair. That is none at all.

However it did make me wonder if I was to answer the religion question truthfully what answer would I give. What religion am I? Technically I suppose I would be classed as a Roman Catholic. Been baptised, been confirmed and spent fourteen years at one Catholic school or another so that is true. Except for the fact I have never actually truly believed in the religion. The only reason my parents actually had me naptised was that my paternal grandmother was a very strict Irish catholic. She wouldn't even allow me in her house after I was born until I was baptised since she was having 'no heathen in her house' according to my mum. So I was baptised and went to church with her every Sunday until she died.

I sometimes wonder if she had lived well into my teens instead of dying when I was three if she would have managed to make me a true believer in the catholic faith. From what my mum says I am positive she would have tried. However she didn't get the chance and by the time I started school properly I regarded Jesus Christ as made up as Father Christmas and not one thing I learned in those fourteen years of catholic school convinced me otherwise.

So does that make my religion the non-religion of an athiest? Three years ago i would have said yes in a heartbeat. But things change. I have changed. My Better Half and my daughter seem to have had an effect on exactly what I believe to the extent that, being honest with myself, I really am no longer an athiest. And yet, despite what some part of me may have thought, I have not returned to the fold of the Catholic Church. Thank god for that. So what am I?

The honest answer is I don't know. At the moment what I believe and what I think seem to be a jumbled mess of what I feel to be right. There are probably more pagan beliefs in there at the moment than anything else but I wouldn't class myself as being a pagan. Mainly because I think in todays world the word pagan is a bit overused. Both by some who consider themselves pagan and by Christians wanting to put someone or something down. So many different religions and faiths that have nothing to do with Christianity have been grouped together under the generic pagan banner that looking at it from the outside it seems hard to untangle the real beliefs from the hype and the made-up modern.

So what is my religion. I don't know. Which means I have none but what I personally believe. Perhaps that is how it should be. Perhaps it is better to establish what you believe in and what you think is right no matter what others may say. So long as it hurts no-one and brings you peace of mind it should be fine. Problem is at the moment i have the first but not the second.

How do you tell a three year old that the f-word is bad? Or that any word is bad? To her words are just words, there to express what she wants to say and how she feels. The only word she actually thinks is bad is 'No' and then only when it is me or her mum telling her she can't have something or can't do something she really wants. The F-word? Just something she says because she heard it not because she actualy knows what it means.

The thing is I don't know why it is bad. Of course I know that it can be offensive, I know personally I don't like the sound of it but I wonder who exactly decided that it or any other swear word was a swear word. If you think about it someone back in history must have either decided that a perfectly normal word up until then was suddenly taboo. Or even stranger made up one which he or she wanted to be offensive to people. Then got more people to agree with them about that. If you actually thibnk about it that is bizarre.

It is even more bizarre when you realise that every language ever used probably has it's swear words so that process has been repeated countless times. Why? It can't be just to shock and offend or to put people down. Some of the most vicious put downs and insults I have heard or been at one end of or another have contained not a single swear word. Cruel yes, crude no, clever most certainly. Thinking about it I think clever, cruel, non swearing put downs are actually why we have crude, offensive words in the first place. It is something we invented to level the playing field.

After all most people seem to think of the right reply or the clever comeback to a put down only long after it would be useful. Tiredness, drunkeness or just plain brain-not-workiness mean that coming right back with something equally clever is usually not going to happen. But you can always come back with a swear word. Simple, not very clever but despite that strangely satisfying a lot of the time and it does release some of the anger people seem to have. However what about the time before sear words? The only way to release that tension for many would be to smack someone in the face. Not good. It is hard to sneer at someones lack of intellectual prowess when you are lieing flat on your back with a bloody nose.

Which is why I think that swear words, taboo words were thought up by the cleverest people in each cultures history. To stop themselves getting smacked around too much. They got the chance to feel intellectually superior because of their oh so clever put downs while most of the rest of us got to insult them with made up words which we had been told were insulting. Perfect comprimise. Makes perfect sense.

Which doesn't answer my orginal question. What to do about my daughter deciding the f-word is her new best word? Saying it is naughty will inform her straight away that this is something she can get attention with by saying. Ignoring it would seem to be the answer until she gets sick of saying it but what if she doesn't. Plus there is the added fact that the ground will probably swallow me up with embarassment if she says it during a trip out. She has already turned into a bossy driver when sitting in the shopping trolly with very loud crys of 'Get out of the way!' to anyone who is in front of us. The use of the f-word would be the icing on the cake.

So apparently my blog is worth nothing. Nothing at all. (Except to get the tune from those lyrics in my head) However I can always comfort myself with the fact that one man's nothing is another man's priceless. Well that is my spin on it anyway.

After having seen this photo with the cast both old and new of the Star wars movies I'm wondering whether or not you can actually buy a print of it or not.



If you can then I then have to think whether or not I can convice my Better Half that it would look really on some wall in the house. A tough order. Maybe I could use the argument that during our more 'intimate' moments it will inspire me to 'use the force'. And no she doesn't actually say that to me. Though thinking about it....

Perhaps not. Nor would I probably be able to persuade her about that print. I tried yesterday to convince her that what our daughter would really love for Christmas would be a Darth Vader money bank. My arguments about teaching her the value of money through the use of an iconic figure though fell on death ears. She wasn't convinced and had the strange idea that i was only saying it so I could get my hands on it when my daughter inevitably didn't like it. I mean how cynical can you get? And how right.

Last Sunday my Better Half was doing another of her big tidy ups when she came across a couple of films that had yet to be developed. God knew when they were from. In the past three or so years we have been taking a lot of photos. Attempts at capturing moments in time of our daughter's life as she seems to be changing and growing up so fast. Neither of us really has any photos of when we were children but that is something my daughter will have. No matter how she may wish later in life that some of these did not exist.

But we take so many photos that I can see how easy it is for a film or two to slip through the net. Put in a drawer to be taken to be developed later these two never were. Until now. Part of the excitement of these two was actually not knowing what was on them. They could contain memories of anytime in the past three years, any day that something had happened which we wished to preserve in some form but which had been forgotten. Until today when we got the developed photos back.

The first lot were from just after we moved into this house about a year and a half ago. The surprising thing about these ones was not the people in them though. Myself and my Better Half looked much the same as we do now. Slightly different hair, clothes which are long gone but just about the same. My daughter of course has changed since then. After all for her that is literally half a lifetime ago. But what really stands out about those photos is the house itself.

When we moved in there were no carpets down and every single wall in every single room was painted the same colour. Magnolia. God I hatre that colour. It is just below white in the colours I simply can't live with. Not for any length of time. I know a lot of people like the simplicity of muted, plain, boring as hell non-colours such as white or magnolia. Not me. hey are just good colours to paint over. And I have. Every last bit of magnolia is gone from this house. Every room has its own colour. Colour which we have chosen and which we love. Which is what a home should have to make it more than a house. Love. We love each other, we love our colours.

The second film was actually from my daughter's second birthday. Most of it anyway. My Better half took enough photos to use up nearly two rolls of film and while we got the first developed the second got forgot. It was strange seeing these photos with the memory of her third birthday so fresh in my head. There she was eating chocolate cake as per her other two birthdays but this one seemed like a connecting point between the first and third. She is still sitting in her high chair like her first but this time more cake is ending up in her tummy than on her head. She is ripping open her presents like her third birthday but then she had to have help rather than wanting to and knowing how to do it herself. Plus her second birthday cake had as many candles as I could cram on their. This time she insisted on three as she can count.

The only unfortunate thing about these photos was there were no really embarrassing ones of my daughter. I'm intent on building up one big photo album of her most embarassing moments for when she brings those boyfriends home sometime in the far future. Say sometime around 2095... So there is plenty of time to add to it.

Some weeks are good, some bad, some fun and some not so. This week has just been tiring. All the stress at the beginning of it seemed to set a pattern that try as I might I couldn't seem to quite break. It got better for sure and by mid week I was at least sleeping soundly enough but it always felt as if I was playing catch up with my sleep. Playing catch-up and never catching up though.

For some reason it seems as if my body doesn't fully recharge just by going to bed a bit earlier. It needs that little lie-in in the morning that i so rarely get except at weekends. Perhaps it is because the weather is getting colder and the nights are drawing in that it is getting harder and harder to get up in the mornings. Not that i don't like this time of year. I actually love it. But colder mornings mean my nice warm bed gets even harder to leave and get up every morning. Plus I know that sooner rather than later it is going to get to the stage that I'm getting up in the dark and coming home in the dark. I really hate that.

But it's Friday. he weekend is here and hopefully a couple of days of an extra hour or two or three in bed will give my body clock that little extra nudge it needs to make next week not so tiring and not so tough. I really hope so because i am tired of feeling tired.

Jack is feeling

Inigo Montoya

A likeable character with a lust for life, you do what gets you by while continually pursuing your own interests.

Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die.

Inigo is a character in The Princess Bride

'Rain and sunshine together make a rainbow.'

A quote from the Fizz tweenies video my daughter has watched so many times she now can play and talk along with the video using her Tweenie dolls to act it out. I swear this girl is going to turn into an even bigger geek than me one day. Anyway one of the things she absolutely loves about that video is the rainbow. But as Jake says 'Where's the rainbow? I've never seen a rainbow' (Yes she has seen it so many times even I can quote from the video now) I don't recall her having seen a rainbow in real life. That changed today and all because of me.

On the way home from work I stopped by the local supermarket to get a few essentials. Essentials including a couple of bottles of Diet Coke. To my Better Half that is. She can't live without her Diet Coke apparently. Anyway I was just about to go throough the doors when I saw the biggest, brightest rainbow I can recall seeing. Immediatly my mind went to my daughter and how she would love to see it. And thanks to the miracle of the mobile she could. I was straight on my mobile to my Better Half to tell her and she immediatly took our daughter to look out of the dining room window to see if they too could see it.

The result? A very excited little girl who once I got home couldn't wait to tell her daddy about the beautiful rainbow she had just seen. Also one very happy me. A simple thought, a simple thing and a happy face results. Life rarely gets better than that.

Who would have thought it? Getting more sleep makes you less tired. A little bit at least. Normally I'm rarely in bed before midnight but yesterday it was 10pm on the dot. I could actually have just fell into bed and slept the moment I got back from work but that would have screwed up my bodyclock totally and I really need to get it back to normal. So I struggled to make it to ten and then just crashed out and slept solidly for 9 and a half hours. Not that much compared to how much I needed but a whole lot better than my normal six or so hours or the four or five I've ebeen used in the past week. Plus it was good sleep. Slept like a baby the whole time.

No strike that expression. I didn't sleep like a baby. Only someone who has never been a parent would call good sleeping sleeping like a baby. Someone who has paid a visit to a house with a baby, saw it sleeping, thought 'how cute' and then gone back to a baby free house. if I had slept like a baby I would have woken up two or three times in the night, screamed blue murder for attention and food until everyone else was awake then crapped in my pants with the most foul disgusting stuff ever to grace this or any other world. I think my Better Half might just have kicked downstairs to sleep on the sofa if I had done that.

So no, I slept like a log. Dead to the world until my alarm woke me this morning. My alarm being my Better Half. For some reason since I got together with her I have lost my ability to wake up just before the alarm goes off while she has gained it. o now she nudges me awake to get me up. It means she does wake up before me but then has the compensation of rolling over to go back to sleep while I get up. And after my good night's sleep was I feeling full of the joys of morning as i woke up? No. A lot less tired and a little more positive for sure but I am never going to like early mornings no matter how many times I have got experience them.

I could have slept all day today. At times it felt as though my mind was even if my body was going through the motions of a normal working day. I suppose that a week of worry and sleepness nights have finally caught up with me. Thankfully it was a worry that has so far not come to pass. My Better Half's gran had the operation and has come through it. She is not out of the woods yet and there is still a ways to go before any of us know how successful an operation it has been but she is still here.

Maybe we shouldn't have worried so much. It is such a negative emotion which sucks the energy out of you without giving anything back. Certainly it has done so with my Better Half who looks way more tired than even I feel. She is worried sick about her gran, I am worried about her and really where does that get us? Nowhere. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. Not one little bit of worry is going to change that. Instead we should be looking at the positive side. We should be imaginging her gran with a better quality of life after this operation, with more time to spend with her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. And for herself. God knows she has earned that.

However, as much as my concious mind knows about how pointless worrying is I still tend to do it. The result of it this time is that I am absolutely exhausted. Normally there is some little bit of enegy left in me that I can draw on if necessary. Not at the moment. I seem to be running on empty yet unable to stop. At least until I crash which is what my body feels very close to doing. I need an early night and i think it had better be tonight.

Typical Monday morning at work today. feeling tired, trying to get my mind in gear and working after a weekend of chilling and relaxing when I get a phone call. Now the guy on the other end didn't say he was in India. Not once throughout the whole ten minute conversation that followed did he say where he was. However after the first twenty seconds or so of conversation it was obvious that English wasn't his first language and that he was reading from a prepared script. So obviously some guy in a call centre which from the accent was in India.

It seems strange that companies would pay someone in India to phone or take calls from people in the UK to either be customer support or try and sell you stuff but they do. Not because they are better or worse than call centres in this country on the whole but because it is a whole lot cheaper to pay somewhere there to do the job than someone here. Most of the time you don't even know that the person on the other end is in India. They are hired and trained because they speak good English. They even get training in how to appear English and get English names assigned to them to further this subterfuge.

This guy must have missed that part of the training. In fact he must have missed a whole lot of the training because he was terrible. I could barely understand him, he could barely understand me and the whole point of the call was, so far as I could tell, to gather as much information about me or the company I was working for in return for a renewing a subscription to a free computing magazine which someone once suscribed to but has long since left. A magazine that just gets binned as soon as it arrives.

Now normally I would have just told him to cancel it and hung up. Or if they had called my home just said 'Not interested' and hung up. I don't buy anything from cold callers or give out personal information to someone who just calls up out of the blue. But I was bored, I was tired and I was down. So I played along by giving some totally obvious false and contradicting information to see how far I could push it before he twigged I was talking out of my arse. He didn't. Or if he did he didn't seem to care. It was just a case for him of going through that script as fast as possible and getting some, any answer.

So I upped my salary by 20K, told him I drove a porsche, gave my name as Robbie Williams, made the company out to be virtually a multi-national and he never said anything. Just threw more questions my way which I made up answers to off the top of my head. Fun for a while but by the end of it I was wishing I had just hung up as he just kept on coming with the questions. Did he really believe that i was Diesctor of sales, Head of Security and the Chief programmer and computer buyer? Or was he just at the end of his shift nd trying to keep on target as regards to his calls. God knows or cares.

I don't know. Wait years for one Doctor Who show to come along and now you get two. With Captain Jack no less.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/

Enough to bring a little smile to my face when I am feeling down and can't sleep. I guess there are some compensations to being a sci-fi geek.

My Better Half's gran finally went into hospital today. We have known she was going to need this operation for almost a year now but it still seems to have crept up on us. Perhaps it is because the date has been put back and put back so many times that we were thinking maybe that would be the case this time. She was due to go in last Wenesday but she got a call late Tuesday putting it off untl today. And today she went in.

So now we wait. We wait for a phone call to tell us everything has gone okay. Or it hasn't. There is always the chance she will not make it through the operation. The doctors have told her this. Though she needs the operation, like any major surgery it carries a risk. A risk that has everyone who cares for her thinking what could happen tomorrow.

I have to admit to being worried and scared about tomorrow. Both about what will happen to my Better Half's gran and how my Better Half will take it if something does go wrong. I wish I didn't have to go to work tomorrow but I do. If bad news does come through she will probably text me to call her instead of calling me. I wonder how I will react to that news. Does it sound cold to say I will be more worried and upset about how my Better Half is coping than about what happened to her gran? That is not to say if anything happens I won't be upset. Of all my Better Half's family her gran is probably the only one I have any real closeness to. Yet I have known her only a few years and only in fleeting visits. For my Better half though this is the family member who has been there for her the most.

More than her mum, more than her dad, more than anyone her gran gave her much needed love when she was growing up and through her bad times. She feels such a close connection with her that if something does happen she will be totally devestated. And I will be devastated by seeing my Better Half's reaction to it. In saying that everything could turn out fine. We could be worrying about something that is years down the line. Still I am praying for the best and preparing for the worst.

Jack is feeling

I was going to put up my latest 'Banners Of Triumph' in this post. The icons that have won various icon contests I have entered over the past couple of weeks. Just to show what a fantastic icon maker I am. However for everyone that places I produce many more that people just hate. Some are a few votes short of placing but more are lucky to scrape a vote or two. Thing is i must be a terrible judge of what makes a good icon because I quite like most of them. Not surprising since I make them usually to my own personal taste but also some are also very personal to me. Not that anyone else might see that since they don't and won't know the story behind many of the images I choose when given an opportunity to choose.

So here are some of the ones that didn't make the grade with the voters but which i like anyway.

( Losers But Loved )