Nostalgia & Comics

If Coningsby and Tattershall aren't thriving, Boston is more than making up for it. Coming into the train station this morning, I thought for a moment I'd somehow ended up in the wrong town - they've finally built the new Asda on Sleaford Road, the one that had been in the planning stages for as long as I can remember! They've knocked down all the old derelict buildings that used to greet train visitors to the town, added a new road and made the whole place look a whole lot prettier!

And that's not all. In the less-than-two-years since I was last there, they've also done the Pescod Square development thing that had been talked about for years! Now there's a lovely little pedestrianised area with lots of shiny new shops, with Pescod Hall sitting prettily in the middle. As opposed to the scruffy old car park and building site there was the last time I saw the area. And Boston now has not one but two bookshops! If you'd told me that a couple of years ago when I was living there, I would have called you a raving loony of some kind. Admittedly one of them is a Works, which doesn't really count, but the other is Ottakar's, which definitely does.

And what's more, the 2006 comic annuals are out. It's getting silly, nowadays. Soon they'll be coming out two years in advance of the cover date. But I got the new Broons book and the latest collection of old Broons and Oor Wullie strips, which is great. The latter even contains handy information like the name of the current artist, so now when I complain about his rotten art and campaign to get Ken H Harrison back, I can refer to him as Peter Davidson instead of "PD". And he was the same one who drew the strips, unsigned, in the eighties. I thought he was, but then it might have been someone else using his character designs and style (as opposed to Harrison's VASTLY superior ones).

It rained all day, alternating between downpours and constant drizzle, which made the football pitch a bit heavy going for the poor players. There was no mud, because they're really looking after the ground nowadays, but there were huge puddles dotted around the pitch, despite the best efforts of the people who were out before the game prodding it with rakes.

Rochdale's mascot is a dragon, and a very friendly looking one, too. I don't know his name, but I'd imagine it's Dale. I gave him a quick wave, although it's bad form to cheer on the opposing team's mascot, because us dragons have to stick together. He looked much cooler than BosCat, although the two of them seemed to get on quite well - rather than going around entertaining the crowd before the game, they stood around chatting in a corner of the field most of the time. Makes you wonder what giant cartoony animals talk about when they get together.

As for the actual game, it was great! Noel Whelan put us ahead with an excellent shot early on, but they equalised a couple of minutes later with a soft lob over the head of Nathan Abbey, who'd wandered out of his goal to watch the action. In the second half Rochdale went ahead with a scrambled goal after the ball slipped through Abbey's hands from a corner, but then we got a penalty somehow (I didn't see what the referee had found fault with, but I'm not complaining), which Whelan converted.

Abbey made up for anything he'd done with a couple of great saves, and then Alan White popped up out of nowhere to get the winner. Twenty minutes of somehow not conceding another goal later, Boston had their first win of the season! And all because I went along to watch! My cheering and occasional abuse-shouting made all the difference.

So, a great day all round, although I must get some new shoes. The hole in the sole of my right boot is inconvenient when it's wet. My sock gets soaking wet if my foot goes anywhere near water. Still, it was worth it. I'll have to go to another game or two this season if we're going to avoid relegation...

Golden Jubilee

I've just noticed that yesterdays entry was my fiftieth! I should have had a party or something! It doesn't feel like fifty blogs' worth of time since I started, but come to think of it, quite a lot has happened in that time. I think it's stopped being summer since then, if it ever really started in the first place.

Anyway, I haven't really got anything to write about. I've spent the last week formulating a story called "Don't Bring Me Down, Bruce", about an escalator designer called Bruce Bryce who refuses to build escalators that go upwards, for religious reasons, and the consequences this has for the world when he is hired to rebuild all the escalators on the London Underground. But it's not very funny, and I worry that someone's going to take it for an allegorical comment on the state of the world today. I'd hate anyone to think I was trying to make a serious point.

Oh, and Michael Page are putting me in for another job. In Burton-on-Trent, which seems to be the only town in the world with job vacancies at the moment, but with Nord Anglia, the company that runs nursery schools, which would be a bit different, and probably fun. It sounds like a zoomy kind of job (although it's a management accountant role, and so probably not involving, say, playing with squeaky toys and watching cartoons all day).

Back to the Future!

I'm watching it at the moment. One of those films that you can watch over and over again without it getting old. I'd love to travel in time myself, although I'm never sure whether I'd want to meet my younger self and change the course of history. I've admittedly had some experiences that I'd rather not have had, over the years, but I think I'm pretty happy with myself as I am right now. I wouldn't want to change anything, in case I ended up making myself worse, if you see what I mean.

I must admit, though, I've always had a secret code that I've never told anyone, ready to exchange with myself if any kind of time-travel scenario occurs in which I need to convince myself that I really am me, if you see what I mean. Time travel can be a complicated business. Maybe I'll just go back a bit further and adopt a dodo.

Come on England

As I write this, they're losing 1-0 to Northern Ireland, which is absolutely ridiculous. They're a good team, but they haven't come together right tonight at all somehow. It'd be a shame if they ended up not qualifying for next year, as seems a real possibility now. Scotland slightly improved their strictly mathematical chances of qualifying tonight, so it'd be fun if they got to the world cup and we didn't...

While I'm in a footy mood, it's worth mentioning that Boston Utd have now managed four draws and three losses from their first seven league games. They're at home to Rochdale on Saturday, which they'll almost certainly lose too, but I think I might go along and watch. It'd be good to see what's changed in Boston since I moved away.

In other news, we're now finishing work at 5:00 instead of 5:30. Yay! Just seven weeks to go. Must get that CV sorted out.

If I go to Boston on Saturday, I'll spend Sunday practising memory. I'm still surprisingly in the mood. Wonder how long it'll last?

Ireland have won, the commentators are blaming Sven and his system. That's probably fair enough - it's true that Owen never really did anything and Rooney didn't get anywhere near the ball, to his obvious frustration. Instead of passing to them, Beckham was kicking it to Wright-Phillips, who's rubbish. Nobody really played badly, as such, the whole was just a lot less than the sum of its parts...

Extra bonus all-about-me thing

Like everyone, every now and then I get these email surveys designed to clog the inboxes of the world and bring the internet crashing to a halt. I decided to fill one in for a change, seeing as Crispy told me to, and I thought I'd post it here too, just so that the whole world can see my favourite colour...

How much do we actually know about our friends? This
is a questionnaire to get to know them better. Read
through the comments below about you friend and then
make sure you read the instructions at the bottom.
Have fun!
What time is it? 8:59pm
Name as it appears on birth certificate: Benjamin George PRIDMORE
Nickname: Zoomy!
Piercings: Eww
What is the most recent movie you've seen in the
theater? The Incredibles. I don’t go to the cinema much.
Place of birth: According to the birth certificate, Pilgrim Hospital, Fishtoft. Everyone else in the world would tell you that the hospital’s in Boston, but you can’t argue with the General Register Office.
Favorite food: Anything sweet.
Ever been toilet papering: Do I look like an American trick-or-treater?
Love someone so much it made you cry: No.
Been in a car accident: A couple, involving my motorbike and not looking where I was going.
Croutons or bacon bits: Bacon
Favorite day of the week: Saturday
Favorite restaurants: Burger King
Favorite flower: Crocuses
Favourite sport to watch: Footy
Favourite drink: Squashed frog!
Favourite ice cream: Thorntons peach flavour that they don’t do any more.
Disney or Warner Brothers: WB. And Daffy, not Bugs.
Favourite fast food restaurant: See ‘Favourite restaurants’
What colour is your bedroom carpet: A sort of dirty beige, that used to be a sort of clean beige.
How many times did you fail your driver's test: None at all! But then, I’ve never taken one.
Before this one, from whom did you get your last
email: A German fan who wants to know how my memory system works.
Which store would you choose to max out your credit
card: Toys R Us
What do you do most often when you are bored: Eat sweets.
Who will respond to this email the quickest: Crispy, because I told her to.
Who is the person you sent this to that is least
likely to respond: Pretty much everyone, really. Let’s face it, nobody in their right mind responds to these things.
Who are you most curious about their responses to this
questionnaire: Everyone! I’m quite giddy with anticipation!
Favourite TV show: At the moment, Codename: Kids Next Door.
Who is your boyfriend/girlfriend: Everyone in the world.
Ford or Chevy: Neither. Some kind of bubble car.
What is you favourite colour: Green!
What are you listening to right now: Droning football commentary. Now Owen makes a run across the box, Beckham picks him out…
Lake, Ocean, or river: Ocean.
How many tattoos do you have: Eww.
which came first the chicken or the egg? The egg. Dinosaurs laid eggs before there were chickens.
How many people are you sending this email to: Nine. I’ll stick with the mailing list I’ve got.
Time you finished this email: 9:14pm
*Return directions: Now, here is what you're supposed
to do..Don't spoil the fun.
Copy (Not forward) this entire email and paste it onto
a new email that you will send Change all of the
answers so that they apply to you. Then send this to
a whole bunch of people you know INCLUDING the person
who sent it to
you. The theory is that you will learn a lot of
little known facts about those who know you. Remember
to send it back to the person who sent it to you.

For Now No Sorrow

I tuned into Radio Derby for some reason last night. I'm not what you'd call a regular listener - they've interviewed me twice, and this is probably only the second time I've ever listened to them, which seems profoundly ungrateful of me. But my radio that I never listen to has been tuned to 104.5FM since the builders were in here last year when I was away, so that's what came out of the speakers when I turned it on. And the song that was playing has been stuck in my head ever since. It's called 'For Now No Sorrow', by George Papavgeris, and I'm going to have to check out more of his stuff.

It's folk, I should warn you, and according to his website he's written so far 147 apparently very similar-sounding songs, so it might get old quite quickly, but this particular one is somehow really catchy, and I just love the lyrics. You can find them here, if you're so inclined: http://www.folk4all.net/ForNowNoSorrow.htm

Also, there was a really good episode of Codename: Kids Next Door today - 'Clues'. Maybe not the best episode ever, but the first few of this new batch were a bit lame, so this one was a breath of fresh air. It takes definite skill at cartoon-writing to set up a murder mystery with six suspects all with their own motives, throw in a batch of brilliant character moments with some of KND's best supporting cast and bring it all to a conclusion in an 11-minute episode.

I feel like I should be doing something

Well, actually, I know I should be doing something - finding a job. But that's not what I mean. I seem to be between ambitions at the moment. I need some kind of driving obsession to consume my mind, and none of the various ones I have on the back burner at the moment (winning the WMC again, collecting every Looney Tune and Merrie Melody, learning to play othello properly, writing books, learning music) are really firing me up right now.

I'm never quite satisfied unless I'm on a quest of some kind. I'm sure one of the ones listed above will come to life in my brain again shortly, but it would be nice to come up with a new one to pursue in the meantime.

I sold some of those RNIB raffle tickets to work people today, after leaving them lying around untouched for however long it is. They don't have to be back till September 23rd, so there's plenty of time yet. Work continues to be slightly irritating, which you'd think would motivate me to find a less doomed job, but I'm just not in the mood.

If music be the food of love

I own an electric keyboard which I use for the sole purpose of propping open my bedroom window. I'd never considered this worthy of comment before, or listed it among my eccentricities, but my brother (who's used to my strangenesses and indeed shares many of them) noticed it this weekend and pointed out that this is somewhat unusual.

To be fair, I didn't buy it for its window-holding-open ability, it just happens to be the right size. But I don't play it, and never have. I bought it back in early 2002, or maybe 2001, with the intention of learning to play it, and have made very occasional attempts to do so ever since. The problem is that I have no patience, and can never admit to myself that I'm not good at something. So rather than starting from the beginning and trying to learn the basic principles of which notes are which, chords and octaves and things, then moving on to playing some simple tunes, I get a piece of complicated sheet music, sit down and try to work out how to play it. Then when I keep going wrong, I give up.

I would also like to be able to play the guitar. I have dreams of being in a pop group some day. And I'm not quite ready yet to accept that it's unlikely to ever happen. As a wise but fictional man once said, if you put your mind to it you can accomplish anything. So all I have to do is get my mind to cooperate with my dreams.

I'm Back

By which I mean that I'm still here, but I'm back to being the kind of person who lives on his own and has nothing better to do than blog.

Anyway, I haven't really got anything exciting to talk about. Work has been a bit of a drag lately, and is probably going to carry on in the same vein - showing the people taking over our jobs how we do them. If there's one thing I hate, well, it's probably not that, but if there's a whole pile of things I don't really like, then telling someone how I do my job is pretty high on the list. I'm not very good at it, and I always have the feeling that a) I'm doing something in an extremely stupid way, or b) someone will notice that I don't really do anything worthwhile. Just paranoia, you understand, but it's disturbing.

Also, I still haven't got round to fixing my CV. I'll do it some time this week. Or maybe I won't, we'll see.

Family Ties

Sorry I didn't post anything last night, my brother's round for the weekend and it seemed rude to ignore him while writing about his visit for internet nerds to read. Anyway, I'll resume talking about my life once I've stopped having one again.

Coningsby and Tattershall

I got a letter today from HSBC, telling me that following careful consideration they are having to close their Coningsby and Tattershall branch on 2 December 2005. All accounts are being transferred to the Boston branch, and the letter also reminds us that you can use self-service cash machines 24 hours a day, suggesting that we use the HSBC machines in Boston, Woodhall Spa, Horncastle or Sleaford. Rather than the other banks' cash machines in Coningsby and Tattershall, presumably.

I don't know why I've got this letter in the first place. As far as I know, my account has always been at the Boston branch, even when I was living in Tumby Woodside. That's the branch I went to when I wanted to open the account, anyway. I don't think I've ever been inside the one in Tattershall. Perhaps their system automatically registers the closest branch as your local one? Anyway, it's fairly irrelevant to me now I live in Derby, isn't it?

Still, it's sad to hear about that branch closing down. It suggests that the twin villages of Coningsby and Tattershall, where I spent a lot of time as a littlun, aren't prospering in the 21st century. And that's a shame. They're nice places. They have (or had) an old-fashioned friendliness about them that was something unusual even in the 1980s, from what I've heard about other places in those days. Even in the nineties, after I'd stopped going to school and cubs in Tattershall and Coningsby respectively, I used to cycle up to the weekly car boot sale at Tattershall leisure centre on a Sunday, and come to think of it often take money out from the cash machine at the Midland bank on the way. I'm getting all nostalgic, now. I'll have to go back there and see what a dump it always was, just to get it out of my system.

Tattershall is famous for its castle, which is fair enough. It's a cool place, although being red brick (albeit one of the oldest red brick buildings in the world) it doesn't look much like a proper castle should. But Coningsby's number one (and only) tourist attraction is the one-handed clock on its church tower. I have never seen why this should be considered a good thing. Surely that's just laziness on the part of the clockmaker? Oh, I've already put one hand on the thing, I won't bother with the other. The people of Coningsby only ever need to know the approximate time, anyway...

Why can't someone just give me a job without me doing anything?

Still, to look on the bright side, today's meeting has cured me of wanting to send my CV to any more agencies. The woman wants me to add some more bits to mine, describing what I actually do, that kind of thing. What people don't appreciate is that I haven't got the faintest idea what I actually do. Or at least, when I try to put it in words I soon realise that I don't actually do anything. I should really be doing that tonight, but I can't be bothered.

I think it's more important that I record the interesting fact that I can't type the word 'bright', like I did in the paragraph above, without getting it wrong and typing 'bridge' by mistake. I never notice until I've got to the end of the word, and then have to correct it. The reason for this, obviously, is that I spend more time typing about the Bridge than I do about how bright I am.

The Bridge is the currently-non-existent best chatroom on the internet, as I think I've mentioned before. I don't think I ever mentioned what it is, assuming that the only people who could possibly be interested in my daily outpourings of drivel would be VPSers, but just in case, the Bridge is our name for the message board feature of the Virtual Pooh Sticks website, which can when it's not dead be found at http://www.poohsticks.com.

For some reason I've never quite understood, the message board attracts intelligent, funny, friendly, kind, just-plain-nice people like some kind of magnet that only works on people of a certain disposition. It's hard to describe the sort of conversations that go on there, because there's very little in the way of subject matter that hasn't come up at one time or another - we'll have heated debates on politics or religion, extended make-believe sessions where we role-play sailing out to sea and discovering desert islands, critiques of TV, films, music and books, strong language and adult content, or even just not really saying anything and silently enjoying one another's company. Which isn't something that happens in most chat rooms, I'll bet.

The sheer volume of good friends I've made on the Bridge is quite staggering when I come to look at it. And so is the number of relationships, marriages and general life-changing effects the Bridge has brought to people over the years. There's a definite void in my life at the moment, and it's bridge-shaped.

The week’s been long and the job hunt’s tough

It's not, really. But that's another quote that only an elite few would recognise. However, I've registered with another agency since Michael Page haven't immediately found me a job without me having to do anything. I'm meeting the woman at the pub tomorrow lunchtime. They seem determined to find people jobs in Burton-on-Trent, which I really don't want. Possibly nobody else wants to work there either, which would explain why there's so many of them going.

I still hate looking for jobs. But I'll be quite glad to leave my current one, because there's really not much left to do there. On the other hand, starting a new job is scary. I really think I'm the kind of person who should be independently wealthy. Could someone arrange it for me?

Memory memories

For want of anything better to talk about, I was just thinking about the world memory championship in 2003. I still think that was the greatest championship in history, although there are plenty of other contenders for that title. I’m sure the Dominic O’Brien years produced plenty of thrilling contests, but I wasn’t around for most of them, and looking at the results they did tend to be a bit one-sided at least some of the time. 2002 was the most crushing victory anyone’s ever achieved – Andi was clearly light-years ahead of the field, Dominic included, right from the start. 2004 was nice because I won it, and this year was a close-run thing until Clemens ran away with it right at the end.

But 2003 was a notch above any of those years because we had six people fighting for first place that year – Andi not quite in the same kind of form as 2002 but still the man to beat, Dominic still never one to be written off, Gunther as determined as ever to improve on all those 2nd and 3rd places, Jan the often-overlooked dark horse who’s the best in the world when it comes to numbers, me having surprised everyone at the MSO six weeks previously and made it clear I could be among the top competitors, and Astrid making it clear in the first few disciplines that she had improved hugely since the last year’s event too.

And it went toing and froing between the six of us all the way through three days of heated competition. The mix between all the star names of the years gone by and the hot newcomers was something we haven’t really seen since then. And the setting was great too – the Prince hotel, Kuala Lumpur. Nicely air-conditioned, modern place in a swelteringly hot and humid, fantastic foreign city. It was a great holiday even without the championship. The Malaysian competitors were of a surprisingly low standard, with no sign of the really good ones who’d come to previous championships in England, but the mix of nationalities was the most varied we’d ever had, and the sheer volume of Malaysians and Indonesians made it still the biggest WMC ever. There was also a sketch artist who drew pencil portraits of everyone and pinned them up on the wall. Made me look much balder than I am, I’m sure.

Another thing we haven’t really had in another WMC – the competiton going right down to the crucial speed cards event. It was pretty much between Andi and Astrid by that point, unless they both failed to record a half-decent time, but nobody could predict a winner. It’s Andi’s specialist subject, but he also had a history of making mistakes under pressure. I wasn’t all that good at the cards in those days, and I was relieved to manage a 53-second pack to grab third place ahead of Gunther. Meanwhile, Andi held his nerve and just managed to win the championship by the narrowest of margins. Just to be there was fantastic.

Back to work tomorrow! Yay!

Newsflash

On the train on the way home, the conductor announced over the tannoy "Ladies and gentlemen, for those of you interested in the test match result, I'm pleased to tell you that England have won by three wickets."

It did occur to me that there might be people on the train who were planning to watch the highlights when they got home - this was half past six, and the train was only going as far as Sheffield, with plenty of time for everyone on it to get back home in time for the 7:30 highlights. Still, it's nice to know the train people care about keeping us all up to speed. The only other time I've known someone to make an announcement like this on a train was when the Queen Mother died while I was on the way back from London one time.

Anyway, I'm back now. With hindsight, The Unconsoled wasn't the best choice for something to read on the journey. When I'm reading a good book, I tend to start thinking like the central characters, and my usual nervousness with planes (I'm not worried about bombs or crashing, but I'm always terrified that I'll miss the plane or get on the wrong one by mistake or something) combined with Ryder's constant confusion and terror that everybody will realise that he doesn't know what he's doing all combined to get me almost panicky at Charles de Gaulle airport this afternoon. It didn't help when the security people pointed out something on the x-ray of my rucksack and asked me what it was. That's never happened to me before, and I had no idea what it could be, since as far as I could remember there was nothing but clothes in there. Turned out to be my alarm clock, which I'd forgotten all about. Perhaps it looks like a bomb from certain angles.

As for the othello, it's fair to say that I did terribly. 2½ points out of 11 is just abominable - I don't think I've ever in my life done so badly in a tournament, with the possible exception of the MSO back in 1999 when I didn't really have a clue what I was doing and found myself competing against the strongest international field you could hope to meet outside the world championships. Still, you can always learn from things like this. I can get pointers from the players who beat me - Kazia Zieba, during her exciting endgame against Tim Hoetjes, picked the right move by means of the time-honoured technique of eeny-meeny-miney-mo (or the Polish equivalent). But while I was losing to small girls, there was an exciting tournament taking place. I haven't seen the results yet (as previously mentioned, I had to dash off early), but the final was Graham against Stéphane Nicolet, and I'd be willing to put money on Graham. For all his claims that he always comes second in these things, he's won just about everything so far this year. I'd put money on him for the world championship too, if only because these hypothetical bookies would give pretty good odds.

My train of thought in the game against Monique Lecat went a bit like this: "Okay, I've lost my first three games, but that's okay, because I was playing reasonably well, my opponents were all pretty tough, you should expect to end up against someone a lot worse than Bintsa Andriani after losing two games in the swiss system. Anyway, this should be a good time to start winning - I play Monique on the internet all the time and I usually win."

The opening: "Heehee, Monique Lecat plays the Cat opening. I wonder if Marcel Sneek will play the Snake? Come to think of it, I don't know what the Snake looks like, so I wouldn't know if he did. Anyway, I know how you're supposed to play this one, and I happen to know I'm winning at this point."

About 20 moves in: "Hang on a minute. We played exactly this game on the internet last week and I ended up losing. I can't remember how, but it all went wrong at about this point, didn't it? I'd better play something different. How about... this?"

A few moves later: "Hey, this isn't so bad. As long as I can run her out of moves, there won't be any problems."

About 40 moves in now: "Aargh. This is what the experts call over-minimisation, I think. Am I going to be able to get back enough pieces? In fact, what exactly am I going to do in this position?"

Shortly thereafter: "Lose horribly. That's what I'm going to do here. Sheesh."

End result - I lost 61-3. End result of the tournament, I came 25th out of 26 players. That's just bad.

All this othello reminds me that I need to do the annual accounts before the nationals next month. It's not like it's a big undertaking (and it's not like anyone's really interested in the end result as long as I tell them we've got money and we're not likely to stop having money any time soon), but seeing as it's my only real job as treasurer of the BOF, it's something I need to do properly, and it will take a bit of time. Maybe I'll do it tomorrow, seeing as it's a bank holiday, or maybe I'll just stay in bed. I'll see how I feel.

Trains, planes and

There really is a more boring place than the departure lounge of terminal 1 at Birmingham International Airport! It's the departure lounge of terminal 2! I didn't get round to buying a good new book for the journey this time, so I'll have to make do with re-reading The Unconsoled, by Kazuo Ishiguro. There are plenty of worse things I could be reading.

There's also cricket on little tiny TV screens dotted around the place, so I'm probably being much too harsh, calling it boring. Anyway, I probably won't get a chance to write anything while I'm in Paris, so this'll be the last entry till Sunday night, when you can expect either an account of the othello tournament or a thrilling commentary on whatever else has distracted my attention. Octopusses, maybe, and why that sounds so much better than octopi.

Racing from Uttoxeter

The trouble with Michael Page Recruitment, which I'd forgotten since the last time I was registered with them, is that they've got branches all over the country who all have access to candidates' CVs, and occasionally call people on spec to see if they'd be interested in relocating. So I got a call today about a job as management accountant with JCB in Uttoxeter. And since I can't say no to people over the phone (don't laugh at me, it's a serious problem), I cheerfully agreed that MP could send my details over and try to set up an interview. Knowing my luck, I'll get the job and have to commute or move there, which I can't imagine would be much fun either way.

I went to Sheffield this afternoon, just for fun. I haven't been there for ages, but it doesn't change much. The shop that my hat came from has closed down, though. I thought it had, but I wasn't quite sure. I did get the Thunderbolts comic I was looking for (#11, not #9 as I said whenever it was). It's rubbish, as I expected it to be, seeing as it's a House of M crossover, but I don't mind buying something irrelevant, meaningless and incomprehensible every now and then if it supports comics like Thunderbolts. Or like Thunderbolts is the rest of the time, anyway.

Paris tomorrow! I should hopefully get there with a bit of time to wander around the city, the plane's due to arrive at 3:40pm. I'll have to dash off before the finals on Sunday to get the plane back, because I seem to have booked an earlier flight than I really needed to, but never mind. It's not like I'll be playing in the finals myself, and the EGP might well be settled by then, unless Graham plays a lot worse than he has been doing all year.

Webcomics

One of my favourite things that I don't seem to have mentioned in this blog thing yet is the wonder of webcomics. I'm a big fan of comic strips of all kinds, and the kind that you can read in the comfort of your home without even paying for has to be the best kind.

Being me, I particularly like the furry comics with cute characters, and Newshounds, Ozy and Millie and Count Your Sheep are my current favourites.

The current story in Newshounds features Nigel, a supporting character with whom I'm head over heels in love. He's just such a nice guy that I'm pretty sure everyone in the world just wants to give him a cuddle. He's much too good for you, Alistair. But the strip has its appeal even for those who aren't attracted to male, fictional cats - it's a mix of political satire and character-based comedy-drama set in a unique world of its own.

I always love any kind of fiction set in a world like our own but with a strange little twist. I mentioned Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends the other day, set in a world where imaginary friends have form and substance, and Codename: Kids Next Door is another good example, where an ongoing war between kids and adults doesn't get in the way of the characters going about their everyday lives. In Newshounds, animals walk on two legs, talk, and can do anything humans can, but the way people treat animals is basically the same as in our world. It's like the old funny-animal comics and cartoons, only with a bit more thought going into the premise.

Go and check it out, I'm sure you'll like it.

Come on you Pilgrims

I see Boston Utd are playing Sheffield Utd at Bramall Lane tonight in the Carling Cup. I haven't been to a game for ages and ages, and I assume it's my lack of support that has led to Boston's atrocious start to the season so far (two points from four games), so I would have gone to this one if I'd bothered to check the fixtures and found out it was happening a bit earlier than an hour after kick-off. It's 0-0 at half-time, with Paul Ellender having been booked, which probably means that they've adopted the usual tactic of having him actively try to cripple the better team's best players.

I hope they win. A good run in the Carling Cup is always a boost, even if it's only by being lucky enough to be drawn against the many teams who don't bother really playing in that most pointless of competitions.

In other news, I'm definitely going to Paris at the weekend. I've booked the plane and hotel and everything. Which is nice, because it might turn out to be my last foreign jaunt of the year - there isn't going to be a Vienna memory competition, annoyingly enough. Someone needs to organise one in Britain and find a miraculous way to make it both popular and profitable. I suppose I might still qualify for the WOC in Iceland, although I haven't got round to my plans to improve my othello enough to give me a chance yet. I might try tomorrow.

Also, I feel the need to point out that Samoyed puppies are the cutest things in the universe. They're like happy little bundles of cotton wool with big smiley faces. In fact, they look so much like cuddly toys that I suspect they're made in a factory somewhere. Perhaps when I get that big house with hundreds of cats that I'm always talking about, I'll have a few dozen Samoyeds wandering around the place too...

Flime ties

I've been doing this blog for a whole month now, I've just realised. And I'd like to think it hasn't been nearly as boring as it could have been. I could have written about knitting every night, you know.

Anyway, Michael Page don't waste any time - they called me today with a job that sounds quite cool, although it's in Spondon, which is a bit too far out of town for my tastes. Still, assuming they get me an interview, I'll go along just for jolly old wouldn't you.

I'm a bit short of inspiration for things to write about tonight, to be honest. I hear from Jeremy Dyer that next to nobody turned up for the othello tournaments at the MSO, which sort of vindicates my decision not to go (although I might have won if I did...), and there's a meeting there tomorrow on the subject of 'Survival of the MSO'. I did think about going along, but I don't think any of my opinions would make any real difference. Also, I feel bad about not going in the first place, so I'd have trouble looking Tony Corfe in the eye.