Yippee

We are all running around the house with smiley faces because this morning the Postie delivered a letter telling us that Luella has been offered a place at Dog Kennel Hill Primary school. This is fantastic news because it is thought of as the best primary school in the area. The ofsted report for 2006 marked it as "outstanding" with grade 1 passes in every area. To be honest, we didn't really think we stood a chance in hell of getting a place there, and still don't quite understand how we have. Ellie is pleased, but mostly because her friends will be there. We are going out to buy some fizz. Yippee and Hurray !

Just Say No To Drugs

As some of you may know, just over a year ago, on Easter Sunday to be precise, I took 2 Ibuprofen tablets and promptly went into anaphylactic shock. 20 minutes later I was in the ressusitation unit of Winchester hospital, with a few tubes sticking out of me and a nice bunch of flowers. And so today, just over a YEAR later, the NHS finally got around to giving me an appointment at the allergy clinic in Guys hospital. A nice lady there told me that I must never take Ibuprofen or any kind of non steroidal anti inflammatory drug again, or I might die. Brilliant eh ? I've got a couple of adrenaline pens and a form to fill in so that I get a special MedicAlert badge to wear. And I have to tell everyone that I am allergic to NSAIDs and how to use an epi-pen. So, in case you need to administer a life saving shot of adrenaline to me or anyone else, heres how you do it....
Take the pen and hold it in your fist so that both ends are free. Remove the grey safety cap from one end . Push the other end into my thigh until you hear it click and me shout "Ouch". Count up to ten. Remove pen. Call ambulance. Buy flowers. But no White Lilies please. (the funeral flower)

Snow White

A while ago we were contacted by a photographer who specialises in creating childrens "fantasy portraits". She was wondering if Luella would like to be transformed into Snow White, and of course we agreed. She would have to come and be photographed at the studio, then the photographer would photoshop in the background, and generally fiddle with the image till it looked just right. And so today, a nice big parcel with the finished prints arrived in the post, and here they are. Luella is absolutely chuffed to bits. If you want something like this for your kids, contact Lorna here.

Horribleness

On the way back from greasy cafe this morning, (where I enjoyed double bacon, egg, chip, beans and mushrooms), I bumped into Monica who is the barmaid who was serving me drinks last night. She was laughing as she approached me, which is always a bad sign. Apparently I was drunk when I arrived, and fell over at the end. In between, I had a pair of flaming lamborghinis, a long island iced tea, and a couple of mojitos. Back at the house, everything was nonsense - wines and fizzes, vodka, cognac, and even green chartreuse. Horribleness.Horribleness.Horribleness.

Friday Night

Still trying to figure out if I fell over or someone hit me.

In The Night Garden

We are all currently transfixed by the latest kiddie madness from Ragdoll productions - Makka Pakka, Upsy Daisy, Igglepiggle, the Tomliboos, the Haahoos, the Pontipines, the Pinky Ponk and the Ninky Nonk - its utterly bonkers in a sort of catatonic, surrealist, hippy trippy fruitcake kind of way. Get your fix daily at 11, 2 and 6.20 pee emms on Cbeebies. Oh, I nearly forgot, there's lots of farting sounds too. Brilliant !

LazyTown

Years ago, long before the pitter patter sound of tiny feet entered our lives, we used to travel the world, seeking out those far flung places where we could lie aimlessly on tropical beaches - careless, oblivious, often obliterated... Days would pass by and pretty much nothing would happen - "What day is it?" I would ask, "Don't know, don't care, fancy another Mekong on the rocks ?" would be the answer...

Occasionally, driven by pure guilt, we would "do something", take a boat/raft/elephant/scooter/taxi and go somewhere, go and see the thing that everyone was supposed to go and see, but soon enough we would be back in the hammock lazing the days away.

These days, I spend most of my time wiping things.

I think it's about time I planned a holiday.

The Colour Pink

In general, I have never been very fond of the colour pink. It seems to me that if you took all the pink things that exist, and made them a sort of moody red instead, then the whole world would look slightly better. Now this may seem a bit extreme, but the trouble is that I have a four year old daughter who has an obsession with pinkness and it is really ruining the decor. Every time I look around the house there is some dreadful pink thing lurking in the corner and it is doing my head in. Pink dolls, pink dresses, pink toys, pink books, pink pink bloody pink - I hate it. It really is a foul colour, and it should be banned everywhere. The only exception I can think of, is when it is used in the sex industry.

Anyway, last week this flowery thing suddenly burst into bloom here in the Mews. It is very nice, especially when you look at it really closely, but I still think it would look better if it came in another colour. According to my mate James, it is some sort of geranium that is native to the island of Madeira, which probably means that it grows wild there. I have a nightmarish vision of an island covered with millions of tiny pink flowers, miles and miles of them spreading out as far as the horizon. For me, it would be enough to bring on thoughts of suicide.
For Ellie however, it would be as near to paradise as she could ever imagine.

The Grand National Result

Bollocks.

The Grand National

Don't forget to get yourself down the bookies and have a flutter on The Grand National - always worth wasting a fiver on an each way bet...

never won anything yet but this year I am backing Dun Doire and Bothar Nar..

Goowaan maa saaan...

More Easter

Easter weekend - chocolate - easter egg hunt - roast lamb. We also went to Paultons Park which is a sort of adventure park for kids. Everyone had a great time, especially Oscar who is fearless. Ony thing worse than the food was the price they charged for it- £3.45 for a slimy hot dog in a wet bun. On Saturday we went to Billy Smarts Circus which was a little disappointing, mostly east european acrobats - what happened to the lion tamers, balancing elephants, puppies leaping through hoops of fire etc ? Those darn animal activists have spoiled my fun again...

Easter Breaks

It's all fun and games this week with Alison flat out busy and me looking after the kids. Yesterday I managed to dislocate Oscars elbow whilst trying to stop him from falling down the stairs, and after god knows how long waiting in A&E yesterday afternoon and this morning they now think he may have a fracture as well (something to do with a swollen fat-pad)... On top of this I have a dozen clients all wanting thier Macs sorted out pronto. Still, on the upside, Oscar was delighted to see a crane (he loves cranes) arrive in the mews this morning to lift Jeremys' piano from the first floor balcony and off to the repair shop.

Processor Speed

It's no wonder we need to upgrade our computers on a regular basis. Not only are chip companies regularly releasing ever-faster microprocessors, but new research has revealed that modern CPUs actually lose megahertz over time.

This startling conclusion follows a five-year research programme carried out by the Illyria University's Information Technology department.

"Five years ago, we activated a dozen new, freshly-purchased systems," said Computer Science Professor Asteio Artikolos. "Since then we have measured, on average, a 10-15 per cent reduction in the machines' clock speeds over that time. It's as if each machine's stock of megahertz were somehow leaking away.

"Each year, we have added new, faster machines. Not only have these seen a similar reduction over time in the number of processing cycles available each second, but the rate of decrease is greater than older, slower microprocessors."

So far Artikolos and his team have been unable to explain the phenomenon. One possibility is that the effect is related to the time dilation effect discovered by Einstein. Any moving body operates on a different temporal frame of reference than a static one, said Artikolis. As processors are clocked higher, so their transistors move more quickly, altering their apparent speed when measured by benchmarkers in a state frame of reference.

"It's certainly the case that many computer users notice a decrease in performance over time," Artikolos told Register Hardware. "A machine that seemed incredibly fast on the day of purchase seems torpid within three years. Traditionally, this was blamed on reduced free hard drive space and the increased memory requirements of software updates. Our research suggests a more fundamental problem, one that centres on the very way modern microprocessors operate."

Artikolos' findings pose an interesting question: where exactly are all these megahertz ending up? More research, he said, was needed.

Intel was unavailable for comment. AMD, however, claimed to be well aware of the problem and to be already designing processors capable of working beyond the limits of Einsteinian mathematics - with a negative temporal displacement facility built in.

"It's why all our processors appear two years ahead of the other guys' stuff," a spokesman said.