MDF

One of my favourite building materials is medium density fibreboard, otherwise known as MDF. Over the last few weeks we have been making some progress with the house and have been concentrating on finishing the hallway and stairs. A couple of weeks ago we clad the ceiling in the hallway with oak faced MDF and it looks very classy in a kind of seventies nautical sauna way. There are a couple of light boxes recessed into it which I made with white melamine faced MDF, and they too look fab. Today we got started cladding the stairs with another very interesting MDF variant made by Fibracolour - it is basically MDF which is solid black throughout its thickness - it looks like welsh slate and even has little flecks in it a bit like you would find in slate. Going to seal it with Osmo PolyX Oil which is absolutely the best stuff for sealing wood, easy to apply, easy to repair, and pretty much bulletproof. Have just ordered a grands worth of floor tiles for the hall, kitchen, loo and bathroom. Looking forward to seeing it all come together.

Fast broadband

This is fun. Providing you have wickedly fast broadband like me and get a result like this (11906 kb per second) of course. Actually, I know I can get even faster speeds when my connection isn't being shared with the 6 other computers on my network as it is at the moment. I'll try again later on when the chaps in the office have all shut down and gone home. Do your own speedtest here... and see if you can beat me , ha ha.

Pat Rae

Pat Rae is a delightful lady who lives in a higgeldy piggeldy house somewhere behind the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill. She spends her time making sculptures, paintings, drawings and prints which she is currently exhibiting at a little gallery in Northcross Road. If you get a chance, pop in and see her - she's jolly nice and you might even buy a pot or painting or something.

Farkin Agents

I wandered past this delightful view on the way home from Sydenham woods on Sunday. OK, sure the agents are vying for business, put this is taking the piss. Isn't there a law against this sort of thing? If i lived opposite I would sneak out in the middle of the night and chop the lot down. I mean, just count them... fourteen - it's utter madness.

St Patricks Night

Last night I went to see the Cosmic Sausages do Saint Patricks night at the Page 2 pub in Nunhead. I was so full of spaghetti Bolognese when I arrived that I could barely drink my Guinness, but I persevered and after a while it started to go down quite quickly. Wasn't long before the Irish contingent started singing along and soon enough the foot stomping and shrieking started. It was a good night out, and I even had my arse felt up by a couple of old dears.

Jedi

Alison got back from Morocco yesterday, and was bearing gifts as usual. We now all wear djellabas whilst slobbing around at home in the evenings. The idea will wear off soon. Mine is black and when I put it on I feel like saying "May the force be with you". Here's a picture of Oscar in his.

Re yesterdays broken laptop: The hard disk still won't spin up.

Last Chance

A mate of mine delivered an iBook to me yesterday that was making strange noises and displaying a flashing question mark at startup. I asked him if he had a back up of the drive, because I know that sound quite well and it almost always means terminal hard drive failure. Fortunately, he had backed up not too long ago. Tried all the usual things and a few others. Drive definitely dead. So I dismantled the laptop which is a bit scary and eventually ended up with a pile of bits, about 30 tiny screws, a magnet, assorted bits of plastic but most importantly the drive itself. Fitted the drive into an external enclosure and tried to fire it up. Still dead as predicted. One last chance.. I have put the drive into plastic bag and put it in the freezer for the night. I still don't expect this to work because I don't think the head is jammed, but apparently, the freezing process causes a the drive head to contract slightly and can release an otherwise kaput disk. Will report back tomorrow.

Consolation

Am surviving thanks to a bottle of homemade Hinton Ampner Apple Brandy, kindly donated by mate Dom.

Update - 20.30hrs - Luke, who has just been to the pub, came round with a spare Guinness for me (still in its pint glass) - nice one.

Luxury

Poor old Alison is hard at work again, this time staying in the Noire d'Ivoire, a riad in the heart of Marrakech. Meanwhile, back in London, the highlight of my week was when Oscar decided to do a pooh in the bath - whilst sharing it with me and Ellie. We even had the spa jets running. It was horrible. Seriously.

On a lighter note, did you know that:

Most lipsticks contain fish scales.
All polar bears are left handed.
A cockroach can live for 10 days without a head.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
An ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.
Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left handed people.

Suck On This

A Coca-Cola Campaign from the mid eighties that went horribly wrong, when someone noticed a hidden picture painted in the ice-cubes - a woman performing "an oral act". Unfortunately for Coke, the campaign was already all over Australia at and had to be withdrawn... click here to see the artwork

QR Codes

QR codes ? What the hell are they ? A QR code is like a barcode but can hold loads more information. With a simple application installed on their phone, users can take a photo and watch the code convert to real text or direct them to other content. OK, so the practicality is what? Well, quite a few things actually. Imagine, you're given a business card with a QR code on it. Snap it and all the donor's details are instantly inputted into your phone. No mess, no fuss. McDonald's have QR codes on all their food wrappers so that patrons can photo and then view the nutritional info on the phone(yeah right!). Loads more innovative uses are springing up all the time... how long til it reaches the UK (given that there are already English versions out on the web)?
You can read more here or click here to make your own.

Freebies

From time to time I pick up a few old iMacs that people don't want anymore, sometimes they are broken but fixable, sometimes they are OK for basic stuff like email and web. Anyway I have just thrown two in a skip, and have 4 left that work. I've given one to Ellie, and she is already an experienced surfer ( ceebeebies website is her fave), and she is getting to grips with Kidpix and textedit. The great thing about these old iMacs is that the mouse is small enough to fit in a kids hand and only has one button. The mac itself can be set up in "simple" mode, and for the most part you can leave the kids alone to get on with stuff themselves.

iMac number two is going to Lola, and numbers 3 and 4 are up for grabs. They are the first iMacs made - very basic with system 9, but useable..

Question is - who wants one ? Just come and get it.

Tractors

We love em. One day I would like to have my own.

Birthday

It is Oscars second birthday today and we celebrated by having a party yesterday. He doesn't really have any mates yet, so he invited a load of Ellies' girlfriends around instead, then stuffed them full of cake and sweets. He was the perfect host and entertained his guests throughout the afternoon, he even dropped his trousers twice during the Musical Statues game. Good lad.

Pancakes

1. The tradition of eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday is nearly 1000 years old.

2. The first recorded pancake race was in Olney, Buckinghamshire in 1445.

3. The largest number of pancakes tossed in the shortest amount of time in the UK is 349 tosses in 2 minutes (Dean Gould at Felixstowe, Suffolk, 14 January 1995).

4. The longest race in the quickest time was held in Melbourne, Australia. Jan Stickland covered 384m in 59.5 seconds on 19 February 1995.

5. The largest pancake ever made and flipped measured 15.01m wide, 2.5cm deep and weighed 3 tonnes (Rochdale, Greater Manchester, August 1994).

6. It is customary in France to touch the handle of the frying pan and make a wish while the pancake is turned, holding a coin in one hand.

7. Maple Syrup was originally a sweet drink, discovered by the Algonquin Indians who collected sap from Canadian sugar maple trees and then boiled it to produce 1 litre of pure Maple Syrup from 40 litres of sap.

Late Night Viewing

A very long time ago, in a distant land known as "Art College", there was a weekly film club, where we would all gather and watch strange movies whilst drinking cans of lager. For some reason, most of the films had subtitles, which made for difficult viewing whilst under the influence. I can still remember a handful of them though, "Eraserhead", "Freaks", "Satiricon", "Aino Corrida" were all excellent in their own way, but my favourite by far was Fellini's "Roma". For a few years in the eighties I had a video of it, but that disappeared or got recorded over somehow, and I haven't seen the film since. But then, a few days ago, those nice chaps at Film Four put it on and I managed to record it again.

So the other night at about 4 am, Oscar woke up and vomited in his bed (there's a bug going round) and we ended up, just the two of us, watching Roma whilst munching crisps. Not much point in trying to describe it, there's a review here - If you've never seen it then perhaps you should, you will either love it or hate it. Oscar didn't seem much bothered either way.

Dinner

Today I made a moroccan lamb tagine. Every time I make this dish I do it differently because I never use measurements, and always use different ingredients. Sometimes it's ok, sometimes good, and sometimes it's very good. I should make the effort each time to write down how I make it, so that I can get it right every time.
Todays effort involved frying lamb chunks in really hot oil till till very brown then transferring to a pot. Then I browned off some chunks of carrot, potato, parsnip and shallots, then turned the heat down and added some fresh ginger and garlic, and a big helping of nomades lamb tagine spice. By now the bottom of the frying pan was getting dark and sticky so I poured about a glass of leftover cava in to clean it off, then poured that lot in with the lamb. Next was some cumin, and tin of chopped tomatoes and half of one of those mini honey pots you get at hotel breakfasts. Everything is now bubbling away gently. I might add some chick peas and dried fruit later, but probably not. I make couscous by making a stock with butter, boiling water and swiss vegetable bouillon, then just pour it over the couscous and leave it to soak.

Rant

I popped down to my local 'corner shop' today to pick up a few bits and bobs and came away, as always, wishing that I had simply not bothered. "CostCutters", which most of us locals refer to as "PayMore"' is an absolute crap shop. I find it hard to believe that in 2007, when asked for 'parmesan cheese', that these idiots insist on handing over a drum of buitoni powdered foot shaving fake cheesey stuff. It is simply pathetic.
But the thing that really annoys me there is what happens when I ask for 40 marlborough lights. The guy turns around and reaches up to the shelf and then asks " Twenties ?". Well yes off course 20's you pillock. If I had wanted 4 packs of 10 or 2 packs of ten and one pack of 20 then thats what I would have asked for... This guy spends all day sat behind his counter selling faggs to us puffers- surely he has figured this out by now. How often does it happen that someone asks for 60 Rothmans and really means 6 packs of ten ? Never, I bet you. I'm going to save up and go in and ask for 180 marlboroughs to see what happens - will he think I want 18 packs of ten, or 5 packs of 20 and 8 packs of ten? Or some other absurd combination? I'm not going to answer him, just keep saying 180 till he gets it. Or maybe, just maybe, this might actually be the one thing that finally pushes me to give up smoking. Imagine that - being irritated into quitting. Forget hypnosis and acupuncture. Perhaps I could set up a "Stop Smoking" clinic, and just spend all day annoying people till they quit.

The Boy Eats Chocolate...

And who can blame him really ? Personally I love a bit of a chocolate fest. So, if you have any spare choccys, please send them here. Ta...

Ooh Yes I Do

Maverick

I thought it was about time the kids tried to get a grasp on the concept of 'War', so we went to the Britain at War exhibition in Tooley street today. There were lots of things to investigate including an anderson shelter and an unexploded bomb. Despite the sombre surroundings, they found it quite good fun, and only got scared in the "Recently Blown Up Pub" exhibit. Oscar has decided that he wants to be a fighter pilot, but I'm not sure they accept applications from people who still drink milk from a baby bottle.

Teraflop Madness

My dad once told me that he and his team put a satellite into space using an 8Mhz computer which had 4k of RAM.

Intel today announced a chip with 80 processing cores and capable of more than a trillion calculations per second (teraflops). The chip achieves performance on a piece of silicon no bigger than a fingernail that 11 years ago required a machine with 10,000 chips inside it.

The first time teraflop performance was achieved was 11 years ago on the ASCI Red Supercomputer built by Intel for the Sandia National Laboratory. That machine took up more than 2,000 square feet, was powered by almost 10,000 Pentium Pro processors, and consumed more than 500 kilowatts of electricity.

Intel says that commercial spin-offs of the chip could see it being used in high-definition entertainment PCs, servers and handheld devices.

Cars

We rented the "Cars" DVD today, thinking that the we could all veg out in front of the telly for the afternoon and eat crisps and chocolate and stuff. About 5 minutes into it, Ellie fell asleep and shortly after that, Oscar walked off to potter around with his toys. Then Alison disappeared into the kitchen to cook dinner, leaving me on my own to enjoy this wonderful film. Brilliant stuff - thoroughly recommended. Best enjoyed without the company of children.

Blast From the Past

Nothing much to report today, so here's an old picture of the missus instead.

Classic

I just couldn't resist posting this clip sent to me by mate Tobes. Its been around a while but still worth a look.

The video clip is from a Russian news programme.

There was an accident at a coal mine and people were accused of drinking on the job.

The interviewer is trying to see if there is any truth in the rumour, and then one of the other workers turns up unannounced. Don't need sound, unless you can speak Russian.

The chaps face is stuff of legend.

Illogical

Back in 1973, the art of mens hairdressing was somewhat unsophisticated, as you can see from the appalling selection of hair-dos' in this picture. I cannot remember if someone was actually paid to do this to me, or if it was a DIY job. What I can remember is being told that I looked like a relative of Doctor Spock, the chap with pointy ears in Star Trek, which I didn't think was very funny.

Even Stevens

A couple of days ago I spoke to Alison who is on Koh Samui in Thailand. The line was terrible and had that echo that echo that echo that long distance calls had years ago, and we both had to shout and interrupt each other to get a conversation through the interference. She told me that everything was fine out there and that she had just been for a Thai massage which was great and ridiculously cheap. I was kind of jealous but didn't say so, for fear of spoiling her obvious joy.
Anyway, today, in a kind of strange cosmic Karma kind of way, something very peculiar happened. A friend of ours who is a homeopath, rang me up to say that her husband had been booked in for a free massage at the place where she works, and had decided that he wasn't feeling up to it - AND did I fancy a free Thai massage? Well I couldn't believe my bloody ears, but of course accepted the offer immediately.
Julia (the homeopath) came round this evening and babysat whilst I went for a glorious one and half hour, very full on, massage, followed by a quick pint at "The Wisher" (apparently you need lots of fluids after a massage.
So, in case you think the world is shite and unfair, just remember this- there is no such thing as coincidence, what goes around comes around, and the whole world IS fair and very very lovely. Probably.

Oh Dear

A few years ago, one of Alisons' friends set up a childrens model agency and persuaded us to let her put Ellie "on the books". We took a bit of persuading but thought it could be fun for a while and that maybe we would get a few nice photographs out of it, and perhaps even earn some money. As it turned out, Ellie did very well and now has a bank account with more money in it than either of us. In due course, Oscar signed up as well, and from time to time they both do their thing in front of a camera, we get a picture, and they get some dosh. Every year the kids have to go back to the agency and have a picture taken for the agency website, and every year we show up at the appointed time completely unprepared, with overtired, cranky children who should have had a haircut yonks ago, but somehow it usually works out OK.

This year however they sprung a nasty trick on us and demanded a picture of us all together so that they could put it in the "Families for hire" section of the website. We should have refused but the truth is that we were so monstrously hungover that we just did as we were told. I can vaguely remember standing there and feeling the waves of hideousness wash over me as the camera clicked away, the flashbulbs stunning me into obedient silence. Looking at the picture now, it's almost as if they had found a perfectly good mum and two kids for the shot, but had to borrow a street dosser to stand in for the dad. Quite how Alison managed to look so remarkably good after a vodka fuelled Saturday night is a complete mystery to both of us.

Daftness

Sometimes, for reasons that deny any sense of real logic, we are tempted to perform tasks that we know from the outset are destined to end in miserable failure.

And yet, just like that bloke on Top Gear who clearly knew that it was a dumb idea to attempt a fourth run in his jet engined dragster, we are compelled to challenge our fear of impending catastrophe, and just sort of "go for it".

Today , in a moment of inexplicable madness, I attempted, whilst in the custody of two flu ridden children, to hang wallpaper. Not just any wallpaper though, the sort that has a repeating pattern which has to be matched up. The sort that is bloody expensive and basically impossible to hang correctly.

Just consider for a moment the possibilities for disaster in this scenario, with tubs of wallpaper paste, ladders, glue sodden cloths, scissors, tape measures, stanley knives and two curious children, determined to help in any way that they can. Amazingly, we (and the wallpaper) all survived this ordeal, although I can tell you that I will never again be so silly. I expect Richard Hammond is saying the same thing.

Study Time

As you can see, Ellie is delighted to be learning French instead of watching Cbeebies.