Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

If it's possible to run up and hug someone on the internet, I just did.

London Dan has just given me a Flickr Pro account (see, vague miserliness and procrastination pays off). I've also just discovered that I have 461 photographs on Flickr (of which 3 are good). But something must have been happening recently as 4 of my photographs have been added to other people's favourites within the past week. Oddly, or maybe not so oddly, all of them are of London.

Only now I realise I'll have to actually use the account. Which after I spent the weekend wishing I'd got a camera, probably won't be too hard as long as I remember to take a camera with me. Which reminds me of several things I need to do (namely train tickets, film, haircut, photographic paper, list for photography tutor on what I want out of the course - does "Be better" count?, something else, finish up the London blog post, start the Dorset one, do washing, tidy, do something with unpublished half-finished posts dotted around Blogger and my computer, use film, develop it, scan it, get enough money to buy a decent digital camera, do tax, do other forms, file paperwork, take paperwork out and rejig filing system so it actually works, repair bathroom ceiling, sort loft hatch, sort boat, sort loose change, get a life, repot banana plant, move banana plant outside, grow a bit so once again I'm taller than the banana plant, get lots of money from somewhere, do good with it, have fun, enjoy life, stop worrying, make new list).

Of course, now I notice that the sets need some serious work. Bear with me on this.

My mood has drastically improved, and rant about incompetent part-timers subsided a bit. Basically due to a non-functioning phone system and the inability to use email on the part of the person I was corresponding with, the only way I found out where I was supposed to be at 9 am on Monday morning was to stand outside an office building until someone turned up. Which they did at ten to nine, trying to slip in through the side entrance.

I'm greeted with "Who are you?" which doesn't bode well considering the amount of conversations we've been having. I get vague details, which only make sense because I already half-know the answer. I also discover that there was no one in the office on Friday afternoon (and I thought I was joking about the staff having adjourned to the pub). I ask about various bits of paperwork I need the by end of the day and am told they'll be sent out on Thursday. I copy her fake smile and leave.

At the other end the lack of communication causes choas, and mightily pissed-off receptionist. I go in, do what I do, and leave. Getting back I check my emails. There's one sent at 10:57 am confirming the details for Monday 18th April. Yep, the woman I doorstepped earlier has sent a response to Friday's frantic emails two hours after the event to which they refer happened. Which is also two hours after I saw her in person.

Sometimes I wonder just how thick she really is.

So anyway, yesterday was a fun day of listening to salespeople accentuating the positive (one of them actually said that. I didn't laugh, somehow), with their PMA'd voices gabbling about "Only a 21% false negative rate" (yes, that's one in five wrong). And remind me to loiter and spin things out. People are always so surprised when I finish things quickly, and I think begin to wonder what corner I've cut to do it in that time. I think being called the Duracell Bunny is a compliment (oddly it's not the first time it's been said of me), but there's something slightly unsettling about being compared to a demonic pink fluffy thing.

Reverting to point (now there's a novelty): Thank you Mr Dan of London.

[The hug mentioned above was originally a big, wet, embarrassingly sloppy kiss, but I thought having that in the same post as a comment comparing me to a pink, fluffy toy might give the wrong impression. Said he skipping to his ballet class. As for really wet kisses, they're great when one of one's friends of the Mwa-Mwa tribe proffers an air-kissing cheek. Although some make-up tastes vile].

Anyhoo,

PS. Having had many photographs resurface, and discover the most viewed are by and large those of the most extraordinary places, I've just found that either there really are 1,999 photographs tagged with Tanzania, or that Flickr can only cope with two thousand images per tag.