Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

Recent stuff:

Much haggising following the grand returning of books (The Last King of Scotland, The Long Firm Trilogy and Brick Lane: all good) and DVDs (Casino Royale and Sin City: AG), as much requested my by brother (i.e. he commented, frequently, that he hadn't had Casino Royale back yet, and I commented, fractionally less frequently, that if I hadn't seen him then when was I supposed to have returned things?). The haggis was the SIL's idea as her parents were down and the flat can only seat three for a meal. So off she went to Fortnum & Mason's to find out-of-season haggis (they give birth in the autumn so supplies are restricted), because, as anyone knows, F&M is simply the only place where haggis is to be had this far from Burns' Night (or this close to the other burns night). And so it came to pass that after my brother and I took turns breaking the masher (it turns out neeps are swede and bloody hard to mash; no wonder we only used to use them for Halloween lanterns), the SIL removed from the oven a haggis bigger than most turkeys. I'm not sure how old it was, though I'd guess it was an adult male that had failed to breed this year; it certainly wasn't the yearling implied. The SIL slashed it across the belly with great glee, as the innards steamed out, and the mingled parents worried from another room that it hadn't been addressed (except with that of the farmer on the packaging).

Thanks to my brother I got to end a note with the words "lunch at the Dorchester". Thanks also to him it wasn't about me.

And thinking in terms of excuses, what spurious details do you lot use? I mean when phoning friends via the switchboard at very strict workplaces, or filling in forms that ask too much. When ringing someone I either use my middle names as the name of the firm, or happen to use the name of a former university, now a college of a university, in London, as that never gets queried, presumably because interests from within that institution are many and deep (and liable to take an academically long time to explain). On forms that want everything including my birth certificate book number, I tend to either use the address of a certain demolished halls of residence in Devon if the website has a postcode checker, or if it does not, use '29, Acacia Road... CR2 9OW' (you'd think it would pick up that 'Bananamanland' is not a country). I also have been known to put my employer (on those pesky websites which demand annual household income in dollars [Canadian or Australian?]) down as Knox Oil & Gas. Which brings to the point where I wondered what other people use, because I recently found out that my father also has been known to claim an affiliation with Mr Happer's firm.

Random Google-borne fact of the day: BP was founded by William Knox D'Arcy.
RGBFOTD2: The Knox Oil and Gas Fields are in Ohio (or Kentucky, or somewhere around there).
Random New Word Of The Day: Vuggy.
Random ineptitude of the day: St Pancras Not-Wholly International.
Random advantage to playing round with new computer stuff (there are ongoing RAM issues; do not ask because my reply will be so long and without break that I am liable to asphyxiate): You know I mentioned aeons ago that the raffle-won MP3 player came with a really weird sample track embedded in it, but could not demonstrate it to you being unable to extract the MP3? Well, the player's got a wee bit confused (ditching nearly all its contents) and somehow exposed 01.mp3, the alarming Akura theme. Enjoy, and don't worry; it's meant to sound like that.

Anyhoo,