Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

[Oh bugger the underscore thing again]

Hel-lo Petals!

Sorry, been listening to the receptionist at work too much. Not only
does she cause greater mirth by half announcing meetings then having
to check things and try to remember where she's got up to, but she has
the wonderful ability to put calls through along the following lines.

*Phone rings*
*Phone rings again and this time I'm looking at the LED so I can tell
it's my phone and not any of the others in the office (annoyingly
someone has as their mobile ringtone the noise mine makes when it's in
alarm mode, which is as fleetingly confusing as when the blackbird
used to copy the sound of my alarm clock) and so I answer*
Receptionist: Hi, I've got [first name] from Something Something
Something for you.
[or]
Receptionist: Hi, I've got [first name] [my surname] for you.

I swear the whole thing's an act designed to enhance our collective
telephone manner as we inevitably smile and speak warmly as the
semi-anonymous beings are put through.

But then this is the same woman who hurls bread and then berates over
split milk.

And in answer to the questions Mr Give-Us-A-Q, abodage has happened
(but not yet broadbandage hence the emailed in reply and not going to
the actual blog) but not yet unpackingage. And yes, I will send out
the necessary email soon (even if I have to come into the office at
the weekend to do it; well, now that I can without setting off the
alarm - oh and thank you Dan of London for the borrowables). And there
are pictures of the area of my former lodgings (and the one before
that), some already on Flickr.

Er, as the cleaners are beating as they're sweeping (but possibly not
doing that last bit) and the last person in sight is leaving, I'd
better too. I'll pick this up tomorrow.
---
This is not tomorrow but heyho.

So now it's Sunday and, er, I theoretically popped in to sort out work
stuff for tomorrow, by which I meant preparing ammo for the return of
the boss (ammo for said boss to use, not to use against him), but now
by which I mean trying to sort out contents insurance (why is
confused.com always so inept; surely I can't be the only person who
doesn't remember logons used annually? Helpfully it seems to lock
postcodes for editing which is great when you're trying to change
address).

Anyway...

Things memorably forgotten:
- Microwave.
- Drying racks.
- Files on a computer.

Things not forgotten but needed:
- Double bedding. But I have some cheap sheets now so will stick with
the single quilt on a double bed look for a while (i.e. until I
remember to go to Argos to buy a quilt). Incidentally Heal's has a
conversion table for Imperial to Metric to Size, but helpfully works
to proper Imperial (what's the proper name for it? Not droit de
seigneur but something similar... avoirdupois. Having peas) so I had
to remember how many inches were in a foot (30?) rather than just
scanning for 54*74 (which I remembered for being more memorable, and
less accurate so more likely to match standard figures) somewhere on
the table.
- Bathmat. Now bought, in nice colour, that matches a worn out hooded
top not brought (is that SPW's guess?) and nothing else.
- Draining rack (the atop draining board thing).
- Standard lamp for the lounge (and a few images to replace those that
came with the house, literally).
- Lampshade for absurdly high light.
- An internet connection (hence being in the office on a Sunday. The
landlord is apparently sorting it, but I think I've just discovered he
didn't know a landline was a requisite [and also appears to think that
a phone line is a phone line regardless of whether he's been paying
line rental. I'm going to assume there's a greater plan rather than
complete absence of one]).
- A new shower hose (hey there, wait a minute, Mr Landlord).
- Glue/Polyfilla to reattached a door handle (HTWAMML).
- A working washing machine (HTWAMML. The after I paid the deposit and
first rent I got a text telling me not to use it, but parts had been
ordered. A week later in reply to my text he said parts were ordered
on Friday and would arrive in 7-10 working days, which my by reckoning
means this week and also means he lied in the first text thus casting
doubt on the previous assumption).
- Enough time to clean everything thoroughly, and then do it again
after the dust's settled.
- Some paper to write a full snagging list (along with a list of
general recommendations of such minor things as underfloor heating,
full damp proof course, local extract over the shower, double glazing,
new boiler, enlarged hot water tank, adding insulation [you can't
claim to lose original features - it's got woodchip], converting the
bathroom roof to a terrace, extending upwards and getting rid of the
sodding louvre window [well, it is next to the boiler, so saves having
to worry about ventilation]. Oh and maybe considering solar thermal.
That and a fig tree in the walled garden).
- Bin for room. Think will use Heal's bag for time being. Considered
using champagne bucket but decided it wasn't reduced enough (having
had to work out holiday pay stuff I now know how much I earn per hour
after tax. Not pleasant).
- Christmas tree lights as I have the Christmas tree now, after some
random, slightly odd promotional freebie (it was to do with carbon
saving and the point was that it was a very small tree which would
remain that way for many decades [er, but aren't they quite fast
growing?]).

Er, yeah, so much for doing work; it's now dark and I don't feel like
turning on a twelfth of the office lighting just for me. Maybe I need
to add "lamp for office" to the list.

This is going to make reading my aideblogoire a bit hard.

Anachronists Anonymous - Mon pere, but I've done this, I think.

Pounding of a Pret headache - one problem with being early enough into
a meeting to be near the sandwiches is that they do fiendish things to
blood pressure. Though I quite like that presumably falafel ones which
no one else seems to eat. And it saves me having to discover someone's
thrown my tomatoes away again.

Reviewal - Just one of those words that turned up somewhere and stuck
because it's not actually a word. Could just be a transcript of poor
handwriting though rather than originally intentional.

Another opening, another show - Er, just a reminder to find out what
it's from. Still don't know.

Landing path for Regeant's Spark - The office is under the. I didn't
know it had one until a helicopter vanished behind some buildings
without a band [er, spot the much more interesting typo].

Dear Mr Llp - Someone I've actually spoken to wrote this while sending
a letter to this end's company name and leaving me out of it entirely.
I would consider writing back to Mr Y. Sincerely but that would be
both churlish and not actually get to him and away he used the
loathsome "Regards", but with an apostrophe on the end' which' to be
honest' confuses me slightly'

Less than it was last week - The 9% fall in the FTSE or whatever. And
a damn sight less than it would have been a year ago. Possibly not one
of those things to be very happy about.

The Being John Malkovich Building - The joys of trying to work out how
to show levels, and stuff on them, that are halfway up and halfway
down but neither up nor down. The thing I'm currently doing most on
seems to be gaining these.

How much did someone pay to have the aircraft warning lights flash in
time on that new cross-gartered thing (London has a tendency to do an
inverse Kim's Game; I'm sure that building wasn't there last time, was
it?).

And that's it for the list. Other stuff includes burning out my first
Oyster (student photocard that was neither still finally gave up after
increasing tempermentality; if it got read at all it would let me into
the system but not out of it. It turns out Camford Cirrus staff need
some convincing that it really doesn't work. And that late Saturday
afternoon when the escalator is bust is a really bad time try to get
it changed at Oxburrow Tone station. The girl just before me in the
queue actually said "do's I's look like I's bovvered?"; is quoting a
not terribly amusing comedian worse than being the source material?).

And yes, I have gone back to Googleblurring names now that I live
somewhere that's appeared in the pool of a certain photographic
guessing game (and commute past a commenter's sole entry).

Think that better be it as the only other person who isn't the guy who
is always hear is making packing up noises.

Anyhoo.

Now how the hell do I send this?

PS. Not Dubai. Comme le Boursin: du dry, du fry, Dubai.

Message ends.

Cut.

Stop now.

Have you tried holding down the power button?

Well, that's just wei

Mother Dearest*, absent-mindedly while perusing the BBC News website (it won't have changed in the last 3 minutes), after we'd been discussing the joys of the FTSE, the Evening Standard standard of logical journalism in free London papers (every story starts with 'how dare they'; consistency be damned), the strange ability to always read Kaupthing as Kaput-thing, how now would be a good time to go on holiday to Iceland, except for the whole bleak midwinter thing they've got going on there - the clue's really in the name, unlike the Viking PR'd Greenland, which could well be green by now: What's the capital of Iceland?

Me, wondering if it's worth filling in yesterday's Guardian Quick Crossword or if I can do the whole thing in my head, so equally absent-mindedly: Reykjavik [Thank Firefox for inbuilt spelling checking as my version came out a bit more Croatian; I knew it had a j in it]

Mother Dearest (well, she has to be as she's the only one I've got, the world not having invented lesbianism before I was born, except for the two who shared the upstairs at the surrogate grandmother's even though we already had the proper number of grandmothers and who were always referred to as 'the girls' - the upstairsers not the grandmothers - despite being some while away from being such things, and still it took me a startlingly long time to realise the gruff one with the short, almost boxy hair might be... oh, I never thought of it like that): No, it's about four ninety.

Mass hilarity ensued. Or rather I gave a snort of faint amusement or possibly surprise that my mother has a sense of humour and can set jokes up better than I can and has the audacious gall to actually be able to remember more than just the punchline of them (yes, I know, as they admitted, it probably came from the News Quiz or somewhere, but I hadn't heard it so it was new to me). And then my father chimed in with "Or four bob" and I gave him a look along the lines of "oh, do stop revelling in your anachronisticity" and there endeth the attempt at normal family life.

* I've not seen it. And in our house we mostly used the hangars for duels and impromptu and a tad ineffective bows. And hands up if you ever bothered to make that Blue Peter fire-hazard-in-waiting Advent "Peace on Earth" piece of tat. And yes, I have already managed to discover that the tune in my head that I've been mouthing the words to without thinking about it was Oh Come All Ye Faithful. Damn, normally I make it to at least half-term (or possibly that's my it's-not-unseemly threshold).

Which is all one way of saying "my, isn't packing fun. And dusty". Better get back to it.

Anyhoo,

PS. Extra bonus points question: name three things that I will forget to take.

Hmm, seems that sending HTML adds some divider that messes up the
sidebar/main body divider. But editing that out in the post wipes out
the post headline/email subject and negates the whole logging into
Blogger at work thing which is why I'm playing round with remote
blogging.

Anyway, as <a href="http://dickrolling.com/liketheastleystuffbutNSFW/">this</a>
won't work (I think) try reading http://www.lipsum.com/ until I get
this sorted.

Oh hell, I just Googled the above term. I've never before thought
something could bring new /de/meaning to something else. Er, yeah, not
being able to add formatting is going to be odd.

Although now I at least know what SJP in Compliance likes.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs37NSLy3z4

Fraggles apparently.

Whatever became of Christina 'Aggleinlira?

But as I've wandered off into the realm of those rock Christmas lights
things that presumably have to be booked ahead with the local Dinorwig
I'd better stop Youtubing before I find myself wanting to fast forward
a couple of months. Unless I can cure it by watching the Russian ice
tunnel thing. Or by realising that in terms of wearable shoes I'm down
to Converse or proper shoes neither of which are snow slush friendly.

Oh, I've just twigged where the riff in Abd al Malik's Gibraltar comes
from. I tried to use that as the ringtone on my phone but for some
reason it's far quieter than the standards so I don't hear it. That
and I only tend to run to the bus most of time.

Anyhoo,

PS. The image is just to see what Blogger does with it.

PPS. The title only makes sense if I haven't wiped the title from the
previous one, which I have, because this blog has no titles, except if
email forces Blogger to add one, which is then overwritten if any
edits are made, like that to dedivide the template mangling post.

Oh underscore! Drat. Anyway, this is what happens if one uses HTML in an email. And yes, if it works, I did just use Comic Sans; GMail doesn't do Helvetica. Maybe I need to use gmail.ch. Anyone know how to add images into the text in GMail? It's not something I've ever done as I'm a plain boy.<a href="http://www.thenumberyouhavedialledhasnotbeenrecognised.com">trial manual link</a>.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/anyhoo/2301288850/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3231/2301288850_ae51c5f35a_m.jpg" width="240" height="161" alt="DSC_1469 - Is this thing on?"  title="Is this thing on?  Click for source." align=right hspace=5></a> That was a trial image. But no I've no idea what to say. Lorem Ipsum is a folk band from Suffolk.

Anyway, apologies for the delayed blogging of late (there are drafts, but no time and strangely I'm not all that keen on using Blogger from a work computer), although I am saying this when I am about to disappear for a while (perhaps, hopefully).

Incidentally did you know Hotmail does not show DNS failures? It is DNS, right?

Um... I'm bloggically unfit. So better stop.

Anyhoo,

You know I'm not sure this blog-via-email thing is working.

[GM - Plain text]