Very nice news indeed

Congratulations to my dear friends Sarah & Andy who had a beautiful 7lb* baby girl at home in their kitchen on Tuesday. All went very well, and the midwife was absolutely brilliant apparently...**

They've just got to name her now, because the nickname she had during pregnancy, Little Barry, doesn't seem quite so apt now.

*'medium-sized' according to Andy
**well, it was me, so of course she was

Well of course NOW it works...

Thanks Silas!

Legacy

I've just rediscovered Mansun - no, not Marilyn Manson - but the wonderful popular beat combo from the late 90s who made some really rather excellent records. I have, happily, managed to find one of my all-time fave songs/videos on You Tube. Watch it, quick, before it's removed due to legal discussions about copyright laws... Then download Wide Open Space from whichever is your preferred music source because it's mint, or rad, or book, or whatever the young people are saying these days.

(All you html dudes out there - why will Blogger not allow me to embed videos from YouTube on here? It keeps saying the tag isn't closed. What bloody tag? In fact, it always gave me this error message in the past but went on to publish it anyway - Blogger Beta (or whatever we're on now) won't publish it at all. What do I do?)

Winging it

It's Friday night, so obviously I've been sat in by myself watching Green Wing - I've found a place on t'interpipe where you can watch them all for free, yippee! - and am genuinely alarmed by how much Alan Statham reminds me of me. Apart from the obsession with sex of course. But otherwise: uncanny.

To sleep perchance...

When I happen to mention to other cat owners that I shut my cats out of the bedroom at night, they tend to look at me with a piteous look and make noises that are supposed to make me feel like I'm missing out on one of life's great pleasures by denying myself the opportunity to snuggle up with these fluffy bundles of joy.

Now, I'm not denying that during daylight hours, the gentle chirruping, chasing each other back and forth across every stick of furniture I own (now all ruined by a million tiny claw marks but hey ho) and tossing balls up in the air then pouncing on them with all the enthusiasm of a hungry lion on a wounded gazelle, amuses me no end. The affectionate moments, where they spreadeagle themselves on my lap in order to receive the exact required amount of petting but absolutely no more than that is also very sweet and I will happily deny myself any drinks or snacks I'd otherwise like to have until they have moved off of their own accord so as to avoid disturbing them.

But at night time, call me old-fashioned, I like to sleep. It is, I believe, a basic human need and, as has been discussed here previously, a hugely enjoyable exercise. Additionally, my job of choice does occasionally necessitate my getting up in the middle of the night to attend births and having had even a small amount of sleep can be a considerable advantage. And having two cats running around me, fighting, or padding slowly over my wishing-I-was-comatose body, often with paws - and indeed a pause - on my head has a tendency to interrupt this process. I've tried, I really have. In fact, last night I left my door open and by 5am, when I was lying awake, having found it necessary to contort my body into an highly unnatural, and indeed uncomfortable, position in order to accommodate the two now repose cats, who had spent the rest of the night trying to eat my hair and trying to reduce my Ikea chest of drawers back to splinters, I ended up chasing them from the room and shutting the door with relief.

Blast from the past

As you may have heard, Gareth Hunt died last week. Those of you who've known me for donkies will remember that Gareth was one of stars of Side by Side, the sitcom I did when I was 17/18 years old and he was such a lovely bloke. Although we hadn't kept in touch, I was really sad to hear about his death. Then I saw Alex Walkinshaw, who played my 'lurrrve interest' in Side by Side, on This Morning last week talking about his role in The Bill and his new son, Jack. It got me to thinking about Louisa Rix, who played my mum in the series and I ended up googling her. It only bloomin' turns out that she lives 10 mins away from me, so tonight, after work, I took a detour round to hers to surprise her (it did!) and ended up having a lovely cup of tea with her and Richard Ommanney, her husband and the writer of Side by Side, who now works as a writer on The Bill! Phew! She also gave me the details of Gareth's funeral next week so I will head over there to pay my last respects.

Is it too early for me to go to bed? I say this because as I write, it's 9.25pm and, having just finished indulging in a lovely long soak in the bath, I want tuck myself straight up.

This happens more and more as I get older. I find that the evening is all about biding my time until I feel it's socially acceptable to go to bed; I look forward to it for hours. A cup of milky coffee, a hot water bottle, a good book, the cats for company, and away I go. A pair of clean pyjamas is a lovely treat too. Oh dear.

I do realise how this sounds, I really do. I know I need to get 'out there' a bit more but sleep is just sooooo nice...

Bust

No, I haven't gone and got one.

I am referring, of course, to companies who supply me with goods and then deliberately go bust in order to get out of having to actually repair their shoddy handywork.

Last year, when I found my grill wasn't working, I attempted to contact the oven manufacturer, Arrow, only to discover that they'd gone into liquidation. After much searching, I finally managed to track down one man on eBay who had a stock of Arrow grill parts (why?! But I'm immensely grateful) and got the part, which my dad duly fitted and now I have a working grill. Hurrah.

For the past few weeks* the lock/handle on the window in the kitchen has been broken and I've had to wedge my knife sharpener behind it in order to secure it against burglars (who know knife sharpeners could be so useful?) I have put off getting it repaired because, well, because I didn't know who I should call about it to be honest. I mean, it wouldn't be an electrician, not a plumber, not a carpenter - so who? A window cleaner?

Today I decided I really needed to get it sorted if I'm going to rent the flat out so I look through the paperwork the previous owners had left me and found that the windows had been fitted in 2001 and had a 10 year guarantee! Excellent! Only it was with Bryco and the bloody bastards went bust in 2004, as I discovered when I tried to call, then google, them. Anyway, what I managed to do was find out the manufacturer of the lock mechanism (logo on the underside of the lock - would have had to hang out of the window (first floor) to see it but instead had the bright idea of getting my camera and taking a picture of it so I could read it), then looked up the manufacturer on the old interpipe**. I not only found the parts in question, I also learnt what they were called. Very important when trying to talk to repair men (because conversations that go "you know the bit that looks like a very thin pencil, that fits inside the other bit, the bit shaped like a piece of macaroni, that's not going in properly" tend to lead to comedic-type misunderstandings I find). Incidentally, the handle is called an Espag Handle and the lock is a shootbolt. Obviously. Now I can converse about window mechanisms with the best of them.

So then I call the manufacturer and they give me a list of local stockists, one of whom I call and she says someone is in my area and can be with me in half an hour. Cue some frantic cleaning of said window area, including using a toothbrush to remove the many years accumulated gunk from the lock. Half an hour later, two burly gentlemen turn up, take the handle - sorry, the Espag - off, fiddle around, put it back on and all is fixed. We then have a discussion about the handles themselves, decide they're rubbish and since I wasn't ever given a key for them either, decided to get them all replaced for what I consider a fairly reasonable sum (less than three figures anyway) so I'll be all properly secure again. They'll be back next week with the parts...unless they go bust in the meantime, that is.

*okay, months
** my favourite new word for the internet

"It's not normal...

...and some people say I shouldn't be using the word 'normal', but I'm using it quite deliberately." Kathy Goble, Professional Complainer, on the lesbian kiss on Eastenders.

"How can he refute the Bible, which he's supposed to live his life by, and bring God into the act of Sodomy?" Kathy Goble, Professional Complainer, on the Bishop who conducted a live gay wedding shown on This Morning

"It made me feel physically sick." Kathy Goble, Professional Complainer, on the Channel 4 series 'Queer As Folk'.

"Did you hear who they were all calling for? 'Oh my God oh my God oh my God'" Kathy Goble, Professional Complainer, on Derren Brown's Seance.

"But there's no question about the fact that Jesus was All Man" Kathy Goble, Professional Complainer, on Jerry Springer The Opera.

(X-Rated: The Top 20 Most Controversial TV Programmes)

She was absolutely great. Comedy gold. I want my own little Kathy Goble doll, that will spout bigoted rhetoric whenever I squeeze her boobs.

In her honour, I would like you all to go here and watch Paedogeddon! The Brass Eye Special (it's in 3 parts). I hear it's one of her favourites.

Rocket man

William Shatner takes acting to a whole new level. His own level. Right up there. Only he can travel there; high, high above us mere mortals. It must be lonely up there in space.

Going, going...

Here is my rather modest efforts from the lunar eclipse last night - I was out at dinner and just happened to have my 4m pixel digital camera with me, no tripod, so these were taken free hand. The last shot was taken on a long exposure, but took 5 attempts resting on a brick wall to get one without too much wobble! Still, not too bad considering.

And Happy Birthday Dad!

Should I stay or should I go?

Although some people clearly have too much time on their hands, I rather liked this.

Megan pushes off for good

(L-R) Jo, Kat, Megan, Sarah, Yours Truly.

We went en masse to Heathrow to make sure Megan definitely left the country today. Escorted her off the premises, as it were. We'll all really miss her, but at least I get to see her in six months time - hurrah! In the meantime, we've got messenger so we can always catch up.

Last weekend Megan came to stay with me and we tried to pack in a whole load of stuff so she had some good English memories. We went to see Hot Fuzz, where we laughed our arses off. By the power of Greyskull! Back home for some spaghetti bolognese (my own special recipe) and I made Megan watch the first episode of several classic comedy series. Green Wing, The Office (UK version - she'd only seen the US version), Nighty Night, The Mighty Boosh, as well as some clips from the League of Gentlemen and Nathan Barley. By the way, if you have any suggestions of other must-see comedy series I should educate her about, let me know.

The following morning we began proceedings with a full English breakfast, naturally. Then we drove over to Windsor and took an audio trip around the castle, which is excellent by the way. A spot of shopping followed, natch, then home for a cup of tea and some syrup waffles then we watched Strictly Ballroom before making eggy-bacony-pasta-y thing (the clue is in the name) and then eating it to the tune of Monsoon Wedding. Superb.

So Megan, in the words of Rupert Graves: "You'll remember that, anyroad." (fabulous prizes available for guessing the quote)