My Blog Posts

It looks like somewhere up there was listening to me. Mother nature has been criticising bad Tim Allen movies. Serves them right for going to see such a shocking piece of cinema, I say.

Those of you reading this in the UK can move right along now. Everyone else, check out the Office, which is the funniest comedy since Fawly Towers.

Mr Templeton has been angling for a mention here for a while now, so hello Mark. I hope you are still enjoying being in Jakarta and aren’t pining too much for Sydney. The fact that I mention Mark today, and that he is a Kiwi is just a complete coincidence.

With the (ahem) retirement of Junior Waugh has he taken up coaching? Specifically I’ve been looking at the performance of his big brother “Tugga” at the Gabba, from the official scorecard; *SR Waugh c Crawley b Caddick 7 71 37 0 0 Not very good there Steve. So what do you think Mr Palmer, does there always have to be a dud in the Australian cricket team and is the current incumbent Stephen Rodger Waugh?

This is just such a very good idea. [Courtesy of BoingBoing]

Last night I signed the lease for our new flat and picked up the keys. We are now home occupiers again. Well, we will be from tomorrow when we actually move in. Everyone is invited to come and inspect the premises at a mutually convenient time. In other words we would love to see you, but give us a call first to make sure we are in. I have updated the obligatory vanity page on this site with our new address and phone number.

This diary still isn’t a linkfest like, say, Matthew Thomas but I just couldn’t resist pointing you, dear reader, at a couple of lovely web sites. First cab off the rank today comes to us courtesy of irc and is the wonderful bad writing at its best. I challenge you to use at least one of those metaphors in anything you write today. Extra marks for using them in an email to your boss.

In keeping with today’s theme, and in case the seventies throwback hasn’t spotted it yet (yes, I’m talking to you Molly), the schedule for the Marillion Weekend 2003 has been released. If you want to know what we are going to be up to take a look at the web page. You know, I’m quite looking forward to the whole thing now. Although I shall not be volunteering for swap the band. I’ll leave that to a certain school band vocalist I know. Yes, thats you again Molly.

Mr Buck, the captain of my tennis club sent me an email today. In it he has requested a list of my thirty one (not thirty, not twenty nine) favourite rock songs. But tantalisingly he gives no explanation for this request. So, in the spirit of fairness (and Danny Baker) I have decided to accept solicitations for my list. Just click on the comments link at the bottom of this post and nominate a tune. One per person please and the first thirty one are guaranteed to make my list.

To borrow a catch phrase from the Fast Show, “today I have mostly been annoyed by people who do not record a voicemail greeting on their mobile phone.” To be met with “Welcome to the voice mail box for 07 blah, blah, blah” is about as much good to me as a chocolate teapot. How do I know I haven’t typed the wrong number? It should take about thirty seconds to record a message for your adoring callers and it will make you a much better person, honest. I reserve the right to leave one word messages for people who don’t comply. That word will, of course, be “muppet”.

My search is over. I have found the mobile phone I would like to buy. Say hello to the Nokia 6800. All I need now is for Nokia to release it and for enough time to go by that the bugs are ironed out and the price reduced to accomodate my meagre pocket. Oh, and has anyone got any opinions on the relative merits of Tivo versus Sky plus?

The highlight of the walk to work today was spotting Roy Hattersley walking his dog. It was urinating on a pub.

The good news is through. We have sold the boat thanks to Jason at Church Point Yacht Brokers, and have thus avoided penury when we couldn’t afford the residual payment on the lease next month. Phew. After sitting in traffic jams for what seems to have been the whole weekend we have now bought a television - on the internet. We got a good deal on a Panasonic model and they will even deliver. at a time and date of our choice.

What on earth did the Disney company think they were doing, producing Santa Clause 2. Did no one at the company see the first one? Good grief. [courtesy Mr Cranky].

Today, I would like to send you elsewhere. Mainly because I have nothing to say. First destination, Geek bling bling, or how to make your computers look good. I recommend this to DIY enthusiasts like Iain and sad techos like Ciaran. [courtesy of Slashdot] Next, this day in music. This site lists musical anniversaries for today. Strangely enough. Bound to be enjoyed by the 70s throwback and Mr Buck. [courtesy of the Metro newspaper]

Courtesy of Mark Pilgrim let me introduce you to Googlism. Fire up the page, type in the phrase of your choice and - voila - a precis of what the web, or rather the web as viewed by Google thinks of it. I tried a couple of variations on my name, “Andrew Todd” gave me this gem; “Andrew Todd is full” so no more burgers thanks. “Andy Todd” got some very interesting results. My favourite, by a long way, was; “andy todd is at it with his fists again”. So just watch it, right!

The migration is almost complete. The keen eyed amongst you may have noted the subtle changes that show my work. For the slow, the address of this page has changed to http://www.andrew-todd.com/diary/. There is one more immediate change that you may have noticed. You can now add comments to this diary. Lordy. Be gentle with me, ok? There are still a few more bits and pieces to change, primarily the old posts (prior to March, 2002) and the navigation bar to the left may change a little. But the majority of the work is done so I thought I would unleash the beast. Enjoy.

With the impending migration I am going to stop using Francis Dunnery lyrics as titles on this page. Its not as if anyone noticed, anyway. On the news front. Mark Waugh has quit international cricket. Only the dud could jump after he was pushed. The only sadness I feel at this news is for viewers of the cricket on Channel 9 who will now be subjected to one of the dullest commentators on the planet even more often.

I had to add an entry just so that the changes that I made to my diary template would propagate. Say hello to Uncle Baldy in the links panel on the left.

We are mobile again. Thanks to Bobo’s brother Giles we are now the proud owners and drivers of an Alfa Romeo 145. Pictures to come soon, but it goes well and will do us a treat. We are very happy. Unlike Britain, where today has been a bit of a nightmare. Our own experience of this extreme weather was the journey to Reading to pick up our new motor. It should have taken about an hour and a half, so we left home at 10:00, aiming to be chez Perry before 12:00. Lunch was served at 12:30 and we didn’t want to be late. We managed the first part of our journey (Balham to Clapham Junction) relatively painlessly. Although the train was delayed by twenty minutes that is fairly normal on the line I travel to work on every day. When we got to Clapham Junction, however, things took a turn for the worse. The station announcer informed us that all trains from Waterloo had been suspended. This was a bad thing. Mainly because the Reading train we wanted to get on leaves from Waterloo.