Regular readers (ha!) might wonder why there have been few posts recently. Well, visitors to the house would twig straight away: currently the dining room and kitchen are completely gutted, ready for the shiny new ones. This includes removing the dado rail in the dining room, which some twonk decided were in need of a two inch number eight screw every three feet plus half a gallon of mastik.

I swear the gang that did the house up before I got my hands on it must have had shares in the company that made Mastik: it was everywhere. The most sweary moments of the project so far were when we started pulling up the soft as shite pine floor which was stuck to the screed in the dining room floor – I kid you not, there must have been half a tube of Mastik per plank. Two wrecking bars and a lot of brute force and ignorance pulled each one up. The only problem: it took the damn bitumen screed with it! Nasty problem. Either I have to learn about screeding in a hurry or we have yet another bill on our hands, and the worst kind at that: one we didn’t expect.

Eyes on the prize: shiny, shiny kitchen!

We met today for a memorial service for a colleague who died at 53, except that I didn’t make it in time: apparently 5 hours isn’t enough time to allow to get from Cambridge to Manchester. Damn the M6.

Still, tonight should be good, catching up with K. No doubt she’ll have words about some of the music I’ve been getting into recently…

When you need a haircut not necessarily because your hair’s too long, but because your flippin’ ears and neck need a good trim. Yuck. Yuckyuckyuck.

So why not try a meme, for a change. It’s just like the Cosmopolitan sex surveys that we all pretended we never did as teenagers:

Four jobs I’ve had

1. Paperboy. Discovered bosoms etc. by sneaking top-shelf magazines into the papers I was delivering.
2. Dixons. To this day I still sympathise with all shop-workers – it’s tough, even without snotty customers to deal with, and there are plenty of those.
3. DJ: Damn, I miss those days. 88-92 in Manchester was the place to be. Insider tip: if you need a whizz, stick on any old track and run for it. If you need a dump, the nine-minute long “Fools Gold” by the Stone Roses is your friend.
4. Geek. Pays well. Like doing your A-Levels every day. Peachy, if you like that sort of thing.

Four movies I can watch over and over

1. The Usual Suspects even though I know the twist.
2. Blade Runner with or without the stating-the-blindingly-obvious voiceover. I’m pretty agnostic.
3. Am̩lie Рsweet but not sickly
4. Babette’s Feast leaves you with a lot to think about. I mean, I like exploding helicopters and all, but this is really something to get your teeth into. (Sorry – ed.).

Four places I have lived

1. Hucknall. Scene of devastation with clashes between the N.U.M. and the U.D.M. during the Miners’ Strikes of the 80′s, before the pit closed. Not all bad, though. There’s an Aldi where the pit used to be…
2. Manchester. Centre of the Universe at the time. Abdul’s Kebabs were a staple.
3. Occold, near Eye. Eye is a village in the arse-end of nowhere. Occold is even smaller and 2 miles away. Sheesh.
4. Cambridge. Highest geek concentration in Europe, no doubt. What’s the collective noun for geeks? I dunno. A Python of geeks?

Four TV shows I love

1. The West Wing. “Margaret!” (R.I.P. John Spencer.)
2. Catterick. “I concealed my pistol in my tooperware box.”
3. Green Wing. “Creeping Jesus, these were supposed to have been weshed!”
4. F1. “Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeoooow!”

Four places I’ve vacationed

1. Morzine. A proper Alpine resort. A bit low, maybe, but Avoriaz next door fixes that.
2. Banff. Great terrain and a choice of sushi joints in town. Shame they can’t organise the lift passes properly.
3. San Luis Obispo. Lovely company and a fantastic base to explore the West Coast. Boo Boo Records, McCarthy’s Pub, barbeque ribs at Farmer’s Market.
4. Tuscany. Beautiful scenery, majestic food and wine, fantastic architecture and culture.

Four of my favorite dishes

Let’s face it, this could be easily just four of my favourite kinds of sushi, but I’ll try and mix it up a little…

1. Toro nigiri. No, Inari. Wait – soft shell crab. But what about a nice spicy tuna Temaki?
2. Teri Aki special salad.
3. Spaghetti Carbonara. There’s some controversy about whether it should include cream, but when I cook it, it does, and I like it that way.
4. Em’s Nice Salmon. Not the snappiest title, but the dish is superb. Baked salmon fillets covered in home-made basil pesto. Mmmmm…

Four sites I visit daily

1. Get Fuzzy
2. Dooce
3. The Register
4. Last.fm

Four places I would rather be right now

1. At the Nyon side of Morzine, either Charniaz or Chamossiere. Balanced on a plank.
2. Watching Forest win for a change.
3. Vegas. For a weekend – no more.
4. Somewhere new. A great city I’ve not seen yet – maybe Prague or Vienna or something. With the camera bag, of course.

Five people I am tagging

Doing what now?

Morzine was as lovely as ever. Avoriaz, being higher, was better still.. and of course the company was second to none. Only a blistered ankle, sprained wrist and bruised arm to show for it. Oh, and a stiff neck. The painful lower back was a gift of the footy game three days before leaving.

I’m a wreck, but I’m a relaxed, happy wreck. Especially because of the welcome I’ve had since getting back yesterday :->

Jamie’s School Dinners made me laugh. We didn’t see it when it was first on, but we’re watching the re-run episodes back to back. Just like the West Wing, only wiv a mockney.

Anyway, at the first school where he took all the junk off the menu, the numbers of kids using the canteen fell because they couldn’t have their chips and pizzas. Fair enough: the thinking was that if healthy food was the only option, hungry kids would eat it eventually. But the ones who were old enough to be allowed off site at dinner time went off to the local chippy instead. That was no surprise but what made me chortle was the black market economy that emerged: the big kids were making a tidy profit by charging the littlies for fetching them their junk food and handing it to them through the railings :->

Well, it was a lovely night last night. Just a quiet-ish night in with M and J, who have kids to consider these days. The mark of a good friendship is that you never run out of conversation, and that was certainly true. I feel a bit guilty because we kept them up pretty late, and they were starting to think that one of the little uns could wake them up before they even get to bed, if you see what I mean.

Great food, too. Two of us got Italian cookbooks for Chrimbo and so we ate loads. It’s traditional in Italy that lentils signify money, so you eat them on New Year’s Eve to ensure opulence in the New Year. I dunno about that, but it certainly ensured flatulence. Good grief: I went downstairs to let Desdog out at 6:30 this morning, and when I came back upstairs you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife! Sheesh.

The footy Christmas do was a right laugh. But rough as a buzzard’s crutch today, and I swear it takes me longer these days to get over a hangover. Full fat coke, junk food, it only dents the unpleasantness.

Now, I like to think that I have quite broad tastes and that when it comes to food, I’ll at least try almost anything. There are things I don’t like much: custard, sprouts, rice pudding etc. etc., but they pale into insignificance compared to Pinoykebabs. Sheesh. Blimey.

One crappy Ryanair flight and then one very crappy bus ride and here I am in the middle of Dublin. A little pootle around town, no doubt spending money, and then it’s off to the Hotel for a bit of shut-eye before the Jose Gonzalez gig tonight! Woo hoo! I have it on good authority that he’s superb live.

How cosmopolitan is this: flying to Ireland to see a Swedish singer of Argentinian descent. I wonder what time the locals consider decent for the first Guinness of the day?