A BIT MORE BEAR

Someone said yesterday that at some point, fathers should take their sons camping. Even if it's just in the back garden, dads should pack up the tent, build a fire and show their boys how to roast a marshmallow or point out the stars or roll out a sleeping bag.

My dad never did any of that with me. I don't think it's because he didn't want to, I just think that he didn't really know how. We did other things - I know it's a bit sad but we used to watch Mastermind and count up how many questions we got right. He taught me to ride a bike too, which was about as outdoorsy as it got. And to be fair, he does still point out the constellations, throwing in little facts about nebulae and dwarf stars and the Milky Way. I don't even mind when he gets the physics a bit wrong.

I'd like to do it - I'd like to take my sons camping, when the time comes. We'll get a telescope! Maybe we'll learn to fish, or paddle a canoe. There'll be kites and bikes, and rocks to climb, maybe we'll get an axe and learn how to chop firewood! We'll fry eggs and sausages and bacon and we'll squash them all in massive hunks of bread and then we'll go home covered in dirt and our faces wrinkled with laughter and sunburn. It will be awesome.

The thing is though, like my dad, I don't really know how to do any of that. I'm a nerdy musician who works in an office with software engineers and gets overexcited by chord progressions. I'd like to learn though, how to be a bit more Bear and a bit less square. But then I imagine fatherhood to be a bit like that journey of discovery, heading off into the wild unknown and making the best of what you have - even if you're an indoorsy kind of guy. I don't think you have to have all the answers, just a thirst for adventure and an excitement about sharing it together with your family. And maybe a few warm blankets and a decent pen knife. I can't wait.

HOPE AND SUNRISE

It's pretty early. I'm watching the sun come up. Any minute now it's going to silently emerge from behind the trees and the whole sky, the damp green grass and these quiet tents will be bathed in morning sunlight.

I love that moment of sunrise. Everything changes. The last few wispy clouds of night are suddenly painted gold and are broken with brilliant rays of yellow sunshine. Wood pigeons coo and other birds burst into song, just happy to be alive to sing through another day, I guess. The night is over and hope is in the air.

Sammy told me yesterday that the last thing in Pandora's Box was hope, according to Greek mythology. It's profound to think that buried under all the evils in the world was this tiny sense of hope, an expectation that things can be better, that evil can be overcome, even when we are responsible for letting it loose. When all else is lost, hope is alive. 

It's a beautiful reflection of the hope we carry through the darkest moments of our own lives, especially as believers. I'm not saying that I believe Greek mythology; I just think that there's a lot to learn from some of the things the ancients saw in Creation, in human nature and in our undeniable need for something greater.

Yesterday was good by the way. I played some duff notes (and a few nicer ones) and the teaching was so good it feels like an injustice to try to sum it up. I realised that I need to be much more specific in some of the things I'm praying about at the moment, and much less focused on the things I'm negative about. I also realised that it's probably a mistake to leave your coat on stage behind the visiting speaker and then sit right by the door of the marquee when you're in your shirt sleeves.

Our undeniable need for something greater. Hope looks forwards, searching the future for something greater to pull backwards into the present. It's the place where the thing we long for overlaps into the situation we're in and floods it with sunshine. It's that brightening sky and the first whispers of morning in the longest and darkest of nights. It's Heaven On Planet Earth. 

Well that's what I think, anyway. Then, I'm sitting in a cold, wet field, watching the sun come up. And my feet are freezing.

THREE AIR BEDS AND THE WORLD'S SQUEAKIEST PUMP

The other day I heard myself saying this sentence:

"Oh yeah, camping's easy, so long as you're really well prepared."

I knew as soon as I said it, that it was one of those things that would come back to me. And indeed it did, at about 11pm last night when I was furiously trying to pump up an air bed by dangling torchlight. This was the second air bed of the day, loaned to me for the night when I realised that my first borrowed air bed had a valve that no earthly pump could fit and was determined to remain flatter than an envelope.

This second air bed would have been magnificent - chunky, double-strength material underneath with a smooth velvety overside and a double-stop valve to prevent any mid-night deflations. However, unfortunately  for me, I was trying to blow it up with the world's least efficient, and squeakiest pump. While most of the campsite was already snoozing, I was on my hands and knees, inside my tent, making a noise like a frog having a heart attack. And air bed number two was not inflating.

"Are you winning?" called Winners from the next tent.

I exhaled, fed up and exhausted. The pump nozzle popped out of the valve and the air bed starting hissing.

"No, not really," I replied through the canvas. I had no real desire to unroll my sleeping bag onto the cold floor and spend a night with backache. I would if I had to though - I might not have had much choice. However at the rate my pump was working, I would have inflated air bed number two by about sunrise.

"Well why don't you borrow one of ours?" he said. It seemed to me like a jolly good idea. And that's how I got to spend my first night of The Gathering in a tent with three air beds and the world's squeakiest pump.

Yeah camping's easy, I reckon. So long as you're well prepared.

LOFT SESSION

I had to climb up in the loft today, in search of my tent. My Mum also had an old sleeping bag that she wanted put up there and my sister wanted a bag of baby stuff brought down, so I popped open the hatch, ratcheted down the ladder and started the ascent.

The first thing that happened was that I scraped my back on the hatch as I climbed through it. That was painful. Then I climbed carefully into the cupboard, looking for what I needed. I felt like Bruce Willis in Die Hard when he's crawling through the ventilation system. It was dark, there was stuff everywhere, I'd been stabbed in the back, and I had to slide through on my hands and knees, knocking over old Christmas decorations and empty suitcases. I couldn't see the bag of baby stuff.

"It's up there somewhere," called someone from far below.

I saw my tent, sticking out of a tub. My sleeping bag was next to it so I grabbed them both and pulled them past me, one at a time. The tent thudded onto the floor behind me. The rolled-up sleeping bag rolled out onto the carpet.

"Have you put the light on?" shouted my Mum.

I backtracked, swung my legs through the hatch and reached for the light switch. The cupboard lit up in a dingy glow. Still no sign of the baby bag. I sighed to myself and gripped hold of the metal rungs, ready to descend, but not before grabbing hold of my sleeping bag and pulling it down through the hatch with me.

"It's blue," said my sister, "and it's got baby stuff in it."

What is baby stuff? I mean, that could mean anything. Nevertheless, I scooped up the other sleeping bag, the one that had been stuffed inside a black sack which my Mum wanted putting back in the loft. I scampered back up the ladder with it. Here's a top tip - if you have to climb a ladder - bunk bed, loft, fireman's, or otherwise, my advice is - at least wear a pair of slippers.

Inside the dimly lit cupboard, the black sack seemed to take on a life of its own. It bulged and billowed and ballooned as I tried squashing it in - the sleeping bag inside it was wriggling and trying to escape. In the end I ended up forcing it in with two bags of loft-insulation-foam.

I grabbed the tent, switched the light off and slid down the ladder. Then I pushed up the metal rungs and closed the hatch, ready for a nice sit down and a cup of tea. Weirdly, my hands were itching, so I was glad to feel the warmth of a cup, nicely prepared for me by my sister.

"Where's the blue bag?" she said, stirring in the milk.

"Oh," I replied.

REBOOTS & SEQUELS

Bond is back.

I didn't get very far through the trailer before I just stopped watching. What's that all about? Helicopters were blowing up, Bond was in trouble with M for some reason, an evil villain was sneering over a chess set and a beautiful woman was being delicately unzipped. Is it weird that I just have no desire to watch it?

I thought teasers and trailers were supposed to have the opposite effect - to make you salivate for more as they flash images, story points and hints of a twist at you. Not the trailer for Spectre - I was just bored by it.

Bond will be on some personal mission that puts him at odds with the government - only, it won't really because at the end he'll solve it, kill the villain with a lucky gadget hack, make a quip and then jet off with the girl he just met. There'll be guns, explosions, probably shots of him swirling a glass of some liquid, maybe a tuxedo or two and definitely some shenanigans with a femme-fatale and then the credits will roll and we'll all sit there while the lights come up. There you go: there are my predictions. How do I know?

Because (bar the inclusion of parachutes, fancy cars and some jet skis or something) all of these films are the same - roughly the same plot, roughly the same villain (with some mad impractical idea to match his mad impractical hair), roughly the same hanky panky and roughly the same Bond, oh and almost always the same outcome. Britain saves the day. Hip hip! Down with terrorism. Hurray! Up with casual sexism, desensitized violence and 1970s-style misogyny! Um... Good work, 007, pride of the civil service. Now get on with your paperwork.

I probably ought to stop watching movie trailers. I think I'm just bored of movies in general. I've got no desire to see the same old stories play out time and time again with dull explosions and predictable plot lines.

Oh and while we're here, I see they're making a 'sequel' to Jurassic World. A what now? Yep, a 'sequel' to a film that is more of a sequel to the original movie than either of its two actual sequels. I read an article where Jurassic World was referred to as a 'Jurassic Park reboot' (presumably to justify giving it a sequel) - which it clearly isn't, is it? A reboot tells the same story over again; a sequel follows on from the last episode. Anyone with any idea of how words work should be able to see that!

Of course, that means that every single James Bond film (with the possible exception of the last three) is probably a reboot. And now, with Daniel Craig pointing a revolver with a steely-eyed stare for a fourth time, they're off again with this interminable old nonsense.

I should probably point out that it's raining outside and I'm stuck in the office on my lunch break, which is possibly the reason I'm ranting about Bond and the money-grabbing studio behind Jurassic World II. Oh, I can probably predict that one too - idiots try to rebuild the park because it's a money-spinner but just as the lead character points out that it's a bad idea, all the money-spinners suddenly realise it's a bad idea when they're all chased and eaten by the gigantic, impossible, prehistoric monsters they created and thought that they could control. Our heroes just escape with their lives, hoping that they won't ever have to go through anything like that again.

Just like me at the end of another boring Bond film... or sitting through a rainy lunch break at my desk, I suppose.

MY POST-CANADIAN QUEST

Today feels like the kind of day when there's no room for punctuation because everything is going at hundreds of miles an hour and it's almost impossible to see how things will slow down when there's so much to do and it's all speeding up and there's more and more to do and less and less time to do it in because everything is just spinning faster and faster and even my sentences don't seem to be able to find any commas to slow the pace or semicolons to stick the brakes on or anything other than the emergency method of yanking up the handbrake and squealing to a halt with a tyre-burning head-spinning dust-cloud-creating full stop.

Phew.

OK, so things are busy. I'm away next week; there is a lot to do to make sure that Louise can do whatever she needs to do while I'm off.

"You'll be looking forward to your holiday," said my Team Leader. I just smiled.

Next week is The Gathering - our church network camp. It's a lot of things but I'm not sure it counts as 'holiday' when you're playing keys in every session and trying to live in a tent for the rest of the time. Unfortunately, I don't have the following week to recover this year, so I'm going to have to find ways to chill through the whole five days and not let anybody stress me out.

So much for my post-Canadian quest to be more chilled. I thought it would just naturally happen if I didn't care quite so much about stuff, but it seems to be a bit more complicated than that. I think it's a lot to do with being better organised as well.

Another problem is that stress is quite infectious - if everybody around you is blowing up into angry clouds of frustration, it gets much harder to stay cool. Not that that's happening here particularly, but it could. It'd be like a kind of micro-culture - to fit in, to make our voice heard, we take on the atmosphere around us and join in with the heart-wobbling, desk-thumping, nerve-jangling frustration, when actually, the best thing to do (for everyone) is to slow it right down and do what you can to make it right. If stress is infectious, so must be the antidote.

That in itself feels like hard work, swimming against the tide of the micro-culture.

However, I'm a person who is supposed to change atmospheres, not to be changed by them, so I am (externally at least) trying my best to be ice-cool, friendly and calm under pressure.

I closed my eyes and thought of that day I wrote a poem by Lake Ontario. That was a really nice day. The water was shimmering under the hot sun, and it gently lapped against the rocks, tiny waves at the edge of a huge expanse of peace. This, I thought, is how to slow things down - a little perspective from 3,500 miles away and in the gentle folds of a recalled memory: a glimmering full stop on a beautiful day.

I can definitely do this.

A WATERING STORY

I opened my eyes. Plants! I thought to myself, They're back tomorrow; I'd better at least have a go with the watering can.

On went the shoes and I slid the back door open. There was a cool night breeze and my Dad's garden wind chimes were singing. The watering can was full. I hoisted it up and made my way around the pots and baskets left for me by the Intrepids. The leaves danced in the shower of tinkling water as I passed by. Dark shiny pools spread under the pots and around my shoes.

There was a crunch. I think it might have been a snail. I made my rounds and then climbed back inside the warmly lit conservatory. Off came the shoes, naturally. You have to draw a line somewhere. I reached for a cup and the one-person teapot.

Hanging baskets. I'd forgotten the hanging baskets. I sighed and looked at the ceiling. They're at the front of the house. The gate was locked so I'd have to carry the watering can through the lounge - there's no way my Mum would approve of that. I slid open the conservatory door again and acrobatically reached for the handle of the half-full watering can. Then, with the greatest care imaginable, I tiptoed through the house, cranked open the front door and went outside to water my Mum's favourite hanging baskets.

I should have stopped to collect my slippers. Or perhaps another pair of shoes, or perhaps even the same snail-encrusted boots I'd peeled off in the conservatory. Or maybe I should have looked for the gate key. None of that; I did none of it. I stood there in the dark, angled the watering can at shoulder height into the first hanging basket... and promptly drenched my socks. The one mistake I promised myself I wouldn't repeat from last time and I had done it again!

Well, once your socks are wet, there's no going back. I watered the baskets, went back inside, tiptoed out to the conservatory and left the watering can outside, next to the water butt. Duty done, mission accomplished. I flicked on the kettle and went to change my squelchy socks for a fresh pair.

It was only as I emerged back into the kitchen that I heard a funny pattering noise outside. I jolted open the back door and stuck my hand out, palm upwards. It was raining.

Unbelievable.

LA MACARENA

Right, I'm going to apologise first, just to get it out of the way. I'm really, really sorry for getting La Macarena stuck in your head.

To be fair though, it probably got stuck in your head twenty years ago, so it's not technically my fault. In fact, for now, let's blame my next door neighbours - who seem to have it on a sort of 90s loop at the moment. Yes, my pain is your pain, eh... Macarena...

Sorry.

Anyway, the tune I called 'earwormy euro pop' the other day, is in fact, wedged inside my head and it won't go away - which is weird for a song that's in Spanish, and even weirder for a tune that's been around longer than we've had the Internet.

In fact, had we had the Internet at the time, we might have been tempted to find out what on Earth that song is all about by copying and pasting the lyrics into Google Translate - you know, if we were bored back in the 1990s or we'd had enough of watching Neighbours or playing Super Nintendo or something. Heavens above.

So, anyway, guess what I did today...

It's weird. It seems to be someone trying to persuade a girl called Macarena to have fun and enjoy life. In fact it starts with:

Give your body joy Macarena
Your body is for joy and good thing
Give your body joy, Macarena
Hey Macarena

... which I guess is sort of  saying, 'have fun while the sun shines' and fair enough, Los Del Rio! That's very summer-of-96 I think.

Well, it certainly was for me - I'd just finished my A Levels and I was waiting to go to university; never again would there be such a combination of long, lazy freedom and unbridled excitement together at the same time in my life.

It gets weirder though:

Macarena has a boyfriend called
Which is called by the name of Vitorino
That the swearing-in ceremony the boy
He gave two friends

I think (and it might be because my Spanish is terrible) that it means his two friends held a sort of ceremony where they both decided to call Macarena's boyfriend Vitorino - which is probably sensible; seems to be his name.

I looked it up. It means 'winner' or some such thing. I can certainly tell from these weighty lyrics that he has at least two friends and one girlfriend, so you know, quite a guy.

We can determine a bit more about the eponymous Macarena too. Los Del Rio continue to sing:

Macarena Macarena Macarena
You like the summers of Marbella
Macarena Macarena Macarena
You like the guerrilla movement

Now I've never been to Marbella, but I'd wager I'd like the summer there too - what's not to love? Spanish sunshine coursing through the hot blue sky, white sands, rolling sea, and the delicate sound of flamenco guitars on the breeze. Oh and rough men in balaclavas carrying AK47s shouting insurgencies against the government - that's what Macarena's hoping for.

Why tell us that? Is that how Macarena likes to have fun?

Wait a minute. Is that what that funny dance is all about? Is it really a series of guerrilla training moves? Golly.

Anyway, Los Del Rio soon move the narrative on, and actually start offering Macarena a new kind of life altogether. This is next:

Macarena rings with the English Court
And the most modern models purchased
Would you like to live in New York
And a new boyfriend link

Poor Vitorino! Not so much a winner now is he? While he's sunning himself and drinking Sangria on a Marbellan beach, Macarena's considering exporting her love of guerrilla warfare to the rest of the known world! Oh yes, seeing as she loves hanging out with the English and might want to find a new beau in America, it seems she wants to be everywhere.

Which is interesting, because the song kind of was, wasn't it? I remember it being massively popular - especially in the Sixth Form Common Room, and more recently at almost every single wedding I've ever been to. What if La Macarena isn't a girl at all, but is actually all about the song itself? Seems a little deep, and astonishingly prophetic for a bit of earwormy euro pop but nonetheless, she really did get everywhere.

Oh and next door too, and inside my head for twenty years - and probably in yours too, which I'm sorry about. Still, next time you're at a wedding and you hear it and everyone tries dragging you to the dance floor to practice those army training moves, just remember that it might just be about a subversive guerrilla fighter who abandoned her Spanish boyfriend to spread her catchy message across the known world, just for the joy of it.

Poor old Vitorino, that's what I say.

IRELAND GETS POSTCODES

"Oh my God, we've just got postcodes in Ireland this week and everyone's going mental," said Louise out of absolutely nowhere.

I was stunned into silence for a while by that uniquely arresting sentence. I had no idea that Ireland had survived thus far without postcodes. Apparently, out in the sticks, people just know where places are and take in parcels for each other and are generally, well, nice. I bet the postmen still whistle too, confident in the knowledge that there aren't two roads with the same name in the same town and county.

"And what about the Internet?" I asked, aiming for funny and missing by a country mile, "Has that made it across the Irish Sea?"

"Don't get me started," she said, "We can't get the Internet back home because the leaves get in the way."

MIZZLE

So, another Monday rolls around. Is there a name for rain that's not really rain? Walking to work this morning was like walking through a cloud - tiny fine rain droplets that weren't really falling; they were sort of suspended in the air.

The umbrella was pretty useless. In fact, it blew inside-out while I was crossing the A4. I couldn't figure out which way the wind was blowing so I wasn't able to invert it - I had to bend the spokes back by hand. Oh, plus there was a truck pelting towards me.

I think they call it 'mizzle' in Cornwall - somewhere between mist and drizzle. The sky is still bright behind the clouds and it's not cold - it's the kind of rain that reminds me of old holidays.

Speaking of holidays, I've been invited to Malaysia. I bet they don't get mizzle - and if they do, it's probably tropical mizzle - um, trizzle? - which must be like walking through a kind of urban sauna. An old schoolfriend got in touch, out of the blue - which was a very pleasant surprise.

The thing is, I don't think this is even really mizzle - it's not precisely half-way between mist and drizzle - it's much more drizzly than misty, and there's not even enough of it to get you wet. It's certainly not 'Fine Rain That Soaks You Through' - I'd have expected my knees to get wet with 'Fine Rain That Soaks You Through' and today, that didn't happen.

This is more drizzly than mizzly and less rainy than actual rain - it's just sort of there, swirling away in a nebulous blanket of the tiniest, most pathetic droplets in an English summer.

Oh well. Maybe the sun will break through by lunchtime and bring a little hope with it.

Still, there's always Kuala Lumpur, I suppose.

PLANT-WATERING & THE SNOOZY ZONE

So the Intrepids are away in Snowdonia. I'm on plant-watering duty again, which I'm hoping to do without getting wet feet this time.

So far, so good. It rained this morning, which let me off the hook. I smiled to myself when I heard it chucking it down first thing. The plants were getting a good old battering, a real downpour.

"So, don't water them when the sun's overhead," my Dad had said, "The sunlight refracts through the droplets and burns holes in the leaves." No problem.

It didn't last long though, the rain. In fact, it has been the most beautiful Sunday afternoon - gentle breezes through a crisp blue sky, warm sunshine and dappled shadow. I'm sitting in the conservatory with a cup of darjeeling and I'm loving the quietness of it.

It's dawning on me though, how difficult it might be living on my own. The quietness of it could easily turn to loneliness. Walking round an empty flat with an estate agent is one thing; sitting in it late at night with only the radio for company could be quite another. It occurs to me that I need to be prepared for that.

It might just be of course, that my body is a step ahead of me. Sleep. It's made me fall asleep at least four times this weekend - just randomly dropped me off the bleary-eyed precipice and into the snoozy zone. I know the softball was exhausting but did I really need to catch up that much? Nonetheless, I dozed right through a radio play I was listening to about cricket and woke up to the sound of next door's children playing with a hosepipe.

It's not exactly a brilliant solution to loneliness - and I forgot to get the chicken out of the freezer in time - but sleep does seem to be some form of escapism at least.

Next door are playing La Macarena - you know that song they play at weddings to get everyone crossing their arms and spinning 90 degrees in rows on the dance floor. Toni Braxton last week, earwormy euro pop today - it's 1996 round there. I might close my eyes and hibernate for a while - especially if Whigfield's next.

Oh no wait, I've got to water the plants.

So much for the snoozy zone.

RETIREMENT

I'm about ready for a Friday. For some reason, all my muscles are aching and my eyes feel really tired.

I missed dinner last night. After waiting around for the cricket guy to lock up the pavilion, I went home and just went to bed.

I had this really weird dream that one of my friends had detachable arms which could read my thoughts. In the dream, I was astonished when he casually told me what I was thinking while twisting his shoulder blade back on. I tried not to think of things I didn't want him to know, then found myself thinking about things I didn't want him to know, then woke up in a panic.

"You really must try to eat while we're away," my Mum reminded me this morning. The Intrepids are off to Wales tomorrow on a coach trip through Snowdonia.

"I'll be fine," I said.

Retirement sounds great, you know. I wouldn't mind a coach trip through Snowdonia! My Dad will strike up conversations about science, the weather or the Northern Lights or something with anyone who will listen. My Mum will probably try to finish reading Little Dorrit and the coach driver will put on a CD of hits from the 60s to the grey-haired delight of his passengers. Actually, maybe retirement doesn't sound that great, thinking about it.

Then, it's a funny idea anyway. I'd guess that in the future, work and life will merge and intertwine so closely that most people won't know which is which - you can't retire from your life, you just change things as you grow older - work changes shape: from factories to babysitting or book writing or painting or fixing clocks or whatever floats your boat. I guess you get to choose which set of prosthetic arms you connect up for the day.

Right now, I'd settle for an afternoon snooze and a cup of darjeeling.

SOFTBALL FOR THE TEDIOPHOBE

I tried looking up the proper name for a fear of boredom today. All I got was a list of psychology websites and articles by middle-aged mums. I soon got fed up with that so I went back on Google Maps and 'wandered around' Ground Zero on a rainy New York Day.

I'm starting to think it's OK to vary things a bit, do things which are unexpected and out of routine. Perhaps, then, that's how I ended up playing softball in the grounds of a stately home. Perhaps. 

Actually, it was more out of duty; I was supposed to lock up the cricket pavilion at the end when the guy would turn up looking for the keys. I'd been assigned that duty by the person who had kindly taken over from me when I had accidentally volunteered to run a cricket match. They'd turned it into softball (cricket was too complicated), booked the cricket pitch at Englefield House and asked me to be there to the dusky end. It was the least I could do.

So it was that I found myself playing softball as the sun went down. It's a bit different, right? Anti-boredom? Good way to mingle with colleagues?

I stood in the outfield waiting for the ball to come my way. The grass was turning gold, striped with long dark shadows from the trees. Far above the imposing turrets of the house, the clouds were lined with silver and the sunlight beamed from behind them, sinking happily into a perfect summer's eveni...

"Second, SECOND!" shouted someone as the ball thwacked towards me. I knelt in the grass, scooped it up as it rolled to me, and threw it as hard as I could towards the nearest, most competent person. Dimitrios, who'd just whacked the ball at me, started pounding in my direction like an angry rhino. I did what years of human instinct has developed in my species, and got out of the way, quick.

It was fun, doing something different, I guess. I'm not sure sport is really for me though. I can't run, I can't catch, I can't stay on my feet and I'm starting to realise that my reactions aren't as fast as they used to be. There was one moment tonight when I lost my balance and did a sort of sideways stumble, only just managing to stay on my feet. I couldn't throw the ball at the same time and when I recovered from the little tailspin, I actually felt a bit dizzy. 37 I am. Probably needed a sit down after that.

So I did stay to the dusky end. The guy came along, locked up properly and took the bins with him. I went home feeling quite exhausted. Maybe I need less exerting ways to feel alive and more creative ideas to stave off that terrible tediophobia. 

LONDON CALLING

I've ducked it twice, tried to weasel out of it a few more times and moaned about it on several separate ocassions.

That training course in London is back in my diary.

"Not in-house then?" I asked.

"No, sorry, Matt," said my manager, "They don't seem to do that after all."

It's in Paddington, it's 'interactive' and it's someone else's idea of a check box that will make them feel better. At least I've got until September to get ready for two days in the stifling, horn-honking, claustrophobic capital.

Maybe I'll stay over and have a night on the town? Hey, why not? - hit the pubs and recount my hilarious anecdotes to eager tourists and slick-haired suits who will undoubtedly be hanging on my every uproarious word. Then, after a spot of fine dining (Pizza Express) I could cruise downtown and bust some funky moves at a fancy club, tipping off the paps in advance, of course.

"Hey who's that cool guy over there?" they'll all shout over the thumping music and big bass beats, "Yeah, where did he come from; what does he do?"

"Who me?" I'll say, smoothly sliding over to the bar with all the ease of 70s Travolta, "I'm a technical author, in town for one night only, baby," and then I'll click my fingers, spin on my heels and point like the Fonz while the music pulls me moonwalking back to the dance floor.

Yeah, maybe not. Stuck standing inside a tin tube, ricketing over the railway with a copy of Metro and several hundred grumpy commuters is a bit more likely.

HOME HUNTING PART 9: THE MATRIX

I know kung-fu.

Oh. Well, I don't actually.

But what I do know is Microsoft Excel!

I made a matrix today, a kind of weighted scoring system to help me work out how to rate the houses I've seen. After a while, I forget how I felt about some of them and I can easily skew my opinion based on instinct rather than data.

Not that I'm throwing out instinct. Not at all! One of the places I saw after work today came across as a little bit dingy and claustrophobic - my instinct told me that, the very moment the estate agent keyed open the door and asked me to 'mind the step'. But are there positives to outweigh those vibes? How do you balance them?

So, I decided to take a bit more of a detached approach.

First I listed the five categories that I think are important when looking for a home. I didn't include price - my budget isn't really a negotiable thing, but other things are flexible, things like location, light-space, does it have a garden, for example. Then I listed them out in an Excel table and split my ten votes between them. The more important a thing I think it is, the more votes it got.

It works out like this for me:

location - 2

light/spacious - 2

garden - 2

no. of rooms - 3

character/quirkiness - 1

I know it's different for a lot of people, but for me, these are the weightings. Then, I just scored each of the houses I've seen so far out of ten for each category, multiplied it by the weighting and added up their scores. Obviously, the maximum possible score is 100, so what comes out is effectively a sort of percentage. It's a pretty simple system.

You might be interested to know that there hasn't been a single property that's made it over 50 - so that's interesting - though it probably says more about me than it does about the matrix.

What intrigued me was that the numbers felt about right for the places I've seen over the last few weeks. It was an eerie reflection of what my instinct had already told me. The scientist in me appreciates the numbers though, and it's nice to have a matrix which proves that my heart is in-line with my head - not to say of course, that either can't be overruled with a miracle! I'd love that! It'd be like that moment when Neo realises he can control bullets. Actually, why did he need kung-fu at all in the end? Hmmm.

I just wish I could be so sensible with other decisions.

THE OTHER SIDE OF WONDERLAND

The buzz is all around the soapbox survivors today. Apparently, they had an uneventful trip, missing most of the obstacles and smashing into a hay bail at the finish line - all to the roar of 20,000 spectators.

And well done them!

Meanwhile, back on the other side of Wonderland, I had a fairly uneventful day myself yesterday, watching the rain.

It hadn't rained for a while round these parts so it was nice to hear it scatter off the conservatory roof and drip mellifluously from the porch. As always, it's the natural harmonies - the dripping rhythms and the delicate patter of raindrops that get me. Like physics it seems, music is everywhere too.

I went out in it. I did. I grabbed my umbrella, waved at the Intrepids and said, "I'm just going for a walk."

"In the rain?" said my Mum.

"In the rain," I replied.

"Take a brolly," said my Dad. I waved it at him and he looked up over his Sudoku book, his eyes peering at me above his reading glasses. Words aren't always necessary.

I genuinely don't know how to make the most of a weekend. It's either packed full of stuff and goes way too quickly, or it aches out, one long and boring hour after the next. Most weeks of course, Sunday disappears into church, especially when I'm playing - I'm there longer than a working day. Yesterday though, was my week off and I left quite quietly after the first service.

Saturdays too are filled with the potential to drive me crazy. That's partly why my Mum and I ended up at the top of Streatley Hill enjoying the sunshine. I need fresh air on a Saturday or I get very cranky indeed.

So how do you do it? How do you get the most from a weekend without it shooting past like the Flying Scotsman? What are the things that make a weekend tick?

I think I have a fear of boredom. Tediophobia or something (I made that up) - a kind of terrible crushing feeling when everything is the same as it's always been and doesn't look like it's going to change. I need adventure, I need fun: new projects, art, science, music, things to learn, things to enjoy, things to think about, to write about and then go on too long about. I need thunderstorms and rain clouds followed by brilliant sunshine and a warm sea breeze. I need snowfall and starlight and early mornings and balmy evenings. I need adventure. I need anything other than the same-old same-olds.

Maybe that's why I'm sitting here in quiet admiration of the daring mechanical rabbit soapbox team. Just once, I'd like to be brave enough to do something like that.

So long as it's on a weekend.

ON STREATLEY HILL

I'm in the garden. The sky is that kind of barbecue blue you get on summery evenings. White wispy clouds and vapour trails cris cross - alto cumulus gliding gently and silently over the world. Next door are playing R&B tunes, birds are tweeting and there's a distant sound of children playing somewhere. It's all very pleasant.

I took my Mum to Streatley Hill today. It's not really called Streatley Hill - but it turns out that everyone I've ever known calls it that, so it kind of is. Anyway, it's a great place to walk, to think and to see the Thames Valley dappled in light and shade. It overlooks Goring and Streatley, where the river meanders through the trees, fields and hedgerows like a silver ribbon.

The light was perfect today. I don't know what it is about this time of year - the sun sits high and casts short deep shadows on grass that's only just losing its colour and still clings to a youthful green. The sky was cloudless. In the distance the sun picked out the Water Tower which gleamed on the horizon. 

They're playing Unbreak My Heart by Toni Braxton next door now, the slow version - just to remind of me of circa 1996, which is thoughtful. Good year, that. I might pop my head over the fence and ask if they have Gangsta's Paradise by Coolio.

Speaking of memories, my Mum reminded me today that the very first thing we did in the Year 2000 was to go up Streatley Hill. Our whole family decided we wanted to watch the sunrise somewhere special. We set up a barbecue, brought champagne glasses and toasted the new millenium. It was freezing.

Not so today. A warm breeze shook the trees and tickled the grass. We sat there on a bench for a while, both of us knowing that we were forming new memories - storing them up for some time when they might be useful, when we're in need of a little tenderness. I can highly recommend it.

FRIDAY SOAPBOXES

I woke up early this morning. I used the time to come up with a theory about money and wealth-creation, which isn't very interesting and is probably just obvious to anyone who's bothered enough to think about it.

It's another beautiful Friday. The developers ambled off to the pub without me at lunchtime so I just ended up wandering round the lake again.

The geese were out - Egyptian and Canadian. I braved it and crouched down to take photographs of them pecking at the grass. One of them raised its head and cocked it like a compsognathus or dilophosaur or something, straight from Jurassic Park. Did Spielberg study birds to model the way his CGI dinosaurs would move? That would fit.

When I'd finished dinosaur watching, I headed back inside to find four of my colleagues dressed as characters from Alice in Wonderland, collecting for their charity soapbox race. The Cheshire Cat looked at me grumpily.

It turns out that on Sunday they will be throwing themselves down the annual Redbull Soapbox Race in a makeshift rabbit made out of old wood and bicycle tyres. There's a sweepstake based on how far down the track they'll get before the rabbit disintegrates.

They did initially ask me to write some Victorian poetry for them, but in the end, my silly nonsense poems about 'hurtling and skirtling' weren't really needed.

It's ever so British, isn't it? Like those people who build their own planes out of cardboard boxes and jump off a pier. We all cheer when they flap and fail into the ocean in a hilarious belly flop. I think it's almost expected that the 'clockwork rabbit' will not survive with Alice and the Mad Hatter intact. I fear the worst.

Maybe I will write down my thoughts about economics - it's such a difficult subject to talk about though: I always feel like I've just walked into a room of clever people with bow-ties and sparkling wine. I fear them looking back at me blankly, or just laughing at my uninformed viewpoint.

Then again, I'm also afraid of geese aren't I? ... and I managed to get close enough to photograph them today.

FURTHER MUG DYNAMICS

"Any idea why they've taken the old mugs away?" asked Micky, peering into the open empty cupboard.

Here we go, I thought. I shrugged my shoulders.

"New logo I guess. Out with the old."

"Hmm. But there's no cups left. And anyway, these new ones are rubbish.*"

I raised both eyebrows. Perhaps another chance to go on about my 29% heat loss theory.

"Yeah, they have a greater surface area," I said, smugly, "And the material is thinner, so even though they hold more water..."

"...they get cold quick," interrupted Micky.

"Exactly," I replied. I'm easily impressed.

There's a lot of physics around the office. What I should really do is use a cooking thermometer with both mugs full of boiling water. I guess this is how science works: you come up with a hypothesis:

"I believe that the new mugs are less efficient than the old mugs."

Then you design a controlled experiment to disprove it.

Stopwatch, thermometer, old mug, new mug, kettle, notepad.

Then you reach a conclusion based on your data and you tell everyone you know that you were right... or wrong.

Actually, it's more exciting if you're wrong because that gives you an opportunity to develop what you think is going on and come up with a new theory.

Micky seemed happier that his empirical evidence was right all along and kept searching the cupboards for a decent mug.

In the spirit of scientific endeavour (and my new-found love of Google Maps) I plotted the route which involved the most amount of shade between home and the office. There's rather a lot of shady spots going the long way round. I rounded buildings, walked under the dappled sunlight and skulked through the shadows. I must have looked a bit strange.

You have to make the most of these lovely summer lunchbreaks.

When I worked in Hungerford, there were all kinds of places to explore of a lunchtime - marshes and funny shops and a swing bridge, a beautiful old church and, rusting away in the middle of a field like something out of someone's nightmares, a couple of gigantic statues of Morecambe and Wise in full Bring Me Sunshine pose.

I got back to the office and flicked on the big fan. I reckon it spins at well over 1,000 revolutions per minute. Think of all that lovely angular momentum, pushing static air towards my desk and oscillating my post-it notes. Oh, and cooling my tea down.

There's a lot of physics around the office.









*He used a different word.

GOOGLE MAPS

Right. Due to popular demand, I've included some pictures with the last post. Maybe it's the way the sunlight filled the rooms or lit up the once-beautiful old-fashioned wallpaper, but the dilapidated house actually looks much more charming today.

I was really bored this afternoon so I started looking things up on Google Maps. I looked up where I went on holiday in 2008 and was sorry to see a single tent in a flooded campsite. Then I looked up the Hollywood Sign and saw nine white boards making shadows on a hillside. That's all that thing is. I looked up the White House, Downing Street, Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Nazca Lines. You know what, if aliens carved those things as landing strips for their spacecraft, they did a really weird job of it - they just look like random lines to me. I'd have at least expected some lettering with the Zunussian equivalent for 'Free Parking' or 'Do not leave your flying saucer unattended' or something.

Street View's fun as well isn't it? I visited the house I lived in in Bath and was interested to see a Ford Focus parked outside our old neighbour, Mondeo Man's house. Then I clicked my way through the city, over Midland Bridge and out along the Lower Bristol Road where I once walked a girl home late at night. Things were so different then.

I watched the seasons change as I clicked. Google does that - it stitches together views from different days so that one moment you're looking at a sunny view down a tree-lined avenue, the next, the trees are brittle and the sky is cold and grey. Cars are frozen, pixelated pedestrians are caught mid-stride with their shopping bags and their cigarettes - then a moment later they've disappeared into a different world.

I remember my old colleague James and I used to play a game called Walsall Roulette. He was from Walsall and I used to try to impersonate his West Midlands accent. He used to say it was 'not even clowse to a West Midluns accent, Stubbsay' and eventually I think I offended him. Anyway, Walsall Roulette was a lot of fun. I'd find Walsall on Google Maps, pick a random street, zoom in on Street View and he'd tell me exactly where it was. One day, I zoomed in on a high street and he was convinced he saw his Mum wandering out of the Pound Shop. We had to stop Walsall Roulette after that.

Eventually I had to stop exploring today as well. It turns out that there was actually some work for me to do which was more important than me faffing about pretending I was somewhere else. You know sometimes I wish I was like those snapshotted pedestrians - one small click away from disappearing into a different world altogether.

HOME HUNTING PART 8: CHARACTER

"What you need," said my Dad the other day, "is a haunted house. You know, the kind of thing that no-one else would want to buy."

I pointed out that property developers just don't care about that kind of thing and would snaffle up a haunted house way above the asking price if necessary, even if it had been headless ghouls and wailing banshees that had shown them round. I also pointed out that I'm not living in an episode of Scooby Doo.

Funny then that today's viewing was a crumbly old house left empty and sad by someone who, no doubt, had passed away while it fell into disrepair. Emmie set this one up for me, so we both turned up to check it out.

It had character. In fact, it had very little else. We fought our way through the front garden and knocked the door.

I am certain that buildings retain things over the years: the walls soak up memories and reflect the past as you walk between them. That's part of the reason why cathedrals are such special places - the centuries of prayer and worship whisper to you as you click across the stone floors.

In this house, I felt so much joy and love and loneliness and sadness, it was almost heartbreaking. The house seemed to be cracking under the weight of it. Old faded wallpaper hung tattered from the walls, the ceilings were pulling apart and the ancient wooden window frames were splintering into pieces. Outside, the garden was hidden in a forest of brambles and trees, climbing up to the windows and twining around the remains of a shed. The evening sunlight danced through the leaves and dappled the cracked paint of the windowsill as I stood overlooking the jungle.

"This would be a bit of a project," said Emmie, smiling. It would be an all-consuming project. There were holes in the roof, deep lightning-shaped cracks in some of the walls and all kinds of hidden problems I felt certain would not be straightforward or inexpensive. Someone with better skills than me could make this a labour of love and spend years modernising, rewiring, plastering, building and creating an awesome house. But it probably isn't going to be me.

What it did teach me though is that I absolutely love a bit of character. I like places that are kind of quirky or have a story, that have been loved or abandoned - doors that have been slammed and floorboards that once hid secrets. I like the different, odd little places, things that aren't quite like anywhere else, that aren't just thin-walled boxes with windows where you expect them and don't have regulation-style gardens. I'd like to feel whatever story the walls want to whisper to me and figure out the funny little noises that make a house unique. Character is quite important. 

Unfortunately, I can't fix a shelf without desecrating a wall with drill holes or shouting at everyone I know, let alone take on a project that would be worthy of slot on Grand Designs.

"How did you get on today?" asked my Dad. I told him.

"Yes, you're probably right," he sighed, "You need a home, not a building project."

Wise man, my Dad. Although I do get the impression he'd still be in favour of me moving out and into a haunted mansion.

ANTS & SPIDERS

There was a spider in our planning meeting today. Junko jumped out of her seat while Chris went to fetch a bit of kitchen roll. It's fair to say that the spider contributed more to the meeting than I did.

Chris came back with the kitchen roll and scooped up the little blighter. Then he scrunched it up and slipped it casually into the bin. That, quite matter of factly, was that.

I don't much care for spiders - they seem a little devious to me, and of course, from childhood we're told that they belong in the murky world of witches, filthy cabins and the dark dark forests: realms where no sensible child should ever stray. Their webs are traps and the hundreds of gleaming eyes give away a silent skulking intellect that lurks in the shadows, ready to pounce when the time is right.

Nonetheless I did feel a bit sorry today for that bulbous little arachnid at its sticky end in the meeting room. One moment it was scuttling across a nicely woven carpet between a plug socket and an Ethernet cable, not really paying attention to the gigantic planning meeting going on above, the next thing it knows, a Japanese translator is recoiling in horror and it's being herded onto a bit of kitchen roll by a performance engineer cum executioner. It's not the nicest way to go.

Later, when I got to my car, I found it covered in flecks of dirt. Only it wasn't dirt, it was ants and they were moving about. For some reason my car had become a sort of shiny fascination in the ant world and all the local ants had come to explore it. There were hundreds of them. I very gingerly opened the door and lowered myself inside. The windscreen was moving. I started the engine, flicked on the windscreen washer and wiped a whole load of them out of existence.

"Sorry ants," I said, "But I've got to go home. Hold on tight if the rest of you want to live."

See I'm no better then. You can't feel sorry for spiders who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and then murder a load of ants. And anyway, why did they choose my car? I did look around the car park to check whether it was some sort of ant apocalypse and everyone else's car was home to an infestation. Nope, just mine. Alrighty then.

Chris was less philosophical about squishing a spider and throwing it into the bin.

"I'm a tester, it's what I do," he said, "I kill bugs."

HOME HUNTING PART 7: PREREQUISITES FOR A MIRACLE

So, after last week's disappointment, it's back to the hunt.

I think it must be Estate Agent Bingo Day today. All of a sudden, and without any particular warning, Rightmove emailed every estate agent they could think of (on my behalf) about every property in my search filter. As a result, I've had quite a few calls today, letting me know about houses which have already been bought by somebody else. In fact, the first email I got back was unexpectedly predictable:


Hi Matthew

This one sold first day over the asking price

Just wanted to let you know

Best regards


Look at that! I thought. No punctuation at all! That is someone who writes quickly and is keen to dismiss people like me without stopping even for a full stop or a comma. Nice. It wasn't even me; it was Rightmove!*

We are getting closer to miracle territory now. The house price curve is steeper than my financial curve, which means at the point of singularity, the two will inevitably cross over and house prices will forever spiral out of reach.

It's exactly what I need for a miracle. In fact, the prerequisite condition for the miraculous is that you have to live inside the impossible, in a place where the thing you want just can't happen - and I am getting closer to the impossible every day.

The second prerequisite for a miracle is hopelessness. That's where these shiny-shoed clipboard warriors come in with their punctuation-free emails. They serve up hope like a waiter with no hands.

"Yeah, sorry Mr Stubbs, that property was sold some time ago."

"OK," say I, deliberately cheerily. They seem surprised on the end of the phone.

"Please let me know though won't you, when something comes in."

The more hopelessness they deliver me, the closer I get to the miracle.

Thirdly, you need a bit of good old-fashioned faith - a little confidence that you're doing the right thing in the right direction.

I gots me some of that, and weirdly, the more depressing things get, the stronger it grows. It's bigger than my emotions (which are weird) and it's louder than my circumstances (which are noisy).

I am going to do this.



* I should add that I did say thank you. I sent a reply saying, "Thanks. They all do, these days, don't they?"

TAPESTRIES & SHELL SUITS

Who was it that said that life was like a tapestry? Sometimes I feel like I can see the coloured threads interweaving and dancing through the cloth. There are memories sewn into the fabric of history, of my history, long and noble. Some are fading now, warped by time and forgetfulness, while others will be as bold and bright as the day they were woven.

I went to Glenda's party today. There were people there I haven't seen in a long time, people who reminded me of what it was like to be a teenager in the 1990s, people who've grown up, grown on and grown old.

"I didn't recognise you, Matt, with the gr... with the hair and the um... glasses and everything..." said someone, very carefully. I smiled as pleasantly as I could. Another lady too, seemed to think I should have been at University in the early 1980s... It would have been a prodigious achievement for a toddler.

"Aw... shell suits... global hypercolor t-shirts... remember them?" said someone else, caught in a nostalgia tractor-beam.

"I can't imagine Matt in a shell suit," said Gareth, smiling. I quickly pointed out that I never had one. I was busy wearing zany waistcoats, baseball caps and bermuda shorts at the time.

It occurred to me on the way home that our memories, the things we treasure from the tapestry, are so dependent on decisions from the past, that their very existence is extremely fragile. I mean that none of this would be happening at all if my Grandpa hadn't gone bankrupt in the 1950s and moved his family from Bristol to Reading so that he could sell Cuprinol up and down the A4. The sequence of events in his own tapestry was fragile enough to lead to that outcome, but having got there, his micro-decisions resulted in a world where I was at a 70th birthday party on a Saturday afternoon, reminiscing about shell suits.

And not just his decisions - all of our decisions. My Dad, moved from Chesire to Reading in the 1960s, following a job with a chemical company and finding my Mum in the process. I wouldn't even exist if he'd decided differently about that job - if he'd chosen a different coloured thread for the tapestry, you wouldn't be reading this. There'd be nothing to say and no-one to say it. My Mum too, didn't have to go for coffee with him, might not have suddenly thought he looked a bit like Cliff Richard and might never have liked him at all.

I gripped the steering wheel a little tighter as I drove into the low sunlight on St Michaels Road. I know the lesson - it's to make the most of the decisions we have now, to hold everything lightly and treat life with the precious and noble respect it deserves. I want to make really good decisions, I want my tapestry to be something my future children are proud of as they see it intertwining mysteriously and beautifully with their own.

More than that though, I don't want to be afraid any more, of picking the wrong colour thread or holding back from weaving a scene that I know I want to happen. I want to be the kind of person who dances with the thread and the needle and loves every loop and enjoys every stitch. I want to be the kind of person who looks ahead at the blankness of the cloth with excitement, and behind at the delicate moments of the past with thankfulness and hope.

I want to live a great tapestry, whatever it looks like.

A SLEEPLESS APOLOGY

Alright, I was grumpy yesterday. It always makes me go on about punctuation or rant about something or other, and anyway the heat had kept me awake for most of the night.

I had indigestion too. At about 2am I thought I was dying from some horrible disease crushing me from the inside. It was like trying to go to sleep in a vice made out of stuffy blankets.

It wasn't terminal though, of course. It was Spaghetti Bolognese and Belgian Chocolate Doughnuts swirling around. A wander through the garden in my dressing gown and a cool glass of milk and I was straightened out and yawning.

It was still hot though. The pillows felt like shredded wheat scraping the side of my face. Meanwhile the duvet got twisted up and ridiculous and my arms were apparently everywhere. Then a beetle flew in front of my face and made me jump up and switch the lamp on. You should have seen it - it was gigantic, you could see its little mandibles twitching and its shiny black wings buzzing on its back.

At some ridiculous time, just after I'd tried working out how many seconds I've been alive for, a cat squealed outside and the security lamp blinked on. I heard the beetle buzzing with excitement somewhere in the room.

Normally, the undersides of the pillows are beautifully cool. You can slip a hand in under your cradled head, or flip it upside down to experience that universal refreshment of a cold pillow.

Not in a heatwave though. In a heatwave, everything's hot and flipping the pillows upside down is annoyingly uncomfortable and utterly pointless. At one point I just punched it until it squished into a fist-shaped crater.

What's more, the sun actually had the barefaced audacity to start popping up over the horizon. Sunrise was unfeasibly early and as the curtains grew lighter and the birds started tweeting, I pulled a shredded wheat over my head and groaned.

Moments later, I opened my eyes and it was twenty past eight and I had about ten minutes to get to work.

It's no wonder I got stroppy about punctuation. Sorry about that. While I believe that one exclamation mark is more powerful than two, and that three or more should be reserved only for some sort of universal apocalypse, I also believe that if you want to make a point about something exciting or important, then you should be able to do it however you choose, and definitely without some bleary-eyed insomniac trying to correct you after a sleepless night.

EXCLAMATION AND INEBRIATION

"With this glorious hot weather this week, make sure you are keeping yourself well hydrated (with water!!)" said the email.

Underneath was a picture of a lady smiling as she unscrewed a bottle of something. This picture, in fact.

"It's funny how 8 glasses of water a day seems impossible," said the caption, "But 8 glasses of wine can be done in one meal."

I can't help thinking that the Health and Wellbeing team are undermining their own message there with that cheeky little insertion.

That's it though isn't it? Culture tells you that something is more acceptable if you prefix it with the word 'cheeky'.

In the same way, this is the job of the second exclamation mark (aptly demonstrated by the two that follow the word 'water' inside an equally suspicious set of brackets).

One exclamation mark is a serious warning or a single punctuated ha! maybe at your own witticism or from a sense of urgency. In my opinion, you should never need more than this. It does its job perfectly well on its own.

Two makes the impact of the exclamation mark less serious, which is weird isn't it because you'd think the opposite should be true, but somehow these things divide instead of multiply. In fact, in this case, two exclamation marks may as well be a winky-face suggesting that actually there's nothing wrong with a little wine to aid your re-hydration. I'm not sure science agrees.

Three exclamation marks is the mark of someone about to fall off their chair with either excitement or danger or whatever else there is to get them thumping the keyboard. Unless you've won the lottery or detected an incoming asteroid, I'd recommend avoiding the triplet of exclamation marks. In any case, if it's the former, that's great, good for you (other people will never be as excited about this as you are) and if it's the latter, for the love of all you cling to, don't waste your last precious seconds holding down the shift key.

Any more than three exclamation marks and you ought to have your keyboard confiscated. I can only assume that the 1 key has got stuck somehow and the delete key has been snapped off.

Meanwhile, inspired by the cheeky frankness of the Health and Wellbeing team, one of the marketing guys appended his own monthly update with a humorous list of 40 reasons why alcohol is good for you. It reads like a list of excuses for a 'cheeky' tipple.

1. Because you had a good day.
2. Because you had a bad day.
3. Because, let’s be honest, your day was kind of “meh” and could use something to spice it up.
...
26. Because without wine, your cheese gets lonely.

... and so on.

Well, a little research tells me that more than 9 million people in England drink more than the recommended daily limits.

Alcohol misuse costs the NHS £21bn per year in healthcare, crime and lost productivity costs.

And, tellingly, more than 1.4 million people are dependent on alcohol in the UK. 1.4 million!

I hope none of them work for our company - these emails won't have done them any favours.

ALRIGHT, STEVIE WONDER?

I went home for lunch today, instead of wandering around the lake.

Emerging from an air-conditioned office on the hottest day of the year is like walking into a wall of heat. It was overcast but still somehow sweltering. I decided there and then that I would drive back, to save myself being cooked on the fifteen minute walk to the office.

Good idea... at least until I realised that I'd left my normal glasses at home and I'd have to sit at my desk in my sunglasses.

"Alright, Stevie Wonder?" said Louise when I sat down and logged in.

-

Apparently, one of the top ten ways to cool down on a hot day is to have a curry. Sweat is the body's natural cooling system and a little of the hot stuff accelerates the process... apparently; I read an article this morning. Personally I can't think of anything worse on a day like this.

You can't believe everything you read though: the article also promoted a product, yes, an actual product called 'Liquid Ice'... liquid ice! Or water, as it's more commonly known.

I found the website and was disappointed to find no scientific explanation of 'liquid ice', though apparently it was used in the Beijing Olympics and you can get it in a spray bottle. That's a relief.

Next they'll be selling solid water in cubes.

I can't see a thing - the prescription is slightly different and everything is way too dark. I think I'm going to have to go home and find my normal spectacles. See, this is what I mean by the heat turning us into unthinking, lazy lumps who can't concentrate in the middle of a heatwave! I'm not sure I'm a massive fan of the heat - and I do mean that, from the bottom of my heart.