HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO BOIL AN EGG?

Ah, the rain: spattering outside the open window while I drink tea from my massive bank-holiday teacup. It's glorious.

We're off on a walk in a minute - wellies and rain macs at the ready, we'll be rambling round the lake, followed by a warm fire and some tasty food at the Fox & Hounds. Best of all of course for the Intrepids and I, we're not stuck in traffic, there's no tricky DIY to be done and no-one has suggested taking anything at all to The Tip. Shudder.

In fact, the most contentious thing that's happened so far today is a question about boiled eggs. I was astounded when someone said it takes four minutes to soft-boil an egg.

"What's happened to physics?" I said, incredulously, "...that it takes a whole minute longer to boil an egg these days?"

"What do you mean? It's always been four minutes!" said my Dad.

"No it hasn't! Three minutes. Egg-timers, they're three minutes; they're always three minutes, aren't they?"

"Well what about the one in the shower?" asked my Mum.

"Four minutes," exclaimed my Dad, calmly, from behind his Sudoku book. He's right.

"Has air pressure suddenly increased? Have eggs got bigger?" I was bewildered. And rightly so, if physics is going to start changing without telling anybody.

In the end, we figured out what you've probably already realised - that it does take longer on an electric hob (I learned how to boil eggs on a gas stove) - and if truth be told, I always leave my eggs to cool off before cracking the shells open, which probably means they're cooking for an extra minute or so anyway. They're remarkably well-insulated, eggs - they stay hot for ages! In fact I once had the idea that you could use them as mini hot-water bottles.*

Anyway, if a conversation about how long it takes to boil an egg is the most difficult thing about today, it'll probably turn out to be a pretty good one.



*I wouldn't recommend it.

  

BRIGHTER AND LOUDER

Someone down at the festival site has turned up the volume for the last night. It's miles away but for some reason, the stillness of the air, the frequency of the thudding bass drum, whatever, we're being treated with the muffled thrill of a very loud band in the throes of closing out Reading Festival.

I looked it up on Google maps. There are thousands of houses in between that muddy field and here. It must be deafening by the river - I mean here it sounds like a loud car stereo about one street away, goodness knows what it's like lower in the valley.

I'm feeling a bit brighter today. In fact, I was well enough to go and see Winners and Teebs for a cup of tea and a pizza. Winners asked me what leadership is and we had a big long chat about whether or not to get hung up over what a leader is or what type of leader we think we want to be. Then we watched a film about time-travelling turkeys which began with a disclaimer stating that the events depicted were 'entirely fictional'. That made me laugh.

I'm sure I've heard one of these tunes before. Someone cooler than me would be able to identify the band. Then again, most people who are cooler are probably there already, bopping along with everyone else.

Maybe I'll ask my Dad.

SIXTY PERCENT

Ugh. I don't want you to think I'm moaning today, but I'm not sure I'm very well. Sorry, Americans, that probably sounded weird to you guys - that's an understated, backwards and needlessly complex British way of saying I'm sick. Or at least I think I'm sick.

I feel like I've lost all my energy and I keep flipping between being baking hot and freezing cold or sometimes both, like an arctic roll.

I went to Starbucks today to do a bit of quiz revision, and also to give the Times crossword a go. For some reason, I failed miserably and only got two clues in about two hours. Then I watched another old episode of Fifteen to One (a quiz show), in the hope that I might learn some things. It was really old - one question was about the price of a second class stamp, which turned out to be 19p. Another question asked the contestant to name either of the two female members of the cabinet.

Weirdly, I consistently score around 60% on Fifteen to One. I don't know whether it's just a really good quiz with a huge spread of topics or whether I just know 60% of all things.* 60% seems like enough to get by, but it's not really all that useful - it's sort of stuck between average and good, isn't it? - the second class degree or the two-thirds full glass.

I went home and collapsed, listening to the radio. I feel like I'm empty, functioning at way less than my normal operating capacity. It's weird - I'm not ill ill; I'm not curled up under the duvet shivering or dashing off to the bathroom like I did that time Gary Lineker was fixing our shower - nope, I'm just feeling a bit feeble, as though everything is running at... well, I suppose at around 60%.



*seems unlikely doesn't it?

CLEARING MY DESK

So, a three day Bank Holiday weekend looms. While my Dad is living it up at Reading Festival, I guess I'll be thinking about a strategy for moving and packing some stuff up.

I decided to do something similar at work, so I've set to having a tidy up.

It's a pretty good job for a Friday afternoon - especially when the rest of the office seems rather pub-addled.

"What are you doing, Matt?" asked someone.

"I'm clearing my desk."

"What?" They were shocked. I decided not to be offended.

"Well I'm.. clearing my desk."

"Who asked you to do that?"

Weird question.

"Oh, well, um, nobody. I just thought it would be a good idea - you know, a change is as good as a rest and all that."

It occurred to me afterwards that I might have accidentally just started the rumour that I'm leaving. I'm not leaving - just having a tidy up. It really isn't that momentous. Put the bunting away.

This is where euphemisms really let you down, isn't it? I bet at least someone somewhere, has hopped around the garden in agony having accidentally stubbed their toe on a rusty bucket. It would be no small surprise to hear an exaggerated report of your own death in such circumstances.

Then there's the confusion over baking. How many ladies have got intro trouble by baking a single bun? And how many people have been guided across the lawn by someone, admiring the flowerbeds, only to realise that they've been led quite literally up the garden path.

Shakespeare's to blame for some of these cliched euphemisms. Thanks to him, it's now impossible to describe what you're doing while out hunting for geese, without someone else thinking it a massive waste of time. Inuits, emerging from their igloos at the first rays of Spring might struggle for conversation and need a small game to regain that sense of community they lost to the harsh arctic winter - or they might need to get out there and start smashing up some icebergs. Thanks very much, Shakespeare.

Anyway, I can't blame the Bard for the confusion over clearing my desk. I don't think he invented that one. While for the rest of the office, 'parting' may well be 'such sweet sorrow', I'm not planning on a 'sea change' just yet, and neither have I been 'sent packing'.

I'll stop now.

Talking about euphemisms I mean. Not working.

READING FESTIVAL

So, the news is: my Dad's going to Reading Festival.

I can't quite get to the reason why, but it definitely seems to be really happening and not some bizarre practical joke the Intrepids are playing on me. I mean it could be that, but I don't think so: I overheard my Mum telling him not to stand too close to any of the 'loud bits'.

In recent times, Reading Festival has become a kind of post-GCSE rite of passage. You pick up your cavalcade of As and A*s and then you buy a pair of fancy wellies, throw on an oversized rucksack and bounce around in a field to the distorted riffs of every other indie band - at least that's the way it seems to an old codger like me.

When I was a kid, the festival was rough - the town centre would be full of gigantic punks with piercings and exploding hair. For the last few years, it's seemed a lot more saccharine, and dare I say it, a good deal more middle-class. I overheard one young person in the town centre complaining about not being able to find quails eggs in Sainsbury's.

Plus nowadays, I understand, it's become a bit of a tradition to just leave your tent behind. My Aunty, who runs a girl guiding unit, has some sort of special permission (along with a load of other people) to collect up brand new tents every year - they're just abandoned on site without so much as a guy rope unfurled or a shiny peg bashed into the browning grass.

I'll tell you what I did when I got my GCSE results: I went ten-pin bowling with my Scrabble crew. I had a Coke and a burger and then I walked home. What a square. It was better than blowing two hundred quid on an unenjoyable weekend in the mud though.

Actually, the more I think about it, I realise that my Dad would be a very useful person to have around at Reading Festival. He does seem to have an unnatural ability to talk to strangers, and young people appear to warm to his penchant for distributing facts and chatting at length about the weather. I'm sure he'll have a great (if slightly weird) time (should this turn out to be not a superbly executed and massive prank).

I doubt he'll come back with a Metallica t-shirt though.

HOME HUNTING PART 12: RETURN TO THE FORBIDDEN PLANET

So then, for only the second time, I found a place I liked and made an offer on it. For reasons I can't explain, this one just felt like home from outside and in. Someone said to me the other day that there's a lot of value in trusting your instincts and so once again I've followed my instincts like a computerised star chart and landed on Planet GoGetter, hoping that I've made the right decision.

"I've got some good news for you," said Ben the estate agent on the phone. "Your offer has been accepted."

The spaceship engines slow to a dull hum and the dust cloud clears around the exhaust port. Outside the round perspex window, the twinkling stars come into view, glimmering above a strange horizon. We're not on Ketchup-topia any more, I think about saying to myself. I change my mind because it's weird and I don't have a small dog with me to complement my inner monologue.

It is a good point though - I'm back on a planet I don't feel like I belong to* - where you go after whatever the dickens you want and by George, you get it. Only last time I was here, I didn't exactly get it. I got gazumped.

That can't happen again, surely?

"Awesome," texted Emmie, "How do you feel?"

What a great question. I feel like anything is possible, like a little bit of risk brings a little bit of hope and like I might be leaping into the unknown. It makes me wonder what else I could achieve if I decided I wanted to do it. It's the rarefied air of optimism, filling my lungs with a sense of adventure as I carefully step outside of my tomato-coloured rocket.

It's one small step for a Matt... I think about saying to myself. I change my mind because it's still my inner monologue being weird. And anyway, there's quite a lot to explore from here.




*I made the point a while ago that Ketchup People wait for good things to come to them, like tomato ketchup steadily sliding out of a glass bottle. GoGetters meanwhile, are dynamic risk-takers who just pursue ambitions and goals, never expecting the world to give them anything, and so, with crazy-eyed entrepreneurial spirit, they grab every opportunity by the horns. What I failed to realise though is that some bright spark somewhere must also have designed those squeezy ketchup bottles, and I'd wager my last few pennies that that person was a first-class GoGetter.

FIRE ALARM

The room was suddenly filled with the sound of a wailing siren. I looked up from the laptop. It always takes four or five seconds for everyone to work out that it's not Tuesday 11am and it's not the weekly fire alarm test.

"That's real," said Chris as we all pushed our chairs back and filed towards the door. I glanced out of the window to check whether it was still raining. The lake was being bulleted with rainwater and the sky was grey and angry. Brilliant.

We marched towards the stairwell, along with everyone else, silently following the ritual while the bells rang in our ears.

We've been doing this a while. All the way from Primary School, we're told the rules: don't run, don't panic, don't stop to pick up your things, just carefully and calmly follow everyone else to the fire exit.

It really was raining. I thrust my hands into my pockets as the whole company gathered under the roof of the car park. Someone made the customary joke about whether or not we should all line up in alphabetical order, and everyone else made the custom response of laughing a little more than was necessary.

There's very little to do on a fire drill. We all watched of course, waiting for the flames to lick around the eaves of the building, or for a glass window to shatter in a cloud of thick black smoke.

None of that happened. A security guard drove into the car park, rushed into the building and tried to disable the alarm. Then, moments later, an electrician arrived with a toolbox. The rain pounded on.

It's good thinking time. I shuffled on my heels, trying to remember as many capital cities as I could and then asked Junko whether Japanese people go to the beach. She told me that they don't so I told her about my childhood eating sandwiches in the rain.

Then, weirdly, I got to thinking about Roger Federer. I was just thinking about how great tennis players make life look so easy, and how there must be a level all of us can get to where everything just flows with confidence and smoothness - in whatever we do.

The security guard emerged from the revolving door and waved at the fire marshalls, who were taking the opportunity to have a quick smoke. I suddenly found that really funny and started chuckling to myself - someone looked at me as though I'd gone a bit mad, so I pulled myself together. It was one of those things where explaining it would actually make it less funny.

It wasn't long before we were all making our way back inside. It had been an 'electrical fault' apparently.

I rather like the fact that fire drills have been part of life for so long. In a strange way, those funny few minutes outside break up the dreariness of the day - like a meeting where everyone has to turn up.

It is one of the few things that all of us do together - what's more, we're all equals out there under the concrete roof of the car park. The CEO is just as important as the cleaner when it comes to the intrinsic value of our lives. There's no politics, no-one can click 'tentative' and then go and play table football instead - no-one can even use their workload as a massive excuse. It's run... I mean calmly walk to the nearest fire escape... for your lives, which, need anyone remind you, are way more important than anything in your inbox.

Quite right.

SPORTS PEOPLE, SHINY MACHINES AND A HEDGEHOG

I was listening to the radio on the way home from choir tonight. The sports people were talking about Formula 1, a sport which seems to send people either into raptures, or more commonly, to sleep.

"It is a massive distraction, yes. And that's why Bernie Ecclestone loves Lewis Hamilton so much because he's able to jetset around the world and do so much for the sport. Nico just can't do that at the moment and it's a real problem," said someone, seriously.

Would you like to know what's a 'massive distraction' and a 'real problem' for Nico Rosberg? Well, if you follow Formula 1, you probably already know what the sports people were referring to, but I was flabbergasted as I flung my car round the Theale roundabout. In fact, I was a little bit outraged at the nature of this great 'distraction' that had so bothered Bernie Ecclestone, a load of rich people in suits and some late-night radio presenters.

It turns out that Nico Rosberg's wife is expecting a baby.

Yep, that is the 'problem' - they don't think he can concentrate on his all-important driving while his wife is about to give birth.

Is it just me, or is that ridiculous? And maybe slightly offensive? A problem? Really? A distraction? Are you kidding?

"Apparently, he has his jet standing by," laughed one of the sports people as though it was one of the most absurd things a very wealthy person had done. They went on to speculate what would happen if she went into labour as he went into qualifying at the Belgian Grand Prix this weekend. Apparently Nico had just said, "Well, she won't" when a reporter had asked him earlier.

Well she might not, but I tell you what, if it were me, I'd be leaving that car in the middle of a lap, throwing off my crash helmet and phoning my pilot to tell him to start the engines. There is nothing I can think of that would get in the way of that moment, and it is totally bonkers to think that this thing called 'sport' could obscure something so massive. Surely everyone knows it? How obscene to refer to that moment as a 'distraction' when in reality it should be the other way around!

For sports people though, it appears the motivation is a bit different. The radio presenters seemed to think he was barmy. I've never fully understood sport - no-one ever stops and says, "Hang on a minute lads, why are we doing this, again?"

I drove down the High Street, thinking about it. I was never going to lead out the England cricket team at Lord's or knock in an FA Cup Final winner.  I can see that achievement matters and I can see that the adrenaline of a moment can be overwhelming, maybe even all-consuming for some of these sports people. But it's not bigger than your life, is it? It's not bigger than the things that really matter, the moments that remind you what it means to be human, what it means to be loved and to love - to hold the hand of a person that you helped to create, minutes old and in need of you as much as they need oxygen. I might not understand sport but I'm not going to join in with anyone who devalues those moments in favour of a spin around a concrete roundabout in a shiny machine.

I twisted the radio off and drove into our road, slaloming between the parked cars on either side. I was muttering to myself about how unbelievable it all was and I very nearly squashed a hedgehog. He scurried off under a fence.

Maybe, I, unlike Nico, should concentrate a bit more on the driving.

TRYING NOT TO BE ANTISOCIAL

My head hurts. Actually it's kind of spinning, as though I've just climbed off the dodgems and realised that things like dodgems were designed for people younger than me.

I haven't been on the dodgems. I've been hanging out with Emmie and my friend, Anita, who's visiting for the day. I'll be honest, I've eaten a lot of cheesecake, and the sugar rush has probably overwhelmed my brain and simulated some wacky fairground ride. These guys seem alright though - we're currently sitting in The Cunning Man, playing Scrabble and trying not to fall asleep.

I've got my headphones on. They're really good these headphones, comfy and tight - the rest of the world is a sort of muffled blur of conversations and the occasional chinking of cutlery. The table next to us are enjoying some beautiful looking food - onion rings and battered fish, white wine in pristine glasses and little ramekins of delicious smelling sauces. I really hope they don't order the cheesecake.

I'm wondering whether this is a bit antisocial. Emmie and Anita are having a really deep conversation I think - it certainly looks like the kind of conversation I don't want to interrupt by taking these headphones off. I think they're OK with me sitting here, laptop on my knees, pretending to work. I might wait for something that looks like a space and then slip the headphones around my neck like a part-time DJ.

Why does sugar do this? My head feels like a pressure cooker, or as though it's being squeezed either side in a gigantic vice that's getting tighter and tighter...

Actually it might be these headphones.

PLINKY PLONKY PIANO PLAYING

Before my Grandma died, she requested two things for me to do at her funeral. First, she wanted me to play all the hymns during the service, and second, she wanted to go out to Scott Joplin's The Entertainer.

I only started playing the piano because of my Grandma. She had an upright piano in her living room and she herself would sit and play - especially when we were children. She had a style that was all her own: a sort of left-right, old-fashioned music-hall way of playing that she called Plinky Plonky. It was a very charming style - and she used it to great effect every time she was waiting for us all to get our coats on. She'd been ready for some time of course and while my Mum buttoned up our duffle coats, the happy sound of Why Are We Waiting* would come drifting melodiously out of the front room.

As time went by and I grew older, I started playing that old piano a bit myself - first with one-finger melodies and soon developing into chords, inversions and rhythmic patterns that were all my own. After a while, my Grandma would sit in her comfortable armchair and listen to me play, rather than playing herself. I later learned that listening to her grandson play was one of her greater joys towards the end.

So it was that she asked me to play her out. And I did. As the pallbearers shifted the coffin onto their shoulders and the congregation shuffled their handkerchiefs into their handbags and pockets, I sat at the piano and I played The Entertainer as well as I could muster. I think some people thought I was being massively disrespectful, but I didn't actually care at the time.

I was thinking about that today because this morning I played at another funeral - a very different occasion. Playing at funerals is tough - not just because of the solemnity of the moment, but also because you have to hold it together while facing everyone's grief. It's the opposite of playing at a wedding - there is no nervous groom bursting with love at the smiling bride who approaches him  - the privileged view from that occasion is replaced by serious men carrying a coffin. I felt my insides crumbling with sadness and hope, if such a thing were possible.

My biggest fear today was forgetting the words of the songs. It's somehow so easy to forget everything you know when lots of people are looking at you - at church it doesn't matter so much, but somehow when the occasion is more serious, you really feel like you have to get it right.

Thankfully, I covered up my mistakes expertly today and it went really well. The family were grateful anyway. While Paul read out the tributes and the handwritten eulogies, I shifted my focus from the row of black and white keys in front of me to the crowd of tear-stained faces that smiled affectionately to the tune of a thousand memories. Grief is so important, isn't it? It's such an opportunity to say thank you and goodbye and to remember that life is so precious, so wonderful, so treasurable and beautiful that we ought to cherish every single moment of it.

I do miss my Grandma, but I couldn't be more grateful for her plinky plonky piano playing and those moments of purest wonder that I never realised were so special.

I looked back from the mourners to the keys, rested my fingers in a D major second inversion ready for the closing hymn, and smiled gently to myself.

*If you're wondering, it's the same tune as O Come All Ye Faithful.

THE BEARD-GROWERS' BALL

You know that thing when you think of something silly and far-fetched, and you never imagine that anyone would actually do it... and then randomly, one day, it just happens anyway in America somewhere, and you read about it on the Internet?

Well a few years ago I wrote a poem about bearded men getting together for a knees up to celebrate their wacky beards and moustaches... and guess what... it's happening. In Hollywood. The 3rd annual  Beard and Moustache Competition.

'Hairy contestants descended on Hollywood this weekend to take part in the 3rd annual Beard and Moustache Competition. There were 12 categories for the event, hosted by the Los Angeles Facial Hair Society, including 'Business Beard' and the 'Whiskerinas' for female participants.' 

- Yahoo News, UK and Ireland.

While I let you process that lovely image, I'll dig out my old poem so you can see what I'm talking about; it's kind of Edward Lear style nonsense. Of course, had there been complete synchronicity, those bearded wonders would have waited until November to hold their peculiar festival, but you can't be right all the time.


THE BEARD-GROWERS' BALL

In a small town of northern importance
Where the world is incredibly fair
There's an annual treat for the sportants
Of impossible chin-growing hair

On the night of the Fourth of November
When the air is as crisp as a sheet
They gather to ever remember
The beards which cover their feet

Come one, come all!
To the beard-growers' ball
Where the follicles shimmer and spin
Where the air is a-blur
With the presence of fur
And the last thing in sight is a chin

They gather in forested shire
The goatees, the van-dykes and all
With music they dance round the fire
At the annual beard-growers' ball

When the flute and the fiddle are playing
And the moon has roundly appeared
Remember the ancient ones saying,
'O don't trip over your beard,
Your beard
O don't trip over your beard.'

Come one, come all!
To the beard-growers' ball
Where the follicles shimmer and spin
Where the air is a-blur
With the presence of fur
And the last thing in sight is a chin

And the bearded ones sing till the dawning
Of the sun's great return to the sky
Then they shake hairy hands in the morning
'Till next year!' they plaintively cry

Till they dance with a wanton abandon
And they sing through their beards, one and all
Whilst combing their faces at random
At the annual beard-growers' ball

Come one, come all!
To the beard-growers' ball
Where the follicles shimmer and spin
Where the air is a-blur
With the presence of fur
And the last thing in sight is a chin

HOME HUNTING PART 11: TOO LOW

"I'm afraid that offer is just too low," said George at the end of the phone line. I paced up and down the empty training room. I've never heard of anything that gets more expensive by £20,000 in just six weeks - but that is exactly what's happened - and it continues to happen, unblinkingly quickly, all over the nation as house prices soar. The merry-go-round is spinning faster and faster - in fact, my time for jumping on might already be over.

I wonder how to feel about all this. What does it mean? Where am I going? What does this miracle actually look like? Part of me just feels like admitting defeat, blowing all my savings on some sort of round-the-world adventure and coming back penniless, exhilarated and full of jungle-stories.

But I'm not quite that reckless. And besides, there's another part of me that would dearly love to sink my toes into my own grass or close the door on the world and curl up on a thick carpet.

"Alright George, well, listen, if they can't sell it at that price, my offer is still on the table, just so you know."

George, the estate agent, had a note of something undetectable in his voice - it might have been sympathy. Then again, it might have been derision, it's hard to tell on the phone.

"OK, thanks Matt," he said.

OFF-CENTRE

If I was disloyal to good old St Arbuck last week by enjoying a cuppa down at Waitrose, he'd be furious with me today. Oh he'd be red-faced, the old monk of Seattle, throwing his plastic coffee beans around and glaring at his green-aproned minions while they gently pick up the pieces of broken chalkboard and snapped-off wooden stirring sticks.

I'm in Costa, where they've discovered tea spoons and have invented the off-centre saucer. Now tell me if this doesn't make you feel queasy: the cups in Costa sit over on one side of the saucer - presumably so that you can dump your tea bag or balance a spoon or something on the other. It's outrageous! And by that I mean different, asymmetrically unaesthetic and quite brilliant, of course.

Costa also seems to be the place to bring your babies out for a coffee. There are loads here today, slipping out of wooden high chairs, squealing and thumping trays. The air is thick with biscuit crumbs, wailing screams and the hushed tones of steadily boiling parents with stern, exhausted faces.

On the plus side, Costa have a rack of newspapers available for their customers' perusal. I got there to find all the real papers had gone and there was only one copy of one of the joke papers left - you know, one of those parody ones you're not supposed to take seriously.

So I picked up the last copy of the Daily Express and flicked through, looking for the crossword.

Lots of fun stories today - apparently, Jeremy Clarkson is hard to work with, an old lady put a thousand pounds of credit on her mobile phone and a police van in Haverfordwest got a parking ticket - presumably we're supposed to chuckle, point out the irony and remind ourselves that we're supposed to delve headfirst into schadenfreude at the police's misfortune. It's not really a story that, is it?

Anyway, I found the crossword on page 43 and quickly realised that I wouldn't be able to do it. I'm just not on the right wavelength today, and I've only got one clue:

Father holding Eastern object in cul-de-sac (4,3)

I think I'll stop there with the crossword. Seems to be a bit of a dead-end this week.

NOTES FROM A LONG MEETING

Imagine a meeting where 20% of the content is vital to you, but you don't know at what point those things will come up - only that they will almost certainly not be discussed together. Now imagine that that meeting lasts ALL DAY...

OK big sigh. Try not to look like you're disinterested. 

The developers are talking tech-babble again. It's like the dullest episode of Star Trek, where they all sit round and talk about proton convection conduits and thermochronic invection circuits while stars fly past the window.

Only there are no stars out there - just raindrops. And in here, there's nothing as exciting as a barometric impulsion drive - just a lot of work that goes under the hood to make databases work and Java code update without breaking things.

We're on point 3 out of 70. Nothing relevant yet. I'd better look like I'm understanding some of this instead of tapping away on my phone in the corner.

-

I once had an interview where I was asked which member of the crew of the Starship Enterprise I would be. I said I'd be Spock because I'd keep a cool, logical head in a crisis. Wishful thinking. Here in this environment I'm ensign redshirt, dragged along for the meeting and beamed down on to the cardboard planet where I'll be vaporised by a Dilurian Slugmoth while the A-team just make it back to the ship before the planet blows up.

-

Point 5. Still nothing. I might go for a comfort break while the rest of the crew carry on with their phaser configuration charts and tetratonic portal discussions.

I guess you can't sit around for long in a meeting like this before you have to boldly go...

CHOCOLATES FROM THE EIGHTIES

It's raining today, so I'm not going anywhere for lunch. Looks like I'm going to have to wait for the coffee van to turn up.

Thinking about the Milk Tray Man yesterday got me thinking about other television adverts from the 1980s - it seems like quite the golden age to me; although I do confess that I watched a lot more TV back then, when there was much less of it.

There was the lady who ate chocolate in the bath. I think we were being told that Flakes were smooth, elegant and luxuriously relaxing. She'd slip out of her silk nightdress (it was all tastefully done), lower herself into one of those cast iron baths in the middle of a darkened room, and then the next thing you knew she was snapping a Flake perfectly between her teeth.

How in the world did she do that? Flakes are almost designed to disintegrate into tiny shards of chocolate as soon as you open the packet! The bath seems like the last place you'd want to try eating one of those things!

And what about the Milky Bar Kid? I never understood how sending an albino child in a cowboy hat, into a gunfight, would improve the situation. He was an unlikely hero for sure, with his little round glasses and a holster full of chocolates. And while I can't find any evidence for it, I'm almost certain that the Milky Bar adverts were somehow 'endorsed by dentists'. I bet they weren't.

Then there are the classics. You don't have to go far before you find someone my age who knows all the words to 'The Red Car and The Blue Car Had a Race' or goes misty-eyed whenever they think of Um Bongo (they drink it in the Congo).

It's a wonder people in their thirties have any of their teeth left.

The rain is coursing down the glass and splashing off the outside window ledge. I'm glad I'm not out there. Sir Ranulph Fiennes once said, 'There's no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing,' which is one way of reminding us who's in charge.

Unfortunately, I came to work without an umbrella this morning so I'm beseiged by the downpour thanks to my inappropriate preparation.

Oh and I haven't had any lunch and I'm day dreaming about chocolates from the 1980s.

MILK TRAY MAN

So, just booked the train tickets for the dreaded training course in London. There's no wriggling out of it now. Would you believe that it costs almost £90 to get in and out of the capital twice?

Yes, of course you would; you're probably much more aware of the world than I am. And I don't get out much. For that kind of cash I'd expected I could hire a helicopter and parachute into the training venue like the Milk Tray Man.

Actually that'd be brilliant: I could swipe in through the window, scoop up a sticky label and a permanent marker, rip off my balaclava and simply say, 'The name's Stubbs, Matt Stubbs,' while the helicopter rotor blades fade out behind me. It'd be an ice breaker, wouldn't it?

You do remember the Milk Tray Man, don't you? He used to be a sort of secret agent, dressed head-to-toe in black - dark and mysterious and unseen. He'd abseil into a lady's bedroom after jetski-ing across a moonlit lake or something and then he'd leave her a box of Milk Tray chocolates with a note... actually now that I think about it, that's a really weird thing to do - like some kind of unaccountably wealthy yet vastly ineffecient crazed stalker, who has yet to work out that he could just use the doorbell.

Anyway, the train will have to do.

ADVANCED MUG DYNAMICS

The logo is peeling off the new mugs.

I'd imagine it's heat damage through the thin porcelain (if it is porcelain) walls. It could also be dishwasher-related I suppose.

I got my plastic ruler out of the drawer. It turns out that the thickness of the mug wall is just 3mm. A quick spin on Google reveals that the average wall thickness of a standard mug is around 6mm - double our experience.

It's no wonder our mugs lose so much heat! Not only is the surface area bigger, not only does it hold 28% more tea but the mug wall is half the normal thickness (in case you're wondering by the way, I measured to the inner wall last time).

This means that if the walls were as thick as those of a standard mug, the surface area would go down from 57cm² to 52cm² (9%) and the volume would go from 510cm³ to 475cm³ (7%).

So that could mean that the mugs could cool down almost 10% more slowly, right? I'm not sure how proportional it is.

Of course, the old mugs had a surface area of 44cm² and a capacity of 397cm³ so it still wouldn't be quite back to the good old days.

So, another idea for an experiment occurs to me. I'm one visit to the stationery cupboard away from 'borrowing' a roll of bubblewrap.

RISK

"Well think of the adventure," said Paul the other day in McDonald's. We meet up every month for a tea and a chat. He had been talking about risk.

I genuinely don't know how I feel about risk. To me it's like standing on the edge of the precipice - you'd have to be dead not to feel the adrenaline, the sense of adventure and the sheer thrill of it. Yet somehow, there's also a voice trying to tell you that this is madness and if you get it wrong you are going to feel it.

Or not - it'll all be over quite quickly, along with everything else.

But... what if it's the best thing you've ever done? What if you survive the jump and you emerge from the canyon with a smile so massive it can be seen from space? Surely the risk is worth it? Think of the tales you'll be able to tell - stories you just won't have if you don't jump.

You know that anxious feeling, that knot in your stomach at the top of the cliff, trying to work it all out? That's how I'm feeling... about everything.

"It's easy for you to say," I replied. Advice is almost always easier to give than it is to follow. Paul smiled.

People in my circles are often heard saying that faith is spelled R.I.S.K. - and I understand what they mean - it's just that I always want to point out that they are two different words, even if you think of them as synonyms. And of course it's not spelled that way!

To be honest though, I'm not even sure it stands up to scrutiny. Risk is a measure of all that you have to lose; faith is a measure of all that you have to gain. Those things are different aren't they? If what you have to gain exceeds what you have to lose, then the risk goes down.

In fact, risk is kind of subjective isn't it? If your experience or your preparation informs your decision, the actual risk will seem lower, or maybe higher - it's the unknowns that introduce risk, and there are more unknowns the less you know... um... obviously.

If you can understand the situation, reduce the unknowns and calculate the probabilities, the risk, the chance that you will lose, goes down - but to an observer it might seem like you've lost control of your senses.

That's why I climbed out on a fallen tree trunk over the lake the other day. I was delicately poised on the end, over deep, murky water wondering what would have happened if I'd toppled in. It was dangerous and it was brilliant.

But then, it's also why I'm standing on the edge of a much larger, scarier precipice, clinging on to the promise that God has given me a hope and a future and if I risk my world in faith, he'll catch me and it will all be alright - and probably quite the adventure.

And I do long for adventure.

LAST NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 2

Ah, last night at the museum again. It’s been alright, this, house-sitting. I feel like I’ve suddenly got a bit of poetry mojo back. Maybe being on your own has flip-sides.

So, I’ve tidied up and I’m pretty much ready to go home. The guinea pigs are happy… I hope… and the plants are verdant and vibrant, ready for their real family to come home tomorrow and bring a little life and a little noise back into this quiet world. I get the feeling plants like that.

Anyway, this poem is all about being asleep.  

THE GIRL OF MY DREAMS

The girl of my dreams is lovely
She’s funny and clever and deep
But I don’t think that she’ll ever love me
Cos to her I’m just always asleep

Her eyes are a pool of distraction
Her gaze is a moment divine
But my eyelids are shut through the action
And I don’t think she’s ever seen mine

Her hair is like whispering willow
Cascading on waters of grace
But I’m on a dribbly pillow
And my hair is all over my face

Her laugh is as pure as the morning
Her smile is as warm as the day
But to her I’m a simpleton snoring
And snoozing the summer away

The girl of my dreams is lovely
But mornings I wake up and weep
For I don’t think that she’ll ever love me

Cos to her I’m just always asleep

UP-MARKET TEA AND ANGELS WITH A MESSAGE

I've gone up-market today for my Saturday Tea. I'm in Waitrose.

Apologies to Starbucks this week, but Waitrose just pips it. It's light and airy, the tea is nicer and they aren't pumping breezy jazz into my ears.

I saw a table as I was queuing. Perfect little plug socket, comfy cushioned seat in the corner and a clean white table to spread out today's Times and pretend I know how to do the crossword.

I ordered a pot of tea and waited for them to figure out which of them was qualified enough to fill a teapot with boiling water. I think they do it on purpose so that your mind is drawn to the packets of biscuits and the pastries and cakes displayed like glistening museum exhibits. I looked at the mirror behind the counter, where a strange nerdy looking guy was staring right back at me. He seemed kind of sad.

"There you are, sir," said the Waitrose Person. I smiled, said thank you and picked up the tray carrying the flowery teapot, the elegantly shaped milk jug and the thin china cup.

An old man was sitting at my table. Arm resting on the edge, he casually flicked through a newspaper, looking up to check his wife was still behind me in the queue. I had a little grumble about that, realised it was silly and sat somewhere else where I could watch for the table to become free.

I'm feeling a little brighter today. It's good news because it means I'm not going completely crazy, living on my own. It's probably a good thing for the guinea pigs as well - I'm sure they were getting a bit fed up of me complaining at them while feeding them in the mornings. In fact, one of them scurries into the hay whenever he sees me coming.

"Hello!" said a voice in my ear just now. It was John and Sylvia, two older friends who've always wanted good things to happen for me, and whom I've not seen for a long time. Before long, they were pouring out encouragement as though they'd been sent to Waitrose Coffee Shop for this exact purpose. Sylvia grabbed my arm and looked straight into my eyes.

"And you must read Philippians 4!" she exclaimed, enthusiastically, "It will tell you how to think and what to think about!" That's my next mission then. I didn't tell either of them that today marks exactly ten years since I sat in my tent in Wales, memorising the whole of Philippians. When she started quoting the chapter it felt like the entire thing was flooding back to me.

"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure..."

I looked across at the table with the plug socket. The old couple had gone and a new lady was sitting there with a paper and a flowery teapot. I smiled to myself. I'm sure Philippians 4 is the bit where Paul says he's learned the 'secret of being content'...

"Anyway, you must come and see us!" said Sylvia, "You don't need to wait for an invitation!"

I sometimes wonder whether I've got much more good stuff in my life than I've ever really realised.

THAT SINKING FEELING

Would you like to know what depression feels like? No? What's wrong with you?

Nothing, of course. And nothing's wrong with me either - it's just that occasionally, I have to summon all my energy, every last bit of focus and everything that I know inside my head and my heart to fight this horrible beast. I'm a warrior in an invisible war, sharpening my sword in the sunshine so that when night falls, I'm ready to take on my enemy.

The other day, while peering into the water butt, I thought of this poem, and today, a day when the battle is fierce, I thought I'd write it out. Perhaps, I think to myself, if I write about how it feels, it might help me to see how ridiculous it is and to tell it to get lost.


THAT SINKING FEELING

I'm sinking down
And sinking deep
Where murky waters
Roll and seep
Where darkness pours
And sadness reigns
And misery flows
Through my veins

I'm sinking fast
I'm sinking quick
Through inky waters
Deep and thick
That swallow all
The hopes of day
And sweep the sun
and moon away

Till all remains
Is starless sky
Where heaven weeps
And angels cry
But neither hear
And no-one saves
The hidden ones
Beneath the waves

I'm sinking down
I'm sinking deep
Where murky thoughts
Invade my sleep
Where darkness fills
The empty bed
And all is lost
For I am dead


So, here it is. Get lost, depression. I'm not what you say I am and you can't win.

So there.

HOME HUNTING PART 10: UNREACHABLE PALACES

I have this conversation more often than you'd probably imagine:

"Hey Matt, how's the house hunting going?"

"Oh, still looking. Trouble is, house prices are going up faster than I can save and I'm always behind the curve."

"Yes it is a problem." Pause. "Of course, we bought our first house for 20p, three hundred years ago, and now it's almost certainly worth millions."

I smile, gently filing this information away in the same place I keep all the records of people who've said: 'Oh you'll just know when she comes along'. I'm not sure what else to do with it.

I'm very pleased that people long ago had such wonderful luck to find massive houses for relatively not much money. Have a lovely retirement, won't you. But those halcyon days are gone.

Ah, I'm only grumpy because the perfect house came along today. It would have scored over 90 on the matrix with its exquisite garden, its unusual space and its light airy feel. Perfect location as well and beautiful on the inside and out! Oh, and I forgot to mention, about 30% above my range.

I don't know why Rightmove keep sending me these unreachable palaces. It's like taking a student trip around Oxford University and then being told that people like you will never be clever enough to go there.

I checked my filter and it's not wrong - I think the people at Rightmove must have targets.

Meanwhile, after me ranting yesterday about Windows for Seniors, someone somewhere must have heard me aligning myself with the silver surfers. It seems the computer algorithm has emailed all the estate agents in Reading about retirement properties on my behalf! I keep getting emails thanking me for enquiring about 'presentable bungalows for assisted living' and 'elegant flats' in 'complexes'.

I'm not there yet.

WINDOWS 8.1 FOR SENIORS

I went round to see the Intrepids at lunchtime. My Dad has bought this book. It's called Windows 8.1 for Seniors.

There they are, the Seniors, having a whale of a time on their non-specific white laptop. They've obviously found something amusing on there - maybe Woman Falls Down Hole or Sneezing Panda or something and they want you to know how much fun they're both having. That's why they're looking right at you, instead of the screen.

"See, darling," says he resting his hand on her shoulder, "I told you it was easy!"

"No you didn't; you called it all 'new-fangled hocus pocus' and said you wished you still had a typewriter," she laughs, "Now get your hand off my hair or I'll be late for my judo lesson."

Now I'm not a senior, but I think this is all a bit insulting. First of all, it assumes that if you're a certain age you won't have the slightest clue what a computer is. Secondly, if a bit of technology has to be 'tailored' to a section of society to make it more accessible, then surely there is something wrong with it rather than them! Especially if 90% of us have been using Microsoft products for the last 30 years!

While I'm not a senior, what I am is a person who thinks about how usable software is as part of my job - it makes sense after all, the more naturally usable a thing is, the less I have to write about how to use it!

Now I agree, some aspects of Microsoft are as backward and baffling as a game of blind man's backgammon, but in general it should be pretty easy to figure it out - I mean they've even copied Apple's idea of huge colourful icons and touch screens and swiping and all that interactive malarkey! Those things aren't just there to look good - the design is supposed to guide you through the interface!

If it isn't naturally usable, if it can't be figured out by anyone at all over the age of 55 who's still continent enough to sit down at a generic white laptop, then listen up, silver surfers, you shouldn't be buying books called things like Microsoft for Idiots any more than you should be buying the latest copy of How To Tie Your Shoe Laces - Now with a Free Wallchart.

No! We should all be marching on Seattle with placards and burning torches demanding that this awful leviathan of a company actually does something accessible, easy and nice for a change instead of patronising old people. Oh, and if you don't think that this kind of thing is patronising and insulting, try reading the blurb and replacing the word 'seniors' with 'women' or 'left handed people' or in fact, any other group of people who didn't choose how and when they were born into this world.

I suppose we could email them, if any of us are still young enough to figure out how.

PROBABLY NOT MY VOCATION

Wellies by the back door, watering can floating in the water butt, plants lined up. I have got the job sussed this time, I thought.

Last year, in the Museum of Someone Else's Life, I wore canvas trainers to do the watering. I'd taken out the laces to dry them off between monsoons. They were comfortable to slip into, those canvas shoes, like moccasins, but they were also impractical - I constantly had soggy feet.

Not this year, by Jingo! Last night I angled into my wellingtons, tucked my pyjamas in to each boot and strode confidently onto the decking, hands on hips, surveying the troops as they waved their leaves at me in the darkness. 

It's been less rainy this year - we had one day a few Fridays ago when it chucked it down, but since then, there's not been a lot. I reached in to the murky looking water butt and scooped out the watering can, ready for action. It was pouring with inky black water.

There wasn't much left in the water butt when I'd finished. The plants had had a good long drink and my wellies glistened with the splash back. I did wonder what I would do the next day though if it didn't rain. Thankfully, a hose pipe was snaking through the grass, under the fence and out to the outside tap. I figured that everything would be alright.

It didn't rain, so today I tried it. Pyjamas tucked into the wellies, t-shirt and post-work baseball cap squarely on, I unlocked the patio doors and stood out on the decking. The watering can was where I left it, scraping against the bottom of the empty water butt. There was little choice but to try the hose.

It didn't work. At first I thought there must have been some blockage somewhere, so I traced it back to the tap from the nozzle. It all seemed OK. There was a little bit of water leaking from the tap, so I assumed that I'd switched it on correctly. Yet at the other end, twenty metres away, under the fence and angled (deliberately) by me into the watering can, the bright yellow nozzle was as dry as Ezekiel's biscuits.

It was at this point that my knowledge of physics troubled me. Water was gushing in at one end, but definitely not out of the other. There really were only two possibilities - it was either leaking out somewhere along the pipe... or...

I grabbed the nozzle and examined it. It didn't seem to be twistable, and there were no buttons or switches. There was a yellow ring, about two inches down the pipe, which looked like it was part of the nozzle. I had a closer look. The words Hose Lock were written on it with an arrow pointing backwards.

Well that's got to do something, I thought to myself. I grabbed the pipe with one hand, the yellow 'hose lock' with the other, and I twisted it as though I was giving it a Chinese burn.

Everything happened quite quickly after that.

I was instantaneously hit in the face with an explosion of freezing cold water, my hat fell off, the nozzle flew off one way, knocked over the watering can, and I (like a startled idiot) let go of the pipe as I gasped backwards! The hose, free of its grip, recoiled into the grass and started spouting water in every conceivable direction. By the time I managed to get hold of it, somehow reconnect the nozzle and thrust the whole dripping contraption firmly back into the watering can, I was soaked - and I mean properly soaked, in my pyjamas and t-shirt.

I think there are some jobs that I'm just not cut out for.

In fact, one of the fascinating things about jobs is that certain types of people seem to get on very well with certain types of vocation. We had a long two-hour meeting today, wrangling our way through a tricky Sprint retrospective, which is essentially a review meeting where you all get to rush through what went well and then lament in sackcloth and ashes about what didn't and whose fault it was and why it won't ever change. At least, that's what I think you're supposed to do...

Anyway, next door, in the boardroom, the marketing types appeared to be having their weekly cocktail party. There was raucous laughter echoing through the walls; there was cackling and the sound of chinking glasses as though it were Friday night at the local wine lodge. I smiled at the contrast through the wall, while we huddled round a projector screen, grumbling about numbers and management. Well, I wasn't grumbling, but you get the picture.

You know me, I don't grumble about things - even when I'm dripping wet in someone else's garden.  

RETURN TO THE MUSEUM, AND A DODGY ARCHBISHOP

I'm house sitting again. I did this last year, just camping out in the Museum of Someone Else's Life. There's a ticking clock and the gentle hum of an appliance. Everything else is silent.

The reason I called it that a year ago, is that house-sitting feels like making yourself at home in someone else's living room while they're not there, yet trying to preserve the essence of the life that makes their home tick. I get the same sense walking around a museum - the artefacts are silent, the pictures are still and the ancient jewellery, glimmering behind the glass, is untouched by skin, old and fragile. The people this stuff really mattered to, who made it work, glitter and shine, and to whom it all really belongs... are not there. There's a strange melancholy about that.

It's OK though. This year, I'm appreciating the quiet and the solitude. And just as well, because to be honest, I'd better get used to it.

My car passed its MOT. After drinking most of the tea in Morrisons, I walked back to the garage to pick it up.

"Excuse me," said a man winding down his window. He looked a bit like the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, only wearing a posh collared shirt and driving round in a massive BMW. I'm pretty sure it wasn't him.

"How would you like a bargain?" he said, flashing his white teeth at me. 

Loaded question, obvious bias, quite clever as you're likely to either admit that you indeed, like a bargain as much as the next man, or better still, admit to yourself that that's a bold gambit and smile, softening the awkwardness of the situation and predisposing yourself to a potentially positive outcome.

I went with the re-question the questioner approach. I figured it was a bit like black playing king's pawn to E5 after white opens to E4. I smiled and asked,

"Well, what are you selling?"

He opened three velvet boxes on the passenger seat and launched head-first into a smoothly practiced sales pitch. He didn't tell me what he was selling. This guy knew to go one step better. He showed me. Luxury watches. Knight to C3.  

I don't know much about luxury watches. They were Globenfeld, he said, and showed me his identity card, deftly explaining that he works for them, selling watches to shops but that today he had to get rid of a few ex-display models. According to the glossy magazine he whipped out of the glove compartment, these ex-display models were worth something in the region of $425 each, though today he'd sell one to me for much less... presumably because he could work out how awesome I am through the window of a BMW and he'd already established (basically told me) that I'm 'up for a bargain'. What a brilliantly perceptive guy.

Hmm.

Who is out there selling luxury watches to people in supermarket car parks? This guy, obviously. And that's a shame because he could be off getting some lucrative stand-in work, I thought, while he rattled off reasons why I might think this whole situation is a bit dodgy and actually it isn't, though actually it was.

"Well look, what could you offer me today?" he said, smiling, "You tell me; you make me an offer."

This is the classic tempter. Once you go to numbers, it's very difficult to come back. It felt as though he'd moved a bishop in front of a rook without protecting it. Decent players only ever do that when they're hoping that you won't see what they're planning behind the scenes. Take it at your peril.

"Look," I said, "I don't think this is the right day for me to buy a watch in a car park," shoring up my defences and diplomatically dragging the situation back into the reality of what it was - a conversation in a car park. "I wish you the best mate, but it's not happening for me today."

He tried again, then smiled as he clutched the handbrake.

"Cheers pal," he said, "Out of interest, what do you do?"

I was sorely tempted to tell him I was an undercover police officer, just to see what would happen. But I'm not in the habit of lying to people who look like high-ranking clergymen... or in fact, anyone if I can help it. He squealed off to find his next victim.

-

I need to water the plants. It's gone dark while I've been sitting here. The night breeze is sweeping in through the open patio doors. I don't know whether it's because I spent most of last week outside, but today I've felt extremely warm - especially waking up. Camping does funny things to your system, I reckon; I'm not entirely sure what time it is either.

Then, that might be because I've got a cheap watch I got from Argos, instead of one that fell off the back of the lorry and into the waiting arms of the Archbishop of York's stunt double.

BACK INSIDE TO THE OUTSIDE

Funny how quickly the last day comes around. It started with a bright blue sky and ended with me driving home through the city lights of Reading, feeling a little sad and very much looking forward to a warm bed.

I expect the sadness is connected to being exhausted. My mood always plummets when I'm tired, and as we filled out the final notes, switched off the equipment and started ripping cables out, the tiredness hit me like a train.

I've been to, and played at many camps now, and the last night is always the same. Everyone is on a high except the sound team, the musicians and the guy who needs to get the tent down as quickly as possible. I'm sure I had a whole load of conversations with people at the end, but I can barely remember.

Anyway, life changed inside is nothing without lives transformed outside, so it's onwards with the living. As I said last year, it's the end of one week, the start of another. Only instead of going on holiday to the Peak District, getting caught in a thunderstorm or accidentally insulting homeless people, this time I've ended up in Morrisons Cafe.

I'm waiting for my car to be MOTd. Yep I'm the guy who said 'Hey yeah, 8am, first of August; that should be OK, yeah no worries,' without remembering that it's just hours after the 31st of July.

"Oh Matt Stubbs," said Paul last night when I told him. I smiled meekly, imagining him shaking his head and chuckling as he told Heather on the way home.

The thing about being outside your life for a few days is that you eventually do have to rejoin it. Within moments of getting home last night I found out that my Mum is really ill and propped up in bed, the window men* had dumped all my stuff (and their own grubby tools) on my bed, my niece's birthday is cancelled because she doesn't want to come, and my Dad was asleep on the sofa, a Sudoku book gently rising and falling with his breathing.

I just collapsed into bed, trying not to think about having to get up and unpack the car. Soon I was drifting on a slowly deflating air bed through a sea of tents and gazebos towards a gigantic piano that stretched like a ladder into the clouds. Where does all of that lead to? I wondered as I fell softly asleep.

Morrisons Cafe so far, it seems.

*Not transparent stuff-shifting aliens; we had replacement windows while I was away.