i shouldn't have said that about itchy eyelids. now i'm getting a stye in my right eye, and it's really sore. but adam gave me some contact lens solution and that is helping. a bit. even so, poor me.

terrifically long day today, hours and hours of it. but i made it through.

okay, there are far, far too many people searching the web for the phrase "itchy eyelids". stop it, you insaniacs! you'll find no cures for your ailment here. although if the number of hits based on that search continues to go up i shall have little option but to put up a special itchy eyelids page just to meet demand.

it's my father's birthday and, though i bought a card, i forgot to send it. oh dear.

saturday was a day of great portent. i think. a full moon and i saw a shooting star, anyway. and also i dreamed that duncan's horses did turn and eat each other in the night. or perhaps not. i did discover that the take-away section of harry ramsden's in newhaven shuts at 9 o'clock. i discovered this at five past nine.

today i finally got my arse in gear and went to a farmers' market, bought some veggies and lots of lovely fresh meat, including wild boar sausages which i had some of this evening - really good. was a sunny afternoon too - i was out in my shorts and a t-shirt, which for 22nd september isn't half bad.

other than that, a very relaxed weekend - yesterday a long bath with essential oils, and today after getting back in i curled up on the sofa in a sunbeam and just shut my eyes for three hours. wasn't asleep, but was very relaxed. nice.

a good weekend.

pope promises to 'look really hard' for solutions to African AIDS epidemic

i arrive home to a dilemma. both the new statesman and the artroom christmas catalogue have arrived. which little cellophane package do i rip open first? well, actually neither, because i have to season my new cast iron pan that i intend to make a tarte tatin in tonight. but now that it's in the oven, i return to the post and lo, it's the catalogue that gets opened first, demonstrating just how shallow i really am.

disappointingly, i don't fancy much in it. nor, i suspect, will i fancy much in the new statesman, but then that's to be expected.

right; i'm working from home, and intermittently cooking a greek/moroccan/french feast for this evening. is there no end to my talents, i hear you ask.

a certain amount of excitement today (well, admittedly localised) with the surprisingly-on-time arrival of my new titchy teeny digital camera tech-toy. it's lovely. haven't taken any meaningful pictures with it yet, but i did get a few shots of the mould in the kitchen at work, in case at some point in the future the contagious diseases unit wants documentary evidence of where it all began...

it's a kyocera finecam s3x, and i would put a link to its website but unfortunately kyocera are a bit shit and their european web site defaults to german. i mean, how ridiculous is that? don't they know that i can't read german? luckily their cameras are great.

it's all part of my digital masterplan, you see. now my mp3 player, my palm PDA and my camera all use the same little cards for storage, so i can swap between them with impunity - and even without. and i can take the card from the camera, put the pictures into my palm, and then send them to people using my phone! i have seen the future, and it's unnecessarily visual.

speaking eloquently to two of today's biggest public debates, i heartily recommend:

• fight war with wanking:
  masturbateforpeace.com and


• paedophile lynching network:
  thinkofthechildren.co.uk

peace returns to dalkeith road. sans parents, sans brother, sans everything. well, the first two anyway. i cooked what even i have to describe as a pretty marvellous meal for them all on friday night. avocado and bacon salad to start, then chicken breasts stuffed with haggis and wrapped in bacon, and then an apple pie. well, actually mum made the apple pie (and luca's made the ice cream).

yesterday i went round to ed's house for the first time in hundreds of years (ish) and it brought back many happy memories. that was where my first boyfriend lived (as well as lots of other lovely people). aww. anyway, plus ca change - we got stoned and watched telly.

and today i went to see the first film ever made in the inuit language, called atanarjuat, the fast runner. it was pretty special, cinematographically stunning, and i know everyone says that about big pictures, but this one really is. a little too much wailing for my liking around the hour and a half mark, but that's about the only compaint i had. i wouldn't be surprised if it picked up a few oscar/bafta type things.

oh, and i've started scanning in some old photos, in order to do a couple of composite prints for the walls of my bedroom, and also to put some of them online here. so that's something for y'all to look forward to, eh?

one of the funniest things i've read in a while is the recently unearthed original thread from the CMU bulletin board in 1982 in which scott fahlman invented the smiley :-). apparently people at microsoft research spent a not insignificant amount of time tracking it down on a backup tape and extracting it. the thread is now available here. it's a bit geeky, but i liked it.

so, i have clearly been deeply affected by the tragic events of this day last year. i was typing the minutes for this evening's equality network meeting and found myself putting the date as 9-11. i like to think of it as my tribute.

ahem. parents are here, and we had an enjoyable meal at my fave italian restaurant, de niro's, last night. it was made more fun by the fact that a large group of people had a large hissy fit and left without paying their large bill. and then three waiters ran after them down the street, jabbering in italian. oh, and they didn't have dover sole, so i had to have steak. quelle domage.

lovely hot sunny day today. maybe we'll have an indian summer.

not that i read it, but someone was kind enough to forward me this extract from a letter to the daily telegraph:

Although I am not a military strategist by profession, I do fear that we may possibly be losing the element of surprise in the campaign against Iraq.

parents arrive tuesday, staying 'til saturday. tom is in italy until tuesday (don't get me started on that) so guess who has to get the flat habitable ready for the visit... so i've sorted out the bed in the spare room, but i kind of flaked at that point.

dinner last night was fun, completely different crowd of people than i had expected. in fact there were a total of five psychiatrists there (including seany). it was like being in a real life Holby City episode. except i've never watched Holby City so that might not be true. anyway, there were doctors all over the place.

none of them could confirm my suspicions for my headache, but in fact it hasn't bothered me all day today, which leads me to the conclusion that you can cure head cancer with vodka. seems reasonable.

my study is eerie with no mess.

so, having finished mp3-ing my whole CD collection a couple of months ago, i've finally connected the laptop in the bedroom (or the 'porn computer' as it should really be known) to the stereo, so i have random access to the several thousand tracks on the server in the study.

this morning i did a search on the word love in song titles (leave it), and it came up with 343. so i hit play, and it's currently on track 107, which happens to be the beautiful south, love is. it's a very good method for listening to songs you haven't played for years.

and with that lot as an accompaniment, i've been creating order from chaos. well, i've just cleared the floor and the desk in the study anyway. it's all squeaky clean now, which is just weird, since it's been a disaster area for at least a year. unfortunately i don't think the unnatural urge is going to continue long enough for me to tidy up the shelving creation too. ah well, it's a good start.

dinner with danny and sean this evening. good. oh, and the headache is still hanging around. maybe it is head cancer. well, you heard it here first.

i've had an off-and-on headache now for about 24 hours. i thought it was dehydration, and it did ease off when i drank loads of water, but it's back again now. maybe i've got head cancer.

anyhoo - didn't win at tennis last night but i lost in the most respectable way ever. i was 4-3 up in both sets and lost them both 6-4. no staying power you see. it's all in my mind.

went to the moo bar last night - used to be the meadows bar - holy shit, how to remove the heart and soul of a pub in one easy step! it used to be kind of seedy, dark and strangely satisfying; now it's brightly lit, ugly and soulless. very sad.

tonight i'm having a quiet one, trying to get rid of the headache thing and generally loafing. it's funny how i don't mind spending tuesday, wednesday and thursday evenings in meetings or suchlike, but I always save friday for me on the basis that i'll do something fun. and then i'm too knackered or lazy to bother.

feel a bit extra-gay today, having made an appointment to see the Holmes Place people about joining the new gym that's opening up across from work. never joined a gym before, but this one is brand new and sounds dead posh, and i like the idea of being in at the start. plus it's bound to be packed with cute men. i'm so shallow.

christ, what a day. after a work day that had meetings at 9.45-10, 10-12, 12.30-1.30 and 4.30-5, i went for my tea with fi to the pizza place, and then back to forth street for the first EN meeting in the new office, which started at 7.30 and went on till 10.30. i am, as the expression has it, knucking fackered.

it could happen. let's face it, this is the third post in three days.

what happened today, you are beginning to wonder idly... what joys and pains will doogie impart this evening? well, let's see.

quite an up day, actually. worked out last month's billing and it was pretty much on target, which is always a blessed relief. had slab pie from crombie's (the butchers on broughton street which is famous for sausages) for lunch, which is almost always great, and certainly was on this occasion. had another disappointing orange, but then who buys fruit from a butcher? honestly.

okay, i didn't say it was an exciting day.

it's a naïve domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but i think you'll be amused by its presumption

james thurber

ooh, i bet you never expected another posting one day later, eh? well, maybe i'm going to start being a bit more regular about things around here. then again, maybe i'm not. in any case...

our little campaign group the equality network grew up today, as our first employees (three of 'em!) started work at our new office. and barring a few technical hitches, everything appears to be going swimmingly. except that the new offices are directly above where i work in my real job, which may prove rather distracting. particularly since adam is working there. (he said, opaquely.)

what else? well i've just spent two hours scraping the surfaces and hosing the floor in the kitchen, cos we have a board meeting here tomorrow. for the real company, not the hobby one. and i'm determined that the majority of the business of the meeting will be completed before we get pissed this time. dangerously enough, the huge quantity of beer left over from tom's party last weekend is still knocking around the place. but at least the huge bowls of nachos, nuts and bombay mix aren't still out - i chucked them this evening. it's sad, but i don't think they'd have composted well.

oh yes, that reminds me, i've been walking past a bowl of crisps in the hall for the past week and a half. i must go and chuck it.

pinch, punch, first of the month. no returns.

hormonal friday, lazy saturday, and sunday spent driving a big white van around edinburgh. mustn't grumble, i suppose. i haven't the heart to do a stream of conciousness today, i'd be worried i'll just depress myself. although discretion is not the better part of biography, as lytton strachey said. still, what did he know?

i need to inject an element of fun into these pages, they are in danger of becoming moribund. i know, how about a picture of me, tom and adam with the ladyboys of bangkok? okay, here you are: