I haven't been around these parts much for the last three days. In fact, I've spent most of the morning (when I haven't been doing work. Which is to say the majority of time) catching up on the posts in my Friends list. And what the hell I'm going to do when I go on holiday, I don't know...

The reason why I wasn't around was because of server failure here at work. Not that anyone seemed particularly worried by that. Well, that covered Monday and Tuesday's afternoon. Wednesday was a day when I was off sick. You know those days when getting up and going to work is just about the last thing you want to do? Well, the nature of this job being what it is, I felt absolutely guilt in throwing a sicky. I really did need a day of quiet, calm rest and relaxation. Which is sort of what I had. And, for once, this included not spending the entire online. So I didn't catch up with LiveJournal, or comics news or anything. Terrible, eh?
( Very long entry about books and cooking )
Music:
Copland - Fanfare for the Common Man
Steppenwolf - Born To Be Wild
Adam Clayton - Mission Impossible
REM - Pilgrimage
REM - Femme Fatale
The Wedding Present - Don't Talk Just Kiss
Return to the Forbidden Planet soundtrack - We've Gotta Get Out Of This Place
Pop Will Eat Itself - England's Finest
Bruce Springsteen - The Rising
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the Kinh soundtrack - Cirith Ungol
Pop Will Eat Itself - Dance Of The Mad
(Long entry this, isn't it?)

I've just been making myself a cup of tea in the staff canteen. The teabags of choice for the canteen are Tetley's. I noticed on the packet that Tetley's are proclaiming the healthy aspects of tea due to the 'antioxidants' they contain? I mean, excuse me? I drink - well, far too much tea - and I know it's not good for you. This seems to me to be like the whole hair conditioner thing claiming to bring your hair back to life or the Retinox-A (or whatever it's called) in moisturiser doing anything than helping the skin in your face retain water (hello? It's caled MOISTUREiser for a reason) thus making the wrinkles disappear magically... I.E. Complete bollocks.

Now, as I said, I love tea. It's my drink of choice. At a party, when everyone else is drowning themselves in beer, wine and spirits, I tend to be searching out the kettle.

And then, there is the small point that Tetley's Tea tastes like stale horse piss. Really, it's not good. PG Tips is worse, though. I once got a trial packet of the PG Tips pyramid bag. I tried it because, hey! Free stuff! And had to pour it away. It was that hideous. Of course, neither of these compares to the abomination that is Lipton Yellow, but I am reasonably confident that you can't get that in this country. Oh you poor foreigners who think that that stuff is tea. There is a reason we had an Empire, you see? It's because we knew how to make tea. And that includes boiling rather than lukewarm water.

Yes, I do bring my own teabags to work. I drink Yorkshire Tea.

I am not alone in this, by the way. Neil Gaiman has words to say about this very subject, here and here. And I agree with what he says about Earl Grey tea as well. You may as well be drinking boiled Chanel No.5, except for the price, of course.

In the office here at work, the radio is on. Which is why I usually listen to my MP3 player. However, for some reason I don't have it on today and so the radio is playing in the background. And it's BBC Radio 1. (It could be worse, it could be Metro Radio, the local independent radio station who proudly proclaim that they play lots of different music for everyone. Which, in practice means that they play lots and lots of different shite that no-one actually likes. And they have adverts. I will confidently proclaim that British television advertising is the best in the world (see things like the Orange phone ads, the various Guinness ads and so on - really well done and clever) (Damn an aside within an aside. That is probably going to end up longer than the actual original geeky random comment. Which I am going to have to continue in a bit, because I am going out for lunch with my friend Chaz now. And it's pissing down...)

(Back from lunch now. And it was delicious. I had Smoked haddock chowder with leek and ham. Now, I am now not a soup person as a rule, but that was one of the best things I have ever had the pleasure of eating. Sex on the tongue. And it was followed by an equally gorgeous chocolate cake. And, being the wonderful husband that I am, I have got a slice for Candy which I won't even try and eat unless she offers me some. I may make puppy dog eyes and follow each bit from plate to mouth but I won't ask...) (Oh, and it was all home made. Chaz is an excellent cook. And a good writer as well.)

I think I've closed all the parentheses properly.

Where were we?

Oh yes. The radio. Anyway, an hour and twenty minutes ago, the radio was playing a track - I neither know nor care what it was - and it had a riff in it that sounded exactly (well, probably not exactly, but close enough to it so that it set off some kind of alarm) like the theme tune to Blake's 7.

Sorry. Wasn't really worth it was it?

(Edited to correct the positive soup connotation to a negative one.)