Well there’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that I was without the internet from Wednesday to Friday. Wednesday due to technical difficulties (don’t ask) and being busy making even more cups of tea and coffee than usual because we were having new kitchen worktops installed. And it’s a well known rule that nice, friendly workmen need a constant supply of high quality beverages. Thursday was spent in lovely Cirencester, while Friday was a blur of clearing sawdust and putting everything back into cupboards. I can think of better ways to spend a holiday but a nice hot bath, a pot of tea a few of my mother’s welshcakes have made a new woman of me.

The good news is that I took this enforced break very calmly and have therefore concluded that I am not as addicted to the internet as previously confessed. Which is a Very Good Thing. There is another piece of good news from another blogger but I heard about this in an email and it’s not yet published so I’d best keep schtum for the minute. Woof.

More on kitchens and medieval churches later, in the mean time, you might like to study this picture carefully [via].

So our new neighbours have moved in. I’ve only caught a glimpse of the husband (a six plus foot tall titian-haired hunk) but Martyn has met the father of the wife and oh it’s a small world, it seems that they might have worked together at one time in Fulham police station.

I’m still trying to work up the courage to pop next door to say hello, especially since I spied them at 7 o’clock on Sunday morning ripping out every last inch of the front garden to extend the concrete drive so that they can park both cars. Our former neighbour was so proud of his garden, I’m ashamed (but not very) to say that I was cheering them on. By 8 o’clock it dawned on me that I should have gone over and asked to have the flowers they were gaily throwing into plastic bags to take to the dump. I could have planted them in our garden and named each bed after, say, Nelson Mandela, Oprah Winfrey, Toni Morrison et al.

Jon Stewart hosts an open and honest debate with George W Bush [thanks to flabber].

It all depends on who’s pulling the strings, eh?

This started out as Saturday snippets but I’ve had this post open for so long it’s past midnight. Ahem.

Anyway, the first one’s for Leah – according to the BBC:

George Clooney listens to The Archers online, according to model Lisa Snowden who says she introduced him to it.

Next up is a great site to sample new music at 3hive [via Wendy]. I’m liking Ray Barbee at the minute. And Juana Molina. Huwge, I think you’ll love this site too.

Next up, some great fonts at free typewriter fonts

Now I don’t normally get too excited about tv adverts for cars (Zzzzz) but the new Vauxhall campaign in the UK has some crackers. If you go here and look to the bottom right of the screen, click on “Watch the tv ad”. Excellent stuff.

¿Quiere usted aprender el español? If you live or work in London you might like to visit the new Spanish English Speakers Exchange in London. Not much content yet, but one to watch.

And lastly, some newly discovered blogs:

I love the smell of coffee in the morning – a Swiss German blogger now living in Tay Ho, Vietnam.
Say what? Jarle Petterson from Oslo.
“Humorous observations about infertility, sobriety, being fat and more” at and I wasted all that birth control…

That’s all folks, I’m off to the land of nod.

It’s one of life’s great mysteries: why isn’t London Mark better known?

Ariste once had a dog, and it had died. Although that is the way of things, and although there are many people who have had dogs, and many dogs have died, there was a man named Ariste who had a dog, and it had died. Zou had not been an especially good dog nor had it been an especially bad one, but Ariste had loved it with all the force of a man who had little else to love.

Go read, enjoy and spread the word.

*

That old reprobate and others have started up Geronimo Joe’s “rancho relaxo”. A collection of short stories, essays, serials and poetry submitted by fellow bloggers.

WAY back when the days were long and there was lots of wranglin’ to be done I had nary a thought about words, except those ones which just appeared in my head out of nowhere and scared the sweat out of me. After I had hung up my lasso for the last time I had more time to relax and let those words become something more palpable. I had a notion, I wanted to have a place where I could go to read things by other people and publish some of my own thoughts. I wanted to build a quiet and safe place where people could come and exercise their art, knowing that it was all about building and growing. Where there could be feedback and encouragement and where, above all else, we could all strive for excellence. I found some like minded people and we set to building this place. We got in touch with other writers and we have pulled together a few items for you to, hopefully, take pleasure in.

I don’t suppose anyone knows Cirencester well enough to recommend a good mid week lunchtime restaurant (pub grub is fine) and a dog walking area*?

*must be enclosed, no access to roads

… probably.

Razor has a great collection of newspaper cuttings, here’s a taster:

Mrs Irene Graham of Thorpe Avenue, Boscombe, delighted the audience with her reminiscence of the German prisoner of war who was sent each week to do her garden. He was repatriated at the end of 1945, she recalled “He’d always seemed a nice friendly chap, but when the crocuses came up in the middle of our lawn in February 1946, they spelt out “Heil Hitler.” (Bournemouth Evening Echo)

So how come I don’t get mentioned in Reuters when my pair eat an £800 sofa, hmm?

Lots of links to get through today so how about I match them up with you lot?

Sears catalog(ue) 1978 for Karan [who has a great link to two very different performances by the Umbilical Brothers]

Ascii Spiderman movies for Billy and Huwge (who’s taking some wonderful shots with his new camera)

This, this, this and this one for e

Puzzled sheep for Jo and the Paparazzi Snapper Game for um, anybody who likes silly games on a Friday afternoon.

Tube track via Miles Mendoza

… is an invaluable free download for commuters. Once installed, it sits on your desktop, and updates its own dot matrix indicator with details of the next three trains to arrive at your chosen station on the National Rail network, London Docklands Light Railway, Dublin DART and the Bakerloo line on the tube.

And some interesting blogs discovered here, there and everywhere:

always curious [wonderful photography blog]
zone out [another south Walian!]
beautiful vacuum
buzzstuff

Be silly. Be honest. Be kind.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Via Christine, who has a snazzy new domain name and redesign.

Updated to add this facinating site via Christine – is this man the Lindbergh baby?

Ah a nice silly one today:

Blog Babies: If your blog mated with another blog, what would the baby’s name be? For example, if Cup of Chicha married A Whole Lotta Nothing, the blogbaby might be “A Whole Cup of Nothing”. Can you think of others?

A simple yet unadorned Daisy
And then there was Daisy
Lazy Daisy
Squoogy fishbucket
Out of kiwifruit
Anything but broccoli and bechemal

How about you?