Today sees me off to a training course.

The world is, of course, gradually being taken over by people who deliver training courses. Instead of learning on the job, now we spend time away from the office eating coronation chicken sandwiches in hotel rooms in ugly parts of the world. It appears that someone, somewhere decided long ago that the coronation chicken sandwich the food a person needs after listening to a man from Birmingham drone on about health and safety implications of five drawer filing cabinets.

I was made for more than a soggy sandwich and a booklet of PowerPoint slides. Give me mountains to climb give me lions to tame.

At least give me the option of a cheese savoury sandwich.

Mobile Blogging

The blog is back thanks to the wonder that is the iPhone and the mobile app for blogger.

I imagine you will all be very excited at the prospect of more vignettes from my ultra exciting life. Already today I have been to work AND eaten some tortillas. How have you managed without me.

More excitement soon. Contain yourselves.

Numbers

My Blackberry problems have still not been resolved. I phoned the IT guys today to see how they were getting on. This met with a lot of tutting, and words that sounded a bit like "Oh... incompatibility... problem... have to phone the boys in Delhi... very expensive". When I hung up I am sure I heard some laughter and the popping of a champagne cork.

My head seems to be full of bees and feathers just now. This morning I forgot the code to get into my office - we have one of those security dooors with the code. I've only been using it for about 6 years, so it's still not very clear in my head. My memory is so bad, I once forgot where I parked my car for 2 days.On once occasion I forgot where I lived. Although it was after a very very good office party.

As I stood there on the stairs, it struck me how many numbers we now have to remember. Used to be, the only number I had to remember was my phone number. Not a big long mobile number, but a landline. With 5 digits. That was it. The only number in the whole world I had to commit to memory.

But now, the world has become infinitely more complex. Off the top of my head, I now have to remember my home phone number, my mobile number, my home alarm code, the office alarm code, the security door code that stumped me this morning, debit card pin number, credit card pin number... The list goes and and that's not to mention the usernames and passwords I have to remember for every website in the whole world.

I am a digital man. My head is a string of numbers. They live where memories should.

Cackberry and The First Law of Computing

My Significant Other is a bit of a technology junkie. She can often be found, her little nose pressed to the shop window of Currie's, drooling over a display of Freeview boxes. Sometimes, to tempt her in from the street, I leave a little trail of mobile phone adverts torn from the Sunday supplements.

She has, for some time been coveting an iPhone 4. I could tell she wanted one from the little comments she made like: "I'd kill my own mother for an iPhone 4" and "Do you think if I sold one of your kidneys, it'd cover the tariff?".

She succumbed recently and bought one. However, she felt so guilty that she bought me a Blackberry. I don't really get the buzz out of gadgets that other people do, but I like the Blackberry. (It doesn't look anything like a Blackberry incidentally, but I think the more accurate name of "Mobile Phone That is Much the Same as Many Other Mobile Phones" was felt to be less appealling by some of the focus groups).

The Blackberry prides itself as being a business machine - a piece of wizardry designed to make your life more efficient. A little personal assistant in your pocket. So, seduced by promises of instant organisation, I recently made the mistake of trying to synch the Blackberry with my diary at work. This involves plugging the phone into the computer. That is where I went wrong. I forgot Alan B's First Law of Computing which is:

"Do Not Plug Any Other Item Into Your Computer."

If you break Alan B's First Law of Computing you are letting yourself in for a world of heartache. But I did . And the Blackberry ate all of the recurring appointments in my diary. It didn't destroy them mind you. It just ate them, so that the recurring appointments now appear only in my Blackberry and not the computer.

You can only imagine how this has simplified my life. Now, instead of having the really complex task of having to consult only one diary when I want to know my schedule, I now have the infintely easier task of having to cross-reference two diaries! Whenever someone phones for an appointment now, all I have to do is look at the computer and then run to fetch my diary from my coat pocket (usually handily located in another room - and sometimes my car - for easy access).

It really is that simple!

Do the Shake n Vac and Put the Freshness Back

Mrs B is off pampering herself this weekend at the lovely Stobo Castle. She tells me that this involves mud packs and steam treatments and such. However, as she is away with one of her mates, I have a sneaking suspicion that Chordonay and gossip may play a pivotol role in proceedings.

As she is away, it is just me and the kids here. It is now Sunday morning, and Mrs B is due to return late this afternoon. I am not sure that there is enough time to tidy up. It is amazing how much damage two under fives can cause if left unattended for a day and a half.

I have conducted a prelimenary damage assessment this morning. So far I have discovered a boiled egg in the bath, an enormous pile of assorted jigsaw pieces (from different puzzles) in the hall and something called "Mr Minerva's Bath Goo" in the middle of the kitchen floor.So. Not too bad then.

I reckon, if I spend the rest of the day cleaning (rather than providing you lot with highly entertaining blog entries) I might just about manage to make the place presentable. The whole process reminds me a bit of those teenage parties you used to have when you had an "empty" - when your parents had gone away for a night or two without you. Thbis, of course, was licence for all your friends to come over and drink their own body weight in cheap cider then throw it up behind the chaise longue. The following day was generally taken up fixing a hole in the bathroom wall with some blue tac and a Dulux Match Pot and desperately doing the Shake n Vac to put the freshness back.

Righto. I can't talk to you all morning, no matter how much I love you. I am off to engage in domestic chores.

Curry and Beer: A Love Affair

I had a lovely curry with a couple of mates last night at the Mother India in Glasgow.

This is my first curry during "no alcohol January" (my annual period of abstinence, imposed in the vain belief that it will help me live until the age of 143, thus allowing me to achieve all of the things I could have achieved if I hadn't spent the first 43 years of my life eating cheese and spending too much time on the internet).

The first curry in January is a significant test of will power, for - just as peaches love cream and as surely as Torville needs Dean - there is nothing like a lager to go with a curry. As a man who likes a beer, I can heartily confirm, that the best beer in the world is the first pint of lager at a curry house. It is, in fact, the platonic ideal of beer. There, in its sensuous cold loveliness, beads of condensation running down the smooth surface of the glass. Irresistable.

Almost irresistable. Except to a man of iron will. Like myself. I had a diet coke.

A diet coke.

A diet coke. Whilst every other selfish curry guzzling glutton gulped down pint after pint of Cobra. Smiling. Like they were enjoying it.

I had a diet coke. Did I mention that?

Final Destination?

I am watching Final Destination 2 just now and it is really annoying me. Not because of the film itself. It's quite a diverting little horror flick.

No. What is concerning me is the name of the film. Surely the fact that there is a film called Final Destination 2 means that the final destination in Final Destination 1 was not as final a final destination as we were hitherto led to believe. If the filmakers had been honest, they should have called it Penultimate Destination. Or Final Destination For the Moment. Or Not the Final Destination. Or in fact anything except Final Destnation which is just a lie. A damned lie. Damn you makers of Final Destination you have made a fool of me.

And actually, now that I think of it they couldn't have called Final Destination 1 'Penultimate Destination' because now we have Final Destination 3, the latest in a line of increasingly ill-named films.

I have to stop now. I am feeling annoyed.