I'm away til Sunday

Stuck in the middle with you

The new PC speakers arrived today, and now I get music from both sides when working away.....

It's sounding all right now......

One of my PC speakers has stopped working. They are the standard sub under the desk and 2 small desk speakers setup. sadly the left speaker has stopped working meaning only one side of me hears the song correctly. I have looked at the problem and traced all the wires and connections, and it seems that the speaker has blown - oops!!

However the joy that is Amazon have dispatched the new ones I ordered 3 hours ago, and they should be here by Thursday.

Indie Teenage Angst

After spending the weekend reflecting on teenage indie angst comments below etc, I was having an indie soundtracked Uni work session tonight and with the link to teenagers, I was amused by this one....

Procrastination on b3ta

From b3ta:

National Health Shennanigans!
When I were but a lad, my Mother worked in Personnel for the NHS. And, as such, when I wanted a holiday or weekend job, she'd put out some feelers to find out if there was anyone in the hospital who needed help.

And thus it came to pass that I held several positions within the trust. Everything from filing monkey in Medical Records to Helpdesk Support (which I actually stayed at for a year).

During the course of my few years there, I came across the following people:

1) The Catering Manager who looked as if he drank the grease out of the fryers. He smoked in the kitchen too, and never flushed the loo after he had done a poo.

2) A few times I did a night shift cooking simple food for the on call doctors. The other guy I worked with had little or no idea how to cook. 'Rare' chicken was his specialty. Thankfully, I think I always caught him before he killed someone.

3) The hospital porter who, after I had just walked in to their cabin, asked the dazzlingly insightful interview question "Do you wank or what?"

4) The poison dwarf who managed the helpdesk who had never seen a computer, let alone fixed one. She bollocked me for resetting a senior consultants password (when he had asked me to), and made me go and apologise to him. He called her a 'stupid bitch', which I thought was an understatement.

5) Dr. De'Ath (seriously) told me off in a corridor for having my mobile on. I know that was wrong, in fact I was turning it off, but the killer was that he was having a conversation on his at the time.

6) The porter who was caught having relations with a sheep. I don't know if that's true or not, but you could believe it of him.

7) Finally, there was Graham the Sweep. Graham was a porter too, but all he ever did was sweep floors. He actually had been an eminent professor whose wife had left him, and he had a complete and catastrophic breakdown. He used to ballroom dance with his broom. He had a brilliant mind - he would talk with me about Shakespeare and Theatre and Science and Education and Politics and Philosophy and Physics and all kinds of things. Some morning's he'd be on top of the world, whereas some mornings he would actually growl at you like a wild dog. He wasn't a bastard, he was fascinating. He lived with cats in a caravan, but due to his state of mind couldn't look after them properly, and the RSPCA had to take them away. I've never seen a man look so broken as he did after that.

He once told my mother she had all the grace and subtlety of a prima ballerina. My mother has all the grace and subtlety of a brick through a window.

Ah, the NHS. Best in the world for weirdos and bastards.

I feel the last sentence sums it up......

Why won't it snow.

In a nice flashback to my indie inspired youth, I feel the need to include this nice song. Especially the chorus. It seems that all the UK has had proper snow, except Glasgow. All I want is a proper snowstorm and to make snowmen and throw snowballs. Is it really too much to ask in Scotland?

Oh, and I have now grown out of my indie teenage angst phase....

EMQ Mock Exam feedback....

Today we got back the EMQ feedback.

I got 58% (23/40), the class mean was 59%, with an SD of 5, so the range was 8-39 marks out of 40.

Not too bad, but a sign that with some revision I could score higher. Although the exam was based on the stuff we are doing this block, and thus was based on stuff we had not learned yet and wasn't really revision.

The enemy within....?

Today was an interesting day...Wednesday afternoon is lecture afternoon (or Plenaries as we are supposed to call them).

At the first one, the lecturer (who is also the Year 4/5 Director) decided to have a few pops at biochemistry and the former head of year 2 who was our arch Biochemist. He also through in a few anti-American gags and criticised their methodology in clinical trials where they compare new treatments to placebo instead of to the current best treatment. I could see his point but eel it may have been lost on some people.

The second lecture was from an old-school Clinical Biochemist. The Uni had forgotten to load his emailed powerpoint, so he did the first half from his photocopied handout and just used the powerpoint for the second half after a member of staff brought it over from the MedSchool.

We then had mock exam feedback from this lecturer and one of the Haematologists. The Biochemistry guy was very strong on knowing the basics now, and ignoring lots of the treatment details until clinical years and postgrad training. One of the Uni Medical Education staff who was chairing this session had a look on her face of 'pained amusement' at this point.

The Haematology guy then slagged off the blood cell morphology images we were asked to identify cells from, and also criticised teh choices and pointed out that no one apart from haematology staff looks at blood films regularly and thus he questioned the point of the exam question and suggested it was useless.

He and the Medical education staff member emphasised that we need to focus on the EMQ question and try to work out the answers before looking at the answers, and never to leave any blanks.

Bye bye to blobs.....

BBC3 are retiring their 'blobs' ident which went between the trailers etc - see here


Shows the compliation of the various blob clips over the past few years.

and some more

I'm pathetic

Only one wrong, but only 44 wpm!
44 words

free Touch typing

First Scotrail and the failed signals

Tonight, there was a 'total' signal failure between Winchburgh and Linlithgow on the Edinburgh-Glasgow route. It occurred at 2030ish, for the third time in a week, all supposedly weather related. I was on the 2300 ex Edinburgh...and this is where the story starts...FSR played a blinder tonight. Truly they were trying to reduce their overcrowding problem by putting people off traveling.

The Summary
2300 ex Edinburgh (no notices about congestions on screen or announcements at Waverley or haymarket according to passengers) got to just beyond Newbridge Junction and stopped at the start of the viaduct. The driver got out to use the SPT. After 20 minutes, passengers banging on the cab door caused him to make an announcement that we were delayed due to signaling problems. The train moved on at walking pace after 45 minutes, running slow to after Linlithgow station before then running normal speed to Glasgow arriving 59 minutes late (just inside the full refund limit).

The Complaints
The passengers had two complaints...both of which seemed reasonable.
1. The guard made no announcements about the delay except a "Sorry for any inconvenience caused" as the train arrived at Queen St. He went to the front cab soon after we stopped and did not re-appear until Linlithgow station. Two off-duty guards traveling home were left liaising with the front cab then walking through the train and passing out details of the nature and extent of the delay, thus they received most of the flak from passengers. These two off duty staff were in a very difficult position of having to try and defend their colleagues choice not to make more announcements about the delay, or the status of the situation.

2. Why were we even on a train. Several passengers seemed to be making the point that if FSR knew of the problem at 2030, why were we sitting for 45 minutes at 2315, and why had no bustitution been used to get around the problem? Whilst it can be appreciated that buses do not sit on standby and that FSR is a different company to Firstbus, the average passenger will think that some joined up thinking should apply.

According to one of the off duty staff on the train, the issue was politics, that if it was a NR fault, then FSR had to get NR to underwrite the cost of the buses before FSR could hire them in and suspend the service, and that if NR said that trains could pass then FSR could not choose to run buses instead.

The result
All the above was a nice healthy mix, with some added alcohol to create 100 annoyed, (in some cases stressed) passengers at Queen St. The duty station manager there had no compensation forms to hand, and the travel centre was closed, added to which, there were no taxis in the rank at 0100 when the train arrived. One might have thought that FSR would have tipped off Glasgow taxi's, given that several passengers might need to get home other than on foot.

As someone who has done this journey over 300 times in 3 years, and uses rail travel 4-5 times a week, I really wish that FSR didn't do things like this. they are normally so much better with bustitution, staff to help and cope the best they can with infrastructure failures which are beyond their control, but last night (maybe because it was a Saturday) they let us down. A nice complaint letter is winging it's way to fort William to get me a full refund.

I wouldn't have minded but I only made the trip to a friends housewarming party, and spent 4 and a half hours traveling for 2 hours at the party. Oh well.

Martini: the Beautiful people.

My PBL group this half year is unusual IMO.

Some background. My previous cohort at Med school was fairly friendly and most people got on with most others and there was a good mix of people and experiences and very little cliquiness. PBL groups worked quite well most of the time because people were willing to contribute, and listened to other people before speaking so their contribution added to, instead of repeating what had been said.

I was tipped off by some staff at the start of the year that my new cohort had a few more cliques - including the self-named "Team Beautiful". I think I have identified a few of the above.....fashionable, impractical/inappropriate clothing in hospitals/labs, as well as some wealth related factors which most of the old Uni's get and were at Edinburgh affectionately known as Yah's. They tend to have very nice new cars, go abroad for weekends during term, and have been to very nice private schools and have a 'sheltered' view of the real world, especially the world of the socially disadvantaged in Glasgow.

Anyway back to my PBL group. My PBL group is formed of 2 clinical practice groups, which means one day a week 6 of us spend the morning together on a ward, and then after lunch meet up with the other group and we do PBL as a group of 12 or so. It is interesting to notice the changes in behaviour of some members of the group between the morning and afternoon.

My clinical practice group is 6 people: me, 2 fairly normal people, one nice yah, and someone who is perhaps a wanabee member of Team beautiful but is fairly normal when with us. However in the afternoon at PBL, he clicks in with the other group, which seems to have a majority of Team beautiful members, and only 2 normal people, who say they end up talking to each other mostly as they get ignored.

Thursday was quite bad, the seating arrangement seemed to have worked out with the Team Beautiful (TB) members at one end and the 'normal' people at the other. Due to saome people being late due to parking chaos, I was chairing the feedback from the previous week's PBL, which had been on Duchenne Muscular dystrophy and also aspects of genetic counselling of potential parents. The facilitator is an anaesthatist who does obstetric procedures, and she was giving us some non-textbook background as to the options and the factors involved in making decisions to do with genetic counselling, termination etc. The TB people had been talking over, and repeating what the rest of us had been saying at the start of feedback, which really un-nerved me as chairman, and then were having small jokes themselves. Suddenly they all started talking about House, and ignoring the rest of us....then one complained at how long PBL was taking, and started yawning...when they were the ones talking and going down tangents instead of sticking to teh discussion. A couple of other things happened too which made it a very odd PBL, but for sake of preserving their anonymity I can't go into that yet.

It was all quite bizarre, and on the walk to the train station, a few of the 'normal' people in the group were saying how dysfunctional our PBL group is in danger of becoming. Thankfully only another 3 weeks until we reach halfway and are mixed up again into new groups at new hospitals.

Meeting a man and a baby

Yesterday evening I had a rather interesting meeting with a man and a baby about formalising and extending something I already do in my spare time. Nothing is quite settled yet, and I need to find a blog friendly way of describing it, but life could be about to get a bit busier!

PS. The baby is irrelevant to the above, the meeting was with the man, whose wife was at a concert so he was babysitting.....but it makes for a better title.

We live in interesting times...

...well not really, but we try.

This week has been fairly mundane at Uni - with some moments of brilliance.

Monday
Our consultant appeared - for the first time in our clinical practice on his ward (this was week 7 - we're there every Monday morning). He was nicer than we had been led to expect, and was more like a registrar in many respects than a consultant. NHSGG&C haven't yet adopted a bare below the elbows policy, but most younger medical staff have lost their ties and are looking decidedly smart/casual these days. Sadly the medical school do not give us the same options.

We went to clerk in and examine 2 patients, then report back to one of the FY2 who was ok, but liked to talk a lot and kept interupting our history's. Neither case was simple, but one was at least alert awake and 'with it'.

PBL in teh afternoon was just boringly normal.

Tuesday
This day started badly - my genetics workshop wasn't til 2, but I had to go to Cambuslang to get my camera from the courier company. In the case of this particular courier company, I know they didn't try my buzzer when they attempted delivery because I know I was in when they claimed to have called. they used to have a depot midway between me and Uni which was handy to go to to collect parcels, but the trip to Cambuslang took me 90 minutes and £4 on the train. i am less than happy at the idea of doing this every time I do an internet order.

At lunch time I met little miss P & the tattooed drinker for food before my workshop. The old work standard watering hole (midway between work and Uni) was closed, so we ventured a little further down to a 'Sports Bar' which opened about 6 months ago in an old snooker hall. butcher Boy and I had been here before and the Lasagne on that occasion was rather tasty.

Today we opted for the 'Homemade burgers'. The barman/waiter came over rafter 10 minutes too apologise for the delay as the chef was making the burgers. This sounded very promising. When they eventually came they were lovely - moist in fact as the tattooed drinker put it - with a great flavour and peppers and herbs running through it. It was the best burger I have tasted in many many a year. Sadly I had to wolf mine down in 5 minutes in order to make it back to uni for my workshop, which was Genetics and fairly straightforward.

And now for something totally different.

It's just anotehr manic.......Wednesday?

Wednesday was an unusual day - for starters I woke up about 7am...on a day when Uni didn''t start until 1. Thus I considered how to fill my morning. My sister was supposed to be meeting me after Uni tonight and we should be printing the envelopes for her wedding invitations. last night (true to form) about 10pm decided to throw a hissy fit and chew every piece of paper I offered it. Feeling that this might not be accepted by my sister, I considered the purchase of a new printer - the last one cost £23.99 3 years ago, so this one has served its' time. It would true to form of course die with new cartridges in it.

I am now torn between the nice shiny one and teh 'utilitarian' one. I texted my sister to explain the situatoion and explain that after going out for pizza, we would have to call past PC World on teh way home to buy a new printer.

She correctly directed me to the traffic news

M74 - 10 lorries flipped over, 2 lanes closed J7-10; Snow and speed limits J11-12
Trains limited to 50mph
M8 - snow causing speed restrictions J4-5
M9 - Stirling - high winds
Stirling - roof blown off a school, trees down etc
Ayrshire - trains suspended due to flooding and winds
Tay & Erskine bridges closed,
Forth Road Bridge open for cars only
Flooding on teh Edinburgh-Glasgow rail line at Linlithgow

I took her point. We can do the printing next week when she stands a chance fo making the journey in less than 2 hours!

Thus I decided to go for my printer on Thursday (prevarication and procrastination being great!). Then Dr Amy sent a text asking for some Uni stuff, which I emailed off. This was all before 8am. I then spent the morning doing PBL and wandering round the internet.

The afternoon was a 4 hour Haemo fest - 2hrs on leukaemia and 2 on haematology & anaemia. The leukaemia session was quite good at first until the Uni laptop used for the powerpoint died - the janitors hadn't turned the PSU on. The lecturer then got his own laptop out as the janitors couldn't get the ;laptop to charge. the lecturer then couldn't connect his laptop to the projector....so we had the second half of the lecture without the benefit of slides. I feel it lost something due to this. As someone near me in the lecture theatre commented "The finest minds in the country......."

We then had a rather nice 30 minute break when all 250 of the year group shuffled through the Med school coffee thing to get some caffeine before the Haematology session. This was very good, taking the form of 3 40 minute presentations on the 3 main forms of Anaemia. The main Haematology guy is great - we had him for lectures before - and his enthusiasm is rather well placed given the rather 'dry'; nature of most Haematology - especially the slides of normocytic hypochromic erythrocytes etc.

I then headed over to the grad club, sicne I wasn't meeting my sister for pizza, and instead met butcher Boy for some food. He ordered chicken enchiladas. We noticed that the orders seemed to be taking a while.......and then they called him over to collect his order. After noticing that he had one larger instead of 2 smaller enchiladas and discussing the economic reasons for this, he tucked in, and found he had a bean/veggie enchilada. Now Butcher Boy is given his nickname because f his fondness for the meat. His enthusiasm for the BBC series "Kill it Cook it Eat it" is well known, and he has (had) a poster of a cow on his wall showing where the various cuts come from. Thus the bean was an affront to him and he went back to complain.

They mumbled about the chef being short handed or something, and promised him another one. about 5 minutes later they called me over to say there were no green beans to go with my steak pie, so was I ok having it without. My meal arrived about a further ten minutes later, and having eaten it at normal pace, it was still 5 minutes after I had finished that Butcher Boy got his (chicken) enchiladas. The grad club is really nice, but today was certainly a blip in their food service standards!

Customer service

2 experiences this morning within 10 minutes - 2 different customer experiences - one good, one bad....

The Pulsacoil 2000 hot water heater boiler thing
So I eventually fin a company who are willing to look at my (apparently unusual) boiler. It only took 6 calls, including one to the manufacturer to find a local (20 miles) company who deal with it. the receptionist there was very helpful, taking all the details and also advising how to pay - they do take cheques - and giving the full charges (ouch!). It is probably very discriminatory, but she sounds my Mum's age, and probably realised that I hadn't done this before....ever for a boiler and wasn't quite sure what was wrong with it. Sadly the earliest anyone can come is Thursday between 9 & 1. Oh well, another 48 hours of boiling kettles to shave, and wash....might even have to go swimming tomorrow to get a proper shower.

Print Cartridges and a bust digital camera
Next my big bug bear of the week City-link. the parcel people. They are supposed to e collecting a parcel from me today (I requested afternoon as I have a driving lesson this morning) and also delivering one to me which I missed last week. I phoned them yesterday and asked if they could do both at the same time.

From the guy''s reaction you would have thought I asked to do something obscene to his sister......."It doesn't work like that.....We're not here to help your social life...". Instead he said that the collection might happen this afternoon but the re-delivery will be Thursday morning at the earliest. This means I will need to go buy some of what is in the delivery anyway as I need it on Wednesday night.

Until the middle of last year, City-link had a depot near me, just by the motorway which was a 20 minute walk. this was ok, because if I missed a delivery I just popped up to the warehouse and collected it. however they have now merged 3 depots and are on a huge industrial estate 2 miles from the nearest train station. This is almost as bad a the DHL and ANC warehouses. Parcel force is the easiest to get to (25 min walk) and they will deliver to your local Post office for 50p.

Some days I just want a PA to deal with this hassle!

Hot water

Glasgow is being his by a cold spell this week apparently - freezing conditions and snow and high winds.

And my hot water boiler machine thing is misbehaving. Thankfully the heating is separate. but anyway, I have been boiling water in the kettle in order to shave. the thing is that the water is lukewarm, and the machine has none of the error lights flashing.....

The Offside Rule explained

I stole this from one of my former colleague's Bebo page... she's the one who was forced (as a 24yo) to wear an age 16 elf outfit for the visit of the company senior managers. An image forever in the mid of those of us who worked that day.

(For the record, I DID already know the offside rule before I read this)





In preparation for the Premiership, the "offside rule" explained for women:
You're in a shoe shop, second in the queue for the till. Behind the shop assistant on the till is a pair of shoes which you have seen and which you must have.

The female shopper in front of you has seen them also and is eyeing them with desire. Both of you have forgotten your purses.

It would be rude to push in front of the first woman if you had no money to pay for the shoes.

The shop assistant remains at the till waiting.

Your friend is trying on another pair of shoes at the back of the shop and sees your dilemma.

She prepares to throw her purse to you.

If she does so, you can catch the purse, then walk round the other shopper and buy the shoes!

At a pinch she could throw the purse ahead of the other shopper and "whilst it is in flight" you could nip around the other shopper, catch the purse and buy the shoes!

BUT, you must always remember that until the purse has "actually been thrown", it would be plain wrong for you to be in front of the other shopper and you would be OFFSIDE

Reflecting on Britney

Oh dear, Britney Spears is in hospital as her life spins out of control.

So what I hear you say.......
Well apart from providing such great (and so appropriate at this moment) lyrics such as "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman", "I feel so over-protected" and "What it's like to be me", Britney has always been a pop star I found an interesting comparison.

Why?

Well for starters Britney is only 9 days older than me (she was born 2nd Dec 1981), and so to a greater extent was the soundtrack to bits of my late teens - an antidote to BritPop if you like. Also, the reach of her music was quite surprising with most people who were teens in the late 90's able to sing, or attempt, at least one of her songs. Also the dress code for "Hit me baby one more time" and "Oops I did it again" left an impression on those in their late twenties and above.

There is also the fact of the British obsession with celebrities - our desire to build them up then knock them down. this combined with the tabloid excitement and paparazzi phenomenon means that we can now see, in almost real time the lives of celebs and music stars worldwide. Of course Britney (and others) have used this to further their careers, and their public profile.

In few cases can the fall have been so steep or public though. Within 3 years Britney went from a chart topping singer to a multi-divorced mother of 2, with issues with her weight, drinking, partying, loss of child custody, public battles with her parents about her fortune and numerous hospital admissions with claims of substance abuse.

It causes me to reflect 9with my cold) on the costs of being rich and successful to early in one's career. A nice positive thought when I realise that I will be lucky to be out of the FY progranmme before my 31st birthday....

Should I renew my Passport?

In his book, "Round the World in Eighty days", Michael Palin reflects that in the Jules Verne original, all Fogg needed was a signed picture of Queen Victoria to permit him safe passage around the world and entry to each country he came across.

In similar vein, John Simpson, reflects on an Angolan soldier throwing his blue British (pre EU days) passport into the a muddy river. He reminds the reader that "From the end of the Napoleonic War in 1815 until the First world War, it was the chief distinguishing mark of a British citizen abroad that they did not carry a passport. They went where they wanted, merely announcing themselves at border crossings and being allowed through because they were British"

Simpson also then details how, for the next month he traveled only on the authority of a hastily typed letter by the Honorary Dutch Consul in Luanda. (A Mad World, My Masters)

Sadly things seem a little different now. Even Easyjet demand a passport to travel on their plane - or a photo driving licence (but only a full licence, a provisional will not do, despite requiring the same ID.....), and you also need one to buy alcohol, get into a nightclub, open a bank account, and even collect your post. So it is almost a National ID card anyway.

However, back to the main point. My passport ran out in Jan 2006, having been first obtained for my school French Exchange to Halluin in 1996, at the age of 14. I have managed to survive the past 2 years without it, being now a) too old to be challenged for alcohol; b) not been on a plane since 2003; c) not been abroad since 2005 and d) been with the same bank all along.

I am now considering whether to renew it soon, and thus give my Biometric data. It isn't the biometric data on the passport that worries me, I know where that is, but the government records of it. My one time Summer employers have lost the details of 25 million people, some friends have had the Dept of Health display their personal details to the whole world, the DSA has lost my personal and bank details, and my building society lost an (encrypted) laptop with my details on it.

Having now made that list, I guess handing a few more of my details over won't do me any harm....But the earliest I will need a passport will be Summer 2009 if i choose to do a foreign elective. I'm not planning a foreign holiday in 2008 (nor can I afford one) and if i renew the passport now, then I will lose 15% of it's value before I use it. I hope to have my full driving licence by March, so if I need to fly within the UK this summer (which I might) I can use that as photo ID for BA or Easyjet.

Any suggestions? I mean I survived without a passport for the first 14 years of my life, and only used it 8 or 9 times during the ten years I held a valid one.

First Day back...

I wish it had been like this...........

The first day back after holidays is never fun, especially when everyone else is still on holiday, and the Bank/Public holidays have only just finished (the 2nd January is a Public Holiday / hangover recovery day in Scotland).

But today about 3/4 of us traipsed through freezing gales and blizzards (assuming that snow being blown around = blizzard) up to the hospital. One man had managed to drive his car straight through one of the fences at the side of the hospital internal road system and seemed to be trying to dig it out using the broken fence posts.

Once there we tried to think Medical as we mashed our brains around possible causes of Anaemia, then left after the brainstorm to go and think somewhere warmer.

I passed one exam in 2007.......

As part of my master plan to learn to drive, I had to sit my theory test and hazard perception test. Again! As part of my last masterplan to drive I sat the same tests in may 2003, and passed but then it became the uni holidays and then into BSc Honours year and I never got round to booking the final few lessons I needed to get ready for my practical test. Anyway, here we are, 4 years down the road and 9 years after I was first able to sit the test, and 2 years after my theory test (from 2003) expired.

In the last 4 years they have lengthened the test, but I got 46 or more (out of 50) in all my practice Theory tests without looking at the Highway code! However Hazard perception was something different and i spent most of 30th December practicing these tests, and getting less than 40 in every case (pass is 48/75).

After a night with very little sleep (read none) I turned up at the test centre at 8.10 on New Years Eve. there were a surprising number of people who appeared to have chosen to end their year with a Theory Test! I had half toyed with not going, since I had failed all the Hazard Perception bits but since you lose your money I you don't go, I thought "What the heck!" and went and sat it.

I wasn't sure how the Hazard part had gone, so i came out and collected my results sheet:

• Theory Test: 48/50 PASS is 44/50
  
• Hazard Perception: 57/75 PASS is 48/75
  

So now all I have to do is keep going with the lessons and maybe I can pass the Practical test soon, and before my self imposed deadline.

Still it was nice to PASS one exam in 2007..........

New Year Sales

I am making a list of things I want to buy in the new Year Sales - this does involve spending some Christmas vouchers as well.

• New vacuum cleaner
• George Foreman grill
• Some new shirts for Uni
  
• Print cartridges
• A4 paper
• Passport
  

Looking ahead to 2008.

Looking ahead to 2008, I have had a few thoughts.

• Getting more energy and feeling less tired after Uni etc
• Managing to achieve lots of uni work during the week to give me a day of at weekends
• Motivation for Uni!
• Some more exercise and weight loss / becoming fitter
• Becoming more organised.
  

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year to everyone. The tattooed drinker, Butcher Boy, Little Miss P, G-star and the rest of the crowd from work met up yesterday for an evening to bring in the new year. I proved my horrendous musical ability and thus was the worst performer at Guitar hero on the tattooed drinker Xbox.

After bringing in the New Year with Jools Holland's hootannay on TV, we sat round chatting etc before we all started to head home later in the evening. Thanks to the absence of taxi's, and the mizzle (mist & drizzle) it took a long 90 minutes to walk home round all the city centre street party & road blocks.

As part of our New Year's plan we had originally planned a cocktail party, and I had earlier been up to ASDA to buy Chambord (raspberry liquer) which you use with JD and lemonade to mkae a raspberry lynchberg.