Here's a thread I started off a short while ago Lyrics and needs to be added to with...

"Double pneumonia in a single room,
and the sickest joke,
was the price of the medicine." - Don't know why really. It always sounded right and I guess is just cleverer and funnier than usual.

Or...

"Is there anybody in there?" - Do I have to say anything?

Here's a gratuitous link to a blog with a theme on lyrics.

Argh! I have been horribly busy at work with all the wrong kinds of issues to deal with. Calamity John has been breathing down my neck and generally getting involved unnecessarily, probably playing political games. Thankfully the sticking-plasters are holding and I can get back to building for the future. Fingers crossed that the situation holds.

It's week 6 of our house move and surveys have happened! That makes the whole thing seem like it's really going to take place after all. Hurray!

Just 7 full days of work until the family holiday. Ahhhh...bliss.

We had known they were coming for many year, enough to mount our defences; or so we thought. Several countries had intercepted ion probes in the outer edges of space and a handful had even made it down to earth. The technology was ingenious, but not so alien that it couldn't be cracked.

Of course the public had known none of this at first, but eventually, too many made it through. Terror turned to puzzlement as it became clear that the probes were only spying apparatus. Scientists analysed and deliberated, the press foamed at it's collective mouth.

The military built countermeasures against the technology; plasma spikes that could cut through the alloy casings and cover-plast, a kind of sealant originally developed for riot control but adapted for isolating potentially infectious agents.

Then one night the attack began in earnest. Sleek silvery pods streaked into the atmosphere, evading defensive missiles with consumate ease. Storm-class intercept fighters, the very latest trans-atmospheric craft, were scrambled to destroy the invaders, all to no avail. The white-hot beams of directed enery weapons seemed to slide from the surface of the ailen craft. Some were destroyed, perhaps by chance, erupting into a million shards of incandescent cloud. But plenty landed.

I was there, amongst the crowd in Montreaux when one of pods landed. I watched as the earths cleverest weapons homed in. Automated bio-sentries that seconds before had been stationary on nearby rooftops touched down on the ground surrounding the silvery machine. Extending needle-like claws, lased the surfaces of the pod, cauterising any potential openings. Then the cover-plast was deployed and the crowds surged forwards, suddenly less anxious. Earth would prevail. The scientists and the military had succeeded as they had promised.

An air of celebration prevailed for perhaps an hour. Shop-keepers broke open their stores as news of similar successes came in from Geneva, Lausanne and the rest of the world. It seemed that the years of worry had been overblown. I recall that moment so clearly now. To my right a young woman laughing, tossing her head in delight at some wise words uttered by the young man with the short, dark hair. A man, holding a pram steady with one hand, his other arm hugging his wife fiercely. A group of four children, passing a bottle of champagne between them and even, at one point, offering it to a passing policeman.

Over the heads of the crowds in the market-place, something in the water caught my eye. Huge plates of jelly-like substance broke the surface simultaeously across the whole expanse of Lake Geneva. It looked for all the world like giant frog-spawn, and suddenly I knew we were in trouble. Some of the people around me caught the horror in my gaze and turned to see what I was looking at. The pods had been a decoy. I don't know how I knew, but it just seemed obvious somehow. Also, I just knew that the invasion must have begun earlier, much, much earlier when the spawn was planted, and it was clear to me that similar scenes were playing out across the rest of the world. From the moment the alien eggs appeared on the surface of the water we were doomed. Some strange gas or poison they released suffused the air around us and one-by-one, as though in slow motion, the people simply dropped.

Here's an incredible site that's worth having a look at if you're even remotely clever with your hands or into craft. http://www.makezine.com/ has it all! Dom told me about this but he hasn't got kids, so I don't know what he was up to on this site; perhaps he was making the amazing "Duck Tape Wallet" (I sh*t you not)!!!

Its week 5 of the house move and absolutely NOTHING has happened this week except that the solicitors doing our conveyancing lost our paperwork and had the nerve to suggest we were the careless ones!

At work, I've become completely fed up with the whole girl/boy ratio. Information Technology is a terrible, terrible job to wind up in if you appreciate the company of women because there just aren't any. Well, all right, there are one or two, but not enough to cut the fetid smell of testosterone. *##£!!*#! it's too depressing. Of course I've a lovely wife at home and that's great, but there has to be a healthier balance of the sexes at work...surely!???

Arch, never mind. The week is over and I'm already half sozzled with wine and looking forward to oblivion. Better yet, I can dream about the skiing holiday, now only 2 weeks away. THAT is something to get excited about.

I just tried to petition the government about their stupid plan to give 300 bazillion UKP to EDS or some other useless IT consultancy. I guess with only a few hours to go until the site closes, it's a bit busy right now 'cos it's not working. Grrr.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/

Have a go if you read this before the site closes.

See La Petite Anglaise, a blog about an English woman in Paris. According to the Independant, she's signed a two book deal with Penguin for a "six figure sum". Hurray!

Isn't this secretly what we'd all like? Our own little literary Big Brother success? Yes, perhaps even my tedious life could raise me in the celebrity stratosphere. Yeah...right.

Once again, the madman rides! Encouraged by the overwhelming success of his foreign policy in...ooh, foreign places (i.e. not Texas), the idiot and his maniac pals seem set to wage a new war.

I can't write any more, really! Crazy, wrong-headed and ill-informed people are in charge of the world. As before the start of the last disaster in the Middle-East, I will write a letter to No.10 and beg our own elected horseman of the Apocalypse not to join in with the wacko from the Whitehouse.

Chances of success? Low-to-vanishing.

Here is the third experiment in this series that my children are doing at home.

This is a great science experiment to do at home and really easy! I'm not going to write much about it as there are plenty of web-pages out there. Basically, shred half a red cabbage in a blender whilst adding a cup of water. Strain the juice out into a jug. We set out loads of wine glasses with a small amount of the litmus juice in each and added household stuff into each. We got these colours above. Sadly I didn't get a photo. The purple is the original colour or neutral PH. lemon juice (acid) gave pink and Cif, the cleaning fluid (alkali) made a beutiful shade of aquamarine.

Back from the pub with K. Although we get in reasonably well, we haven't spent a great deal of time together. Otherphil couldn't come tonight so it was just K and me.

It's funny how when you really get talking to people about how you feel inside, you can see eye-to-eye and begin to understand each other.

People should talk more. Definately. Like me, K is very truthful and not at all concerned about bearing his soul. It's very refreshing. I can't stand small-talk! If you're going to yatter on, it might as well be something you hold dear to your soul. Don't you think???

Well, our offer was accepted, so after 12 years in the same house, we're finally moving! It's not all joy though. The children are gloomy about leaving their friends behind. We've tried to point out that it's only 15 minutes away, but it must be very tough for them, worrying about the unknown.

Commuter James cheered me up by pointing out that his children are always reminding their parents of their own cruel relocation whenever they think a bit of emotional blackmail might help their lastest cause.

This is a sad story for Chinese men. BBC article. That can't be a healthy country to grow up in.

Talking of 'man-love', Top Gear was a hoot last night with the boys (Jeremy, Richard and James) practically getting themselves killed in Alabama for winding up red-necks. I really hate narrow-minded bigots! If I hate bigots, does that make me a bigot too?

D and I are trying to find a bigger home for our three children to grow up in. Sold our place within 6 hours of it going on the market. The trouble is, we're utterly priced out of the town we live in.

We've found somewhere in a town 7 miles away. Big, family home. Hope to put an offer in today. Fingers crossed.

A couple of years ago, I would probably have supported the view that blogging was a sad way to spend ones time. So here I am, two years later, still throwing my words out to the void...why?

Actually, there are a number of reasons, but perhaps one of the best arguments I have found for keeping it up is that the action of writing down ideas and thoughts and in particular, keeping a log of things I've done, helps me to remember to do interesting stuff.

It's far too easy to plod along, sleep, wake, commute, work, commute, sleep etc. until retirement. Forcing myself to write about what I'm up to helps me to get it clear in my head what I am doing to make my life and the lives of my wife and children fun and worthwhile too.

So...

The next science experiment I'm going to do with my kids is making litmus from red cabbage. See this.

Here's a pic taken last night at Canary Wharf.

Lyrics that pop into my head from time to time and why:

"Like the children of a creature,
Like a dry tree seeking water...or a daughter" - Why? Weird and sinister.

"I am the one, who guided you this far" - Why? It could be the voice inside my head, telling me I've done OK so far.

"I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes,
I have to turn my head until the darkness goes." - Why? 'Cos it sums up force of the heterosexual male desire...well mine anyway.

There are LOADS of others I could list, but now it's your turn.