Here's a good one. While on a windsurfing holiday in El-Yaque, Margarita, nearly 2 years ago, I met a lesbian couple, Cate & M. See Diary of a travelling companion (Part 3). They were very sweet and my friends and I got on well with them. Back in this country, we never really heard from them again. Well, in a last ditch communication, I emailed a Christmas greeting to Cate and she replied. So yesterday we met up in CW, London and had lunch.

Cate is 37 weeks pregnant. She told me that she and M went to ante-natal classes where the group leader had to devise an appropriate phrase to mean the person accompanying the pregnant mum-to-be who might be the father but might also be the same sex lover! Apparently, the correct phrase is "non-pregnant partner"!

Why do we do it? Why have I done it? It's crazy! As if I haven't got enough going on holding down a demanding job and raising a family!

I'm helping some guy out (we'll call him Stan) with a product he's developing. I'm only doing a few of hours of testing a week for free because I like him and I want to help. The trouble is, I REALLY resent the time it's taking from my evenings! Gott in Himmel!

[Ah-ha, quick check for German spelling on internet reveals this interesting thought for the day...] BBC link to: Commando comics still going! Now there's a thing!

Grrr! I've got 'Man Flu'. Runny nose and general woolly-headedness (more than baseline).

D sent me a text message on Friday and asked for permission to buy a skirt she'd seen last week, now reduced in price. I'm sure I'd already agreed, but this is D all over. Thank **** D isn't a credit-card wife! But honestly, she needs to get a little more bold buying stuff for herself.

The office Christmas party was good. JJ, PR and I got to Covent Garden early and had a drink and a moan about people we work with before finding Browns Restaurant. I went and collected D from Victoria station at 7pm and she looked fab in the new skirt and shoes. We both enjoyed ourselves. One ongoing wheeze is that our glorious leader is trying to offload some Spice Girls tickets he claims he did not buy for himself. You can imagine the teasing... Food good, company good and at our table at least, we managed to avoid too much 'shop' talk. Great night be we had to leave just after 10pm to get the last train home.

Yesterday, Christmas shopping and then dinner with the outlaws who had been looking after the kids. Today the little ones are putting up decorations in their rooms. I may curl up on chair with a Lemsip. Bah!

It's that time of year again! The company I work for usually has a good Christmas event. If you've dipped into this blog before, you might know that I like dressing up (yes, take that idea and stretch it as far as it will go). For work purposes though, I think a Dinner Jacket and Black Tie is the most appropriate. One colleague has actually suggested I go as my female self, and while that's an amusing option, I think it would just leave folks (?more?) confused.

As usual, I'll probably be one of only two or three people who Tux it, but what the hell! It's not often we blokes get a chance to get really smart, and a work suit doesn't really cut it, does it?

Anyhow, it's great because the kids are going to stay with their grandparents so D can come and join me. It must be quite daunting going to your partner's company Christmas do when you barely know anyone there. I know it is...I've done it once before, a long time ago. I accompanied D and was surrounded by a lot of girls talking shop, quite literally. I did enjoy it, but I did feel a bit like an outsider.

"Crivens!" Time for a good moan!

As my colleague Tom.H will readily testify, I am a forgiving person and, by his standards, slow to judge people. So, if after 7 months at the current client-site, I've finally decided, unequivocally that KMcC is utter baggage and a waste of good carbon, you can be fairly certain that he's just that.

Now I know that work is sometimes boring and that it's good, even in the best jobs, to sneak off onto the internet sometimes to check that frock on eBay that you've got your eye on, or the DVD player with the blue LED display, but this guy is NEVER-EVER doing any productive work. Fine, but then he has a giant hissy-fit if anyone steps into his area and (God-forbid) actually DOES something!

Feckin' waste of good carbon! If you're going to work, do something useful and productive while you're there, or at least don't object when other people around you try to do just that. Sheeesh!

* SIGH * It IS good to let steam off now and again.

I sent this e-mail to the http://pm.gov.uk site just now.

Dear Mr Brown,

As you attempt to stand away from the shadow of your predecessor, consider this:

There are only two types in the pantheon of Great Men. Those who campaign tirelessly for freedom fall squarely in the 'good'. There are none that I am aware of who are remembered fondly for taking freedoms away. In this context, your continuing endorsement of the bill to extend the time that police can hold without charge is inadviseable.

I love my country dearly, but I despise the short-term views of those we elect to govern us. Your party's policies that are turning our nation into the very type of police state we claim to campaign against. There can be no justification to detain someone beyond twenty-eight days. Non whatsoever. I do not like the continuous erosion of our liberty which Tony Blair started and you seem set to cement. I have voted for Labour in the past, but you can be absolutely certain that I shall not do so again until your party sees reason.

Yours sincerely,
[Sleeper's Name]

And if you read this, PLEASE visit the website No. 10 Petitions and sign up to some of the petitions there, maybe even the one about treating abuse of ginger-haired-persons as a hate crime. It's certainly an amusing petition.

...are pretty crap on the whole! This is a bit of a random posting, but I had enough time today to seek out other blogs with "sleep" in the title. These got pretty low scores, but lots more were empty.

Here's a sample:

Don't take this as a recommendation to visit any of these.

I'm so used to this internet shopping that I've become blaze. I've spent quite a long time recently tracking down the right camera to get D for Christmas, so when I finally decided and picked a well known on-line retailer: click-click...click, type-type-type, click, [Yes!], click, swoop-left to confirm...and cli..WHAT?!?! "Delivery after Christmas!"

Well it turns out that you get so many options that it's just easy to choose one of the other 'embedded' merchants on this site, so although what I wanted was in-stock with 'Nile', it was a three week turnaround from retailer 'Acme' selling via the 'Nile'!

[Mouse creeps towards Cancel button...click.]

On the piss-o-meter front (see previous post), I didn't do too badly! The piss-o-meter is an inverted white cone, set at urinal height. At the bottom there's a spinning disc which somehow measures the flow of your micturation. Curious. No serious problems of constriction then. The main problem, as I explained to the nurse, is that I have to get up in the night, once and often twice. This is a REAL nuisance because I have trouble going back to sleep if I wake after 4am. Next appointment is with the consultant on the 19th.

Tomorrow I have to pee into a piss-o-meter...or something that ought to have a name like that. I've finally got fed up with going to the loo twice a night so went to the doc a few weeks ago. [Close you eyes now if you're squeamish!] She stuck a finger up my bum and confirmed that my prostate is a little enlarged, but not scarily lumpy. [Fine. You can start reading again.] Anyway, she referred me for more checks.

So this machine - I think - is going to measure how hard I can pee. As the nice lady doctor asked "Are you not exactly cracking the porcelain?" Er, no.

In other developments, after the less than perfect trip to Cornwall, Otherphil decided to try out the storms last Saturday. I couldn't join him because I was working. He did a short reach, got catapulted and the board and sail parted company. Otherphil was left swimming the 600 yards back to shore with a rig that didn't want to float. His new board (500.UKP) was washed into a groin where it got ruined!

He needs to get 'back on the horse', so hopefully I can persuade him to come out again on Sunday.