[pen] You only go and see films when your marmalade is in good condition?

Oh, I'm back from a wee break in Wales, btw, off to Cornwall on Friday...

[pen] Ah, what a romantic come-on...

I second that. A woman who invites you round for marmalade is clearly far more kinky than a woman who invites you round for coffee. I never get invited round for any marmalade. Either nobody finds me appealing, or I've never met a woman with a toaster. Either way, it's a crap life really, and I feel certain that I shall spent it lonely, unloved, and cursed with a rumbling stomach.

In addition I personally don't believe any of this twaddle about advantages to being single. If there were any, people wouldn't go on the pull and get paired off. There are of course advantages to not sticking your head in a blender, which is why very few people go and try the alternative, but not having a partner/spouse? I find it impossible to believe there are advantages to such a cursed life...with one notable exception. As a single man with no woman in my life, I can proudly say that NO ONE within the four walls of my flat has ever uttered the words "Leonardo" and "Di Caprio" in the same sentence. It is for this reason that I can also proudly say that within the four walls of my flat No ONE has ever been murdered and had her body dumped the rubbish tip less than a mile from these premises. How many married men can say that? Not many.

[snorg] Bit dangerous ! He'll turn into a werewolf !

just realised I posted to MCiOS a follow up to a conversation goi g on in here. Very confusing.

The three of you are clearly bonkers.

St d, any chance of a "copy-and-past" so we may learn of your wisdom here?

snorgs, help yerself on the breaking in front, I'm always welcome of a bit o' company, especially the feline variety. I used to have a cat named Dudley. He could talk you know... but he got run over. I miss him greatly.

Blob, heh, not so much a werewolf, but at university my friends often said I reminded tham of Dracula. To this day I refuse to allow garlic in my presence.

I'm off on holiday again tomorrow. Whee.

oooh... I have to wait two weeks. Hmph.

Joining in the holiday rush. I have the day off tomorrow to go to the Goodwood Festival of Speed. The two hour journey has put me off before, but with free tickets from the Sunday Times, I'm looking forward to it like a big kid.

I'll be there on Saturday, free tickets courtesy of work. My digital camera will be on official duties, but I won't. :o)

Cany anyone suggest a decent digital camera for about £100 - £130? My eye has been caught by the DV5000 as a fun gadget. Any opinions?

Bollocks. And that's all I have to say on the subject. Unless
a) my opinion is required or
b) my opinion is not required, but I get fed up with moaning to the rest of my friends and give it anyway.

So, age. Interesting thing. I don't always see it as a barrier, but I don't think I have a pattern...obviously when I was twelve I loved 26-year-olds because they were better looking than twelve-year-olds and had less scary voices and fewer spots. I have been known to have a penchant for an older man since but currently the objects of my affection range from 4 years younger to 28 years older (can you say worrying? Unless you're Jonathan Ross or Catherine Zeta-Jones, I imagine you can) so I reckon age doesn't enter into it. Of course this all means nothing, as I'm not part of a couple either, although because of that I can watch Euro 2004 in the comfort of my own home as opposed to in the pub (and I can bring my own snacks. Hooray! :) )
Did any of that make sense to anyone else? If not, ignore it, and normal service will be resumed shortly.

[snorgle] I started thinking "wow!", but on reading the spec, it's a 3.1MP stills camera (I don't know where they get 4.1MP from when the spec further down says 3.1) plus a crap videocam, in the same size package as my 3.2MP stills camera plus crap videocam (a Sony Cybershot DSC-P32). Mine was just under £200 a bit more than a year ago, so £130 for the same spec now is probably about right. The only difference is that mine's built to look like a camera, which it is, and the DV5000 is built to look like a videocam, which it isn't. A real videocam would have a video output socket and give at least television quality images. The spec mentions an AV cable, but only talks of recording video to the memory card, not streaming it out to a computer or DV recorder.

ZK] I would like to read your opinion. What a great match though. Fantastic stuff......Also I reckon I fit nicely into your -4 to +28 group, somewheer in the middle, and have reverted to my imagining of you as a stunningly attractive girl. Ain't life grand ?

I am currently discovering that another advantage of being single is that holidays cost half as much. If, by contrast, your other half is in teaching and you are therefore able to go away only in August, they cost about 500 times as much.

Regular readers of my posts, and surely there can't be many, will be astounded to learn that last night, because there was nothing better to watch, I actually turned the football on whilst having dinner and quite enjoyed it. This may be because working in news means I am familiar with the names of almost all the players in at least one of the teams playing in that match. Plus, of course, one of them has the same psychiatric disorder as me, so I approve of him. Still, as I watched, I found a strange desire coming over me to drink large amounts of alcohol, sit with my legs very wide apart, look at pictures of young ladies without much on and perform noxious evacuations in the company of others with an expression of pride. Testosterone - too much testorerone!

*cue eerie lighting effect and modulated voice*
Ahhhh... he's one of us, now...

BM] Are you too afflicted by Canttakeapenaltytosavemylifeitis? Re holidays though, have you not been confronted with the "single supplement" yet then ? Also you are factoring in teh idea that you have to pay for two peopl, rather than having two people pay for it....

Holidays ! Wait till you have kids ! Forced to go during School Holidays (they even bump up the prices for Half Term, the bastards) - me, wifey, two kids = 4 flights. Plus the small people want a constant supply of things. And you have to go to family-friendly restaurants (o.k. this is getting better as they get older). So yes, don't complain about your "single supplement" make the most of it while you're single - or find a friend to go with you.

Ah, the single supplement thing... blind fury at being charged around 30 per cent extra for having the audacity to not be part of a couple is what forced me to try National Trust working holidays, which was one of the best decisions I ever made. Luckily I have a flatmate prepared to travel with me now, but when everyone is already coupled up and with an allergy to 'organised tours', I was left without a lot of options. So I holidayed, but I didn't travel much, which I still regret.

Hmm, not to sure how my holidays compare to other peoples. I tend to just hope work will send me to somewhere nice, and I try to blag some extra days on account of crippling jet lag, severe cramp, dehydration, headaches, and mental stress from the fact I'm terrified of flying.

All of the above
Just call me Ms T-shirt

[st d] Reverted? Was there ever any doubt? :) [Blob] Feel for my dad, he has 4....and works for the NHS.

[Blob] Just the two litle acessories to take on hols! try three at (13, 9 and 3), mind you I am one of five, two boys and three girls. Holidays were fun; mostly.

Goody for Goodwood, wonderful, excellent; I enjoyed the whole day, like a kid in sweet shop, cars, cars, cars and ....even more cars.

[Blob] Did you say 'flights'? Presumably you don't go to Blackpool, Brighton or Margate then!
Whilst on the subject of holidays, are there still such things as camping coaches? I think that's what they were called. They're the railway carriages converted to accommodation and parked (permanently, I assume) in various areas. It's just that I have fond memories of staying in such as a child - although my parents might not agree with that evaluation - in places such as Arthog and Sandsend.
[Inkspot] Goodwood, cars - I envy you, sir.

If I remember correctly the carriages were actually on railway lines with a full connection to the rail network but the rails surely did not look as though they had been used of late - hence my term 'permanently'.

hello all, a quick post from st petersburg, [ZK] the football was shocking, we watched on TV at one in the morning here and it was mightily depressing - as all the russians in the bar were cheering for england. bless. will post again soon. nights.

[MF] So that's what you've been up to all this time!
Bravo, good sir, and extra kudos for managing to slip in a touch of nipple creep :-)

The full move can be viewed in its correctly-formatted glory here (also including the Hypearthquakes move and a lengthy Rice/Lloyd Webber/Elton John pastiche which probably did for the game)

Yeah - it was OK - I took lots of pictures of funny faces and situations in the crowds, slightly fewer of the cars - there were just so many of them. I'm probably not the world's most fanatical car-spotter. However, I did have my picture taken with Renault's F1 driver Franck Montagny, who had his arm around me LIKE HE MEANT IT, as part of the digital-camera-loan deal with my young French trainee who was chaperoning him for the afternoon, Mwahahaah! :o)

oh, and it rained a bit, but not enough to spoil things, just enough to wet the Hill Climb course ;o)

Well Martha, you've really Farquared that one up haven't you? Shame, it was a good move!

[MF] I go on holiday and this is what happens. I'll take my Acme HTML deodorizer to it later...

[Re Furcation Game] It turns out Martha's gigantic move was too big for the STEAM-powered technologies driving this site; hence I'm afraid I've taken the liberty of splitting the move up into two parts. I had to tidy up some of the HTML - the game moves should be unaffected, but do let me know if anything went awry in the rehashing.

Thanks rab! Strange I got it through the HTML checker first, though (and muchos kudos for that groovy little dingus, too, without which it'd still be lounging unloved and unread in a... oh, hang on...)

[Pen and Ink] Looks like we could have had a mini pilg as I was @ Goodwood too with my 16 year old and my 3 year old!

[MF] If you are interested, which you probably aren't, the database that sits behind this truncates posts when they hit some, at the time it was designed, apparantly unreasonable length. I guess you exceeded that :) I should find out what the limit is and put in a warning. Glad you like the HTML debugging tool...

*boogies* I just got cast in the Edinburgh Fringe for August! This is a serious coup d'état for me! *boogies more* Finally - an audition passed (not merely given) and exciting prospects! All I need to do is learn to be an eight-year-old within a month (which may involve disguising a couple of things!)...which I'm sure I can do with study. After all, I was only eight ten years ago.....
Go me! :)

[ZK]Good luck in Edinburgh. I may be able to help you out with the mind set of 8 year old boys, basically; girls are yeuch!!! ;)

[plump] I'm sure penelope could arrange for some wonderful reasonably priced dicounted hospitality.

Congratulations to DrQuuxum for reaching No1 on Celebrity Mronington Crescent, sadly down to 13 following the departure of evil_edna. JJ's dividends and returns have become a very useful tool in taking the guessing out of who to invest in next. Even if Mr. Rooney was a teensy weensy bit obvious last week.

[INkspot] I've resurrected edna's account and will post the reference number here soon to be re-included in the league, if that's OK with all of you lot. I've been well into Tim Henman stocks for a couple of weeks now :o)