In the course of my work this morning, I went to inspect an empty Council property, to which we had attached metal screens over the doors and windows for security. As I was about to unlock the screen over the front door, I looked up and saw, scrawled in black permanent marker:

MC
CHALKY
04

Any explanations, Ms Davenport...?

Eeek! I've been rumbled.
*rofl*

*Cross-Posting Alert*
ATTENTION MOTORBIKE/SCOOTER RIDERS
We, the research consultancy I work for, are looking for new bikers [commuters or enthusiasts] to participate in focus groups around the UK. We have sorted Birmingham, but still have a few vacancies for London Groups [12/13 Oct], Newcastle [19/20 Oct], Bristol [28/29 Oct] and Manchester [2/3 November]. All evenings. Fee of £30 paid for about an hour and a half. If you or any of your mates are interested please email me kedavenport at the hotmail address, but need to warn you that I'm on holiday for a week beginning 11th Oct.

Managed to slap down a holding deposit on a nice flat convenient for my new place of work this morning... At least I think it's nice: certainly seemed very pleasant and spacious as I was walking around it, though I couldn't remember if it has a washing machine (the agent assures me it does). Then again - I couldn't remember if it has a sink either (but I didn't ask the agent that). So, once I've bribed my current landlord into writing me a good reference, I should be sorted. Moving up at the end of the month.. oh what fun (not).

(Chalky) Do I take it that you are no longer engaged in elegant scribal activity?

I saw this in the letters page of the Grauniad a few days ago. A woman walks into a hairdresser's in Ashington, Northumberland, and says, "I'd like a perm". The hairdresser replies, "Ah wandered luuurnly as a cloud. That's Wordsworth, y'knaa".

[Rosie] Indeed I am - still calligraphing and chalk-scribing and the occasional line drawing. However, I now do lots of freelance work for a research consultancy so find myself embroiled in activity mainly connected with Exhibitions & Shows. September was Computer Games, then the Printing Industry, plus a bit of Royal Agricultural Society work. This month is Motorcycles & Scooters, then Paris [holiday] and then ... Recycling Waste Management. I can hardly wait.

[Chalky] You had dealings with the RASE? You poor bugger.

[Rab]'Has it got a sink?' would be a fairly normal question in my experience as a landlady - my new tenants have just written to ask me what the rules are on hanging picture frames and pets in the house. They seemed like such a lovely couple, but the latter request is really against my principles and sounds as though it could get messy.

[rab] good news about the gaff. Are you still in Embra or have you returned to Mancland?

At least they're asking - unless it's because their cat has just had kittens and they want to keep them all.. ;)

[Ella] I'd get the RSPCA onto them if they're hanging pets on the walls.

.....so the woman says "You don't understand, I want my hair curled." So the hairdressed puts her head in his fridge.

A scottish man walks into a baker's shop and asks "Is that a doughnut or a meringue?" The baker replies: "Naw, yer right enough, it's a doughnut".

[Dunx] That was my concern! Obviously I need to learn how to express myself more clearly through the medium of the written word or alternatively improve my sense of humour!

[Ella] ... or I need to read posts properly before I write. I hadn't woken up yet and just didn't notice your very well-expressed joke.

I'm back in Manc now, having caught up with my new (and, yet, somehow, old) colleagues last night at the annual poster session (which essentially is a front for a booze-up). [Ella] I'll check about the sink - welcome by the way.

[Dunx] I can sympathise! It usually takes me a good few hours before I remember who I am in the morning let alone how to read and write. [Rab] Thank you for this fantastic site. I happened on it whilst searching the web for bedroom furniture (?!) and as you may tell, am now completely hooked. I do feel as though I've gate crashed a party full of old friends though - hope you don't mind!

[Ella]My apologies for being thick about your post.. and I'm not that old!

Hello Ella, welcome! Hope soon you'll feel part of the party!

(Ella) I know what you mean about mornings. Being retired, I have decided to do away with them entirely, but it only postpones the befuddlement. Welcome to the asylum, which is of course run by the inmates. BTW I'm a bloke.

[Ella] Welcome.

[Ella] All old friends were once new friends. Welcome. BTW I'm a spiny anteater from New Guinea.

[Ella] Welcome and .... oops! quick got to go line manager on the loose.

Searching for bedroom furniture . . . it makes a change from "Jade Goody Nude".

No, if she'd wanted Jade Goody Nude she'd have ended up at MC in Outer Space. MC5 is a decent site with none of that filth, despite our best efforts. (Note for the uninitiated: a look at the "Google hits" info on the MCIOS screen reveals a distressing number of people who not only search for Ms Goody as God made her but thereby find their way onto the MCIOS page. No-one knows why.)

Yes, I don't know why Dan doesn't just rename the site.

Breadmaster] Imagine my surprise when I did a google search on "jade goody nude" and searched through for MCiOS, and LO AND BEHOLD, I found that IT WAS YOU that was linked to.......

thanks to all of you for making me spend teh last 30 minutes trying to find a GOOGLEWHACK. But hey - I suceeded !. Never again.

[st d] You recall this of course?

[Ella] Will you be frequenting the other MC sites too?

[St D] Splendid! I knew my crusade (consisting solely of repeating the phrase JADE GOODY NUDE as much as possible) would bear fruit...

[Bm] Do you do it in real life too, then?

[All] Thank you for a very warm welcome! [Darren] I've just spent some considerable time following the links to some of the other sites. Consequently, I've cancelled all appointments I had made with the outside world for the next year in order to give myself at least a slight chance of keeping up with all of the MC banter and games available. Who needs a family/job/friends anyway?

[Chalky] Did you get the mail I sent you (to both addresses) last night?

[rab] YES! *OOPS - TURNS OFf caps lock*
Was 'called out on business' straight from the office which is euphemistically known as 'went to the pub', then crashed [out, not into]. Thanks. Good stuff - am following it up as I type - hence the caps lock. I'm gibbering now. My brain is full up.

[Darren] Naturally. This is one reason why, like Ella, I have no family/job/friends either.

[rab] No birthday cake this year? Oh well, have a good one anyway.

[Lib] I'm saving myself up for a big plate of curry tonight...

[rab] many happy repeats!

Is it just me or is there a bowl of soup on the front page?

I think it's a Rogan Josh.

BtD] You know, I thought it was just me...

Well, if you want to drink soup from a metal dish, I guess it's a free country. *is waiting for the girls to get ready, and wondering if we'll make it to the pub on time...*

curry!

[rab] Happy bday and enjoy your curry!

I had a very nice curry on Friday night, although that was mainyl to avoid cooking after a grisly day.

I had a korma on Friday night, and spent most of the next 24 hours on the pan with minor food poisoning... Hope yours was better, rab!

It was a very lovely Lamb Handi, thanks, preceded by some lovely veggie samosas and accompanied by a couple of drinks.

Make your own curries and then you don't have to worry about food poisoning! I made one tonight with onion, garlic, LOADS of butter, garam masala, chili powder, chick peas, potato and a bunch of fresh baby spinach leaves. Damn fine.

Sounds like the RSPCA need to be told . . . .

And I hope you washed your Handi afterwards.

I finished my first radio show! It went quite well although we started off with major technical problems (we'd burned our playlist onto a CDr which the station's stereo refused to read) - luckily I'd brought all the original CDs to the studio in case of such an emergency so it all worked out! My co-host tried to ridicule me on some of my choice of songs but I was having none of it. You can't faze me! And I ain't stopping there! It's so exciting! I'm so glad I got the chance - it's hysterical when it goes wrong but it's so much fun! And I got most of it on tape too! *dances*

What radio station are you broadcasting on?

Hey! I used to have a radio show. I didn't need a co-host to ridicule my choice of music, though, as I could manage that by myself.

ZK] so tell us what it was then, so we can ridicule it too, or perhaps join in in being ridiculed by suggesting some others your co-host might liek to laugh at. And what did s/he choose ?

Well, apart from the odd hiccup, that went pretty well. If you can see this, your DNS has propogated. Welcome to MC5's new home.

Our playlist was as follows: Footloose, by Kenny Loggins, Johnny B Goode, by Chuck Berry, Stuck In The Middle With You by Stealer's Wheel, House of Fun by Madness, Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks, Frontin' by Jamie Cullum, Havin' A Party by The Osmonds, Dancing In The Street by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, I Quit by Hepburn, then some other stuff which went out the window because we ran out of time due to the tech failure at the beginning of the show, so we just stuck on Bohemian Rhapsody instead.
[Breadmaster] An interesting thought...I may be able to quietly bury her under a patio somewhere and do the job on my own :)

Good lord - I've actually heard of two of those. You can't be very mainstream. Now, tell us what channel you're on (or whatever the radio term is - I don't know - I don't understand radio!) and we can adjudge for ourselves!

[Nik] Congratulations. Is this the tiny new low power server box, or something else?

The tiny 'new' low power server box, yes.

[Nik] I see a yes, and my cursor turns into a ? when over it, but should something else happen? (MacOS X, Safari.)

[Nik] Ah, I see the popup now, Safari waits a whole second before showing it.

[Raak] And disappears a whole second before you've had time to read it. Anyway, jolly good, ho. Not been able to post from work as the DNS hasn't had time to propagate from Withington to Chorlton-On-Medlock, clearly. You'd've thought that if a Magic Bus could do it, the newfangled Interwebnet could...

[ZK] Not a shockingly bad playlist, but, given that (I believe) you're a shade younger than I, shouldn't you be knocking out some more banging tunes than I did when spinning the wheels of steel plastic in 1995?

We asked for a specialist show rather than a mainstream one so we could play absolutely anything, otherwise we'd have had to have stuck with Burn's playlist (which, quite frankly, isn't very big) - the show's called the Nostalgia Hour (well, it has our names in front of that) and we can play absolutely anything from 1950 through to 2004. As long as we like it (or one of us likes it) we can play it. Unfortunately, we're on at 10 in the evening once a week and our broadcasting power is about 3 feet, but I told all my friends to listen on the internet so the only problem they have is when that crashes. The frequency is 107.3 FM which I think works on the radio just outside the studio and not in many other places. If you absolutely want to listen to me make an ass of myself go to www.burnfm.com. We had more modern songs on the playlist originally but ran out of time so we ended up with Frontin (2004) and I Quit (1999). The Guild has more than enough people playing predominantly banging tunes already, and they get put on during the day when people are actually listening to them, so I reserve my right to act like I'm radio 2.

Ooh, that went on a bit..

....got locked out of my house. Pulled the door shut and thought 'Arse'. And if I did leave and keys with a neighbour then the one I'd chose is away this weekend. Tried the credit card thing and other silly ideas (like putting my hand through the letter box), but Mr Locksmith fixed it in the end. I felt very silly!

[ZK] Good playlist! Good luck with your next show. Which night do you broadcast?

And what's wrong with pre-1950? Play some Louis Jordan, and let those hep cats pick up on what you're layin' down, put on their zoot suits, and have a natural jivin' ball! Preach!