For the last week I’ve been playing around with Twitter and been trying various clients, both on my desktop and on my phone; it has been surprisingly fun. After all of this fiddling around I have settled on two clients in terms of their speed, size and features.

Windows users in search of a good client and who do not want to install Adobe’s AIR package will not go far wrong with Bitter. These are some of its features:

• Supports Twitter, Plurk and Friend Feed
• Single column UI
• Shows unread tweet count
• Fast install
• Manage multiple accounts
• Twitter tweets, mentions, direct messages, and favourites
• Twitter group tweets
• Twitter search and hash tags
• Twitter screenname intellisense
• View Twitter user's profiles
• Powerful menus to allow you to reply, reply to all, direct message, retweet, copy tweets or link, and more
• Auto spell check
• Colour schemes
• Auto shrinks URLs
• Posts pictures to TwitPic
• Low memory usage

And this is what it looks like:

The best thing about it? It is free! Hooray! Go to the developers website to download it.

On my brilliant TG01 I have been using Panoramic moTweets. There as a free, advert supported version, but since you only have to pay $3.99 for the full version I’d really suggest shelling out the cash. Some of its features are:

• Support for multiple Twitter accounts
• Ability to upload pictures using your device’s camera or from the photo album
• Post your location manually or by using your device GPS
• Tiny URL and bit.ly Support
• Three (3) skin colors
• View Trends, Lists  and Conversations
• Finger friendly, kinetic scrolling menus
• Translate Tweets and Search Twitter topics with ease
• ReTweet, Follow, Unfollow, Direct messages, Replies and Favorites

This is what it looks like on my phone:

You can get the free version or pay for the ad-free offering on Panoramic’s website.

With these two programs you can Tweet to your heart’s content, whether at home, in the office, or on the move. Enjoy!

I’ve mentioned one method of always showing a battery meter on the Windows Mobile taskbar, but I’ve found a better way of achieving this.

There is a piece of free software called BattClock, which you can get here, that allows you to always show not only a percentage battery meter in your taskbar all of the time, but you can also show your choice of a clock, the date or the amount/percentage of free memory in addition to this. My taskbar now shows the time, date and battery meter as you can see below:

One thing that I did have to do was slightly increase the width of what BattClock displays, as a couple of pixels from the Windows Mobile standard clock were visible poking out from the right of the BattClock information. This is really easy to achieve as the program has a configuration application (the icon in the Programs folder called battconfig) which allows you to change not only the size, location and colours its output, but also what information it does display.

I am very pleased with this bit of software. When I next get some cash I will certainly be donating some to the author.

The cat I had whilst in Oxford, named Thin Cat, died a couple of days ago. I was saddened to hear of it, but not too surprised as she looked pretty tired and old when I took a picture of her last Christmas. She had a right to look tired as she was over twenty years old. A good innings for a cat.

You may be wondering about the name ‘Thin Cat’, yes she really was called that. My family got her at the same time as another Russian Blue kitten and they looked pretty similar, the only difference was that one was slightly smaller and the other was slightly thinner. So they were named Small Cat and Thin Cat. My mother was somewhat embarrassed when she registered these expensive pedigree cats with the vet, she had to give their names and thought the vet would be disdainful of our naming strategy.

Thin Cat was quite social but I was clearly her favourite person; she would usually be found hanging around where I was and loved sitting on me no end. I used to feel I had been particularly favoured by her attentions when she wanted to spend the night asleep on my legs. How could I possibly throw her off me when she loved me so, just for the feeble excuse of me needing sleep?

She did have a close escape earlier in her life. One night she came in through the cat-flap with her face bleeding and covered in cuts. When we looked at her we noticed that she was also missing some teeth: she had clearly been hit by a car. My dear mother was a bit concerned about her and so started looking through the phone book for an all night vet. As she was flicking through the phonebook pages Thin Cat walked over to where I was sitting, jumped up onto my lap, curled up and started purring very loudly. At that point we realised seeing the vet could wait until the next day. The only fall-out from her run-in with the car was that she lost some teeth and this would occasionally make her tongue loll out of one side of her mouth; it looked quite funny.

Small Cat was a much more nervous, neurotic cat, far less friendly than Thin Cat. Indeed, Small Cat was so meek that she was even bullied by my sister’s budgerigar, which would land on her head and bite her ears. Bold budgie! Small Cat hated this but didn’t seem to realise that, as she was a cat, she didn’t have to stand for it and could eat the bird if it was vexing her.

Fast forward to three years ago and the partner and I decide that we want to get a cat. I’ve told the story before, but once we made this decision we acted with speed and efficiency. Within a few minutes we had found a reasonably local breeder of the variety of cat we wanted, the next day we visited her and met the little kitten we would call Kisu. With his big ears and hugely long back legs we thought he was extremely cute and could not resist buying him. Why is he named Kisu? I wanted to follow my historic pet-naming strategy and call him ‘Cat’, but the partner disagreed. He suggested instead that we call him Kisu, which means ‘little cat’ in Finnish (the partner is of Finnish extraction), I approved and his name was settled.

Kisu has grown to be rather large for a ‘little cat’, now weighing almost 6kg, so when he jumps on me whilst I am asleep I generally notice. He is certainly one of the most friendly, well-adjusted and social cats I’ve experienced. He may not always fancy sitting on someone’s lap, but he generally likes to hang around where there are people; he wants to be involved in what is going on in the flat be it eating sushi or appreciating fine ceramics. He may like to hang around with us, but he generally does it in a very relaxed style:

I shaved off all of my body hair. Yes, I was that bored. My skin feels really soft but a bit stubbly. This is a problem with shaving body hair. If you shave too closely you may have baby smooth skin for a day or two, but you’ll get ingrown hairs and a general irritated rash. Shave less closely and you are a stubbly kid. The trick of shaving one’s own arse, we are told, is to squat over a mirror.

Need proof that I’ve shaved? Here it is:

You can click for an enlargement and see the lack of body hair and the horrific state of my arms.

I think a nappy, shortalls and baby booties make for ideal apparel on a Thursday afternoon.

Since I have been feeling better I haven’t felt like doing so much baby stuff. Sure, I still cuddle Butter the bear at night, and often wear nursery-printed clothes, but as far as putting nappies on and playing baby games goes I just haven’t fancied it.

Hmmm… I could put on a nappy now… I don’t have much writing to do today, so why not? Yeah, I’ll go for it.

Edit: Just to prove I am wearing a nappy (and a nursery-printed onesie) here is the evidence:

The cat seems quite interested in my nappy.

The partner took a picture of me whilst I was deeply asleep this morning.

Good bedclothes, eh?

The partner purchased some staggeringly expensive sun glasses yesterday. Perfect timing, as this is what my phone says the weather is going to be like for the next few days:

These are also from Linenstore.co.uk from their selection of kid's double bedding.

I've had a Sony Ericsson Xperia X1for just over six months and I bloody love it; it is the best phone I've ever had. The keyboard is great, as is the high-resolution display and it has a handy GPS for when I get lost. I thought I would suggest some software that takes advantage of its general brilliance.

The first thing you want to install is the SPB Mobile Shell (screenshot on the right). This is the main interface I use for navigating my phone, much better than the ones that come pre-installed.

There are a couple of things you should grab from this list of Xperia software. Namely, Flash Lite, Windows Live Search and Remote Desktop Mobile. Flash Lite will make browsing things like YouTube in the Opera browser a lot better. Windows Live Search is very powerful and will show results on a map, and Remote Desktop looks great on the high-resolution display.

YouTube will work with Flash Lite in the browser just fine, but if you are a YouTube addict you'll want to get the YouTube application and panel that are linked to here.

To take advantage of the GPS you really want to get Google Mobile Maps. Again, this looks great on the high-resolution display. You'll never get lost if you install this.

If you like instant messaging you will not go far wrong with Palringo. This connects to all major IM networks and also allows you to send sound and image files as part of your messages. This has kept me feeling connected to my friends when I've been locked up in the bin. Obviously, you'll also probably want to install Skype for cheap calls and messaging. Check your data plan allows you to connect to to Skype before you get landed with a huge bill, or just use WiFi.

I also go on IRC to chat to my friends in a schizophrenia support room. For ages I didn't have an even passably good IRC client for Windows Mobile, then I discovered IRCy which may look a bit crude, but it has full functionality. Good software.

For reading RSS feeds you can use Google Reader in the Opera browser, but I've installed Newsgator Go!, a great-looking and powerful RSS reader which syncs up with the Newsgator channels you subscribe to on your desktop.

Another crude but effective program is the blogging client the Diarist. This is good enough to leave quick blog posts when you are on the go, but won't win many awards for its design.

Finally, there are two games the Xperia owner should not be without. Xtrakt is a free 3d racing/shooty kind of game that looks an absolute treat with the Xperia's 3D acceleration. The other game costs $10, but looks such a treat and plays so well you really want to get it. It is Need for Speed Undercover, which is reviewed more fully here. It is a real game, which makes me really impressed with how mobile phone gaming is developing.

I'm just going to add to this post a bit, there are a couple of Xperia X1 websites that you might want to keep your eyes on for more software. Xperia-x1.com seems to be updated quite often and it has a category for software to watch. Xperiax1.net doesn't seem to be updated so often, but there is news there. Finally there is an official blog from Sony Ericsson here.

I'm such a defective person. Since Wednesday my cyclical vomiting syndrome has flared up and I've been vomiting 30+ times a day. Even re-hydration salts don't stay down. This has totally prevented me from sleeping, which I'm told makes me have big, dark rings around my eyes:

Not sleeping doesn't help with the lunacy, and I am seriously close to flipping and just start to bang my head against the wall whilst screaming. I should go to hospital, but Saturday night down the Woolwich hospital is really nasty. I need a drip and something that'll get me to sleep. I'm really ill, in both the physical and mental health senses.

One of the problems with being a larger toddler is that one requires a larger bed, and it is difficult to get good bedding for them. However, Linenstore.co.uk have a selection of kid's double bedding. This is what is on my bed:

If you've ever owned a cat, you'll know that they like sitting on things. Even if that thing is only a piece of paper on a table, they'll sit on it and be happy. Kisu the cat is currently sitting on a piece of packing foam that has somehow made it into the middle of the floor. He bloody loves it! He doesn't seem to mind that his arse is hanging off it.

As you can see, I am happier today. Firstly my Community Psychiatric Nurse dropped by with a prescription for 8mg/day of Risperidone. Hooray! Secondly, and most importantly, when things were really crap at lunch time the partner dropped everything at work and came home to look after me. This cheered me up no end. He'll be working from home for the rest of the week, which should give the drugs time to kick in. Finally, the internet supermarket gave away some free toy vans, which, as you can see in the picture below, Kisu the cat was also interested in.

So today I was supposed to get my dose of anti-psychotic raised. But, as you can see, it is a crazy winter's day. When there is a bit of snow in the UK everything goes tits up, so neither my Community Psychiatric Nurse nor my psychiatrist made it into work today. Which means no increase in medication for me. Which means some... difficulty.

I'm out of the bin, wehay!

Take, for example, my cat: Kisu.

more fail, owned and pwned pics and videos

My faithful old Chelsea boots have got huge hole in their soles. Bums. So, as it is my birthday soon my mother has kindly offered to buy me some replacements.

For general purpose wear I will get some Timberland Torrace Chelsea boots (pictured left). I like Chelsea boots. They are comfortable, sturdy and smart enough to wear when a level above slovenliness is required.

Because there was a sale on, and the price even including postage from the US was cheaper than anything similar I can get in the UK, I also scored these:

They are Cowboy boots, but look similar enough to clippy hunting boots for me to like them. I have a black leather trench-coat and I've always wanted some boots to match. At $59.99 these seemed a top purchase. I suppose those boots will also suit if I go for this look again:

 

... chip! Hooray for crap jokes!

Miffy the bunny rabbit is not only cute, but also a minimalist design classic. Some people think that Miffy has some relation to Hello Kitty stuff; the truth is Hello Kitty is a foul Japanese rip-off of a European children's icon. I've got some Miffy posters up in the flat, but this weekend's trip to Oxford has yielded something a bit more impressive. I was looking around the Inspires gallery and saw they had some limited edition Miffy prints. They are quite large and look very good in the white frames Inspires have put them in. They are a bit pricey, but for a large, high-quality, framed effort it was well-worth picking one up.

He has arrived. Hooray!

It has been pointed out that Stew looks a bit like Butter. I suppose he does.

The new laptop is a great toy; being able to reliably connect to the internet from anywhere and use my favourite programs is an undoubted boon. However, I am a toddler and there are other kinds of toy more suited to that. My latest new toy comes from that excellent shop Teddy Bear Friends. This is him:

I shall call him Stew, which strikes me as an excellent name for a rabbit. He is not a replacement for Butter the bear. Butter will hold the rank of 'most soothing security object' until he becomes a thread-bear. That doesn't prevent me from having more toys to play with.

Note: If Stew does not have floppy ears I know who to ring.

I like them so much I couldn't wait to take a picture. Here they are:

Zazzle has thousands of pictures and you can customise them or upload your own pictures. A good shop.

I've been purchased a t-shirt that celebrates the main side effect of Clozapine. I am told that being bought such a shirt is 'supportive'. Hmmmm... Anyway, this is it:

Apart from the drooling Clozapine is marvellous stuff. I admit I don't want to go out, but I am happy enough ticking along in my own little way at home.

I've just been prescribed an anti-sompting drug to take at night that moderates the jet of drool that fires from my mount, but during the day it is a case of slurping the drool back into my mouth when the volume leaking out gets too great.

The t-shirt comes from www.zazzle.com as have a few others that I'll try and post pictures of.

I have just received a couple of onesies from Babykins. They seem excellent quality and fit a treat. The nursery-prints are quite good, as you can see in this example:

Cute and practical, no more sagging nappies.

I just popped next door to the toddlers who live in the same building as me. They have a new acquisition: a high chair. It is really high quality and I like sitting so my feet dangle in the air. Here are some pictures:

  

Nice, eh? The lovely lion-printed shirt came to me courteously of this reseller on the excellent Zazzle.com novelty-printed goods site.

I'd be a bit larger than I am now, I'd wager. Sweets Wholesale appeals to the child in us all. It appealed to the child in me enough to order 20kg of sweets.

This much will probably last quite a while.

I went to the London Wine Trade Fair today, I dressed in my most 'wine trade'-uniform:

With a suit as sexy as that I got to try all of the good stuff.

Zoo the teddy giraffe has been delivered. He looks like this:

He is really cute, but considering he is not made for huge toddlers toddlers like me but smaller babies he is rather large, as you can see in this picture:

Finally, Baby Butter has arrived. He is very cute with a nice smile but a bit small.

I clearly have some kind of book fetish. I've been buying piles recently, I've been buying a lot of books as well. This is what arrived yesterday morning which I have only just had the chance to unpack.

As you can tell, biology and cooking seem to be the current themes of choice, nicely crossing over in the molecular gastronomy book.

Of course, I get a pile of new cookery books when I am violently ill. I went to the GP today and spent almost two hours sitting in the waiting room, with waves of unbearable nausea flowing over me and the beast getting ever closer to consuming me, before they could be bothered to tell me I could not be seen that day. Hopefully they will see me later this afternoon and I can get some powerful anti-emetic action sorted out.

Look at the time *sigh* nearly 0420...

Privatina are excellent; it is nice to finally see an AB clothes supplier who make professional quality clothes. OK, I admit they are a bit pricey, but what price can you put on fun.

Here are the clothes I got with in my latest order, as ever click on the pictures to get an enlargement. Firstly a little legged sleeper suitable for summer:

   

This is a footless sleeper:

These are my 'Racer' pyjamas, you can see me celebrating winning a race:

   

And finally, my giraffe sleeper. Notice the little ears on the feet.

 

 

Yesterday we went to The Southerner in the city. This is a boozer that sells Speight's beers, imported from New Zealand. We went with the neighbours, one of whom is from New Zealand, because we were promised that they do good roast lunches on Sundays. Good roast lunches, my arse. They were bloody awful: overcooked, leathery, flavourless meat, wet tasteless vegetables and the roast potatoes defied description. I wasn't so impressed with Speight's beers, either.

So, we needed perking up. This required decent wine, teddy bears and nappies. You can see me enjoying these around the neighbours' place below:

As you can see by my bulging Miffy t-shirt, now I am not spewing all of the time I have put on a shed-load of weight. I've had to move up to large-size Abri-Form X-Pluses. The wine was a rather cheeky little Chateauneuf, Mont-Redon 2004, which really blossomed with time in the glass. The afternoon passed with much pleasure and I felt rather jollied along by the whole affair. The kebabs we ordered later were much better than The Southerner's roast lunches.

I spent the weekend in France, we went to two good restaurants and one bloody awful one. Here is me moping in the dreadful restaurant:

Overall it was a fun weekend. However, I have come back to find myself in the depths of insomnia. It is bloody awful. I am supposedly on the waiting list for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for insomnia. Who knows when that will happen. Moreover, there is a big chance they won't do it until I have completed a course of CBT for psychosis and that, of course, is even further away.

Long time reader may have been wondering why there have not been many pictures of late. The reason behind this is that I've been invited to a 'moustache party' tonight and I have spent the last four weeks allowing this monstrosity to congeal on my upper lip:

Since I've had my face lasered in the past there is not that much hair there and the moustache has big holes in it. Tomorrow morning it goes, and I will be so pleased to shave it off.

The neighbours brought back some new bedclothes from Hong Kong, they are very nice:

You can just see the cat's head in the top corner, it was a real fight to keep him off the bed long enough to take a picture.

The cleaner came today, when I went into the bedroom after she had finished there I found the bed looking like this:

Nice to know she treats Butter and Fudge well.

I picked up the trousers for my red cord suit today; it looks so sexy:

It is rather livid, I admit, but fits a treat and I think it looks great. I am off to the best restaurant in the world (l'Arnsbourg) in February and I shall be wearing it with one of my most lurid shirts. Hooray!

I was given a beautiful thing today, a new Sarah-Jane Selwood vase:

I now own seven pieces by her, and consider myself very fortunate to do so. Kisu the cat likes her stuff too:

I really hate building flat-pack furniture, but today I have managed to build two Ikea display cabinets for my ceramics. This one is full of Sarah-Jane Selwood stuff:

And this one has a variety of people's work in it:

I think they are heavy enough so if the cat jumps onto them they will not fall down. They'd better be...

Today I sallied forth, braved the rain and picked up this utterly beautiful Sarah-Jane Selwood bowl.

I am very pleased with it. I am also pleased that there are some display cases in the post so the bloody cat doesn't smash it.

I've got a bath robe from Privatina:

It is made of nursery-printed toweling, with a soft fleece lining, and the hood has ears (well, an ear in this picture anyway):

Here are some pictures of the two items of clothing I received today. I am very pleased with them.

 

 

Privatina can be found here.

It is a bit short for my tastes:

My fault entirely for not looking at the pictures closely enough.So I've emailed and asked if one can be made of a length I can wear outside. The ears are great for signaling:

Oh I say, which the excitement of new clothes arriving I forgot to say I visited the neighbours last night. They don't mind if I occasionally check how wet my nappy is:

And don't mind if I find trousers too difficult to work after I've had a change:

That is obviously chocolate-flavour milk I am drinking, not a creamy cocktail.

My that was quick, they claim two-to-four weeks. Here I am in my fleece pedalling trousers and jacket with hood and ears:

 

You can click for an enlargement if you really like.

The quality seems very high for an AB clothes manufacturer, I would have no qualms about ordering again from them. Indeed, I've just placed a new order after paying for membership. There are a lot of details that are nice about the clothing, they are branded, have childish 'shop-tags' attatched to them when you unpack them and have childish size tags where appropriate. They look very much like 'real' baby clothes but in a much larger size.

Oh I got some baby booties too:

Privatina can be found here.

I'm still a good baby, cuddling Butter and doing as I am told:

Even drinking from an appropriate vessel:

After my bath last night I was fortunate enough to be 'made ready' for bed: this is the advantage of being a supervised toddler. All I had to do was be co-operative and good. And I am a good baby.

First comes a nappy:

Then plastic pants:

Finally a nursery-printed sleeper to keep me snuggly and warm:

I've been supervised at home for the past two days, so I have not cut myself or done anything else bad. This has resulted in me being sure that I am a good baby rather than a bad adult. This works for me. My dose of the anti-psychotic that has worked in the past (Risperidone) was also increased yesterday, I am half way to getting up to a therapeutic dose. This has also cheered me up a bit, even though the hallucinations are still pretty bad. Still, I am a good baby and that is a good thing.

I spent the weekend in France with the neighbours. The point was to go and visit three very good restaurants. At the first I ate this sausage:

The owner of the restaurant made suggestive comments as I toyed with the enormous sausage.

Things are still not entirely brilliant as far as mental health goes, but they have been a lot worse. I am generally holding off from lacerating my arms and only randomly cry a few times a day. The hallucinations are still pretty bad, but I am finally having my anti-psychotic medication changed to something useful on Monday, so hopefully these will be less of a problem soon.

Thanks to the generosity of my normally tight-fisted father I have a new toy. A 3Ghz quad-core computer with 4GB 1066Mhz memory, an over-clocked 8800GTX and 1.8TB of hard disk space. This is it:

Yes, it has spinning lights, too.

I've done this blog entry before, but this time the keyboard has only lasted two years rather than nine. It is also a lot cleaner than that very old one, look:

Well, perhaps not that much cleaner:

I've replaced it with exactly the same type of keyboard.

You just cannot get any peace these days. There I was trying to sleep and someone comes and takes pictures of me. Well, here they are (click for enlargements):

You can turn yourself into a Springfield resident at Simpsonizeme.com. Here I am as a one-year old, I am sure you can see the resemblance.

Whilst I was on my aborted trip to France and in the bin Kisu was looked after by my dear mother. She took him into the office:

Kisu was in the bin too!

Nice place for a kip:

Here is what I looked like after a week of being denied a razor:

Do I have mange or what?

I am off on holiday tomorrow for a week. Earlier my mother visited to collect Kisu the cat, she is looking after him whilst I am away. Thoughtfully, she brought me a replacement Kisu:

Not me, but happier:

 

I am remarkably less paranoid, and really not being so bothered by the hallucinations, but really still terribly depressed. I have no interest in my hobbies, I cry all the time and I feel like I want to die. Soon. But I am still happier than I have been. Those arms are a real mess; I am disgusted with myself.

I had to go shopping first thing yesterday morning. I dressed like this:

Then later on I was invited for dinner chez the neighbours and I dressed like this:

Both suited me fine, but somehow they seemed the wrong way around...

As I reported a couple of weeks ago, I ordered a couple of mod-ed dummies. They are Nuk Medic Pro nipples with shields from smaller babies dummies. Here they are:

You can get them from www.pacifiersrus.com

It is Saint George's day today, the day of our patron saint. I am English and proud of it, so today I will wear my shirt covered with English roses and go for a pint of warm, still-living ale down my local boozer.

I don't know why people pretend to be Irish on St. Patrick's day and drink horrible Guinness, yet cannot be arsed to do anything on England's day. Surely any excuse for a pint?

The results of my shortalls dyeing experiment seem a success. They are most fetching in baby blue.

      

Looks a lot more childish than dull old beige.

Here are some pictures of my new beige shortalls.

       

They are a bit... well... beige, but at least they fit well. I have to say I am tempted to dye them baby blue. That'd get me noticed about Town.

A while ago I ordered some shortalls from Pointer Brand. They arrived earlier this afternoon, hooray! I got a beige pair (which I will take some pictures of tomorrow) and these blue denim ones.

They seem great for strolling about in on the unseasonably warm days we've been having of late.

 

When it is bed-time Kisu the normally goes wild and starts running around the flat hunting anything small enough for him to take on. However, after a while he gets bored of this and wants to come and sleep with me, and he wants to sleep on my pillow on Fluffy Bat. If I am in bed he edges as close to my head as he can, taking up even more room if I move away from him, so by the morning he has the entire pillow to himself:

As you can see, there is not much room there for my head. I have to say I am not really sure if Kisu's friendliness in bed would really keep me awake if I were not being kept awake by the medication I am taking, but it does feel a touch strange to be lying in bed only to get a sudden mouthful of cat.

Thanks to my new purchase, a stereo bluetooth headset for my Jasjar, I can now make telephone calls using Butter. I just attach the microphone to his shirt and stick the headphones in my ears:

I can also give Butter commands to play music and navigate the web thanks to the power of voice recognition. I wonder what people would think if I walked around apparently chatting to my teddy bear.

The cricket world cup has started. So far my favourite match has been to watch Australia whip Scotland, the masters seem to have got some form back. Tomorrow is England's first match, which will have me glued to the television all afternoon.

Encouraged by Butter's example yesterday, I've been watching it in just a nappy and t-shirt.

   

As you can see, much excitement is generated when a boundary gets scored.

I thought I'd take a picture of Butter demonstrating that it is alright to be in bed in just a nappy and a t-shirt, which I managed to do.

However, whenever one tries to do anything in this flat, including taking a quick picture, Kisu the bloody cat turns up and expects to be the centre of attention.

Kisu cannot even be bothered to wear a nappy to encourage me to wear them. He is a nice little kitten, though, and I don't mind him sleeping on my pillow too much.

As I mentioned Abena sell onesies. I purchased a couple as they were only a tenner each. Abena describe them as 'body stockings' and this is probably a better term. They are thin and laced with Lycra and so are incredibly stretchy. If you are ordering try to make sure you are right in the middle of the size bracket or they will not fit properly. There is no way one could iron on a transfer. They'd be good under clothes, though.

 

OK, I admit they are not terribly flattering for the larger-sized toddler, but they are so clingy and stretchy one can get up to all kinds *ahem* of stuff.

 

As I was looking through my draw of baby clothes I noticed this:

This is the oldest item of baby clothing I own, from 1996, and it still fits! The company that made it has long gone tits up, but it is a good, comfortable thing to wear. Some of you may be wondering how I can have clothes that are eleven years old when I am merely two, and I assure you that so do I...

We are told that a sugary drink before bed helps one to sleep. I tried it with a Harvey Wallbanger:

Problem is, those HW's are rather heroic for a toddler like me, and drinking them from a baby bottle does increase the rate at which alcohol is absorbed into the blood-stream:

It didn't help me sleep. Curses!

Last night I met a couple of ABs, one of whom had travelled over from the US on business. We had went for some London-brewed beer, had a look in in Tate Modern then went out for dinner at a place called Chili's in Canary Wharf. Here I proved that I am the master of unconvincing smiles:

My smile was unconvincing because I found the margarita to be weak and lacking ferocity. The baby back ribs were quite nice; I plastered my face with the sauce.

Whilst we were out in Canary Wharf and anecdote occurred. My overalls have a teddy bear printed on the back pocket and I was wearing my sweater that has a picture of Butter on the front and bear paw-prints on the back. I was hanging around with the chap from the US whilst our other dining companions had to visit the little boys' room when suddenly a quite fetching young lady of about twenty came up to us. She said, "Excuse me, but why do you have teddy bears on your clothes?"

What could I reply but, "Because I am an enormous toddler, of course."

She hesitated a moment before saying, "Oh, and I thought you just liked teddy bears. That is quite cute, I suppose." And off she went.

In a little over a week Kisu the kitten has made great strides in being badly behaved and climbing up the curtains. He has moved from struggling to get his head to the top of the curtains to this much more impressive result:

He is still a bad cat, though.

We had sushi for dinner last night; the smell of raw fish drove Kisu the kitten wild. We could hardly deny him a few bits of the lesser fish, and the partner even went to the trouble of arranging it sushi-wise. I am not sure Kisu really cared about that, though.

I was quite amused by this cartoon in this week's edition of the excellent periodical Private Eye:

I understand there are people out there who might think that Sharia Law isn't bigoted, but they are wrong.

Kisu the kitten may be generally lovable (when he is not gnawing on fingers) but he likes the curtains just a little too much. He starts to climb them:

Gets half-way up:

Then gets to the top:

Bad cat!

I used iron-on transfer paper to add a nursery print to a onesie. I think the result was pretty good.

Onesies are such handy items of clothing, I really don't have enough of them.

I've been neglecting Butter somewhat over the past couple of weeks; Kisu takes up a lot of time with his demands for attention. I even find it hard to cuddle Butter whilst I am in bed. Kisu likes to sleep next to me in a position that makes it difficult to hold Butter in a comfortable position. I am still deeply attached to Butter, though.

At least he doesn't try to attack my nappies when I am having a change.

Surely it is traditional to have a picture of one's cat on one's homepage?

Kisu has really settled in well. He now thinks he owns the place and should take part in any activity that happens in the flat.

With the aid of sleeping tablets and the very warm Guantanamo Bay sleeper I managed a reasonable night's sleep. Hooray! I am pleased the sleeper was warm as the night was very cold. So cold, in fact, that we have had our first snow of the winter:

I got this red flannel footed sleeper from here. Rather lurid, isn't it?

It has a drop seat back and quite tough soles to the feet. It does make me look like an escaped terrorist, though.

When we plan something we carry out that plan with speed and efficiency; so meet the new family member:

We will be picking him up next Saturday, but we had a good look at him this evening. He is a Burmese half-breed who is very friendly and good-looking. The fact that he is only half-Burmese makes him a lot cheaper than a pure pedigree. His name is Kisu which means 'pussy' in Finnish. Not 'pussy' in an anatomical feature way, I hasten to add. We will have to go shopping for cat accoutrements this week.

By looking up pictures of cats I have persuaded my partner that it would be very nice to own a cat. This is very much the experience I would like from owning a cat:

The breed of cat we would get would either be a Bombay (which is the type of cat featured in the above picture) or a Burmese. My mother and sister have owned Bombay and Burmese cats and they are incredibly friendly and love attention. They look like small panthers.

We have also pretty much decided on a name. I've always maintained that cats should be called "Cat", but this has been ruled out. The suggestion from my partner is "Kissa", which is 'cat' in Finnish. This suits me fine.

I was looking for pictures of Maine Coon cats to prove to my partner how cute they are. I found some good ones. Isn't this kitten irresistible?

The thing that must amused me in my search results was a blog entry listing really fat cats. Here it is. I like the twenty-four pound Maine Coon very much.

The weekly National Secular Society email included a link to an amusing cartoon. Here it is.

I am meeting my step-father for lunch at a rather nice establishment. This means baby clothes are right out and wearing one of my sexy suits is required. The good Mr. Paul Smith provided my incredibly brilliant chocolate-brown, needle cord suit:

The shirt is from Liberty and has a red rose print on it (I am an Englishman, after all). The cat print tie is from Dior. All of these clothes come to me via the handiness of sales and discount shops. With such assistance even a toddler can look like a reasonably dissolute adult.

I have to say that my dear mother warned me to take it easy with my step-father as apparently I am a bad influence on him. Brilliant! What more could one ask but to be a bad influence on people?

I ordered some training pants from a UK company called Drylife. They are plastic pants with a double layer of terry towelling on the inside. This is how they look:

I imagine they will not be terribly absorbent, but I got them more for the idea than for using. When I have to wear adult clothes that are not suitable for wearing a nappy under I can wear these and still be a toddler.

I've also ordered some plastic pants from them, they carry my favourite design and are quite cheap. I like plastic pants with enclosed elastics, I find they leak less. They look like this:

My mother purchased a pair of trousers for me. The way she described them on the telephone made them sound bloody awful, but now I see them I have to admit I am rather taken with them:

Yes, they are lurid red cords with ducks embroidered on them. Ho ho ho.

I really like red cords; they are effectively wine-trade uniform here in London and I do like to associate myself with wine. They have got me into trouble in the past, though. I was once travelling on a train through a deeply horrible part of London to the airport to go and visit a friend in Paris when a group of scum took offence at my red cords and smashed me over the head with a bottle of incredibly filthy sparkling wine. Blood was everywhere and I now have a very big scar on the back of my head. At least the dry cleaners managed to get the blood out of my tweed jacket.

My stomach is still not in perfect condition. I can only eat very small meals without feeling sick. It doesn't seem that the operation to fix my hiatus hernia was terribly effective in the end. This has resulted in me continuing to lose weight. This is good because more and more of my clothes now fit, including my old onesies.

Onesies are great for general-purpose wearing. They stop nappies from hanging down and drooping. Because they also hold one's nappies tight they also reduce the potential for leaks. You can get them from Diaperstation. I think normal t-shirt designs are better than the lap-shoulder design as they are not really suitable for very large toddlers.

I live by the river in a fairly quiet part of London. For a while this afternoon I could hear loads of helicopters buzzing around, so I finally went outside to see what was happening. Turns out an aircraft carrier was cruising up the Thames. Here is a dreadful picture of it:

It is the HMS Illustrious that is coming to London to take part in Remembrance Day. There is a better picture on the BBC news website. This has been the second time I have seen one cruising up the Thames since we moved into this area.

Whilst I was in hospital my order from diaperstation arrived. I got a couple of things, firstly a 'lap' style onesie with a rather nice teddy bear print on it:

This is the first lap-neck style onesie I have purchased, it does seem to be a rather large hole for one's head. Perhaps better for smaller toddlers rather than huge ones like me. The second thing I got was a nursery-printed t-shirt:

They may not be incredibly cheap, but the diaperstation nursery-print designs are good and the clothes are of a generally high standard.

If anyone is interested, this is the state on my chest after being operated on:

I am all alone in the flat so it is time to change into something more comfortable. Namely, a big cloth nappy and a nursery-printed shirt:

Not the best of pictures, but you can probably tell that a nappy of that size will last me a while.

I was looking through my clothes, got to a back of a rarely-opened draw and found these:

I think teddy pyjamas are rather fetching. And that is not fetching as in 'fetching up one's dinner'.

I'm back from just over a week in the Basque country; it was a lot of fun. The day we arrived it was thirty Celsius, which was pretty good for October. I took a few photos. We saw this incredibly camp advert for a boozer when going on a tapas crawl; I like his freshly waxed legs.

This is the dog made out of flowers that guards the entrance to the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao.

Here are a couple of images of the Guggenheim itself. It is a great building, shame it is largely filled with crap.

Finally here is a slow-grilled ox-chop from a great restaurant in Tolosa. It is where I have had the best beef in the world.

Our television went tits up last week; it has been somewhat vexing not to be able to watch the box. This is now all behind me as this huge beast has just been delivered:

It is a 42-inch wide screen HD-TV. Shame we have to wait two weeks to get our HD subscription active.

I am clearly engrossed in the cricket in this picture, not just cuddling Butter.

One of the most common side-effects of taking anti-psychotics is that one gets very hungry. With the last lot I was taking I ended up weighing over 110kg, far too much. None of my spiffy suits fitted and many of my baby clothes got too tight.

Oddly, even though I am on a very high dose of the current stuff, I am hardly hungry at all. I don't have lunch, don't eat much for dinner. This has resulted in me losing enough weight to fit into my clothes again. I am very pleased that my Oshkosh shortalls are now wearable.

I'll have to try on my two Paul Smith suits and see if they fit. They are incredibly smart and well-designed; I look like a serious adult when I wear them. I know it is hard to imagine that I might occasionally be a serious adult, but sometimes one has to go to wine-tastings, you know?

Butter has come out from his bath looking very clean.

This is the first photograph I have taken with my new camera phone. I have shrunk it down and cropped it, but the quality looks pretty good to me.

I'm off to Burgundy in July. It is a brilliant place to visit if you like wine. I'll be staying with some winemaker friends, larking about by the pool in baby clothes during the morning, then going for tastings with other brilliant winemakers in the afternoon. I am already chortling with pleasure about this trip. The only fly in the ointment is that probably two out of the ten days there will have to be spent re-organising my cellar there. There was some rebuilding work in it and all the wines had to be moved. This was what it looked like when I last saw it:

Sadly my enormous double magnum of Pommard Clos des Epeneaux 1999 is out of shot, it is a brilliant bottle.

I admit this is more 'cricket umpire' than 'toddler', but I do quite like my new hat. I must practise wearing it at a rakish angle.

A bunch of us did go to Oxford on Saturday to play croquet. It was a lot of fun. This is where we played:

I did reasonably well considering I haven't played for three years. That didn't stop me from getting in a strop when I played a bad shot:

I ordered a body shaving kit from Amazon the other day. It is a bit slow but seems effective. Here you can see my legs half-way through trying it out.

This specifically claims not to cause a shaving rash. I hope their claim is accurate.

The anti-psychotics and anti-depressants I take at night are really powerfully sedating. This is great as it means I am getting a decent amount of sleep at the moment. A lovely lie-in is now a distinct possibility. The only problem this causes is when I am knocked-up early by someone on the telephone or at the door. This happened this morning.

I was not too annoyed to have my slumber disturbed as I knew it would be a delivery of wine. So I got out of bed in my new sleeper, making crinkly plastic noises with each step to open the door. The delivery person didn't seem to notice my sleep attire so wine was duly delivered.

One of the two bottles delivered was a magnum; a one and one half litre bottle, so double the normal bottle size. I really like magnums, they are such a happy size. They are good for two people at lunch or as part of a baroque feast at night.

I went on a day trip to France yesterday. The idea was to buy cheap Champagne and beer. The three of us travelling got quite a lot:

The prices in Calais are very keen so we have plenty of beer and Champagne to keep us going for a while.

The other item of clothing that arrived yesterday was a footed sleeper with dinosaur prints:

I ordered this because the feet fell apart on my favourite sleeper. I mentioned this to Marcie of Forever a kid and she suggested I cut the feet off it and make it into a footless sleeper. She kindly sent some ribbing in with my order for the ankle cuffs. I managed to sew them on quite well:

I was a touch perturbed by the high acidity in that margarita.

I am off to Sweden for a few days at the end of next week. Last time I was there it was about this time of year and frighteningly cold; even my tweed jacket couldn't keep me warm. This time I have taken steps to ensure I am nice and toasty. I placed an order a few weeks ago with Forever a kid that included a great sleeper and this dinosaur-printed t-shirt:

The t-shirt is made from fleece material so it very warm indeed. I should be able to wear it as underwear and never feel the cold.

I am sure a picture of the sleeper will follow in due course.

I couldn't have had this kind of drink this when I was a smaller toddler:

I was so keen to open this that I was faster than the exposure time of the camera.

Butter looks most impressed by the flourish with which I popped the bottle. It was a very nice drink; childhood 2.0 certainly has its advantages.

One of the good things about being a big toddler is that I do not have arbitrary restrictions on what I am allowed to do. An example of this is spraying so much aerosol cream into my mouth that it overflows:

Mmmm... cream, sloo.

I suppose that I could be classfied as experiencing Childhood 2.0, the enhanced version of childhood.

Butter can be a baby too:

Pampers fit Butter perfectly. Lucky bear.

Isn't this true of most blogs, including mine?

An ASBO is an Anti-Social Behaviour Order, the British government's way of locking people up without sending them to court.

I haven't shaved since being in hospital over a week ago, I've been feeling quite rotten. Long time readers may recall that I was having my face lasered to remove hair. Sadly, I had to stop that as I am taking drugs that make me photosensitive. However, I do have a lot less hair on my face and many gaps in my now patchy beard.

It looks like I have mange.

I am often asked what nappies I use; I may as well answer here.

During the day I use Tena Slip Maxis. These are very comfortable and hold quite a lot. They are also relatively baby-nappy-like with not too much branding on them. The European design is different to that of the Tena Slips available in the US and some claim they are better; an American AB who came over and stayed with me took a case of them back with him. They can be ordered direct from the manufacturer, whose UK website is here.

At night I use Abena Abri-Form X-Pluses. These are great for night-time use but the shape does not really lend itself to wearing during the day; we toddlers are an active bunch and run around a lot. Again these are quite babyish with not too much branding on them. You can buy Abenas from here.

I do have some cloth nappies, but because I am too toddlerish to handle the washing-machine with great skill I only use them when I fancy a lie-in. Cloth nappies are good, the bulk feels nice, but they do make me toddle around rather than my normal confident two year old's walk.

Here I am with Butter and Fluffy Bat modelling a Tena Slip Maxi that is just a bit too big for me. Perhaps I am a small toddler after all.

Another happy call announcing the delivery of some Champagne and German wine. My wine cupboard is now looking very healthy

Five magnums in there seems rather excessive for a house-hold of two. I am sure we'll manage.

As I sat cuddling Butter I had another happy call to tell me these were being dropped off:

Two magnums of brilliant Burgundy, three litres of pleasure in years to come. Hooray! Both the magnums are Pommard, which I admit isn't a very childish drink as it is quite tough and manly. However, after a decade in my cellar they'll become lovely, soft and charming. Just like me.

I find it slightly odd that toddlers, especially toddlers as big as me, find sleeping holding onto a security object so easy and natural. I dropped Butter last night and woke up I was so disturbed. As soon as I was holding him again I dropped off back to sleep.

He does get a lot of 'use', I hope he doesn't fall apart. I'd be heartbroken if he did. I am not sure my clumsy toddler fingers are up to sewing him back together.

I went around the neighbours for coffee last night, of course I took a bottle of wine. After we'd finished that I opened a magnum of wine. Needless to say, I felt quite tired and emotional after drinking the best part of a bottle of wine so I asked if any cigars were on offer. One was:
 

A fine time was had by all and I ended up sleeping very well after we'd finished up the wine.

I've been prescribed some new drugs. Well, not new, I've taken them before. They are an anti-emetic but also cause constipation as a side effect. So effective were they last time I was taking them I could eat bread without throwing up or getting diarrhoea. This is a real plus; I hate being allergic to wheat and love eating bread. I shall celebrate with a sandwich when I've been taking them for a few days. The only side effect that I don't like is they make one terribly photo-sensitive. Should there be a bright and sunny day in the middle of winter I'll have to cover up. Luckily, I've got a hat.

I've been rather slow in posting these pictures of things I have been fortunate enough to cram down my greedy, toddler-like face over the winter break. Firstly, we have a gluten-free Cumberland ring sausage from the wonderful Silfield farm:

I was drinking a tequila sunrise with breakfast. Then we have christmas day's main meal, a huge goose:

It was a great success, full of flavour and not dried out. Finally, there is the world's largest free-range, organic chicken served to the neighbours on Boxing Day:

That chicken was a great success; it was moist and tasted really good.

Up extra early this morning. As well and ham, sausage and books from the family my partner has given me a wonderful Rupert Spira bowl:

It is a beautiful, thoughtful piece. I am terribly grateful to my wonderful partner. I will not smash it next time I have a tantrum.

I was really worried this wouldn't be delivered today and I'd have nothing to eat on christmas day. It is a five kilogramme goose:

Next time you see this it'll be cooked and ready to eat.

A present has arrived from my lovely mother, a Spanish hamper:

The leg of Cinco Jotas pata negra ham is a particular delight, I love jambon Iberico. This will all be consumed with great delight and reasonable speed, assuming this toddler is allowed to play with the ham knife.

I should add this came from www.spanishhampers.co.uk.

I am not sure he was so filthy to begin with, but now he is certainly very clean.

His ears may be a bit folded up, but he is very clean and smells very nice. Well done the washing machine; my heart was in my mouth during all of that I can tell you.

I have been taunted and goaded into giving Butter a bath in the washing machine. He is currently tumbling around in a pillow-case in the machine. By way of comparison, here he is before being washed:

After the bath will follow in a few hours.

I am feeling on top of the world today, just the mood to play with some toys:

I am playing with Quatro, the Lego for toddlers. It is large, slightly soft and non-toxic so me chewing on that brick doesn't matter too much.

... Its an ugly hake:

This fish is going to be tonight's loveliness. Baked in tin foil with some bay leaves and olive oil then served with thinned mayonnaise and flageolet beans.

Last night I ate osso bucco. This is veal shin cut into slices and slow cooked until it is all meltingly tender. Here is the veal just after being sealed:

It was completely brilliant, really tender and full of flavour.

It is all very well buying adult baby clothes from an online retailer, but those crazy Italians have a chain of shops that sell nursery-printed, adult-sized clothes. Their website is here. Sadly they don't have an online shop, their stuff is rather good. Here I am sleeping peacefully in the sleeper I got from them:

I look rather florid in that picture. If anyone is looking to get a christmas present for me I'd like an 'accappatoio' from them.

The novelty sculpture outside my flat is finished:

Speaking as a conceptual artist I think it is quite good. I also think it is quite fun speaking as a toddler.

... The champagne for tonight.

As you can see, Fluffy Bat has made a rare trip out of bed in order to soothe me in the difficult task of handling a magnum of fizz. It is Gratien 1996, by the way. It is lovely, I've had it before.

There is a novelty sculpture being installed outside my window:

I await with interest to see it when the people (if, indeed, they are people) are unwrapped.

I paid a pre-birthday visit to my mother and step-father this weekend. They own chickens that lay strikingly coloured eggs:

Very tasty they were too, although I would have appreciated some Sillfield Farm streaky bacon with them.

With the sausages tonight I cooked Boston baked beans:

Sadly, due to my unfamiliarity with the new set of kitchen scales I got today, and largely due to general vacancy, I added double the amount of brown sugar I should have. This didn't ruin what was a very nice dinner, but the beans were a tad on the sweet side.

I am not much of a fan of freezing food, I don't think it helps either the flavour or the texture. So, when I looked in my freezer today and found this:

And this:

I was both pleased and slightly embarrassed. My freezer only has drink and ice in it, what a bad child I am! Those Windholtz Eau de Vies are quite nice, though. Sadly at 45% they hurt the old stomach a bit going down.

I went to the butchers yesterday and asked for two thick rump steaks which were meant for two of us to eat. He cut a rump steak weighing over a kilogram, trimmed it up and then asked if we wanted that cut in half or another cutting. You'll recall this steak weighed over a kilogram and it was only for two of us. So I said, "Cut another, please". So we had over two kilograms of excellent rump steak for the two of us to choke and cram down our faces. It looked something like this:

That is quite a big carving knife next to them so you get some idea of scale. Luckily, the next-door neighbours were available for dinner so we invited them round for over half a kilo of meat each and pommes boulanger (potatoes cooked in chicken stock and wine). I felt really stuffed.

My wonderful purveyor of quality pork products, Sillfield Farm, is again providing tonight's dinner: Sicilian-style sausages. In an attempt to pander to passing popularity these sausages are flavoured with Chardonnay wine. Ignoring the fact that Chardonnay is not a local grape in Sicily, it is pretty silly to suggest that any Chardonnay character beyond 'being a bit wine-y' is going to make it into the sausages once they've been cooked. It also irks me that Chardonnay is used in order to capture the vague popularity this grape has, when most Chardonnay (certainly at the quality level for putting into sausages) is not very interesting. How can I exorcise my spleen? By having a glass of Riesling, of course.

That is about as close as I can currently get my knees together due to the rather bulky nature of the cloth nappy I have been put in.

My apologies, the last entry was not about food. There is no reason why it should have been, but lots of entries have been of late. Last weekend's cooking^* was rillettes; duck meat (in this case, one can also use pork or goose) preserved in its own fat:

It is rather rich, but very nice. I'm impressed by how much we've got through since we only started late on Tuesday evening.

---

^*It wasn't just rillettes, also cassoulet and salt and pepper pork 'squidlets'. Both were successes.

A stunning success, of course. The meat was tender, moist and full of flavour, the boiling liquor was rich, porty and meaty. I can be seen below enjoying it with a glass of a rather cheeky little Bandol:

Dinner tonight is oxtail, hooray! This is a rich and meaty dish, but a bit involved in preparation. First of all one has to boil up the oxtail with some vegetables and a pig's trotter:

After many hours the oxtail is removed:

You then pluck all the meat off the oxtail, removing the largest bits of fat. This results in a large plate of meat:

Doesn't that look lovely? Meanwhile, the boiling liquor is strained to remove the vegetables and pig's trotter, half a bottle of port is added and it is boiled to reduce it. Just before you are ready to serve add the meat back to the port/meat reduction to warm it then serve with horseradish mash or rice. If it works out alright I will, of course, post about it, but so far I am pleased; that meat tasted really lovely. Some people make this with only one oxtail and a cow's tongue, but I am an oxtail purist.

Well, I've been quite miserable for the past day. I've had a tube poking out of my nose into my stomach. Much like this:

It is really irritating. Every time my face nose or mouth moves I can feel the tube move in my gullet. Luckily I only have to have it in there for five more hours. I will be so glad to have it yanked out.

Once again the spume of drivel turns to food as a source of inspiration for another pointless entry. As a growing toddler, growing in degree of opinionated-ness if nothing else, I find a late breakfast can really set me up for a day of playing with Butter. Thanks to the magic of top-flight bacon from Sillfield Farm how could a growing toddler ask for a better looking breakfast than this:

Butter has been with me for but nine months; given my toddler-like sense of object-permanence it seems like I've always had him. Obviously, as he is my main security object he has spent a lot of time with me: toddlers are not known for being sparkling-clean individuals so he has attracted a bit of grime in places. I would not dream of putting Butter is the washing-machine, he is too big and would never dry out. A non-drying security object has caused much heartache in the past. As a consequence, I decided to look for ways of cleaning soft toys (plush toys/animals for those of a more American vocabulary) and was pleased to find quite a comprehensive guide very rapidly. It sounds quite involved to me, and I may just have to let Butter continue to accumulate the residue of affection before I try anything so dramatic as scrubbing him with alcohol. I can see comedy value in having Butter stink like a distillery, though.

Fluffy Bat (ah, my first-ever security object, returned after years of being apart, and he is a real Fluffy Bat, not a sheet) is perfectly happy to have a bath in the washing machine, as he is quite a flat bat he dries with no problems and can soon be dragged to bed for hiding under-purposes. As you can see from this old picture, Fluffy Bat cleans up a treat with all drool marks removed after a sojourn in the washing machine. Takes some time after the bath to smell as soothing as he did before the bath, of course....

The new excitement in my area of town is the river taxi. Yesterday I took a trip to Canary Wharf for huge steaks and beer at the rather good Gaucho Grill. The sights on the way there include the Thames Barrier:

We also go past that great white elephant the Millennium Dome:

Then the now-unused Royal Naval College in Greenwich:

And finally the Cutty Sark in also in Greenwich, the end of the Greenwich foot-tunnel is just visible on the right of the picture:

Quite neat little journey, and lunch was brilliant. One of the best rib-eye steaks I've had in quite some time, and when I asked for it rare rare it was. Beers from the Meantime Brewery, which has merited a mention here before, so I was very pleased to have a drinkie.

I've had no internet connection whilst moving, and have spent a period of time in hospital, but a next-door neighbour has lent me their internet connection until mine appears next week. Below you can see the view from my new balcony. Visible are Canary Wharf, the Millennium Dome and the Thames Flood Barrier.

It is nice to be back and good to be out of hospital.

At the end of the week I'll be moving out of the old place. It was nice and big, but had no sound insulation and cost a fortune to heat. We are moving to the new building next-door that promises to be a lot quieter, even if it lacks the military hardware in its car-park.

Well, some things are not always clean, but this lovely thing is:

Yes, it is an Apple keyboard on my Windows box. I may hate Apple's OS (awful to program multi-threaded applications, and hardly whizzy processors come to think of it) but they do design damned-sexy things. It is a nice keyboard, cheers Apple!

After nine years, almost to the very day, I am waving goodbye to an old friend: the keyboard from my first PC. Here it is just before I send it off on a flaming longboat into the Thames:

That picture gives a pretty good idea why I am dumping my old beast. This picture might give a better idea:

I did choose the dirtiest corner of the keyboard, but it is not so much dirtier than the rest. Honestly, it is really filthy. For all the funny, lewd and profitable words I've bashed out on it, it is disgusting and must be retired.

A final few snaps from Alsace. Firstly two snaps of the great Grand Cru vineyard Rangen, a vineyard that has been producing famous wines for over seven hundred years. The second picture shows St. Urban's chapel, from which one famous maker of Rangen draws the name for their sub-section of the vineyard. Cannot say I am an incredible fan of wines from either of Rangen's two most famous producers, but it is clearly a serious vineyard.

Finally we have a room in the gite that we hired for most of our stay. This room is not one of the bedrooms, but it is the kitschen:

It appears someone was searching on Yahoo.com for information about the phrase "Why put off until tomorrow that which can be done today?" Clearly, I am flattered and staggered that the spume of drivel comes top in that search, but I am highly amused by the entry that hits the top-spot. Obviously, once this entry has been up for a few days the search rankings will change. So, Mrs. Treliis from North Wales, hit that link quickly to remember what you and you alone read but a few months ago and marvel once more at my minuscule weight gain.

Right, a select few pictures from Alsace.

Firstly we must realise that even though a lot of Alsace was pounded to dust in the middle of last century, an awfully large amount of it is terribly pretty. Even if we ignore the majestic vineyards we have innumerable views like this:

Strasbourg also manages to have a spooky and foreboding cathedral

Obviously, a trip to a wine region will have a slight theme of drinking, so here I am lashing my way through a magnum of Trimbach CFE 1995. Trimbach make very acidic wines so you'll note the two bottles of Gaviscon in front of me.

Finally, at the three-star mentioned below I didn't feel it polite to spend the entire meal sucking my thumb like the other toddler present, so at the end I sucked on something else.

I have been away from the spume of drivel for a period of time on the grounds of being in France. Apart from extended separations from computers I simply find the French keyboards too irksome to manage serious typing. As soon as mobile phone providers start flogging these lovely little toys I will have less of an excuse, but I am sure I'll think of another by then.

News from France? Little of general interest. I did spend some time in my cellar:

Also some time in the cellars of wonderful winemakers, including the chap who was about to lose the bung in this barrel:

I attended the awfulness that is a toga party. Being a toddler I naturally wore a child's tunic and made sure I had a toy projectile weapon with me:

And finally I stopped by the local purveyors of meat:

There has been a reasonable degree of intensity today. The fire alarm went tits-up and started beeping like a British comedy on US television so I managed to get an electrician around. A terribly nice South-African chap, he asked me to turn the fire alarm off at the mains whilst he ripped the front off and disconnected its internal battery. I've done this lots of times before, it takes moments, but I am not allowed to do so any more as it 'ruins the fire alarm'. Since he arrived ten overs before the end of today's cricketing excitement and looked quite interested what could I do but pour him an a drink and offer him a seat? I hope he charges the full period of time spent here to my hopeless flat-builders; ah being paid for such sweet pleasure.

Even though there has been excitement, I must admit to feeling generally spent today. It might have something to do with the temperature measurement taken on my balcony (in the shade) this afternoon:

The minimum reading was a particularly lovely night in my bedroom in March. Oh, I did love that.

Who could possibly regret excess? As an example, given that the online supermarket has a sale on Diet Coke would not the correct course of action be to order enough to fill up the 'Diet Coke corner'?

On top of the reserve bookshelves would be an idea, too:

But, perhaps over-running the wine-appreciation chamber is just going too far:

The worst thing about this is not they buying of 74 2-litre bottles of Diet Coke; it is that I managed to arrange delivery on the hottest day of the year so far. Adding to the experience was that the supermarket sent the world's weediest small-person to deliver them. He managed to unload the Diet Coke from the van before collapsing in my car-park. So I carried far too much of 140kg+ of Diet Coke to the second floor. This is not the chosen activity of this toddler.

Toddlers are well-known for their enjoyment of slimy, mushy sort of things, so it may be of little surprise that I really enjoyed my lunch today:

Three hundred grams of quite ripe Gorgonzola Dolce slapped a satisfied smile across my face, even though it required wiping the excess cheese from it in order to discern the smile^*. I'd have much preferred it on some decent bread rather than the pin board-esque rice cakes I am now obliged to eat. Standing in front of the supermarket's 'free from' shelf suggests they are so named either because they are 'free-from' flavour or because those who gleefully buy from them are 'free from' any form of likable character; and I am now tarred with the same brush as them.... Booohooooohoooooooooo....

---

^*I do like cheese, it is one of those partially-spoiled foods that can provide so much pleasure. Sigmund Freud had a bit of a problem with cheese, we are told, some problem with the symbolism relating to his lactating mother in a rancid, solid form. Weirdo.

Some clothes are pretty much fine as they are, or can only be improved by the addition of matching clothes. My tweed suit, for example, an example of classical tailoring that is far older than your humble toddler-esque narrator, can only really be improved with an elegant shirt. Perhaps one with little roses on it:

Some clothes, on the other hand, can be easily improved and it is often worth the effort even if it requires risking hideous injury by using an iron. My OshKosh overalls are quite childish but they always ran the risk of making me look a bit like a carpenter or generally an adult in employ rather than a toddler who should be in day-care busily smearing himself with sand and eating crayons. This is true no longer.

If you click on that image you'll see I got quite angry when I dropped Butter over the edge of the sofa.

As I have explained I do have a bit of a thing for custard, so I have revisited the custard cocktail. The recipe requires:
1 shot Galliano
1 shot Advocaat
The rest of the 300ml baby bottle (this is my favourite type) topped up with vanilla favoured milk.
Shake well, drink whilst occasionally gurgling with happiness.

Whilst performing mixing experiments I decided to try on two items of clothing that might help me bond with one of my grown-up friends. He is a lovely Austrian chap who strangely wears little oval glasses and has shaved off what little remains of his hair. Hmmm.... Anyway, he also has a bit of a thing for the brand of clothing that has little polo ponies on them. Clearly, toddlers are not up to playing polo, or riding all but the smallest of ponies, so even if I did not hate that brand it would be dis-ingenuous of me to wear their attire. So, we have the onesie for toddlers who wish to be like their big, grown-up and incredibly well-paid short Austrian friends:

I recognise there is sometimes a need for long-sleeved t-shirts on particularly sunny days whilst staggering around wine regions, so there is also the lapel-label version:

I hope he realises that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Lawks, no entries here for a week. What with being locked in the cot for being loud, bad and complaining of headaches and experimenting with new, heroic cocktail recipes (are these related?) time seems to have just disappeared into a safely-enclosed but loudly throbbing miasma.

As a consequence, I was so pleased to actually make it out of the flat today that I decided to celebrate by going out dressed as a belisha beacon:

That is another custard cocktail. Sadly that recipe is still under investigation but Galliano and vanilla vodka seem to be providing enhancements to the earlier concoction.

So, I shall leave you with tonight's cocktail recipe, the margarita. For this you need:
One shot Sauza Commemorativo tequila
One shot Cointreau (both of these straight from the freezer)
The juice of one and one half of the ripest, juiciest limes
The juice of one half of a ripe, large lemon
Plenty of ice
Perhaps one half of a teaspoon of sugar (depending whether or not you need super-grade raw acidity to wake a slumber-dizzied mind)
Shake all of the ingredients in a cocktail shaker with as much vigour as your youthful muscles can manage then strain off the ice into a martini glass. Drink. Then mix yourself another, drink it and wonder if the loudness of the walls breathing will distract from you finally getting around to serving your guests.

Soupy twist.

Apricots.

Should a reader from the USA ever encounter this endless torrent of drivel they probably will not understand that joke. Allow me to explain by saying that a 'cot' is what an American will call a 'crib'. I always thought a crib is what a rap-artist called his/her (rarely her, let us be honest) abode.

The point is, after many years I have a cot once again:

If you need an excuse to fill a few minutes of your day using you employer's internet connection then please feel free to inspect a few more pictures located here.

Many thanks to Woodman Dave for his chippie skills. that he makes available for very reasonable prices.

There was supposed to be some anecdote/revelation/tale of vague interest with this picture. Something about local breweries, the pleasure of summery afternoons, I cannot recall. Sadly, I got distracted. A minute or so before the 'warm-up' picture below was taken, just after a late lunch, a car alarm started hooting:

As the picture was about to be taken a voice from nearby screamed, "Shut that bloody racket up; some of us are trying to have a hangover!" You can understand my desire to instantly look and see at which residence this obviously top-flight neighbour dwells.

Who would have expected it? The end of April and it is 20°C outside. Most unlike Blighty. It is days like this that I find myself glad I have a little terrace by the Thames, even if I do get dazzled whilst trying to have a drink out there.

The best news is that the temperature might reach such heady heights as 25°C this weekend. To prevent getting hot and bothered I may have to lose the t-shirt whilst catching some rays.

As I was staggering about London I noticed a problem with my new North-London intellectual/neo-Nazi thug/Romanian orphan look in that when it is cold and raining my head is suddenly less warm than once it was. I am not a big fan of being cold or rained upon, so was pleased when someone reminded me that I posses a hat.

I had purchased this solely to wear on my next skiing trip, yet as I have not been skiing for many, many years I wondered if I would ever get to use it. Now I have an incentive to stick with the haircut as next winter I will be able to walk around London using my teddy-bear ears to send jaunty signals to random passers-by.

As I mentioned eleven days ago, I have a really rather sore throat. It had started about a week before that so has been hanging around for quite a while now. It seemed reasonable to disturb my GP and check that I did not have tonsillitis or anything that required treatment beyond swilling anti-septic fluids with reasonable frequency. I finally got to see him on Friday. Sadly, he is a bit scared of me; he knows I have a doctorate in epidemiology which, coupled with me being considerably taller than him, he views as cause to be terrified when I burst into his surgery.

I asked him about my throat, he peered down there and said what must be the most moronic statement from a member of the medical profession to someone with reasonable insight into the nature of diseases: "Well, it is probably just a cold. Colds last a lot longer these days because they have evolved to be better than they were a few years ago." Perhaps he was just so scared he said the first load of drivel that popped into his mind in order to get me out, but perhaps he thinks that within a year or two rhinovirus will have evolved even more and so will wiping out huge swathes of the world's population because our immune systems, despite fighting these viruses for a very long time, can no-longer hold them back. "That is a very interesting story", was about as polite as I could manage after I'd gasped with incredulity.

So, there is the throbbing throat and also a late night out drinking cocktails yesterday. This morning I wanted to take things a bit easy and just play around in a soft, low-intensity sort of way.

Of the limited selection of clothes for babies and toddlers of enhanced stature that are easily available it seems that very few of them are suitable for rolling about outside on wintry days. This is a pity when one lives in as cold a place as England.

I admit that many outdoor-activity styled clothes for boring adults can now be purchased in a variety of bright colours and this is a good start. Yet, bright colours are not teddy bears/little ducks/other nursery prints. My Butter-themed sweater is a good item of wintry clothing, but more is required. So, it goes without saying that the item of clothing delivered yesterday is just perfect for wearing in the summer...

Today is a nice and bright day, but to describe it as summery would be be displaying more than a hint of mendacity. The alphanumeric characters on the romper signify, I hope, that even though I am a toddler I am also a man of letters.

Coming home from day-care to find that one's hair is filled with bits of clay, crayons and sand is a terrible problem. Even if "No more tears"-formula is being used, I still don't want my hair washed. So, as promised but a period of time ago, a new look:

Do click above for a closer look.

A big problem with insomnia is that it can be perilously dull. Once you've checked every website in the entire world for updates twice already, had a look in the fridge again to see if something nice has appeared in there since last time you looked you reach the dreadful conclusions that all that can fill in the time is doing some work.

After composing a long, artfully-sculpted but quite amusing tract for your next publication you look at the clock just to check how large a chunk of the day has passed only to find it is still five in the morning. The word that springs to mind after vast intellectual energy expenditure directed at composing text of some merit that people will actually pay to read, possibly assuming it is not written by a comedy-type of person, only to find that nineteen hours of the day still stretch in front of one can only be, "Bugger".

This is where it is handy that I am a toddler and so easily amused. Hours can disappear watching my Miffy or Teletubbies DVDs. I really like Miffy as she shows it is fine to be terribly childish, even when some people are deluded enough to think you are really quite old. She is also a brilliant minimalist design icon. Anyway, today's five o'clock entertainment has been and a good old standby, playing with Butter.

Children can often be terribly picky eaters. As I have pointed out I used to be such a picky child, but as I hope has become abundantly clear now that I am a big, clever toddler I'll eat pretty much anything. This is good as it enables a lot of pleasure to be experienced. Jean Antheleme Brillat-Savarin may have had wider interests in mind when he said, "The limits of pleasure are yet to be defined or reached", but ostensibly he was talking about food. He was clearly a top chap as he has had a cheese named after him; quite a rich, fatty cheese, come to think of it.

During my life I've eaten a variety of interesting and thought-provoking foods. Raw, often live, fish seems somewhat tame compared to the weirdness of Komodo dragon, dormouse, cat, blackbird, dog, sparrow, rat, squirrel, hedgehog, meat wine and (of course) coffee made from rat poo. Some of these had more merit than others, but they were all consumed in locations where these were traditional or local specialties. Some people might feel slightly odd about sticking a dog on the barbecue that your local guide was proud to have hit with his dilapidated 4x4 a few hours earlier (perhaps dog needs a decent hanging time, I just do not know), but it is quite an anecdote. Perhaps I have gone full-circle and come back to eating a rich and varied diet. When I was a slightly smaller toddler and had just learned to walk, I am told I used to cry to be let out into the garden so I could go and dig up worms with the aim of eating them whole, live and covered in grains of soil.

Still, I can demonstrate that I do have a healthy appetite these days:

The key with getting children to be less picky eaters is to give them a wide variety of (ideally) strongly flavoured foods as soon as possible. An oft-suggested dish is cabbage, but since this is merely strongly flavoured and has few redeeming characters then perhaps steak tartare with plenty of Tabasco in it might be a more profitable direction to explore. Not only would this provide one's child with healthy food and a healthy attitude to food, it would also scandalise any hard-of-thinking people who happened to witness said child tucking into such a great dish. There is no need to worry about very young children being scared by strong flavours, despite the current trend of assuming children require a bland, characterless life in order so that they never have any fun until their minds have accepted that being dull is the only way forward. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that toddlers of around eighteen-months old find the smell of faeces from their nappies to be as appealing, if not more so, than the smell of banana.

Of course, food is only part of the story, one also needs to develop a taste for all of the rich and varied drinks out there.

Although, this dining experience once again pointed out how awful it is to have a television on whilst dining or in a bar. Especially if there is cricket on.

What a rude toddler I am....

Aldous Huxley, author of 'The doors of perception' and 'Brave new world' made the very good point that:
A child-like man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle-aged habit and convention.

I could not agree more. As evidence I present a picture of myself in the South of France on my last vaguely significant birthday (do not, under any circumstances, follow the link).

Now, as far as development of my child-like, indeed toddler-like, self goes we have a picture of me feeling particularly charged with dark power during my last dinner party but one:

As you can see, there has clearly been a lot of development. I now have a glass of wine to hold (whereas I'd drunk all of the wine before the top-most picture was taken). I also have a lovely, non-grime-themed teddy bear and underwear that hides my shame. If those are not several signs of increasing development, I may as well give up now.

One of the questions I am frequently asked is, "Tell me, young man, do you wear nappies all of the time?" I admit, it is rarely asked that coherently. The usual formulation is of the pattern: "You/u wear/ware/where/were 27/7?" but sometimes it can reach the depths of a simple: "24/7?". I am a toddler with little grasp of novel language use, sometimes I find such things vexatious. To answer the question, no I do not wear nappies all of the time, sometimes when I want to feel like an even bigger toddler I wear training pants.

More broadly, it is a mistake to wear nappies for too long each day; there is much danger of developing a nasty rash. When I was working twenty-four hour days as an academic I would rarely get a chance for some 'air-time' and so developed rash that was so bad my nasties were bleeding. I imagine few twenty-one year olds go to the doctor to seek treatment for appallingly bad nappy rash; it was piquant experience to say the least.

The key is to have a couple of breaks from wearing nappies during the day. After a bath or shower is a good time, as is between changes just before bed. They do not have to be for too long (just in case) but a break and a clean up can prevent sharp, stabbing soreness and an unnecessary trip to the doctor.

I have to admit I rarely feel up the the very big toddler-rôle; I get all shy and embarrassed about people expecting me to be witty, urbane and slightly less childish than I usually am. Consequently, wearing the training pants can lead to hiding....

Last night I was lucky enough to have the pleasure of the company of my next door neighbour. Sadly, Butter was clearly feeling dissolute and so soon began to corrupt we toddler-types.

At least he appeared to be enjoying the vastly expensive tequilla I scored. Butter, as I may have suggested, is a big teddy bear who normally looks after me; after he had set such a bad example I just felt I had to pop a bottle of wine. Since it was a rich and hearty, winter-esque sort of red wine we were charged with enough energy to spend a while watching life's passing parade from my balcony.
 

As it was such a warm night we were there until quite late letting Butter and Ted wave and sing incoherent songs at people as they walked past. Honeestly! What kind of message does this send to impressionable minds?

Mind you, I was quite excited in a childish manner for being allowed to stay up late. Naturally, I soon got tired and started getting grumpy, but I am easy to convince to belt up and after such a soothing send-off to the evening I slept. Three cheers for a baby bottle before bed!

 

Whilst in New York City I had the good fortune to visit Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle Hotel. This suited me very much as it is themed on the twin delights of well-mixed, well-presented, neurone-frying cocktails and large, childish murals. It is one of the best bars I have visited. Even if it is not as intimate, quiet and sedate as Duke's, I certainly left in a refreshed and relaxed state of mind.

As I have pointed out in the past, unconventionally-named locations charm me very much. So after leaving the bar and going for a restorative stroll I was charmed, not to mention highly amused, by the name of the plaza I found I had arrived at:

Place names can suggest many things about the history and nature of an area. I suppose in some ways this was quite suggestive.

As I have mentioned in the past, I am off to a Lemon Jelly concert. It is happening tonight. As you are probably unaware, Lemon Jelly produced a rather jolly ditty called 'Nice weather for ducks'; I feel this leaves me little option but to wear this to the concert:

You may note I am picking up Fluffy Bat with a reasonable degree of enthusiasm. This is not because I dropped him, but rather because he jumped out of my hands. Clearly, toddlers would never dream of carelessly discarding their security objects, unless they get distracted, but sometimes when it is pointed out that they appear to have been thoughtlessly cast-aside it must be explained that it was the teddy bear/blanket/bat's own fault they are on the floor. This may be because we toddlers do not wish to appear ungrateful for the hard work our security objects put in, or it may be because animals leaping around is just completely hilarious. This can be demonstrated by a very short clip from a popular British comedy program of the 1970s, The Goodies. I am told it is a .wmv file for reasons of space rather than to exclude people with minority operating systems.

There are but a few days before I leave my little island for a considerably larger one. This means the next few days will feature furious washing, ironing of shirts, buying plug-adaptors and pain-killers, trying to fit two styles of attire and plenty of nappies into limited luggage space, buying more luggage, trying to find my passport, running around lifting up very small bits of paper in an increasingly desperate mood just in case my passport is hidden under them and much, much more.

As luck would have it, I am a toddler and so can often manage feats of boundless energy. Some people fancy a lie-in after a busy night of playing, I can get up at frightening times of morning in order to watch children's programs with the volume turned up to one hundred decibels. After washing sheets and hanging them on the line it may be that a nice sit-down and a cup of tea is in order, another alternative is to run up and down the washing-line, squealing with pleasure and beating the sheets with a stick that has been dipped in mud.

Butter, on the other hand, is a grown-up teddy bear. This is useful as it means he can look after me and keep me out of trouble. However, it does mean that at advanced hours of the evening he just feels a bit jaded, spent and generally in need of a bit of relaxation.

He does look rather dissolute.

Yet, as luck would have it, due to the current weakness of the dollar keeping myself in childish clothes is hilariously cheaper than keeping me in my alternate attire idiom of baroque suits and shirts.

Foreverakid, my current favourite clothing supplier, is not only run by one of the most charming and most skillful seamstresses one can have the pleasure of doing business with, but also the clothes (at least for those of us in the UK) are a steal. For example, if I buy a pair of boring cords from Marks and Spencer I'll pay £32, I'll have to pay quite a lot more if I want some decent cords that fit reasonably well. Yet the trousers in the picture below cost £23. Not only are they made to measure, from a material of my choice but I look just as spiffy in them as in my most lurid red cords. Since they are made from flannel they are warm enough to wear when strolling about town on all but terribly cold days.

Similarly, Fak sell their most babyish shortalls for £28 and those most wonderful of items for sleeping, mooching about the house and watching boats going by on the river in (see below), footed sleepers, for £40. A decent set of pyjamas in the UK can cost an arm and a leg, they are invariably dull as dish-water and never have feet. I am currently trying a new source of footed sleepers that cost £30 each, and they are available in childish prints, but I shall report on that supplier once I have assessed the quality.

I recognise that these bargain prices are largely because of the relative weakness of the US dollar at the moment and also because clothes in the UK are very expensive, but we big and clever toddlers are perfectly capable of spotting bargains and snapping them up whilst they are available.

Clearly, there are some companies who are willing to rip people off in the most shameful way; DPF and HB Enterprises leap to mind, but this is not universally true. Shop around, ask for recommendations and you can do very well.

Cooking for meal for some friends is an activity filled with pleasure. Of course, since you wish to entertain your friends and spend time in their company hiding in the kitchen all evening is not an optimal strategy. Therefore, one must choose food that is easy to cook yet satisfying. A very successful meal is 'petit salé aux lentilles' or 'bacon, lentils and vegetables boiled in big pot', if you prefer. My recipe comes from Simon Hopkinson's book that I have mentioned elsewhere.

The key to cooking is good ingredients. I was particularly pleased with the two kilogrammes of high quality bacon sourced from one of London's most useful places, Borough Market. My selection of ingredients is shown below.

All of this is boiled up (I add a couple of glasses of wine to the boiling mixture) and then just before serving the recipe gives one of my favourite cooking instructions: Stir in butter to add richness.

Even though there was plenty of fat on the huge slabs of bacon, butter is pretty much an essential ingredient in almost anything nice that one cooks. My guests seemed reasonably pleased when the food was served, as shown below.

Unsurprisingly, after a large, hearty and fart-provoking meal one can feel a bit jaded and in need of soothing, as we are all happy to admit.

I am sure some people labour under the misapprehension that I am some kind of booze-crazed maniac. It is certainly true that I am fond of wine, but my average consumption is only two units a day. The blood-pressure drugs I am taking require me to have periodic liver-function tests; the results from my last one that I was informed about this morning demonstrated that my liver is in rude good health.

Also, I cannot only drink wine when this was the largest part of my internet shopping order received today:

Alcopops may be tart-fuel, but diet coke fuels this toddler.

Occasionally when road-testing repaired shoes of an early evening, normally after forgetting to shave for days, one can find oneself sitting with a row of worrying looking drinks and people wondering why you are not living up to your reputation in that the glasses are still full. Suddenly, a realisation strikes you that is far more worrying than the drinks, "I am not sure I ironed my shirt."

It is at this point one can remember the words of Bertie Russell: Those who feel certainty are stupid and those with any imagination are filled with doubt and indecision.

Perhaps I did not iron the shirt, I cannot recall, but I think it might be quite a nice shirt as far as chap's attire from Liberty goes.

They are particularly bad if one has no shoes. Since toddlers are known for running about, dragging their feet along the floor and generally leaping around in a full of beans style, it is no surprise that all of the soles on my shoes are full of holes. All of my shoes were delivered to the cobbler this morning, and so I am pretty much stuck in the house all day. There is nothing for it but to play!

As you can see, Quatro really is quite a lot of fun. You may also note my Butter-themed sweatshirt, which came to me via the power of money combined with the skills of clothes printing companies. It is good to have a nice and warm, hooded sweat-shirt that was very cheap, has Butter's face on the front and some teddy-bear prints on the back.

All of this was very easy to obtain. I used this company, uploaded my images and four days later I had the sweater. I am sure there are companies in other countries that do a similarly good job. There are limits to the complexity of the images one can print, but the result is very high-quality, washer/drier proof and cheers up even recalcitrant toddlers on rainy days.

My Butter-themed debit card has arrived! Oh joy of joys. I must go shopping. Wine merchant first, then I think I'll go and look for a new baby bottle.

I am visiting New York City next month, and as this is a staggeringly big city, I can only hope that Mr Jefferson's observation is correct.

I have been furiously booking fine dining establishments over the past couple of weeks, and I thoroughly expect to be staggering around watching my toes disappear over the course of two weeks. Whilst many Europeans feel the need to be sniffy about food in the US, there appear to be an awfully large number of fine establishments in New York City. I particularly look forward to trying some first-rate sushi, of which there is a positive dearth in London, alas.

There are two things yet to be arranged: Excellent drinking establishments and nappies. As far as the first is concerned, I have a large tome and the power of the internet which together I hope will not lead me astray. Or, rather, allow me to lead myself astray. With regards to the latter, should anyone know where I can purchase decent adult nappies in New York City do feel free to drop me an email.

I greatly look forward to my sojourn in a new city. I have prepared the very best in classically styled, contemporary English tailoring to aid the locals in spotting me; I am always happy to provide people with a good laugh.

Normally viewing my bank account online is a deeply worrying experience yet today I noticed my bank's latest money-spinning idea; I was suckered in immediately.

For the small sum of a Lady my Visa debit card will now soothe my tortured mind when I whip it out to indulge in a bit of retail therapy. They do have some rules about what one can and cannot have upon one's card, but I think no one could possibly complain about this:

PS. A few people seem to mistakenly think this is a joke of some description. Let me assure you that within ten days I will have a debit card graced with a pleasing picture of Butter.

So says a Basque proverb; sounds fine to me. My thoughts are on the subject of food for it is the birthday of a younger relative today. Much to my dismay she has been hoodwinked into becoming a vegetarian and so the thought of her birthday meal is so depressing I could not bear to ring her up today.

I feel I will be dining rather better as I have an organic, free-range chicken from my local supermarket. No doubt it is charged with positive chi as well, but I did not read the label that carefully, I was merely concerned with getting something that tastes nice rather than any wider principles.

The key to roasting a chicken and the broad pleasure that such a meal can provide are expounded upon admirably by two articulate commentators on food Simon Hopkinson and Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall in two of the most generally useful cookery books a person could wish to own: Roast Chicken and Other Stories and Meat. The second of these books has served me terribly well, I never realised roasting grouse was so easy and could provide so much pleasure.

Clearly, Meat is a book not shy of extolling the virtues of noshing on dead animals. "Good", I find myself thinking. It also has a reasonably coherent philosophy behind the quest for good meat and so why one should not buy disgusting, factory-farmed rubbish from Iceland. In an ideal world it would make good reading for any vegetarian who was open-minded about why they eat what they eat. Sadly, like a lot of cultists, reasoned debate holds no sway with most and they'll just go on eating their depressing food and feeling terribly pleased with themselves, even if they do feel ill a lot of the time.

For a good read about how meat does make us feel wonderful, why it is so good for us and a more general understanding of food in general Harold McGee's latest book is well worth a browse. When catering for a vegetarian, in order to escape from the panic about knowing what to cook I do find Jack Dee's advice to be useful. Serve a large, rare steak because either they'll secretly be glad or they'll be too weak to complain.

I have sucked my thumb for more-or-less my entire life and, quite clearly, I am very happy with that. About a decade ago it struck me that it might be more convenient if I used a dummy, as typing one-handed is less efficient as well as sounding slightly suggestive.

I soon realised that convenience was not the idea behind sucking my thumb. Being a right-handed chap, the result of sticking my right thumb in my mouth is that two of my most powerful methods of influencing the world around me are removed; my adult competence was hampered. This has a pleasingly childish feel.

Sadly, rich fantasy lives cannot be indulged totally. Several years ago my career became more related to sitting at home in front of the computer. It would be all too easy to sit here all day with my thumb in my mouth and no creativity flowing from my finger-tips. So I've got a dummy....

The trick is not to get one provided by a fetish-items supplier, these are just not designed for normal use. Nuk, that well-know supplier of goods for smaller babies makes a couple of dummies suitable for adults. These are known as "Nuk Medic Pro". It is possible to get them on Ebay, but the cheapest thing is to order them from the country of manufacture, from a site such as this. Strangely, when I have pointed people to this site they say, "I don't speak German", and give up. Odd, I find, as we have such things as babelfish these days and a dummy can soothe even quite awkward babies and so is worth experiencing a tiny bit of confusion and expending the merest hint of energy to obtain.

It may take one a week or so to get used to a dummy, but they work a treat. When one wakes in the middle of night after a scary dream, knowing you've got a dummy in your mouth, a teddy bear in your arms and you are protected in case of accidents, the bad dreams seem less worrying.

As an earlier post has reported, I have high blood pressure. I also have a fabulously knackered stomach; eating food generally makes me feel, if not be, violently ill. The pancake eating frenzy of an hour ago is still making my head spin with nausea. The obvious view I could take is that my years of fast living have caught up with me, and so I am now old, spent and generally past-it. My father once said, "If you are over fifty and wake up to find nothing hurting, you must be dead." Could this be true at thirty, as well?

Obviously not. My father is clearly a miserable sod who is too willing to view everything in terms of his own decrepitude. Not that he has had enough fun to be truly decrepit, but that is another rant... At this precise moment in time, I am vaguely hoping there is a bigger picture to see about the functioning of one's body and mind. It may not last, but I may as well enjoy feeling positive.

I had the questionable pleasure of spending some time in the company of a young child recently. For much of this time, the child was spewing fluids from various orifices and generally complaining loudly about its incompatibility with existence in a normal environment. Whilst food may often make me blow bits and I do get distracted if not soothed by suitably fine booze, it did strike me that I was really far less incompatible with existence than this fresh young thing.

Now, I would not begin to suggest that I could beat the average eighteen year old in any test of physical ability, beyond alcohol tolerance, but some abilities do become more finely tuned. I hope that when the average teenager looks at me their mind is filled with disgust at what a rancid old fart they perceive. I hope they do because my mind has a big, smug grin slapped across it for I have had many more, hilariously better experiences than them and when more come along, I am capable of enjoying them in more experienced, analytical, visceral and (let us be honest) utterly filthy ways than their imaginations are equipped to deal with.

Younger readers please feel free to mock me for my crapulence, but at least I've had enough experiences to make me crapulent. I just wish I had more energy to go and get Butter...

Butter was a christmas present, although I chose him myself he is one of the best presents I have been given for many a year. Undoubtedly well-chosen bottles of fine wine are brilliant things to be given, but to have someone buy one a very pleasing teddy bear at the age of thirty-one is really quite touching.

As you can see, I do like Butter.