sixoh8sixoh

Broken election manifesto commitments?

John, you've missed a day! Only the 4th. Morning all. Very strange for Don not to be around! Hope he's ok! Dominik, enjoy playing on the MacBook if you're allowed.

Jamie on her first birthday.

Morning all, Jamie's first birthday today so I'm heading west now to give her her presents. Have a good day all! ps wet and 'orrible up here!

Back to the flat now after 13 hours - it's a long way to go for a couple of hours' meeting. And I've got to do it all again a week tomorrow... Though next Thursday's will be the 2 hour later variety of the same day... So, 8.30 train, getting back to Waverley about 8.30... Then continuing on to Newcastle as I stupidly booked the dentist in Chester-le-Street for early the next morning, forgetting I was in Inverness the day before... Off to find food and a comfier seat than the 158 between Perth and Edinburgh. Sat facing back to direction of travel all the way from Inverness to Waverley so now feeling ever so slightly dizzy...

Yep, we got stuck behind a slow, late coal train at Larbert! Fortunately the Inverness train was to leave from the same platform as the Edin-Dunblane dropped me at, so we're now running late too. Good news, the tea trolley's been. Starting to get a bit lighter now, there's snow on the ground between Dunblane and Perth.

Can't say I'm looking forward to changing trains in Stirling in a few minutes as it's still pitch dark and cold. On the plus side, I'm hoping that the Stirling to Inverness train has a tea trolley as this one doesn't!

Morning all! On the train already heading for Inverness. Cool but not freezing here and a lovely bright full moon.

Sounds like AndrewC used to live in an MC Escher painting... One of my colleagues came in today and said it was -6C in Lauder (about an hour's drive south of Edinburgh). His internal thermostat's knackered, though. He was saying it was nice after the heatwave we've been having...

Ditto, someone's scheduled a meeting for me today too. Hrrrrmph... An old boss of mine in the Scottish Government used to come in with a bag of small oranges and offer them around the office, saying "Civil service mandarin, anyone?"...

So, you went back to teaching after your spell as Richard Whiteley's scriptwriter for Countdown ended?

At least with the way snowflakes drift gently down they wouldn't break their legs when they land. Would be very baaaa-d if that happened. Morning all. Frost on the rooves here in Edinburgh. Still pretty dark here.

Afternoon all! I did spot that Don crashed RMweb this morning! :-) Don - Jessica is the theme music (by The Allman Brothers Band) to Top Gear. The first item on last night's show started to the theme music from On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Evening all! Been a busy day - done a 300 mile round trip from Edinburgh to Glasgow to Carlisle and back again. Had lunch with Jamie and my parents (who drove across from Durham) in the Toby Carvery (note to self, ask Max Stafford for a recommendation for somewhere to eat next time!) on the A69 on the outskirts of Carlisle then back. Had some rain in my snow as I headed south through Ayrshire around midday... Made it home just in time to miss hearing Jessica, but just in time to hear the strains of OHMSS as Captain Slow piloted his hot air caravan out of the hangar... Loved Richard's tactic to save the Marina from having a piano dropped on it.

Can we get to the root of this problem?

Morning all! Well done Dominik! I got a Desmond... I put it down to beer and women... Had a long lie-in this morning to make up for Thursday's poor night's sleep. Need to pop out and get a couple of bits of shopping but other than that no real plans for the day. Thinking of going up into town (good exercise) but Princes Street doesn't get properly reopened till 5am tomorrow... We shall see...

Morning all! Slept poorly last night so feeling knackered and grumpy this morning! Given I've got about 3 days' worth of flexi built up, I might see about taking the afternoon off. On the plus side, Monday's St Andrew's Day, so it's a 3-day weekend! Good luck Dominik!

I've done that! HSBC were being a real pain in the proverbial with my student account, so I withdrew all the money from it. Or so I thought. The following month, I got 1p interest. Which I have left in there ever since, and still get statements from them.

Morning all! About 3 oktas here, not too bad looking today - better than the last couple, at any rate!!

Beano here... Think the Dandy had really gone downhill by the time I was a nipper...

Don't worry, Tony, the majority of my reading since uni has been Terry Pratchett, Hamish Macbeth, Doctor Who, Ian Rankin, Reginald Hill... I have to admit I've rarely read any "high" literature since! Dominik, think I'd have to read that in an English translation, my German isn't up to it. And even less so my medieval German!

Morning all! After a very wet trip to Perth yesterday (and apart from walking through Waverley, saw very little in the way of railways), I'm with DDolfelin on winter... It's still www up here (nope, not worldwide web... wet, wild and windy...). Not looking forward to the 10-minute walk to work (which I've delayed slightly this morning due to yesterday's 11 hour working day... Dominik - I did a module during my French degree course on The Chivalric Romance and World of Arthur - including the Lais of Marie de France, and Chretien de Troyes' Arthurian Romances. Always an area I found really interesting. I wasn't aware of German versions of the Arthur stories as well, but given they started in England and France in the 13th century (I seem to remember the name Geoffrey of Monmouth as well...), I shouldn't be surprised that there are German ones as well...

I couldn't possibly comment... Thankfully all went well. Just home now - took 2 and a half hours to get from Perth to Leith. Our boss had taken us in her car, we got stuck in traffic coming back into Edinburgh, to the extent that she dropped myself and my other colleague off in Morningside to get the bus back to Leith while she went to pick her kids up from nursery. For those outside Edinburgh, that's like dropping someone off in Docklands who has Heathrow as their destination! Well done Dominik! Fingers crossed for the last one!

Morning all - and good luck Dominik! Pitch black here still, off to an all-day conference where our Cabinet Secretary (Minister) is delivering the speech what I (co-)wrote. So that'll be about 17 minutes of gut-churning hell for me! Having to do the usual spoon-feeding thing today, meet him at the door, make sure he's got his copy of the speech, tell him to mingle with the guests (but keep a close eye in case he gets railroaded by one of them)...

Crumbs! I'll bet most of that damage had gone to a certain extent unnoticed before you made that trip. From a purely historical point of view, I hope the structures you mention have been well documented. If you took pictures of any on them, I'm sure peope would be keen to see them in the prototype section. Morning all! About 3 oktas just now in Edinburgh. Was blowing a gale when I went to bed but seems to have calmed a bit now.