Some very kind and willing people

...have agreed to work with me for the concert on Friday. Calling it a band may be a little optimistic, but as it's the normal church worship team, at least we're all used to playing together. I just need to find out how much time we'll have, so we can sort out the set. Haven't got Anna's agreement yet for keyboard, and need to get a drummer, but I've someone in mind and there are a number of possibilities.

I'm quietly optimistic - hopefully to become noisily optimistic soon ;-)


Now the question is: which guitar, which amp???? Processor, modeller, direct?
Sunday evening I think I'll be auditioning my kit over again, but at the moment the woodcross plexi-clone is favourite with a stompbox overdrive as a booster and either the Dean flying V or the strat as the main guitar. If I do sit in with the jazz group then I'll drag along the Heritage Les Paul too.

Decisions, decisions.

I'm suffering from BWS

No not a nasty disease of the bowel - but Blog Withdrawal Syndrome! I seem to have got hooked!

I posted on Sunday, & read the blog on Monday but thought I'd better not post - after all it is supposed to be Toni's blog. No time on Tuesday & on Wednesday our internet access went down! This meant I couldn't find out what my dearly beloved was up to (he had rung me but didn't say much). Consequently I toddled off to Family Group to be greeted by 'I saw Toni's flight was delayed!'

'Really?'says I!

The blog has become essential reading since local friends & work colleagues have started reading it. Otherwise I find that other people know more about Toni ( & sometimes me) than I do! It can be very disconcerting!

BTW things have been mostly OK whilst Toni was away so thanks to everyone who prayed. Thanks too to Catriona & Tracy who were fantastic 'girly' company on Tuesday evening, probably the best fun I've had since IT happened, & Carolyn who came & helped me clean my house today. Not only did we achieve a lot but it was great fun. Perhaps this is the way housework should be done, in pairs or even groups. It would take some planning but we could have 'housework parties' moving from 1 home to another. You'd much more done than working alone & it'd be a lot more fun!

Definately something to think about!

Chris

*&£@!! Broadband

Our internet connection has been down at home for several days, and I don't know why.

Now fixed.

Our smartcom modem/router became a dimcom device instead.

Several hard resets and re-input of the ISP details later, we have a working connection.

A desperate plea

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don’t take my desk…. Over the last few months we have grown very attached to each other, and I do realise that I wouldn’t move far from it but I feel that we would both be heart broken…….. not to mention me and your desk might not get on……

No names mentioned.

There is a strange sense of deja vu, bearing in mind the comments of the last week.

Summer's here

And for a change I'm feeling rather hyper.

I had really wanted to do something for the 'concert' the Marlborough school are having in memory of Sarah, but I couldn't see a way in. Now I've had some ideas, and just need to persuade a band into being for it. Suffice it to say I've found a way of combining some quotes from Brian May and Cream into some of the worship stuff we do. Those who hear me play regularly will recognise some of this stuff, but the Cream quote is new in this context.

And of course it'll need a ton of energy and determination.

Ben was talking about the other guys that will be playing and their stage presence. In church I try not to do the rock thing, throw shapes or whatever. Maybe it'll be a chance to play some worship to people that would never normally hear it, and let my hair down (yes, both of them) at the same time. As long as I can managed not to get psyched out by all these young and desperately talented people I'll be fine.


BTW, about the title. I KNOW summer's here because it's raining hard outside.

Absolutely pelting.

One of our guys was outside about 10 mins ago, loading equipment into a van. We were having a mini-seminar inside the building when there was the most enormous thunderclap. I've just come downstairs to find him in the office, rather shaken. Apparently the lightening had struck 'just behind him' and he literally jumped into the back of the van, ripping his trousers at the same time. The inside of the van was all lit up, it was so close.

Glad I didn't take my bike in this morning as I'd originally planned.

BTW sat in with a Jazz band and jammed along a little last night. The guys were good, but were sneaky. First number was fine, but things went progressively downhill after that, with chord structures becoming increasingly improvisation-unfriendly, at least if you don't know the tunes anyway. It's the first time you've ever played jazz. They were all good though: lots of feeling and some good, tight rythms.

Thanks guys.

Sitting in the corner, watching all the world go by

But never mind Tommy Steele. I’m sat in the ‘quiet area’ of Kobenhavn’s Lufthavn, looking out of the window at the planes arriving and leaving. Neither of us could imagine a UK airport having a quiet area – it’s alien to the nature of airport designers.

It’s interesting how planes get decorated these days. There’s one I can see with a picture of a dancing woman in a bright pink dress on the tail. Baltic airlines. A new arrival from Norwegian airways has a photo showing the head and shoulders of a woman from the 20s – no idea who – it’s too far to read that curly script style. Presumably someone famous in Norway.


I was sitting back in my chair in the quiet area with a full tummy, thinking about what characterised Denmark to me after this trip. There seem to be 2 main things: the food and the people.

Food has always been interesting: never dull. The last 2 nights we ate in the same restaurant/bar (the unfortunately named Restaurant Puk). On the first night I had a rare (smallish) steak covered in mashed potato that was then grilled to brown nicely, served with a knob of hot paprika butter. Last night I had Kidneys (a huge pile) again grilled to perfection, topped with bacon done well so it was crisp and salty, and served with onions, mushrooms and a creamy sauce, plus new potatoes. Absolutely delicious.

And tonight we ate in a place here at the airport called “A Hereford Beefstouw”. The steak here was cooked out in the open, served with chips and parsly+garlic butters, it was bloody, succulent and sumptuous.

The restaurants have been good. I couldn’t imagine finding these anywhere else in the world. They’re too earthy for Sweden, too relaxed for Germany, too homely for America and not elegant enough for France. Fantastic.


The people are like the food (not a surprise) and are polite, yet down to earth. The girls are mostly slim and sexy, without being ‘in your face’ about it. The guys are mixed, but you can imagine some of them leaping from longboats waving axes in a way that the Swedes just don't bring to mind. Round the back of the hotel was the red light district, which our cabs went through on the way to the exhibition centre. Stuff on display was way beyond anything you’d find in London, and I’ve already mentioned that this kind of thing was invisible in Stockholm. But almost everywhere there was a smile, a nod, a gentle encouragement. They’re clearly not perfect, but they also seem welcoming.

And they drink a lot of STRONG beer.

My colleague described them as a caring people, strong on social responsibility, quite moral in their own way, and rather relaxed when it came to issues below the belt. They certainly smiled a lot, although a delegate from the conference had her rented flat broken into, and no-one apparently was willing to actually help. Her impression was that even the police weren’t interested. To add insult to injury, she had a pile of Australian Dollars, and the thieves weren’t interested in them. Says something about the value of some currencies ;-)


Anyway, nice as it was, I’m glad to be home again.

A little greeting, courtesy of Organon

Who set up a web connection facility here at the conference.

Just been learning about PCOS - an unpleasant thing where women get fat, hairy and their ovaries go all up the duff. One treatment we just heard about improved Glucose metabolism and re-balanced their hormones, but made the women fatter (they were feeling better, so they ate more and used it more efficiently).

And they go pregnant while taking a nasty drug (they were told NOT to get pregnant)!

Ho hum. A meeting awaits, on Activin and Inhibin B - our kits.

Last evening here

An the rain has just hooned down.

There was a tremendous clap of thunder just now that felt like it originated 20 feet away from the (wide open) window.

Well we've survived another day of seminars, visitors and biochemical tyre kickers.

Heard some good explanations of why fertility is decreased as a woman's ovaries age.

Been bored sitting in a seminar with a speaker that used I English that I couldn't undestand (talking about PCOS).

Saw a presentation where someone reported data generated using the first commercial immuno-assay I ever developed (R&D Systems ICAM-1 parameter kit).

Looking forward to going home.

Ben's working Saturday. Afternoon delight?

;)

Day 2

Copenhagen is different from how I remember it on my last trip. It seems much larger than I'd remembered, but I'm sure that's down to some false impressions. The hotel is very modern, but that's fine: at least it's clean and tidy and reasonably well laid out. The exhibition is in a large and airy hall at the 'Bella Centre', so is quite pleasant too.

Copenhagen is a bit cooler than the UK, with daytime temperatures in the mid 20s. I was joined yesterday by William (the MD) and Myriam who heads up DSL France. Post show we explored a little and had a meal. Temperatures dropped as the evening wore on, and we found that the blankets provided by the open air restaurant were very useful.

I'm posting this morning as I have a little more time than expected.

I wasn't sleepy when we got back last night, and finally got off around 3ish. We had arranged to meet for breakfast at 7.45. I awoke convinced the alarm had failed to go off, leapt out of bed, showered, dressed and rushed downstairs late. Shovelled breakfast down and dashed back up.

Only to hear my alarm going off.

Grrrrr.

That's the first time I've done that. Feel really heady now - WAY too tired. It'll back off in a bit, but return with enthusiasm after lunch. Wonder who's talk I'll sleep through?

A little late posting....

Heathrow terminal 3 is a sweaty hell right now. The flight was due to depart at 12.05. It’s now 12.28 and we’re all sat in the (mercifully air conditioned) departure gate. The main departure lounge was packed nearly solid, and it seemed incongruous to be walking past ‘shops’ carrying the Harrods and Chanel names, seeing the calm and cool atmosphere on one side of an invisible barrier while being jostled by the crowds.

Barking.

Today is supposed to be fathers day. My family were gracious enough to overlook the event for me, but the radio driving to the airport was full of it. I was OK until the last 7 or 8 minutes, but as I was leaving the M4 to the airport it all got too much. I feel like a piece of fatherhood has been torn away, and although I can be a father to others, I’ll never be a father to Sarah again in that way.

So not the best start to a morning.

They’ve just called us.
TTFN




Back again.

Got here OK. After 40 mins delay we finally got to board, only to sit on the apron for another hour. Ho hum.

Anyway, everything was set up fine, and I even got fed in the evening which was a definite plus.

Thanks..

....to God & anyone who prayed -I feel much better now. Ben & I are off to lunch with friends (Clive & Carolyn) -a timely invitation. Then Carolyn is helping me with Sunday School, which is just as well as Sarah always used to be my helper.

As it's Fathers Day we will be doing something crafty on that theme. I think Toni's glad to be away from it all!

Chris

Help

Chris writes:
Well Toni has just left & quite frankly, I'm not feeling great. I never like it when Toni goes away but this is the fisrt time since Sarah's death & I'm struggling. Anyone who reads this please pray for me.
Chris

After Saturday posting may be thin for a few days.

I'm going to Copenhagen for the annual ESHRE (European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology) meeting. It's not just a junket - we've got a stand in the exhibitors hall, and we'll also be going to the sessions. I promise to take the camera, so hopefully there will be a new section over at fotopic in a couple of weeks.

Psalm 139

Chris writes:
Last night at Family Group (otherwise known as housegroup, a small church meeting) we meditated on Psalm 139 verses 1-18. This is the passage that Clare McCourt read out for us at the Thanksgiving service we had for Sarah, and the reason we chose it is because Sarah had written out verse 14 & stuck it on the wall above her bed. Verse 14 reads:
'I praise you because you made me in an amazing & wonderful way. What you have done is wonderful. I know this very well.' (Youth Bible)

However last night two other verses struck me, firstly verse 5: 'You hem me in - behind & before; you have laid your hand upon me' and verse 16: 'All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.'

We talk about Sarahs death as a terrible accident, and of how she was taken too soon, or before her time, but this is not in fact true. God's hand was on Sarah's life, her death was not an 'accident' in the sense of God having slipped up or made a mistake, because He doesn't make mistakes. And her life was not cut shorter than it was intended to be because all her days were ordained before she was even born.

Of course it seems to us that her life was too short, certainly far too short for our liking, and we will never know in this life why it had to be that way, but it wasn't a mistake that she died when she did.

Another verse Sarah had over her bed was Psalm 121, verse 7 'The Lord will keep you from all harm - he will watch over your life'.
God didn't fail to keep this promise, he just fulfilled it in a way other than that in which we would liked him to fulfill it. Who knows what harm he kept her from? What we do know is that he now has her safe with him where she can come to absoloutely no harm whatsoever.

Not that any of that means that we do not grieve (I spent most of the evening in tears). I miss Sarah more than words can say, (& now I'm crying again!) & I will go on missing her to some degree for the rest of my life on earth. But then I will have all of eternity to spend with her.

Chris

Please pray

For Julie and Graham Hillsdon.

Their son (the driver of the 'other car' mentioned below) is being buried today.

Funerals are very odd when you're the parent. It feels a bit like a wedding, with all the guests/friends there. You have to be out in front, on view to all. People wait for you to come in, sit down, stand up, leave etc. And all the while you don't want to be there, feeling everyone else's pain and discomfort as well as your own.

In many ways it was easier for us, because we'd been intimately involved in putting things together, and we were supported by the love and prayers of so many people. It must be a desperately hard time if all you can feel is the loss, without hope for the future.

It seems a lot of people have been asking.....

.... how we are.

I'm not entirely sure what the answer is to that, really.

We've both been back to work: Chris just over a week, me for 2 weeks. We're both trying to get back into things, both trying to re-take our normal lives. A major struggle for us both is to think clearly: it's very easy to be fuzzy headed, unable to focus our thoughts.

Generally we've been sleeping well, although the last couple of days sleep has been difficult for me. Monday night it didn't really happen at all, and last night I woke around 4ish, then had constant 'dreams' of trying to evade being burnt alive by molten lava (a childhood nightmare). I suspect it's simply going back to work and trying to press into things - whenever I've thrown myself at work sleep has been scarce, and that's probably just how it is.

A number of people have also asked how they can pray. We both need patience and inspiration to know how to answer everyone who asks "how are you?" with freshness and honesty. We KNOW the questions are genuine, and we don't want to answer the 50th person with a curt "OK". Please also pray that we won't turn self-centred and inward looking, and that we'll not drift away from trying to walk in God's grace, now the main crisis is over.

Please also pray for Dan and his family, and for all those who have been touched through Sarah's life and death.

One more request - there was a major traffic accidnet in Oxford 2 weeks ago, in which a heavily overloaded car crossed the road and struck another car. The overloaded car held 8 - 7 teenage boys and the mother of one of them driving - 3 of the boys have died and some are still critically ill. The driver of the other car - an ex-marlborough school pupil - was killed outright too. One of the local papers published a headline asking people to pray for those still critical from this accident: please do. In addition to this, Chris visited the parents of the other driver at their request yesterday. Please pray that they'll be drawn together as a family, and that God will give them hope for the future.

Thanks

Paging Ben

Hope the exam is going well - now get back to work.

How's that for encouragement?

See you tonight.

You never know who will read a blog.

So to all those who are reading this that I would not have expected to....

Hi!

Well, that was another weekend I guess.

Friday night Ben was out, so we went to see Episode III - a mistake in retrospect. As we already knew the outcome of the film (mostly bad things happen) there was only novelty in *how* they happened. I think we went to get out of the house and 'tick the box' as much as anything. Seeing Natalie Prortman laying there pretending to be dead broke Chris's heart afresh. The only good part about the evening was bumping into Sarah B (one of our Sarah's close friends) on the way back to the car.

Saturday came and went. It was nice to see Martin Hathaway (Vicar for Somerton and Heyford parish) again, when he dropped by in the morning. But apart from that, the day was a bit of a washout really. We'd also hoped that some of the stuff from ebay would arrive, but only Chris's trousers turned up. Considering these were the last things we bought, and they had the cheapest postage, I can see some neutral or even negative feedback happening soon.

Sunday improved a bit, with the church dividing in 2 to meet in a couple of houses. Good to see some of our extended family again, and spend some time with each other. Ben went off to Oxford again with some friends, and we...... didn't do anything again, except play 'taxi driver'. Well, Chris visited someone in the village, while I went with Ben & a friend to Oxford and drove the car back for him.

The weather doesn't help either: overcast a lot of the time, but usually clear, bright and cold first thing. High of 15'C to 16'C with about 5'C overnight. This is June, darn it! The air *feels* dead cold on bare skin without the sun, and with everything else it's making us reluctant to get out much.

Quizzes are like busses

You don't see one for ages, then suddenly 2 come along together.

What's your theological worldview?

You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan. You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists. Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 82% Reformed Evangelical 68% Fundamentalist 68% Neo orthodox 54% Emergent/Postmodern 54% Charismatic/Pentecostal 46% Classical Liberal 39% Modern Liberal 21% Roman Catholic 7% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

Some quizmasters have badly missed it, I'm afraid. While I'm sure I share some theology with Wesley, the fact that I believe the Gospel has social implications does not make me a methodist. Likewise the fact that speaking in tongues is not central to my theology does not stop me being a charismatic.

Ho hum. At least I'm not an emergent/POMO/liberal. ;-)

Found this courtesy of Two red boots.

I'm not normally one for quizzes

But this one caught my eye





What guitar are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

No surprises there then.

Bit like life at the mo'. Some days good, some days not.

Today wasn't quite so much fun, but we're still here. I went shopping this morning, but got fed up with slow people standing in the way. I *felt* I'd have liked to got a big stick and start putting it about a bit, but then that's not so different from normal really.

Oh well. Tomorrow is another day.

It would seem I've been tagged

Thanks Marc.

This is a slightly awkward question, as I'm not at all sure what the answers are for most of this.

Number of books I own

Frankly, I have no idea. And as I'm lazy counting ain't gonna happen. As a guesstimate I'll say 347.65 with a standard deviation of 48.2, but the real value is anyone's guess. More than my wife would prefer me to have is a reliable value.

Last book I bought

Blowed if I can remember - libraries here are pretty good. I *think* the last book I bought was "Billy" by Pamela Stephenson to keep me occupied on a flight to Houston.

Last book I read

I'm in the middle of "Deathstalker war" by Simon Green - one of Ben's library books. We have tastes that are not too dis-similar in our entertainment. It's a lighthearted tale of political violence and oppression on a galaxy-wide basis, while a bunch of people are fighting their way through a planet full of nursery toys gone bad. You'd need to read it......

Five books that mean a lot to me

I struggle with how to interpret this. 'Mean a lot' as in changed my life or as in favourites? Nuts, I'll go with favourites: too many books have influenced my life to be able to pin it on any single volume.

Well it's corny to say it, but I read the bible most days, usually while eating breakfast, so that's one I'd definitely take.

People are going to think I'm showing off, but I'd place the Illiad second. Certainly a book that I've enjoyed reading, and one that takes me to a side of Greece that can be felt tucked away just out of sight when we've been there. The version I have was translated by E.V. Reiu, and was published in Puffin Classics.

Marc has already used it, but I'd include LOTR in my top 5 too.

Number 4 is a difficult one, but I'd choose 'Ringworld' by Larry Niven. Niven's worlds feel credible, even if the people in them are slightly implausible, and he's long been a favourite author.

Finally I'd suggest The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison. Comic science fiction at it's finest, when Harrison was writing this character freshly and was still inspired.

So there you go: another window into my head. Mostly entertainment, rather than anything weighty and philosophical or contemplative. Most of the Christian books I've read have been great at the time, but what they've had to say has either been built in or rejected, and then I've moved on. They are generally not books I would choose to re-read much. As for passing the tag on, I'm at the bottom of the blogging food chain, so I guess I get to keep this male rabbit.

It's not always our fault.

It's not always our fault when a sense of humour gets the better of a little modesty and common sense.

Shrugs.

As my beloved wife will tell you.... I'm not perfect.

Too damned much time for thinking.

I've just finished processing stuff - tired and my legs ache from standing all afternoon.

I finished going through a bunch of 'what if' stuff in my head relating to the future, then I went through a pile of past stuff.

I remembered Sarah when Ben and I picked her up from Sarah B's after she'd slept over that Saturday morning. I remembered the feel of her fingers as she held my hand while we were driving to Bicester village. We went to Tesco after dropping Ben off for work, and she bought mango pieces for breakfast before we went home so she could nap, change and go to work.

I remembered her in the back of the car again, nose dripping blood, little trickles of it down her face.

Damn, I miss my daughter. Now I'm crying online.

Crap.

A little too much time for thinking.

I've been doing a manufacturing process today which involves lots of repetitive action and too much free time to think. Thoughts can be un-helpful sometimes, leading into darker and blacker places than real life. And life to me seems a fragile, transient thing over which we have no control. This is a fertile breeding ground for fear.

Chris had tummy pains this morning.

And I have too much imagination.

Perfect love casts out fear. It seems that a lot of the time my love is pretty imperfect.

It's interesting how the devastating sadness and grief that often goes with a death like this hasn't hit us. But some of the things that happen to people in these times are still there. We're still human, after all. Having just written the post below, it shows how shallow my love and trust can be. But then, if my salvation was based on my strength alone I'd never have even got as far as accepting Jesus in the first place.

Had an interesting conversation this morning.

Unknown to me, Jon (a colleague from here) has been reading this blog.

Among the many things we discussed this morning was the effect Sarah's death has had on us. Logically he'd expected it to push us further away from God "How can God be real if he lets things like this happen?". I know he's not the only person to thing this on our behalf. So why haven't we denied God?

Situations like this remind me of a guy called Job. Some think he was just an illustration, some think he was a real guy. There's some stuff about him in the bible. Keeping it short, his story is that he was wealthy and had a large, grown up family. In a single day his children were killed and his wealth taken away, with only his wife left to him. Her solution - "curse God and die". What Job said has always stayed with me:

"Should we only accept good things from the hand of the Lord?"

It seems to me that if God is God, then we are His to leave or take as He wishes - how could He be God if it were otherwise? We don't own ourselves, have no 'rights' over our lives and cannot knock on His door and say "you've got it wrong: I should be different". That doesn't detract at all from the concept of a just and loving God. But what it does do is let us realise that we are part of a much greater picture, and have a role that we, willingly or otherwise, fulfill.

To explain how all this works in the process of free will is probably beyond me. But that may be another part of faith - acting as we feel God would have us do, and trusting that it lines up with His will.

Ebay has been getting hammered this week.

Chris has always felt the cold more sharply than me, and riding pillion (good medieval word, pillion) she's tended to suffer a bit. Cash was ALWAYS tight when we had bikes, and she never really got a decent leather or suit.

And in those days we didn't have ebay.

Kitting ourselves with gear from the shops would almost require a second mortgage. We HAD to buy new helmets immediately - 15 YO lids are just asking for trouble: apart from the fact mine didn't really fit well. So we did the RRP thing on those, simply because new is necessary, and you have to get a precise fit in lots of different areas.

I've got that leather despatch rider-style jacket I bought earlier that's tiding me over, but we'd got rid of all the jackets Chris used to wear, and she's been borrowing one of Ben's that's motorcycle 'style'. So we started looking.

I'd thought she might like a coat style, but it turned out she'd prefer a proper leather. A couple of days and some careful bidding later and voila.

But she also suffers cold legs. The natural answer is some leather trousers.

Behave at the back there!

Nothing to see.


Move along now.

How do we keep going?

Chris and I were discussing this last night. We've both felt guilty at times because we're not devastated, not living up to people's expectations; worried that people will think we're cold and un-feeling.

Quite a few years back we had talked with a good friend about a period she went through with her daughter. The daughter had anorexia, and was in a serious condition. At the time, both her church and and a wider number of people had been praying for the daughter, that she would survive and recover. The daughter was aware that all this prayer was happening, but was not in a good place with God and didn't want Him 'interfering' in her life.

Despite being seriously ill, she was still able to move around and look after herself. As I understand it, she then said to God "if you're there, show me what I'd be like if you weren't helping and people weren't praying". The following day she couldn't get out of bed and was very unwell indeed. (If either of you are reading and I've got it wrong, feel free to correct me).


It feels like that's how it is for us. We're still being carried through people's prayers and the grace of God. There are still times when we want to hide away or feel really sad, but the devastating, tearing grief that some people experience has never landed, and for that we're really grateful. If all the prayer were to stop overnight I think we'd just crash and burn right now. But I know that there are lots of people out there who've been praying for us and are still holding us up.

I know it's God's power, but to those who come before the throne for us - thank you.

Living life through your nose!

Trivial details can make all the difference.

This may seem a little bizarre to those who are less affected through their sense of smell.

I've always been someone who noticed and remembered smells. Smells are far more evocative than sounds for me, and although I can easily forget a person's name and even face, I'll often remember their smell, if it's distinctive enough. There are smells I associate with places, smells linked to objects and smells matched to activities. Some smells have changed over the years: for example petrol smells little like it did when I was a teenager.

There's a new product from Doritos that smells from a distance very similar to old fashioned wiring when it burns. It's so similar that when a colleague here opened a bag, we spent 15 mins trying to find the wiring fault.

Really.



It's a little unfortunate that I really like 'em. If you sit up on the computer 'till 3.00am nibbling, next morning they repeat something rotten on you. For 2 days.

Told you it was bizarre.

I notice my own smell too, if it changes.

For years, certainly the last 5 years, I've been using the same deodorant. It's so familiar that apart from when I first spray it, I can't smell it.

Now I can't get it any more, and I've found a replacement from Adidas. Thank goodness I found this one - the first I bought had distinct overtones of 'high school disco' after it had been worn for 30 mins.

The new smell is slightly sharp, with a lemony hint and a touch of soapiness that wasn't obvious when I tried it. It's like working next to someone I've never met before. It's almost like there's an olfactory line drawn under the old Toni, and a new life with a new scent that's just begun.


My nose, my nose lived dangerously
It’s courage was no stunt!
And during the war in Germany
It was always out in front!

Yet when the battle was o’er
And we’d defeated the Hun
Suddenly, for no reason at all
My nose started to run.

A Nose: A World War II Nose
By Spike Milligan

Photos from the celebration in Somerton

The Oxford mail have a series of images available online from the celebration. If you'd like to see them then click this link and enter 'Sarah Ertl' in the search box.

Please note - this is really for broadband users only. The page is unfortunately an example of poor design, and seems to be around 1.2 Mb in size (unbelievable!!). If you're on dialup then it'll take several minutes to download.