My occasional workplace has seen fit to reblock LiveJournal, hence my silence a couple of days a week. I'm sure everyone reading this has been highly distraught – but take your head out of the oven, because I'm back! And in any case, that whole head-in-oven thing hasn't really worked since Britain converted to natural gas in the early 70s. Come on. Up off the floor. That's better.

“It's gone all grey” said my mother, not in reference to some ham that she'd left too long in the fridge (perish the thought) (perish the ham) but this journal. It's been green ever since it started, you see, mainly to reflect the greenish tinge of the site where I sling all the work I get paid for at timewasting.net. But now, timewasting.net has gone grey as I painstakingly convert it to a blog and start adding all the old stuff. Which I'm not even one tenth of the way through, but I made the change in any case, as it only gets 15 hits a day, mostly from people searching for the benefits of L Casei Immunitass, and just finding a piece with me ranting about what bollocks the “healing” properties of yoghurt are. Anyway. That's why we're monochrome, here.

I went to and 's house. Neil's still recovering from his operation to remove his swollen appendix, so I was under strict instructions not to make him laugh. Fat chance! I was on amazing form, and sat him down before delivering a blistering stand-up routine about how you can never get all the nice icing bits out of cup cake wrappers. Not really. I sat quietly, listening to the Franz Ferdinand album and gently bobbing up and down whenever the disco hi-hat kicked in. (Quite often.)

Last night, to Denis Severs house. I'm not a mate of Denis's, and he hasn't just had his appendix out, but I still had to keep quiet. They open this place to the public every year in the run up to Christmas, and this was my first visit. A furiously camp chap on the door informed us that this was “silent night” and in order to fully appreciate the sights, sounds and smells of the place, we should shut our traps. Fair enough. And it was extraordinary – as if you're trespassing in someone's Georgian terrace, with food still on the table, beds unmade, clothes on the floor. Just like being back at home, really, but more beautiful. Some people just couldn't bring themselves to obey the “silence” rule, and went from room to room saying “Ooohhh! It smells of lavender!” as if that wasn't completely obvious to everyone within earshot and indeed noseshot. Other people couldn't obey the silence rule because they were simply too fat to ascend stairs without puffing like a gigantic pair of bellows. I'm not talking about myself. How dare you.

Then to the Northgate public house, where , , , and a couple of non-entities who don't have LiveJournals were making merry. The conversation turned to Sparks, and the sad recent death of Dinky Diamond, their drummer. We composed a suitable tabloid headline:

Doomed Dazzling Demon Drummer Dinky Diamond Died Driving D-Reg Datsun Dangerously During Drunken Depression.

No idea if that's how he actually died, but it should have been.