thribble

I know it's early, but it's fun!

'Heaven preserve me from littleness and pleasantness and smoothness. Give me great glaring vices, and great glaring virtues, but preserve me from the neat little neutral ambiguities. Be wicked, be brave, be drunk, be reckless, be dissolute, be despotic, be an anarchist, be a suffragette, be anything you like, but for pity's sake be it to the top of your bent. Live fully, live passionately, live disastrously. Let's live, you and I, as none have ever lived before.'

Letter from Violet Trefusis to Vita Sackville West, 1918

Good weekend. No further comment, m'lud.

Silence is golden.

I must change my imood too, but today I am cheerful 'cos I've just won a free packet of crisps! (Not bad considering I eat about 4 packets a day and this is the first blue bag i've found!)

Congratulations. You will find you don't get so many freebies around here. You have to work for it!

Actually, my company is taking part in some survey to find the 100 best companies to work for. Foolishly, they invited me to take part (< evil laugh > mwa ha ha ha ha < /evil laugh >).

But before I fill in the survey, I mustn't forget it's friday. Before dashing off for a weekend of dress fittings, bridesmaid dress shopping, mother-of-the-bride outfit shopping, 9-year old birthday celebrating and general merriment I want to know the answer to the burning question of the moment. What is the greatest act of love anyone has ever shown you? You don't have to tell me who did it, who you are, or when, or where (and rest assured I can't use IP addresses to work you out, coz I lost my list of who's who). Just tell me what it was.

To start the ball rolling, my wonderful boyfriend is currently trying to get his body clock in tune with mine. That is the loveliest, most caring, most fantastic thing anybody has ever done for me.

Finally for this morning, a quick link for any of you who are bored of Times New Roman.

Although I've just realised that spj has been cheerful since January this year. I'm very happy for you!

Found it!

At weightwatchers last night a woman I barely know said to me, "You look tired. Sleep more." I plan on following her advice fully. However, as we have a bit of a hectic weekend ahead this may mean sleeping at work. I'm sure my employers won't notice.

Must remember my imood password. Then I could stop being ill and start being tired.

Went to see xXx last night. If you like adrenalin rushes, go see it. I left wondering if xXx was the reason that Die Another Day is Brosnan's last Bond film. And can I have the soundtrack and an entry pass to those clubs please?

Blogger seems to be playing up. I can't be bothered to retype my last epic post. Suffice to say that I am trapped in Hampton. I have one route out not blocked, but I am watching water rise along it. If it gets too high I'm leaving. A 36 inch main has burst. Don't just read that. Think about exactly how big a 36 inch diameter pipe is, and exactly how much water you can get out of it. It's been going for an hour and a half now, and showing no sign of slowing. I have no idea how I'm getting home, as it's blocked my normal and my alternative route.

I may be some time. Luckily we made a break for the sandwich van as it floated away so I'm unlikely to starve.

So, I had a good weekend. The concert mentioned previously went well (if a bit Harry Secombe). I bought a Green Cone (although as it's rained since Sunday morning, I haven't done anything with it yet). We saw some friends and I resisted the temptation to eat chinese.
Monday saw me heading up to Hertfordshire for 7:30am. We walked the length of a reservoir, and back again. Then the driver locked his car keys in his boot, leading to us standing outside for an hour waiting for the RAC. Unfortunately, before he'd locked the boot I'd put my (wet) shoes, socks and jacket in there. So Tuesday saw me off sick, nursing a migraine.
Finally, in my exciting week, we watched Saving Private Ryan last night. Which again made me cry, squirm and go yurgh.

It's been a long time. First priority is to clear some of the comments. The email challenge sparks these:

Five: it's email, not e-mail!

Four problems? Let's see... (1) you're not called John; (2) missing apostrophe in sentence one; (3) "there" should be "their" in sentence two; (4) 'This is' should probably be 'These are' in sentence three; (5) 'Debenhams are' should probably be 'Debenhams is' in sentence two; (6) 'Further assistance' in sentence four implies that they have provided some assistance already, which does not appear to be the case.
Too many?

Apparantly Debenhams customer service emails are worse than I had originally thought! The one we got that nobody else did was the apostrophe's around the whole thing.
And the friday fives come flooding in...

1. Today is Friday, which means that I don't have to come into the office for the next two days.
2. I am going to a concert tomorrow evening.
3. The hangover from last night's drinking has passed.
4. I have great friends.
5. I have no worries.

Reasons to be cheerful: I am James Casey
I am not Kirsty Rigg
I am not Peter Johns
I am not Steven Johns
I am not James Dane

1. Wife, 2. Bubba, 3. Mini, 4. Not being Uri Geller, 5. Knowing Thribble ;-) - JD

1. Husband *&* Baby, 2. Birthdays *&* parties, 3. Paul McCartney *&* Beatles (not the car), 4. Nearly finished job, 5. Beatles *&* Paul McCartney. - Anonydragon - it's like an anonyMouse, only bigger!!

Well, I think the fact that knowing me is a reason to be cheerful cancels out the fact that not being me is also a reason to be cheerful!

Finally, a link from my Mum. Go on, read a new blog today!

Talking of weird, welcome to the noseweb.

Check out Uri Geller, the world's weirdest man. Friends with Michael Jackson, he claims that the best day in his life was the day he helped bring about world peace. Well, let me know when that happens, Uri. I'll be sure to celebrate.

Friday fives then. I want to know your top five reasons to be cheerful!

We got our wine delivered yesterday, only to discover that one of the bottles is half full. Sealed, but only half full. However, the customer services department there are excellent, and I now have the value of said bottle of wine credited to my account. It makes a pleasant change to have efficient customer service. I emailed Debenhams this morning to ask about a timescale for them fixing their website. I recieved the following reply:

'Dear  John,

Thank you for your e-mail regarding Debenhams wedding service.

Unfortunately Debenhams are experiencing a few technical problems with
there web site. This is being looked into and should be resolved shortly.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of any further assistance
to you.

Kind regards

N**** R***

Debenhams Customer Service'

We spotted four problems with this email. Anyone got anymore?!

Want to know how good your typing is? Or what your ideal body is (if you're male)?

Clever communication from a smart @rse!

 ,                           
/|   |                       
 |___|  __,    _    _        
 |   |\/  |  |/ \_|/ \_|   | 
 |   |/\_/|_/|__/ |__/  \_/|/
            /|   /|       /| 
            \|   \|       \| 
 _                _                        
| |  o           | |       |               
| |      ,_  _|_ | |     __|   __,         
|/ \_|  /  |  |  |/ \   /  |  /  |  |   |  
 \_/ |_/   |_/|_/|   |_/\_/|_/\_/|_/ \_/|/o
                                       /| /
                                       \|  
 ______ _              _    _    _       
(_) |  | |          o | |  | |  | |     |
    |  | |     ,_     | |  | |  | |  _  |
  _ |  |/ \   /  |  | |/ \_|/ \_|/  |/  |
 (_/   |   |_/   |_/|_/\_/  \_/ |__/|__/o

Thanks for your communications this week. First up

More wine? Would you call yourself a dipsomaniac? And if not, why not? And wasn't a dipsomaniac a type of dinosaur? - Jakob Von Jim

Having looked up dipsomaniac, I think that sometimes, yes, I am one. Although not a dinosaur.

I agree with your comments about the t-shirts, perhaps your warning should have been extended to Our Ma?

Probably. Shall we just say parents generally?

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear Thribble,
Happy Birthday to you!

Thank you! And thank you for your presents everyone. Although I think the nicest thing was that my ickle sister-to-be had written my card all by herself! And that's all for now. Having bought cakes for everyone in the office, I'm off to get my share of them!

I ordered more wine last night. Am now hoping that the delivery doesn't get nicked by some kid off my front door step before I get to drink it all!

Two silly links for you: Which is worse?, where you can choose, erm, which is worse. And Oxymoron list, the largest collection of said phrases online.

When I was taking exams I was told that the grades would show that you were in the top 5%, 10%, whatever, of the country in that subject, and that you would usually have to get 70%, 60%, whatever, to acheive that. Which is why I don't understand all of this. Surely it just means that to be in the top 5% you have to get a higher mark? Whether the exams are getting easier, the teaching is getting more exam orientated or the students are getting brighter doesn't matter. You just have to get a higher mark to be in the top band.

And while I'm ranting, sort it out. If you must press for a resolution that leads to war, at least have the decency to do it in parallel with the existing resolutions, not in conflict with them. Stop being America's lap dog.

Shut up. Both of you. We don't care. It happened 15 years ago. Stop cluttering the news with your absolutely pointless waffle.