Eh?

Okay - perhaps Dee shouldn't go away without me in future. Without her calm, reassuring presence I've decided to get fit. What better way than to enter myself into a triathlon?

I currently get out of breath climbing the stairs, have knackered knees and am one of the laziest people I've ever met.

So all I've got to do is race 599 health freaks over 16 lengths of the pool, run outside, get changed and then cycle 20km up and down very steep hills then get changed again to run the final 5km back.

Aiming for survival, and finishing the race.

Will be happy with 600th!

Updates from time to time - if it goes VERY quiet then I'll be in a hospital/morgue.

The Hand of God?

Maybe, maybe not but a cool picture nevertheless .

Coming home?

Strange, but that's how I think of going out to Australia. Yesterday, after much faffing and almost a whole afternoon spent trying to buy flights that had already sold out (thanks Emirates!) I finally bought my ticket!

Only 258 days to go.......I can smell the Eucalyptus trees already

And then it won't be too long until it's a one-way ticket - and I can get out of this bankrupt country.

Not to forget the leg on the new Airbus. I worked on the Airbus project when I was an aerospace chemist (feels like a lifetime ago) so should you ever decide to take a key to an A380 you'll uncover an exceptionally well designed primer. Took me nearly a week to get the drying characteristics right - the only downside to the job was literally watching paint dry.

The upside was (a) being able to tell girls (quite rightly) that I was a rocket scientist
(b) designing the colour schemes for Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa, Thomas
Cook, Thompson, Aeroflot (less proud of that one) and the Eurofighter
(c) the projects I'm still not allowed to talk about under the Official Secrets Act!
(d) NASA projects

So whenever you see one of those planes, you can think of me!

Where have all the Cobblers gone?

How very odd. Having bought a pair of shoes a mere 6 months ago and already having knackered the heels and soles (hard miles repping you see) I decided to have them re-heeled and soled rather than wasting another £60 on a pair of shoes. Thrifty eh?

The shoes themselves are rather nice (Jasper Conran darling - got them in a sale!) and were in perfectly good nick. I googled, went through the phone book and asked around and there are only 3 cobblers in the whole of Hull!

It could be complete bollocks of course, but i remember there being a cobblers/key cutting place on every little parade of shops when i were a lad....and now there's 3 in a whole city?!?

Found a dingy shed called the Heel'n'Key Bar where I got new heels and soles which look better than the originals for the princely sum of £14.

Bargain.

I don't need there to be any more cobblers now, I've found the best one ever....but I reckon there should be more.

When i'm president...