Tonight, I went to the pub with the comics mob, which was a bloody good laugh. I also bought another bottle of whisky, which I am looking forward to trying, when I finish one of the many fine malts in my home. Tonight was a good night.

Well, up to a point.

On the tube home, some bloke threw up all over me. Specifically, over the back of my several hundred pound worth of leather coat, and my rather nice leather bag. That man, boys and girls, is a shitehawk. He is a shitehawk, because having done that (and splattered some poor girl in the process, I should add) he proceeded to slump into a seat, pass out, and then stir only to leap from the train at Balham, without offering to pay for the cleaning, either for me, or, more importantly, the nice girl whose white coat (and hair) he had splattered with his watermelon-coloured vom. As I say, he was a complete shitehawk.

After the last fortnight, if something very good doesn’t happen to me very soon, I’m going to start hurting people. You’ve all be warned.

A shitehawk, I tell you.

For all their flaws, the people I have my DNS with are quick on the turnaround – looks like black-ink.org is back and running, so ignore my last message and use my normal address, although if you’re expecting a reply from me and haven’t heard anything in the next day or two, it might be an idea to re-send the mail.

My black-ink.org domain has just died. It should be back up within a day or two, but if you’re trying to email me, then you’d be best off emailing [myfirstname] at electricana dot org for the next few days.

I knew I’d not been the gym in a while. The weight I’ve put back is more than testament to that fact.

Still, since I seem to have spare time on my hands again I figured I’d fill it with sweaty masochistic practices, and try to get back into something that might pass for shape. So I popped along to the gym this evening to get a new membership card, since I’d lost my old one, with the intent of starting up again next month. So I get there, all set to pony up for a new card, only to discover that my membership has been cancelled. Last October, in fact. And I hadn’t noticed.

Whoops.

In other news, the oystercard people are bastards, who won’t let me buy a monthly bus pass via them (as least not on their website). Does anyone know if I can buy, say a weekly travelcard in order to get the card, and then after that, charge the thing with monthly bus passes (and no, pre-pay is no good to me), or is the only bus pass option the yearly one, even if you’ve already got the card?

Turns out that on top of everything else, Barrage were playing in London last week, and I missed ’em.

Fin and I just broke up. So if I’m a bit out of sorts over the next while, that’s why. I’ll bounce back, I’m sure, but I may not be entirely my usual cheery self for a bit.

What did people do before the internet, I wonder? Phone round? Spend the next few weeks correcting people in a slightly awkward manner? Take out classified ads?

There’s a building site just outside my office window, just like there is outside every office window in London. It’s quite a small one, but there’s a crane on it – a weird, stunted one, as if the equipment had taken up smoking and failed to eat its greens when it was a young piece of industrial machinery.

Aside from being small, this crane is also a mutant, as far I can tell. It appear to exist in order to move around really weirdly shaped lumps of concrete with spikes and girders sticking out of them (fuck knows what they’re building), and instead of having a hook, or anything conventional like that on the end of it’s line, it has a strange nodule from which hang a profusion of chains, like the tendrils of some kind of industrial squid. It’s been kind of weird, sitting here watching move around against the grey-blue twilight sky, the chains whipped back and forth quite sharply, agitiated by the motion of the cradle and the strong breeze. It’s like the damn thing’s alive and clutching for things, it really is.

Christ, I’ve just noticed something. There’s no cab on it. Nowhere for the driver to sit. It’s done away with him, hasn’t it?

Fuck. The machines are taking over. The little men in the yellow jackets down there are just servants to the yellow mutant’s whim, aren’t they? It’s building something strange down there. A think made out of concrete and sharp things. Machine aesthetics are at work outside my window.

(I may be slightly bored at work this afternoon, but seriously, the construction site looks weird in the twilight. I tried to get photos, but the phonecam isn’t up to the job.)

I’ve been meaning to link to this for ages, because it’s side-splittingly fucking funny – Ill Will Press home of your lord and master, Foamy the squirrel. Go. Watch the cartoons, especially the “Five More Minutes” one you’ll find the archive. (Note – requires audio, may not be worksafe.)

Like Andrew said: go here type ‘marysiak’ (without the quotes) and hit post comment. The karma gods will thank you.

Ah, the vomit streaked back alleys, with their bouquet of late-night drunk’s piss. The drizzle washed roads. The sound of buses reversing in the night. Weird christian sects chanting at odd hours on a Sunday, and strange shops selling saris (apparently, the area is one of the top places in Europe for high quality Saris) and Bollywood videos and overseas calling cards, and assorted ghastly knick-knacks. The Popular Front.

I quite like where I live. One of the nice things about it is that parts of it are gentrifying at speed, although as the aborted attempt at a fondue restaurant that opened up briefly downstairs from us last year proves, perhaps not at the rate that some people might like. Still, it’s always nice to find a new bar or resturant that’s not full of pikey filth in the area, and we ran across a rather nice one yesterday, a place called Smoke, where they do good food, adequate coffee, and, importantly, for my non-beer-drinking self, cocktails.

And as for vistas beyond Tooting, I picked up the London compendium the other day, full of little gems about my beloved home, and Raw Spirit, Iain Banks latest, and his first non-fiction, book, an account of a tour of Scotland’s distilleries, sampling whiskies, and seeking the perfect dram. Despite his strange fondness for Islay malts (I just can’t get on with them myself – too medicinal) he does pick out a few good other ones, and I picked up a bottle of the Glenfiddich 21 year old Havana Reserve – I’m quite a fan of their 15 year old Solera Reserve, so I thought I’d give it a go, and it doesn’t disappoint. In so far as I make any sort of resolutions at this time of year, I think I’m going to devote a bit of time this year to getting to know a wider range of whiskies – I’ve got a few I tend to stick to at the moment, and I think it’s time to try a few more, so I may have to lay out the seventy-odd quid, and join the Scottish Malt Whisky Society, so I guess the question is, if I did, would anyone actually want to come with me (Edit: as a guest, unless you really want to buy your own membership) and try their range of drinks (preferably more than once, because it’s a lot of money to spend for a one off night out)?