peteashtondotcom

I’m in London on Monday for a meeting (ooh, look at ‘im!) and should have a couple of hours free in the afternoon if anyone wants to meet up around Victoria for a quick drink before, say, 5.30.

Digicam Dumpage.
Read more »

It had to happen, that sidebar was just getting too long. We’re back to three columns on the main web page. On the left is the linklog followed by the site navigation and information stuff. On the right is the expanded mp3 blog followed by the projects list and blogroll. In the middle is this journal. I know it doesn’t shrink down to 800×600 very well, but that’s because there’s a nasty big photo of some shoes three posts down. Should be okay in a few weeks. Oh, and it uses that classic CSS hack, the Table tag. Any issues in non-Mac browsers, please let me know. It should look the same as before, only with the extra column. If it looks shit, try pressing F5 to refresh first.

Now, to sort out my myriad RSS feeds into some kind of order…

Thanks to my current budgetary situation I haven’t really been using cash machines that much all year, and in the last month not at all, so when I went to the machine last week I found myself with a mental block. Problem was, if you stopped me at gun point and forced me to reveal my PIN I’d have been at at a loss. I remember the pattern my fingers make but not the actual numbers. So you’d have to shoot me.

Only this time I couldn’t remember the finger pattern. I knew there was a four in there, probably a one and either a seven or a nine, or both. The sequence, no idea. And the more I thought about it, the less decisive I became. I tried clearing my mind, removing all rational thought and relying on instinct, but the “three tries and we eat your card” threat forced me to make a decision. So I bit the bullet, furrowed my brow, clenched my bowels and went to Kwik Save to buy some eggs and get twenty quid cashback.

In three days time I’ll have a new PIN, which will no doubt be at the forefront of my mind so if you want to stop me at gun point that’ll be the time to do so.

Do you fancy driving a (small) van from Birmingham to East London to pick up a sofa-bed and then to Brentford, West London to pick up a load of boxes of comics and books and then back to Birmingham? Alternatively, should you live in the bigger city, picking up the stuff from London, driving it to Birmingham, then returning back down South? And in return get the pleasure of my non-driving self in the passenger seat for the entire journey (and some food/beer)? If this sounds like your idea of fun, fun, fun, and you have a Saturday free in the very near future, get in touch now! I’ll be awaiting your email. All sorted!

l-r: Steel toecapped working boots, 18 months service; Semi-retired Magnums, 2 years service, now for gardening; Current Magnums, 6 months old.

I discovered Magnum Classics about seven years ago and never looked back. I’d been wearing army boots most of my life, generally buying the cheapest boots in the army surplus store and replacing them every year. Then I saw a pair of Magnums hanging from the shelf. They cost £60, way over my usual budget, but the looked kinda nice, like a boot, but also like a shoe and potentially comfortable. I tried them on and was immediately converted, the notion that a hefty boot could be as comfortable as a trainer was incredible to me. I’m now on my third pair.

While my work boots aren’t as neat as the Magnums I’ve developed a soft spot for them because, along with the combat trousers I bought before going to the IoW farm, they’ve been with me through all my strange jobs these last 18 months, and they look it. But despite being to hell and back foot-wise they’re still perfectly functionable - not bad for £20.

I always knew Macy was a bit of a star but I didn’t really realise the wider effect she’d had on people until last week. Sam and I have had loads of comments on our blogs, emails, phone calls and the like about her dying and a lot of folk seem quite affected by the whole thing even if they’d never met her, so thanks for all that. I’m kinda okay about the whole thing, probably because she was never “quite right”, mentally or physically, but the absence is still quite striking. I think I see a movement out of the corner of my eye and it’s not her, or I come into a room and it’s empty. As Hg said, “The ancient Egyptians considered cats to be gods and they were - of course - absolutely right.”