First Things First. I've put off writing about last Wednesday's lunch with the bonzerlicious Max because of laziness; but there's not a great deal to say – I don't think I was on my best form that day. Certainly it starting to, then continuing to be, pissing down half an hour after we met certainly put a bit of a damper on my mood – I wasn't looking forward to having to face the drive home; which eventually took hours because I had to take to the back roads, the A12 being pretty much undriveable because of spray and water.

Anyway, the afternoon: after more than a little sodding around [and finding that the London Borough of Islington is the worst place in the western universe for car parking - thanks, Mr Arsenal] we did a little driving then dived, more through "hey, it's dry" than anything else – at Itta, a tiny pizzeria down the Kentish Town Road. Well – it did the job fine, it's nothing special; at least it's not Pizza Froggin' Hut.

Subjects included: her latest profile piece, my latest adventures in Munchland, weird religious shite, Personal Services [you must find a copy, sweetie], and why photoshopping Labour leadership candidates into schoolboy outfits would not be something that would benefit Western civilization.

Thanks, gorgeous: and I promise next time I won't make you shop for phallic umbrellas…

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Actually, it's been autumnal all round for the past ten days – for the first time in months this morning I put on my fleece to go out.

…Isn't it amazing what you find in clothes you've not worn for months? "Oooh, there's my Trout Mask Replica badge".

Those of you who closely follow my health will be glad to know that the cold/infection has just about gone, although I still have a bit of a cough. However, rumours that I've been signed up on a contract to be "the mandatory coughing fucker" at the quiet tragic bits of films, concerts and plays are, as yet, unfounded….

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In a way, the end of summer opens up a few opportunities, because it means my friends who have school-age children are less tied down to being 24/7 babysitters.

Plans include Chelmsford Market, which apparently has a "specialist" footwear purveyor; the Polish Arts Festival in Southend on Sunday 12th, in which for once the sausage I'll be ingesting will be an actual dead kielbasa; and, stuff permitting, I just might get to go further afield for once…

Watch this space.

Some spacey shit that I used to get completely out of my tree to, to accompany you whilst you're watching this space.

Three days of mild fever, successful male shoe shopping [boo], unsuccessful female shoe shopping [boo], shifting too much furniture, showering a lot, disliking local politics, disliking national politics [way to make a shitty situation really shitty, HMGovt], a Pakistan test win, Wagner reminding me of Bugs in drag, and the new Iron Maiden album – this has been almost the entirety of the past seven days for me.

In other words, you ain't missed much.

I did write quite a bit whilst I had a mildly inflated temperature, mostly on paper rather than on laptop, and it was all total and utter shite. This is fairly standard for me when I'm feverish.

Coincidentally [or maybe not], this entirely mirrors the days when I used to do far too much dope; I'd produce reams of stuff, all of it useless. [The few bits that remain now are far too embarassing to transfer to an electronic medium. One of the - alas - lost gems, though, is "Dissonance", the hour-long play in which two people on an abandoned Tube train recite Fish lyrics one word at a time and be silently pretentious inbetween. I wondered whether it'd get an Arts Council grant...]

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Upcoming Wonderment, though: on Wednesday I'm in the big smoke with a bonzerly amazing person, again wandering the streets in the eternal search for decent pizza and coffee at a reasonable price. "Trust those who look for the Pizza; be sceptical of those who say they've found it."

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One in three adults takes a soft toy to bed. Which might include me. Does a bat count?

[Interfauna link]

Random Facebook Status Generator. Those of you who are "friends" with me on FB *might* think that I use this. I don't. Honest.

[The way to tell is that I've clicked the generator 100 times and it's not yet mentioned Falkirk....]

So it seems [unless I'm mistaken] that the "Like" button won't reveal your identity unless the liker is on your current FB login identity's friend list. I and "4 others" clicked the button on the last post, but I have no way of finding out who those four were. If they were you, please tell me so I can verify this.

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In the week since last I posted we've had an election which contained three amazing results and 647 disappointing ones – the fallout from which has now got boring [shut up about it and let them do their job working out how to sort it out now], I've had my boiler serviced so I'm not going to die of carbon monoxide poisoning any time soon, there's been "fish from space" to cheer for, I've unwisely eaten some out-of-date Austrian processed cheese and paid the price, and the Family Guy marathon weekend on BBCThree is currently proving that for this show two episodes is the maximum before one sighs and turns off.

Too much of anything, even the best things, in one sitting becomes tiresome. I'd like to thank a Ms R. H********h of Bedford for teaching me this years ago.

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It looks like next weekend I'll be, for the first time in years, camping.

[No, not in the polari sense.]

I've been invited to spend the time at a Wood Festival.

[No, not that kind of "wood".]

Long-time readers will know of my antipathy to camping, based upon several years in which the drop-in I worked at organized a long weekend for staff and clients each summer. During sunny days it was perfect. During rainy days, and during nights in which neither I nor my charges were sleeping [and even when I was trying to sleep, they'd keep sticking their head in my tent and asking if I were awake], it wasn't. At least that won't be a problem this time, although the usual issues of "comfort", "warmth" and "ffs, there's a reason civilization invented houses" will, I'm sure, appear at some point.

Less predictable is my wondering what one actually does at a "wood festival". I'm not sure whether it's kinda tree-hugging, or carving, or maybe even beating each others' bottoms with bits of birch; perhaps I shouldn't bring my car because it's steel and aluminium, and there'll be a tribe of wood-worshippers wanting to smelt it down.

Or maybe, like many other festivals I've been to over the past twenty years, it's just a thinly-veiled excuse for slightly weird but oppressed people to get away from their families and be slightly weird [sometimes with chemical assistance].

I, of course, need no such excuses…

Various Updates, Thingies And Other Stuff:

- The new "Like" button which appears at the foot of this post should work, and you should help me test it out. [To me it appears to work on your logged-in Facebook ID, so if you don't want to disclose that don't click]. I'd also like to know what happens if you're not logged into Facearse, so experiment away.

- It's a wet three-day weekend here, and although I could be at a Street Fayre elsewhere in the county I really can't be arsed to get out of the door. Instead, it looks like the snooker on the telly and the DVD of The Machinist which Gosia has recommended and lent me. Review will follow [if it's worth it].

- Three days to Stick An X Next To A Twunt Day [see previous post], and it looks like a grudging LD vote, unless I decide to vote for the candidate with the biggest knockers.

- Why didn't someone tell me before how bitchenly amazing Inga Liljeström is?

- There's an application in so possible brilliant job news to come, but I'm keeping it under my hat at the minute just in case it doesn't pull off. Suffice to say that it's on a subject I've quite often blogged about [and which was especially highlighted on telly last week] and I'd be excited to be able to make a real difference in this area. Sorry for being cryptic, but until I know if I'm at least being interviewed…

- The new toaster is called Bernardo.

- Suggestions for other names for various household objects should be sent to the usual address. The current grand prize for those whose entries are selected stands at its standard level of a 30-second drawing of a man with a garden rake up his bum.

I've not been feeling very bloggy lately. So sue me.

Things that have happened since my last proper blog [none of them much interesting];

- My luck with chairs continues in the "omigod, why can't I just sit on a tortoise" vein, given that my computer chair has fallen to pieces. Which probably serves me right for picking one up in the bargain aisle at Staples.

Chair Wrongness [linked for very slight NSFWness]

- At the time I fell off it last Tuesday, the top button on my jeans went "ping" and flew off. This weekend I sewed a new one on. Donning them this morning, it lasted two hours before going "ping" in the dairy section of Sainsbury's supermarket. I finished my shopping with one hand holding my jeans up.

[Which reminds me of the time I went through customs at Ljubljana airport. Having placed my studded belt in the tray, I walked through the detector gate - and my trousers fell straight down, revealing my Pink Panther boxers.]

- Mwah to Ang for lending me the DVD of Rosemary's Baby, and for including the following in the package;

- A slightly advance copy of Goldfrapp's "Head First" has come into my hands; first listen was none too impressive, but I'm loath to damn it just yet…

- And I promise I'll get back to doing this properly…

Various Mini-Updates:

Job: The 20% deal is all done bar signing my name to it. Having got over the initial "omigod, I'm gonna spend the rest of my life living off fish fingers and 19p Aldi soup" phase, I've entered the second section of "coping with change"; thinking of how to construct the necessary alterations in a positive and constructive manner.

The main saving that needs to be made – and various bits of motivation including this are leading up to this – is that I need to give up nicotine.

This is not something I can do straight away – for various reasons I need to get medical permission before I embark on this – but it's certainly something I can work on at the minute in terms of getting my strategy and my mindset prepared for when it actually happens; say, a month's time.

This may all sound like a pathetic addict putting off the day of reckoning, but the fact that I'm seriously contemplating this change is, in itself, progress. I am, of course, no stranger to "addiction recovery" – it's now the best part of two decades since first realizing I had to stop drinking at some point – and I know that my way is the only way to do this. You can't force any addict to give up [unless you utterly isolate them 24/7 for years and years] – you can only set the conditions in which recovery can be allowed to happen. And I think the time may soon be ripe…

Stomach: Since the bout of food poisoning pre-Xmas, and the splurge of food which the festive season always brings, I've been a lot more careful about what I put into my digestive system. And it's paid dividends. Apart from a small tempestuous event on Saturday evening – which I'm putting down to some dodgy veggiesausages – things have been brilliantly quiet on this front.

The main "loss" has been that I've cut out curries. Yes, yes, I know, it's surprising that this particular addiction has gone unsated for six weeks, but it's actually been easier than I thought.

One particular aspect of the change in diet has been the addition of a daily "bio-yoghurt" pot. Opinions on these differ wildly, and of course my subjective perceptions of their effects are invalid as evidence; the fact that they've coincided with a calm period in my digestive system may be entirely accidental or placebo. Bottom line, though; if you're not concerned about the amount of sugar syrup put into the things – and, luckily, sugar is not an addiction of mine – I figure it's at least doing no harm to put a small amount of sickly-sweet yoghurt in my system every day.

Saucy Writing: Something is brewing. It's not ready yet, I can't even tell what it is yet, but I can feel it there…

February: Always the "joker" month – it's either brilliant or crap. This year, apart from that one "down" day, it's been good so far – although one never knows what's around the corner, natch.

No V-Day cards or presents will be sent this year; and CarolineDay will, hopefully, be spent pootling around Knorwich with S. wetting ourselves over too-expensive shoes before going back to New Look, which has thankfully cottoned onto the size-9 wide-fitting affordable but doesn't-look-like-stereotype-lesbian market.

Plankton: PLANKTON!!!

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Today's Big Question: What "change" are you currently contemplating?