I’ve been at home all day; it’s a weird feeling - being off work and being alone in the house. Well, alone apart from the cat device.

The reason I’m off work is that I apparently have labyrinthitis. My husband says it’s caused by too much David Bowie, but I fear he is A Silly. I seem to be having dizzy spells at inconvenient moments. One such moment occurred yesterday at work, and unfortunately there were witnesses. I avoided being sent directly home, but did have to promise to see the GP at his earliest convenience. Which I did, and I now have a small heap of prochlorperazine tablets to stave off the nausea/dizzyness with. So far, they seem to be working.

I’ve been trying to keep as still as possible, to give my poor ears some rest. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite know how to explain this to poor Mogret: she wanted to play hide and seek and kept pouncing and dancing away. There weren’t really enough cars in the car park to make a convincing game of it anyway, and eventually she settled for playing with various catnip-infused fluffy devices.

I still haven’t quite figured the mog out: sometimes (usually when hungry) she is affectionate and soppy, but the greater part of her waking life is spent ignoring humans. She doesn’t encourage tactile interaction, but nor does she resent it, she’s just indifferent.

Her obvious lack of need-for-humans makes it even cuter that she is currently sitting on the gatepost in the dark, waiting for my husband to come home.

Mind you, I suspect she thinks he’s a big cat.

For reasons that escape me, a Floridian teenager created a myspace account and used my gmail address to do so.

Attempts to get her to rectify this have so far failed. After I grew exasperated and defaced her journal (only mildly, I hasten to add) and left a blog post for her expressing my dissatisfaction, she attempted to change the email address used by the account.

Sure enough, I got yet another email from myspace, this time telling me that I needed to confirm the email address. Unfortunately, when I did so, it told me it was assigned to another user’s account. Gah. By this time, my gmail inbox is literally brimming with the foul excrement of emo teenagerhood.

So, I reasoned thusly: we need another email address here, her AOL (says it all really) address is unsuitable, my email address is MINE, so, I merrily signed her up with a new hotmail address.

Actually I’m reluctant to let this address go..

I’ve left her a blog post to tell her what her new email address is (using the alarmingly-named ‘post new blog’ control), but seeing as myspace uses your email address to log in with…I guess I had better email her aol account as well.

Let this be an end to it, I cry.

For posterity, the (hopefully) final myspace blog post is here

Edit: my inbox in case anyone thinks this may have been extreme

This morning, at around 04:30, I woke up. The room span, my eyes wouldn’t hold still and I couldn’t focus on anything. I felt nauseous. Every slight movement of my head caused me to vomit.

As you can probably imagine, this was pretty terrifying, as I’d never experienced anything like it (when sober). In a panic, I rang NHS direct, as I didn’t want to disturb the local GP unless I needed to. The nurse I spoke to was fantastic. She calmed me down and asked me questions to try and determine what was wrong with the hyperventilating, panicking, croaky female on the other end of her line. At one point she asked me if I had any neck stiffness, and of course I wiggled my neck to test this, and promptly threw up at her. But she was great, and I need to remember to write and tell NHS direct this, as they probably don’t get nearly enough thanks for the job they do.

Anyway, the local GP rang me, and told me that I had vertigo, and that I probably should stay very still for the rest of the day. Given that the slightest movement made me vomit violently, I agreed. Except that I woke up again at about 9am, and could move. So, I went to work.

I think I’m okay now, still a bit dizzy and spinny, and pretty much haven’t left the sofa since I got home, except to make the philb some honey and lemon for his cold.

I shall go to bed now, with all paws crossed that it doesn’t happen again.

As many of you will know, I schlepp my weary carcass from Maidenhead to Basingstoke at an ungodly hour of the morning. One of the unexpected benefits of this routine is that I get to see some pretty cool sights of a morning usually involving sunrise, a windmill, a rubbish tip, deer and some random game birds (as yet unidentified).

Taking photographs from a rapidly-moving train is an interesting challenge, and more often than not I mis-time it and get a smeary tree-filled picture that makes my eyes water in sympathy. Sometimes though, they come out okay..

Reading, on a cold and misty morning

Somewhere between Reading and Mortimer

Apparently, as of October 2003, one of my duties in life is to remove, at the end of the day, the socks from the feet of my husband. He experiences what is known as ’sock time-out’ and when this happens, the socks must be removed with all speed.

Foot massage is also appreciated but not a compulsory part of the ritual.

There is a lady who gets the 17:37 from Basingstoke to Reading. Well clearly there are many, but this particular lady has a guide dog called Hugo. Hugo is mostly a solid, dependable character, but tends to be a bit skittish with loud noises, so the first time I encountered him and his owner, was on an evening when fireworks were in operation. I offered my arm to her and assisted her and Hugo onto the train.

Since then, I have seen her on many occasions, and only interfered with assistance when I thought it was necessary, usually just when she is negotiating the steps onto and off the train, as people tend to push and bustle to get off the train, and it must be terrifying if you can’t see.

I nearly had to interfere again tonight: Hugo is quite a soppy-looking dog, and a gentleman stooped to fuss over him, blocking his path and causing the lady to stop in alarm. She obviously couldn’t see what the man was doing, and he seemed either ignorant or unconcerned about the fact that the dog he was fussing over was this lady’s means of negotiating a busy station. Luckily Hugo responded to the command ‘find a way’ and managed to escape from the man. I will not forget the expression on the man’s face though; he looked cross and sulky.

I just don’t understand this. Hugo has a fluorescent jacket, and a harness round his middle; the lady herself has closed eyes and is obviously blind - her body language and reactions tell the observer that she has no visual connection to the world and that she relies on other senses and, of course, Hugo.

While I understand that Hugo looks very pettable, I cannot imagine that I would ever try to distract a guide dog especially not in a busy station, and so close to the platform edge.

For some reason I’m very protective of this lady, though we have spoken only a handful of times, and I admire her bravery in negotiating what, to a sighted person, is a horrible journey. She doesn’t ask for help, nor expect it, but is gracious when assistance is offered. That man came very close to being punched by a small angry kitten. Grrr.

How does your cat wake you up? Assuming you have one, of course.

The Mogret has many tactics for awakening us; they vary in intensity and ignorability. Mostly she will start out with the typical greeting blorp, to let us know she has decided that it is Morning. If we fail to respond to this with the required action i.e. leaping out of bed at once to feed her and open the cat flap, she will progress to the next level. This usually involves some sort of physical violence. She punches, she pamples, she divebombs.

If this brute-force approach doesn’t work, it is time for the claws to come into play. Unfortunately she has learned about Under the Duvet, and the fact that a artfully-aimed swipe at the end of the bed will probably result in all sorts of interesting reactions from the taller of the two humans. How grateful I am to be short!

Sometimes, having attempted violence upon us with no results, she will then divert from shredding humans to shredding paper. She will search the house for paper or cardboard, bring it into the bedroom, and shred it loudly. She knows this will seldom fail to provoke a reaction, as one can never be sure exactly what it is that she has chosen to destroy.

If this is ignored, she will start on the non-feet end of the bed and attempt violence on arms or any other available flesh. Such was the impressive reaction she got this morning to a stealth attack on phil, that I fear we have taught her a new trick. Basically, she attempted to shred him, and he leapt upwards, creating enough of a gap under the duvet for an obstinate cat to gain entry. So she did, and sat under the duvet, staring at him.

Unfortunately, at this point he had decided to get up as the tea-indicator was flashing. I do hope there was enough time between the attack and the getting out of bed, for a connection not to have been made in the little cat-brain, but I doubt it.

I do worry that sooner or later she will learn the ultimate way of getting phil out of bed: making tea in the next room, so the smell will set off the tea-indicator and therefore cause the self-launch program to initiate. I do hope she can’t read this.

I realise that some clarification is needed here: I’ve already expressed sympathy for the individual telesales operator at the other end of the telephone, attempting to beguile me with their wares. I still maintain this position; it can’t be an easy job, and is one that is met mostly with resentment and intolerance.

I’m afraid that I just added to that. I feel guilt for directing my rage at the poor unfortunate ‘Kelly from Everest’, but she had just got me out of the bath.. I know, intellectually, that she is just trying to earn a living, and has the misfortune to have an unpleasant method of doing so, but at the same time I cannot conceal my rage with the *companies* that employ telesales drones.

I am an adult. I appear in the telephone listings because I have a telephone, and an address. I make the assumption here that it has been assumed that we *own* the house, as I would imagine that is pointless attempting to sell glazing products to a tenant.

Therefore, I am an adult who has managed to negotiate the complex and frustrating pathways towards home-ownership, making one of the most expensive decisions and purchases an average human can make.

What on EARTH makes these companies think that I am therefore incapable of seeking out goods and services on my own? That I need someone to telephone me in order that I will notice that I could have my windows glazed. Do they really expect me to suddenly have some kind of epiphany and realise that yes, right now is a fantastic opportunity to have my windows double-glazed, if only I’d realised it sooner, thank you Everest. Gah.

Only the other day, I was wishing that MS Windows XP came with a ‘no, I’m not an idiot, thanks’ button. One that would turn off all the annoying ‘tellytubby’ features and let me actually get some work done without being cossetted and protected from my own potential stupidity. I realise this is the problem when attempting mass-market software that caters to the lowest common denominator, but I can’t say I approve. No-one has an intrisic right to have access to a computer, and there used to be a fair degree of knowledge and skill required to interact with one. Way back then, you could get a sense of having achieved something, and a feeling of personal growth as you mastered the skill.

Now, in the age of mass stupidity and the dumbing down of almost everything in order to cater to all, knowledge is perceived as almost worthless, as you don’t need to know anything to get anything done any more. So, while access for all is an admirable goal in some ways, it also lowers the expectations that we have from our users.

It makes double-glazing sales people expect me to be too helpless to be able to hunt and gather required goods and services..

My husband is currently laying on the bed, tormenting our lemonlight by sending it on/off signals from his laptop. Is this a good use of technology?

I have an inherant sympathy for the poor person calling from a call centre. Unless you are particularly masochistic and enjoy daily abuse and rejection, it cannot be a pleasant job to do.

My husband, on the other hand, feels no such compassion. It gives him great pleasure to wind up the poor unfortunate caller, admittedly to my very great amusement.

For example, we just received a call from Tiscali, attempting to sell us some kind of telephone service. Obviously I only heard the local end of the call, but it went something like this:

Phil: Yes, I pay the BT Bills. I love paying the BT Bills. B-T- British Telecom. BT. Yes.
*pause*

Phil: Oh, no calls - don’t make ‘em. I just have a telephone to receive calls.

*pause*

Phil: Oh no, they pay *me* money, something like £10 a month. Just for having a phone.

*pause*

Phil: It was lovely to hear from you too. Goodbye.

This conversation was conducted in an especially British voice - like a Wing Commander chappie in a war film.

I, of course, was giggling uncontrollably, so apparently the lady on the other end sussed that there was Humour involved.