Over a week

since my last post. A number of factors have contributed to this. Firstly being as busy as pants (© BIB) at work. Secondly, my PC at home demanding a complete re-install of Windows due to a corrupt registry entry, which meant I lost everything on it - thousands of songs, all my favourites, and in fact the patch applied to run the Pipex account through the BT router. And I have had two days off.

One of these was spent accompanying my brother's Tajik friend from Heathrow airport to Tonbridge (whilst trying to find him at the airport, multiple bad 1980's sitcom scripts ran through my mind - collecting someone you have never seen before from the airport is a truly nerve-wracking experience. I had been told he was Russian/Caucasian looking, but the flight from Bishkek had no noticeable 'Central Asian-ness about it - the ones from Bangalore and Toronto were easy to pick out. I had visions of him travelling on alone, and me standing at the airport for hours. I also didn't know that he spoke impeccable English (andRussian, of course), and the number of Shugni speakers in the UK is less than 100, I would imagine, so I had visions of him being trapped (metaphorically, of course) at Heathrow in an echo of that dreadful Tom Hanks film. None of this was helped by the fact he didn't know I was collecting him, and he had no idea what I looked like either.) Thank the Lord for the wonderfully helpful staff at the information desk.

Yesterday I did housework. Cleaned out the filters on the Dyson, got some compost to re-pot my bamboo, went to M&S. Played golf in the evening after a fruitless search for a driving range in West London - masses of golf courses but nary an open driving range to be found. So we went to the pitch and putt and had a free game as the guy had already gone home.

Today I am working, and tomorrow as well, so I'll miss the England game. I do get to see Argentina this evening though.

There is also an new 2 CD compilation in the offing - post below to get one sent to you.