According to reports, the earthquake has caused two million pounds worth of improvements.

...that me and D did this weekend

1. I pulled down a laurel tree branch so he could retreive a leaf that he particularly fancied

2. I played 'Jingle Bells' in a raspberry stylee on his belly

3. He finally managed to make a farting noise with his hand under his arm

4. We relaxed on a tyre swing

5. We made pancakes for breakfast. I had jam on mine, he had sugar and squirty cream

6. We hammered little nails into a block of wood as part of a little do-it-yourself arty thingy.

7. We bought a Christmas prezzy for his mam

8. Gave him boxing practice against my upright hand (he hurts now )

9. Taught him to use Excel (he typed in all the numbers from 1 to 100, I didn't have the heart to show him the drag function just yet)

10. Sat on some doorway steps overlooking Diss marketplace eating chips

I've been putting off reading "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins because I knew what was in it, however I was recently loaned a copy by a friend and I am now dragging my feet through its 400+ pages.

As I thought, it is telling me nothing that I haven't known for many years. In fact I can barely remember a time when I didn't have reservations about the whole God thing. Even when I was 7 or 8 years old; when at school they gave us religous assemblies complete with hymns and prayers; with my mother being a Catholic believer, I can remember asking "who made God".

The "who made God" conundrum is one of the basic tenets of The God Delusion (and let's face it; it's a pretty good first line in an argument for an atheist, and a hefty 6 inch nail in the coffin for a bible basher) but it isn't exactly clever. The clever bit is that a bloke made a lot of money by stating the bleeding obvious.

Other obvious arguments Dawkins makes are:

1. There is no evidence that God is in any way 'good'. In fact, if starving children and suicide bombers weren't evidence enough, then just read some of the bits of the Bible (Old Testemant in particular) where he's a right savage bastard.

2. Darwinian evolution makes so much sense. Not to be confused with Darwinian insurance rip-offs which doesn't seem to make much sense at all.

3. Praying gets you nowhere. Except if you're a bit crafty: ie don't pray to God for a bike, instead pinch a bike first and then pray for forgiveness.

It's not that I disapprove of Richard Dawkins, far from it. His book, The Blind Watchmaker is a superb description of how evolution happens and is well worth reading even if you think you understand the mechanism. It's just that, well I'm not sure if spreading the message of atheism is all that great an idea.

Sure, if a few suicide bombers, or the lunatic creationists in the USA, or the mad Jews who think it's a good idea to set up a country on someone else's land so that we can all have a jolly good hate and perpetual wars against our neighbours, or the Shi'ites and Sunnis or the Catholics and Protestants....etc... IF they were to read this book, then it may suddenly dawn on them what twits they really are and they might stop causing so much suffering. But it aint going to happen. The thick gits are more likely to buy a 100 copies and burn them in the streets than actually read one.

So that leaves us athiest to read what to us has been pretty bloody obvious for many years. And that's my problem.

You see, being an athiest isn't easy. In fact it must be the worst thing in the world. Only us athiest know we're going to die. We have to live each day with the knowledge that our lives are just a flash of light in between two vast darknesses and hence, pointless. If you're an athiest you'll know what I mean. If you're agnostic, you'll have your doubts too. If you're religous then you'll be wanting to spout something like "let God into your life", to which I would say, "no thanks, I've heard enough about your religion to know that there's more sense in the Beano than in your holy book".

What I need from a book about atheism is something along the lines of "This whole God thing is a load of bollocks and we're all going to die, but its okay because......"

Of course I have no idea what comes next because from where I'm standing it all seems so very very depressing. On the plus side, I still have 200 pages left to read, maybe it will turn out to have a happy ending after all Keep yer chin up!

Yesterday, I manged to find a quiet moment with my wife and plucked up the courage to confess.

I admitted to her that I'd been doing it with other women. It was an uncomfortable moment but I was relieved that she acknowledged that we hadn't done it together for years, I'm away from home 5 nights a week and I need somehow to pass the long winter evenings.

No I know what you're thinking. Your thinking 'ah that Xylophone, he's a bugger, trying to make me think he's writing about sex when actually he's going to start going on about Scrabble or karaoke. Well dear reader, you're wrong. My wife and I have certainly had scrabble and karaoke together during 2007 and although we don't do it as often as we used to, both are still a special part of our relationship.

I'm actually talking about dancing. Salsa dancing in fact. I read an article years ago about different ways to cheer up depressed people and the main conclusion was that dancing - whatever type of dancing - usually worked. So, when I found out that someone I worked with was a salsa teacher, I resolved to give it a crack. So off I went on Thursday evening to a hall in Canterbury to join about 60-70 others of varying abilities and various numbers of left feet.

My previous experience of salsa was limited to the excellent album Adventures In Clubland by Modern Romance which was one of my favorites in the 1980s, but I had the vague idea that you listen to some rythmic music, move your booty and get a little jiggy with the ladies. My guess was approximately right, though the promise of a girl/boy ratio of 3 to 1 did turn out to be a bit of an exageration; it was more like 6:5 I'd say.

Still, it was a bit of fun and I'll probably go again next week despite the fact that it will mean me missing Scrabble club (great game Scrabble but the music's non existent and no one ever got jiggy with me doing that). Whether or not it becomes a serious hobby or not remains to be seen. I suppose it depends on whether I'm any good at it or not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Romance_%28band%29

Another in a series of things I have been doing.....

I've been sort of wandering around in my mind over the last 36 hours (a) trying to remember some of the bits of Friday night that have gone missing, (b) thinking how much of a great night it was, (c) thinking life should be enjoyed like that more of the time, and (d) wondering how can I make sure that it is.

My answer to (d) is radical change in my life - a paradigm shift no less. The answer to (e) is fuckedifIknow.

On Friday night I met up with some friends I'd worked with in Hertfordshire and it was a year since I'd last seen some of them. It wasn't so much that we were drinking heavily, it was more that we started drinking just after 6pm and didn't stop till about 5am. We started off at MD's house, moved on to a pub in Stevenage, and then returned to MD's house to do some serious damage to his wine supplies before crashing exhasted.

On Saturday morning MD made breakfast before I left around midday. In all that time, apart from the 4-5 hours sleep, the conversation flowed effortlessly. It felt that we all really enjoyed each other's company. The only time there was an awkward moment was when someone smacked me on the head after I'd made a teasing remark. As I remember it, there followed a shocked silence that lasted at least one sixteenth of a second, thereafter the incident seemed very funny.

(Mind you, I was quite drunk at the time and I'm thinking that maybe I was just behaving like that bloke in the advert who thinks he's Superman chasing after the balloon.)

The last sentence notwithstanding, I have come to the conclusion that I have in the past regarded this lot as just some people I worked with and have a few things in common. It has dawned on me today that actually they are my friends.

To the casual reader, indeed to anyone who is not me, this may seem like an odd thing to say. But my life has been one where I have had friends, who when I look back, wanted me to be something I wasn't. A true friend is someone who enjoys my company for what I am....

Oh bollocks; I'm certainly not inebriated tonight but I think I've completely failed to get over what I was trying to say. I can't be bothered trying to get it right anymore and there's no way I'm going to delete this now so make of it what you will....

Just a quick update on my life...

(this is not funny, nor fascinating. If you want to be entertained read some of my other stuff instead - it's fecking brilliant)

I left my job in Herefordshire (because I hated the opressive atmosphere and I felt I was stagnating professionally) on the 16th October.

There then followed a two day conference which I was not only instrumental in bringing about but was actually chairing and presenting at. It seemed like a great success and might be the best acheivement of my career so far.

The following Monday I started a new job at a blue-chip company in Kent - 200 miles from home. It's a year's contract and the money is excellent but after I deduct the cost of living away from home I don't suppose I'll feel too much better off. Still, it's a slightly different field for me and I'm expecting to learn loads during the year.

10 working days in and I've done nowt useful yet. That's right, they've been paying me exorbatant money for me to sit around reading SOPs and waiting for someone to come round and set my computer up. So workwise it's been a bit frustrating. But what about the social life eh??????

10 nights away from home and I've been in two pubs and drunk 3 pints of beer (not counting the cans and bottles I've had in the isolation of my rooms). It's a bit crap sitting in a pub by yourself and there hasn't even been a football match to watch, quiz to go to or a karaoke to star in. In short, I'm lonely.

Regular readers will know that I suffer from periodic bouts of depression and I can feel it coming on now. Mind you, I knew it wouldn't be easy so I'm not surprised at all. It's only for a year and I'm sure things will improve both inside and outside work.

I've also got internet and a mobile phone so I've no excuse for being lonely really. I just am.

Last week I stayed in B&Bs and that was ok. Had a telly and a cooked breakfast and an american couple to talk to. This week I've moved into a shared house and you'd think that would be better. My housemate (there is a vacancy for a third) is a canny bloke from Ireland who teaches French and Spanish when he can (he's a supply teacher so gets about 3 days work a week). He's been around Caterbury for a few years so has a network of friends. We seem to get on all right but it just feels odd to me.

Anyway, I guess the partying starts tomorrow because I've located Canterbury Scrabble Club and I'm going to kick their sorry arses!

Documents are usually printed in portrait yet computer screens are landscape?

Hello, Xylophone,

I'd pay ninety squid to shove it up their a----s

Thanks for reading but this blog is simply another in my 'for poserity' series.

I leave my current job on 17th October 2007 and start my new job in Kent on the 22nd.

You may now go off and read something more interesting

Last Friday my workplace was flooded out. It was an eerie experience as a run-of-the mill drizzly day led to a river flowing through the site and a lake in my office. My enduring memory is of wading about in warm rainwater up to my knees trying to reposition the sandbags and some planks.

Now my office smells.

Although I live on the Gloucestershire/Herefordshire border, apart from the intermittent rain, we have had no problems at home.

I write this for posterity not for your information nor entertainment and I did advise you not to read it so it's your own fault that you've wasted time that you will never get back.