Ginger DJ Rob

To say I've had a hard week would be a serious understatement. After the fun of last weekend filling the diesel car with unleaded, my bank balance has taken a small beating and looks to get cut to shreds after the getting the new tenants to my mum's house in Norfolk. At the start of the week a CORGI registered plumber who'd been asked to check and issue a gas certificate discovered a gas leak. Instead of the simple £60 plus VAT he quoted around £300 to get it right (copper piping and man hours). I was told that the new tenants would start their contract on Wednesday but would be physically moving in on Friday with the a meeting arranged at 3pm to hand over keys and sign-off the inventory with Mark, a mate who did the renovation. The plumber told me he would leave the certificate in the house well before they moved in. At this point I haven't been invoiced for the work. Tuesday I had arranged to pick up my Ebay winnings from Peacehaven. One of the best bargains yet of th...

Preparation With Pav's 40th birthday party themed as anything starting with the letter 'P' Kerry had the idea to go as Pav himself in face-mask form. Either everyone thought it was such a great idea or they were too lazy to get an outfit themselves so we made 7 masks on Friday night. Unfortunately I only had a couple of photos of Pav in high resolution so had to lift them from Facebook. We ended up with 6 identical DJ pose Pavs and one 'teethy goon' Pav. Kerry's printer served well with the output glued to cardboard then some chopsticks sawn in half taped to the back. Party Pav's party itself, hosted at the Clapham's Artesian Well was a great laugh. The birthday boy had punked himself up whereas there were a fair share of police, pirates, more punks, a Playboy bunny , a couple of priests (special mention to Jake for his Father Ted outfit), oh and a pimp. The winner of the competition was a Primadonna but slightly confused by Pav's speech to say ...

You might have seen the snail art in the newspapers but this is the official blog of the artist who has a Lilliput/Borrowers obsession. There's some mention of a treasure hunt for the 31st August which sounds fun. Also, there's a new book launched for the artwork.

Be prepared for quite an ordinary entry as I summarise a quiet week. You'll be glad to hear that Sasha the cat is back to his normal food-pestering, cupboard-love self and the limp has almost gone. The vet, who's made enough money out of me this year, wrote to say they have a free 'senior' check-up service. He's not quite ready for geriatric care yet. My mum's house is nearly ready for the new tenants but I won't be seeing any profit just yet with the gas engineer finding a leak and the electrician recommending new earth cables. A scary estimate of £300 plus VAT was downgraded to £80 for the gas side - apparently its been leaking about 4 units a day! Finally saw The Dark Knight last night. For nearly 3 weeks old and on what should really be a quiet night the cinema was quite full. Its a bit of a marathon to watch and some people (like Kerry) will get bored towards the end. However, there's some amazing set pieces, Heath Ledger performed well, all the c...

I have to admit it but Friday was a bit of a doss (sorry boss if you're reading this). I blame it on 1) having a bar in the building, 2) having a bar with a large TV and 3) the opportunity to see the Olympic opening ceremony. Quite a few others had the same idea as the bar attracted other summer working students and staff. I left after an hour but with no boss and only another team member in the office we set up another PC with the BBC live feed to see the rest. Loved the scroll idea and aerial running man to light the touch. When I got home I was reminded that the students next door had warned us of their house party which had already started at 4pm. They were quite polite and good-natured even at about 8pm when they spread themselves out to the back and front of the house, introducing themselves and moving cars for us. I predicted with the amount of booze and early start they'd be wasted by 2am but from the look of their eyes they'd already necked a few cheeky ones (if y...

The weekend saw the second year running that we've missed Pride (first being Big Chill). This time a change of events meant having to go to Norfolk to see folks and friends as well as check up on my mum's house. My poor dad told us about his planned bonfire attracting some unnecessary village community interference resulting in numerous visits from locals, a stuck-up council lady, a farmer and the fire brigade. Also, caught up with some quality Norwich shopping with an evening visit to Josh and Christie's. Since last week we've been planning our Peru holiday for next year. For the first time we'll be doing an organised trip which actually works out cheaper. Using Llama Travel we've finally decided on the following itinerary: Lima , on the Pacific coast, was the most important and magnificent city in South America for the Spanish. Visit the colonial district and some of the finest museums in the world, with amazing collections of pre-Hispanic treasures. Cusco , ...