Didn't sleep too well last night, kept waking up and feeling hot and stuffy. Probably not the best of moods to spend a day travelling and touring Bristol. It was also overcast.

Nevertheless, off to Bristol shadowranger and I trundled. He took care of his business while I stood far too close to the youth courts and their 'drain off'.

Here, in the concrete jungle, outside their den - the family court - we see the young Chav Cubs in their natural habitat, proudly demonstrating their Burberric or Hooded Manes in a strange mating ritual with the Juvenile Chavettes of the den.

The young, to try to gain alpha male status and get to mate while the Chavette is in heat - a limited period between the age of 11 and 35 -, use a mixture of posturing and exaggerated movement, random guttural noises - if you listen, you can just hear the call of "Uhh. Innit. Fugoff" on the breeze - and attempting to pick fights with any other passing denizen of the jungle, especially any young who may not be of their sub-species.

Ah, yes. We see the young of the lesser spotted Educated Child in full scholastic plumage, and watch as the Chav Cubs spot their target. Here goes one of the smaller cubs, and yes, he's blocking the path and pulling up to his full five feet in height, baring his chest. Yes, he is 'fronting', my this is exciting.

As you can imagine, I didn't want to stay there long, and was relieved when Tim finished.

We went to Pizza Hut and got a great server, which always helps. Then we took a quick trip around, but I wasn't in a touristy mood.

Though, when I got back to Weston, I did stop by a custom printers, for I have a cunning Sekret Projeck. Mwehehehe.

Interestingly, wearing my coat over my hoodie today, hood down, and people were much nicer and friendlier. I helped a little old lady with her heavy luggage up some stairs at Weston station, and let old men pass. Nothing unusual for me, but today they smiled. When I moved out the way yesterday, they grimaced. Weird.

So, shadowranger and I headed up to Bristol today, because I wanted to use the Virgin vouchers my former colleagues had given me as a leaving gift. We managed to get to Bristol before too late, and the weather was really stunning. Warm and bright.

We headed through to The Galleries and wandered around Virgin, my hands slowly starting to ache as I held all the haul I could manage between thumb and fingers. I decided to exploit the sales, so wandered between the random aisles picking up the "3 for £20" deals. I was in the middle of a complaint when I had a moment of stupidity.

Me: You know what would be good. If they actually put all of the deals in one section instead of scattered around...
Me: Kind of like that...
Me: Right in front of us.

I also took advantage of another aspect of their sales, they had the original Wicker Man at "£3.99 when you spend £20", so I grabbed a copy. Doesn't seem too cheeky yet? Give it a moment.

I took my potential purchases - 12 "3 for £20" DVDs - to the counter, and they rung it up. The guy looked slightly amused, although he called me dude several times, it might be that pictures of monkeys in hats amuse him too.

Virgin Dudemeister: Alright dude, got everything you want?
Me: Not quite, but all I can afford today. Got lost in all your racks before I spotted they were all together in a sale area
Virgin Dudemeister: Yeah, don't know why we do that.
[Virgin Dudemeister rings up items - Wicker Man getting the 3.99 deal]
[Till reads: 83.99]
Virgin Dudemeister: Ok dude, that'll be £83.99
Me: I have a Gift Card
Virgin Dudemeister: Cool, ok.
[Virgin Dudemeister swipes card]
[Till reads: 13.99]
Virgin Dudemeister: Ok dude, that'll be £13.99
[I pay]
[Virgin Dudemeister packs bag in the most AWESOME way that makes me love Virgin and their boxy paper bags]
Virgin Dudemeister: Thank you very much. Have a good day, dude

Dude. Seriously. I have 13 new DVDs, a good day?! That's several good days, Virgin Dudemeister, you rock.

I finished up with: Blood the Last Vampire; Independence Day; The Wicker Man; Jurassic Park (Ultimate Collection); The Village; The Lost Boys (2 Disc); Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves; X-Men 3; Underworld (2 Disc); Underworld Evolution; King Kong (2 Disc); Saw II; and, Ghost in the Shell - Innocence.

Tim and I then went to Pizza Hut, which was nice. Though I managed to firstly ask for a medium stuffed crust, despite knowing the crust is only available in large, and then 'cheese and ham', which made the guy tell me "All our pizzas have cheese". Dagnabbit, Ham and Pineapple.

After finding recipes for Nachos and Quesadillas in a book last night, I was amused to discover them on the Pizza Hut menu.

We then played tourist so that I could wander around a few areas of Bristol. Mostly Queens Square and Temple Church.

We used to travel through Queens Square on the bus when we came to Bristol as kids, but they cut the road off in 2000 and it's now a pedestrian zone with a statue of William III in the centre, it's a really nice looking place and from the centre it has paths heading off in the eight main compass directions. It's actually got quite an interesting history.

It is probably not surprising to fellow Terris players that I thought of the square in Goldcroft whilst in Queens Square.

Temple Church was something I used to pass by on a daily basis, without really giving much thought to. It's actually the ruins of the church, having been bombed in the second World War, this is actually quite common in Bristol. Temple Church was built on a site used by the Knights Templar and was used by the Bristol Guild of Weavers.

Having played tourist we returned to Temple Meads Station just in time for our train back, which we shared with a drunken, swearing idiot. The idiot later decided to threaten me with 'if he got his gun' because I didn't have a lighter. He also proclaimed everyone as 'ignorant' as he drank from his can of Special Brew and waddled all over the place.

I got home and was told by bell_de_tink that she got the meter box key I sent, and with the Galaxy Mini Eggs before, I just know that I know how to give gifts!

Today was the Bristol Christmas meal, the time spent before the meeting was less than enthralling, everyone - myself included - was all in the 'passing time' spirit and waiting for the clock to tick away.

Finally we got in to the Europa restaurant, and I was allowed to sit with the team! Woot! "This is Bristol South...and Chris".

The food was gorgeous. The starter was Panciotti in Carozza, which was artichokes in breadcrumb and tomato and mozzarella, it was so good I could have actually had more and left satisfied without a main course. The main course was Tagliatella Nera, which is black tagliatella (black from squid ink) served with small prawns and one huge full-bodied, bulging eyed prawn. I also had some of Andy's Pescatone Pizza, which was mussels in shells, calamari, anchovies and tuna - the only drawback was the tuna was salty and the anchovies strong in olive oil, making the pizza a bit sickly odd, but absolutely moreish; fairly foul but addictive.

Alcohol wise, I had a few glasses of red wine and Smirnoff Ice, which considering my lack of drinking during the year was a slight concern of mine.

I was finished and back on the train early, but well satisfied and rather merry.

I don't have pics, because Marcus threatened to drown my camera if I tried.

Walked down to the train station in the typical British rain, the kind that suddenly changes to torrential when you are five minutes from your destination just so that you can achieve the 'drowned rat' look.

I got to the station and learnt that, with the new timetable, the rail networks have a plan to ensure that the reduced commuter trains are not going to be victim to over crowding. They only had one ticket counter open, ten minutes before the train arrived, and so couldn't overcrowd the train because no-one could ride it. Genius!

They ran the high speed trains, the stop-skippers, and it was the lovely fixed-armrest chairs that need grease and crowbars to get in and out of, and the tables that wedge you in place.

Britain. The future is now!

So, I spent the day in Bristol, and most of the day was taken up with archiving old files and taking telephone allegations, despite my not-so-confident approach on the phones I do manage to get quite a bit of information, and I can separate the wheat from the chaff quite well afterwards.

There is the slight problem of actually having Bristolians on the phone - imagine constant male and female Vicki Pollards: "Yeah, but no"; "Thing is, right..."; "Wot 'tis, right..."; "Wot she looks like, well she's a bit of a minger, like"; "But 'e neveh did, right".

We also got X-Bands delivered through the stationery, as I requested. If you've never seen an X-Band imagine two rubber bands that cross each other to make an X, or a pair of thong panties with an extra strap that would make them impossible to wear unless you hoisted a strap over your shoulder...unless they were crotchless...but then the straps wouldn't really work.

Anyway, these X-Bands, we used to have some and they were great for holding huge documents together - like multiple A4 sized files - but we ran short, the new ones are unfortunately too small and have no elasticity.

This would normally be a disaster, except that with double the rubber band, you can fire X-Bands with much more force and in random flight paths, and recreate Star Wars battles across galaxies of desks. TIE Fighters vs. X-Wings.

Tomorrow I'm meant to meet with Gary and at some point shift and re-network PCs - it's a bit of a compliment that one of our IT experts is so confident in me that they told the other expert that they can ask me if they have questions. It could also be that they can't be bothered.

Also having discussions about a cumbursome re-organisation of desks, which if I can get a look in at the space planning and health and safety stages might be a nice bonus to add on my CV.

Anybody who has wandered around Weston with me will no my disdain for seagulls and pigeons, and the idiots who insist on feeding this airborne vermin. The council here doesn't want to upset anyone with the idea of pest control, however Bristol seems prepared to bite the bullet (as opposed to a biscuit):

Gull cull sees biscuits scrapped

Bristol city councillors are to give up "free" biscuits to spend the money oiling gulls' eggs in an attempt to cull the city's expanding population.

The council will use £25,000 from its annual budget to prevent the population of 2,000 birds continuing to grow.

"The cost of the scheme was around £30,000 and I said 'I think I've found £25,000' - by axing the biscuits," said Steve Comer, deputy council leader.

Responses from staff to the proposal have been positive.

"It just seems like a luxury we can do without," said Cllr Comer.

Fast food litter is being blamed for the sharp rise in the number of gulls living in the city.

The gull population which is currently expanding at 17% each year could increase 10-fold over the next 10 years if left unchecked, added the councillor.

A trial last year found that dipping the birds' eggs in a mineral oil, which made them sterile, was highly effective in preventing them hatching

(Source: BBC News, 30 August 2006)

My first thought is 'congratulations', this is the first step in ridding ourselves of an increasingly vile, disgusting and aggressive pest. People who feed them should be beaten with a stick. Personally, I've no misgivings about eradicating the entire seagull population, creating an eugenics war in favour of smaller, less assuming avian creatures who are more enjoyable to watch and who are less intimidating up close. I prefer my airborne animals to be pocket sized, and to have only a small bowel movement.

Why not appease country gentlemen and allow them to ride their horses and take the hounds on to the beaches, load up their antique oak-stock rifle or AK-47 and have a pit of sport? If they can't go fox hunting, let us give them a bit of a past time. Afterwards they can all load up in a vintage car, don pith helmets and wield large elephant guns, and go on a Chav Safari. Tally ho, pip-pip, bang-bang.

Though, another part of me wonders how the hell Bristol City Councillors got through £25,000 of biscuits a year. There's 70 actual councillors in Bristol City Council, somebody is getting a few extra Jaffa Cakes in there.

Back in the centre of Bristol - or Bris'l, as it seems to get call - and setting up boxes for the majority of the day. It isn't exactly hard work, but it can't half work up a sweaty funk, whilst assembling a flat-pack cardboard box, bending to pick up wads of files, putting them in box, and moving the now heavy box. Repeat ad nauseam in an already warm office. I also managed to repeatedly smack myself in the face with cardboard flaps.

I felt a little bad that my part in the great record storage adventure in Bedminster was not really mentioned whilst the kudos were being handed out to others, but then I am the sort of person who doesn't think he's 'done good' unless it's pointed out, and even then I just pass it off as 'my job'. Still, I know that we did a damn good job, and that I played a decent role by going up there, so I should be happy with myself.

They were filming an episode of Casualty over the street to the office, one of those 'plot' parts where someone does something stupid and injures themselves to set up the episode. They decked the place out to look like a bar or a club, we believe, and had guys dressed like bouncers outside. We saw some girls enter, and some rather clean scaffolding poles. Through deductive reasoning, a couple of the guys in the office worked out the setting must be a lap-/pole-dancing club. However they couldn't work out the 'stupid injury', but I worked out the story to be:

It's set in a lap-dancing club, wherein stripper girl trips at her pole, falls on to the customer whose head hits the floor giving him concussion, while she dislocates a hip. Concussed guy has spilt his fruity cocktail, on which a bartender or punter slips, falls backwards and gets his ass impaled with a miniature cocktail umbrella. All three require a trip to Casualty

I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that episode, Mike suggested I run downstairs and suggest it as a script re-write. We were talking about getting recruited as extras, such as Man in background wearing "Hello Mum" t-shirt and waving at the camera, Man being dragged off set Number 2, Pervert Number 2 and a major cameo extra Bob, the lecherous pervert - you can tell it's special, he gets a name.

I found out buying cheapness on eBay has one flaw, in getting he item to friggin' work. I purchased myself a connection cable for my mobile, to get the recent images off and on to my PC for uploading to Flickr. The problem was, the PC recognises the USB end and the mobile says that it is plugged in, but it never actually meets in the middle to establish connection. Granted, when you pay £5 for something that's usually £40 you should expect somedifficulties. The sellers caught me as interesting though, as their procedure for a refund on faulty equipment says that I "include the item and all accessories in the original (unused) condition, in which the item was received", so by knowing it's faulty without testing it, but I'd still be entitled to replacements - except they don't refund my return postage(s).

As an aftermath, I found out that I can email Multimedia Messages to email at the supposedly the same price as a standard MMS, so can send direct to Flickr. Something I'll have to try when I add credit to my phone, I've got down to 17p, which is great seeing as how three weeks ago I had £1.50.

A second early morning on the trot for me, whereas yesterday was to get work finished before Si and Jaqs got in and I spent time going over my application for the Planning Inspectorate with Si, today was a test for myself to make sure that if I got the job I'm after I could get there in time - it also meant I could hand deliver my application to the office.

So, with my not-so-modest report and Si's ego-boosting comments in a sealed brown envelope, I headed off with Tim to get the early direct train to Bristol. On arriving at the station and seeing the crowd, I decided that I proved I could make it to Bristol on time, and opted to get on the slower train out of comfort and restart the timing when I got to Bristol.

We got up to Bristol at about 09:10 and headed from Temple Meads station to Temple Quay, a fair walk on Multimap, barely five minutes when you just cut through the car park and past Starbucks. Temple Quay is a nice area, which as the name suggests is next to the river. There is a nice sandwich shop, Smile co-operative, Starbucks and a Wetherspoons underneath the Planning Inspectorate building.

The office itself was a stark contrast to our Governmental buildings, whereas we dwell in concrete shells from the '60s in a vast selection of yellow, grey and pebble-dash exterior with bland interiors, the PI was large brick and glass, with automatic revolving doors and marble tiles on the floor. Reception and Security were actually helpful.

I dropped my application off and left, duty done and ready to tour Bristol. Unfortunately, my camera lacking a flash was incapable of handling the glory of the PI building, the river ferry stop (like a bus stop, only...wetter) or the interesting Temple Quay footbridge which curves in an S-shape across the river (though it's available here : Above and Below).

Went around to Forbidden Planet and proudly never opened my wallet, though I patted it a few times. Their comic stock is mostly graphic novels and trade paperbacks, though their manga collection and DVDs has taken off greatly. Their range of plushy Cthulhu is still fairly good, though Cthulhu Presley seems to be over-stocked. It became obvious I've been reading Ghastly's Ghastly Comic and listening to Redoubt and the Podcasts when my brain automatically read the title "50 Rules for Tentacles" instead of "Teenagers". I was most amused at the poor inflatable Dalek in the window though, who was unfortunately either not blown up enough or was beginning to leak, because his plunger stalk had gone limp - though I understand this is quite common in the older generation.

I was further amused in my tour of Bristol in the mens' toilet of The Galleries, when written on the back of a door was a poster for Poker with the easily readable heading text "What Are You Holding In Your Hand? Could It Be Used To Intimidate Others?", if only it had been placed over the urinal, hilarity would occur.

We carried on to Pizza Hut for lunch, which was very nice and quiet when we arrived. On finishing we headed back to Weston and home.

Apologies for any graphic images that may spring to mind, feel free to skip this paragraph. Last night, I discovered one of the best feelings known to mankind while laying on top of my bed and sweating profusely. I was crunching an ice cube and had another in my hand, I took the remaining cube and god damn but does it ever feel good to have an ice cube against sweltering skin, at first all I longed for was to have someone running a cube across my neck and back, but now I just want everyone to enjoy the sensation when they get hit with the heat. It's freakin' beautiful.

Got up early today and went up to Bristol, it was stifling up there and though the conference room had working AirCon for once it was heating up before it spread through the air, and the fans were just moving the warm air around. When I got back to Weston there was the wonderful feeling of a breeze, such a welcomed feeling as it blew over me. Nearly everyone on the train below the age of thirty was reading one of the Harry Potter books.

The event in Bristol was ok, the system I had to learn seemed pretty easy to me - it's a data entry system, it's not going to be freakin' brain surgery - and I got to actually see a few people I've been talking to for years and never met. Tomorrow there's a workshop event in my office, so I'm aiming for early start, train myself up and then get out of the office early.

I started watching the London Vigil, Anthony Stewart Head is the vigil leader and they had Trevor McDonald speaking. It was possibly the best choices for oration in a public event of recent times, two proud Londoners showing and telling of that pride. The religious leaders are very good too.