"Knob twiddling heaven"

It was my birthday last week and with the funds unleashed I trotted into town and went looking for a DAB portable radio. This has been high on my wishlist for some time, although Footlocker did distract me somewhat. It's not easy being such a sneakerhead. After much to'ing and fro'ing I decided to go for a lovely (kitchen co-ordinating, of course) Pure Evoke 1XT. A quick browse through What Hifi mag helped shrink the choices; and in the end I went for the recently improved UK's best seller. £90 from John Lewis seemed a good deal and the sound quality impressed everyone who heard it over the weekend. A bit of careful tweaking found that the burglars-favourite (window ledge) provided the best overall reception without the need for the (utter shame of) full telescopic aerial extension. Over 95% signal strength on about 40 stations - job done methought. However, even listening to the trannie these days becomes an exercise in statistical fine-tunery. I can sleep easily now that I've the ability to read bitesize news streams and broadcast bitrates during The Archers. Anyhoo, my own current fave station plays reasonably 'new' new country; but the other half prefers to slum it on Radio Poor, sorry I meant Radio 3.

"Everyone’s got to start somewhere"

Only five years after it became boring, I thought I better get my creative brain in gear and start this online diary nonsense. Although if I had anything worthwhile to say, I'd have called you about it. Maybe this is a good thing - but instinctively I wonder whether we should be meeting in the real world more. There seems to me many more oportunities for misunderstanding with e-mail/txt/blogs etc. How many times have you read someone's e-mail and thought 'you complete twonk', when in all possibility what they really meant was no way near as offensive/insensitive/rude etc. How much communication is non verbal again? Way of the world I suppose. In a few years time will I have to teach my boys as much about netiquette as real world manners? Quite depressing really.