One day this week, it might have been Monday, I went to the local supermarket to buy some potatoes. As you can tell this is going to be a thrilling blog. And as I was searching for my potatoes, I realised that I didn't have a peeler. Eventually I found several tonnes of potatoes, nothing comes in small sizes around here, fetched myself a peeler and went to the checkout. Standing there holding my bag of potatoes in one hand and my peeler in the other, I thought aren't I just the picture of a young male living on his own. The only time I ever consider buying something functional, like the peeler, is when it gets to the point that I actually need it. At no point does it ever occur to me that something might come in useful. Another example is how I got up this weekend and fancied a waffle, so I had to go out and buy a toaster. That day I also bought some teabags, but seeing as I don't yet own a kettle it might be some time before I have any tea.

Thinking about it... it might just be that I am lazy sod. That's probably the reason why I have been living in my apartment for a couple of months now, but I still don't have a bed (or any other furniture for that matter). The idea of bed is a nice. As is the idea of a sofa. But... it is just so much effort to actually go out there and get one. I just procrastinate (I can't believe that word is spelled correctly) and make up excuses ... "I don't have a car"... "I'll order it on the web"... "The floor is very comfortable"....etc, etc.

I went to a party a couple of weeks ago. And, in case you are interested, merriment was had by all. On the way to the party I stopped in at my local, or one of my local, bottle shops... to purchase some alcoholic beverages (or in the words of The Streets "...to purchase a hazy escape at the alcohol place"). Now being as I live in crazy, alcohol hating, mad religious Pennsylvania the bottle shop is only allowed to sell beer and other "weak" alcoholic beverages, i.e. not wine or spirits. So I picked up a 12-pack of Yuengling (I think) and a 6-pack of Blue Moon. At the counter the bloke said that will be $11.50, which I knew from excessive personal experience to be the price of the 12-pack. So I said what about the 6-pack, and he explained that due to state law... I had to take the 12-pack outside the shop and then come back in a purchase the 6-pack separately. This is possibly the most stupid alcohol related law that I have ever heard of in my life. But there we are... or at least here I am living in a land of mad religious people who hate alcohol.

On the subject of alcohol. I was looking at the Pennsylvania drivers manual the other day. They have a section on drink driving (or DUI or American terms), which is fair enough. They also have a section on underage drinking, apparently if you have a party at your house and say some 20 year olds come and consume alcohol beverages in your house you can be fined. The fine is around $1000 for the first underage drinker and then $2500 for every other one... and not only do you get fined, but you can also lose your driving license. Which I don't really understand... it seems somewhat random. Not to mention that I believe the incidences of alcohol related deaths would plummet if America adopted European style drinking laws. People would be exposed to alcohol sooner and it wouldn't be the great taboo excitement that it is... anyway you get the picture.

The waiting that I am doing is waiting for those lovely INS people to acknowledge receipt of my application to have them consider me British once more. I was very brave as I did not send the $100 application fee along with the application... cause it is blatantly their fault. However, being a government agency it is debatable whether or not they will consider this to be the case. So I am half expecting to get a letter saying this application can not proceedprocede until they have the $100. Anyhow, I get to sit (or stand) and wait for their response.

On the subject of the INS, I want to write some people letters complaining at the treatment I have received... but I can't decide who I should send these letters to. I mean who, if anybody, are they responsible to? Obviously I realise that it won't make a blind bit of difference, but I want to moan at somebody.

My current fantasy is that I might try and write a screenplay. I spend so much time bouncing of the walls of my apartment in one reverie or another, that I feel I should be trying to do something more productive with my hyperactive imagination. The trouble with this fantasy is two-fold: as I have discovered writing my thesis and this journal... I can't write for toffee; I am a lazy bastard who is never going to get round to actually producing... well anything much;

And finally.... an amusing fact of the day/week/whatever. Back home in Blighty in Parliament they had a debate on how to tackle truancy. And of the 639 members of the Commons a stunning 20 turned up for the debate. Oh, the hard life of an MP.

There was something else..... but it probably wasn't very interesting.

Am I stupid?

That is a rhetorical question by the way.

Are the people working for the BCIS/USCIS/INS incompetent or malicious?

That one might be.

I have a number of documents (forms, receipts, etc.) from the INS/BCIS. And several of them direct me to this website , and if you go there you can see that this website just redirects you to another website. When I initially saw this I thought that it was a bit shabby and that it didn't portray an imagine of a professional, respectable government agency. However, after my extensive dealings with the many named beast which is the INS/BCIS/USCIS, I have come to the conclusion that this is in fact an elaborately constructed warning. Somebody is saying "Look we can't even be bothered to have our letters and forms direct you to the correct webpage. What do you think are the chances of us being able to deal with your question/problem?" I should have taken it as fair warning that whatever else happens from here on in, I had received fair warning that this organization was completely and totally incompetent.

As I have detailed in previous posts, I only ever have dealt with monkeys when I have had contact with the INS. There was monkey number one who messed up my name when I entered the country and then there was monkey number two who messed up my nationality when I tried to fix monkey number one's mistake.

So, I was quite surprised when I spoke to the "strangely sympathetic and almost helpful" man on their helpline on Friday. Of course I should have realised that he wasn't being helpful... no, if he ever helped anyone that would give the wrong impression... he was either being incompetent or malicious. Now I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and I'll put him down in the incompetent column. In fact he is henceforth known as monkey number three.

Yesterday, I got up nice and early and left sleepy State College heading for the INS office in Philadelphia. I was armed with my passport, visa, DS-2019, incorrect replacement I-94 card and my I-102 form. So the journey down was pleasant enough, the rolling hills of Pennsylvania are very pretty (although it was dark as I was travelling through most of them). Of course I messed up and took I-276 instead of I-76 and added an hour long detour to my journey. But eventually I got to Callowhill St, and after 20 minutes driving around I found a spot to park the rental car.

So I wandered up to the INS office, passing all the vendors of food photos and fingerprints. You have to love the entrepreneurial nature of some people... selling photos and fingerprints from the back of a lorry outside the INS office (and no I don't mean they were stolen). Then I go through the standard metal detector, while the security guards complain to each other about how the job sucks the pay rise hasn't come through and they haven't got their new jackets, etc.

Once inside it is the standard melee of assorted foreign folks with the occasional American thrown in for good measure. So I line up in the queue for my waiting number. I get to the front and show my pieces of paper and explain my situation to a man who again was straddling that incompetent/malicious line. Once more the benefit of doubt will be extended to him and he will become monkey number four. Whilst I am standing there holding my passport he asks me what my proof of nationality is.... and I am like "Well... the passport" and he replies "Is that enough". So I'm thinking.. what do you mean is my passport enough? This is the most well respected identity document that we have...this is the document that got in the country. Anyway, eventually he gives me my ticket, number E-911, and tells me to wait until my number is called.

So I go find a seat and for next three hours I am subjected to an elaborately constructed form of torture. There a five queues A to E and up to four people manning the counter. With no more than 141 people in the waiting area, or at least the sign on the wall says that due to fire marshal regulations or something or other. Just as I sit down the call out E-905 and E-906, so I think not bad maybe I won't have to wait here too long. Now the way this form of torture works is that it tries to disorient and confuse you, whilst all time dangling the hope of having your number called at any moment. As there are five queues, this means that there are five people who are sitting on the edge of their seats as the person next in line. However to add to the confusion the queues a selected in a seemingly random order. You might have 3 E's then 8 D's then maybe a couple of B's. So even when it got to the point that E-910 had been called... I had no idea how long it would be until E-911 would be called. Plus of course, there is the standard granny at the airport check-in syndrome... in that some people, for instance me who take the minimum required time at the check-in counter...Hello, I have a flight to London, No, No, Yes, Aisle, Thank you very much.. is the standard half of my conversation at the check-in desk... whereas some people take forever. At the INS office you have the same thing magnified.. some people just take forever.... and it gets to the point where I just want to scream... "For God sake, she's already told you that four times.. can you not just accept it and fuck off"

Eventually E-911 was called and I made my way up to the counter.

"How can I help you" she asks.

"Well... there was some problem with my name... and I filled out one of these I-102 forms and sent it off... but on the replacement card my nationality is wrong... and I want to get it fixed."

"Oh. Because this is Vermont's mistake they have to fix it"

"Sorry?"

"We can only fix mistakes made by the Philadelphia office. Vermont is going to have to fix it"

"....B-but.. when I called your helpline number the gentleman I spoke to told me to come here."

"Yeah. Sorry, we can't help you"

"That's just marvellous" (laced with irony and a smile on my face)

"Sorry"

"Thanks anyway" (also laced with irony)



So I walked in to the toilets laughed and then swore for a while, had a piss and then left.

I have a number of unanswered questions:

Why can't the Philadelphia field office correct mistakes made at the Vermont service centre? Vermont have already proved themselves to be time wasting incompetents... why am I forced to deal with them again?

Why do they have a helpline? What is the point of a helpline if in fact it doesn't help? In Britain we have something called the trade description act.. which means you can't advertise a product as one thing and actually have it be something else. Under this act the helpline would have to be renamed the waste-both-your-time-and-money-whilst-providing-no-useful-information-line.... except of course we have government helplines in the UK which are still called helplines, despite the fact that almost nobody has ever been helped by them.

Why didn't the first bloke (monkey number four) that I spoke to in the Philadelphia office, tell me they couldn't help me, instead of making me wait three hours? I'm going with he's incompetent as opposed to he's an evil, little, sadistic, malicious bastard. But I think it could go either way.

Is there any chance that Vermont will consider my new application being that I did not include a cheque for $100? If the do consider it is there any chance that monkey number two or some other monkey who works there won't manage to fuck it up this time? Is the any chance that it will take less than the two months it took last time?

Would I have got better service if I started screaming blue murder at the counter, when the lady told me she couldn't help me? Who knows. At the time I just wanted to get out of there.

With the way the dollar is performing, is it worth we staying here and working when each day I earn less and less money?

How much do London street sweepers get paid?

Could there have been a more apt song to be playing as I drove home than "Let's get retarded" by the Black Eyed Peas? Should the next line of the song be "and go work for the INS"?

Can anyone truly believe that department of Homeland Security, of which the INS/BCIS is a part, is doing it's job properly? At every single available opportunity that they have had when dealing with me... they have managed to fuck something up. And these people have a large part to play in safeguarding this nation.... I trust them as far as I could throw Pennsylvania. Are people really detained on the basis of what this group of incompetent/malicious people say.... I really hope not. But.......

Bollocks.... I'm sad to say that I have gone off both Miss Portman and Miss Johansson (or however you spell her last name). Now what did these (presumably) fine ladies do to upset me you ask? Well, the answer to that is nothing. And I don't mean that neither of them came round to my flat asking to borrow a cup of sugar... although of course they didn't. I mean, that through no fault of their own I am in a disgruntled state with them and the other 300 million odd Americans (I'm assuming that Miss Portman is American and not Israeli, as the country you are born in does not necessarily determine your nationality.... and my how I understand that). And what have all these people done to annoy me? Once more the answer is nothing.... unless that is that they happen to work for the bcis/uscis/ins/whatever the bollocks else they call themselves. 'Cause you see this fine organization is in the habit of employing (poorly) trained monkeys to deal with me at every available opportunity.

Just to recap (for those at the back), when I entered this fine country back in November my surname, Nichol, somehow made it into the INS system as 'Vichol'. A simple honest mistake? Possibly. Maybe on one of the 2500 occasions when I wrote my name the N looked like a V, I don't know. Despite the fact that my name was correctly printed on my passport, visa and DS-2019 form. But anyway, somehow a mistake was made and it cost me $100 application fee to try and rectify. So I filled out (yet) another form, and posted it along with the cheque and photocopies of my passport, visa and my original I-94 arrival/departure record (which incidentally had my correctly spelt, or spelled, name). Then I sat and waited and waited and waited and waited, and nearly two months later (remember we are talking about changing a V to a bloody N) I got my new I-94 with my updated information.

Whoa, I thought, now I can go and apply for a Social Security number... Which for reasons I don't understand is needed for practically every single thing I try to do. So I get back to my desk this afternoon and have a closer look at my shiny (well actually it's more matte) new I-94..... And then I can be heard to mutter expletives for an extended period of time. Why, the ignivomous (askoxford.com word of the day) outburst? Because, despite having copies of my passport, visa, DS-2019, I-94 and every other form I have ever filled out for these people.... all of which saying that I am British Citizen, they put my country of citizenship down as Zimbabwe.

So after a conversation with a very bored, but strangely sympathetic and almost helpful, phone operator on the BCIS helpline... it turns out I have to fill out another form (identical to the last one I filled out), and make my way down to Philadelphia and try and get them to make me British, once more.

Now I shouldn't be surprised. This is what happens when your birth certificate is from a country, Rhodesia, which no longer exists. I have had two British passports, the first claimed I was born in Kwekwe the second in Que Que. I was messed around at one of the national labs in America, cause they couldn't get passed the concept of being born in one country and but being a citizen of another. How many first generation immigrants are there in America? Surely, everybody must know somebody who is a citizen of a different country to the one they were born in. But apparently, it is still such a shock that people freeze... and try to make me Zimbabwean. And then when they find out I'm British, I get asked questions like "So, were your parents on holiday?".... I'd bloody hope not. I wouldn't have thought traveling several thousands miles to Southern Africa would be recommended to heavily pregnant women. But I digress. I should start a book on what they can possibly fuck up next... my sex, my age, my visa status.... I just have no idea.

And, I'd just like to remind you all that these are the people who want to take the fingerprints and photographs of all visa holders on entry to (and possibly exit from) America. How on Earth am I meant to be expected to trust these people to look after my fingerprints and photos when they can't even look after my name and nationality. You could come into the country as Joe Bloggs, a businessman from London... and leave as Nasty Man a mass murderer from the Ukraine. I for one am terrified by the power that is put in the hands of these (poorly) trained monkeys.

On a different note my two favourite lyrics at the moment are:
"Don't wanna squeeze trigger... just wanna squeeze tits", Black Eyed Peas
and
"We first met through a shared view... she loved me, and I did too", The Streets

Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks, bollocks, bollocks.

So, Christmas is over and the New Year has begun... I trust you all (i.e me and some lost looking for free porn).... had a good whatever. I spent two weeks in the basement of a friends house (or more correctly in the basement of his mother's house) drinking beer and playing video games. Only venturing out to eat upstairs and buy more beer at the grocery store... needless to say it was a very enjoyable couple of weeks.

One of the highlights of my time in Harrisonburg, was that we got a free 12-pack of beer at the Kroger's (or maybe Krogers') supermarket. I can honestly say I have never got free beer at the supermarket before.... and I can't really remember how it occurred. But regardless, I am forever indebted to that employee... and it meant that the rest of the beer (a couple of hundred dollars worth) we bought those two weeks came from Kroger's.

Getting a headlamp for Christmas was one of the more interesting points.... it is something of a family tradition. I was somewhat dubious at first... but already I've had course to use it a few times. I'm not quite a convert, but I'm certainly less dubious.

Bad Santa.... I'd seen a couple of reviews for this film and a few of the TV ads. And there wasn't anything else, so we went along to see it.... and it was very funny. It was very rude, very foul mouthed and very good. "You ain't gonna shit right for a week", became something of a catchphrase after seeing this movie. Although not, I hasten to add, in the same connotation with which it was used in the film.

I discovered that poodles are not (just) big poncy fluffy haired dogs. They have two and they are both pretty much gorgeous.... and the big one could well have been one of the hunting dogs, poodles were back in the good ol' days.

Yesterday while I was browsing the BBC news site (fantastic as it is), I discovered a link to Bush in 30 seconds, which if you don't know is a advertising contest sponsored by moveon.org voter fund. They have the 15 finalists one of which will get (I think) shown on national television during the week of Bush's state of the union address. Being an uneducated (on the intricacies of the American political system) Brit, I have no idea when this is. Anyhow, I thought some of the adverts were quite good.... and others I thought played to strongly on the: "that nasty Mr Bush has sent our poor little soldiers over to die in Iraq" theme. Although I understand that here in the good ol' US of A, people have much stronger feelings regarding there military then we do at home. And no I'm not saying that we Brits (or me in particular) like to see dead British soldiers, or dead American soldiers.. we don't much like seeing dead Iraqi soldiers either. But still it was interesting

I just hope that something happens that causes the dollar to strengthen. Because at the moment I have taken nearly a 20% pay cut due to the dollar/pound exchange rate. And that ain't no fun at all.

Finally, I'd just like to mention how bloody attractive Natalie Portman is... I saw her on the Daily Show (or something or other on the Comedy Network). And frankly she is gorgeous. In my current fantasy world it is a toss up between her and the Scarlett Johansson (I had to look up how to spell both of her names). At the moment Natalie (in fantasy land we are on first name terms) is winning... but in the real world I like to keep my options open.... so if either of you are reading this...

So, here I am again. And I wonder what I have been wondering about this week. To be perfectly honest at the moment I can barely remember what my name is. I'm suffering from that pre-Christmas, post weekend of shifts starting at 6am, still haven't got a bed so I'm sleeping on the floor, Monday afternoon fatigue. I don't quite know why I keep on yawning... the all you can eat Indian buffet for lunch probably didn't help.

Despite these feelings of melancholy (not sure if that's spelled corectly... but frankly who cares)... or not really melancholy.. not sure what the correct phrase is. But despite whatever it is I'm feeling, there are some things that have made me smile over the last few weeks.

Firstly, "Where is the love?" by the Black Eyed Peas... due to a year spent living in three countries and the small distraction of writing a thesis, I did not hear this song until Saturday morning (while I was on shift, and watching the VH1 top 40 videos of the year). And I thought that it was bloody good. And then this morning I was listening to the Christmas UK singles chart (the number one of which is the marvellous Mad World from Donnie Darko (which is also bloody marvellous)) it came on at the end of the show, as it is (or it might be) the top selling single of the year. Anyway, bringing a long divergence to an end... heard it, liked it, bought it.

Above my office is a half height floor as in Being John Malkovich.... no idea why... but I think you'll agree it's simply brilliant.

Firefly... being a typical young male of my generation, I quite like science fiction (double feature....). And Joss Whedon, made Buffy which is quite possibly the best thing to come out of America. So, I'd been hearing little bits and pieces about his show.. and then it came out on dvd and for only $30 or so I got myself a copy. And it is very good. I was somewhat dubious about a space/western but you've got to love it (unless you are a Fox executive), the characters are good, the one liners are occasionally witty.. and it livened up my (bedless) apartment for some of the last week. If you haven't seen get down to your local dvd establishment and purchase yourself a copy.

Probably the best thing that I have discovered in the last few weeks... is the music of one Rob Dougan. He has an album out called Furious Angels.... and it is (to use a phrase popularised by one of my friends) tres be-bleeding-bien. The only reason that I ever heard this Album, is that whilst (you've got to love a whilst) I was in Switzerland a friend of mine bought the Album.. and kept on telling me how good it was. So I ripped the cd into mp3's, and then didn't really listen to the songs for a good couple of months. It was only when I arrived in sunny (it was the day I arrived) Pennsylvania that I got round to listening to the mp3s. And after a few listens (or whatever the correct word is) I thought this is really rather good, so I went up to my local Best Buy and searched around for a while before purchasing the cd. And why, you ask, am I telling you this tale.... because I would never have bought this cd if it wasn't for the fact that I (possibly) illegally copied it. My little push in the direction that draconian copyright and digital media laws are not necessarily in the best interests of the artists and record companies.

The main thing that has been annoying me recently is my hair. Desperately in need of a hair cut. It has got to the stage where my hair is just in the periphirary of my vision... how I long for the £5 haircut place on Tottenham Court Road (except it's now £6).

There was something else.... but I have forgotten. What bloody use is a mind if it can not contain information, for any length of time.

Okay long time no blog.... this is in fact the third time that I have attempted to write this blog. Not quite sure how I managed to fail twice. A mixture of utter stupidity (on my part) and in fact more utter stupidity on my part). And no having got this far I'm not really sure what it is that I want to say. Screaming the word testicle at the top of my voice is one of the things going through my mind at the moment.

I started writing this post about 3 hours ago... sadly work distracted me from completing it. Some things that have made me really rather annoyed over the last week:

The fact that despite paying my (entirely non-exorbitant... sadly) wage , the university I work for still feels the need to charge me $10 for a key to my office. How come I can trusted to work for them, carry out scientific research, etc, etc... but I am not trusted to look after a bloody key. These people pay me x grand (where x is a single digit number) a month.... and yet they feel the need for me to go down to their office and hand over $10 in cash.... it's crazy.

On the subject of things that are stupid. Take for instance the stance of my employer with regards to it's rental car fleet. Now understandably they require any renting one of their vehicles to have a valid drivers license.... a perfectly reasonably request. However that driving license must be from the state of Pennsylvania (which is where my employer is based).... this is where my problems arise from. You see, I am not an American. In fact I'm British.... and so unsurprisingly I have a British driving license. Now this would be fine if I were renting a car from AVIS or HERTZ or practically any other car rental company.... but is sadly not good enough for my employer. The true genius (and I use that word with great caution) of my situation is that despite the fact that I currently reside and work in Pennsylvania... I am not eligible for a Pennsylvanian drivers license. The reason? Is because I only have a one year contract. So I am allowed for one year to drive in Pennsylvania with my dirty foreign license.... now let's suppose that a year goes by and my employer thinks that I'm wonderful and gives me an extension. And seeing as this is make believe why don't I get a 100% pay rise. So there I would be one year older, having been in Pennsylvania for just about a year... in the wonderful situation of being unable to drive using my British license cause I'd been here too long.. and unable to apply for a Pennsylvanian drivers license because I'd have less than a year left on my contract/visa...... Whoopee do.... I can't wait for those happy days.

Which brings me nicely to my main bug bear (what is a bug bear.... did I just make it up?? If I didn't who did?), and that is with those lovely people at INS. Now I realize it is probably a deportable (lovely word probably doesn't exist... but still lovely) offense to criticize in any way shape or form the actions (or inactions) of any part of the department of homeland security (or whatever it is called)... but here goes anyway. So I only recently got my job and came over here to work on an 'exciting' experiment (I'll talk about later sometime) and I had my visa and my passport and my certificate of eligibility and I flew into America. And surprisingly enough (you hear so many horror stories) I arrive and go through immigration without a problem. Then I have a couple of weeks where I am just in form filling hell. And the one thing they ask you on every bloody form you ever fill out is for your social security number. So obviously this is one of the first things I do when I get here. So a few weeks go by and I've managed to convince tout le monde that I am who I say I am despite my lack of SS number... and I have a flat, and cable tv and elastic trickery and I get paid (which felt really good considering that it had been bloody months since my last pay check. And somewhere in the middle of all this excitement I get a letter from the SS office saying.... can't give you a number INS have you on their records as Mr 'Vichol' instead of Mr 'Nichol', fill out this form and send it off to them to get it fixed. So I look at the form and it says form must be accompanied by a cheque to cover $100 application fee... unless the mistake was through no fault of your own. And I'm like... surely they determine if it's my fault or not... and if this application does not come with a cheque it is going straight in the bin. So I write them a cheque and send it off. A few weeks go by and I'm getting a little impatient... I start trying to check up on the application online and discover before I can do anything I need a receipt number... which I don't have. And then finally after about three and half weeks I get a letter from INS. The letter says, and I'm paraphrasing here: Jolly good Mr Nichol... we've taken your cheque and cashed it down the bank.. and now it's just going to be 30-45 days for us to process your application. And I'm like... 45 days and $100 to change a 'V' to and 'N'... they have got to be taking the mickey (insert your own expletive filled sentence to read my actual reaction). But apparently not... that's what it takes. I jsut don't understand how it happens... when I come through immigration the gentleman scans the bar code like part of my passport. Surely from then on in my details are in the machine, there should be no need to ever actually type my name in and therefore have the possibility of a mistake..... so I don't know what's going on. But the one thing I know for sure is that the chance of me ever seeing that $100 again (at least if it's anything like bureaucracy back home) is pretty fucking small.

There some things that made me smile this week.... but my poor little fingers are tired after all this moaning.... I know some people in Minnesota who described me as 'salty'... still don't really know what it means... but it may well be true.

Another uneventful weekend has passed... and lo and behold I'm still here and moving around. The highlight of my weekend was probably visiting the British aisle of the local Wegman's (or is it Wegmans?) supermarket. It was a thrilling experience... they had Bird's Eye custard (which I didn't buy) and Colman's mustard (which I did) and lots of other stuff I can no longer remember despite the fact that it was only yesterday that I went there.

The highlight of my week has to be the fact that I found on dvd to films that I have been looking for on and off for the last...long time. They are "The Sure Thing", which is I guess just a silly romantic comedy (and here is big manly me looking like something of a big girl's blouse for saying I like the film) but it's done very well and it's hard not to like it, and "A Boy and His Dog" which is a great old sci-fi film featuring a telepathic dog and sex crazy boy. (And I'm pleased to see that I have now elevated myself from soppy fool to geek... and desperate geek by the sound of it.) Anyway, they are both very good films. And I was particularly pleased that I had forgotten how "A Boy...." ends.

To try and recover some manliness (is that a word? yes... aparently it used to mean human kindness. But now it means strength, fortitude, etc.... which is closer to what I meant, and also virility.... which is not.), I'd like to say that the highlight of last week was watching England win the Rugby World Cup. Admittedly I'd have preferred to be watching it in the pub on a big screen... as oppossed to sat at home at 4 in the morning (I am currently living in the good ol' US of A), naked apart from my England shirt crouched in front of my laptop (my TV didn't arrive until monday) watching a shitty picture (because the coaxial connector on my tv tuner box takes a european style cable, and unsurprisingly the cable box comes with a US style cable... so I had to actually force the cables together) that I had paid over $25 to watch. But it was still worth it to get one over the bloody Australians, it happens so rarely..... but hopefully this will mark a turning point (you might call it a `watershed' if you were Gerrard Houllier) for English... nay British sport. More than likely though it's just a blip and we will be back to our normally role of good loser before the too much longer (Sri Lanka anyone?).

And I was somewhat annoyed that Chelsea beat United (and yes I know other teams are called United) at the weekend (and no I've never been to Old Trafford..... and yes I can justify this... but I'll save that for later). Still it's a long season. At least I got to see them beat Liverpool last week..... it was even on the tele.