watch tHe skies

Things are starting to come together now. Although most of the appliances are in now, only the dishwasher is actually operational (hence the old microwave brought in to provide us with hot food). Actually the dishwasher was probably the thing that we missed the most, so we’ve been using paper plates for the last couple of days to minimise washing up.

The drinking water filter is excellent (big water drinker, me). The new mini breakfast bar will have quite an effect, as previously we didnt have anywhere to actually sit and eat in the kitchen. The new broom cupboard (out of shot) should keep everything nice and tidy.

So a few more doors to fit, appliances to commission and a fridge to find (didn’t turn up as expected yesterday), and a few snags to fix that we’ve spotted, and they should be finished on monday.

So tomorrow’s mission, should we accept it, is to pick some tiles and get someone round to price for the floor…

Well after a day down in our Bristol office I come back to see serious progress on our kitchen. The worksurface is in and so is our lovely Franke sink and triflow tap with integral drinking water filter.

Appliances go in tomorrow so we are almost there, we just need to decide what the hey to do with tiles and flooring. Getting there, slowly but surely, but will it be done before baby arrives?

When I was a kid I planned to be an astronaut. To sail amongst the stars, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no-one had gone before and still be back home for tea less my Mum get annoyed. I remember wondering what I would be doing at the end of the millennium, what 30 year old Matt would do, and whether I would have my own hover car or spaceship.

Then as I grew older my ambitions changed. As I moved in to my teens I dreamt of being Arsenal’s star midfielder, stepping out at Highbury and slamming in an awesome 30 yard drive to win the First Division. As I got past my ‘O’ levels my ambition became becoming a chartered engineer, a dream that I pursued at University and achieved back in about 1997, although I still secretly held out for a long shot that Arsene Wenger would spot me playing five-a-side and sign me.

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So today our kitchen began its facelift. Being without a kitchen sink is more alarming than you would expect, but there you go having to fill the kettle up from the bath is something that we will get used to over the next week or so as our kitchen is transformed in to a wonder to behold. In the absence of any baby news i’m going to bore you rigid with our kitchen upgrade project.

Most of the units are in, roughly, and all of the hideous flowery tiles are gone. Fortunately they (I say they, who I mean is Groby Kitchens, our preferred contractor for said renovation) have left our electronic water softener despite them being very dubious as to its actual effectiveness. The ceiling is a tangle of cables that will soon be spotlights as we wave goodbye to the nasty fluorescent striplight. No sign yet of the new appliances which I believe should come later in the week.

All in all a good start, we just need to decide on tiles and floor now…

Although I do selling, it’s not my main role. Selling is a dirty word in the UK, despite the fact that is as much a part of society as breathing and eating. I’ve always looked on it as a dirty word myself, but I also realise that being good at it is a definitely useful life skill.

So for the last two days I’ve been on the Bare Knuckle Selling boot camp, run by international speaker and author Simon Hazeldine. The course follows the content of his book, Bare Knuckle Selling, and covers the whole selling process using plenty of planning tools and emphasising the importance of preparation, as well as throwing some NLP and hypnotic suggestion in to the pot.

What was interesting for me is that it reinforced the sales skills that I already have, and helped me to realise that actually those that I don’t have aren’t something to be afraid of. So it has boosted my confidence to go out be more influential and not to get hung up about stuff, but to have fun. After all, people rarely get killed or maimed for having a little fun in the selling process!

Overall a really interesting course from someone who really knows his subject!

Our Ellie Chidzey page seems to be drawing in the googlers. Apologies to all looking for Ellie Chidzey Bikini photos, they just don’t exist! And neither do images of Ellie in Lingerie, sorry!

Stayed in a Hotel down in Rochester last night that, amazingly in this day and age, didn’t have any internet access at all. Suffering with Wifi cold turkey, I decided to head to the pictures to see one of those movies that I can’t inflict on Jen on the offchance that it’s uber violent. V for Vendetta has had good reviews so I headed over to Bluewater (thank god for Satnav) and managed to get in.

V for Vendetta is set in a possible England, where the planet is in disarray; USA has fallen in to chaos following successive wars, and Britain is under the control of a dictatorial government led by Adam Sutler (John Hurt), whose police state, curfew and control of the media keep the population in check. On November 5th, the anniversary of the Gunpowder plot, a terrorist known only as V (Hugo Weaving), wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, commits an act of terrorism which causes unrest in the population, and drags innocent bystander Evie Hammond (Portman) in to a plot to give the country back to the people. (more…)

Glad to see that Mr. Brown has targeted gas guzzling 4×4s in the 2006 budget. Those who know me know how I loathe the road hogging bohemoths, with their diminuitive drivers boosting their egos as much as their height with vehicles that pollute the landscape as much as the air with their enormous engines ticking away outside schools and in Sainsbury’s car parks.

However I doubt that the additional duty is enough to discourage their use. Really we should go further to penalise people where it really hurts - stick a higher level of tax on them as company cars and quadruple the duty on tyres for them. It amazes me that people want bigger, less economical cars in a time where the climate change is noticeable to even the most ignorant of people, and yet they think more about their own perceived social status than the desolate wasteland of a legacy that we leave to our descendants, and the 4×4 for me is a symbol of all that is wrong in our society.

Grr over. Sorry I came over all Daily Mail then.

Well Jenny is well at t-minus 6 weeks and counting, baby is still kicking like crazy and everything seems in good order.

Except sleep, that is.

Nobody told me about the sleep thing.

Jen’s having real trouble getting comfortable. All of the books tell her that sleeping on her back is bad for her and the baby, in fact it is uncomfortable for her due to the weight of the belly. However the weeble effect kicks in, where whatever position she assumes, her centre of gravity seems to pull her on to her back.

The end result? Not sleeping through the night. (more…)

In these interweb days of downloaded music, it is not very often that you will see me buy an actual CD. Most of my music is downloaded and I tend to just pick out the occasional track. However when I heard the preview podcast on itunes of A&B’s album, I knew it would be worth buying the whole CD.

Above & Beyond are one of the most exciting talents in the global dance music scene today. Their genre-defining productions - often released on their own Anjunabeats label - have become an essential tool for the world’s leading DJ’s and have set the benchmark for the new generation of dance music producers.

Above & Beyond - aka Jono Grant, Tony McGuinness and Paavo Siljamäki - first broke on the scene with their remix of Madonna’s ‘What it Feels Like For A Girl’. Madonna liked the remix so much, that she decided to use it on the video instead of her original ballad. Since then Above & Beyond have added the likes of Dido, Britney and Sarah McLachlan to their remix credits, but it is their solo productions which have really captured the imagination of dance music fans the world over, with many becoming sing-a-long anthems. Above & Beyond have also previously recorded under a number of different aliases including Aalto, Free State, Jono Grant, Nitromethane, Oceanlab, P.O.S and Tranquility Base. (more…)