Rain most of the day - Brian's visit.

Brian arrived as planned, and had previously emailed me this picture from his high-speed day at Silverstone. It was a delayed Xmas present and involved, I think, 6 laps in this Lotus Elise with a top driver, Simon Mason. Brian said it was an awesome experience and one reaches 125mph in what seems like seconds, and the acceleration and the braking for corners mader him feel as if bits of him were being left behind. Getting into the car in the first place was no mean feat. You have to be under 70 and under 17st which of course completely rules me out. But I shan't lose any sleep over it.

The weather has been wet and not all that warm. Yvonne decided to go down Nottingham because she needed to go to Bromley House, our subscription-library, which overlooks Market Square. It is so old fashioned. They enter your books in a hard-back ledger and know everyone by name. There is a lovely leather-chair type reading room and it's like having a 'club' in the centre of town. The building dates back to 1720-ish and they have never, ever, got rid of anything. Yvonne once wanted an obscure Thomas Hardy, which they found on a shelf upstairs. In it was a label which said "Please return this book promptly; other readers are waiting for it" and the last issue date was 1923.

I had a strange experience with WUforums. This 'pop-up advertising' innovation is activated if your pointer hovers over keywords such as 'computer' even if the word appears in your forum signature, it will be bold and underlined. It really annoys me because even Google don't go that far. Ray and Madeline are both steamed-up about it and threatening withdrawal unless it is sorted. Both would be seriously missed for the contribution they make. Other people disapprove too, so it isn't just a fringe. For a bit of a lark I penned a post in Open Forum which read "Radiogandy's personalised Adblocker - free to members". In the post I suggested always writing 'commputer', 'wiireless'. 'lapptop', 'wii-fi' etc., and I offered to update the lexicon whenever I came across a new keyword. The system completely 'floors' the advertising - it can't cope with it.

I'm disappointed to report that my 'post' was simply deleted. Not moved to another forum, and not a word from anyone as to why. Have they no sense of humour ? Ray suggests that I 'cool' it rather than risk being 'banned'. But I'm not used to backing away from shite like that!

On to more interesting matters. I made a delicious shepherds-pie from yesterday's left-over lamb with steamed vegetables. Maybe even Bungus would have enjoyed it. He sent me a very interesting photograph of Danny's, taken using a tripod for a long, long exposure at night and the result is fascinating. Bob is now on XP ; Danny did some sterling work, changing over hard-drives and other technical stuff. The only remaining thing is a lead to connect to his printer/scanner. But that won't stop him downloading Google Talk. Then we can exchange instant drivel, without having to email it. Ha Ha!