Be warned, I take my tea extremely seriously. More seriously than Dick Cheney and The Yorkshire Ripper take /took violence against humanity, in fact, and that’s saying something (Note: of course, I am not suggesting I admire the Yorkshire Ripper. Tea-issues aside, he was evil, but I don’t have enough time to get into that and I am not even from Yorkshire). Tea must be drunk a certain way, you see. It must be handled with due care and attention, as must the rarest orchid (although unless you are starving to death please never eat an orchid). Not only does it require a careful eye, good hand-eye coordination, special awareness (in order to not over-do the milk, obviously) and an expansive knowledge of tea-bags (all the different kinds of tea are all different, so don’t get caught in the trap of imagining triangles and squares are to be treated the same!), tea DESERVES to be drunk at the correct and right temperature. It is so much more than a simple case of process: drinking tea at the right temperature is all about recognizing right from wrong. Do it improperly and you are saying that wrong is right and right is, well, you get the picture.

Now we’ve got the fun stuff out of the way it’s time for more serious matters: tea-drinking-equipment. I am talking mugs and cups, both of which are fine, but please be careful. ALL tea utensils have slightly different properties, and these affect the tea itself: for example, a tea mug which resembles an urn—which I would make illegal if I was in the government (you may as well just drink your tea out of biodiesel storage tanks)—has rounded-edges which can turn what should be a highly pleasurable tea-appreciating exercise into tea-drinking-bedlam. It not only ruins the taste, but tarnishes the memory, making all future tea-drinking endeavors slightly less fantastic than they truly ought to be!

Once upon a time I had arranged to meet a guy for a date. I’d met him a few times and liked him, but was chosoing to ignore that there was something not quite right about him. He wasn’t a psycho or particularly weird, but I couldn’t put my finger on just what it was that didn’t sit quite right with me.

Anyway, the time in question came around and I turned up to our meeting, as usual, puncually. I waited a while and gave him the benefit of the doubt as time marched on and there was no sign of him. Eventually, I called his number and left a message on his voicemail asking him to call me.

I gave myself a time limit of about twenty minutes, and slowly I began to realise that I had been stood up. I decided to get on the tube and go and see a friend on the other side of London.

When I emerged to street level there was a message from him saying he was really sorry, he had forgotten and had to go the bank because he had lost his card. Again, something didn’t ring true, but what did leap out were the words, “I forgot.”That didn’t make me feel very important, so there and then I decided the guy was a loser and I wasn’t going to waste my time with him anymore.

About a year or so later I was passing the spot where I’d waited for him and as I looked out of the bus window I saw him standing in the very same place that I had stood. Luckily for me, he couldn’t see me and I watched him amazed that he seemed to be waiting for someone…someone who had also not turned up. He looked at his watch, he looked up and down the street and just as my bus was turning away from this scene I saw him throw his hands up in annoyance and storm off.

I could barely believe what I’d just witnessed. The guy who had stood me up, had just been stood up himself and as a final piece of divine intervention, I had witnessed it.

I smiled a very satisfied smile as the bus pulled away.

Attention flatmates, I have good news! After hours of going through online house ads, looking through endless home information packs, and going around the city to talk to endless estate agents everyone has agreed on a house. Move in date is the first of next month, and I am going to need deposits by the end of the month from everyone who is moving in. And before you ask Alexander, no you can’t borrow money

Opening my diary, I see that I’ve got a full day. Three appointments, a team meeting and numerous phonecalls to make. Colleagues begin to trickle in and we discuss our weekends. I met a friend for dinner, bumped into another friend by accident, had coffee with him and then celebrated another’s birthday, standing in the freezing cold beer garden of a pub. Nice though, and caught up with someone I hadn’t seen in about a year.

My first client arrives and generates tonnes of work. I quickly fire off emails and make a couple of phone calls on her behalf. I tell our youth worker that her son is refusing to go to school, despite their meetings and agreements. The phone rings non-stop.

Into the team meeting where we’re told that we will be moving offices in a few months time, even though we’ve all been against this. I vow to look for another job, for about the 100th time this year and it’s only the beginning of February. Perhaps a Secondary education job. The phone still rings constantly.

My second client of the day rings to reschedule, and I’m relieved to have a bit of extra time. I phone people and do paperwork until my next client turns up. She isn’t very well and needs more emotional help than she’s getting. I tell her I’ll ask my friend who’s a mental health social worker where she can get help from. She gives me a box of chocolates which I share around my colleagues after she’s left, they eat in between phone calls.

My day ends in a frenzy as I quickly go through my work to make sure there’s nothing urgent that I’ve missed. The phone is still ringing. I switch off my computer nine hours after I switched it on. I walk home knowing I will not move with the company but instead will either leave to go to another job or just leave. This feels like the right decision and suddenly all of my energy comes rushing back.

According to an article on the BBC Michael Jackson’s death has been ruled as homicide mainly caused by the anesthetic Propofol. This has led to Michael Jackson’s doctor being accused of killing Michael Jackson unlawfully but without malice, a charge of involuntary manslaughter. This charge however has not satisfied the Jackson family, their lawyer or the fans. Each have claimed that this is not enough and are looking for a stronger charge. I expect it also failed to amuse them to learn that Dr Murray is currently still allowed to practice medicine so long as he does not use any kind of anaesthetic.

Having read the article about the charge I can’t help but feel a little sorry for Dr Conrad Murray. There is no way he can come out of this situation with his reputation intact, even if he is found innocent his name and the trial will have had so much global interest he can never go back to a normal life. This is all assuming of course that a fair trail based on evidence and free from outside influences is possible.

Such a trail in my opinion seems a tall order. There is huge pressure for justice from both the Jackson family and Michael Jackson’s fans, they want to be able to hold someone responsible. Prosecutors too have stated they are keen to avoid an unsuccessful high-profile prosecution like the trial of OJ Simpson. An interesting statement seeing as this prosecution could never be low-profile, it therefore seems the pressure to convict Dr Murray is immense.

If he is actually guilty and sentenced accordingly then justice will have been done, for a lot of people however this will still be unsatisfactory. The concept of justice just does not seem to be what people are searching for. The devout Jackson fans want an answer to why their hero was taken from them before what was supposed to be his greatest show and a person to hold responsible fot this. The involuntary manslaughter charge will provide neither.

Joe Jackson has been quoted as saying “I was looking for justice, and justice, to me, would be a murder charge.”. He is also claiming that Dr Murray was a fall guy, implying that there is a much larger conspiracy afoot. Whether this is what he actually believes or a way of generating extra publicity is questionable. Either way the form of justice offered from the legal system does not seem to be the answer people want when focusing on Michael Jackson’s death. It is hardly surprising however that the cause of death for a man who lived such an eccentric life is creating such emotional response and public interest in America.

Whatever the outcome it seems one thing is certain, guilty or not Dr Murray is doomed to suffer, this will be a slap in the face to the concept of innocent until proven guilty. The trial will undoubtedly be a spectacle and strong test for the American justice system. After all the public speculation and attention has died away we can only hope that justice has been served and that Dr Murray is not the scapegoat villain that many feel is needed in the final chapter of the story of Michael Jackson.

Just before I go, I was talking to my brother who works in economics and he reckons that there is massive money in buying stocks for heating oil supplier. He is one of those people who is of the belief that America is trying to seize the world by taking over the Middle East. I am starting to believe that America is loosing all sense of reasoning. Period.

Once upon a time there was a man with a runny nose. He happened to be in a queue of traffic at the time and, when all the vehicles came to a halt, he blew it. And when I say ‘he blew it’ I am meaning two different things. Firstly, he blew his nose and, secondly, he blew his chances of continuing to have a squeaky-clean record with the police.

Yes, you guessed it; he was stopped and fined for ‘clearing his sinuses whilst in control of a motor vehicle’. If it wasn’t so sad it would be funny.

Do our police have nothing better to do with their time, for God’s sake? There are all kinds of terrible crimes going on around us and the cops are busying fining people for blowing their noses. It is a bit of a concern, isn’t it? When it all goes to court I just hope there is a judge who will see what a terrible waste of time and money this is. If anyone is to be fined, then it should be the painfully pedantic police officer who issued the ‘nasal offence ticket’ in the first place.

Actually, if I think back to my days of revising the Highway Code, I am pretty sure there was a law against ‘blowing your hooter’ at certain times of the day…

When George Orwell wrote ‘1984’ he came up with several unique offences such as ‘Thought Crime’, ‘Hate Crime’ and ‘Sex Crime’. However, not even he (with his genius imagination) could have come up with something as twisted, macabre and horrible as ‘Nose Crime’.

And another update, I have finally finished all the copy for the vaser lipo London webpage. I am rather confused how I feel about this one, any remarks

A long, long time ago on a ZX Spectrum far, far away a lot of people used to play a wonderful game called ‘Jet Set Willy’. It was an infuriating, but addictive task to collect all of the empty glasses after Willy’s wild night.

If you thought those days were gone then think again! I used to love ‘Jet Set Willy’ and many were the time that I would remember it and shed a tear. But now I play it on my PC! ‘How so?’, you ask. Well, it has all been made possible by some very nice people who have created an online version.

Once you have registered with this website (if you want to submit your high scores) you will be able to get back to helping Willy clean-up his mansion. There are so many rooms to visit and even he can’t remember seeing a lot of them before!

But wait, it didn’t all start here. ‘What about an online remake of ‘Manic Miner’?’, you complain. You are quite right and here it is! Now the only thing you have to worry about is which one you are going to play.

‘Manic Miner’ and ‘Jet Set Willy’ were both originally designed by Matthew Smith. The people responsible for these remakes have done a brilliant job. Every little detail has been lovingly recreated! If you ever manage to complete these two (and if you do you are a better man than me!) then there are some ‘new’ games to play that also feature Willy. Lose yourself in two other massive adventures; ‘Willy: The Pyramid Maze’ and ‘Willy’s Mountain Party’. Wow!

How does a three valleys ski contest sound to you?? All of you must enter, I really want to win this! I am really tired of all this snow and I feel that we need to do something that reminds us that sometimes…snow can be nice…

How cool is this? A set of stamps with some of the best album covers of all time on them! It is going to be a very good reason for a lot of music fans to brave the snow and go down to the Post Office over the next few days.

There are ten different stamps in the set and it includes; ‘The Division Bell’ by Pink Floyd, ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars’ by David Bowie and ‘A Rush of Blood to The Head’ by Coldplay. I don’t think that I would agree with all of the choices in the set, but at least there is a good selection. The only one that I find a little strange is, ‘London Calling’ by The Clash. Wasn’t Punk Rock all very ‘anti-Monarchy’?

I wish that I had been asked to nominate a few of what I think are the best album covers of all time. Mind you, I suppose any music fan would say exactly the same thing. It would be the stuff of dreams to design your very own set of postage stamps with all of your favourite artists on them.

Perhaps there will be some more record cover stamps made in the future if these turn out to be especially popular. I wonder what other covers would be considered? Hmmm, there are all kinds of possibilities, but I can’t image a First Class Sex Pistols stamp myself…

What about the best movie posters of all time? That would make a really nice set of stamps and there would certainly be plenty to choose from… I can see them now; ‘The Exorcist’, ‘A Clockwork Orange’, ‘Whore’, ‘Straw Dogs’ and ‘Hudson Hawk’. Actually, that is getting a little bit silly… There’s no way they would even consider designing a ‘Hudson Hawk’ stamp.

Sidebar: it was recently my birthday and my friend Kerry gave me a chemical face peel as a gift. Now I have to say, I have no idea what she was trying to tell me; but after I got over the corresponding surprise of how out of the ordinary the present was, I went and realized that it was actually quite lovely. Thanks Kerry!

Why do men spend so long complaining about things? Women will just get on but men seem to spend half their lives sitting around moaning. They make out that they are so big and tough but a lot of them are actually just big boos.

If a man pulls a muscle in his back then he goes on about it all the time. Everything grinds to a halt in his life and you would think he was on death’s door by his amount of complaining. Most women will just grit their teeth and get on with things. I think that, as a rule, women have a higher pain threshold than most men. Perhaps it is because many of us have experienced childbirth. After going through labour for a few hours a pulled muscle is a walk in the park!

It is bad enough when they get a cold. If a man catches a cold then it is suddenly ‘the flu’. Again, in my experience, women will just soldier on. When a man gets the sniffles it is nothing for him to ring in sick at work. Or if he does go to work then he’ll expect his wife to have been transformed into Florence Nightingale by the time he gets home.

When you consider what a bunch of jessies men can be it is difficult to imagine them doing anything very much. If it had been the women that were sent away to fight in wars then there would probably have been a much quicker end to them!

But saying all this, we still love them, don’t we? For all of their annoying habits and irritating ways we still wouldn’t be without them. Besides, they are really useful to have around in case you find a spider in the bathroom…

Before I go, I think that all of those who are into the idea of a greener lifestyle really need to check this out. This Enigin blog has some really inventive ideas for companies who are concerned about thier impact on the environment, I am really digging them right now.

This is the third time that I have come across an article about the benefits of green tea in the last two days, so there must be something in it!

I knew that it was supposed to be very good for you but I didn’t know that it could be used in the battle against spots. ‘Green Tea – Fight Those Pimples One Cup at a Time’ is a brilliant post because it explains exactly how it all works. More importantly still, it explains it in terms that anyone can understand.

So, if you suffer from pimples don’t put spot cream on… put the kettle on!

‘Green Tea for Acne’ is an interesting post. I knew that green tea was supposed to be very good for you but I was completely unaware that it had quite so many benefits. Can you believe that? It can even be used to fight cancer! Wow, there really are some very powerful things in Mother Nature’s medicine cabinet, aren’t there?

Acne makes many people’s lives a misery and I am sure that there will be plenty of sufferers who are going to give this a try. It sounds like it is the sort of thing that we should all be drinking anyway.

So more B&A pics have just gone up for Gastric band procedure. I’m a little baffled how I feel about the whole thing. I know that I have been looking into it for a few weeks now, but it just feels like a totally irregular way to get thinner…

Got to go; I’m off to brew up…