Without a doubt the proudest moment of my life so far - stood at the very front of my group of graduating Exeter College students, bowing to the Vice Chancellor in front of beaming, applauding parents in the Sheldonian. Being stood there, like the entire ceremony, was nothing short of breathtaking. Thank you so much to everyone who helped me get my degree!

I also got given a bound copy of my thesis by my mum as a graduation present, which is every inch as breathtaking, I can tell you. It's beautiful - purple with gold lettering and trim, colours the Anglo-Saxons would have been proud to use themselves. I can't remember the last time I was this happy. It's probably never happened before. And I'm a happy person.

Update - here's a detail from the front cover of the bound thesis:

There's something very satisfying about sitting in a lecture where the lecturer speaks very highly of this particular law professor... and how you should read his book... and then you realise that he used to lecture you... and then in another lecture the lecturer mentions a particular "law god" and how you shoudl read his book... and then you realise he tutored you for three years. Yeah, that's what Oxford is about.

As promised, here are a few photos of my new abode now that I've added my own furnishings and unpacked a bit. Scroll over each image for a caption:

Just looking at that last photo, it's striking how much my new house reminds me of the one I spent so long at in Taunton. The house in Streatham is pretty much an exact replica of the one in Staplegrove Road, Taunton, that I lived in for over a decade. Semi-detached with no immediate neighbour on the left as you look at them, the front doors open out to reveal a staircase on the left leading up from the door before an extra couple of steps bear right to the landing. There are four upstairs rooms, two large and two small, the small ones at either end of the landing (in Streatham the toilet is the small room on the left, in Taunton it's the right). My room in both houses is the large room on the left hand side overlooking the back garden, away from the main road.

Downstairs, the kitchen is straight down the hallway from the front door, with the living room being the first door on the right and a sizeable second room behind it. The garden is quite large and extends backwards for some way, with a patio and a pond dug into the front right hand corner.

The above description applies equally to the houses in Streatham and Taunton. There are a few differences (a conservatory in Taunton, a barbecue area in Streatham) but essentially they're the same design.

Speaking of designs, I've spent the last 24 hours fighting a pitched battle with various items of flatpacked furniture. The table was easy, the desk was straightforward but took ages, and the chair was an absolute swine. Attaching the back of the chair to the seat took me a good hour, wrestling in equal measure with an Allen key, the various chair components and an over-eager cat given to chasing small parts and hiding screwdrivers. By some small mercy, the CD rack came ready-built. This will be why my dad approves so fiercely of John Lewis.

Speaking of ideas (no, we were, Amy was saying about one she had a couple of posts ago, and she used loads of brackets just like these), I had one earlier. There should be an Automated Voice Of The Year award, presented to the lady or gentleman whose pre-recorded announcements are voted the best in the UK.

Off the top of my head, a few contestants might be:

1. First Great Western Man, now sadly in decline at FGW stations but alive and well, I'm delighted to say, at stations served by Southern. Always sounds like he has a full head of dark hair, shiny teeth, good skin for his age and a decent education. Could do a better job of sounding sincere about delays. "Please do not leave unattended articles anywhere on the station", or, my current favourite, delivered with impeccable gravitas, "Streatham Common, this is Streatham Common".

2. Cockney Tube Man, who extols the virtues of the Oyster Card in his best London accent at tube stations across the network. "Oyster. It's faster, cheaper and smarter." Yes, Guv'nor.

3. Vodafone Lady, the stone-cold bitch who grudgingly reveals information about how many voicemail messages you have. "You have *spits* one new message. F*ckwit."

4. Southern On-Board Lady, who takes over from FGW Man once you're safely on the train and moving. Has an uncanny knack of syncing her delivery of forthcoming station stops with the scrolling displays inside the train showing the same information, so that she hits every syllable the moment it scrolls into view. "This is a Southern service for Epsom Downs, calling at Battersea Park, Clapham Junction, Wandsworth Common...".

There must be many more across Britain whose talents are going unrecognised (wouldn't you love to meet one of the people who lend their vocal talents to this and watch them in action?). The only entry requirement is that their announcements must be pre-recorded - no live material is allowed. Over to you for your nominations.

A catchphrase employed, I thought, by Fast Show characters in Hula Hoop adverts. Also, I can now say with certainly, employed by crazy old men at bus stops.

Not that he got much change out of me, staggering over to me with fists melodramatically out for a fight as he did. I delicately sidestepped, wagged a finger, muttered 'come on, none of that' and legged it. That said, a teensy bit more stress and I would have happily tried to lamp him at his request. This was just after I'd realised my bus home wasn't turning up, having travelled all the way from Streatham to Oxford to get it, so I was less than thrilled. Then I got to the station, where the emergency back-up plan of going to Slough and getting a lift home off my dad nearly failed dismally - the departure boards initially reckoned the 6:30 train was three minutes late, but that delay rose minute by minute until by 6:30 itself, the train wasn't due in til 7:05. And then it turned up at 6:34. This must be an ingenious device on behalf of First Great Western to make their passengers treat minor delays like major triumphs in the face of adversity - worked on me, I'm sat on it now and a whole lot happier than I was.

Photos of the new house and a few words about the big move will be on here later on tonight.

I have had an idea. Personal climate control. A little device that ensures that you remain the same temperature wherever you are. I am fed up of constantly changing temperature (and needing so many extra layers that I can either put on, or take off.

Take today. I leave the house in jeans, vest top and warm-ish cardigan. I am instantly chilled by the “crispness” of the morning, but by the time I have walked the ten minute brisk trot to the station, I am lovely and warm. Very pleasant – and quite sunny too. Then the tube: instant sweat dripping down back and face. I then emerge at the ICSL and it’s back to the fresh, crisp air. I wipe my face with an Oil of Olay age-defying (you can’t begin too young) face-wipe (because I had plate activity in my face last week: if I didn’t start to face-wipe after the tube journey then my face would have erupted into lots of little volcanoes). Then, it’s into my lecture. After 30mins (of 3hrs in this lecture theatre – with bright lights, no windows and pc screens – I am getting such sore eyes I am going to get them tested) the lecturer and most students are sitting with arms crossed, trying to keep warm and then the coats and scarves came on. I put my emergency fleece on. The air conditioning was set to minus figures in my opinion. Then, out of there into the fresh air again: warmer than the lecture theatre. Then, into the library/computer room where you could have stripped to your underwear and still been warm. Then into a small group: class room environment, where you really have to hold back the temptation to take off all your clothes (and that’s the heat, not because the lecturer is fit). And then it’s back to walking to the tube, the tube journey and then the walk home. Finally, my own flat is just right. I hate this constant chaning. I need climate control. I can’t go from losing the feeling in my tows one minute, to sweltering temperatures the next. It can’t be healthy.

Fair cop. I have been negligent regarding retelling my visit to school, and a meeting with some old friends. If it’s any consolation – and I doubt it is – this was one of the things on my To Do List. Now, though, much like being called out by Ollie regarding my lack of posting, I shall post again. My apologies to Messrs. Carter and Birkett for the delay.

Anyway, just over a week ago, I headed back to Taunton again to go and speak with some Oxbridge applicants at the old school. It was also a good time to go and take a look around the place, and see what had happened, given that I hadn’t been there for over two years. Moreover, my links with the school are tenuous at best now that I don’t know any of the younger people there. Everyone’s moved on. Still, the meeting with Chatts, ex-history teacher, and Oxbridge people was interesting and, I hope, useful. The questions were the same as I had – what’s a week like; how much work is there; which is the best College – and I hope that I was useful. School has changed: buildings have been painted, plants put up and most noticeably, the front promenade has been concreted and ramped. I saw a few members of staff I knew, had some tea in the Staff Room, and that was it.

More exciting, however, was the lunch that preceded the talk. I met up with a couple of friends from school, BK (sometime commenter and whom I briefly saw at Taunton Station the week before), and Max (the avid reader, according to Ollie). I had seen neither for about three years, since we had left school. I had a very enjoyable lunch, at a pub in town. Topics discussed included the fact that Taunton now has two sex shops, what various people are doing now, weightlifting and wrestling, and future plans. One of the things we agreed was that the natural break of university was a good thing regarding keeping in contact. Letting everyone you were at school with know that you have a weekly essay crisis, or were going to a new bar in whichever university town you were, is hardly conducive to keeping long term friendships going. But somehow, coming back together at the start of new stage – post university life and job hunting – makes more sense. Anyway, it was very good to see both of them, and hopefully we shall meet up again for some Old Boy’s rugby in December…

Finally, the day was capped by a drive home that required me to do an emergency stop for the first time for real. Between Mary Tavy and Tavistock, a car (Mr Renault) thought it could turn onto the road in front of me before I reached him (and I was in third at the time). He couldn’t. In fact, he didn’t even look at me because he was so concerned about making it out in front of the car in the other lane, which he also struggled with, because he nearly stalled right in front of me. It turns out that modern braking systems such as Brake Assist work. When you really want to stop (and I slammed my foot down hard), you stop. In fact, I had a surprisingly large 50 centimetres clear from the car in front, though I only just avoided being rear ended by the Volvo behind me, who was driving far too close to my tail. Mr Renault looked a bit shocked and drove off. And so did I, a little more slowly. Mr Volvo gave me some space for a minute, and then he was right back on my tail. Moral of the story: good job I was in the Subaru, rather than my old Rover.

There are undoubtedly many problems with lawyers. If we were saints, then there would be no need for jokes like “what do you call a lawyer at the bottom of the sea?” : “a good start”, and so forth. Anyway. Yesterday I was given a 49 page printed document to read – to aid with some research. This went out to all 180 of us on the LPC. Ok, that’s a few trees, but these things have to be done. When I came to read it, the pages were a bit messed up. You could read page 1, then turn the document over to read page 2, then back again for page 3 etc. A bit of a struggle if you were trying to read it on a train, but in any other circumstance it would be fine – amusing if nothing else. Today, I was given the same document. All 49 pages. But this time it was correctly stapled. That means that 8820 pages are now defunct. Crap. Bin-able. And that is all before we had decided we didn’t want to read them in the first place anyway. Absolutely despicable. And these people have the audacity to teach me about Human Rights? What about the environment? I’m glad I’m not paying my own fees - I would have handed the second copy back and demanded a refund.

On another note, I went to the British Museum today for a wander and some lunch in Russell Square. Accompanied by a fellow Oxonion, we were comforted by the fact that it was “nice to speak to someone with a brain for a change”. Heh.

Back when I ran my fantasy football league, I'd regularly get up to 100 emails a day about it, all for precious little in return (bar the ability to satisfy my megalomania and the occasional generous donation).

Now I'm repeating the process with the music website I work for. There are currently 17 emails in my inbox that either need a reply or need me to do something before I can archive them. If I wasn't working for a music website, that total would be one (some photos to put on my band website). In return for this I get free tickets to gigs - if I can persuade bands' PR reps to part with them, that is, and I still need to write up a review afterwards to justify the freebie - and free CDs. Except I don't get free CDs because the site editor has now spent an entire month being too busy to actually look after the site, leaving me nominally in charge but without access to the pile of CDs, many of which need sending out to other people anyway. So again, I'm effectively working for free.

The fact that I'm spending man hours doing work for nigh on nothing, coupled with the nerve I have to sound like I'm complaining about my workload (I'm actually not), will likely elicit a further barrage of verbal abuse from my father, who labelled Dayorama's (and specifically my) output as 'dross' in a comment on an earlier post. So I'll take this opportunity to thank him for the trip to John Lewis which has provided me with new bedding, and the forthcoming trip to Homebase to sort out a new desk. The big move is now well and truly underway as we cruise down the M40 towards the promised land of Streatham Vale. Onward!

Hello again.

Not only have I been shamed into posting according to the statistics Ollie unearthed below, I’m also back from a very nice holiday in Crete. There, my sole connection to the internet was not just a dial up connection (bad for when people post lots of pictures), but also in a foreign language. It was, quite literally, all Greek to me. Still, I managed to email Amy regularly, and keep up to date with what was happening. And as she reported, I am now a man of many freckles. This is in fact much better than previous experiences at sun bathing, where my lobster like colouring would appear after a day or so. By the end of a week in the sun, I looked like a cousin of Dr Zoidberg (he of previous Dayorama fame). The past week, however, saw me instead almost turn a little brown, and certainly no sun burn, a reflection of the late September weather (around 25 to 30 Centigrade, with a breeze), and my family bulk buying Nivea sun cream. Combined with many dips in a deliciously cool sea, I feel revitalised and still a little salty.

Most of my time in Crete was spent lying on a sun lounger and swimming, but I also experienced some “culture”. On the Saturday we went to the museum and ruins of Knossos – think Labyrinth and minotaur – which, while diverting, were not especially interesting. Moreover, the 6 hour round trip bus journey made the whole event even more difficult. We weren’t expecting such a long trip; this was the result of “Useless Ruth”, the worst rep Airtours could possibly have lumbered us with. She didn’t know her details, and didn’t appear when she said she would. And she had a grating voice. Poor, by any standard.

Of course, there was also the fun of the flight back home, which were in the most cramped seats yet devised by airline firms. Just about big enough to fit a small child in. Fortunately, I had an aisle seat, and when I stretched my leg out down the aisle, my foot actually reached the feet of the woman in the seat diagonally in front of me. Ho hum.

And now we are back home, and I have three days to prepare myself to go back to Oxford on Saturday, to start my course (and generally stop being a nuisance to all and sundry). This, naturally, requires lots of washing and ironing of holiday clothes, which will then be taken to Oxford. Funnily enough, washing and ironing was how I left Britain last week. Plus ca change…

I'm delighted to report that lots of people are having problems with their iPod Nanos, and that Apple may now take one step closer to being just another company and not some utterly irrational banner of corporate non-conformism under which Microsoft haters huddle for warmth.

I was thinking about posting with the same sentiments as Ollie below: It is only just three months to Christmas, that's actually a quarter of the year (about 0.3% of our life - if we lived until we were 80) and yet M&S have wrapping paper and Christmas cards on display... not to mention mince pies. Taking this one step further, imagine there was this three month preparation for the rest of our lives (say 60 years?) that means that for 15yrs, we would be plagued by "the run up to Christmas". And the vast majority of people in this country are probably non-practising Christians anyway. Having said that, I don't really mind – Christmas makes me smile. In reality I am just time wasting in the LPC computer suit and quite happy to number crunch (probably inaccurately) and bore you to tears.

There are mince pies in the kitchen.

There are MINCE PIES in the kitchen!

It's September!

What the hell are mince pies doing in the kitchen in September. I ask you. It's a travesty when a full three months before Christmas, the festive food is already sneaking its way out of your local M&S and into the home.

Tasted nice, mind.

I went down to my new house to collect the keys and take a few measurements ready for some new furniture today. I was going to take loads of photos but alas, my camera battery packed up. Here are two to tide you over before I move in properly on Wednesday:

In related news, I've practically adopted one of the two cats that live there. Leopard, so named because he looks like a leopard (can you guess why the other one is called Felix?) is an absolute maniac of a cat. He is given to sudden, random movements, chases invisible objects around rooms and likes to hide inside cupboards or on shelves. It turns out he's only been living there a few months - originally it was just Felix, and then Leopard turned up meowing at the top of his voice on the doorstep. After getting a vet to check him and notifying the RSPCA without anyone coming forward to claim him, Leopard became part of the family. God knows what had happened to him before that point - he's only just outgrown kitten status so he's not been on the planet too long - but he's just psycho enough to be adorable. Cat (the human Cat, one of my housemates) complained when Leopard sat on me instead of Cat, and exclaimed 'You're taking the piss now' when Leopard proceeded to curl up and almost fall asleep. The cat and I will go far.

Well hasn't Ollie produced some stunning statistics. I was wondering why he had been posting so frantically over the past few days! I'm not sure I have much to add to his comments, only that it is interesting to see how the variety of topics both varies over time, and is dependant upon who has written it (I think we've analysed this before so I won't go into it).

The LPC is ticking over this week. I can only reiterate the fact that I will be happy when we actually get into some kind of routine (rather than this higgledy-piggledy (word actually recognises this word!) "foundation fortnight". The advantages of having a training contract though are clear: a) I get paid £5000 for being here plus my fees - just think, the majority of people are doing this though choice; and b) I don't have to attend careers lectures, so that saves me 3hrs this week.

And what about me? I haven't been particularly deep or theoretical of late. Perhaps that is a good sign. Am I finally reaching some form of stability? Hmm. We'll see how it lasts when the LPC work thing actually kicks in full throttle. Actually, I was on the tube yesterday and I realised how contended/at peace with my own little bubble I was feeling right now. Also, you may or may not be aware that I regularly use the expression "the game isn't worth the candle" - interestingly enough this comes from the "olden days", pre electricity when everything in the evening had o be watched via candle light. If an evening entertainment - a fight or something - really wasn't worth the cost of the candle - then it would be said that "the game wasn't worth the candle" - and so this has stuck: if the effort of doing something isn't worth the reward, then don't bother. Anyway, Ollie is being secretive with respect to his website and so am I: I have decided that something I have had on the shelf for a month or so is now "worth the candle" and shall be pursued with full force... let's see what becomes of it/me/them...

Oh and I'm just back from the LPC (wrote the above earlier) after coming home via (well, not quite "via"!) Oxford St. Well, come on, I live here now. That has to be my local High St! I went in for a dressing gown - and item I have never possessed, and it seems am fated never to in the future. I came away with a nightdress instead, knickers and earrings. Much better. And all for the same price (as a dressing gown!). Heh. Oh, also brought a breast cancer badge thing (not, I repeat not, a wristband - last time I saw Ollie he had multicoloured forearms from the number he wears. Grr).

I've been thinking about people with forms of psychological disorder all morning as part of the planning going into the new website (he said, deepening the sense of mystery a little once again, entirely ignorant of the fact that no one is paying any attention), and now, so help me God, I'm getting some first hand experience.

Sat on the table next to me are a lovely young couple who, up until a few minutes ago, were sitting quietly together reading the newspaper. They're still trying valiantly to read it but to no avail, since a relatively elderly woman carrying a rat in a cage has sat down opposite them. 'Do you mind if I sit here?' She asked them. 'Only I was going to sit in the corner, but that seat's been taken,' gesturing at me. Not my bloody fault madam, there's no such thing as a reserved table in a pub at a railway station.

How the young couple must wish I hadn't sat here. The lady's newly-arrived food is their only hope for a little peace and quiet, since for the last ten minutes they've had to endure a potted history of her pet rat Mimi (which has just been to the vet's for a painstakingly described injection), tales of her nights in with a pet chinchilla, and her considered opinion on the merits of cats versus rats.

Oh shit, the young couple are leaving. This leaves me, two businessmen who have suddenly started to drink up, the swines, and her in this corner. I may have to rapidly curtail this post.

On a final quick note before I suffer half an hour of rat discussion (at least as a previous rat owner I'm mildly informed, I suppose), it only costs £12.55 to get a return ticket from Oxford to Streatham Common, which may be of interest to any Oxonians who fancy the day trip...

A few posts ago I mentioned setting up a new website that might annoy a few people, so I was keeping it under wraps. Well it'll stay under wraps forever because I decided it was too depressing and would have involved a lot of ranting about things, which is never good. Instead I will still be launching a new website (and, indeed, have done so) with a more creative edge. I'm a bit trepidatious about posting the link to it on here just yet - after all, many projects of mine has risen and collapsed back into ashes in a matter of days or weeks - so I'll give it time to find some legs before I send any readers over to it. It'll be all about clues hopefully. So much so that I've left a clue to the URL for the new website somewhere on the Dayorama site, but you'll have to work very hard indeed to find it.

On 22 August 2002, Dayorama went live for the first time. On 7 October 2002 it snuck off into the darkness again. On 29 July 2003, after a period of very occasional posting, it came back. On 20 September 2003, it snuck off again. On 1 April 2004 it came back, and this time we had a woman involved to make sure something actually got done. You may note that it has yet to sneak off since.

And now, for the first time, I present a chart of posts per day including all three authors since the very first post:

In case you can't make out the tiny legend, I'm the murky green, Amy is the deep indigo and OJ is the light blue. Or put another way, I'm top, Amy's second and OJ is trailing some way off in the distance.

Since Amy joined Dayorama, I have been the leading contributor on every single day except 9 May 2005, when Amy had 244 posts to my 243. By the next day I'd levelled it up at 245 each, and by the following day I was two ahead - I'm now fifty or so posts ahead, whilst Amy is in turn over a hundred posts ahead of OJ (despite OJ having over eighteen months' head start!).

But of course it's quality, not quantity that counts here, which is why OJ should be doubly ashamed.

(I can say these things whilst he's on holiday.)

Other post-related facts:

- The largest single number of posts on one day is 17, on 3 November 2004, the night of (and day after) the US Election. We stayed up almost all night to write about it as it happened.

- Myself and OJ have both gone almost a month at a time without posting, even whilst others were. I made no posts between 16 August 2004 and 16 September 2004 (OJ and Amy made 20 between them in the mean time) and OJ contributed nothing between 7 May 2004 and 5 June 2004, during which time Amy and I racked up 18 posts. Amy's longest run without a post is eight days, from 3 May 2004 to 10 May 2004.

- If Amy had made two more posts in 2005, she would have contributed exactly twice as often as OJ for the year so far.

- OJ's biggest posting days have been 5 August 2003 and 9 November 2004 (five posts on each day). Excluding US election night (15 posts), I have reached five posts in a day on three occasions: 22 August 2002, 2 November 2004 and 25 June 2005. Amy has never posted five times or more in a day, but did post four times on 3 June 2005.

- Since Amy joined on 1 April 2004, there have been 85 days on which none of us have posted, although it hasn't happened since 24 October 2004.

- I was bored in the car earlier.

I'm in the car coming home from Sheffield, completing the first of what I suspect will be several tiring weeks. I've been to London (Monday/Tuesday), Northampton and Doncaster (Wednesday), Oxford (Friday), Newcastle (Saturday) and Sheffield this week, which is always good for someone who loves travelling around, but even for me it's getting to me. I keep ending up on bizarre quests late at night - for example, last night, trying to persuade a DVD to work for an hour and a half - which aren't helping with the sleep either.

It's not about to get much better. I'll need to go to my new house on Monday or Tuesday to have a look round and get the key - I might end up staying the night there - before moving in properly on Wednesday. There's shopping for bedding and furniture to be done in preparation for that as well. On Friday I'm graduating in Oxford, on Sunday I'm in Manchester and on Monday I'm back in Northampton again. That next week will also involve enrolling at LCC. I am not short of things to be thinking about.

I've been doing some sniffing around eBay over the past day or two for Full Metal Alchemist stuff (you know me, once something has my attention I will do nothing but that thing for a month or two, and then all enthusiasm will inevitably evaporate), and I've also been considering shifting a load of old CDs on there if I can. Today, though, I read an article reprinted from last month's Financial Times in which it is alleged that plans are afoot to tax transactions involving eBay as part of a crackdown on amateur trading. It hadn't previously occurred to me that such things go untaxed. Presumably this means I should get on with using eBay to sell things sooner rather than later - I'll confess to having been scanning my room recently deciding what could feasibly be offered up for a small sum...

Finally, I have a cunning plan for a new website. None of you will know about it because it will be one that might annoy a few people and I'll therefore not be publicly associating myself with it in any shape or form. But just so you know. (And just so I can be needlessly enigmatic, something I've not had the pleasure of doing for ages.)

I got a letter through from Amnesty International yesterday, thanking me for setting up a monthly direct debit and insisting that my support was helping the continued fight for human rights worldwide etc etc.

Far be it from me to have an ulterior motive for such a thing, but I may or may not have agreed to set up the direct debit on the streets of Islington in exchange for quizzing the young Amnesty volunteer with the clipboard about the new campaign and his work with the organisation, which then became the story I took back to City University's print journalism interview. The thought that, as a sideline, my money might also be helping to free political prisoners and victims of oppression worldwide is some comfort considering what little good that story did me (I didn't get the place).

Alas, such people might be waiting a while before Amnesty gets round to them. Famed for its letter-writing campaigns, the organisation seems to be slightly behind schedule in its own postal administration. The letter thanking me for setting up the direct debit pertained to something which started on 6th June and was dated 18th May 2005. It has taken the letter more than four months to arrive. Good job I wasn't in solitary confinement all that time.

Well aren't I just the domestic goddess? Windows cleaned, floor washed, bathroom done, washing now in the dryer and it's only just gone 9am. Oh, and I've made some chocolate brownies. Nigella eat your heart out. The truth is, I have guests later today.

Anyway, the LPC. It's getting more challenging - there will certainly be a lot of work this year. A good mate in Nottingham described the LPC in an email the other day as "Frankly... ...LPC reminds me of nothing so much as reading a phone book for four hours
a day. or a set of Ikea assembly instructions. Yawn". I think that's a bit harsh, and how "hard" it will actually be, I'm not so sure. I am socialising with lots of people, meeting students from a vast array of Universities. Enough said. Anyway, what is surprising is the number of "older" students. On the course there are about 180 of us: a handful (half a dozen, perhaps a few more) are in their 40s+ - nothing unusual about that. But there are so many aged 24-26. Perhaps they've done 4 year degrees, plus an MA or a gap year, maybe they did an HND thing after A-Levels, perhaps they worked before deciding the "law" was for them. Either way, at 21 I am positively young. And, I got asked for ID [again] in Morrisons yesterday. Jeez. Apparently I looked 17-18. Perhaps that's because I had bugger all make-up on so wasn't dressed to the nines. If I get asked when I am 30, I'll be happy. Oh and Morrisons isn't too bad: It has a fair-ish supply of organic fruit/veg and meat (and eggs - very important to have organic eggs in my mind) but the main problem with the store is that it is as organised as Tracey Emin's bed. I think they must be in the transition between Safeway and Morrison. Some of the shelves are bare, and other items are just hideously in the wrong place. Oh well, if I get really fed up I can trot to Tesco in Canary Wharf. Right, a shower calls and then work beckons.

My sisters Lucy (left) and Alice (right) await their fate in the stocks at Warwick Castle last weekend (whilst I was wearing a similar expression to Lucy on the edge of a sofa in Tooting). Alice looking a hippie, Lucy looking unhappy.

I forgot to mention earlier that my amazement at the proliferation of wireless networks continues. I switched on my laptop in the back of the bus home from Oxford earlier to discover no fewer than twelve networks on offer going down Oxford's High Street. There were even two networks in QI - one unsecured network named 'QI Bar' and a secure one named 'QI Back Office'. I didn't try to access either of them but maybe you can use the QI Bar one for free? That'd be extremely convenient.

Yeah I said tell my friends when I have kids I'm gonna want that child to be a long-haired child

Lyrics from Devendra Banhart's 'Long Haired Child', from his new album 'Cripple Crow', released this week. It's not a patch on 'Long Haired Kings'.

The BBC News website now has a 'splash' front page design set carefully to one side ready to take over in case of a huge breaking story. It would replace the normal front page with a special layout, allowing more content about the main story to be shown whilst leaving other news accessible.

So, which will be the first story to require the splash page? Dayorama will offer the following odds...

3/1 Hurricane (e.g. Rita)
5/1 Terrorist attack (e.g. 7/7)
13/2 Rail/air crash (e.g. TWA 800)
8/1 Other natural disaster (e.g. tsunami)
10/1 Political event (e.g. German election)
25/1 Murder/abduction manhunt (e.g. Ian Huntley)
50/1 Sporting triumph (e.g. Ashes victory)
75/1 Business collapse (e.g. Rover)
100/1 Flu pandemic (e.g. bird flu)

We'll no doubt soon find out.

So there I was, one pair of trousers looped casually over my arm while another stared down the barrel of my inquisitively circling fashion sense, when the klaxons in Next went off. One somewhat muted 'awooga' was followed, a good five or ten seconds later, by another, and eventually another and so forth. Like the lady whose voice announces floor numbers in the elevators at Reading station, one suspects the klaxon's heart was not truly in its job. I and the two or three other shoppers muttered curse words in its direction and got on with our spending, until a gent in a neon jacket interrupted us and asked us to follow a shop assistant out to a fire escape (which emerges out by Superdrug, for those with an intimate knowledge of central Oxford who harbour an interest in such things). I stood there for around five minutes contemplating whether to dive back in and rescue my abandoned trousers at the earliest opportunity, or simply go and prey on some unsuspecting slacks in Debenhams instead. I decided on the latter and took the above photo on the way to commemorate that decision-making process.

In actuality, that was not the moment for which today will remain memorable. I became distracted by Schuh on the way to Debenhams and, for the first time ever, bought not one but two pairs of shoes in one go (I say first time ever, I expect I bought both indoor and outdoor trainers in one sitting in the run-up to many a school year, but that doesn't count because I was forced into it). This was a source of great delight for the shop assistants at Schuh but, as I pointed out to them, they should enjoy it while they can, because they should well know that this means I won't buy any more shoes for a good couple of years.

Ah but wait, the buying of two pairs of shoes is still not what will live long in the memory. No, the real story lies in the logic employed in my choice of shoe. For nigh on a decade I have had an unofficial policy of buying one pair of shoes, using then near-constantly until they're practically walking to the bin of their own accord, then going out, replacing them like for like and starting the process again. It's always a cheap, black pair of shoes, they always last for about two years, they're always replaced by a near replica.

Not this time.

No, the cheap, black trainers I'm wearing right now, whilst approaching bin-able status at a rate of knots (the left shoe has developed an uncanny ability to wedge grass inside the sole and shed it once safely over dry carpet), have been delivered a reprieve. Instead I have armed (footed?) myself with one pair brown Converse, one pair silver New Balance. There will still exist a place in the rota for the black trainers, just as I might try to involve my old blue New Balance a little more. They're the fallout from my last great attempt to break out of my one-pair-of-shoes lifestyle, where I bought an extra pair but subsequently ignored them on a daily basis - this time I've bought two more pairs so that the guilt if I persist with the black trainers will overwhelm me.

In other news, I have been replaced the mortar board that was sacrificed to The Mitre restaurant in the immediate aftermath of this summer's exams, and sorted out my BA gown, in preparation for next week's graduation ceremony. I'm told I won't need my commoners' gown (the 'big' ceremony doesn't have enough time so we just go in wearing the BA gown, apparently), but one of my lucky guests will be given the honour of carrying it for me just in case. The lady who will be looking after my gown on the day was the cleaner for my first year room at uni, which is a lovely little piece of closure. I'm now sat in QI, where for the first time ever I've sat down when they're actually serving proper food. Steak sandwich for me, and very nice it was too. I'd better remember to ask for the bill this time, since I'm on my own and it would be a little embarrassing to pack up and sidle off without even thinking about paying.

Final thought: there are swarms of tourists still here, being shown around in packs of 20 or 30 by the same rag-tag assortment of guides. I wonder how many such groups will turn up outside the LCC's buildings in Elephant & Castle...

Thanks to Amy J: 'lounging around doing nowt but look up rubbish on t'internet pays off'. Speaking of which, the BitTorrent thing seems to work now... sort of. I remain unconvinced and I've bought the DVD anyway.

I'm so remarkably keen on anime series Full Metal Alchemist right now that when I couldn't get episodes 24 and 25 to play on my borrowed DVD earlier today, the quest to find more FMA entirely consumed me.

The disc I have only has episodes 1 to 26 out of 51 in total, so having read plot synopses of 24 and 25 online to tide me over and watched 26, I now need the second disc. Alas, that's still with its rightful owner in Tooting, so I'd need to go back there to get hold of it. Chances are I won't be doing that in the near future (at least not, I expect, til Wednesday when I move to Streatham) so I needed an alternative source for my FMA fix.

My first port of call was BitTorrent. This is a file-sharing system whereby many individual users all have small pieces of a much larger file and share them around via a network, thus eventually all ending up with the entire file. On starting a 'torrent' you initially have no pieces of this larger puzzle, but slowly acquire one or two and eventually you're trading freely. At least that, so far as I understand it, is the principle - it's all done automatically by your PC and you don't have to do anything once you've set the process in motion.

In actuality, I did nothing having set the process in motion and my PC followed suit. After three hours it had accumulated a grand total of 500kb out of an 8.5Gb file, promising me an estimated download time of 37,000 hours (just over four years). Fantastic though I have been led to believe BitTorrent is, this is the second occasion on which I've tried it and the second on which I've had absolutely no success. So we've established that I'm useless with it - in all probability it's great for everyone who can get it working properly - but that got me no closer to my beloved Full Metal Alchemist.

Back to eBay for the first time in a year we went then. Last time I ventured forth into eBay, it was to grab a copy of Kaiser Chiefs' debut single (still retailing comfortably into double figures on there now). For the same price as I got my Chiefs' CD, I nabbed a copy of the entire series of FMA on DVD which should hopefully be with me next week. Moral of the story: if you can't do something yourself inside a reasonable period of time, pay someone else to do it.

Last week's big purchase, a new external hard drive (the first time I've had such a thing), has also finally seen the light of day. My music collection has almost finished transferring itself onto it, which should still leave me around 110Gb for future acquisitions. Very useful indeed.

Finally in this little outpouring of minutiae, I have heard the new Kate Bush single several times now and I love it. Initially it didn't really grab me, but on closer inspection it's an extremely atmospheric, multi-layered song and more than worthy of leading her comeback after 12 years. It is already occupying top spot on the Amazon Hot 100 more than a month ahead of release:

If you want to hear it, go to the Ken Bruce page on the BBC Radio 2 website, click 'Listen Again' for Wednesday's show, then skip forward 35 minutes and wait patiently til the previous song ends and Ken gets round to introducing her...

Just in case anyone is wondering, OJ is alive and well in Crete. Apparently he is turning into one giant freckle, made up of lots of little freckles! Oh not to turn brown!

Bloody Doncaster. They somehow ended up dumping Manchester City out of the Carling Cup this evening. I sat with an air of horror and resignation as our earlier goal was cancelled out by means of a sending off and a penalty, followed by an abject surrender in the subsequent penalty shoot-out. Manchester City players have now struck the frame of the goal with shots nine times in two matches.

Hmm. Toytown? Noddy? Kent? Me? Possible.

Remember my Finals obsession with Belinda Carlisle and repeated playings of "In Too Deep"? Well it turns out that it isn't just me. In the Metro this morning, an article details obsessions held by Tony and Cherie Blair. One ritual Mr Blair "apparently insists upon" for trips abroad is the "same Belinda Carlisle CD played again and again". Oh dear...

Mew and Pure Reason Revolution were both fantastic at the Islington Academy in London yesterday. They're both right up my prog rock street in their own 21st-century style. Mew have a new album out next week and PRR have one due out in October if you're interested.

Before the gig I went up to see Amy's new flat, as she mentioned yesterday. It's very nice indeed - very light and airy, and with a spacious main living area considering the overall size of the flat. The Bow buildings do have something of the feel of a hotel, rabbit warrens of bland corridors that they are, but there's no faulting the actual accommodation itself. Your own little shop, neatly tended gardens, a fish pond, security patrolling the premises, you can't ask for much more.

I took some photos whilst I was there (as instructed by Amy and OJ, I might add), and they're reproduced below. Scroll over each image for a caption.

Please note: there were originally other photos here but they've been removed on Amy's instruction, on the basis that enterprising thieves may search for weblogs related to the Bow Quarter, notice a post which includes photos of the interior of one Bow Quarter flat, establish from the decor and the London Concrete view exactly which room it is, then bypass the 24-hour security and surveillance, break into the flat and steal everything, suicidal cats and all. If you would like to see the other photos, let one of us know, although we will have to run a thorough criminal record check on you.

Today, I had my first visitor in the form of Ollie. We met in Chancery Lane and then meandered (after walking for miles at Bank, but that's another story) over to Bow. We then went to Barclays so I could pay in my maintenance cheque (yay!) - I'm pleased there is a Barclays on the Bow Road: most useful. We then returned to the flat and Ollie was right in agreeing that the complex is rather like being in a hotel resort: on that note, we both wish the Woodings a relaxing holiday. Bastards. After a bit of lunch etc, Ollie and I both decided to amuse ourselves i.e. ignore each other but do random things on a laptop. Ollie was having some strop or other over click music, and I decided to complete some of my elearning modules for City. Oh dear oh dear. A useful exercise, but oh so tedious: a power point or woman chatting to me over WMP followed by a series of questions. It has taken me nearly three hours to complete 8 of these damn things - only two to go! I'd rather have a pen and some paper thanks very much.

So, that's it. I am now a fully fledged single occupier. Amusingly, when I went to write "Home Alone" in the title of this post, the other entry beginning with "H" was the Homicide Act. heh. Anyway, it is all very exciting, because I have my first proper guest tomorrow: Ollie. I have just come back from Morrisons (yes, loval shop: it's ok for everything tinned/frozen/veg, but perhaps it'll be a trip to Canary Wharf Waitrose/Tesco for meat/fish) with some diet coke, in preparation for his arrival!

Normally when I'm in a hospital in the dead of the night, it's a sure sign that I've either been eating a takeaway or playing sport.

On Friday night, however, I became an 'adopted medic' as the students at St George's teaching hospital held a disco within the hospital itself. I never realised this kind of thing happened inside hospitals - in one block all the patients settling down for the night, and in the next, two hundred students and assorted friends partying on down until the early hours.

I initially didn't think I'd done quite as badly as my previous best attempt at alcoholism - a Sunday afternoon drunk on the tube - but I woke up this morning with a hangover unlike anything I have ever experienced. My ventures into the world of alcohol are few and far between, as is illustrated by the quivering wreck that perched on the edge of a sofa, shivering, from 11:30am until 2pm. I didn't eat all day until 7pm, and sudden movements or loud noises were both met with a sizeable quantity of pain.

The problem was that much like in Oxford, St George's operates a 'family' system, so that students in upper years take on new students as their 'sons' or 'daughters'. This means that extended 'families' can develop quite rapidly over a few years. I was at the party with my friend Becky, who has already acquired a father, grandfather and several uncles of dubious origin in her three weeks in south London. Each of them bought her a drink and, for reasons beyond my ken, bought me a drink too purely because I happened usually to be in the vicinity. This meant free alcohol, which is always by far the most lethal variety of alcohol. I'm very good at staying sober when I'm having to pay for my intake, not only because of my natural predilection for Diet Coke, but because I can't stand seeing my money wasted on stupidly expensive brand-name alcoholic concoctions. Spending someone else's money on those very same beverages, especially someone I'm never likely to see again, is an entirely different matter.

Now that I think back to Friday night's events, things I took for granted in an inebriated haze now seem a little odd. Becky took off her shoes to dance at one point, which didn't attract a second glance from me at the time, but exposing your bare feet to dance on a surface littered with discarded cups and spilt drink now seems like an insane decision to make. Becky gave me about £4 to go and get her a Diet Coke or some water out of a vending machine in an attempt to sober up at the end of the night - I could only find cans of Lilt, and can distinctly remember not thinking twice about downing Lilt on top of god knows what else at 2am, then pocketing the £3 change. A random girl and I ended up leaning on the bar with our hands in each other's faces in a bid to stop the other from being served first before comparing the merits of our wristbands. I sampled the merits of snakebite for the first time. Back at Becky's house one of her housemates crashed topless into the living room at around 3am, pausing momentarily to register the presence of a bloke in the room before sitting down in a corner and having a chat. It's a good job I was drunk or else I wouldn't have known where to look! As it was, I was drunk, and I knew precisely where I was looking.

So the last day or so has been quite a voyage of discovery. Aside from my by now semi-traditional once-a-month alcohol-fuelled rampage (October's will by my freshers week at LCC, November will be my birthday, December will be something festive no doubt, January onwards to be confirmed), I also learnt to appreciate the fabulous nature of the Japanese cartoon series Full Metal Alchemist. None of that Full Metal Jacket nonsense here - this is an anime adventure starring two teenage brothers who happen to be alchemists. One of them has a metal arm and leg, true, and the other has no body due to an earlier alchemical mishap and instead has his soul housed in a particularly menacing-looking suit of armour, but other than that they're just normal kids. Oh and things happen like people's children being transformed into child-dog hybrids then blown up by mysterious individuals who lurk in the shadows. But again, aside from that, normal kids. This is the lead character, State Alchemist Edward Elric:

I've got the first 26 episodes on a DVD lent to me by Becky, and am eight episodes in so far. I watched two on the train on the way back today. The new laptop is proving a total winner - in Becky's thus far internetless house I had a small queue of people wanting to use the wireless access forming, including one housemate who used it to pay her overdue rent! Meanwhile the battery life really is well into the five-hour-plus range - the two episodes I watched on the train, with above-average screen brightness, used up 13 per cent of the battery in their combined 50 minutes. That's impressive. (Also of note: at Marylebone station, when I switched the laptop on, it found two unsecured wireless networks lying around waiting to be used! I think that's fantastic, I guess it must be like that all around London now.)

Note before reading this post: If you live in Somerset or Devon (like OJ &c.), you may not understand the phrases "housing development" or "housing estate". These are phenomenon that exist all over Kent (a heavily populated county with too many buildings, according to OJ) and incite hatred amongst those who want chocolate box villages to remain as they were when the chocolate box was first painted, and glee amongst old dears who like to complain against anything. Needless to say, every planning officer in Kent retires early.

Anyway, I am straying off the point (rather as housing developments stray alongside roads). A few years ago, every housing development seemed to look the same. In the 1990s new estates were just row upon row of square houses, with or without some mock weatherboard or timber frame, and occasionally with a garage or two. The gardens were no bigger than postage stamps (2nd class at that) and the idea seemed to be to squash as many houses as possible into one small area. However, in recent months a change seems to be sweeping across Kent. There are two relatively new building developments which have occurred close to where my family home is in Kent. The first, on the outskirts of Ashford (voted the UK’s number 1 place to live…) has been completed for a while now and the development seems increasingly popular. I’ve tired to find a link on Google, but my searching skills have failed. Anyway, these flats have landscaped gardens, wide roads between properties, columns at the entrance to the development, hanging baskets, street lamps, rubbish bins. Is this really just a standard estate? And yet that is what it is being sold as. The other new development is also along the A20, but towards Maidstone (less desirable, if you can say Ashford is desirable in the first place). This development has one building which looks rather like a replica oast house (another Kent thing), other houses have interesting cobbles and flint (also Kentish), and all in all each house looks different. Perhaps we are finally moving away from being forced to live in identical, square homes and are able to chose an “estate”, where every house does have character, and heaven forbid, is unique. I dare say price may come into the equation too.

Well, as you will have gathered I had my ?Registration? day for the LPC (Legal Practice Course) at the Inns of Court School of Law (ICSL) today. The ICSL is part of City University, so apparently I have access to all of the City facilities. This also means I now have a dull green City University Card. Where has my Bodleian card gone? Sob. The actual location of the ICSL is lovely: the buildings overlook the greenery surrounding Gray?s Inn. However, the interiors of the buildings are less pleasant: very brown with low ceilings and orange chairs.

Anyway, so I arrived at 10.40am as my timetable suggested and was directed by a man behind a desk to the third floor of the main building. I wandered up and joined a queue. At the end of the queue was a young woman who checked that I had paid my fees along with another couple of things, and then I was given my ICSL card, City card and a swipe card. It was then back downstairs to register for the library and the IT suit. So far, no body seemed to be talking to each other, bar the one lonely boy who decided to discuss his train journey in: yes, everyone had been affected by the fact they suspended the Circle line for a while this morning, thank you very much. So I then registered for the library and my computer login/passwords are all activated. I still felt like a stranger: here I was doing all these things and yet no one had actually talked about the course, called me by my name or anything. Incidentally, the City webmail interface is dire (Ollie: if you want to see it for a laugh, in OJ?s words: ?Gosh. That?s really awful isn?t it. The little pictures are from Windows 95!!! Heh?, then let me know and I?ll provide you with a link!)

And then salvation arrived in the form of two Oxford students who I?ve known by sight/first name terms for the past three years. And from that point things brightened up. We had a pleasant lunch together (which saved me from either spending the 2hr wait I had with a stranger, or sitting on my own in Starbucks) and then attended a lecture at 1.30pm on ?What the LPC will be like?. It appears that you need ?enthusiasm, commitment and stamina?. All in all I think that if I approach this year hoping that I will enjoy it, and get quite a lot out of it, then there is no reason why I shouldn?t. The work will be consistent, but I think given how we coped with the Oxford workload, there shouldn?t be too much of a culture shock: it will be different in style, but hopefully less in volume. Luckily, after the two first weeks, which are described as intensive, I will have the all courses in the morning (9-2), rather than the afternoon (1-6) and the rest of the time will be for individual study. Sounds good to me. After the talk, we collected our course materials (two heavy carrier bags full of books) and then left. I then went back to my flat, with my feet singing the hallelujah chorus (I wore my high-heeled boots because on a day like this it?s always difficult to judge if you can get away with trainers, or need something a bit more) and was met by a lovely bunch of flowers from OJ. Aww, bless. And now I?m at home after fighting the Friday traffic in the Blackwall Tunnel for chocolate, wine, tv and bed (and shouting: my Dad is doing his tax return?).

That's because they're all underwater, with their boats - invasion of the ship sinking sea lions.

Also, another post to keep me away from the oodles of files and bits of paper that await something to be done with them: I have hereby revoked sleeping privileges on my sports bag for Emma, one of our cats. Before bed, both my mum and I commented on how cute and camouflaged Em was, being a black cat on a black bag. She looked very grateful too, all curled up. This morning, instead of Emma there was a puddle of brown sick, which has now left a rather nasty mark on what was a very nice bag. Funnily enough, I have yet to see Em. Bad cat. Still, not quite as bad as Matty Catty and Ollie’s briefcase.

I’d best get this in now, prior to Amy’s return and what will surely be a longer (and more interesting) post about her first day as a student not at Oxford. What kind of friends will she have made? Did she remember her games kit? Could she find the assembly hall? Dayorama awaits…

Actually, Amy’s now full time presence in Bow reminds me to post about an article I saw in The Spectator a few weeks ago, that looked at the growing trend of Idea Stores, and particularly the example in Bow. Regular Dayorama readers will have seen the Idea Store mentioned in posts past, variously as a place for cheap coffee, and a potential place for Amy to work. The article itself is not overly critical, though many would be. The provision of a subsidised café, and in particular free internet access, is a good thing, providing services that are in-tune with the demands of modern life, and undeniably attractive. However, they are placed as the equals, or even superiors, to the books. Surely these should be the foremast part of the Idea Store, not relegated to a bit part?

Well here we are, my first post from London. I’m all snuggled up in my flat and all seems to be sorted with the exception of dodgy tv reception. Today I’ve evened managed to install Norton Internet Security today at the grand price of $108.84. It’s going to be quite interesting to know what the complex looks like at night, how noisy the road outside is etc., and of course actually sleeping here for the first time and getting the tube into Chancery Lane tomorrow. Apparently I have to be at this “registration” day for 10.40am. I have no idea what it will be like, who will be there, how many people will be there and how long it will last. I guess that episode will be told tomorrow…

A few days ago I wrote about the feeling that the heart of Manchester United had been ripped out of Old Trafford, and how that physically manifested itself:

The banners produced by United fans that used to dom