Chinese water torture for £7.20

Once upon a time I wondered to myself what Chinese water torture would actually feel like, and marvelled at the fact that simple drops of water could have such an effect on a person. Well today I found out the effect it can have and it was not pleasant at all.

I needed to get my hair cut today, mainly because I was starting to look like a wild mountain man. (I also haven’t shaved for a week which amplifies the effect somewhat). So whilst sitting in the barbers chair, the barber gave my hair a little spray of water which led to a droplet of water forming on my forehead.

Immediately I thought to myself “Do not think this is water torture” which of course meant that I of course did. I then became very aware that there was this droplet of water on my forehead and the feeling got worse and worse over the course of a few minutes. As the drop slowly moved downwards, it really felt like it was agony and eventually I had to wipe my forehead before I jumped out of the chair screaming.

Not bad for the bargain price of £7.20 I thought and as a bonus I look slightly less mountain man than before. The beard is staying for a while though, mainly so I can scare my parents tomorrow morning when they are stopping by to say hello on their way to see friends on the south coast.

Court Summons

I had a little heart in mouth moment this morning, as did my post lady when I hurriedly answered the door half dressed. She held in her hand a package I needed to sign for and an ominous looking brown A5 envelope whose return address was Her Majesty’s Courts Service.

Hmm, I thought, maybe I did get snapped on my way back from Leeds the other week and will have to face the beak to justify my actions. Luckily it appeared not to be the case, I have instead been summoned for Jury Duty in February.

I have always wanted to be selected for Jury Duty as it’d be a great way to see how the courts work as well as seeing just how the justice system functions. I am looking forward to it immensely.

Havana hello

I took the opportunity whilst away to stock my cigars up. Prior to going away I was dead out – zip, nada. Earlier on in the year when my folks went to Cuba I gave them a specific list of what I wanted (which freaked them out a little bit) and they then decided not to get them for me “because they looked expensive.”

I have enjoyed a good cigar since I was 18 and my then best friend Stuarts dad had a collection of Churchills that he occasionally let us raid. Once I got to 21 I had found my feet in the cigar world and had started to find which cigars I preferred for specific occasions. One of my lurkers here might come into the open and comment about my 21st birthday party and the cigars I smoked, who knows.

Anyhow, having not had a decent cigar for about a year, I hugely enjoyed going into the cigar bar at the hotel when I was away and sampling a few cigars I hadn’t previously tried. I had a disagreement with a chap who tried unsuccessfully to get me to dip the end of my cigar into his brandy ( a big no no) and once I laughed a little too loud when an American complained that they only sold Cuban cigars.

So I’m now relatively stocked up. I could have brought 50 cigars back and been within the duty free limit, but I brought 38 which will last me 10-12 months on my own or 6 months if I invite people round for a cigar night a couple of times.

I shall be starting the new year in style, with a Cohiba Robusto and a glass or three of Armagnac.

Working + tiredness + Red Stripe = disaster

On Christmas Eve I was merrily working away in my office at home and as the afternoon progressed I was also happily tucking into a few beers. I’m not sure whether it was because I wasn’t particularly paying attention, or was getting demob happy, but I then proceeded to knock an almost full can of beer onto my laptop.

The laptop then proceeded to die a slow agonising death, even as I quickly mopped up the beer and took the keyboard off to try and stop the beer from seeping into the actual laptop.

Luckily it not only has a 3 year next business day warranty but also an accidental damage policy (I seem to damage laptops on a regular basis).So, Dell are picking it up tomorrow to examine it, after which they will either fix it, or replace it. They say it could be up to 10 working days, which is the only drawback. So for now I’m using my home machine which incidentally has been on its last legs for some months, it also means that I’ll be working from home until the laptop is back – there is no point going to the office if I don’t have a machine to work on.

Working?

Is anybody else working today?

I have quite a bit to do, so am sat here at home ploughing through it. I haven’t yet caught up with all the emails that I got whilst I was away and I have a couple of pieces of work that I need to get finished for customers this week. I also need to finish my budgets for 2008, which have been on my todo list for a few weeks now. After our Christmas lunch on Friday I let everybody have the three days this week off, it won’t be busy and we have an on-call rota for the week anyway.

There is one customer that I know will call tomorrow with a problem. I hope they call earlier in the day before I settle down with copious amounts of alcohol inside me