Well, in the end I did go to Arundel for Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and the nights before and after. It wasn't ideal, but it kept the family happy and I had a reasonable time of it.

Given the weather earlier in the week, the journey down from Cambridgeshire was astonishingly uneventful. There was a bit of rain, a bit of misty fog… but almost no traffic. I chose to go clockwise around the M25 and things were free running through the Olympic widening works. The less major roads down near Arundel itself were also fine, apart from five miles where I got stuck behind a clapped-out Land Rover. Any other day, I'd have overtaken, but after a week of ice-shod doom, with the temperature low enough for black ice, I decided to put up with it. I got to Arundel refreshed, having almost forgotten what it's like to drive when traction can be relied upon!

Immediately on arriving at the place, I noticed something. The (only) photo supplied by the proprietors online is this one:



…which looks fairly sensible and respectable. Unfortunately, what I found was this:



In fact, the situation was twice as serious as the photo shows: it was all stroboscopically flashing, so half of it is extinguished in the photo. I boggle.

Inside, the place wasn't too bad. The decor was pleasant enough, though tended towards giving the impression that no expense had been spared to give the impression that no expense had been spared: brass light switches, a job lot of passably oriental rugs strewn everywhere, flagstone floors using that curious stone only B&Q can slice so thinly, etc. There was secondary double glazing, the locks didn't work on either toilet door, the over-bath shower had no curtain, the dishwasher's timer was broken so would never stop washing and the only table large enough to play board games was in an underheated conservatory. My bedroom, against all reason, had a leopard-print duvet cover. The pillows were much too soft: one wasn't supportive enough, and two would plump up enough to press against my nose when I lay on my side. Everything had been laundered in something that seared the flesh; I'm going to have a rash for a few days. The bedstead had very free-running wheels but was on a wooden floor: it rolled around whenever I turned over in bed, and getting in and out of bed was an interesting challenge. As a final clincher, the curtains served merely to funnel dawn's rays straight onto the head of the bed.

Oh, and the headroom at the bottom of the staircase was restricted. This wasn't a problem if you could see what you were doing, but I did bang my head once when going to the loo in the night.

And the largest glasses in the place were a pair of half-pinters. But one broke the very first time we put it through the dishwasher. And none of the other glasses were anything approaching cylindrical. Suddenly, diluting Ribena became a very inexact science.

I'm very glad I didn't agree to stay a week there, and very glad I didn't agree to pay a third of the £900 for a week. But for a couple of days of playing boardgames, it sufficed.


We played Settlers, Carcassonne, Trivial Pursuit (there was a set there, with questions we didn't already know), Ticket To Ride, Careers and Mine a Million — a reasonable mixture of traditional games and more modern ones with greater sophistication to their gameplay.


Food-wise, I made myself a cheesy loaf. I also noticed I had a jar of Tiptree Cranberry Jelly that I bought in Harrod's a few months ago, so took that along as suitably festive. We ate various other assorted nibbles, including some Morrison's own-brand cocktail snacks that were impressively bland: my mum preferred those; she doesn't seem to appreciate any kind of strong flavour any more.


On Boxing Day, we drove out to Bosham and had lunch at the Anchor Bleu. I winced at the Franglais, but the pub was cosy, nicely-presented and bustling with friendly locals. The pub grub was passable, though far from brilliant. On the way back to the car I was pleased to find a shop selling Loseley ice cream. We then went to Chichester, where we spent 45 minutes looking around the fine cathedral followed by ninety looking around the same shops you'd find on any high street anywhere — which struck me as very much the wrong way round. The cathedral is very fine, and contained surprise Gustav Holst tomb, which was nicely seasonal given my favourite Christmas carol. There was also a fine old Dominican hymnal, a Roman mosaic and some fascinating portraiture on old wood panelling. The pipe organ left me indifferent; then I realised I'd only seen the nave organ and the main instrument was a far more splendid affair. They also had the Hurdis organ: a small pipe organ from 1780 that has been carefully restored and fitted with an electric blower and is still used today. Wikipedia says there are even a couple more lesser pipe organs hidden elsewhere.

What I didn't do was visit Arundel Castle, and it does look worth visiting.


On the journey home, the M25 was messed up, so I took a meandering route via Hindhead, the Devil's Punchbowl, Chertsey, Virginia Water, Egham, Old Windsor and Denham before finally joining the motorway at Rickmansworth — I added an hour to my journey time but I was in no hurry and the time spent following the meanders of the Thames easily beat mingling with all the poor deluded fools queueing to be cavity-searched on their way to the USA via Heathrow.

And now I'm back in Cambridgeshire, which for the time being is feeling uncannily empty of people I know…

Today's XKCD (the large version) set me thinking.

So the Earth's gravity well is only 6,379km. A tiny amount of maths indicates this is 17.4 kWh per kilogram. British Gas will sell me 17.4 kWh of gas for about sixty pence. So enough gas to launch a 100kg person out of Earth orbit costs £60.

There are, of course, some problems:

• After a while, you run out of oxygen in which to burn the gas.
  
• Natural gas has a typical energy density of 17.1 kWh/kg.
  
• Even extremely efficient vehicles needs 0.28 kWh/kg to travel 6,379km on the level.

Even so, we're now almost 1% of the way through the third millennium; where's my flying car, dammit?

Tonight we went out for a meal in the pub in my village and I had a couple of glasses of white wine. As I no longer tend to drink white wine it went to my head. I was feeling very mischievous and could not resist hopping over a low fence in order to walk over someones lawn and lave footprints in the snow. My Aunt and Uncle thought it was very funny but my teenage daughters told me off............I struggled to get back over fence on my way back from my naughty deed.

blue_donkey was stuffing a bird into the boot of his car ready for Christmas........he informs me it used to be of the feathered variety. I guess I will find out on Christmas Eve when we turn up at his. Tomorrow evening Donkey and I are off to friends to a Mulled wine evening, there are lots of lovely gardens near their house and I wonder if I could stomp over their lawns and leave pretty little patterns.

Happy Winter Solstice, folks. The nights are as long as they get and we're now heading back towards Summer.

Or, at least, we would be if it weren't for seasonal lag. Drat!

Recently, I read The Secret Life of Words. I enjoyed it. It wasn't a fantastic book that changed my life, but it was a pleasant enough bimble for the most part.

Henry Hitchings said on a few occasions something along the lines of "it is often said that ABC, whereas in fact XYZ". Either there was an outrageous fluke at play or this was code in every case for "Bill Bryson got this wrong in Mother Tongue".

Bill Bryson seems to get quite a lot of stuff wrong; he's especially good at apocryphal anecdotes. On the other hand, Mother Tongue is a much better read. Henry Hitchings seems to have written a history of England from the perspective of its language more than a book about the language, and in that respect it's no match for The Isles, to pick one example. However, even with all of the historical context, it still in places comes across as one dry list of words after another. I wish he'd told a deeper and more involving story about the sources of a smaller selection of words.

One thing I thought curious was that Hitchings claimed "ohrwurm" is a common loan word from German, without acknowledging that its calque, "earworm" is found much more frequently. Personally, I saw and heard "earworm" off and on for many years before I even knew its Germanic origin.

But all of this is a digression.

There is good news and there is bad.

The bad news is that I have an earworm: the Spice Girls cover of Christmas Wrapping. The good news is that it's actually of them singing West End Girls to the same tune, which is altogether more surreal and gratifying.

joebunny won't understand this, but jagwap probably will.

The last watch I bought was in 1997 when I didn't buy a house. It was a Gucci 2000. I still like it and still wear it as my "posh watch". But....

I like HP calculators. I have a 30+ year old 19C which I still use. It's on it's third set of batteries, but every element on the display still works, as does the printer (last time I used it). Not a lot of people know that HP did a watch once. It was the HP-01. It think it looks great. I've thought about buying one a few times as they come up on ebay.

there's one on ebay at the moment. If looks immaculate, but with 7 days still to go on the auction, it's already reached $759. If this one is anything to go by, then it'll go for shit loads.

They have gone for cheaper, but it's obviously in no where near as good a condition as the others. I suppose you pay your money and make your choice.

Now I just had an idea (or rather I've just thought of an excuse)....

I have a x0 birthday next year. I think I may have worked out what I want to get myself :-)

The next problem is to decide how much I'm willing to spend on a 32 year old watch.