Fan-tastic.

With regard to the problem I was having in yesterday's episode, I eventually located Word 97 on an old Gateway 2000 CD. The disc didn't quite work any more, giving me error messages about MSOTHUNK.DLL and other whatnots missing, but it seems to be working fine. No more missing registry entries and "Cannot Open Existing ." for me. Thanks, everyone, for all your offers of various versions, but I'm safe for now.

I just noticed a glaring omission on the world map on the front of the "Ethos" bottled water that I bought in Berkeley. Well, actually the truth is that I noticed it ages ago and didn't have anything else to write about until now, when I decided to mention it. Sorry, my wittering is making this anecdote lose its impact somewhat. Anyway, the aforementioned glaring omission is that the entire British Isles is (are? Donald, help) missing from the map. So much for us being America's partners in Bush's war on a noun.

At least buying it apparently gave water to someone in need in a developing country. If I'm going to have to buy bottled water then I might as well do some good while I'm at it. Speaking of water, it's pelting down just now.

I can't get rid of the oily smell on my hands, because work today involved cleaning the ceiling fans - and I don't mean cleaning in the sense of just polishing up a bit, I mean in a sort of "Oh, so that's what colour they're meant to be" way.

My employer also asked me if I could work near Christmas, as apparently she's very pleased with my work. Not bad for the only man working in the kitchen, is it? After that the entire staff was forced to retreat from the building before the rainwater level in the car park rose over their car bonnets.

Here's another observation - isn't it great when the younger siblings go back to school? Suddenly you've got the house to yourself - or at least, just myself and Jamie.