Chris Hansen’s blog

• 03:18 back at M Street having finished a glass of absinthe. Liquorice. OK, but I wouldn’t go out of my way for it. Lovely Mexican food for dinner #

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• 04:39 in Washington DC now…very sleepy. see you toorrow #
• 19:22 a bit under the weather here in DC but massing my forces to sally out shortly. it’s quite hot here. Brett is an amazing host. #
• 19:24 @Keith_london well, at least she’s done the right thing by not contesting the next election. the cull will continue!! #
• 19:24 just posted my postal vote for the European Parliament elections. Glad that’s done. #
• 21:13 @Keith_london they should get zero! They’ve already fleeced us enough. Tweeted from Pentagon City Mall Virginia. #
• 21:15 At Pentagon City Mall where a Best Buy was said to be. Alas, not! #

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I realise I’ve been a bit remiss lately in blogging. It’s been a bit hectic. I waved goodby to HWMBO on Monday, and he has arrived back in the UK safely. My meds and absentee ballot are winging their way to Washington DC, as I soon will be.

I am hoping to see  on Friday for some of the tourist thang. I am leaving for New York on June 2nd, so give me a call! Perhaps dinner on Friday with whoever wants it would be good.

• 12:32 good morning, twiiterverse. HWMBO is already home and normal service there will resume shortly. Off to DC tomorrow. #
• 15:35 @Keith_london she is extremely good. Princeton, Yale, more judicial experience than any sitting Justice. She’ll do very well. #

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• 17:32 @sbrettell arrive Weds afternoon at Dulles, leave June 2 from Union Sta. Get in tweet-touch on Weds. #
• 17:33 @leightonoc i’m in marblehead now…until Weds. #
• 21:51 @sgboy it’s ok for me. Try cutting down the dose. #
• 21:55 @Keith_london older joke: She’s so fat that when she sits around the house she SITS AROUND THE HOUSE! Better when told not written. #
• 22:01 HWMBO at airport. Miss him already #

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I shall be arriving in Washington DC on Wednesday. I’m staying a week. Thus, those who wish to can email me at chris at christianphansen dot com or comment in this journal, and we can get an evening together to meet, greet, and eat somewhere in Washington. I have not been there in more than 20 years so I expect it’s changed quite a lot. I won’t be able to wander through the Capitol building unescorted this time, unlike last time. I gather the Metro is quite a bit more extensive so I’ll be interested in doing that.

• 01:15 i apologise for the absence of tweets today. i plead terminal indolence. must try harder tomorrow. #
• 14:39 @andytinkham i had to set up my brother’s comcast DSL earlier this week and the cust rep was good and thanked ME at the end for a good call #

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I neglected to mention that we spent Wednesday afternoon with and , who drove up from Cambridge. This is Moving Week for them, so HWMBO and I appreciate them taking the time to have lunch with us. In order to obviate the parking problems downtown, they parked here and we walked downtown to The Landing for lunch. Dropped by Crocker Park and Abbot Hall on the way back home, also dropping in on my brother’s shop. There are pictures, and one might appear later. In fact, here it is!

Thursday I’ve written about.

Friday I met my friend Zeke from the sheplist. Lovely guy—we had a walk up to the old part of town where we had lunch at The Muffin Shop: HWMBO’s favourite shop for lobster rolls. Well, when we were almost finished with our meals HWMBO showed up and joined us for a lobster roll and conversation. There is also a picture from today which I will post anon, anon being right now:

That evening my brother and sister took us to the Outback for our now traditional steak meal. I had a prime rib which was absolutely perfect—in contradistinction to the one I had on Thursday. Back home to bed.

Yesterday was shopping day. We got some stuff for my brother’s computer, some stuff for us (clothes, peanut butter, things like that), and enjoyed ourselves. Steak tips for dinner, barbecued on the grill outside. My brother shared a rack of lamb with a friend, Wendy. It was his first taste of lamb, and he thinks he’d like it when not heavily spiced up. Last night/this morning there were several rather loud thunderclaps that served to keep me awake longer than I should have been.

Today’s scheduled events are lunch with Dawn Bucket, the local columnist for the Marblehead Reporter. Why “Dawn Bucket”, you ask? In Marblehead up until the 19th century, the sewers were open channels along the road (as was true in England up until Bazalgette and the Victorian sewers). When one arose, the contents of the chamber pot needed disposal. Thus, the homeowner would open a window and yell “Whip!” to attract the attention of passers-by, who would take cover/move rapidly away and then yell “Down Bucket!”, at which point the contents of the chamber pot would be tossed from the window into the sewer. The challenge/response “Whip!/Down Bucket!” became a Marblehead catchphrase, and thus the Pyramids.

After lunch, we’ll be off to Best Buy to pick up one more item for the computer, and then our farewell dinner for HWMBO, who returns to London tomorrow afternoon. I am here until Wednesday, when I fly to Washington DC.

• 15:37 Morning tweeters all. Off to shop soon-yes Nicky, we’ll get your Goober Grape, don’t worry! #

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• 05:13 back from boston. bushed. time for bed, tweeters mine. story tomorrow. #
• 12:06 morning, tweeters mine and all. very tiring day yesterday, hope that today is a bit less frantic and cooler, but not apt to be cooler anyway #

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We went into Boston yesterday to meet and have lunch. Relatively uneventful bus ride in, but that was the last uneventful thing that happened.

, being in university, is fairly lively and a late sleeper. So, we met at 1 pm infront of the Boston Public Library. Ended up at a pub where I had a lovely burger and HWMBO had a tuna melt. We set the world to rights over beer and Diet Pepsi.

then took his leave to resume his nap, and we decided to go to the Institute of Contemporary Art. It’s quite a big building in the pier area of the harbour. HWMBO took pictures; I didn’t bother. There were a couple of interesting exhibits, including one of the artist who created the iconic “Hope” poster for the Obama campaign. It was free night (they normally charge $15 to get in!) so we went to the shop and got a few things.

Then we had two choices. We could get a bus back to Marblehead, or we could eat and then get a bus back to Marbkehead. We wanted to do the bus, but none came at the scheduled time. So, we thought we’d missed one. We went to the Boston Beer Works. First problem: HWMBO (who is 43) did not bring any identification, and they carded him for beer. He ordered root beer, and I ordered a pale ale. Well, the beer was vile. Any Brit would have thought it tasted worse than pee.

HWMBO ordered shrimp, and I ordered prime rib from their “Brit” menu. It was the “Prince” size. We waited so long that I caught a passing waitress and asked for a basket of chips and salsa. She said “I’m not your waitress, but I think I know who is.” I could only mutter “You all look alike.” The chips arrived just after our dinners did, so I sent them back.

The shrimp were tasteless (according to HWMBO), and the “prime rib, medium” was grey and dry. Dry prime rib??? Whoda thunk it? There were gobs of fat on the periphery, of course, none of which I ate (but all of which I paid for). The fries were passable.

We made a mistake with restaurants. But, we still had lots of time to get to the bus. We waited. No bus. Another hour. No bus, no word as to when one would come. Finally a T inspector came and said there had been an incident. A bus would finally arrive. The lady with the wheelchair was relieved as her battery was about to go dead. We got home at 11:45 pm. Whew!

• 13:11 @mkrigsman oh crumbs. I left my shorts in London #
• 13:12 @sbrettell yes, I’m in Boston at the moment. Going to DC next week and NYC at the beginning of june. sorry for the delay but had to set up. #
• 13:14 thanks to all who sent best wishes for mmy trip to the US. Just got totally set up yesterday so general thanks!! #

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• 12:47 @tug Poppies coming out? Gay poppies? Who knew!? #
• 12:51 @Keith_london moran is a goner then. #
• 12:54 @chrys are you busy then? 😉 #
• 16:22 @tug no, they’d happily send them off to corrupt us infidels. #
• 17:00 Waiting for friends to arrive for lunch on the harbour. #

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I am in Marblehead. What a saga this has been.

Monday evening I took the Heathrow Express to Terminal 5. My first time flying out of that terminal. First thing to say: it is huge. It is unimaginably huge. The Universe is a micron compared to that terminal…oops! Wrong comparison.

I got there and dropped my bags. Had a Welsh agent. I said, jokingly, “You’re not from around here.” and he replied. “Yes, Italy. I badly needed a laugh.

Security is interesting. The trays aren’t handled manually: they circulate in the machine. They appear under your place at the chute, you take them out, put your stuff in them, and they disappear at the end of the chute on the other side after (I hope) you’ve removed your stuff.

There was the usual selection of duty-free bumpf, Harrod’s fleece…er…food halls, and toney food joints. Had an iced latt

• 14:55 hi tweeters mine. Beaming in from Marblehead, Mass. Jetlagged but connected to the internet. #
• 16:42 @devinjay let’s not & say we did #
• 16:50 @Keith_london Widdicombe says she’ll retire at next election. Seems odd to appoint caretaker…Labour would say “Tory turn” and want it back #
• 17:22 @danbjorn at a place I used to work they called it “twiggle” and “close twiggle”. #
• 20:37 Back from walk, very spaced. Must rest before Lodge. #

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• 01:29 @studfucker congrats #
• 01:30 off to bed now. up bright and early to talk to the travel agency and see what can be done. nighty night all! #
• 11:47 Hooray! Trip back on, leaving 2nite 7:45, arriving Boston around 9:45. If you’re in Bos/NY/DC go to is.gd/AXHO to see what’s on. #
• 11:58 @devinjay why–do u want to wear one? i’ll critique it if u like. #
• 12:00 @devinjay find one and wear it and i’ll critique it the next time i’m there. #
• 12:03 @devinjay look online. i’ll bet you can find them. #
• 12:06 @devinjay is.gd/AXUV #
• 12:19 @devinjay well, do some more searching. I used “Where can I buy a codpiece” in google #
• 15:13 shutting down the mothership to prepare for takeoff to Boston. see you later, alligators. #

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I have talked to the travel agency this morning, and for minimal money my trip is back on! I am getting on the same flight tonight that I would have taken on Saturday, arriving in Boston at around 10 pm Monday night. So the rest of the trip will be unchanged from the former plans I had.

My itinerary is thus:

I am immensely grateful for all the good wishes that everyone has sent my way. I’m certain that they have helped enormously. I packed last night (in anticipation of a successful conclusion this morning) so now only have to toss a few last things into the bags and I’ll be ready. I have checked in and printed my boarding pass, so the only thing left is to get to Heathrow.

I would love to see all my Live Journal friends in Boston, New York, and Washington when I’m there.

Please reply to this posting and I’ll see it in Marblehead and get to you. I shall make all replies screened, so if you can give me some contact details it would help.

See you!

• 06:55 i weighed myself and i’ve lost 8 kg in little more than a week (17-1/2 lbs). The Autonomic Neuropathy Diet–I don’t recommend it. #
• 13:54 @Keith_london i wonder how deep Anne’s snout was in the trough, if at all…she lives down the New Kent Road from me in a nice house. #
• 14:14 well, her london home is down the street from me, right next to the gay couple who owns my gym. #
• 14:15 @Keith_london see previous tweet. £858 isn’t bad. very inexpensive MP. while i don’t agree with her much i admire her character #
• 14:23 the same kind who puts a £2.50 KitKat and a £2,000 moat cleaning on expenses: a crook. #
• 14:28 @devinjay he raided the minibar instead of walking downstairs to the newsstand. #
• 14:28 @soveren will the taxpayer pay for the helicopter too?? #
• 14:31 @devinjay what, cleaned your moat? #
• 14:36 Daring Squirrel is ver voracious. Probably eaten about 50 peanuts today from me. #
• 21:29 @studfucker presume this was at that park i directed you to? #

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To my non-Singaporean friends: sometimes Singapore is called “that lil’ red dot on the map” as it’s so small in comparison to most countries. My friend Roy Tan had an idea last year to hold a lesbian and gay rally in the only place in Singapore where demonstrations are allowed: Hong Lim Park. Over the past months the idea morphed into gathering people together in Hong Lim while wearing pink or carrying pink parasols or paper hats. They would gather together in a circle and form the Pink Dot. This happened yesterday, and here is the video of the event. Please watch it.

To my Singaporean friends: I’m immensely proud of you. The flavour of the day reminded me of my first few Pride parades in New York City in the mid-1980’s, where civil rights for lesbian, gay, and trans folk were few and far between. See how far we’ve come since then! I wish I could have been there.

If you do it again next year, and non-Singaporeans can participate, I’ll try to visit. Until then, keep on plugging: this was just the first step on a long road toward the freedom to love.

…and I’ve lost 8 kilograms (around 17-1/2 lbs) since I was last weighed at the hospital 9 days ago.

The Autonomic Neuropathy Diet–lose 8 kg in a week (but don’t stray too far from the toilet).

I would have made a terrible advertising copywriter.

…because this morning I am feeling OK. I will call the travel agent on Monday and see if there is any part of the trip I can salvage.

If not, I will book a quickie to Marblehead in June for later on.

I got the first good night’s sleep I’ve had in a week last night.

Life really is unfair. Had this happened yesterday I would have been waking up in Marblehead today.

..and many happy returns of the day.

• 12:50 have had to cancel my US trip–I can’t travel in my current condition. I won’t see any of my friends until later in the year…ratz. #
• 16:16 oh, of course, i seem to be feeling much better now…too late to fly, of course… #
• 16:17 @MrPandaBehr i’m feeling a little better now, but am still weak. had to cancel my trip. that’s £500 down the drain. WL is still going… #
• 19:07 @MrPandaBehr it might be june, or maybe september (not the 11th again). don’t know yet. still too lonely and sad to decide. #
• 20:54 am i the only gay man in europe not watching the Eurovision song contest? #twumpet #
• 22:15 well, i think it’s time to retire for me, assuming my innards cooperate. HWMBO is over the atlantic… #
• 22:22 @soveren graham norton used to be funny, years ago. now he’s just kind of tired and sad. #
• 22:38 @soveren you prefer tops then?? #

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I read the Marblehead Reporter each week online. One of the highlights is Dawn Bucket’s column “Up For Air”. It’s too long to explain why “Dawn Bucket” is a good Marblehead nickname, so we’ll gloss over that.

A few weeks ago Dawn mentioned that she was looking for a bumper sticker to put on the cars of egregious cellphone yappers-while-driving. I emailed her and suggested something. Well, I won the prize for the week. Now if I were only on the way to Marblehead to collect. I don’t get namechecked there often, but my brother’s been namechecked in the Reporter several times. We’re not quite even.

After hoping that the codeine prescribed yesterday by my GP would stop the symptoms of autonomic neuropathy, I was bitterly disappointed this morning to (1) still have the one problem, and (2) add to it projectile vomiting from the other end. I am really weak at the moment (although as of this writing all the symptoms seem to have abated, of course!) so I’ve cancelled my trips to Marblehead, DC, and New York, including my 35th college reunion. Yes, I know I could probably buy a cheap ticket to New York but, really, my heart’s not in it now. I saw HWMBO off this afternoon as he is going to Marblehead to see an old friend of his from Singapore who has travelled from San Francisco to Boston to see him. He is probably getting on the plane right about now.

I feel very lonely without him.

• 14:30 @tug Vodafone called us both in Spain to plead for our custom. When I said it was costing me £ he said How should I know? I just told you! #
• 16:28 Things not to do before flying No. 1: Watch Air Crash Investigation #
• 16:30 @james_stjohn one thing babies should be familiar with is a breast. #
• 16:44 @urbanbohemian never seen #lost #

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King Ozymandias of Assyria was running low on cash after years of war with the Hittites. His last great possession was the Star of the Euphrates , the most valuable diamond in the ancient world. Desperate, he went to Croesus, the pawnbroker, to ask for a loan.

Croesus said, “I’ll give you 100,000 dinars for it.”

“But I paid a million dinars for it,” the King protested. “Don’t you know who I am? I am the king!”

Croesus replied, “When you wish to pawn a Star, makes no difference who you are.”

• 13:06 @Keith_london i’m also not feeling motivated. still very weak, uninterested in food (not my style at all). Must pack for the US trip too! #
• 15:57 @Keith_london you’ve never been? look at superbreaks for good fares. #
• 19:43 according to @keith_london, my latest blog entry was quoted on Sky News: is.gd/zTtz . Dubious honour, I suppose, but mine, All MINE! #

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For those of you who are not Brits, a bit of background. The Daily Torygraph, er, Telegraph recently paid a goodly amount of money to an informer to pass it a CD on which were detailed lists of receipts submitted by MPs for their expenses. The information was due to be released by the House of Commons later in the year, after MPs had taken out some details such as their addresses. However, the Torygraph jumped the gun, paid a 6-figure sum, and has been drip-feeding the information day-by-day for about the past week.

I should add that last year the House of Commons nearly voted to suppress this information altogether, and not to release it to the public. They were shamed into rejecting this motion. Now we know why they were so eager to keep it under wraps.

British MPs are allowed to submit claims for reasonable expenses connected with having a home near Westminster, if they are not representing a constituency in London. However, there are some interesting entries in this list. Unless otherwise designated, those referred to below are Labour MPs.

• Hazel Blears, the community secretary, designated her London home as her principal home and thus avoided
  

Having had the first good night’s sleep since Sunday last night, I guess my dream machine was working overtime, I usually don’t remember dialogue from dreams, but this seemed to stand out, probably because of my recent “condition”.

I am walking up a street with an elderly man. He says, “Had to dig a latrine. In the nude”. I commented, “Must have been taken short”.

I won’t even go into the dream where I was in a bus station about to take a bus for Australia (yes, I know that buses for Australia are few and far between here in the UK). I believe the bus took off without me and my companion.

• 10:36 may be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel as regards my indisposition. talking to the GP at noon. #
• 19:07 Thank God for atropine! IO seem to have turned the corner. Got 4 hours’ sleep this afternoon for the first time since Sunday. #
• 20:47 I should have said “Thank God for lomotil!” Atropine keeps you from overdosing on the active ingredient, it seems. Anyway, hooray! #
• 23:18 good night, tweeters. i hope to be getting my first good night’s sleep in 4 days tonight. #

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One of the joys that long-term diabetics have to look forward to is intestinal trouble. This can be due to one of three things: an infection, a reaction to metformin (one of the drugs that diabetis often take), or autonomic neuropathy. What’s that when it’s at home? Your innards are, of course, run from nerves. Neuropathy is when the nerves die. The autonomic nervous system is what keeps your stomach, small and large intestines, and probably God only knows what else going.

On Sunday morning I awoke at 4 am needing to use the loo. I had a case of diarrhea. Sometimes this happens to everyone, of course, so I washed, and dressed (at 9 am) and went to church. I did tell HWMBO that I would probably not stay but would be back after setting up when my assistant sacristan arrived.

That was the last time I left the house for four days.

I have had the most excruciating diarrhea for the past four days. I have been unable to sleep more than an hour at a time (and that was sometimes a luxury). I had to sleep downstairs in the easy chair because I could not guarantee that I would get out of bed in time to get to the upstairs loo. I have had to race to the loo more times than I can count; I have been cleaning up the mess and generally being very miserable. By this morning I just wanted to die. I had no ambition to do anything except sit in the chair and listen to the radio or watch TV.

I finally called my GP this morning and we discussed my “diagnosis” of autonomic neuropathy. She prescribed something called Lomotil and it seems to (in conjunction with my observation that the symptoms were diminishing) have relieved the diarrhea. I am leaning to the conclusion that the exenatide, which delays emptying of the stomach, might have something to do with this. I shall be getting one more pen but will ask for an urgent appointment at the diabetic clinic when I get back from the US ande ask that they stop the exenatide and start me on insulin. No point in delaying the inevitable now, and since I’ve now gotten used to injecting myself, there’s no difference in injecting lizard spit from injecting insulin.

I ate my first full meal since Sunday this evening. I also slept for 4 hours this afternoon in my bed.

Now to figure out what triggers the condition (it’s not present all the time—there seem to be foods that might set it off) and stop eating it.

I’ve probably lost quite a bit of weight, on the bright side (I suppose there must always be a bright side).

(thanks to for telling me about this a while back; I would never have figured it out on my own)

…and many happy returns of the day.

• 07:37 morning tweeters. i’ve been out of commission yesterday and this morning. hoping to be better later. play nice now! #
• 14:34 @Keith_london got my swine flu advisory leaflet today. you?? #

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…and many happy returns of the day.

• 09:38 @MisterDude so who is the official that declares one officially drunk. Drunkmaster-General? Just askin’… #
• 09:43 morning tweeters mine. twitter FAIL! last night, and my bedtime farewell didn’t get twittered. 1/2 day meeting today at the Cathedral. #
• 17:43 @thatsam have fun in Taiwan. #
• 17:45 back from the Cathedral. The Bishop apologised for gonging me at Diocesan Synod–trying to keep the next guy from speaking. I was the victim #

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• 06:56 good morning, tweeters all. i’m up early as i have to go to the clinic this morning early, then do my latin homework. #
• 06:58 @BigRichB netbooks are generally good. try one out though, as the keyboards and screens aren’t good for everyone. #
• 07:05 @danvesma i hope your invoicing doesn’t turn to poo as well… #
• 13:43 @devinjay you must read “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd”. It is a classic! You’ll love it. #
• 16:56 @texasnate lots of young minority youngsters being stabbed to death in London. #
• 18:23 @nakedboy 42 #
• 18:28 @texasnate yeah, Peckham, Haringay, the Elephant (where I live)…started with young Damilola Taylor (google him) who was taunted as gay… #

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• 07:48 RT @kevjumba: … Bout to watch the Rockets/Lakers and study for my Intro to Winemaking exam #
• 07:49 Reference RT–Intro to Winemaking? US college students usually can’t drink (under 21), how can they make wine and not taste it? #
• 07:50 @devinjay dry white/cheddar? I’m glad it wasn’t fava beans and a good chianti. #
• 07:52 good morning tweeters. about to have breakfast with Thai coffee… #
• 08:58 @devinjay you’d never cut the mustard as a serial killer. #
• 08:58 @danvesma can you go back later and get the certificate once you’ve turned 21? #
• 08:59 finished with breakfast. the thai coffee is delicate and is probably better without milk. #
• 11:26 mornimg tweeters setting off for Eros…in Piccadilly Circus to meet friends for lunch. #
• 11:28 @devinjay i suppose not. #
• 17:39 home. so tiring to be a tour guide. #

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• 05:17 morning tweeters mine. blearily, i’ll now have breakfast and head to Heathrow to meet friends from the US. I want Starbucks NOW! #
• 07:58 On Piccadilly Line with friends I by at “picked up” #
• 08:27 Previous msg incoherent. I met friends at Heathrow and took them to hotel. Waiting for check-in. #
• 12:22 @Keith_london i presume that after the £10B is spent and there are still data breaches, we can then drop the whole thing? There will be some #
• 12:57 Hurray! My phone number has been transferred to my iPhone while I was at Tesco! Away with the Blackberry! #
• 12:59 @urbanbohemian thanks i’ll show you mine if you show me yours when I get to DC in a few weeks… #
• 13:06 @nakedboy yo back atcha! #
• 14:07 @nakedboy happy 4th anniversary. many happy returns of the day! #
• 18:21 Off to get ready for dinner with HWMBO and my friends from Wisconsin! Earls Court, here I come! #
• 23:37 @MrPandaBehr my friends DA and Michael who are in town, to set up our dinner meet. Michael has an iPhone too. #

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• 09:09 @RobertFischer in 1918 the first outbreak of flu was minor. it regrouped and in the N. Hemisphere autumn it came back with a vengeance… #
• 09:10 good morning, tweeters mine. Transferred all my calendar entries into my iPhone in preparation for the number switch tomorrow. Productive AM #
• 09:11 @mhisham I can second yr opinion of Annalakshmi. We ate there several years ago and paid a lot as it was delightful food. #
• 09:45 @jonk nixon style? You mean it lies to you about the correct time, denies responsibility for the lie, and quits after lying for years? #
• 09:48 @MrPandaBehr i get spam daily that promises me a killer weiner. Oh, you meant HOT DOG. Never mind… #
• 09:50 @mhisham it was several hundred dollars for a table of four. i hope that was enough. #
• 09:55 @mhisham well, love is not quantifiable in dollar terms but we can’t kiss the staff so money is all we can use to show our appreciation. #
• 13:16 twhirl FAIL! it got enlarged to the point that i can’t grab the lower right hand corner to make it smaller…FAIL FAIL FAIL!!!!! #
• 14:10 @askseesmic My twhirl window has enlarged to the point where I can’t grab the lower rh corner to make it smaller. Un/reinstalled in vain. #
• 14:11 @askseesmic discovered “Reset Windows”. Nevermind, but design fail?? #
• 16:13 @RobertFischer this strain is new and few people have exposure to it, as opposed to seasonal flus which are of a diff. strain. (continued) #
• 16:15 @RobertFischer …so people will have both this and the old strains to contend with and vaccines can’t be made in time for both… #
• 16:16 @PolarStryk Day trip to Dover to see Dover Castle. Lovely trip down from Victoria and the best preserved castle in Britain plus tunnels! #

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…and many happy returns of the day!

• 09:31 good morning, tweeters mine. email read and replied-to, the sun struggles to pierce the cloud, typical Bank Holiday Monday. #
• 09:36 @Keith_london i would be concerned if Brown fell on his sword and another Labour pol became PM without a general election. Who would it be? #
• 09:38 RT @rhys_isterix: Photo: What grown men do with their G.I. Joe action figures…, tumblr.com/xrq1pdzgd attn: @kalandaka #
• 09:43 @nakedboy well, you’ll appreciate someone who can keep it shaved for you… #
• 09:44 @nakedboy when you get here give me a shout as i’d like to see the tap dance and stand you to lunch afterwards 😉 #
• 09:47 @jonk nonsense! upper body exercise and crunches will do it, twinned with a lower-fat diet. we want pics when you’ve got nicer chest/abs! #
• 13:06 @Keith_london blair is a spent force in British politics, I think. The country has moved on. If Brown goes, Johnson will take it and lose… #
• 13:06 @Keith_london tinyurl predates Twitter by years. bit.ly beats it by one letter. #
• 13:16 @urbanbohemian I prefer using that formula tomorrow…make mine Old Granddad. #
• 18:12 our friends bom and woody are here from Thailand–off to Italian food soon. #
• 18:13 @RobertFischer panic next flu season when it returns and kills millions of vulnerable oldsters and immunocompromised people. #
• 18:14 @jonk let the rest of us be the judges of that! (hehehe) #
• 18:17 @BrianHeys i’ve been getting that spam for months. blocking is the only weapon. Twitter often suspends the accounts b4 I get to investigate #
• 18:18 @jenny8lee that’s the modern version of stealing a cow-orker’s sandwich out of the office fridge. #
• 18:19 @Keith_london but he did go, Blanche, he did! you can’t go back again. #

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We took a trip to Spain last week to look at a timeshare. My friend Steve has one, and he suggested to Marriott that we might be interested too. So we decided to go from last Sunday and return on Wednesday. It was surprisingly cheap (2 bedrooms for

• 00:07 nighty-night tweeters. time to retire. almost finished sieving my email inbox. #
• 07:42 RT @mrskutcher 90 people get swine flu & everybody wants 2 wear surgical masks. 1 mill people have AIDS & nobody wants 2 wear a condom #
• 11:55 good morning (just) tweeters. back from church. one is surprised at how much time is saved by not having a pianist for the 1st part of mass. #
• 11:58 @Keith_london masks on Oxford St wouldn’t surprise me, even at this early stage. tamiflu venders on street corners, now… #
• 12:46 @Glinner they are there so that blind people with white sticks can tell where the crossing is. #
• 12:54 @Glinner yup, that simple. #
• 13:03 @Keith_london i was just joking–i don’t expect to see tamiflu vendors on the streets…at least not yet… #
• 13:05 RT @jenny8lee: you can order ketchup potato chips online! tinyurl.com/dc4c4a #
• 17:38 @chrys i thought it was behind the Royal Festival Hall. We saw it from the bus yesterday. #
• 18:05 still can’t get my ethernet bridge to work with the O2 wireless router, ratz! #
• 18:47 @chrys i have been doing a bit of research and think i may have cracked it. but what a pain in the a*se. #
• 18:49 @Keith_london yes, but one expects Labour ministers to keep their big fat bazoos shut about Brown…he gets enough flak elsewhere… #
• 21:10 @Keith_london Brown spent 10 years being bitter & twisted about not being PM. He is now reaping what he sowed. Pens sharpened in Westminster #
• 21:11 managed to get “The Master’s Song” from Midi to MP3 and download to my iPhone. We should be OK for the installation on the 13th. #

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• 08:19 Today’s Tourism Video: Cleveland! Better than Flint, MI! is.gd/w3Mt #
• 09:24 Today’s Comfort URL: what the well-bred man about town uses on the job: is.gd/w49C #
• 18:23 had a lovely afternoon walk from Camden Market along the canal to Little Venice and then Edgeware Rd Station. #
• 18:43 A classy obituary from Marblehead: is.gd/w9S2 #
• 19:56 am making American chop suey, one might call it macaroni bolognaise. #
• 22:25 @kristainlondon go to A&E and have it removed. The longer it’s in, the more likely you are to get infected and the harder to remove it. #

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• 07:06 @MrPandaBehr didn’t know there was a male version. would be more interested if they had bottomless waiters, but that’s prob unhygienic… #
• 13:37 afternoon, all. a bit late because i forgot to “send” my morning greeting. O2 broadband is working great with everything but ethernet bridge #
• 13:38 @helenroper congratulations! w00t as well! #
• 15:13 listening to smooth jazz from Chicago online…loved it when I lived there, love it now. #
• 16:28 @Keith_london good grief, more heartache for that family. #
• 16:38 At Starbucks on New Oxford St. Twittering and reading the paper. #
• 18:14 @MrPandaBehr heh heh heh…he said “Woodpeckers”! 😉 #
• 21:50 @Keith_london potato skins scooped out and topped with bacon, sour cream &c are an artery-clogging US delicacy. nom nom nom… #
• 21:52 @mheusser my partner is singaporean and we travel there often. nice place, good schools, low crime rate, but boring after a week or two. #
• 21:53 @asianguys get a US VPN, like Reliablehosting. You then look like u are in the US and can see this stuff. Works for me. #

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Further to yesterday’s entry, I have been busily connecting my other WiFi devices to the router. The Belkin Skypephone that gave me so much grief with the BT router joined the network effortlessly. The Roberts Internet Radio also joined up with only a bit of difficulty, owing to the clunky WEP code entry interface. The Ethernet Bridge is being recalcitrant; will continue working on that. My VPN also works without any additional action on my part. I do have to figure out how to connect to Usenet now that I can’t use btinternet’s address.

Further, I have somewhat cleaned up the worm convention behind my desk and dusted everything off, so it’s a bit tidier in here. I do need better control over the router, so will do some research on that. I may get a better router, but am not sure at the moment.

All very exciting!