Ha ha! Instead of trying to catch the coach, we decided to opt for the train. Or let’s be honest: Sonja was the one who came up with the idea.

So we’re back on schedule, traveling on a Virgin Megatrain (well how could I know what they call it!) towards Cheltenham Spa. This train, tho, is awful. It’s sub-B-class, if even that. The first choo-choo was much nicer, a Western something or other.

I feel like I need a shower.

I don’t know about you but I find it to be intrinsically dubious when a company talks about brown goods. Then again, maybe it’s just me.

I just got up and met Owen, my flatmate, on his way out. A horrible bill. A horrible, horrible bill is in there, he said, waving his hand towards the living room. A bit confused, I walked to the notice board and there it was. The electricity bill from NPower. I looked at the bottom line and gasped.

First, let me state for the record that the billing practices in this country are horrible. They come in at irregular intervals, don’t contain much information, and are – of course – too big. Which brings me back to that scandalous electricity bill. Are you ready? It was £344.78. Yes, you’re reading it right, three hundred forty-four pounds seventy eight pence. So okay, this is a five bedroom house, inhabited by eight people at times, so we do use a lot of power, but this is ridiculous. I mean, it’s nearly 500 euros. That’s not an electricity bill, that’s the bloody rent.

Obviously there’s gotta be an explanation. Maybe it’s been ages since the meter was last read and that’s why the bill is humongous. Well, maybe. Except that nowhere in the bill does it state over what period of time it has accumulated. Nowhere.

Besides, NPower doesn’t really have a good track record on the billing side. They’ve mixed up more invoices than anyone on this side of the Atlantic, if the media is to be believed. And now this: £344.78 just days before we are supposed to be leaving. Looks like I’ll be eating lentils this summer. Bloody hell, as Owen might put it.

Five things that happened on the way home from the movies.

1. A man talking to himself, then upon meeting us said something we couldn’t make out. He kept muttering louder and louder, until I finally understood his message. It isn’t raining, you can put the umbrella away!
2. A clearly intoxicated man coming from the pub, who we decided to dodge, walking on the right, no, left… wait, right, I mean, left, it’s right, erm, left side of the road.
3. A busload of granmas and granpas on the city at 11PM on a Friday night. What were they doing?
4. A kebab joint with an acronym problem has a website called http://www.fivestarkgb.co.uk (emphasis mine)
5. Three teenage girls discussing the merits of the family name ”Funny” (You’d never be sad) as well as the downsides (But what about marriage? If he really loved you, he’d take the name and all the piss-taking that comes with it.)

It’s funny what you can hear if you keep quiet.

I was just watching Aliens (for me it’s still the ’80s action flick) on Channel 4 but then something went wrong. Whenever there was a muzzle flash, the frame rate fell through the roof. Practically every scene where the guns are fired was unviewable, as the picture stayed still for a long time.

The problem was obviously at the broadcaster’s end, not in our television or reception. There are two weird things about this. First of all this wasn’t your normal digital disturbance – no blocks, just missing frames, like watching a video clip with a large bitrate on a slow net connection. Second, this was a unique situation, and it hasn’t happened before or since. (A documentary about the series was broadcast right after the movie and there the same bits of footage looked okay.)

All this would suggest that there was a problem in the encoding of the movie. Perhaps I oughta email C4 and ask them for a proper explanation. Not much use whining about stuff here posthumously.

I finally got round to watching the promo video they sent me. My favourite bit is possibly the geezer who says We learnt to march, which was quite interesting.