the most expensive light bulb in the world

This light bulb is costing more than fifty thousand pounds to replace.

About a year ago it popped. I replaced it and the new one popped too, taking downstairs' electricity with it. So I replaced it and rang The Electrician. After a couple of hours in the cellar and under the hall floorboards The Electrician pointed out that I had Damp... enough Damp to fuse all the lights and present a small element of Danger. The Electrician disconnected the offending light fitting and told me to get a plumber.

So a couple of weeks later The Plumber came and moved the washing machine to find so much Damp he couldn't get the machine back into its slot. He also found some dry rot, disconnected further electrical fittings and said that he had done all he could "in the circumstances"... So The Architect came and said "the best thing to do is pull it all down and start again". The Surveyor agreed. And so The Project has begun...

bless the weather

The loooooonnnnggg drive back in the storms from Devon yesterday was lifted by a series of rainbows across the Salisbury plains... I'm pretty sure my car was right in the centre of the pot of gold at several points but sadly I am no richer.

bloggable baby

Mazel Tov to the Taylor Doctorow household for introducing Poesy Emmeline Fibonnacci Nautilus Taylor Doctorow to the whole wide world. Such a big name for such a very tiny and adorable person.

I found this out when I got into work on Monday and it brought on one of those internet moments... Poesy was just a few hours old before everyone could see her, share the news, show other friends, comment, congratulate, say "aaaaahhhhhh"... and her picture will be there forever and ever. Methinks she might be the most-blogged-about-baby around. Life is good.

x marks the spot

Not sure if this Venetian graffiti is actually graffiti... or whether it's a very obscure and artsy ad for some sort of aspirin... either way it was a cut above the rest.

My 2008 New Year's Resolution is not to buy the Sunday papers - three Sundays in and I find I have much more time on my hands (hence this blog) and considerably less rubbish to recycle but I have a vague feeling I am missing something. Must. Be. Strong.

senior service

Spent yesterday buried underground in the Cabinet War Rooms. Much to think about of course but the thing that struck me most was that these people really SMOKED. Industrial-scale ashtrays everywhere, improvised lighters made out of red-hot phone cables and the maps aren't simply yellowing with age but with the leathery patina of nicotine. These were the people who had a Good War - men were men... women had to be single... adrenaline flowed like Niagara Falls and everybody smoked.

More nostalgia when I got home as Led Zep's Madison Square concert was on telly and I hadn't seen it since I was a teenager. Robert Plant still the sexiest thing ever (even in puffed sleeves which I didn't notice in 1970-doodah) but Jimmy Page will always occupy a small corner of my heart...

tvc r.i.p...

Nope, not the lovely Television Centre (although I am rather gloomy about that too) but the wickedly well-informed and fake TV Controller has signed off this week leaving us all... still... guessing. He says he was Dom - but I know he wasn't.

Meanwhile I have blogged on the rather quaintly named BBC Internet Blog as myself... which has felt a bit like coming out.

last friday morning in geneva...

I noticed this...

Is it graffiti?

Or is it an autograph?

Either way it puts Banksy in the shade...

one green chilli

Last year my garden provided a festival of chillies - enough to rival anything Mexico could offer. This year my rather troubled plant has just managed to yield one, rather small and slightly apologetic green effort. I'm not really sure what to do with it as I feel it deserves a good send-off... Thai curry for one I guess.

I think it's all symptomatic of the fact that the back of my house and the garden are in dire need of attention. When the dry rot falling from the bathroom meets the damp rising from the kitchen the whole thing will fall down... I'm not sure whether the rampant ivy is eating into the walls or holding them up. So I am hatching a cunning plan...