I had been fighting a cold last week that just got the better of me when I got to Sweden. I spent most of the weekend in bed, sleeping. I have been feeling like shit and had there been enough money on my phone to SMS my colleagues informing them of my decision to stay I and sleep all day I would have done just that. I can't seem to understand that I am at work because there is no money on my phone. Is there no money on my phone because I have no money and hence have to go to work?

It's easier to get up, bath and go to work than it is to lay there fighting with your guilt, should I, shouldn't I - anyway I need the money and it's not like I'm being driven into the ground.

The blogging is slowing down because the dam wall is being built up and at some point it's going to give way and cave in either ending the blog or sending into a new dimension.

I have been following the progress of the Cassini probe very closely. The Cassini was sent out on a 7 year journey to Saturn, for those who don't know. It was sent towards Venus first to use Venus' gravitational pull to slingshot the probe back towards Earth and then use Earth's gravity to slingshot the probe some 1.2 billion miles into outer space. The Cassini reached Saturn and beamed back pictures noone expected to see. They managed to control the probe with such accuracy that they steered it through the rings of Saturn, which move at speeds faster than a speeding bullet. A particle the size of a grain of rice would tear the probe to pieces. The probe has a camera onboard which is set to take pictures of Saturn's largest moon Titan.

Titan and other moons are thought to hold secrets to the source of life. Titan's atmosphere is green with orange clouds. It is made of ice and probably has volcano's that erupt hot water or methane gas. IT is said to have rivers that run ethane and methane and rain drops of the liquid gas, because of the gravity on Titan, are the size of oranges and fall in slow motion.

I find this information too much to absorb and does not help my angst. Too much, too far, it's very difficult to intellectualize but is comforting, very comforting. I hope that when we die we get to fly among the planets and learn the secrets of the universe.

I don't know why the science lesson, but there's a lot of really interesting shit going on out there.

This weekend Dave Tait gets married, by Kizzi, in someone's garden. Best of luck to Dave, Paulina, Tatiana and Big. I am gutted that I can't be there.

I have just been to lunch where I had a Curb Your Enthusiasm moment. For anyone who does not know about Curb... it is about the guy, Larry David who co-created Seinfelt. He gets himself into all sorts of embarrassing situations. One example of this is the pants tent. I had a 'pants tent' situation no too long ago on a train from Helsingborg to Gothenburg. I was wearing my new suit and was sat next to a rather, very good looking young Swedish lass, she was a nurse as well. Men will understand. Anyway, the crotch fold in these new trousers could protrude enough to be misleading, when in fact there was nothing suspicious going on. It was just the cut of the pants doing their pants tent thing.

Needless to say, she noticed, I noticed she noticed - but you don't even want to think about trying to explain that I noticed that she noticed that something was going on in my pants, when it wasn't... so you leave it and you've just had a pants tent experience.

Back in the canteen, I made my way to the cashier with my plate of pasta and salad. Thanked Willy the Philipino catering assistant and headed off to the left where the water machine and pepper mill can be found. There was a man struggling with the pepper mill. I'll never understand this, I've had people ask me how i manage to be so authoritative with a pepper mill. It's a fucking pepper mill, what do you expect - if a man is not authoritative with a pepper mill, can you imagine what he is like with his penis. The same goes for women, if they don't know what to do with a pepper mill, I doubt they'll know what to do with your penis.

Anyway, so the guy is fumbling about with the pepper mill. I know he's going to go for the water machine next. The water machine has two streams, one is slow, the other is fast. Even though technically two people should be able to extract water from the fountain simultaniously, owing to English manners and sense of space, no two people ever use the machine at the same time. So I know that pepper mill bloke is going to go for the water, and I know he has not the savvy to recognise a faster stream, I know he is slow boat and will take the thinner, slower water stream. I grab a cup and set about using the fast stream, he finishes with the pepper mill and puts it down. Having been a chef, I can comfortably fork my thoughts and do two things, or at least plan two things to dovetail into one swift movement. So I plan getting my hands on the pepper mill. Before my cup is full another lady picks up the pepper mill. I wait...

As she puts the pepper mill down, the upward curved lip of the tray it is on confuses her and she can't figure out why it keeps tilting and falling over. I watch her fumble. She tries it again, same result. Now one of the many definitions of stupidity springs to mind - 'doing exactly the same thing over and over again expecting different results.' So I reach over and take the pepper mill out of her hand. In my mind I had asked her if I couyld take, but I guess you are supposed to say these things. 'Excuse me' She said, to which I replied 'that's alright' - she gave me a filthy look and stormed off. I then realised that I could not remember what she looked like but I bet she knows exactly what I look like and pretty soon there will be an entire floor of admin ladies who sneer about the tall, gangly rude fella.

Guido sent me a picture today that his father had kept for all these years. Mike scanned it and sent it it off. It is of Guido and I in his back garden in Ashlea Gardens in Pretoria, 1988. The dog was Katana, Guido's Alsatian.

Enjoy the laugh.

I couldn't sleep last night and I feel like i'm on the verge of shutting down. Everything is coming down around me. I have just been to the hospital, to the maxillofacial department of Charring Cross in Hammersmith. It's an impressive hospital and at first you think you've walked into a shopping mall. There are hairdressers, fish tanks, coffee shops and cafes. Just my luck there was a Doctor there to see me as well. All went smoothly and quickly and I left without news of having to get my jaw rewired, at least that's in tact. I have physio exercises to do, what I've done, as a result of stress and grinding my teeth to powder in the night, is grind a new flight-path fopr my jaw; as a result the right side has a tendency to pop out of joint when I open my mouth. I have to see the dentist and get a soft bite-plate as well.

Work is busy, very busy and all the systems are misbehaving, which does not make anything easier, on the other hand there's not much I can do about that, but it can make me look bad.

I need to get back to work.

In went to university last night. Things are flawed. First of all I should not be studying management, the main reason being that I don't actually like people. I feel for humanity, but I don't consider the people around me and humanity to be the same thing.

I can't actually afford to study right now, I never thought I would say this, but studying would be irresponsible. What I would have given to have the wisdom I have now in 1988 when my father phoned me at school and said he was not paying my school fees on account of me being a shit. I'd have had a fantastic argument. I think he got his kicks in when he could, the big yin would struggle now. I can't wait to look after him in his old age, I'll torment him, feed him cauliflower cheese - aka 'schluck' and make him drink cheap whiskey, 'Three Ships'. Ah, life is sweet.

Everything is going the shape of a pear. I am on a detox in an attempt to see things clearly. What I really want to do is get my tycoon brother and our like-minded friends together and devise a plan for a future retirement investment and self sustainable initiative in the form of a game farm that we can all own together. We can sit round the fire in our vellies and khakies, tell stories, write stories, shoot buck and eat the veggies we grow. What I want to do is buy a tractor. The west is freaking me out, I'm suffering from some form of existential anxiety. Is this what I'm to be doing when I'm 40? If so, then it's what I'm doing when I'm 50, and 60, and then till I die. Fuck that! How have we allowed our lives to become so automated, dictated by an invisible, non-existent force. I sat on the tube this morning and wished that I could wake up and it was 1970. I was born 20 years to late.

I would love to stay and chat, but I must get back to some meaningless piece of technological, financial forecast crap that doesn't even work. If my father can teach me to make movies in months, he'll have a heir to his throne overdraft. The greatest lesson my father taught me was not to fuck with the tax-man.

I've had a great weekend. Friday night was spent doing nothing, Saturday night we went to a party near London Bridge that went on into the wee hours, front doors were ripped off and the floor was littered with cold, spent N₂O cannisters. Sunday was spent sleeping.

I hereby declare a one month detox. This means no alcohol or combustibles of any sort. I am to get to the gym at least three times a week. I don't eat shit so there's nothing to be done to the diet, other than eat more.

I feel like shit, at my age I should be feeling a whole lot better.

I went ton see the physio at work about my generla fitness, he says I am on the right track, so far... so good.

The ceiling has still not been finished. The plaster has dried, now we wait for the bastard Russian builders and the c*nt property agent to finish the job so that we can get back to normal living. The property agent does not want on credit us the inconvenience and this makes me want to burn him alive. I don't know how people can be so blindly unreasonable.

This is the state my flat is in...

How am I supposed to get to the Hershey's peanutbutter cups?

A MIDI rack turns your room into a recording studio

And my lounge, look at the leg room

I'll write later about my Sweden trip, before I forget it.

I have just come home for the day. I went to the first lecture at Birkbeck this evening. It was a lecture on stats. How was it? You ask.

I was falling asleep... stats, quanitative measures, gathering data about the color of cars from a certain 26% populous of the employees for a cluster of 1,600 companies, 40% of which should have employed men between the ages of 18-26 who don't wear pants on a sunday morning whilst reading the sunday sport!

The ceiling collapsed in Phil's room. Russian builders, amusing ones are in t fix it. It has been a week since the pandeminonium began, the flat resembling downtown Fellujia.

The property agent is being arsy adn won't budge on working the inconvenience out of the rent. Phil has had to move all his clobber out of his room and it is now evenly distributed everywhere else. He has the flu and is having to squat at friends' flats to attempt a recovery. I will rant later, right now I need to forrage for food. I have taken some pictures of the flat which I'll post when I fly off into a rage.