No geek
is an island

GidleyWatch. A name to strike a chill in the heart of the Member of Parliament for Romsey. I mentioned it to Mark, which has earned me an honorary membership of Fans of Paul Keetch (although I’m not quite sure how much of an honour that is).

The website in question comes from the BlogYourMP inspired stable of unofficial MP blogs, and, despite its name, is pretty appreciative of its subject. It swings between serious stuff (e.g., press cuttings and reporting of Sandra Gidley MP’s activities in the Commons) to more humorous entries. This precis is based on a handful of posts as it’s a fairly new site, so who knows how it will continue.

I wonder whether the handful of MPs who have unofficial blogs have seen them, and what they think. There’s no doubting that politicians like media attention, and there’s only one thing worse than being written about…

I’ve just been on the weighing machine at the Co-op. It helpfully displayed my mass in both imperial and metric, and as it did so the kilogram total flickered from 99 to 100. I was mortified. I’ve been trying (OK, not very hard) to lose weight, and 99kg was the absolute upper limit I’d set myself.

I have been much more active recently, what with the elections and moving house, but my work has become increasingly sedentary. When I first started working at the Library, I was active all day. After a year or so, my job changed and I was only active in the mornings, with a desk job in the afternoons. Currently I’m on secondment from my previously active morning job to a project (which is stimulating and I’ve learnt a great deal from) that is mostly computer-based.

My new strategy (which differs little from my old strategy) is to do more exercise. Now I live on the top floor, I’ll do more stair-climbing. Additionally:

• Walk to and from work and to and from the city centre without catching a bus.
• Buy an umbrella to facilitate the above when raining.
• Spontaneously go for walks around the block. (This should also help boost my CNPS score*.)
• Try to limit myself to one lunch a day
• Drink less coke and more water. Although the litre bottle of coke in front of me needs finishing first.
• Get out delivering more political literature.

I’ll check back in a week or two and see how much I’ve lost…

*Like Job I held firm in adversity and was rewarded with a 25 after weeks of waiting. Albeit minutes after the CNPS gods taunted me with a 26 and a 27.

It was most inconsiderate of Mr Tony Blair to call the Hodge Hill by-election and the Leicester South by-election for July 15th. I’m otherwise engaged every weekend until then, so now I’m going to have to ration my dwindling annual leave to take time off work.

This weekend, for example, I’m moving house. I’ve done this far too many times over the last seven years and I absolutely loathe it. It’s not just packing a whole life into a few boxes and the relentless cleaning, but the unreasonably deducted deposits and the numerous organisations to inform of the new address. A whole new set of routines, new shops, new bus timetables…

On the plus side, I do get a trip to IKEA out of it.

Nearly two weeks without seeing a 25, and it was going so well. Most dispiriting.

Hurrah! I have made it into the top 10% of SETI@home users. Although I’m still in joint 460,011th place.

If you haven’t already got it, download and install the SETI@home software to join in. This runs in the background of your computer, analysing data from radio telescopes for signs of extra-terrestrial intelligence.

As Richard Allan vents his spleen about hooliganism, does the Big Brother brawl prove that CCTV doesn’t deter violent anti-social behaviour?