Well, not entirely. Truth is, I've been busy. I'd like to say I've been busy finishing the flat, but in actual fact, I've been busy having possibly the biggest cowboys in London, who subcontracted the most useless people I've ever seen, and then have walked away from the contract, leaving me with an unfinished, damaged kitchen (and scratched up new oak floor), and having to look up how to take someone to court and win. It doesn't look like a particularly quick or easy process, and I suspect that even with a court judgement, I'll end up getting sweet FA, but I think it needs to be followed through as a matter of principle.

Still, at least life's not all bad. I smashed the screen on my ipod touch, and then while attempting to replace it, I destroyed the plastic frame that it is glued to, as the clips in there really are more substantial than I had thought. Wait, did I say life's not all bad? Well, I did break it by being (not really) a hero - it fell out of my pocket as I was sprinting across the car park to drive the father in law's car away from the van it was parked next to, which had gone up in flames. To tell the truth, the fire brigade were already in attendance, and it certainly looked like everything was under control, but it's not everyday you get to shout "give me the key, fuck the insurance" then run away from your father in law and drive his shiny car ;-) (and in moving it, it allowed the fire brigade to get the back doors of the van open and probably helped speed up the extinguishing of the fire in the back of the van, possibly, maybe, yeah, so, it wasn't that big of a deal ;-P

I was hoping to have been able to witter on about the new London hire bikes by now, but due to a combination of me being slow (and dealing with the kitchen nightmare), and not ordering my access key until Friday 30th July (aka launch day), and the fact that the postmen in Whitechapel are less use than a chocolate tea-pot (matching the numbers on the letters and the doors? Optional. Actually leaving a card when they can't deliver a special delivery item? Optional.), I don't yet have my key. I do have a bike helmet though, no thanks to the staff in the bike shops I tried (around the Spitalfields area - clearly my lack of skinny jeans and other hipster style clothing marked me out as "not a rider of a fixie", and thus I wasn't in the right shop ;-)

Bloody hell, that's the second attempt at that paragraph, and it's still impossible to read. No worries about me dropping everything to become a famous author then :p