One wonders when we will start blaming ourselves.

Don't seem to have been updating this thing much recently. There are reasons for this, of course.

I open Opera and a quick look at the tabs at the top, showing the various web-pages I was last looking at (before I last logged out) reveals:

1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/
2. http://www.theregister.co.uk/
3. http://www.guardian.co.uk/
4. Some Ananova page
5. Tom Bearden-related
6. erm . . . Bingofuel? Anyone?
7. A Google newsgroup search for 'Grub Redhat boot'

So . . . it is, of course, these last three (5, 6 and 7) that are pertinent here. 'Energy from the Vacuum' finally arrived yesterday. Anyone unfamiliar (where were you?!) - go here. But then who wants to read stuff like that on a monitor? So I ordered the book. And, strangely enough, I can actually follow what the guy's trying to say. In the foreward, the author outlines the 11 distinct groups to whom this book is aimed, but I'm not sure where I fit in there . . . I'm definitely not an electrical engineering professor, nor a 'government leader', nor much of a 'theoretical and experimental physicist' for that matter, so . . . ah well, it's all interesting stuff. I think anyone with an interest (regard for?!) science and environmental issues ought to read this book, laborious as it is. And anyone with too much time on their hands. Too much time and too much brain power going under-used. Definitely those people.

So yes . . . where was I? Well, I think the Bearden stuff led me to http://jnaudin.free.fr/, but then there's loads of other stuff going on right now, besides that.

What day was it? Thursday? Friday? Probably Thursday, when I first noticed it . . . the discolouration of the plaster in the ceiling in my front room. A patch where something had leaked/collapsed long ago in the past, before I moved in here. The previous tenants had very badly patched up a hole in the ceiling with a load of plaster, and it was this plaster that was now acquiring a distinctly iron oxide tinged colour. When I first spotted this, I just assumed that my addled brain simply couldn't remember that it was actually always like that, but friends confirmed that it had definitely darkened recently. I hurriedly threw some newspapers on the piano, thinking that if the discolouration went any further, at least the piano would be fairly safe. The rear bass-end of the piano rests directly beneath this dodgy corner of the ceiling. And then today, I checked on these newspapers, not expecting anything, of course. But there was a distinct sense of . . . you know, water had been this way, not long ago. The paper was all wrinkly as if it had been wet and then dried during the day. So . . . move all the stuff of the piano, move the piano, move all the plants, ring a plumber . . . "Sorry, mate, I'm all booked up for the next two weeks," and so ask for a recommendation (yeah, how about you fix that leak?) and ring this guy up called . . . Mr. Finister. Wasn't there someone called that in 'The Usual Suspects'? And the pipes . . . they must travel from the boiler . . . and then . . . across the chimney, towards the back of the house and then . . . well, some go down, perhaps some go up . . . up to the bathroom and down to the cellar . . . but which pipes?

I consider ripping up carpets, ripping up floorboards, turning the water off at the mains and draining the central heating system . . . but, erm . . . there's other more important things to worry about, like the poor TEAC 4-track mixer lying in pieces on the kitchen table, or perhaps on a chair, by the kitchen table . . . whatever. It's in pieces anyway, as the electrical contacts in the various faders and dials are all crackly and dirty and definitely need cleaning, if I'm to do a decent job of mastering the music me and some friends made on Friday, that is. Anyway, it's way past midnight, and the 5/6 hours sleep I had last night was definitely not sufficient.