the thing to do is to mangle one and display it on a spike near your seat. serves as a warning to the others.

i was once in a kiddie zone on a long singapore airlines flight from los angeles to singapore. if you think being surrounded by kids in the air is bad, try it for >16 hours of flying. since then i always ask if there are families with children anywhere near my seat and if they are i ask for a re-assignment.

How about if you advise the flight attendant that you are a sex offender? Won't that get you a new seat in another location?
I recall some story about Michael Stipe going into the head and coming out with peanut butter spread all over his face. Suddenly, he had the whole row of seats to himself.

I have copied these recommendations into my plan book and will try to implement some of them next time. The mangled kid on a spike appeals to some instincts that I try to keep well buried, except in my journals.

Yesterday I had to go on a departmental away day in Harrow. The idea was to split us all into teams and get us to do a circuit of silly competitive games whilst wearing silly costumes. It was It's A Knock Out with a big beer & barbeque carrot.

Naturally, I twisted my ankle on the first task (a bouncy castle obstacle course covered in velcro). I decided it was fine, and so finished all the tasks with the rest of the team and then drank beer for a couple of hours. THEN I discovered that I was suddenly finding walking painful & difficult.

Today I am bandaged, iced, and anti-inflammatoried. I tell you, I had better be able to stomp around in heels next month, or I'll be REALLY put out.

Did I perhaps sound a mite testy just then? This morning, on a crowded Metro train, a pickpocket picked my backpack (yes, ladies, I'm one of them). Got my digital camera.

Maurice:

oh yes, each team has a fancy dress theme for the evening. ours in Grease, another's is Rocky Horror...male colleagues in suspensers.

I've never worked in the corporate world. What is the purpose of the above-described shanigans?

Uniting everyone against a common enemy.

White kids calling each other nigger.

Abby has some good stories about corporate fancy dress events.

Some things never let you down.

Just sent the checks for my quarterly taxes.

I thought we could still say "fuck"?

I look forward to seeing your seafood trousers.

Remedial rooster school for you.

Walking towards the subway this AM I am stopped dead in my tracks because a crack in the sidewalk has seized the heel of my right shoe. In order to extricate the shoe I end up having to remove it and use both hands to wrest it from the crack, which removes the heel tip as neatly as a bottle opener would a cap. I must now spend the balance of the day clicking and clumping round on the bare metal tip of the heel. Since the hallways in my office are clad in marble (so cozy--it's freezing in here) each time I venture to the kitchen, another office, etc. it sounds as if Long John Silver is traversing the place.

Sounds like.....a SHOPPING EMERGENCY!!!!!

My hard drive crashed. and the screw to remove it is stripped.
To quote the guy at the computer repair place next door: "Sounds like you're fucked."

I tripped on a sidewalk grating this morning and ended up with a raw, red bruise on my cheekbone that looks like a black eye. Fortunately, my afternoon meeting was cancelled.

Sliced worms, still wiggling, in sliced mushrooms.

I sat in an all-day workshop yesterday with a 25-year-old engineer who kept trying to talk over me. That was irritating in itself, but more annoying was the fact that he was trying to obstruct my feedback on his design (which he wasn't actually qualified to do) by tell me that my methodology wasn't right for it. Not that he had a clue about HCI methodologies, or anything, but he just KNEW it wasn't right for what the business (i.e. he) was trying to achieve.

Kids, eh?

i forgot to post this on St.John thread. A group of women obviously there for the Summer Feasting menu, they had the langoustine to start and we watched as they took one each and the dish was taken away over half full - what a waste. Couldn't bear to see what they made of the pig.

Sniff, pass the tissues. Atchoo.

Arguably, this should be on the supper thread too, but I wondered if I was haemorrhaging this morning - then remembered how much beetroot I ate last night.

Scientist alert:

A rather nasty creature arrived in my kitchen this evening - fortunately not apparently aggressive - a kind of monster wasp. Its abdomen alone is about the size of a normal wasp. It seems to prefer to lurk around the fluorescent lamp for which I'm grateful, given the interest of little cat

Nu?

v

Might just be a queen wasp loking for a place to hibernate for the winter.