I got a new Pentax ist DL2 digital SLR camera the other day. It is the proverbial dogs bollocks. Brand new art-wank photo galleries coming soon…

My effort to shift some of my paunch has withered into nothing, again. It’s just too hot lately to exercise! Comfortable and bellied beats knackered and toned.

I had a work experience kid start this week. Less said the better. On his second day he got me into trouble by arriving early, then going to find my boss (interrupting a big meeting) and asking if he’d log him in. Which made me look like a total schmuck.

I am going home to Wales for all of 30 hours this weekend. The Joe Calzaghe fight I’d booked to see was put off (but the rest of the card wasn’t). I managed to cancel the tickets but my seats on the coach there and back were non-refundable. So I figured I’d go home anyway, seeing as I’d paid for them…

I was in Tesco this lunchtime and observed the 2 minute silence there. Not the most tasteful location but there you go. I could have gone to Russell Square or Tavistock Square (as both are about 5 minutes from my office) but I’m knackered and look a right state, so didn’t want to be an unwitting extra for a live Sky News/BBC/ITN/CNN broadcast…

Actual quote overheard:

Person A: Why kill innocent people? They should bring back the death penalty.
Person B: For who?
Person A: The bombers
Person B: The bombers died
Person A: How?
Person B: They were suicide bombers [long pause] that means they blew themselves up too…
Person A: Ohhhhhh riiiiiight.

For those of you who watch Big Brother, there is an unintentionally hilarious photo of Nikki (a few moments prior to entering the house) doing the rounds at the moment.

The show itself? It was pretty good actually, but by the time they’d come on stage I was already looking forward to announcement that the gig had been cancelled so I could just go home at a decent hour.

My plans for tomorrow were to go and have some drinks with friends. Unfortunately, most of these friends are football fans and insist on watching England’s match. I won’t watch it on principle – I’m not sacrificing one minute of any day to watch that shit, let alone on my birthday. So I’ll join them later and make sure we only venture into pub without a telly, in what may prove a vain effort to avoid football altogether.

I’ve been up to my eyeballs in work recently. But that’s a good thing – it’s all been freelance web design work. In addition to the NHS forum I’m setting up, I have completed a site for a photographer in North London. Unfortunately, good web design practices didn’t fit in with the minimalist style of site she wanted so it really isn’t suitable to be showing in my portfolio. I did try to convince her to adopt some good web practice (i.e. not having a splash screen, not making your links invisible on hover) but she was having none of it. And the customer is always right as they say…

The sites I’m still working on are for a wedding photographer, a cleaning company, an event planner and a communications company.

But it’s only in the last 24 hours that things have really picked up – an estate agent and a big media firm have asked me for quotes. I realise that doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll get them, but I am pleased that I’ve made a sufficiently good impression that they’d ask.

And now comes the unwelcome burden that is tax self-assessment. Although given the nature of my work tax shouldn’t have to be taxing. My records should look something like this:

Date – service: website design – cost
Repeat.

I hate the taxman.

The only way you could top that is if Jade Goody sexed David Beckham to death during a three-way orgy with an asylum seeking terrorist, having just snorted a fat line of coke off the chest of Gary Glitter. Which was supplied by Peter Mandelson. In the Big Brother house.

Then told all in a 4-page spread at a poolside in the Bahamas as Max Clifford rubs his hands together in glee.

Now you know.

EDIT: Ten minutes later she walked into shot where Paul Merton was filming something in Marks & Spencers at Oxford Circus. As you do.