Book purchase splurge... The Abortionist's Daugter by Elizabeth Hyde... meant to borrow this one, but that source of reading material isn't so available these days; The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carre; A couple of Ian Rankin's, Resurrection Men and A Question of Blood - heard good things about this chap, I'll give him a go; and Why don't penquins feet Freeze, a compilation of stuff from New Scientist. On the reading front, coming to the end of Trainspotting. Come to the conclusion that it's a fine film adaptation and I don't object to the merging of several characters into one as much as I usually do; Welch made the film makers job easy by giving all the characters chapters and their own style of dialogue, even pyscho Begbie; I suppose especially in his case, shows up how true Robert Carlisle stayed to the character. Rather glad they left the scene out where Renton shags his brother's pregnant widow at his bro's funeral though, ahem!

Coming to the end of a week of forced alcoholic abstinence. Antibiotics. This chest business has still not cleared; the doc's got me on a course of big green horse pills in case it's infection and asperin in case it's heart while we're waiting for the test results to come back. Tonight it's no more, as first things first, I've got a party to go to with ale, and bent I must get. It's compulsory. It's Tracy's 40th down in Ippo, although I'm convinced it was all a ruse for her to get her bus pass early, no friend of mine is old enough for their 40th. Well, except Mr H ;o)

Had enough of the week, and my plan for "me" space unravels further. What should have been three days off turns into one. Short notice leave is a pain in the arse in my place, the teams are so small and it knocks them about to lose more than one guy at a time. It's been a daft week though, and I'm ready to fly! All that waiting and watching we did... well, let's just say it was for nothing. Nobbled the aforementioned noddies at the airport, wasting lots of efford in the process. Contacted at home again - I'm starting to dread the landline, it's always something bad, nobody that I actually want to talk to calls me on it any more. Might as well get the bastard taken out. Deployed in support of someone else's scheme. Proper crime, proper crims, a potential good day out to turn into a war story for years to come. Got the go bag together. Found some armour that fits. Jumped in the works go buggy and scooted out to an office in a certain northern town to await the call to battle.

And waited. And waited. And had a cup of tea. And waited. And went for a bacon sandwich. And waited. And got a terminal working and did my email. And waited. Waited some more. Did some computer based training I need to get out of the way before next Wednesday. Waited. Regretted that I'd left the go bag with book and Ipod in the car. Waited Regretted that I'd assumed it'd be briefing then right out of the door, and thus I'd left all my backlogged paperwork back at my own office. And waited. Had more tea. Waited. Had a few chocolate fingers, you know it's boring if I'm eating chocolate. Had more tea. Waited. Shift ended, got stood down, reinforcements dispatched from home plate, went back. The bad guys hadn't moved. Sometimes this job is so daft as to be surreal.

Anyway, got a new toy to play with. Canon EOS big one. I like me piccies, and my EOS300 is getting a bit long in the tooth, and has troubles with certain things I do, like the flying stuff. EOS newboy's got similar software, but is a quantum leap ahead in capability. Looking forward to seeing what it can do.