Knew I'd find something

Yesterday, the Guardian's G2 section had a photo of Kohl Rabi on the front of it. The more observant Guardian reader would have noticed, in tiny letters, the words 'MATTHEW HARWOOD' in the bottom left corner of the page. It's my first published photograph! Woohoo!

Actually, it's not, but it's certainly the first one published in anything like as high profile a publication as the Guardian. And the cover too! I was skipping about the place on Friday, when I found out.

And the rest of the weekend was spent in the same old drinking, chatting, sleeping, eating cycle, which I'm only expecting to break on my death.

Oh, one interesting innuendo related comment. Because of a discussion that came from this post on policyblender.com, I've been associated with the remark "It's not dangerous unless it's at least 8" long" in the mind of a friend of Michael Rossi's. It's all good fun.

Radio silence

Ok, I know I haven't posted for more than a week - but I've been extremely busy at work, and to be honest, nothing outrageously fun has happened that I can remember clearly (I have memories fo Friday and Saturday being fun, but was too drunk and too tired, respctively, to remember the details).

I promise to post something more interesting than this dire paragraph before the end of the month - if not, I shall resign and move to Barbados, and get a job as a fisherman. Now that would be worth a post or two.

Oh, and...

One of the surprises was a nice bunch of flowers I ordered for that nice Canadian girl (It's her birthday today, she's 21!). I was going to say how nice it was to be able to get hold of a florist 3500 miles away that was about 200m from her door. And of course how American customer service involves being helpful, whereas invariably, in Britain it involves going as far to telling the customer to fuck off as possible, without the customer noticing. Our own customer services department excepted of course.

The other surprise is still a surprise, but it's a work surprise, so it's quite dull.

Good day, bad day

Sometimes my job is enthralling and engaging. Sometimes it's too busy when it's being enthralling, and I don't get a chance to enjoy it (much like Arthur Dent, who didn't want to die with a headache cause when he got to Heaven he'd be all cross and wouldn't enjoy it). On a very few occasions, it's deathly dull. Yesterday I drove to Andover, a two hour journey each way, with London traffic, and I packed leaflets for four hours. Sometimes the leaflet packing is a great opportunity to arrange my thoughts - some of my best ideas (both for posts and for solutions to work problems) have come while I've been doing something boring.

The drive from the M25 is even more boring than the leaflet packing. So I decided to count roadkill. I managed to sight 5 different species, namely a pair of dead foxes, a hedgehog, a rabbit, a deer and a crow, the last four within a mile stretch of the M3. The odd thing is, I don't remember seeing any other dead animals on that stretch of road before. Perhaps it's something to do with Spring?

Damn, damn, damn...

I can't tell anyone about th einteresting stuff that's happening in my life at the moment! I've got things happening at work I can't speak about, things happening socially I can't speak about.... It's surprise-a-rama, as my old flatmate would term it.

When the surprises come off, I'll tell you all about them. In the meantime, there will be a short penguin clubbing interlude.

Smack down in Coldharbour Lane

Yesterday, as I meandered back to Brixton tube, I was chatting to my brother on the phone. He had just had his iPod break on him, and as it was bought in America, he managed to secure a refund in US dollars. Mid-sentence in replying and saying 'Oh, good for you etc.' I observed a young, slightly dishevelled man being hit by a car. He was picked up, flipped over and landed beside the car on the tarmac, in the cetnre of the crossroads with Atlantic Road. He made a certain amount of noise, the car stopped and the young dishevelled man got up for a second and walked around. 'Oh, he's ok' I thought, though he soon lay down again, probably at the advice of an overzealous first-aider.

I have never seen someone hit by a car before. I was slightly disappointed in myself to discover that, when it happened, I carried on my conversation with nothing more than an exclamation of 'crikey!'. Should I have stopped and tried to help? By helping, would I have been sued for hindering a perfectly legitimate suicide attempt? If I was in the car, what would I have done? Why was he in front of the car in the first place? Why was there no blood on the road this morning, when I walked into work the same way?

On Sunday morning, Streatham's main street was closed at 8am, and the bus I was on had to take a detour. I never found out why, but I doubt it would have got me to hang up the phone, whatever it was.

Test

This is a test.

This is a link to a test.

This is a bold test.

Busy week, won't go into detail

... but my fingers really hurt from bassism. The fretless came into its own last night, and I think the gig is going to be worth playing, even if it's not as worth watching as it might be. We're in it to have fun anyway, and I've met some good people, and learnt more about playing in a band.

The rest of the week has little to tell. Dinner with Liz this evening, who has just finished her exams. More rehearsal tomorrow. Gig on Friday. Some sort of treasure hunt on Saturday.

That's it, I knew there was something interesting happening! We're going on a treasure hunt on Saturday! There will be photos on Monday, assuming it isn't rained off. Otherwise there will be photos of general weekend drunkenness on Monday.