Today I managed embarked on two missions. Mission A: mixing concrete for a new path in the garden, and Mission B: starting university work. The path is finished; the same cannot be said for the latter. I also managed to close a couple of deals and produce some groundwork for a future project, so all-in-all I have been very productive.

If I wish to maintain this brilliant form I will have to sort out my sleeping issues. At uni I would consider it a miracle to sleep this long when it isn't a weekend (sometimes even if it is a weekend), but at home I've been getting 12hrs sleep nearly every night. The only thing I can complain about is I lose half the day, and so I wish I could force myself to retire earlier, but as you can see, I manage to entertain myself with other things until the wee small hours of the morning.

This is going on my list of things I need to address before I get back, because 9am lectures are going to prove very cold waters to cope with when I start them again (four days a week) on Monday. My resolution? Tommorow I will rise early and shop for CDs and cut-offs. This will also encourage more sunny days.

Today was spent at Donington racetrack. This was my first taste of 'live' motorsport and I can firmly say I intend to go back. I'm not entirely sure I how I've managed to avoid attending all these years, but finally managed to make it to an event. It was the first meet of the season for the British Touring Car Championship, and after starting off at stupid o'clock in the morning, we managed to see most of the days events. I even caught a bit of sun. Which is nice.

Rolling Start

We were being "hospitalised" (not hospitalised) by a stairlift supplier to my uncle's company, which included free tickets, free canapés and a free trackside box. We also were treated to free magazines and inside one I found this photo.

The caption reads "Rolling Start. Stephen Campbell attempted a novel way to leap through the John Cooper Challenge pack at Donington. Sadly for all concerned, it failed." Most of the time this would jsut mildly amuse me, except I actually know Steve (my only link to the motoring world). He's a university friend of mine and used to have a tendency to be very quiet and go unnoticed, hence we nicknamed him "Psycho". Ironically, something has since occurred which we didn't bank on, which is Steve has actually began living up to his role, which is very amusing. The guy is hilarious.This wasn't one of his crazy stunts however.

Steve races Mini Coopers (respect) and is actually pretty goddamn good. Unfortunately for him he managed to roll his car (see photo) at a recent race at Donington. Being the holidays, I didn't know about this, and so when I discovered the picture I was most amused. Poor old Steve. If you are worrying - he wasn't injured, but his car was in a pretty bad state (see the photos here) Even so he raced the next day and finished a respectable sixth.

Aside from this discovery, back at Donington, I was pleased to watch Matt Neal seal two victories and several other trophies. Not that I can possibly have a legitimate reason to do this after one race, but my father plays golf with his father, so that's my excuse for supporting the winner.

James came around today. We have been trying to sort out all this travel malarkey for this summer, which has so far been very slow starting. This is our third major expedition now and we seem to get more blaze about the whole thing every year. I'm sure it'll all get sorted (it always does) but it would be great just to have it done and dusted already. Looks like James is now going to have to sort it out when he gets down to Bath. The guys at STA must be getting sick of the sight of him.

James and I tried to outline an itinerary, but ended up watching the Grand National and Tony McCoy's unfortunate departure from the race. It was also unfortunate for James who had put money on him. If only I'd know third place would go to a horse at 66/1, but unfortunately I've never picked a horse that's ever paid out on the National so I've given up.

Tonight I have persuaded the folks to take us all out for a curry and film which should be good as currently the site of the inside of my room is driving me insane. Due to the wonders of technology I managed to watch most of that mundane coverage of the royal wedding this morning. Despite my dislike of Piers Morgan, I thought his presence was quite good in the BBC studio. I particularly liked his remark about the whole of the congregation of St. George's chapel making the prayer of penitence which was along the lines of ...If there ever was a crowd that needed penitence it was this one.

I can't see what all the fuss is about the wedding - for me it's just two people in love, getting married. Fair enough protest before, but I thought it was out of order for the people who turned up on the day itself and made a nuisance of themselves. Maybe they can't be the fairytale dream couple that Di & Charles were meant to live up to, but really, give them a break on whats meant to be a their happy and special day. The best of luck to them - I can't ever believe Camilla is the villainous woman that some of the press make her out to be. Also good on Steven Fry for the top hat. This is the sort of British quirkiness we don't see enough of and expect at royal weddings (or blessings). Top hats for everyone.

Tomorrow I'm off to Donnington raceway. Its actually a matter of minutes from uni, but I can't return to halls until next Sunday so it'll just be up and back for the day. It's the second of two days of BTCC racing, which will be my first visit to a motorsport event (despite an interest I've held for years), so I'm looking forward to it.

After that I really am going to have to start on the work.

Why is it that these things aren't simple? Maybe I should give up today and start tommorow.

Ever since I got up this morning I've been trying to sort out the problem with Nick's and the Echos' domain name, but it appears that GoDaddy.com is offline and I can't figure out the controls for the other host company. Grr.

Last night the news came through about MG Rover collapsing, which is going to have a devastating affect around here (most of the West Midlands). To be honest, I don't think I ever saw it pulling through but the company has now offically commenced insolvancy proceedings so it does truly look like the end of the road for the last great british car manufacturer.

I seem to recall I was sceptical about them pulling through originally when they were bought by Phoenix holdings in the mid-to-late ninties, and they have done well to get this far. However despite years of personal doubt, I still don't think it's quite sunk in how profound it is for them to have been here yesterday, and not today.

The company has some family history for me as well. I believe my great-grandfather was one of the original company managers at the beginning of the C20th after his line of work in coach building dried up. Thankfully his skills were transferable and he ended up working for Lord Austin overseeing the body construction of the first Rovers at Longbridge. The only other connection we have is my dad owns an MGB, but to be honest its hardly got as much life in it as MG Rover does.

I only hope that something positive comes from all this, as with 18,000 jobs dependant on the Longbridge plant, this isn't exactly a minor problem.

So here is the blog. I didn't know if I'd ever set one of these up, but apparently everyone is doing it, so here's the bandwagon and here's me jumping on it.

This morning I dropped my biggest web project as I think I've taken on too much. Considering the new term and all those exams grinning at me from the horizon I should really do some work, and I think this is the only way of appeasing myself.

A direct corellation to the lack of university work being done is that my social exploits haven't held up too badly considering it's a holiday. Socially, things tend to dry up a bit a home as most of my friends from school don't live in this area, but during this Easter I've got around to seeing quite a few people (out of the ones who haven't buggered off to Cypress or Malta).

Last night I managed to catch up with some old school friends at Liam's 20th birthday. It was only a simple thing - a balti then the pub, butconsidering I'd not seen Ian or Tom-Bell since I left school it was a good catch up. Tom and John were also there which always makes for a good and informed conversation about the world today - I can't think of anyone at uni with whom I have heated conversations about the state of the union. Interesting considering university is meant to be some hotbed of political discussion and revolution. All except Loughborough.

Currently I am contending with wireless networking. This is a totally new concept to me as I've never had to network much at all before and I am spending most of my time wrestling with acronyms and abbreviations trying to figure out why it cuts me off every so often. I hope it all settles down as it damn annoying.