You may have noticed one or two things about the blog (in fact the whole site) recently. The first is obvious, and that is that if you checked here in the past two days, well you wouldn't have seen much at all. Secondly you might notice that this page is a couple of paragraphs short of a weblog.

To say I'm a little annoyed would be an understatement. It turns out my trusted web hosts managed to burn out the server my website, and the Echos website was hosted on during an upgrade, and for three days failed to get any replacement up and going. At the moment I am still encountering some technical difficulties while they reconfigure everything to the way it was before the apocolypse.

Number two, which you may have to be slightly more observant to spot is that the last couple of entries have totally dissappeared. In fact, before I did my little salvage job (I love you Google cache), I nearly had lost a weeks worth of entries when I discovered that the entire database was corrupt. The only non-image file that was corrupted by the whole process.

I have spent the best part of the afternoon downloading then re-uploading the files that were not corrupted on to a new server (hopefully 'Bishop' is going to be a bit more reliable than old 'Fantomex' was), then then replacing all the images I lost.

This next bit of this is going like the part of Blue Peter when they sit the dog down next to the Totaliser and tell you what you have to do to help some poor helpless soul. If you, or anyone you know, reads this, can you just check that you haven't got a cached version of this page on your computer somewhere please. If you know a way of online data retrieval aside from the Way Back Machine (I tried it to no avail) please could you get in touch. I would really appreciate picking up the missing entries - all I need is the text and the date. If not, those fabled verses are consigned to the great infinite internet dustbin. Truly rubbish.

As I wasn't able to post my usual communique for three days, I will do my best to recap the events with as much detail as I can muster following this prolonged period of idleness.

First thing's first with an update on the house, which I slavishly worked away at on Monday. After playing the ISP version of musical chairs, Jono and I finally settled on ordering all our multimedia services from NTL. Despite my better judgement (which says it's a bad idea) they do in fact offer the best value for money, and we are not ordering the cheapest of their services so we may just be alright. We have opted for the full works as far as digital televisual entertainment goes; 70 channels plus the sports package. Then for the internet connection, a 2MB broadband link which has to be split between five and is capped at 30Gb a month, but should do us provided we don't get obsessed with too many US TV series. Finally we get a phone line thrown in with some deal on evening and weekend calls. Should be good, could be expensive, but should be good.

It looks like I will be heading up there on the 25th July for a couple of days. We have ordered everything to be installed on the 26th, so someone's got to be in to let the man in, and with Jono doing all his coaching malarkey, it's going to be muggins. I had hoped The Swan could join me, but alas, he informs me today that it's not going to happen. he can only do weekends and it's not going to be the ones either end of that week. Oh well, life once again poos into my pencil case of destiny.

Which brings me swiftly onto the state of the room. After considerable talks and some international intervention (The Father) I have manoeuvred the majority of boxes, books, files, folders, papers, documents (assorted), spare stationary supplies (hence the link) and childhood memories into the loft. Finally I can see some carpet which I now remember is green. There is still an A3 printer, a 3ft inflatable VK bottle, a scanner, two boxes, a large bag and a the entire collection of my university works obscuring my entry to the wardrobe, but progress is being made and Rome wasn't built in a day.

I phoned up Apple to try and get my iPod battery replaced for free, but after speaking to the Aussie on the end of the phone (WTF? Turns out Apple Tech Support is no longer in Ireland, but has moved an entire 180 degrees around the pole. Surely you have to turn spin the touchpad in the other direction on that side of the globe... how useful are they going to be?) I discovered that they didn't know much about it, except that it had happened in the US, and if it was going to happen there (here) we would be emailed about it. Hmm. Great. I can't believe I'm going to be seeing a new battery for a long while. Not like it actually matters; I've run out of space on my little 20 Gigger so the minute I get some touchable dollar, that's getting an upgrade.

I've been a busy bee while the website has been offline, sending emails here there and everywhere in attempt to grab funds from every pocket available. My latest venture has been enquiring as to when the student accommodation deposit refund will be put back in our accounts, as today was the day The Cheque went out, and my credit now has more digits on the left hand side of the decimal point than on the right. No reply as of yet.

Yesterday I took a phone message from a friend of the Parents. Rona sounds like a thoroughly nice lady (in the most aristocratic sense of the verbiage) who would probably give the Queen a run for her money at an Awfully Well Spoken contest. She informed me that she would be serving cocktails by the pool starting between seven and ten past seven on Saturday, that Mother and Father were graciously invited, and that I sounded "...the most deliciously dependable chap..." and she was sure that the message would be passed on in due course. Deliciously dependable. I mustn't forget to put that on my CV.

In an attempt to amuse myself last night I did a search on Technorati for "Lufbra", to see who else the in 'Burra blogs. Turns out that I am representing the educated masses of the town, as this is the incredibly common drivel that turned up. Just because you can txt talk doesn't mean you should avoid use of any vowel except for the letter O, which is probably worn out on their keyboard with the mass of LOLling and OMFGing in your blog. I would suggest to the authors "ritten by sophie n nikki" [sic] that they might like to reed a buk or summit. These sort of people should be ignored until they start using the net properly, like searching for porn.

I was bemused this morning, and it wasn't the first time. No, My Hero hadn't been commissioned for a new series, it was in fact a hygiene related issue. My hair needs a cut and so I took myself to the bathroom mid-morning in order to wash the wax out of it. Now the same thing strikes me every time I go to wash my hair in our house, but until now I had just accepted it; I use the red bottle of shampoo. After taking a few moment to read the front of the bottle this morning it suddenly occurred to me that I have been washing my hair in Revitalising Anti-Aging shampoo for over a week now. Clearly something that belongs to one or both of the Parents. Therefore I had a look around for the plain shampoo. You know, like it washes your hair and stuff. It's green or red or blue, a bit see through and is definitely called shampoo. Apparently not. All I wanted to do was wash my bloody hair and all I bloody got was 'NutriCerimide R', Original Lavendar Source Conditioner, Tea Tree Extract Conditioner, V05 Moisture Soak (would have, but it was empty), Dove Revitalising Conditioner, St. Ive's Apricot Scrub, Pure Zone for Continuous Purity (I think that one is for your hands, but for a while it looked like an option), Brilliant Brunette Volumising Shine Release, Linco Beer Extra Cremey (?), Sunsilk Silky and Smooth and a bottle of Cif. The Cif was the closest thing I could find to friggin' straight forward plain hair washing shampoo. I would have used it as well if the thought of smelling like bathroom furnishings for a month hadn't stopped me.

I watched the Olympic decision this morning. I kept half an eye on it as I flitted in and out of the lounge trying to get the wireless internet kick started again. Eventually, link re-established, I sat down to watch the final announcement. Paris vs. London. Who is is going to be? Turns out we pulled off a little coup (to steal something else French, sorry chaps). It'll be awesome to see the Olympics on British soil for the first time in over fifty years. There are cynics out there, but this will be good for British Sport, and despite you thinking my total lack of prowess and fairly strong disinterest in sport would indicate that I don't advocate such funds being wasted, but come on, it doesn't happen very often, and it'll all be good fun. My favourite part of the whole thing has to be the bid video, which is a really nice piece of publicity. Probably didn't do any bad thing for Heather Small's career reinvention either, but that aside, I'm genuinely happy. It's a bit strange to think however, I'm going to be 27 before it actually happens. 27. That's nearly thirty. Wow, that's a way off.

I watched Bill Bailey's Part Troll yesterday, and was once again impressed. The guy produces another great routine. Admittedly I couldn't understand the regurgitation of material from Bewilderness, but on the whole a positive vibe.

I then went on to watch an episode of the A-Team. Now despite the whole "cult classic" thang with this programme, I'd never actually watched a whole episode (or at least not while I can remember). UKTV Gold is such a wealth of entertainment. Last night however, my world was changed forever. It was superb. I love the lack of a valid story line, the quality of acting and the relationships between the characters. Also the fact that Hannibal's disguises might trick anyone at all.

Right now that's out of my system, I can get on with life and you can have a look at this, which is a brilliant demonstration of music and animation. It's worth reading the about page too (cheers to Scott Wills for posting this ages ago, despite the fact I totally overlooked it).

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