What does it take to turn one perfectly packaged letter into a papier-mache mush?

1. One perfectly packaged envelope, posted to the wrong address
2. One hand-delivered attempt to rectify the problem
3. One idiot (me) leaving it in a friend’s house in London by accident
4. One attempt by said friend to forward the mail on a rainy day
5. One postal strike
6. Four weeks later

That is how you turn a perfectly packaged letter into a papier-mache mush.

I might have just as well just had it posted to the correct address in the first place, put it in a blender with the rest of the ingredients for a banana smoothie, hit ‘Turbo’ then pour after a month.

It might not have been so bad if the contents hadn't been electronic.

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We seem to have missed out on a string of sporting successes this week. What with our football hopes hanging by a thread, Lewis Hamilton’s unfortunate near miss at the F1 Championship, the rugby boys’ valiant defeat to the ‘Boks, and me forgetting to take my googles when I went swimming this evening – all in all it’s been pretty disastrous for the English these past few days.

On the flipside, we still know how to celebrate whatever the result, and thankfully last night Will arranged for his birthday to coincide with the Big Match, so we ended up down the Foley Arms before heading into Stourbridge for the night.

Tom and George made a surprise visit, and what with Gwyz over, the girls, and a few other faces it was a good little crowd. Plus we managed to talk our way into a couple of bars after they had said no; always a bonus, never a disappointment.

I can sense the next few days are going to be keeping me on my toes. There are one or two projects that need to get a good kick start at the beginning of the week and I can’t see it getting much quieter.

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Saturday marked the beginning of the third year of the Multipack, and so to celebrate we returned to the home of the ‘pack and all round superstar town, Walsall.

It wasn’t as busy as the same event last year, but Si’s attendance being as rare as the attendance of free cake at meetings (which also showed up) made it a good little gathering which eventually stopped at the Hogs Head.

One of the ideas banded about was universally applauded and so it has been decided to have a bit of a hack day (‘Multihack’ if you will… stop booing, it’s not that awful) in the offices of OneBlackBear for the November meeting in order to get the website well and truly refurbished. For more info, check out Upcoming.

In the evening I headed over to Beth’s house for the first time in years for a rugby-fest and OSH reunion. Did I think we’d win? Well like most other people I know I think I was still stunned by the fact we were in the semis, let alone going any further up the ladder. After what was 70 minutes of mediocre rugby, finally England showed some flare and the final ten were pure gold. I was a very happy chappy.

Thankfully that wasn’t the end of the night, as there were plenty of people who I hadn’t seen in ages like Oz, Tim, Beth, Jo, Mitch, Rog, Baz, in fact, pretty much everybody apart from James and Helen. Good times.

Sunday was more for family time, and with my cousin heading off to Australia for a year, we went over to Stratford to see him before he catches his flight.

On a completely different tack, there has been one big mystery this week. Imagine my surprise when flicking through the channels a couple of nights ago I discover that directly after UKTV Gold, a new channel called ‘Dave’ has appeared, followed closely by a ‘Dave +1’.

It turns out that UKTV G2 has rebranded itself to this strange new name and although I sort of see why they did it and how they came up with the idea (I’d put money on it being a team of young graduate types who came up with it), I think it’s a little strange. It’s a little too odd, mainly I think, with a questionable amount of staying power.

Anyway, the whole channel is geared to 18-25 year old men, so plenty of Top Gear, Buzzcocks, Have I Got News For You etc etc which can’t be a bad thing, unless you are not a 18-25 year old male.

I met two girls last night who were taught Economics by the current Home Secretary. How’s that for name dropping…

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Well done England, unfortunate Australia, my thoughts are with you Peter Platt. I wasn’t anywhere near confident ;P

Congratulations France, I didn’t see that coming. Shame no Kiwi/England stand-off though…

South Africa, no surprises there then.

Bad luck Scotland, I’d have loved to have seen the Saltire fly at a semi-final.

Well done Argentina, you could be breaking new ground…

Unfortunate Lewis Hamiliton. The Brazilian Grand Prix will probably be the most exciting season finale in years.

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It’s been a while since I went to see a stand up show. I used to go quite regularly to the circuit-nights at uni, but the last proper show with a single comic was probably when I still was at school.

Russell Howard played the Wulfrun Hall in Wolverhampton last night and I arranged to go with Will, who had never seen live comedy, so seemed a suitable person to expose to it’s wonders.

I’ve been wanting to see this show for a while; both as a 6music listener, and a general follower of the fringe/comedy scene, albeit slightly remotely. I’ve managed to miss past appearances for various reasons so I was pleased to finally make it.

And I wasn’t disappointed. I was thoroughly entertained for the whole set, and it only makes me wish I had been to gigs more regularly in recent times.

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It could be a seminal moment in Burma’s history if the current protests result in the installation of the democratically elected government and the overthrow of the 45 year old military junta. The concern primarily though it at what cost it will come at.

As events look like they will be coming to a head over the coming days, I’m hopeful that the Burmese people’s campaign will triumph, but can’t help but think that it’s going to come at a cost.

I received a new memory card and two new batteries for the 350D this morning, so am getting ready to be trigger happy for the weekend. There is a chance I’ll be doing a paid shoot tomorrow which will be good warm-up time, as I’m going to be gone from Thursday first thing until Monday.

I am actually coming back from the Lakes on Sunday, but some tickets came up for a web/business talk in London, so I’m heading straight down there from Ambleside. I’m also really pleased that I’ve now got tickets to see Russell Howard next week and with the new Foo Fighters album firmly in my clutches, I am a very, very happy man.

This’ll teach the Conservatives to leech bandwidth.

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I don’t usually do these, but as I have been tagged directly, you’re now going to learn something new.

The Rules

• You have to post these rules before giving you the facts.
• Players state eight random facts/habits about themselves.
• At the end of the blog post, you tag eight people and list their names. (Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.)
• People who are tagged need to write about their eight things on their own blog and also post these rules.

(I think my omission of this bit earlier might have made this a fairly disastrous first attempt at a meme)

The Facts

1. I’m the first male in the Higgs family going back at least four generations who didn’t join the family business, which is a large solicitors practice in the Black Country.
2. I have appeared topless on page three of a national newspaper.
3. I have never smoked anything
4. My great aunt was responsible for designing a council-built sliproad off Icknield St (in the Jewellery Qtr., Birmingham) which turned so tightly that lorries would jackknife on the bend. It was revenge for the fact they had knocked down my great grandfather’s workshops to build the road.
5. I’m a mix of English, Irish and Scottish and according to family folklore, we’re meant to be related to Robert the Bruce.
6. I hate theme parks. The rides and the atmosphere even more so.
7. The first work I did on commission was to for luxury ladies’ shoe shop in Solihull, when I sold my GCSE IT coursework to them.
8. A 92 year old friend of my aforementioned great aunt, presented me with a Victorian knuckle duster when I was about 16 years old. It apparently belonged to her father, who was a vicar. I think it smells of blood.

Right, so the next people who will be cajoled into this meme extravaganza are:

• Stuart Maynard-Keene
• Ellie Hyde
• Kate Bolin
• Ben Ward
• Ross Riley
• Sam Hardacre
• Matt Machell
• Owen Gregory – Probably not suitable for your work blog, but hey!

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