A family vote was held last night on whether we should go and greet Sister One back into the country when she arrived from Canada this morning. The vote was something of a last minute decision - it turns out the parents didn't actually realise she was due back from her 5 week voyage, and thought she was in fact arriving tomorrow. I don't think she would have been too pleased to stay a night in Birmingham Airport so it's just as well they figured it out.

The vote said yes, and so at 5.35am my alarm clock cruelly woke me; there was half an hour of frenzied 'getting up' and then Sister Two, The Mother, The Father and myself all piled into the newly restored car (following a respray) and made our way to the airport.

We didn't have to wait too long for them to come through arrivals, which is just as well really as I wasn't feeling the early morning vibe, and when we got back I crashed for a couple of hours. After a suitable break I pulled myself out of bed and sat down to the joys of work again. The sooner my inbox clears the better.

I checked my phone for the voicemail that had appeared while I was sleeping; and unless someone has submitted a Deed Poll on behalf of me and changed my name to Sue, I'm fairly sure the message wasn't for me. Well I might go anyway as the girls night out sounds jolly fun. Probably can't though, it's all this bloody work.

Also spoke to Nick and DDS for various reasons. I received some mail from James vis-a-vis the USA trip and finally got around to emailing Danny Fish back. I had recieved mail from him two or theree days ago and was absolutely delighted to find that he had been thrown out of the house he was living in while doing the Camp America thing. Not in a malicious way - Danny is a good lad, but if you're going to get chucked out, the best way to approach it was like Danny. Remember to leave your emails open on the computer at home, let the mum of the house have a good browse, then she can throw you out when you get back from work because she read the bit about what you got up to with the babysitter. Bloody good work. Keeping up the Anglo-US relations there, and the laws of probability says that if it's going to happen to anyone, it's more than likely going to happen to someone from Essex.

Oh, I found this the other day and couldn't help but feel a little sorry for the girls, especially when you watch the video endorsement on the front page. I was a little disturbed how 'good-value-for-money' the purchases seem to be - almost worth playing a joke on your mate if you had a spare two grand lying about. Well, whatever floats your boat. By the way; I don't go searching the net for this kind of thing - I just chance upon it. I'm still fairly hopeful that I don't have to start buying girlfriends yet.

Mother did marrow for dinner again tonight. Possibly definitely the most comical vegetable after a cucumber, I never really believed anyone actually ate them, but it's fast becoming a bland craze. I think I can safely assume many more marrow related meals are on the cards now that it's appeared on my plate twice in one week. Oh joy.

The past twenty four hours have been fairly different from the usual monotony I become accustomed to with summertime work.

Nick had planned to come over yesterday morning, but when I briefly spoke to him the night before he had managed to totally forget our appointment. Instead of leaving me not getting on with anything he sent Alex down to sort a few things out. This did mean I had to be up fairly early, but I really don't mind, as by 12pm you come to realise how much more 'day' you get when you wake a few hours earlier.

We sat down and worked through a number of things - flyers, adverts, website changes, brochure, discount card - a full repertoire of business related design tasks. I'm certainly being kept on my toes. I've also got consider the final part of the Tours4 project and the Old Edwardian Club website in the next few days. Schedules are going to be kept 'tonight', as the Dutch say.

After a mornings-worth of deliberation, we decided that food was in order and as Alex hadn't done a Chicago Rock Cafe, that is where we went. I went for a fairly sizeable burger, which I discovered I pitched just right. Alex's was somewhat more of an armful. Triple decker, he struggled to pick it up. The food was much better than the last time I went with Darwus, and conversation was mostly wake boarding and water sports.

Talking of James, he called me yesterday to say he was sending something over for me. The excitement builds, but I can only suspect it's not going to be as thrilling as I hope. Probably some travel documents or something. I'm really looking forward to the trip now; not so long to go either.

Neil also emailed, as did Tongy - both due to send me things themselves. Both are payment for jobs, and I'm especially looking forward to the former of the two. As yet I am unsure what exactly I'm getting, but it sounds like The World Domination Machine is going to get a bit of an overhaul.

Mike's website has been mothballed until everything else has been dealt with - I came back from lunch to discover a proof for the Tours4Flyer on my bed. My detective cap on, I quickly established Rich had been around to drop it off. I'm very pleased with it and, so should be able to put the order in ASAP. Still waiting on funds at the client end however.

After a day of exhaustive work Tom text me and we planned to meet up for a drink down the Labour at 7.30pm. Liam also was to attend, Cuth, Raj, Steve and George. A good crowd - we haven't had so many of us back together in a long time. I can't remember what most of the conversation was (alcohol was flowing freely) but I do recall it being a really good evening. Following closing time a few of us went on to get food at Olivio's (£2 pizza, naturally) and it was in here that I ran into Jon and Sophie. Apparently they'd been to the P-House which hadn't been that great according to Jon. It's the first time I've seen them since the party and I didn't realise it at the time, but apparently Sophie has been living up here for most of the summer. We talked major projects (I can't believe I come back home then go on a night out only to talk about the bloody course), and Jon seems to be sorted. Sophie actually had another really good suggestion, and if I feel a little bit pikey I may choose to pursue it (permission sought first naturally).

Tom and I walked back home which gave me a chance to talk utter nonsense. This theme carried on into sleep, as upon awaking this morning I realise how unbelievably strange last night's dream(s) had been.

According to my vivid imagination I had been elected as President of Students Union (something I can assure you that I have no desire to do) but I had no choice in the matter and was trying to find some way of resigning. Also I had a confrontation with an old teacher in the exam hall at school where he accused me of something in front of my entire year, but was so suitabley vague, there was no reason for me to understand why I was being shouted at or being thrown out of school. Then I was walking down a corridor next to what looked like the casts of Grease performing on the one side, and on the other, Les Miserables or some other suitably draconian production. Other things of note were that Sister One had a baby - where that came from I don't know, and Devito appeared in an issue of The Times, which I saw, attempted to photograph on my phone, only to find myself standing in the picture talking to him and some spanish bird in the photo with him.

The strangest thing is that I never dream when drunk - this was a total outpouring and was incredibly lucid. It wasn't just one dream, it was five or six. there may have been others. I never dream in parts and I haven't dreamt in weeks (not that I can recall). What a totally weird experience. I hope today isn't quite so colourful, otherwise I might need another lie down.

I've spent most of the past day on the phone to various people. For some reason I have suddenly become indescribably popular. There is no apparent trend to the calls; but in the past twenty four hours I've spoken to Liam, Nick, Alex, DDS and The Swan on subjects ranging from work to play.

Swan took the oppurtunity to invite me down to Romford this weekend, which would have been fantastic except for the timing. I'm off to Ireland early next week and so I need closure on some of these projects meaning this weekend will probably be spent working again.

I've mainly been fiddling around the Old Edwardian Club website today, and it's shaping up nicely. Askyric is proving fairly easy to implement and I'm looking forward to the future of my based ASP webdesign - it could become much faster to implement these sites when the system is complete.

I awoke early (10.30am) this morning and was greeted by two letters. Number one wasn't very exciting and it was simply a load of BACs pay slips from Echos. The second was Mike's bundle of drawings and illustrations for his site. It's going to take a bit of scanning and some photoshop skillz, but I'm hoping to put together a half decent portfolio for him (before I go away?).

The hosting is finally expiring for this domain, so I'm moving to another company. The people were a bit of a nightmare, especially if you recall the week or so the site went down a month or so ago. I've got a better relationship with this company so maybe we'll see better results (we'd better).

As I'm still needing to make progress today, I'm cutting this entry short to get ahead once again, but will leave these fantastic links for you to pour over:

• http://www.grimsplayground.co.uk/freddy/pics/ drugs/drugs1.htm
• http://uploads.ungrounded.net/23 9000/239712_the_Maxwell_Edison_Story.s.swf

I had a driving lesson yesterday morning, It's the first one I've had in over a year now, and after my sister switched from the old instructor to this new one, I've given it a go as well.

The car is a relatively new Corsa and definitely has a different feel to my old pocket rocket, the VW Polo. It was initially quite hard to make the switch, but after a while I got the hand of it and the instructor assured he could knock all the nasty habits I've picked up out of me. He also said I should book my theory for the next three weeks. So far I haven't done this as for some reason I feel a little daunted. With all my work on I don't know whether I've got enough time to concentrate on revision; although this is total excuse making. I don't know why I'm so concerned. Oh well, time will only tell if I decide to go ahead and bite the driving bullet. He also reckons I could be through the lot by Christmas, which is a good thought and hopefully some motivation.

Regarding all the malarkey surrounding the sudden demotion of Jark, I'm sure that this is not a joke now. The polarisation of the staff is very marked now and there seems to be a general exchange of threatening words and impending legal action. There have been some extraordinary leaked documents and conversations doing the rounds and clearly it is becoming a major issue. There has been a quasi-official statement from the CEO, but it's still a very long way from being resolved.

Yesterday was spent tampering with the Tours4 brochure again (a change of colour) , some StudentXtra website modifications and then of course the daily Askyric progress which is now finally being integrated into the first prototype site.

I got a text from Donk yesterday and he confirmed that he is not going to be about in the next three weeks, which means I'm not going to see him at all this summer. He is getting rather too good at his competitive rowing at the moment and it prevents us meeting up as often as before. I'm not annoyed about it - on the contrary I'm so pleased that he's going so well, just it makes getting in contact with him so much harder. Incidentally, I've just found this and what a great concept... you are following number two by the way, that's Rich.

I'm going to have to motor today - deadlines are pressing...

Considering Sunday is generally the day that I spend most time with the family, today was an exception. For each of their own individual reasons, the members of the Higgs brigade who hadn't already sought refuge in Canada decided to go their own ways, having "BBQ's and thing". This left me on my own in the house in charge of my own survival.

Having risen too late for breakfast I did myself the vegetable lasagne that had been left it the fridge. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a carnivore through and through, and this was clearly not a standard dish in our household. There are two reasons why this abomination of a perfectly good meal could have ended up in the freezer. Number one is an all time favourite/regular - The Mother didn't check the packaging as she whisked it off the shelf in Sainsbury's (Illustrated example: Yesterday we were treated to a wonderfully spicy pizza. No one in our house likes spicy food. Point made). The second option is slightly more frightening for my digestive system and that is that due to Sister Two's skin issues', her diet has been changed by her homoeopath who says (and I do not kid) she needs to cut out the chocolate and get on the birdseed. Mother thinks this is wonderful and had jumped on the healthy eating bandwagon, which means there is every chance that this vegetable option was not sheer coincidence.

The kitchen cupboards have been stripped of the usual teeth rotters like biscuits and all those other nice things, and it looks like a rather enthusiastic squirrel is to blame as it all has been replaced by hordes of nuts, seeds and dried fruit. If we get any more warm weather it could easily turn itself into a giant fruit cake.

My suspicions were later ratified by my evening meal - I reached for a frozen pizza only to recover a Spinach and Mozzarella concoction (which I have to admit I do quite like) but afterwards I realised that I have not consumed any meat today. On a Sunday. That must be the first time in... like... well... ever.

One shock revelation came today while I was only my daily interweb wander, and I'm still not entirely sure if I believe it or not. Apparently, Scott Jackoff, a.k.a. $Jark from DeviantART has been forced off the staff, a matter of days before the site's fifth birthday. Now this may not mean too much to most people, but basically the background is that Jark set the whole thing up and is sort of the face of the world's biggest online art community. DA has experienced massive expansion in the past few years and Jark was a figure head above everyone else. I always found it amazing how he could co-ordinate a network of 1.1 million users worldwide from a naval base in Japan and never meet the co-founder who lived in the States.

Anyway, I stumbled across a huge revolution on the site - staff members resigning by the dozen in protest and a mass movement to boycott submission of art except in support of bringing him back. You see, it's not so much that he's gone, it's the way he's gone. He just one day dropped off the staff list, and apparently without notice. The CEO, $Spyed, who is another big man in the whole thing, has become more of a public face in the past year, and is apparently responsible for the situation, whatever it is. The problem that faces most people is that no statement has been given by either of these two people, and no clear information has been given about what happened. What is known is that a number of site comments have been removed regarding the situation (this can only be made possible by staff, and DA's own rules state that comments - no matter what they are - cannot be removed). This has caused an outcry against censorship which has never occured before as there had never been any, and also leaves the community reeling over Jark's sudden, unexplained, but apparently nasty departure.

I am still in two minds over whether this is a 5th birthday joke, it's happened before, but usually on April Fool's, and if it was intended as a joke, it has gone way beyond that. I have a feeling that this has permanently damaged the community atmosphere with a good number of artists refusing to participate any longer.

On other fronts, I did little in the way of proper work and spent my time crusing the channels and listening to comedy radio programmes. A chilled out day, and a nice break.