I like Manchester, and on Saturday evening I found myself sitting at a low table with picking up cards with a beer in my hand. The best way to enjoy Manchester I think.

It was Mike’s birthday and just an overnight stop, but his new flat is very nice and a lot of people turned up to trash say hello, including Ben and Noel who I haven’t seen in an age.

As I’m off to Switzerland at the weekend, I’m going to have to slot in quite a lot before the week is out. New camera batteries should be en-route, but cold-weather clothing has yet to be arranged. Hotels booking are somewhat light on the ground also.

There was mass relief this morning as completed a fairly ugly integration project between two large systems. It’s all working now and I’m quite proud, although why it needed to be made so difficult in the first place is beyond me, and my client agrees.

I was once again annoyed that I’ve missed out on Eddie Izzard tickets. Four more dates were announced, but apparently not to the mailing list usuals and so lost out again. There are strictly a few seats remaining, but I don’t really fancy paying £65 to go on my own (not to mention getting down to London/arranging to stay the night too). I’m just keeping my fingers crossed he will do a proper UK tour.

Oh and it’s that time of year again, so the taxman has written me a lovely letter asking me for my money once more. Is it so odd that I just want it out of my account right now so I don’t even have to look at it mournfully for the next three months?

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Last weekend was the November Multipack and proved to be pretty packed out… we struggled to find seating big enough to accomodate us all at the Old Joint Stock so eventually moved on to the Windsor. There were some new faces along too which is always good, and I was able to interrogate Mark and Anthony about technical things, so pretty productive really.

Finally I got the opportunity to see Tim Minchin live on Wednesday at Huntingdon Hall in Worcester. It’s an odd building in as much as we initially couldn’t find the entrance, but the converted church made an interesting comedy venue (we we’re all sat tongue-and-groove in the pews) and it was a very enjoyable evening. I was a bit concerned about the acoustics initially as we we’re pretty much the last people to book seats and so were sat right at the back, but it wasn’t too much of a problem. I’d forgotten how hard it had been to get hold of tickets in the first place until I learnt the family next to us (oddly split up with us in the middle) had travelled down from Blackpool - a four hour journey one way - just to get the last few seats for the show.

And tomorrow I go to Manchester for Mike’s birthday. My last visit was exactly one year ago, and I have a feeling it probably will get as messy as last time (Mike is a little predictable when it comes to organising get togethers).

I thought this was quite funny.

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I don’t know anyone this side of the pond that didn’t want to wake up to hear that Barack Obama had won the election this morning, me included. I can only hope that he really can deliver change. For all the rhetoric of election time, it’s hard to know what the reality will actually be, but I remain very optimistic and very happy.

And to the other great victory this week, Lewis Hamilton got his reward for a fantastic nail-biting season, not least the final moments of the final lap of the final race of the calendar. My heart was in my mouth for the last three minutes of the Grand Prix - the most exciting race I can ever recall seeing, and complete restored faith in British F1 motorsport.

Not content with those two highs, I saw the new Bond film, Quantum of Solace last night with Tom and Raj. I’d attempted to lower my expectations to avoid disappointing myself, and tried not to listen to too many reviews, which was just as well as I came out more than satisfied. I will admit, it didn’t quite deal the punch Casino Royale did, but then again, we’re now a little more used to this Bond now and so know what to expect - just compare Casino Royale to Die Another Day and you’ll see what I mean. If you’ve yet to see it, my advice would be to ensure you go in in a mood to concentrate - I felt that considering it’s rated 12A, the plot required a fairly adult level of focus. Overall though, I enjoyed it.

Finally, I wish I’d upgraded to Expression Engine 1.6.5 a lot earlier - this flies compared to the version I was running before…