Day 996

Didn't wake up till 11am after staying up till two watching Paul Calf and Get Carter. Wonderful sense of background in the former.

A Giro came but also the Black Spot, the Restart letter. Cashed the former in a cold sunny morning and felt as if back in happier 1988 or 1989 days.

And so: 1994. In June I got the job at Alphabet City. Three weeks later I was back on the dole but I got a SW radio, programmable calculator, mouse and scanner.

Labour won every election in sight, culminating in the triumph of Dudley. A fitting tribute to John Smith, whom we mourned in May. A fine man. And so we continue to await the Day, with Tony Blair, whose fault is not what he might do but what he might omit to do.

Day 995

Did various financial manoeuvres in town - got £20 already towards the £65 multimeter I want.

Day 994

Didn't wake up till 11am: better set my alarm tomorrow. Used the serial adaptor to link my computer and the 486 laptop mum lent me. The DOS 6 Intersvr prog is brilliant - gives you transparent access to the other computer's drives. All worked with no trouble.

Dark, rainy, windy afternoon. In the evening watched the sequel to the Paul Calf video diary.

Day 993

Listened to a lewd but very funny versh of Journey to the Centre of the Earth on R4 in the afternoon, sad ending though.

Did a ton of picture scanning, no probs.

Very windy now, no rain yet though, unlike Wales where they've got terrible floods.

Carried on with the Latin after a longish gap, did quite well.

Day 992

Went to town in the afternoon on my bike: it was raining and blowing strongly but it was quite mild and pleasant really. Got starflower oil from Superdrug.

Did a bit more computer art in the evening. Perhaps I should get in touch with M tomorrow; ought to write to D too.

Day 991

BOXING DAY. Up at ten, after a fortunately undisturbed night. There wasn't much recurrence of symptoms today.

Watched the exciting bits of Flash Gordon in the morning - annoyingly they cut the end credits and The Hero. In the afternoon Never Say Never Again - I could've sworn there was a Th**r impersonation at the end when I last saw it - perhaps it's been cut in respect for the victims of her regime.

Taped Yellow Submarine (at last), cut out 3M of dead wood from my hard disc - back to 7.7M free now. Did some scanning and practiced changing people's expressions with Paintbrush: got the Logitech Windows mouse driver to work! When I first bought the mouse it kept crashing. Odd eh. It even seems to've speeded Windows up a bit (no bad thing, given the speed it runs at on my computer).

Day 990

CHRISTMAS DAY. Had a restless night, with singular night-time occurrence of the 'dizziness' symptoms I had in the summer. However, by continually telling myself 'Don't Panic' I woke up at 8am. I still felt rather odd and had a hangover to boot, but I felt better as the day went on.

Round to my parents' for a pleasant Christmas morning. They gave me the Psion Parallel Link, a serial cable, the Latin dictionary, blank discs and tapes and John Henry by They Might Be Giants.

In the afternoon watched The Wrong Trousers, laid out the tea.

Day 989

CHRISTMAS EVE. Up at 9.30; had a shock when my hard disc failed to start in the morning, with the computer reporting nothing but '1701'. I suspected cold, and gently played the fan-fire over the aging computer for five minutes. The disc started first time! I've never heard of that happening, ever. I might keep the room a bit warmer in future.

Round to my parents', peeled a pound of sprouts in the morning for tomorrow, which took ages.

Walked home, starting with a circuit round Langwell Drive, like I did on Christmas Eve 1991.

Had a couple of cans of beer from 7.30 onwards - it is Christmas after all. Tidied up the room so I can wake up to a bit of space on Christmas morning.

And so it only remains to say: Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Day 988

CHRISTMAS EVE EVE. Now in the Christmas waits of childhood today was the last lap, a kind of half-Christmas state. Apparently the pedal car Christmas I remember was 1973: my earliest memory, so far as I can work out.

Went to the Co-op in the morning for vodka in a heavy frost. Continued work on the spreadsheet; think I've got it now. Read the 'perfect' Dickens Christmas in Sketches by Boz. A book best for Making A Night Of It, a triffic description of a Victorian piss-up. It could happen today.

Put up extra Christmas card strings, sorted out the videos, calculated a 150W bulb as consuming 153W from timing the revs of the electricity meter. The kitchen fluorescent is 77W, not bad for the amount of light it produces.

Parents met S's mum in town; apparently S is disillusioned with her course like M said. She's back in Mugsborough but I hope she doesn't suggest going out tomorrow night, or any other night anywhere expensive.

Day 987

This always used to be a difficult day in the wait for Christmas. Worked very hard all day on FCALC; had just got the cell transfer routine working when I moved on to viewing an 8x16 section of a larger sheet. For some reason everything fouled up and it took several hours to discover the fault. Got on top of it now though.

In the evening watched Roger Cook hectoring sellers of quack medicines. Saw the news about the Russian attack on Chechenia. In the air-raid the reporter found himself next to the Chechen foreign minister, who gave an impromptu interview. 'Rossiya demokratikya' he said, gesturing upwards.

Day 986

Worked out a replicate mechanism for my FCALC QBASIC spreadsheet with surprising ease, despite feeling a bit dizzy. Made a trip to town: paid £1.50 in library fines for a total of 26 book-days overdue, got vodka from Sainsbury's, got yet more multimeter fuses. It was appallingly cold on the way to town, I lost all feeling in my fingers.

Came back, heard there'd been a calf-plane crash in Coventry on the anniversary of Lockerbie.

In the afternoon went to the big Sainsbury's, got a huge 1½ litre tank of vodka. So I'm sorted till next Friday morning, the 30th: 70cl from the Co-op then'll provide till Jan.2, but if there's extra festivity I'll get 70cl from there tomorrow or Friday.

Carried on with the spreadsheet, got all the $A1 A$1 $A$1 stuff bashed into shape, rushed on, incorporating functions into the EXPR subroutines and triumphantly finishing an IF function as good as PC-CALC's. Not bad, considering I only started on Friday.

Listened to The Solitary Cyclist on R4.

Very interesting parallel: in 1968, 2 years after the 1966 election, the Tories took Dudley from Labour on a 21% swing. In 1994, 2 years after the 1992 election, Labour took Dudley West from the Tories on a 29% swing. If the parallel continues we can expect the Day in 1996, and not a moment too soon either. Apparently only 8% of people think the govt. are doing a good job, the first ever single-figure rating; Labour are about 39 points ahead.

Day 985

Noticed that the kettle's taking longer to boil - the cold water must be colder. Proper December weather.

Finished off the expression evaluator, transferred it into QBASIC and integrated it into the spreadsheet. Great to see all the figures changing at will, though it's a mite slow. Next step: replication.

Had a mild scare when I mistakenly copied the corrupt version of DOS 5 COMMAND.COM onto the OK one instead of vice versa. The progs that've accessed the corrupt one must've been checking C:\ first before reading COMSPEC. Found a working versh on a dusty old disc after booting from my own 3.20 floppy.

Later tried to make a DOS 6 bootable disc but was defeated by drive incompatibilities. I'll try a direct sector copy from DEBUG tomorrow.

Rigged up some new fairy lights, tested the dodgy telly speakers.

Day 984

Went into town, signed on; when will they bring in a decent queueing system? Someone who arrives after me always gets served first. Had better luck at the library book sale: got nine back issues of PCW for 1990-91 (very relevant to my PC1640, you see) for £1.80.

Went to the building society and put in £10 of Granny's present, since I wasn't expecting it. The woman was surprised to find someone paying in in the week before Christmas.

Blew the fuse in my multimeter again. I'm going to get a 10 amp model as soon as I can get £60 - perhaps if I can get that tax back next year. I'll carry on using the current (ha ha) one for the things analogue meters are better for- pulsed current etc.

Watched the very last Desmond's.

Day 983

Woke up with a splitting headache about 11am. Read the paper till T got up and we watched Quantum Leap, a nice Christmas one. After which we walked down to the station and I saw her off about 1.10. She said she'd write. I tentatively agreed to go and see her on Jan.22nd.

In the evening watched a documentary about the Greek World Cup effort. No signing on tomorrow - oops, no, there is, lucky I checked. I've got to go to the building society, anyway.

Day 982

(Sunday night). Nice relaxing day, worked on a spreadsheet in QBasic. T rang up about 7pm to say she would be in Mugsborough at 7.30. Met her, came back via the Cricketers where we had 3 pints. We had a great conversation till 5 am; T insisted on watching violent films which I turned my back to, but we got on famously.

Day 981

Yesterday'll be a date to remember to: Labour turned a -5,000 majority into a 20,000 one. A 29.12% swing to Labour, the biggest since the thirties. (If repeated nationally, Labour would have 612 MPs, the Tories 0 MPs). They never say how the swing is calculated, but I think it's the average of the change in percentage vote of the gainer and loser, ignoring sign (ie Labour were +30 points, Tories -28). It always used to be the Liberals who did that sort of thing.

Can we say watershed? Shall I say El Alamein again? Roll on The Day.

Having walked back from town yesterday, avoided going today: started work on a QBasic spreadsheet prog, to get me into the principles of sheets. Finished putting up the Christmas decorations. Baked the quiche for tomorrow: I was right to get free-range eggs, as T rang up in the afternoon to confirm tomorrow, and mentioned it inter alia. She mentioned some unpleasant magic a friend of hers had been subjected to (she reckoned).

Being something of a witch on her own account she said she'd directed some sort of magic for me to 'find some sort of energy' on the Solstice. I pointed out that that was the day I got sacked. She claimed it might've been for the better. Anyway, I can expect her about seven tomorrow.

In the evening, Harry Enfield.

Day 980

My glasses, weakened already, broke in half in the morning. Wasted an hour in town waiting for the repair. Looked at the picture exhibition of landscapes in the library. The repair cost £53 - safe in our hands, eh? I exerted charm on the people in the opticians, it was quite a pleasant experience.

Discovered a new Giants album, John Henry, in Andy's Records. I must have it for Christmas!

In the evening yet more attempts to stop the scanner crashing the system. Wish I could find the cause.

Dudley by-election today. Coming back from the optician's I clocked a girl I'd seen before, this time up against the angle of the wall of Habitat, asking for spare change. I walked past, of course. I may have a roof over my head but, as I don't need to explain, I never have any money. One for every Tory's conscience. Bastards!

Day 979

Cracking on with December: there used to be about 80 years between Dec.1st-22nd when I was younger. Went to Sainsbury's in the morning for vodka and quiche ingredients. Encouraging stuff in the paper about repentant Tories in Dudley.

Yesterday on the news I saw Tony Blair and John Prescott meeting the 300,000th Labour Party member, a young woman of just the sort they need. All looked dead chuffed, especially John P. I hope Dudley turns out well.

Watched Star Trek: TNG; Wharfe got his honour back (at last) and left the series.

In the evening got out my multimeter and worked very hard getting the Christmas decorations up and the lights working. Will try and finish it in time for T's visit - I want things to be particularly festive. Hope she isn't fussy about free-range eggs, after all the effort with vegetarian Stilton etc.

Day 978

Made and finalised drink plans, including T's visit, leaving me with a 12p surplus over the Festive Season, apart from emergency funds. I'll make a quiche for the visit.

Day 977

M rang up, and came round at 11.30. Talked and did Psion experiments for 2 hours. She's applying for a job round here. Or joining the police.

Heard on R5 that the students at Leeds have got a pagan chaplain. There are 12 chaplains altogether so it's only fair that one should represent Britain's original religion.

Day 976

The paper today had ceased talking about whether Labour will win the next election and started talking about size of swing to them. The obligatory note of caution: this is equivalent to Feb. 1990, and things looked good then. But no-one has ever come back from 39½ points behind (24 allowing for the Tory shame factor). There was a Tory leaflet through the letterbox, I chucked it out.

Did some musical experiments, putting my old battery 'collection' to work powering the Casio keyboard - no powered moving parts so ought to last a while.

Finished all the Adrian Mole books, which I've been reading recently. In a way it all turns out rather sad in the sequels, or is this just me transferring my experiences to it? I always did identify rather strongly with A. Mole, partly because of the 1984 A. Mole diary I had. Ian Dury's song was quite good too, remember the series on ITV (and the final wink). Those were the days eh? Nothing to worry about - except being obsessed with Amy Allott, homework, bed at 10pm... I take that back, perhaps Unemployment City is better.

Day 975

Just two more Saturdays to Christmas, and T's coming next week (hopefully).

Keith Joseph, architect of Th**rism, is dead. Beggars - crime doubled - unemployment - part-timism - I'm all right Jack. SI MONUMENTUM REQUIRIS, CIRCUMSPICE.

Day 974

Into town to the library for a multimeter book. Interesting stuff; was able to recall enough O-level physics to understand it.

Wrapped up Christmas presents ready 16 days in advance. Read Adrian Mole. In the evening Harry Enfield.

The Tories have lost control of the council thanks to a 22½% swing to the Liberals in a ward by-election. The Tory scum came third. With Labour on 60% nationally (absolutely unheard of) we can not only whisper 'El Alamein' and think 'D-Day', but afar a faint voice at the edge of hearing is saying 'Canada Effect'.

Now, Dec 1994, is the parallel to Feb 1990, when the Tories were pretty unpopular. Labour were doing well (but nowhere near 39½ points ahead) then. Don't forget that that lot, though it got rid of Th**r, ended in the Darkest Hour, but this time round all the figures are bigger. Neil Kinnock may have lost, but he came close to the mountaintop, reducing a big majority to 20, now down to 14 (nominally more or less - and there's the Dudley by-election next week). Tony Blair has only got a short stroll for the summit and down the other side. A small part of me is prepared for disappointment, but I'm beginning to think that El Alamein has truly come.

Had a small bonus drink what with this and that. With the Official Festive Season only 11 days away (and all Christmas funds ready) it doesn't matter so much.

Day 973

Extra duty on baccy (but not hand rolling, luckily for me - mum says it's because pensioners smoke it) and 26p on spirits. Ouch!

A terrible incident up north with a maniac slashing a load of women in a department store. Strange with yesterday's Montreal massacre anniversary. I hate that Muslim/Nazi disfiguring women stuff.

Just heard that an opinion poll will come out tomorrow (never forget that according to opinion polls, Neil Kinnock has been prime minister for 2½ years) with Labour on 60% - 40 points ahead. This sort of thing is unheard of. But it must be good news for next week's by-election. Who is this Sarah Baxter on R5? She talks sense.

Day 972

Went into town to do Christmas shopping; took me 1½ hours but I saved £2.20 through shrewd choices. Came back, spent the afternoon embellishing Dad's desk diary present. Posted the letter to T.

John Major says he'll have to wait and see if his government lasts. Not the words of a confident prime minister. Dare we say El Alamein? Can we whisper D-Day? Wait and see.

Day 971

An intriguing letter from T in the morning. Wrote a 7-page reply straight away. Cashed up my loose change to take to the bank to pay Kays tomorrow.

All day there were rumours about the VAT vote, good at first but bad towards 10pm and just before the vote. Then it became clear that they were wrong; the Tories lost 319-311. About time too. A pity Citizen John didn't get up and say he would now take his case to the country. Roll on the Day.

Christmas shopping tomorrow.

Day 970

Went into town, signed on, came back.

Listened to R5 all afternoon; they played the confidence vote of March 1979 (which I remember). Callaghan said '..we will take our case to the country.' The rest is history. A dreadful moment. The compensation was that they were comparing Citizen John's travails to it. I must be careful not to let this next-election stuff obsess me. If, Goddess forbid, Labour lost, I'd find it hard to weather the storm. Still, Tony was very popular in Dudley. Wish they'd come up with a few more policies though. Such is the longest Wait of all. Still, remember Gandalf's words: 'I shall not wholly fail of my task if anything comes through this night that can still grow fair or flower or bear fruit.'

By the way, coming out of the Job centre in the morning, clocked a Class 47 at the front of a London-bound train. Read the nameplate - University of Lowlands. Bitter irony or sign of hope?

Day 969

Watched Quantum Leap; more helping the blacks in the south in 1957, as Louisiana lawyer liberal this time. Good stuff.

In the evening watched the last-ever Lovejoy with a rather sad ending. I'll substitute my own.

Day 968

Weather changed at last, after 10 days. Rain and wind in the morning, great sun in the afternoon. Rang up M; had a good conversation.

Day 967

Sun again today but colder still. Into town in the morning: got evening primrose oil and a book from the library about making cash with your own computer. I reckon running my own business would suit me.

In the evening watched H. Enfield, and Crimewatch because that murder back in the spring was on. Not much light shed.

Day 966

Sun came out today, at last. Tony Blair got a very good reception in Dudley. I hope Labour win it.

Day 965

Still no weather change but still cold. Went to town in the morning, looked at postgraduate courses in the library, some ideas.

Successfully scanned 7 small pictures for mum's work. Did more cleaning and tidying in the room, dark corners I haven't seen for years.

So what must I do to break away. Choose a job-likely course, write a letter, apply, possibly get interviewed, get money, find somewhere to live/means of travel, move. 6 or 7 stages of varying difficulty but not at all insurmountable to anyone with a sense of purpose. Perhaps I can acquire one. I do feel that I'm moving into a window of opportunity to end the Interregnum, as T sensed too.

Day 964

I'm getting on for 25 now - no age to still be hanging around at home.

Budget today (stupid day/time of year for it eh?) Nothing on drink but 10p on fags, probly 40p on rolling baccy so leaving me 80p down per fortnight. No point giving benefit bonuses for getting work - what about a 10p yearly tax on all employers of over 20 people for each unemployed person in the constituency? That'd be £500 per employer per year in Mugsborough and would encourage them to take more people on.

But I forget. The Tories who rebelled on the Europe bill have had the whip withdrawn. Technically the government is in a minority of 2 or 3. The first time they've been a minority government since 1979. I know it's only technical but it's a sign. Dare we say El Alamein?

Day 963

Yet again no weather change, though the sun broke through in the afternoon. Read in the paper that after 3 years' unemployment the chance of getting a job is virtually nil. I must go on a course to qualify me for something. This has gone on long enough. I may have so resolved before, but this one was made in November - in plenty of time. This one will go if I push it.

Day 962

Went for a walk in the afternoon, felt rather bored. Abolished the Pris extra drink allowance to help pay for Christmas.

Day 961

No change in the weather - more anticyclonic gloom. Went for a quick 15-minute walk in the afternoon.

Day 960

Got up early and went to the library.

Started writing to T.

Day 959

Got a good working version of a Psion .PCX file viewer going. A letter from T in the morning; the usual catalogue of hedonism

Major threatening a general election if he loses this vote on Monday - if only, eh.

Day 958

Went to town for Giro-related stuff.

Day 957

Quite a good day really, though damp and foggy. Watched the very first Young Ones vid, Demolition - interestingly different. Finished off the Modula-2 notes. Substituted a 1½ mile bike ride for the 1 mile afternoon walk, expended a lot of energy. Hopefully I can lose a bit more weight, with the help of the new sensible diet. I've substituted displacement eating with displacement nutrition calculations.

Late Pris but I think I can squeeze it in.

Day 956

Some low moments in the morning when I went to sign on, but things improved during the day with Young Ones videos. Made notes on Modula-2 prior to taking the book back on Wednesday.

Day 955

Not such a bad day for a Sunday. Watched Quantum Leap (a good one in a 50's radio station). Made another Christmas cake in the afternoon, luckily this one didn't get burnt.

Got to sign on tomorrow - how depressing. There's been a worrying speed-up in time recently, also a worrying run of each week and day being like the last. Still, who knows, they might offer me a job and change everything. As always, 'Never despair'.

Day 954

Listened to the R4 play in the afternoon, quite good, about a sort of Venetian Thlela; earlier went for a walk and posted T's letter.

Went round to my parents'; C brought copies of all 12 Young Ones eps he got off his mate - triffic! The early 'unpolished' eps in series one are interesting to see how it developed.

Day 953

Very warm for November. Went into town in the morning to the library; found a book with undocumented DOS stuff and also (by instinct?) one with the PCX file format! At last! Got the new Dragon too, quite a good one with plenty of dungeon stuff. Spent all morning getting the PCX stuff working. Very good, quite fast even in Pascal.

Listening to the R5 phone-in a call came through from someone who turned out to be the bloke who had the bookstall in the square at uni. He was talking about the need for alcohol education. I must mention it in the letter to T. Oh, what a great life she has... romantic interest, a job, partying every night and 14 grand a year to piss away.

But I suppose (so long as you've got a few basic wants fulfilled - shelter, heat, food, wine, baccy) being poor is good for the soul. Like a material diet. I wouldn't want to be genuinely poor though. Luckily I've got a few things left from more prosperous times.

Day 952

Continued the letter to T, went for a walk in the afternoon, had a bath. I've lost 2lb since I started paying attention to diet.

Day 951

Rode to Sainsburys in the morning for wine and more Christmas cake ingredients. A letter came from T, enclosing the postage money.

Got a much more acceptable file transfer format for the D&D rules.

It occurs to me that there's a Restart Bastards encounter due on Dec 5/12 or thereabouts. With ABC writing me mad wild killer references I don't know what they expect me to do. Bastards. T wrote reams of good advice jobs-wise, I hope some of it proves practicable.

Day 950

Did more D&D typing in Write on my own computer - went round to my parents' and had a hell of a job converting it in Word on the laptop, learnt some stuff though.

At dad's suggestion took the car down to Lakeside and browsed in PC World. Canon colour ink-jets only £360, colour cartridges £7 though and I suspect you need four - cyan, magenta, yellow, black I reckon. Looked at a sample - quality stuff.

Looked at modems too, though frankly a lot of the Internet stuff is anorak city with a few useful nuggets.

Day 949

Impressively grey and windy weather; went to the library and Sainsburys. Mugs queueing for the Desperation Tax (so-called National Lottery) in evidence at the latter. They say the jackpot odds are 14 million-1 against.

Had another look at the careers book - the suggested ones are rather unrealistic training-wise but sound interesting.

Day 948

Quite a good day for a Sunday. Mixed the Christmas cake in the afternoon - unfortunately the oven malfunctioned and reduced it practically to ashes. Never mind. I'll make another one next week when the oven's repaired. I can exclude animal fat next time too.

Rang the operator and found there's a fault (a 'ring-trip') on T's line, which explains why I haven't been able to contact her. It won't be repaired till Friday. It doesn't explain why she hasn't refunded the postage for her book. I get £1770 a year, she gets £15,000, so 88p to me is £7 to her. Neither a lender or a borrower be.

Watched the usual telly; sorted out the problem on the 486 where Windows reports all numbers bigger than 1,000 as a thousandth of the value. I'd deleted the thousands separator in Control Panel because I don't like computers to give me numbers with commas in - bit of a bug for it to cause this behaviour. Remedied it.

Day 947

Rotten grey wet November weather. In the afternoon listened to good R4 comedy play about King Arthur. Great stuff the whole thing. I didn't listen to it last time because of the stupid title. Run of good 90-minuters on R4 at the moment - a lot of 'occasional gems' all together.

Still could not get T. on the phone. Couldn't even hear it ringing again. Hope she's OK.

Day 946

Slightly less paranoid today. With enormous hard work got a working C version of the .BMP file viewer. A massive achievement considering that I didn't even know the file structure when I started and had to work it out by deduction. Very fast too.

This took up most of the day. Unpleasant news Bosnia-wise w the Americans letting through weapons to the Muslims, the enthusiastic slaughterers of the Serbs when the former were the Nazis' allies. Lucky there's Fritz Leiber to take me away from all the sordid rightwingery, 'arming for peace' etc.

Day 945

Felt rather strange again. It's the way every day is starting to seem like the last - I've been here way longer than I was at uni and I must make some sort of change. 'We have got to make a vigorous move.'

Worked very hard on the .BMP viewer - a couple of successes. Considering I'm starting from absolute ignorance I'm doing well.

Day 944

Shocking weather - heavy rain. Ventured out in the morning to cash my Giro - avoided going to town because of the rain, read more old White Dwarfs. Rather paranoid again.

Watched Star Trek TNG, rather strained constitutional stuff, nowhere near as good as last week's triffic Robin Hood fantasy. Why do Americans call him Róbin Hood? Have they got no ear for names?

Worked on a .BMP file viewer; after initial trouble (the boolean expression-evaluation priorities catch again) got it to do perfect renditions - except that they're upside-down mirror images. What a stupid way to encode a file, beginning at bottom right and working upwards. Still, I'm quite proud of my achievement, done by dumping the first 128 bytes of eight .BMP files, getting their details from Graphics Workshop, and looking for significant variations. Half-an-hour's work located ID bytes, file size, bits per pixel and x,y dimensions. I love this sort of computer detective work. Wish I could find out exactly where header ends and data begins, though.

Day 943

Intensive Combat Administrator work today - got character generation done very well now. Read more old White Dwarfs - last of the decent ones, the early 70's issue numbers.

The Atlantic oil thing yesterday reminded me of what mum says people thought in the early seventies - it would make them all rich (N. Sea oil). Now where is it? Pissed away on dole. Apparently Th***r said in '79, 'who would you trust with the oil money?' Tony Blair should say it in '96. (October, they say...)

Day 942

Went to sign on, endured a frustrating wait with the new disorganised system. Sent off T's book: only 88p first class for 400g.

Read old White Dwarfs when I got back - couldn't carry on with the D&D prog because I left the disc in Mum's laptop. In the evening started adding character generation, made good progress: the class-selection algorithm is surprisingly simple. I've assumed rather standard characters for now, still it's all (foresightedly) in the initial data setup section.

Day 941

Did a lot of computing - Mum brought her laptop round because it was malfunctioning. I discovered Page Plus 3 had been installed on Friday leaving just 160K free out of 123M. Amateurish attempts had been made by mum's techno-illiterate colleagues to save space by erasing Write and Paintbrush: compressed the hard disc and restored them, getting a theoretical 66M free (but you know compression progs).

Improved the Combat Administrator. Made several attempts to ring T about the book she left behind, couldn't even get the ringing tone.

Day 940

Woke up at 9.30 to a damp grey morning. Drove T back to London. Rotten but pleasant dark rainy misty winter weather coming back on the M11 and A414. Very atmospheric.

Day 939

Walked down to the station at 5.30, met T, went to the Black Horse and the Rose Garden. Came back here, watched telly and videos till 3.30am. Interesting sketch in the largely unoriginal Harry Enfield, viz 'Benny Elton' with the man himself in Saturday Live shiny suit running about in fast motion covering up scantily-clad women, wiping off their make-up and giving them books called Dull Feminist Theory by An American Woman.

Day 938

By swapping HHSCAND.OLD for the newer device driver I managed two 7" 300dpi scans. Excellent! Must try and see if the 19mm (no-crash but corruption) 400dpi limit is challengeable.

Heard on the radio that the Post Office is safe, perhaps at least until the next election and hopefully forever. Is this the turn of the tide?

Day 937

Went into town, got a thick Modula-2 book from the library. Came back; did a lot of text scanning on the Warhammer and D&D rules. Very good at 300dpi. Bit of a dilemma; it takes at least as long to scan the text as to type it, plus correction and editing. I shall conduct a serious trial tomorrow.

T rang up saying she'd get the 5.30 train on Friday and be here at 6pm. I hope she doesn't bring any blow. She always offers but I always decline - because it does nothing for me.

Day 936

Worked very hard all day on the combat prog, added more monsters and experience points. Watched the last Fast Show in the evening.

Day 935

Very wet and windy today: rode into town into the teeth of the gale, got a copy of Dragon.

T rang up at midday to say she'd be coming on Friday. Better get some impeccably vegetarian food in.

Again worked very hard on the Combat Administrator, with good results. Added morale, could do missile fire next.

Quite a good day on the whole, I like a bit of wind and rain.

Day 934

Worked very hard throughout this enjoyable grey, rainy, windy day on giving the D&D prog a visual interface. Working well.

Watched Quantum Leap, a good one in just pre-civil rights Alabama with Sam as a black bloke.

Worried about unemployment (as usual). With Autumn coming round a fourth time it's quite serious. But after the ABC Debâcle I've never regained my confidence work-wise.

Day 933

Did a lot of programming, got the QB ephemeris working well with the planet glyphs. Works much better than positioning text characters on a coarse grid. Still the aspect ratio problem between EGA and VGA, rather harder to overcome unless you like oval EGA charts. But my patent colour/mono detector works well.

Improved the D&D combat resolver too, but some really intractable problems with it, unfortunately.

Did a lot of Latin, finished the Ch.22 exercises.

Just heard something very funny on R5, the dole as modern version of National Service with the young 'sitting round dunking Hob-Nobs in weak tea and watching The Young Doctors for two or three years until they sit up and think, Time to write that novel.' Great R4 play earlier in the evening, Distance Between The Stars - almost in the Just Fourteen league.

Day 932

Got a lift into town to the library - a great PC Companion, with really useful stuff including confirming the KEYBUK/SETVER method for DOS 5 on Amstrad PC's.

Got some more Latin done, got to work tarting up the QBasic ephemeris prog (as opposed to the Basic 2, Pascal and OPL ones) and getting it to work with EGA Mono and VGA by inspecting the BIOS Equipment Status byte. Just started now on proper planetary glyphs instead of the ASCII characters I've been using.

Went for a walk in the afternoon, felt very well for a change. Perhaps I'm going to get something constructive done.

About time that T. wrote.

Day 931

Prepared for Ch.22 of the Latin. Still going well. Went to Sainsburys in the afternoon, recycled a couple of catalogues that've been hanging about for ages.

There was a funeral starting from no.51, Mrs H must've died. The H's were old as the hills when we lived next door, 20-25 years ago, so they both had a good innings.

Day 930

Cashed my Giro, rode to the out-of-town Sainsburys.

Day 929

Two months to Christmas eh? Up at nine to another rather long morning. Beguiled it with all the Out of This Worlds we've got on tape. Finished that Crusades book, very interesting.

A compelling episode of Eastenders in the evening. Pris later.

I've been feeling a lot better recently. Got to move on I suppose, though how victory will come about I can't tell. I saw a penny and picked it up in the afternoon, though whether 'all day long' means till sunset, till midnight or for 24 hours I don't know. It was odd really, I'd just spent one penny on a stamp. I was posting a prize draw entry too...

Day 928

Went into town, got a new coat (green, v. nice) went and signed on - that last very depressing but not for long. I borrowed mum's car as bags of clothes are difficult to carry on a bike.

It's easy to blame groups when you're unemployed, Hitler was clever to tap that. Tories planning yet another piss-smelling 'reform' (benefit-stopping measures). Bastards. 'Come on, come on, hurry up Tony come on...'

Day 927

Up at ten, then realised it was 9am GMT and I was in for a long morning. But with videos, the paper and Quantum Leap at noon it was quite enjoyable. In the evening the 'Piranha Brothers' Python ep.

Day 926

Found the day rather long again. Going to town 3 times a week may have eliminated the pressure of Saturday but it has left a bit of a gap in it. Listened to the play on R4 (uninterrupted listening to this another advantage of town regularity), a Daphne DuMaurier, very good.

Did some scanning - persistence and slow scanning are the key, successful scans of at least 1200 pixels long have been made.

Watched the last Alan Partridge again, pretty good. Saturday nights just aren't what they were, eh? Still, they used to be worse.

Day 925

Didn't achieve much constructive today really, thought over a few things, went for my afternoon walk. Watched the usual telly in the evening.

Day 924

Noticed that the side-effects of the new inhaler can include being 'shaky and tense', which might explain recent symptoms of nervousness. It is 16 days now though, shouldn't they've worn off by now?

Finished reading my old Vizzes, finished the letter to T, posted it on the afternoon walk.

Read a bit more of Life of Johnson, no telly again. Why concentrate all the good stuff onto Tuesday and Friday? No part-time or any time jobs in the free papers today.

Some minister I've never heard of has resigned for taking cash to ask parliamentary questions. What do you expect from this lot? Come on Tony.

Day 923

Went into town to the library in the morning, looked at winter coats in C&A. I could order one from Kays but it pays to be careful with cheap unbranded stuff from catalogues, which tends to fall apart before you've finished paying for it. Came back, carried on writing to T.

After the success of yesterday's afternoon stroll decided to institute a regular brisk 2000-yard walk at 2.45pm, thus providing 20 minutes' exercise and getting me out of the house.

Read some more of the Life of Johnson, quite interesting, lots of little Latin snippets to translate. He used to write his diary in Latin, don't think I'm quite up to that. Mane ii ad oppidum et bibliothecam...

Day 922

Felt a bit shut-in about 3pm so went for a brisk walk which worked wonders. Golden sun, golden leaves, blue sky, wind, excellent. Started writing to T.

Thought about part-time jobs, watched a bit of Vanessa, sorted out my menus prog - rock-steady like QEdit's menus.

Day 921

Went into town and paid in my loose change. Came back, my stuff arrived at eleven, not bad given I only sent the order off last Tuesday. Perhaps they trust me more now I've sent off some cash.

Rest of the day fairly bland, Harry Hill's last weird but funny thing on telly in the evening.

Day 920

Slightly less nervous today; gloomy weather, though it broke up a bit in the afternoon. Did some programming.

Counted up my spare change - £9.45. Taken to the bank tomorrow that'll provide £15 for the rest of this fortnight and extras, and still leave £6 for the next Kays installment.

Been thinking about part-time work: I might only make £5 extra pw but I might get a decent reference out of it.

Day 919

Found today very slow and boring. Got very nervous again at times, not as bad as yesterday though. Still golden and hazy like 1988.

Did a lot of computing without achieving very much except a very fine dithered 300dpi scan of a photo. I think I underestimated dithers, they look very good printed out. Unfortunately impossible to scale though.

Perhaps I should stop buying stuff by mail order, I can never think about anything else until it arrives. I'm not normally very materialistic but sometimes I get taken over by a massive desire to have something. Odd eh?

Day 918

A letter from T saying she wants to go to America next year.

Went into town, got the Turbo Pascal book out again. When I got back suddenly became very nervous, which lasted till about 3pm. I wonder why. It could be a warning sign - of too much drinking, or even diabetes perhaps. I never have got round to being tested for the latter, perhaps I should.

Computed. In the evening, watched Red Dwarf VI and Alan Partridge. Loose Talk later.

Day 917

Did a lot of computing throughout the day, battered the menus program into shape. I ought to start finding a program to use it with really!

Worked out that I'm getting 147 rollies a week out of 50g baccy. Changed my smoking intervals to save 1 more a day.

The ABC thing has put me right off working again. I always felt I'd avoided thinking about careers and it's caught up with me Though hat's not so much the problem now, I'd take any job they'd have me for, but it shows that even at age 14 I knew there were going to be problems. Ten years later I'm drifting aimlessly about, getting nowhere - But hey. A lot of unemployed people are far worse off than me.

Now the 'Loyalists' have called a ceasefire to match the IRA's. Now they can really try to sort something out in N. Ireland.

Tony has bridged the gender gap. He is 9 percentage points further ahead with women than he was before the conference, women being traditionally Labour's problem. Strangely, given what they'd do for us. And these are the new adjusted polls, where Labour are 17 points ahead rather than 38 (and Neil Kinnock has been Prime Minister for 2½ years). They say the next election will be October 1996. 2½ years down, 2 to go. Roll on Labour victory! We're Harold Wilson's Labour Party Band...

Day 916

Cashed my Giro, went into town, put £5 in the bank to cover my catalogue payment.

They're using clips from the Young Ones episode about University Challenge to trail the latter. Still hilarious after all this time.

Did a lot of scanning, no problems today. Wish I knew why it's sometimes so ill-behaved.

Day 915

Made two massive 260K 300dpi scans of the Silmarillion map, printed them out and stuck them together. So now I won't have to keep flipping to the back of the book to find out what's going on.

Watched The Fast Show in the evening.

Day 914

Went to sign on. Things were a bit disorganised so no-one hassled me. Went to the library, then got stamps for D's letter.

Spent much of the afternoon tidying up the room, listened to the R4 afternoon and evening plays. Had to go out in the evening for supplies, realised I hadn't been out on my own at night since D visited on Feb. 12th, 8 months ago.

Day 913

Misty but cleared. Finished the free PCW game.

Read a bit more of Moby Dick. Wrote half a letter to D. Had a look for applications for tomorrow but couldn't find any. Saw the New Moon.

Day 912

I've been feeling very strange recently, as if I'd been drinking far too much, which I have. Still, it's not as bad as the ABC Megalapse was.

Didn't get up till ten, didn't do much when I did, apart from some Psion experiments and testing the latest cover disc - very good games. I ought to write to D too - keeping to the airmail 10 grammes of course.

In the evening watched Alan Partridge again.

Day 911

Didn't wake up till ten, went into town to the library and wandered round for a while. Decided Nov 28 would be this year's Christmas Shopping Day.

Got a letter from ABC Personnel, no dishonesty etc. I wrote back to correct a few points but I think I'll leave it there. Bastards.

Good speech by John Prescott at the conference. Him and his wife were jiving on the platform later with the Blairs clapping in time.

Day 910

Wrote a Psion prog to use the data I transferred yesterday - works well. Finished the letter to T, got safely past the 'vital stamp buying stage' .

I was supposed to go to that job workshop today. The DHSS bloke shouldn't have said it was voluntary. Hope I'm not stirring up trouble. But I couldn't stand the thought of going back to those Ponders building wankers. Better send off some wild application before >Active Signing< starts, eh.

Day 909

Woke up feeling mutinous and bored; walked to the out-of-town Sainsburys.

In the evening transferred the Excel food database onto the Psion in CSV format and imported it into Data; started work on a meal nutrition calculator.

A good, constructive day once a 4-mile walk got yesterday's indulgence out of me.

Going through that green coat's pockets in the evening found stuff I used in the ABC era. Very sad.

Day 908

Did some computing, experimenting with Windows printing and the Psion. Fixed up the smoke alarm.

As the paper said it had improved, watched The Fast Show - better than last week.

Tony Blair made a great speech at the Labour Conference. I can see him and Cherie in No. 10. Echoes of Harold Wilson's white heat of technology in information superhighway references. This and the sunlight (even if it was cold) cheered me up a lot.

Day 907

Listened to The Mating Game, walked into town in the drizzle. Discussed wine boxes with the checkout woman in Sainsburys, got a smoke alarm battery from Homebase.

Came back, experimented with Windows - finally got the Middle-earth map to work as wallpaper.

Another rather low Monday, really, made the best of it I suppose.

Day 906

Listened to the last part of Lost Empires on R4, that J.B. Priestley thing with Tom Baker about music-halls. In the grey afternoon went out and got PCW from Sainsburys - partly because it makes me feel better knowing that interesting things can be acquired on Sundays now.

Has the glimpse of Better Life round at T's made me feel better or worse? Worse, because she's got cash and independence etc. Better, because I could get them too. Worse, because I feel that the lethargy that began in May 1989 would prevent me. How can I overcome it?

Day 905

Woke up about ten. I felt a bit ill but not too bad. We sat around talking and drinking tea in the grey morning light. Got home about two, started recovering. A six-paracetamol hangover. Total cost of £5.15 including drink.

Day 904

To T's via Debden about 6.30, drank, talked, listened to Madness and watched telly till 3.30am.

Day 903

Found a chapter in that unlikable John Simpson book which was about S. Africa, read it with interest.

Day 902

Cashed my Giro. Ironic for 6 years to the day and day of the week after the start of uni.

Letter from T, listing her fantasy league team (she's 3rd out of 47).

Programmed. EMACS looks very good but is very hard to get to grips with. Updated my distance map.

Day 901

The weekday congruence brings us to the end of the sixth year since the start of uni. There was an item about a bloke starting there on Look East.

Went round to my parents', spent most of the day helping dad with scaffolding for trimming the fir trees. Started re-doing an old Sunday Times personality test mum found - it had answers on it I did in 1987. Full results tomorrow.

Gave The Fast Show a chance ite, some good jokes but too much white space. Pris later.

Day 900

Dark damp morning. Went to the library, then to sign on: the queue was enormous, I was 20 or 30 numbers behind. One of the top women came out and made a speech of apology. Everyone listened sullenly.

About 2.30pm M rang up, temporarily back, and invited me round. This echo of past days was contrasted by the revelation, that she's engaged! To A! With engagement presents and everything! And they're getting a house together! And they'll probably get married next year! She is the first of my friends to. What surer sign can there be that after three years of the Univ. of Life there are fundamental changes in our world?

She was very impressed by my INT 10 EGA Mono TSR. Later she came round here and took away a copy of the DOS Scan stuff, strictly for testing purposes, to see if it crashed her computer and (identical) scanner. And if Logitech do me for unauthorised distribution I'll have them for Trades Descriptions for the misleading scanner box. So there.

In the evening watched Harry Hill's latest short; live-action Punch & Judy and very funny. (Chucks away baby, cut to rabbi and nun sadly leaving infertility clinic. Baby drops into her arms).

Enjoyed reading On The Road again: the grand landscapes and the correspondingly futile lives of most of the people, failed assignations, failed marriages, aimless wandering, smoking butts from the ashtrays in grey dawns. A warning. There's got to be something more.

Day 899

Finished sorting out the Pascal disc.

It took me so long to read the paper this week that I had to have a bath and do it in two goes. Perhaps I should start reading the news bit earlier in the day.

I wish I could suss out the reason for the sub-dizziness I've been getting ever since June 14th, during the ABC days.

Day 898

Got the text menus working. Finding there were 130 files in the Pascal utilities directory, spent all day cataloguing them with a view to getting rid of some..

Cooked tea, watched Alan Partridge again.

Day 897

Went into town. Borrowed the concise ephemeris from the library, I want to sort out the outer planet transits once and for all.

Started that, did more Latin, worked very hard on a text menuing system to imitate the Psion's on a PC. Making progress. Watched Red Dwarf and Alan Partridge.

Day 896

C brought round a copy of the Red Dwarf quiz book from work (it came with a press release) - scanned a picture of Holly to display on my own computer.

Listened to depressing but authentic R4 play The Peer Gynt of Victoria in the evening about homeless alkies, mutato nomine de te fabula narratur.

Day 895

Did some more Latin, started transferring my personal vocabulary to a Psion database.

T rang up; when I told her about the strike she said she'd come to Epping station and meet me.

Day 894

Still felt a bit paranoid, but not so depressed. Remembered the thing in the Life of Johnson: the court physician said, if a man says he sees a ruffian attacking him with a sword, and tries to point him out to me, I pronounce him to be mad; but if he says he thinks he sees a ruffian, and yet knows that he does not, I pronounce him to have a disordered imagination. Certainly I've always had a powerful imagination, I suppose with so little reality to work against it's racing away in overdrive.

Finished Herodotus, all 600+ pages of it. (The Greeks win).

Realised there will be a Tube strike on the 30th so I can't go to T's: tried to ring to put off to Oct. 13th, but no-one there (she was supposed to ring me yesterday).

Day 893

Very depressed and paranoid today. Watched Harry Hill's Fruit Fancies, quirky silent comedy thing.

When I started this diary volume a year ago today I was facing an isolated autumn: I hate to say it but I've quickly got used to having hardly any social contact. This last 12 months feels like it's been going on for years, and the ABC debâcle did a double disservice by raising my hopes and then dashing them again.

I hope this depression lifts soon (could it be all the rain?) as I'm finding it hard to look forward to anything.

Day 892

Saw that Colin Stagg, that bloke they tried to trick into confessing to killing Rachel Nickell, has passed a lie-detector test.

Day 891

Improved the DIR search prog from the Advanced Turbo Pascal book to do only files after a given date.

Went with C to car lots as he's thinking of buying a car. in the afternoon he decided on a yellow A-reg Metro for £995.

Watched Gladiators, sad to say. Then the repeat of Alan Partridge, it was so good yesterday.

Day 890

They have got a shareware bank down at the library, £2 per disc with all the stuff in the shareware catalogue. Might well give it a try, to encourage them to keep up the service.

Read Herodotus most of the day, got the impression of a totally new room simply by sitting at the other end of the bed. in the evening watched Red Dwarf and Alan Partridge, the latter transferred quite well to telly with just a few slack moments.

Day 889

Another dark and rainy morning. Very cold - had to put a jumper on for the first time this season.

In the afternoon did a load of scanning, Catchword very effective once you get it to accept a scan - I was doing the Page scan where you stitch two vertical strips together - did it by scanning them with SCAN and loading them in. Also two very good 4"x4" 100dpi scans of a photo.

Carried on with Herodotus, very good to read it end to end instead of anecdotally. Liked the Cleomenes/'Scythian fashion' unmixed wine story.

I'm a bit worried about getting replies to the letters I sent on Monday, usually I'm too embarrassed to read them for days.

Day 888

It was a dark rainy morning, so I skipped going to town and just walked as far as the post office to cash my Giro.

Worked out that the maximum 400dpi scan length is 19mm before the signal corrupts, it scans a full 4" width though. Can't work out why. Maybe the 8 MHz processor speed is too slow.

Absolutely triffic Star Trek TNG today: 'Devil's Due', woman impersonates historical supernatural being to take over planet. As good as the Mintaka one in 1991.

Day 887

Tested concurrent procedures in Modula-2; took a bit of adapting to the version of the compiler that I've got, but worked.

In the evening watched The Real McCoy - very good first 20 minutes, then a bit boring.

Day 886

Prepared for the 'restart'. My deliberate new policy of being relaxed worked a treat. I got a poacher-turned-gamekeeper ex-fellow-jobless-graduate, we even had a few laughs. While he was fetching a form I sneaked a look at my records upside down across the desk (again). 'Client very negative' it said, about my last visit. But I had laughed while looking at the job boards, '£4000 per anum' read one of them, loosely translatable as '£4000 up the arse'. So I was in such a good mood I made vague promises to go to a voluntary 'job review workshop' on Oct 6th.

In the library spotted a cluster of girls from my old school; they seemed so small! And fashions have changed. Times have moved on.

Day 885

Last night I dreamt I went back to ABC again, and found out that it was the bloke Julian that betrayed me. I woke up at 7.20am with a deep feeling of peace. Don't know why. Perhaps a travail is never really over till you've dreamt about it, especially something like this that I suppressed so much information to myself about. I was still walking home when I started forcing myself to forget. And the first dream was only on Friday

Nice peaceful Sunday. Took 70 minutes to read the paper, it's getting ridiculous. Finalised the anti-'restart' armoury against tomorrow, apart from if there are any good ads in the Guardian tomorrow.

Watched J. Beadle, they should dump him and just show the videos and save a lot of cash. Tidied up the clip art discs.

Day 884

Didn't wake up till 10.30am, set to work writing 'restart' letters. Read the paper, and Herodotus. Listened to solar-powered radio all afternoon. Managed to make the first calculator I ever had run off the solar panel.

Day 883

Dreamt last night that I went back to ABC and confronted them. Quite frantic today: determining to make some applications against the Scum 'restart', rang Steve Layer at the Busywork Trust to see if he'd give me a reference. He couldn't get rid of me fast enough, and said I should ask ABC to find out why it ended. Accordingly I rang the woman who sent me the form letter, the tone of which contrasted so much with the way they followed me out of the building. She denied that any allegations of misconduct were in the air and after some hassle gave me this bloke to write to, whereupon our tone grew somewhat more conciliatory.

I was relieved to get all that resentment off my chest and sort of saw that the end of ABC was not so very terrible, I suppose I was annoyed at myself and at the Arrogant Bastard. Got to sort out this references thing I suppose.

After all this did more peaceful things, managed to run the radio indoors by putting the solar panel close to a light bulb. Did a spot more computer experimentation.

Day 882

Solar panel came: very effective in proper sunlight, 65mA through glass at 3V, 110mA outside. Quite inspiring to listen to R5 and think that no resources are being used, so no cost.
Couldn't find any jobs to apply for in the freesheets, this could be a bit of a problem with the scum tomorrow. I'd better do something, even speculative letters perhaps (dread the prospect).

Couldn't iron out the bugs in the C version of the .EPS shower, but had more luck with a replacement for INT 10 that only allows graphics mode changes to modes 7 (text) and 0F (EGA Mono). So any prog that goes into Mode 10h (EGA colour, but same resolution) using INT 10/00 will go into Mono mode instead, enabling me to use it. Didn't work with GWS (but hang on, that's set up for Hercules) but did with GWS's self-displaying .EXE files which take a mode switch. It does take up rather a lot of space though and would benefit from being rewritten in assembly language. (Don't hear 'machine code' much in PC contexts). Felt quite proud of it.

Day 881

Poxy 'restart' letter this morning. On Monday too - not much warning. Better make some no-hope applications on Friday to keep 'em onside. Went into town, came back, read Herodotus.

Discovering Graphics Workshop prints .EPS PostScript files, wrote a file viewer in QBASIC for them. I've found out that the ASCII bitmap in these files is actually a .TIF file - should try applying it to a real live .TIF file tomorrow.

In the evening watched Star Trek TNG, all nice sets and 'I sense anger' and no substance but still with a certain charm.

Day 880

Wrote a minimal screen-by-screen TYPE in 180 bytes. Installed the free game from PCW onto the 486 - very good, road-race in space. Discovered it was from Estonia, so ran MS Anti-Virus afterwards.

Read a lot of Herodotus - very interesting. Did some more Latin.

In the evening watched Hi-de-Hi (!), had forgotten how funny it could be. JDC rang up, sounding more like Kenneth Williams than ever. Had a short but amicable talk.

Day 879

Made some calculations, paid £20 into the bank and ordered a solar panel from Maplins. It leaves £8.50 to keep the catalogue people at bay. Got a good assembler book from the library with a clever stack-based binary -> ASCII decimal conversion routine.

Day 878

More assembly. Went round to C's, he told a horrible tale about what him and his mate got up to last night - hope the bloke doesn't come looking for him.

Listened to Jane Eyre on R4, did more Latin.

Day 877

Continued my recent successful run of assembly programs with a DIR in 330 bytes. Partly because so much can be done with INT 21 they're very small, .COM files. Also modified yesterday's FCOPY to use a 16K buffer rather than 512 bytes, making it demonstrably faster than COPY on a 400K file

Taped East of Ipswich (by M. Palin, seen it before, very funny) in the evening.

Day 876

Beautiful September weather. And once again the vestigial September urge to go off and away has come on me.

At least rode into town. In Smiths spotted Maplin catalogues in profusion. For £10 they've got a solar panel which can power things like personal stereos and recharge AA NiCd batteries. What a gadget! Can afford one, because every 1 unit of drink less a day is £4.04 a week in my pocket.

Wrote my own COPY in assembler, it worked faultlessly even on EXCEL.EXE (4 megabytes). Talk abt Rhino Tested! I could give it a variable size buffer to cope with big/small files most efficiently. Also did a BASIC prog to sample values from a file and give a 'signature'..

In the evening watched Red Dwarf V.

Day 875

First day of Autumn; very damp with lots of rain. Everything looking very green. To Sainsbury's in the morning for wine, water and PCW. Did a lot of scanning.

It'll be "Restart" hassle time in one month. Will I survive this one? And to think at the time I thought ABC meant my luck had changed. Not that I've been unlucky since, with the Psion, and the visit to D's went off well.

Day 874

Went into town - wet calm morning with straight-down falling gentle rain. Still no new Maplin catalogue. Cashed my Giro.

From an out-of-breath reporter on R5 just after 11am I realised something had happened IRA-wise: I went down and switched on BBC1, and shortly Quincy was interrupted to announce an IRA ceasefire, which is something out of my experience. Maybe they can sort something out now over there.

Did more Latin, getting pretty good now. Maybe this time is the breakthrough.

In the evening watched an old episode of Hi-de-hi, funnier than I expected. Simon Cadell is very good.. He's very ill apparently. Pity.

Made a successful 9600 baud serial transfer of an 80K file from the Psion to the 486 via Windows Terminal. Saves all that serial port mouse/3link swapping.

Day 873

Quite a few touches of Autumn about now. Up at 9.30, strained my back exercising. Instituted a new regime of not smoking with cups of tea but after them, which should help separate the two activities.

Catalogued all the pictures I've scanned, 4½ discs, 62 files plus 6 more compressed.

They're talking about an IRA ceasefire: will the Unionists resist and Major end up like Heath in 1974? I'd hate to see Major get any credit out of it, the ignorant narrow-minded bastard.

Day 872

Nice weather for the Bank Holiday. Did a lot of scanning - scanned the same picture at 100, 200, 300 and 400dpi for future reference.

Great cartoon in the paper, Tony Blair as lad in bedroom putting together self-assembly Build A Better Britain kit (a Red Rose Product), watched in approval by his Harold Wilson poster.

Day 871

Ran out of Rizlas at 11.40pm yesterday and went to bed quite pissed. Passed a pleasant morning listening to Radio 5 and doing scans. Went to Sainsburys for wine as soon as licencing laws allowed. Today the Sunday trading laws were changed, S's have been open for months anyway. Apparently there were massive queues at Lakeside.

Came back, conducted a dead-wooding session on the hard disc: saved 3 M by setting up various progs to run off floppies (now that the hard disc has ceased to be a novelty I can keep it for necessities).

Had tea, spent an hour reading the paper. I rather like the Independent on Sunday. Later in the evening watched and taped Monty Python.

Day 870

Quiet day. Read a good library book about the history of hanging in the afternoon.

Day 869

Went into town, still no Maplin catalogue. T rang up at lunchtime.

In the afternoon at last managed to make a decent 400dpi scan, but by careful positioning rather than solving the basic problem, whatever it is. I notice still no reply to my query to Logitech 4 months ago.

Watched Red Dwarf V in the evening.

Day 868

A new Software Source shareware catalogue and Private Eye had come, and having exhausted these I was finding things a bit boring in the morning when a mad-looking woman came past on a bike and did some random shouting. I stood by to repel boarders but she went off. Nevertheless the incident unnerved me and I was anxious all day. So much for care in the community.

Always remembering that according to opinion polls Neil Kinnock is Prime Minister, it seems Labour are on 56%, 33 points ahead. At least two years to the next election, but it's encouraging. D seemed in no doubt that Tony could pull it off.

In the evening French & Saunders.

Day 867

I woke up to a rotten hangover at 9am. Beautiful morning though, big white cumuli. Talked to D till 10.45, then left. Back by 12.50.

Felt better after tea. It was a very good idea to tidy up before going to D's. It was a good trip too, a good idea all round.

Watched about 10 minutes of Desmond Morris, found it very boring so watched the Commonwealth Games instead.

Day 866

(Wednesday night). Got to D's about 4.20. We drove out to a place called Coombe Hill in the Chilterns - great view from 852ft up. The sun came out as we were there, revealing an impressive landscape. We could see Chequers too.

Day 865

Plotted a route to D's: 67 miles via the M25. Can't decide what tapes to take.

Listened to rather good R4 play The Pirates Are Coming in the evening, wish I'd caught all of it. It'll be on again if I know R4 right.

Watched Panorama, Rwanda again.

Day 864

Did some Modula-2 and C experimentation. In the evening rang D, said I'd arrive abt 4pm on Tuesday. She sounded v. relaxed, as she'd just been fucking or drinking or smoking dope.

Day 863

Continued going through my diaries for the time since I left uni. I've misplaced events from year to year in a way I never did for the time I was at uni. Finished the notes in the late afternoon and started discing them.

In planning the trip to D's, realised I haven't been in a pub since I last saw her on Feb. 12, over 6 months ago, and furthermore that the last time I went down the Green Man was nearly 11 months ago. Who'd've thought it?

Day 862

Six years since my A-level results. Was affected by girl on news killing herself due to low grades. Another tragedy of the Dream.

Tried transferring the ZX80/BASIC2 Othello to the Psion, with minimal success.

Parents came back in the afternoon, and were pleased with my house-sitting. Arranged to come back and borrow the car on Tuesday to go and see D.

Day 861

D rang up to say she was going to Turkey for a year next week, so I arranged to go and see her next Tuesday.

Watched French & Saunders in the evening.

Day 860

Cashed my Giro, went into town. Came back, carried on sorting out all my files. Didn't manage to throw much away but divided some files into sub-categories. I found stuff I thought I'd chucked out years ago, like an original official campus map, rather symbolically torn in half.

Watched Desmond Morris. Sex this week, they had a camera actually inside the woman's cunt at the moment of orgasm. What would J. Logie Baird've thought.

Day 859

Read a bit of Latin. Experimented with the shareware paint prog, which has the discouraging attribute of telling you how many times you've used it without registering it.

Day 858

Went into town. Still no Maplin catalogue, a pity as I've been thinking of getting a switching box for the serial port to eliminate Psion Link vs. mouse conflicts.

M came round for a while in the evening. She was disappointed to hear how ABC turned out. Not as disappointed as I was. For once I have exceeded her technology-wise with the 3a, so that impressed her.

Putting the milk bottles out about 9.40 I clocked Aldebaran deep orange in the high west. It was always the herald of autumn - odd that a year ago I was worrying about the oncoming isolated autumn. 1994 has zapped past.
At least in 1992 and the first half of 1993 M was here. The second half of 1991 I can barely remember.

Day 857

Went to Sainsburys as soon as licensing hours allowed for wine and water. Worked on the Modula Reverse Polish prog, continued to make excellent progress. Did some more Latin.

Listened to some of the Charity Shield, Man U beat Blackburn 2-0. Got to sign on tomorrow. Ah well.

Day 856

Did a bit of Latin and a Psion Reverse Polish engine. Then made very rapid progress with the same in Modula-2, which has procedure pointers about a million times easier to use than C's.

Football season started today (not Premier) - ridiculously early.

Day 855

Went into town to the library, and spotting Modula-2 info in a reference-only massive computer dictionary, went and bought a recycled pad and pencil and came back and made extensive notes. Then felt a book called Parallel Programming might contain facts, indeed it did, clever eh? Borrowed it, got back rather late at 11.30. (It occurs to me that I never go out in the afternoon now if I can help it, much less the night - should I worry about this?).
Spent the rest of the day winning doing Modula-2 experiments.

In the evening watched Red Dwarf V, the Inquisitor ep 'where I came in'. They've nearly repeated the whole thing now, and I've heard a 6th series is imminent - great!

Day 854

Rained almost all day. Played a lot of Johnny Vegas' Draw Poker, excellent shareware game. Transferred data from the Psion via Windows Terminal, 9600 baud, no trouble.

In many ways the ABC caper was a watershed, especially with it ending so exactly 3 years after the finals. To be frank, at the moment I can't see what's going to change and make things different.
Then again, without wanting to tempt Fate, none of the disasters I've had have been entirely without compensation, and looking back a lot of them seem to've been pretty instrumental in bringing about good times.

Day 853

Was amazed to have those shareware discs delivered at 9.30; I didn't post the order till 11am on Monday and it can't've been collected till 12.15. So that's 47 hours from door to door.
Went into town to the library - no Modula-2 books despite hundreds in the catalogue. Came back, spent the day experimenting with the software.Also did some work on my own language STASIC (BASIC linearity, stack calculations).

Day 852

Read a bit of the life of Johnson over tea. Quite interesting actually, he had a mental crisis when he was 20, like yours truly.

in the evening read Fellowship of the Ring. In the radio version he misses out Tom Bombadil and the Barrow-downs; fair enough, but he forgets that the Barrow was where the hobbits got their knives/swords from. And he has the Mouth of Sauron say 'Blade of the Downfallen West' forgetting that this means the Barrow-blade which he has removed from the story and not Sting.

Day 851

Went into town, paid £10 into the bank to cover a cheque for more shareware (I'd found a 'buy 4 get 1 free' voucher valid till September) inc. a Modula-2 compiler. Could get here Thursday, better borrow a book on Modula-2.

Experimented with the ASIC semi-BASIC compiler I got last time. It has no expression evaluator except in assignments, and even there it can only cope with 2 terms. But it does produce very small .COM files (604 bytes for a DIR listing, and you'd be hard pressed to do that in assembler) so is worth trying.

I remember saying to M that I was a sucker for languages (a fault she also admitted to) and it's true: I've got Locomotive BASIC, QBasic, TSRBasic, ASIC, Turbo Pascal, Quick C, Prospero Fortran, Zen FORTH, the A86 assembler; and even an OPL compiler for the PC. Is ten enough?!

Why is there never anything decent on telly on Monday nights? I suppose they know people stay in anyway so they don't bother.

Day 850

Did some more Latin.

Day 849

Converted the QBasic Psion screen dump displayer to C.

Day 848

Went into town. Found a new book on Old Turbo Pascal (ie v3 and before) with new info in it. Stroke of luck.

Worked very hard in my parents' loft. In the evening watched Red Dwarf V, truly excellent with them all coming to after 4 years playing the Red Dwarf RPG and finding they were all different people. Of course it was a hallucination but it was very very interesting.

Day 847

In the evening watched Punt & Dennis; Punt (the small one) wrote jokes for Unnatural Acts. Put the bin out at my parents'.

Day 846

Cashed my Giro, and went to Tandy (walked snarling past ABC) and bought a simple multimeter for £12.99, which'll be extremely useful for various projects and checking appliances etc. Blew the fuse measuring too high a current in the afternoon, luckily there was a spare one inside the case. Nice touch.

When I got back from town my catalogue parcel had arrived. Haven't had a pair of trainers since Winter 1988-89. And these are special walking trainers (!)

More Latin, waded through some difficult poetry about Orpheus.

Had to change the Psion batteries after 33 days, not too bad I suppose with the heavy use I've made of the serial link. So the rechargeables are now in service.

Day 845

My parents have gone to France for 17 days, so I am house-sitting for them. Tidied up their loft with great effect, making clear the access lanes and unstacking areas. Made it much easier to find stuff.

Day 844

Composed more of a letter to T. Went into town, got a book about radio transmission from the library, signed on. The bloke tried to engage me in conversation about job hunting (whether spontaneously or by order I don't know) but having just waited 20 minutes I was not to be drawn.

Day 843

Got to sign on tomorrow. Luckily another 2 months till they start hassling me, according to my calculations. It would be far more productive if they informed me of suitable vacancies. Frankly at the moment I can't see myself working. The ABC caper has given my confidence such a knock that recovery time's hard to estimate. OK, so I've got over the immediate impact by selective amnesia but the overall impression is harder to remove.

Is there some way round it all (apart from winning the Premium Bonds, which could well happen). You won't catch me on the National Lottery nonsense. I reckon I know where the money'll really go.

Started reading Coming Up For Air again.

Day 842

Latin, computing etc. Quite hot: a thundery shower about 7.15pm with very strong downdraughts. Not much else happened today.

Day 841

Went into town to the library in the morning; got the new Viz, rather too much writing and not enough strips, but very funny in parts.

My catalogue order arrived but they'd sent black instead of white, so I returned it via the post office and ordered white by phone. Too easy to order: you could end up paying hundreds a month if you let things get away with you.

Did more Latin; doing quite well this time. What annoys me is silly word order like quo in loco when in quo loco makes far more sense.

In the evening watched Red Dwarf IV and Men Behaving Badly.

On the second bottle of home-brewed wine: very acceptable and quite strong, about 11% I reckon (attempts to work it out by weighing a known volume failed due to lack of accuracy).

Time going very fast at the moment, rather worrying. Noticed this when doing a diary summary last night. Without social interaction the summary is a dead thing. Who'd've thought it would turn out like this?

Day 840

Had a 14-page letter from T this morning recounting her recent doings in minute detail.

Watched Punt & Dennis in the evening. They're improving as the series goes on.

Day 839

Enjoyed Down & Out In Paris & London again.

Pris last night was quite good, with Daphne getting released and a bizarre suicide in the interview room.

Day 838

Did a lot of calculations about sound attenuation without much success. I love that applied maths stuff, I wonder if there're any jobs in it?

Started converting PSAE to QBasic, the fourth translation of the ephemeris prog. Difficulties more from QBasic idiosyncracies than any big probs. Psion batteries getting low after 3½ weeks' fairly intensive use.

Day 837

Extremely hot weather. Experimenting with my screen dump found that if you switch away from it, it runs in the background and copies whatever's on the screen for the foreground task. So I added a delay option and produced some triffic screenshots of some of the Psion applications.

Day 836

Wrote a screen dump prog for the Psion, got it worked out by 9pm. Did a bit of Latin, played gin rummy vs. the computer.

Day 835

Had another look through the Maplin catalogue, saw some nice multimeters. Did a bit more Latin.

Noisy party going on in the neighbourhood this evening: it's over 17 months since I last went to one.

Day 834

Into town in the morning to look round the library. Going to town Mon/Wed/Fri, a resolve I made after the ABC disaster, seems to be working.

Made a coffee cake in the microwave using an old ice-cream tub for a cake tin. Only took 5 minutes to cook, and quite a success.

Started a chart display module for PSAE (the Psion ephemeris). Somewhat hampered by the 'letterbox' display, but never mind.

Day 833

Found that the rechargeable batteries inexplicably did not work to power the Amstrad NVR. Studied more Latin. Making good progress this time: the new Teach Yourself book I got for my birthday is very good.

Watched the result of the Labour leadership election: Tony Blair of course, with John Prescott as deputy. Good luck lads.

In the evening watched Punt & Dennis; much better this week, less dead wood. A month since the end of the ABC caper. Fucking Tory scum bastards.

Day 832

Cashed my Giro, went into town. Kays offered me a free tool kit so I ordered some special walking trainers, which'll extend the life of my brown boots, monstrously hard-wearing as the latter are. I've had them since 1990.

Remembered that the shareware Gin Rummy should work on an XT, successfully transferred it to my own computer.

Day 831

Finally managed to sleep in till 9.20 am, catching up on about a week's lost sleep.

Watched a very good prog about sporting cheats presented by Derek Hatton (!) which I taped yesterday.

Day 830

Went into town to sign on, had to wait a long time again for some reason. Came back, computed, did some Latin.

Day 829

In the evening watched the World Cup final, Brazil beat Italy on penalties, they were the better team I suppose. Al Gore presented the trophy; good lad. And now another four years till another chance to relive the golden salvaged days of the second year at uni.

Got to sign on tomorrow. Ah well. 'It goes on..'

Day 828

Taped the last Masterson Inheritance. Rearranged my room in the afternoon. In the evening watched a prog about the Jupiter collision.

Day 827

Did some successful scanning of logos and the like. In the evening Jupiter, the Moon and Venus all in a line in the western sky together, showing the line of the Ecliptic.

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 will hit Jupiter tomorrow although there won't be much to see from here. Think of it though - bits of ice and rock miles across going at 150,000 mph.

Day 826

Vivid dream last night that I was playing for Ireland in the World Cup (on the strength of my Irish great-grandmother). Jack Charlton substituted me after 75 minutes because I'd only had one touch of the ball. The other players were indignant. We lost 9-1 to Brazil.

Watched Punt & Dennis. Would be much funnier without the watered-down stand-up stuff.

Day 825

It had rained overnight and was overcast and very humid, with low visibility and poor air quality.

Round to my parents' to carry on sorting through the loft. Found my old school shoes, which I must've abandoned when I started wearing boots in 1987. Gave them a good clean, they might do for interviews. 'If you look the part, you'll get the job / In last year's trousers and your old school shoes'.

In the evening watched Bulgaria v. Italy in the semi-final.

Day 824

Beautiful weather and extremely hot. It was too hot even to wear clothes, I spent most of the day just wearing underwear.

Day 823

In the afternoon listened to excellent R4 play The Bonepit while washing my net curtains. In the evening another one, If It Wasn't For Graham Taylor which was very good. Watched Panorama.

Day 822

Sorted out the Jupiter problem. Then worked hard on the aspect module, getting it perfected.

Heard on the news itm that Craig Charles (Lister) had been charged with raping a woman - and worse, jointly charged with some company director, and even worse still, the police are looking for a third bloke. Very sad. Wonder what the rights and wrongs are?

Day 821

Went into town. Tocai was £8.95 so snapped up a £2 saving. Came back and watched Italy beat Spain by cheating, so there goes my 50p e/w. But when Spain scored it took me right back to 1990. Saw some of Brazil v. Holland later.

Day 820

Carried on transferring the ephemeris to the Psion - all planet stuff working except Jupiter, which is inexplicably 40' out. Can't work out where that's coming from. Carry on debugging it tomorrow. While the OPL source code is 24K, about the same as the Pascal, the object code is 10K against 57K, which is the advantage of interpretation and 1 MB ROM.

Watched Red Dwarf and Men Behaving Badly, the latter getting even better and displaying a lot of charm.

Day 819

If the post-uni era was the Real World, what's this? Grim Reality?

A letter from S. this morning, typed a long reply on my Psion.

In the afternoon read The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Day 818

The start of the fourth year since the end of uni. I have now completed a three-year course at the University of Life.
Successfully transferred the sun and moon routines to the Psion; cashed my Giro, went to Sainsburys. Charged up batteries for the bathroom radio. Very unsuccessful day's imaginary betting.

Day 817

Went to scout out battery chargers in the morning, returning in the afternoon to lay out cash. Each Psion battery replacement, est. every 10 days, costs £2 so I'll make the money back after five weeks, which isn't bad.

Started transferring the ephemeris prog to the Psion, getting the GST/Asc/MC parts worked out properly. OPL is quite economical with space because, as it's interpreted, all the run-time routines are in ROM. And 8-byte (~ 15-digit) accuracy too; but even with 107 floating-point variables in the planet routines, everything fits in the suspected 64K limit.

Watched some of Bulgaria v. Mexico. Italy v. Nigeria went to extra time so Pris may go down, though there's a 35-minute filler-type prog in the early hours that could go instead. I'll write and complain otherwise. Giro tomorrow, hopefully.

Day 816

Had to wait ages when I went to sign on.

Typed an invoice on the Psion, printed on my computer, done by using the link and printing to file REM:C:LPT1.WRD (extensions on device names are ignored). Worked perfectly.

Day 815

Very hot and still. More Psion experimentation, wrote a good hex dump program. Watched a prog in the afternoon about cults in Los Angeles.

Got to sign on tomorrow, unfortunately, but I should get some much-needed cash on Wednesday, luckily, because I've spent £400 of the £406 I got on Friday.

Day 814

Up early because I thought it was Monday and I had to sign on. Relieved to be wrong, taped The Masterson Inheritance after listening to Whatever Happened To... .

Continued to experiment with the Psion, putting my imaginary bets onto a spreadsheet with great success and making more experimental use of the serial link. Watched parts of Germany v. Belgium and Spain v. Switzerland. Weather very hot again.

Day 813

Drew the cash out of the bank and got the 3a from Argos and the serial link from Dixons: spent the rest of the day in happy experimentation. Got the link working after a few hiccups: it can go at 19,200 baud which is pretty nippy.

Scanned the local papers for jobs but had no success - my confidence applications-wise is shot to bits since the ABC caper and will take a while to recover.

Day 812

Did a lot of computing, finished the new version of the ephemeris - v6.12 of the whole prog. Now it can print out ephemeris pages for all the planets, but it's very slow at 8 MHz - OK for a batch job though. It works, that's the main thing.

Went round to mum's and helped her with her computer. Had a monetary success in the afternoon when, eventually finding my old TSB cheque book after an extended search, I rang the bank to check if it could still be used and incidentally discovered, once I'd said I was expecting £405, that £406.38 had cleared in the morning. So down there tomorrow to acquire a Psion 3a and serial link for £400, with another £130 coming next month. So there are tangible benefits from the ABC caper.

Day 811

Had a letter from ABC saying I'd been paid £406, or a third more than I expected. Just enough for a Series 3a 512K plus serial link. Went into town in to check my bank balance - still 7p. The money could come through as early as Friday. Can I get at it without a cheque book - is my old one still valid, if I can find it? I don't know.

Watched bits of a documentary about Prince Charles. What's all the fuss about? Edward VII was much worse than him and wasn't a bad king.

Day 810

Beautiful weather and very hot, getting up to 84° in my room in the evening. More C work, read more of the careers book. Watched some of Ireland v. Norway and Brazil v. Sweden.

Day 809

Rang Psion to ask for a brochure. In the afternoon went down to the DHSS in extreme heat. Only had to wait 20 minutes but the interview brought on a mood of despair. I'd better keep a detailed and partly false record of looking for work, they seem more rapacious than ever. They asked me why I got sacked, I had to say I didn't know.

Came back, filled in forms, carried on with the intensive C I've been doing. Watched some of Germany v. South Korea and the repeat of the Graham Taylor 'Can we not knock it?' documentary.

Perhaps with the DHSS making enquiries I might find out why I was got rid of so swiftly. The DHSS said they could refuse to pay benefit if you're sacked for misconduct (presumably you don't need to eat if that happens). I would imagine that that only applies to the no-notice gross misconduct things like fighting or stealing. But with the Torycaust you never know.

Day 808

Beautiful weather again. C was going to Thurrock in the morning to get her bearings for the new job, so I got her to drop me at PC World where despite the unhelpfulness of the staff I was able to find out quite a lot about the Psion Series 3a, one of which I now long to possess and will acquire as soon as the ABC cash comes through, which I estimate will be as early as the end of next week: I should get £340 or so which'll be enough for the basic computer. The serial link'll have to wait until the rest of the money comes through next month. If my tax calculations are out I may have to wait a bit longer.

Day 807

Taped The Masterson Inheritance, went into town, got a careers book from the library. Spent the day writing an analogue clock display program in C, with complete success.

Got a rather confusing letter from ABC, the import of which was that I'd get paid for 2 days' leave (£40 extra) as well as the notice etc. The final analysis, with my estimation of tax etc, is 23 days @ £19.50 = £448.50, which isn't at all bad. Plus I should be able to reclaim £60 in tax, but probably not till next April.

I've been thinking about what to spend it on: it isn't enough to buy a new computer, and as I should have access to mum's 486 until I move out of town, and I won't be doing that till I get a proper job and the first thing I buy then will probably be a new computer, I'll abandon that idea and instead perhaps get a Psion Organiser like M's, which has a good programming language and can exchange data with a PC.

The chief advantage of the 486, apart from the fact that it whips through C compilation and linking like lightning and eats Windows graphics processing for breakfast, is its portability, and with a Psion you could work anywhere. I could set aside £300 for an older one or perhaps get the new model (of course the serial link is vital and costs more cash). And that will be the positive result of the recent disaster.

Day 806

Very hot but a strongish cooling breeze. Drew out the last £30 from the building society cash machine; should mean I won't have to borrow too much before either the DHSS or ABC cough up some cash (no income support till July 13th by my reckoning, AC might pay by about July 3rd but I'll have to keep checking at the bank).

Did some computing, produced a graphical interface for the distance map prog. Put in another 25 minutes Vitamin D time.

D rang up: she's got a TEFL job in Devon for 3 weeks. She understood when I said I couldn't go and see her in London tomorrow owing to falling between two stools income-wise. We chatted a bit about the World Cup and revived a few memories.

In the evening a huge thunderstorm raged, passing right over the house.

Day 805

It occurs to me that they're paying me up to July 5th. Was the ABC interlude a last gasp or a false start? But I'll postpone further thought till Monday, when I'll be unavoidably reminded, as the DHSS are bound to ask questions. I've become skilled at forgetting unpleasant incidents.

For this setback there's a handsome £400 compensation coming, plus another £65 tax refund next April.

Sat in the garden for 25 minutes to work up some Vitamin D. C. came round, I got him to put 50p e/w for me on Spain to win the World Cup at 20-1, which means £5 if they reach the final and lose, and £15 if they win. I think they've got a chance.

Day 804

It occurs to me that yesterday's disaster occurred three years after the finals results came out, to within 10 minutes. Is someone trying to tell me something? Maybe I need a radical rethink.

Went to town in the morning, scanned the careers section in the library. I feel a course could be a good idea, or perhaps some voluntary work for vital experience and to restore my confidence. Wish I could sort out the career thing: 'Bus driver - Ambulance man - Ticket inspector - I don't understand'. Too true. 'The one that never knocks'. Made a new claim appointment for 3.30 on Monday.

In the evening realised I'd been wearing black socks since about 1985 at least. I know it seems a strange thing to realise but for the last nine or ten years I've only worn one colour and never even thought about another one. So on impulse went to Sainsbury's and bought some white socks. Perhaps it'll be positively symbolic.

Now we've got a new period of unemployment we ought to try and be constructive. I intend to go into town on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and do something at least vaguely job-related. It'll prevent isolation and DHSS hassle and keep up the exercise. Got to be positive and not brood.

Day 803

'I've been sacked.' 'Too bad!' Employment terminated, presumably because that top bastard scum wanker was embarrassed by a complaint over an incomplete document I sent out when I was still getting the hang of it. S. followed me to the stairs. I'm surprised that fucking bastard scum wanker scum bastard didn't have the police come and take me away. 'Well, what a complete bastard'.

Walked home rather depressed, very windy weather. Better start looking for a new job tomorrow. They're paying me up to July 5th so I get 2 weeks' free cash. Of course I'd rather have the job. Goodbye ABC. It would never've worked out with S. anyway, our synastric aspects were horrible.

'When you reach the bottom line, the only thing to do is climb / Pick yourself up off the floor, anything you want is yours'. OK, end of that chapter.

Day 802

Felt very bad in the morning, staggered to ABC, didn't feel anything like well again till noon. I had to answer phones and made a bit of a mess of it. I told L. that I hated answering the phone even at home.
'At least you get paid for it here,' she said. That's true, 1p every 18 seconds. (Compared to 1p/49.7 seconds on the dole, and that's 6 days a week)

At dinnertime took that £9.45 'bonus' Giro to the b.s., bought Vitamin B12 and evening primrose oil. Whiled away the afternoon listening to banter and fruitlessly searching for post.

Got home, blisters much improved. Watched the start of Russia v Brazil. Brazil, who I reckon are a spent force and won't win the World Cup, are winning 2-0; I'm not surprised, given Russia's gloomy national anthem.

Day 801

Continuing to feel odd. The only course is an immediate reduction to 49u/week by Friday, and to 35u/week by four weeks from then. It's down to the health food shop tomorrow lunchtime for a big supply of evening primrose oil.

Day 800

Felt a bit odd, rather like yesterday evening. Went to town in the morning, got mum's birthday present and some dBase books. Watched America v. Switzerland. Got drunk in the evening.

Discovered I'd been drinking 14 u/day recently owing to glass size miscalculation (I reckoned 11 or 12 u). Still better than the 23 u/day of the Dark Days. Poor innocent S and her 5-unit hangover on Thursday morning! Or as an impartial observer might say, poor raddled J and her 14-unit anti-withdrawal sessions. Which would you rather? Ah well.

Day 799

Encountered the Top Bloke, the poshest of all, thought I made quite a good impression. Enjoyed listening to the others banter in the afternoon. Earlier, at dinnertime, got a good C book on algorithms.

Was glad to reach the early Friday finishing time of 4.30. Got home very tired, watched Bolivia v Germany in the first match of the World Cup. Happy memories of 1990.

Day 798

Spent most of the day semi-fruitlessly searching for files. Listened to some interesting conversations. It's actually quite a good place to work, there's a lot of complaining but apparently no real spite.

I was mistaken for a lawyer by one woman, who advised me to refer a file to my support (ie admin people). I did not correct her. If only I'd done that Law conversion course! I feel a bit of an arse doing this job at 24 while S and the others like them all have cars at 21. But most of them are still living at home. And they remind me of the swimming-pool set from sixth form.

World Cup starts tomorrow, sure there'll be echoes of 1990 a-plenty.

Day 797

Work-wise it went OK, suffered from my blisters though. I'll wear my comfortable walking boots for the journey tomorrow and change into the interview shoes when I get there. I had a half-hour conversation with L, she seems OK and gave me the impression I should last about 6 weeks at least, so finish July 21st. Lucky I didn't decide to borrow the computer money, I'll only make £360 after tax, expenses etc from that.

Watched Star Trek TNG, the usual present-the-familiar-as-strange plot

Day 796

It went better today. When S went at 4pm the others started blowing up balloons and stuff and prepared a banner saying 'Happy 21st Birthday'. (I did the 'R')

Came home, watched the (apparently) penultimate Quantum Leap - he was Elvis this time. (!)

Day 795

Fantastic Euro-election results - Labour won this seat (Essex W & Hertfordshire E)! And I voted Liberal because I thought Labour had no chance! They took Essex South too and Kent and all sorts of unlikely places. It's their best result since the sixties!

Went to work. Made a bit of a hash of things, probably due to the intense heat. Forgot my special anti-dehydration sandwiches (cheese & yeast extract) so wandered aimlessly round town at lunchtime trying to decide what to buy. Got on better in the afternoon.

Carried on with Philanthropists. You get a new perspective on it if you read it employed after being unemployed.

Day 794

Tested Envision Publisher, read the paper. Watched a prog of World Cup funnies.

Another week to come, another £100 coming up. Carried on with The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists which I started last night.

Day 793

Slept a comfortable nine hours. Had a terrible dream that ABC had moved to a fire-trap skyscraper I'd actually read about in the Mirror in the week. I was being given more and more incomprehensible things to do as the building burned.

Was quite glad to get up and tape the first of the new series of The Masterson Inheritance. Borrowed mum's car and drove to PC World in the hope of finding a legit copy of Quick C, but (typically) now I've got the money it's disappeared from the shelves. Came back and looked in the computer shop here in Mugsborough, finding a rack of shareware - proper shareware that's in the Software Source catalogue - for £5 a disc (cheaper than sending for it, up to a certain number because of the postage). I may go back for more with the catalogue in the week. Got Envision Publisher (very good and faster than Page Maker) and Draft Choice.

Nice to really appreciate something for a change - the day off I mean.