Life in the anthill

It was J's last day at Backwell, but you've probably already read about that in her blog. She thinks it's a sad thing and is worried about getting more work, but with the CVs they give her she'll be running Telecom in place of Teresa Gatting. She got presents of food and drink, so I will sacrifice myself to save her waistline and scoff most of them.

It's the big weekend this weekend for English sports fans. They've all but been knocked out of the football champs after a loss to Russia, but they have the Rugby and the F1 to potentially keep them happy. My workmates are all looking through their ancestry to find a football team they can support with any justification, but they are certain of their English heritage when it comes to the rugby. Lewis Hamilton is on the verge of winning the F1 unless Alonso rams his car, which is entirely possible. It might be the second Peninsula War if that happens, but there're so many Poms in Spain now that the Spaniards wouldn't have a hope - fifth column and all that. I'm told it is the 3rd/4th play-off tonight but frankly, who gives a damn? Certainly not the players, and probably not the public.


The week ended on a crappy note at work, as I found that the last hour had been spent filling in forms for the wrong bloody people (because last month's file was sent to me) and then the last phone call was to suggest that last month's reports had to be re-run completely because there were so many errors. I can't see this actually happening because we are due to run the next ones, but we'll see. It gives you some idea of the quality of the process that this might happen. There are seven potential inputs, and (currently, as more keep being added) five outputs, each of which is largely manually processed. If something goes wrong, I have to decide which of the inputs was involved and whether it was the original data or our processing of it that was at fault. I then have to decide who and how it will be corrected, and which of the outputs will be effected. And this month plenty went wrong...

The weather is turning cooler, and the leaves are changing colour and shedding. The last two days have been lovely walking to work, with still waters reflecting the trees along the harbour. This morning had very unusual cloud formations as you can see, and all natural unlike the ones in J's blog. It's still a sign of the approaching winter, but since you are still having snow in Dunners we're not too badly off.

Well, the playoffs were quite entertaining in the end, even if more one sided than expected. A bit scrappy and I'll wager Chabal's eye was not the result of an accident. Just made him look even more savage. Who'd have thought, eh? Argentina 3rd, England in the finals...