As I said on Facebook, I can confirm that HRH Lizzy "The Lush" Windsor has conferred the title of Duke of Wigwam to me as a gift on my wedding day. I didn't have the heart to tell her Kat didn't turn up. Here was I, suited and booted, and the bugger failed to even Skype me an apology -- maybe I was a naughty boy after all.

I think Lizzy was in a bit of a funk today. She had a face that would frighten the numerous police-horses present, and that yellow outfit was revolting. I did not detect a single smile. Perhaps this is not too much of a surprise due to the wedding vows -- "I promise not to have you assassinated within the next two years."

Seriously though, the TV coverage has been vomit inducing. I switched the BBC off for a while and flipped to Aljazeera because Bryony was on there. It was even more sycophantic guff so back to Al Beeb it was. The only saving grace was that Chris Hollins was on street patrol. You cannot not like the man. There should be a Facebook fan page for him -- I'd sign up for it.

If the ratings are to be believed (2 billion worldwide) then the world is genuinely more f'd up than even I could have imagined.

All cynicism aside, Kate Middleton looked absolutely stunning.

Well, that was a couple of days. In addition to a Waaarty appearance, my eldest ended up with gynecological problems and in hospital. Having L in hospital was an experience I never want to happen again.

I'm wide awake at this time of day. I guess I must be so excited about the royal wedding that my adrenalin levels are off the scale, not. The BBC are interviewing people who are camped out in London, waiting for the great event. I'm thinking that if I stay up long enough, it will all be over by the time I wake up.

The reason I'm awake is that I had a small kip earlier and her Katness is meant to be skyping me in a few moments. Who am I kidding? It's the royal wedding that has me so excited, not. What does have me a tad animated is that Bryony is on Al Jazeera tomorrow for 5 hours or so covering the big day.

Did I mention there's a wedding tomorrow?

<sigh />

One thing I have learned today is that it is possible to have the Union Jack upside down. If anyone can explain how a symmetrical pattern can be the wrong way round, I'd be very interested. In Kat parlance, baffled.com.

To finish, before Kat skypes me, I'd just like to send my best wishes to all my mates in the US. It sounds like tornado season has been pretty harsh this year. I hope you're all safe.

G'night.

lovin it out with andy pandy and gallaz boomin moomin with simon and my uncle hahahahahahahah lovin it. andy has been a naughty boy so im afraid you have me today as he is grounded. byeee xx

There are no prizes.

I headed up to Albert Towers last night for a bit of a barbecue. As soon as the sun comes out, so does Albert's monster grill. I can safely say I have not eaten so much in one sitting in a long time. If you ever need anyone to barbecue anything, you should hire Albert. He's a master. I have my suspicions about his involvement with that whole Joan of Arc dealio.

Pork chops, home-made burgers, chicken, potato salad. I even had seconds -- unheard of.

After a small break, I was then force-fed multiple pieces of Mrs A's carrot cake. I've brought copious amounts of that back with me.

I think between Albert and I, we must have eaten the better part of a small farm.

Today comprised of driving back from York, dropping off antihistamines for Kat, dropping of seedlings at the parental units' and then a very fraught football match. I now have to get myself in the shower and into a suit (quelle horreur) so I can go and meet the magical Leonie for a couple of hours before doing a cameo at my cousin's wedding bash.

While I am doing all this, I need to get in my daily Skype/call to Kat. I introduced her to Skype last week and she loves it. I have some cracking screenshots of her in pajamas from the other night but I dare not publish them for fear of certain death.

Now I am about to find out whether I can still get into my suit. Eeek. This is more nerve-racking than the football.

Have a nice evening, all. And thanks to Albert and Mrs A for a top night once again.

I haven't had a good old rant for a while. I have been sounding way too happy, as was pointed out in a comment on Facebook made by a colleague which said \"Stop having so much bloomin' fun.\"

He's right although the veneer does not necessarily reflect the innards. I still rage. I still worry.

<rant>

In no particular order:

-- Windows 2008. The install takes the better part of a lifetime and if you wish to do anything even vaguely useful with it as a server, you need to spend hours tinkering with stupid GUI wizards. In Linux, if you want to add, let's say 3, static routes, it takes approximately 3 minutes (and that's if you're a slow typer). In 2008, through the GUI, it takes 20 minutes to activate it and then another 5 minutes per static route. So that's 3 minutes versus 35 minutes per server. Productivity, thy name is not Microsoft. Even after you have gone through the brain-dead wizard to add a single route at a time, it doesn't work. I have yet to figure out why. Idiot software.

-- Royal wedding. I am going to google somewhere for next Friday that guarantees to be a Royal wedding-free zone. It will be the one day of the year where I will be avoiding anything to do with any news or terrestrial channels. I guess that means a day of watching The Universal Channel and Watch. Honestly, who gives a flying f*ck?

-- Pollen. It speaks for itself. All my anti-histamines do is make me stop snotting and very tired. The nose still itches, the throat is still swollen, the eyes still stream. I want to single-handedly burn every hawthorn bush within a 150 mile radius of here. Call it an exclusion zone. You know how Mr T had an allergy to trees? When he built his mansion in Chicago, he had every single tree cut down within about a mile. I like the guy's style.

-- British roads. A joke of the first order. I have eight miles to travel from the M6 to the M60 (via the M62) on my way to Leeds. This morning, I averaged 20 miles an hour for that 8 miles. The cause? Absolutely naff-all squared. They're making a new exit lane onto the M60 but it does not reduce capacity any. No accidents, no capacity constraints. Unfathomable.

-- Grazed bumpers and outright theft. Thanks -- you know who you are.

</rant>

What I will say is that I am enjoying Smallville enormously at the moment. Why Clark keeps harping on about Lana Lang when he has Chloe Sullivan fawning all over him beats me. I'd be in there like a salmon.

Sorry, I am grouchy from itchy nose etc. Second thoughts -- I'm not sorry. You deserve to get your money's worth of rants from me rather than me paint a rosy picture of the world. Consider this your Brucey Bonus.

is not advisable, but I will anyway.

Today and, more importantly, tonight has been strangely quiet. I can cope with quiet days but quiet nights make me a tad too introspective. In the absence of Kat to entertain me by phone or in person, I have sat watching my Sky + backlog.

I have decided on my number two lass in the world, after Mariska Hargitay naturelement. Charlotte Sullivan from Rookie Blue. Some of you might get the parallel with someone I know. In the immortal words of Sid, \"Tilt\".

Last night, The Vanquisher and I got my Pod Line 6 gubbins working without crashing the Macbook. We can see the signal going in. All we need to do now is figure out how to get the sound coming out and then how to feed that into GarageBand or some other software so that we can record it. I'm sure when Kat gets her hands on it, she'll have it sorted in seconds.

Alors, I'm tired and I have work on Monday so consequently am depressed. The football did not help so please no footie digs.

G'night mein lieblings.

"Don't look at me. Nothing has made sense since 1985 and even then it didn't make much sense."
-- Big Mac, Casualty

"I've still got a hangover from 1985."
-- Waaarty, 1996

Both are gems but the first one amuses me more given current circumstance.

I nipped to Wigwam yesterday to pick up my Pod Line 6 UMX. I was overjoyed at the prospect of recording something. Unfortunately it was a bit of a let-down. Every time I plugged it in, the kernel panicked. After a bit of googling, I have downloaded some new Pod drivers but have yet to test them. I was hoping Kat might come down tonight so we could have a bit of a jam and record some stuff but the poor dear is puking every half hour. C'est la vie.

Instead, I am going to go into Wigwam to see the Beckmeister (and hopefully The Tudor Barmaid) later. I also need to pick up some picture frames. There are a couple of shots of Kat and I that I want framed. It struck me a couple of weeks ago that I have no photographs in the house which is a bit sad so it needs remedying.

Other than that, I am just keeping my ass-groove in shape à la Homer Simpson by watching crap daytime TV. There has been some nastiness over the last 24 hours but I am dealing with it through legal channels -- I will say no more about that because it's a bit emotive.

Happy Friday from Wigwam! Local peeps, Tudor, later.

Envy us...

We had the best time ever. It is a shame we had to come back.

This is what we arrived to:

It was paradise found.

So, Kat being Kat, got stuck in:

She then locked me out with the seagull from hell:

But we made up:

She also did her favorite trick of falling asleep with her legs in the air. I cannot believe what she can do athletically. Only a dancer can get away with even trying this:

I really hope we manage to move over there. Every weekend could (and should) be like that.

I've been teaching Kat how to off-spin, leg-spin, in-swing, off-swing and seam. Unfortunately I have never mastered reverse swing.

Her souvenirs are a corking pair of trainers and a lovely bangly type gubbins. She nearly had another souvenir to take home when she attempted to abduct the dog in the pub we had lunch in. It was like the lemur episode but much more likely to succeed.

Another top day.

Later we're meeting an old work colleague and friend for an hour and then an elderly couple we met last night for the bingo (Kat, not me) and then watching the delicious Hayley strutting her stuff.

Please don't make me go home!

for enjoying myself so much...

After a rough start to yesterday's birthday celebrations, thanks to Lloyds, I had a seriously nice evening with the usual suspect.

You would not believe some of the stuff that Kat comes out with. Attitude is not the word. As we were discussing the lunar effects on tides, \"I don't believe in gravity.\"

You cannot argue with a statement like that. Well, you probably can, but not with Kat.

Yesterday, she locked me out on the balcony next to a seagull with a serious attitude problem. She has a shot of me out there looking terrified while this flying piece of Luftwaffe stared at me. I will post it when I get home tomorrow. On that subject, Kat has taken some seriously impressive pictures over the last few days. It would take me hours to get some of those but I guess that's because I'm blind as a bat -- good job I have sonar on my side.

We're off for a speed boat ride around the little orme soon. As soon as Kat has finished her post-breakfast nap. Kat+breakfast+gallon of milk=siesta.

The weather is gorgeous again so all is shaping up well. Unfortunately this time tomorrow we will be on a train back home. If I could, I'd just stay here.

Well, Kat is flat out for an hour so I thought I'd hop on and give you a quick update.

We had a very bizarre night last night. We entered the quiz, which I thought we would romp, until they told us it was to do with marketing slogans and you had to identify the brand. Eek! We did pretty well and got 15/20 but did not win. However the ladies who did gave us the bottle of champagne anyway, bless 'em.

In the meantime, Kat had briefed the host that it was my birthday today so I was publicly humiliated. The guy said to me \"I hear tomorrow is a special day.\"

I looked very confused. You should never hold a microphone to my mouth unless invited. I had completely forgotten that it was my birthday today, so when the chap pointed it out to me I felt a prize idiot.

Kat met up with a friend of hers later so I left them at around 10:00 so they could catch up. I was in bed by 10:30, just as she arrived back to the room. So an early night turned into a very late one as we talked the night away. We jointly made a few decisions about a couple of things. Quite cathartic. That said, the fact that we were up so late did not stop Kat from getting up for her full English again.

My petty mind has noticed a couple of things over the last couple of days. Number one is that I have more fun watching others having fun. Number two is that there must be five women for every man in this hotel. They are all pensioners (Kat and I must reduce the average quite a lot) so it reminds me of the old adage: \"Why do married men die before their wives? Because they want to.\"

Alors, after a kind of fraught morning, alles gut. (Mixture of languages there -- you like?). :)

Laterz my little dushkas.

For some reason my account was double-debited this month. Thankfully the rental agency spotted it and refunded the cash, I thought by direct debit -- but apparently not; by cheque. So we're in Wales with minimal funds until Tuesday. I feel like a teenager again! My birthday dinner will be the breakfast. :)

Kat has done her usual trick. She has been motivated out of bed by a full English and has now returned there, hence my presence on here.

Last night was amazing, though. Kat got on the karaoke quite a few times and ended up with a job offer. It is no surprise. You know how Karen Carpenter could never hit a bum note in her life? Kat is like that. I sat beaming at her as she made good songs even better, like a proud parent. The downside of the evening was that she tricked me into singing too. As I keep saying she is a bugger but I have never been more pleased to meet someone. She's the Libyan version of me but with a hell a sight more artistic talent.

Every time we spend any time together we find even more common ground. This time it is a shared love of Kate Bush. We also had a long chat about some other life stuff. Bless, I'm her next of kin. I have done the same thing and changed my next of kin to be her -- the ex's don't deserve it. It really is a lovely thing to have someone so close without any kind of emotional baggage to deal with.

For once I have lucked out (if Waaarty says anything about falling off a Xmas tree I will be on the next train to York to beat him to a pulp). The sun is cracking the flags here. It is that warm that the sky and the sea meld into one as you look out on the balcony. There's a Regina Spektor lyric that says "the sea is just a wetter version of the sky". Today proves it. I have a picture but I have brought the wrong cable to upload it, so you'll have to wait for that one.

As Kat would say, the weather is here, wish you were beautiful!

I'm off to Wales tomorrow.

In the meantime, I have a lot of things to do. I need to dispense with some work stuff and do some washing. It might be a late night. I may take my snooker cue Ex Calibur with me because the last cue we used there was shaped liked a horse's leg.

I may post some pics while we're there but I'm guessing we'll be too busy having fun.

Toodles.

I've awoken to the news that the taxman is about to bite me even harder than he currently does. I'm not sure which is worse; that or the fact that I am snotting like nothing on earth. The day can only get better!

Oh, wait a minute, maybe not. I have Windows stuff to deal with.

I must be ill (hence the snotting) because I'm really quite liking Sian Williams this morning.

Still, four days until I hit Wales again.

I did say this would be brief.

Well, the zoo was a blast with a few surprises. The first one was when we bumped into a wandering emu. There are about four that block access to walkways. I was all for waiting until they decided to move but Kat has little patience with such things. The woman is fearless. Unless it's a dog, I don't trust things with fur, fangs or feathers. If you perm two of those three and add it being bigger than me, I can pretty much guarantee I will not be comfortable in its presence.

The second surprise was that the lemurs were everywhere. Despite the advice not to mess with the little buggers, Kat started petting them as she went around. In fact, this evil ball of fur is chewing Kat's jeans in this shot, having failed to extract her shoe-lace.

Get in!

I was on the phone with Kat last night. I mentioned I had lost my front door key. Where is it? Yup. In her bra. I am intrigued as to what she manages to keep in there.

Thankfully I will have full unfettered access shortly. I am sure I will find all sorts of missing items in there. I'm guessing my 1985 diary will be in there, which will be handy in that it lists my O-level results that I have long since forgotten.

The good news is that I have made a two point conversion. I have been trying to convince Kat to marry me for months. If you remember, at the time of the announcement of the royal wedding, I was going to find a peasant to marry on the same day but Westminster Abbey and St Paul's Cathedral were booked by his Royalness. Well, I haven't found a peasant, but Kat is game on. We've ditched the Tudor idea. The chandelier in the Grand in Llandudno swung it.

So you are all cordially invited to the Grand to join us for a bit of a bash. Nothing flash. We'll just get the job done and have a decent evening. Kat and I will be looking for jobs the following day.

Can't believe I'm marrying a Libyan. 29th April peeps. Hope to see you there.

Am I now allowed to call you garjus Kat?