Ms Gordon has excelled herself today. You just want to wrap her up and take her home. Okay, maybe just I want to.

I saw the ad for the festival mentioned the other day. Unfortunately, it may clash with the Oz trip that I may take. Or maybe I won't because I'm all mouth and no trousers on the travel front. I have the urge and the willing, but I find spending that amount of money solely on me to be indulgent in extremis.

I think Bryony being a thirty-something female and single is a bit of a biased line up. They should balance it with being a <cough> male and single. I say that as it would get me in for free. Paying to go listen to her seems overindulgent and a bit stalkerish. That said, did I not say a couple of months ago that I really should take up stalking, just to keep the stats up for the nation? I should call the stalker hotline for advice.

The festival in question is in Henley though. Having got McColleague to google that for me (I am not sanctioned to use google solo -- union rules), I find that Henley is a) South of Stoke and b) hosts a girly boat gubbins for upper-class hoorays which means I would suffer from nose-bleeds from the longitude differential and no doubt come back with a criminal record for ABH (so when we factor in the stalking charge, it means I am two thirds of my way to being a persistent offender).

More seriously, does anyone else fancy a tootle down to Henley for the festival? It's about time I did something more high-brow. I promise I'll try to behave. As I typed this I was recalling the wall of silence that greeted me a couple of years ago when I asked whether anyone wanted to go to watch Dolly Parton at the MEN. De riens.

Dearest Albert,

Just a quick note to wish you, Evil Albert (aka Obidia Septimus Barleymow), a happy significant birthday. May the seed of your loin be fruitful in the belly of your woman J-man. Oh, wait a minute. It already has. 'Tell you what: let's not go there. We shall stick with the 70/80s heartthrob that undoubtedly made your blood even redder and more noble.

I owe you a bouteille of some distinction upon the next trek up to Albert Towers.

Yours,

Blodwin Secundus K McMacho Von Vïgan III,
(Duke of Kennyburgh, Pickler of Eggs and All-Round Light Entertainer)

Last night involved a small trip-let (as apposed to a triplet, which is a small fall) to Samsi's in Manchester. After I failed to pull while mincing, nay flouncing availably, down Canal Street, The Vanquisher, Rebecca and I destinated and placed our orders. The Beccmeister had never done Japanese before so had a look of impending doom as she ordered Ginger Teriyaki Salmon. Rob ordered his. I ordered the sashimi platter and sat back awaiting my quota of raw dead animal.

Fail. I was presented with a platter of various cooked fish, some of which was tuna. I cannot abide tuna unless it is in sashimi form. Being the low-key kind of Kenny that you all know and love, I didn't make a fuss and dutifully (if not a little sulkily) ate. The others happily chomped away while I passive-aggressively stabbed some tuna with a chopstick while mentally running through the scene from psycho and glaring at the chap who had brought me the wrong damned meal. I am seeing a return to my love-affair with Tokyo Season in the near future.

All that preamble is just an excuse to do an exposé. This is a world exclusive peeps, a collector's item if you will. It's a picture of The Vanquisher. Do not be misled by the lack of a scythe and hood. À la Chuck Norris, the best part of waking up is not coffee; it's knowing The Vanquisher has not killed you in your sleep. Most people who have taken pictures of The Vanquisher have been found dead in mysterious circumstances and all evidence destroyed. I was lucky.

What I will say for Samsi's is that the shop downstairs is full of wonders. I could have spent a fortune but restricted myself to wasabi peas, wasabi paste and chopsticks.

Ooh, next time I can be bothered typing, remind me to tell you how I went out to grab a Costa cappuccino on Friday evening and came back with a Playstation 3, some Blueray films and several games. Also don't forget to leave a comment that says Rebecca is not permitted to go to anywhere more dangerous than Bryn Cross once she has finished her RAF training -- I'm not sure she believes I am serious.

Right, sayonara suckers. I have films to watch and games to play.

You know how, on Monday, I hinted that breaking down due to a mismatch of colors was a sign of infirmity? Well I have to retract that comment.

While driving in this morning I glanced in my rear view mirror to find a nasty mustardy yellow Ford something or other. I then caught sight of the woman driving who was wearing a yellow blazer that clashed with the car like Titans used to/would do were they colors. Jesus H Man Fridays. It was obscene. I gasped at the horror. If the colors had been waves, they would have started resonating across all lanes on the M62, causing mass devastation.

Then I remembered a throwaway comment that I had made while being belligerent about the prime of beauty. So I gasped in horror at my hypocrisy.

Maybe my oestrogen levels are elevated after an evening watching Becoming Jane while scoffing a pound of Thornton's chocolates. Yes, that will be it. I really enjoyed the film. Think I might download a Jane Austen (sp doff in the direction of Mrs A) novel for tonight.

From The Telegraph:

My cable pack came early so I hooked the fella up.

Woohoo!

Day 10 of 4000+ calories a day -- amount of weight gained: one pound.

Arses.

Because I am a bit bored and it has been a long time since I bored you with pictures of boring things that have absolutely no effect on your interesting lives, I am going to post some pictures. This selection, I like to call Portrait of a Kenny in Inanimate Objects.

First up, we have my new desk arrangement at home. You will note the swanky chair. I went and bought that yesterday because I am sick of losing all feeling in my legs from sitting on a dining chair when I work from home or have code to write for me. The chair is a bit on the gorgeously comfortable side and so may induce involuntary siestas at inopportune moments. Those of you with sharp eyes might be able to make out a gift that I got from Alberta Junior on my last visit there; a desk tidy thing. You will note it is in use (Mrs A -- you can let her know).

After five years of being called a name at work that I don't acknowledge (i.e. my real name), they are slowly coming around to the fact that my login details on various systems should not be that name, but the nom de plume by which most of the world knows and refers to me. Apart from my father who, particularly after a couple of wine-berry juices, still slips up and calls me \"Our Amy\". Still...

login: kenny

It pleases me.

Hello again folks!

Could someone please hook these walking ******s [Ed -- hmmm, wonder what that word was?] up with some Kylie incontinence pants ASAP? I fear there aren't enough words in the English language to adequately describe how annoying this video is. That's why i'm sharing it with you. Apologies in advance, since it's likely to force you to cancel your ISP account, format your hard drive and then proceed to sit in a dark corner and wish terrible things upon me.

Enjoy!

The Video.

The Vanquisher.

I follow @badjournalism on Twitter simply because their strap line is \"Reading the Daily Mail so you don't have to.\" It has to be said that today's find is a bit of a cracker:

Today's utter delight was a pearl of marketing genius that McColleague presented as a gift-wrapped blog post for me.

McColleague: Did you know that the best selling incontinence pad in the UK is called Kylie?

Cue Kenny running for the keyboard, tears of anticipatory joy streaming down his cheeks. Sure enough -- check out Kylie. For those with minds now full of morbid curiosity, check out the Man Kylie.

I was already feeling pretty damned excellent today but that was the icing, although I probably have bust a couple of ribs howling with laughter like only I could at such a delicious piece of happenstance. If you ever wanted proof that there is a God and that He has a sense of humor, that, right there, should be your undeniable evidence.

As of this moment, whenever I want to get out of doing something or need a "natural break", I will proudly proclaim that I am off to change my Kylie. And then wink knowingly.

Love it. Love it. Love it. Did I mention I love it? And that my ribs hurt?

Oooh -- Happy Birthday Bryony. Forgot to send her something this year -- will she ever forgive me?

I thought I'd share a somewhat stripped down version of a conversation I had last night with mi'mucker Becca.

Rebecca: I have a job. I'm just waiting for my police check and references to come through so I can start

Me: Oooh. Police check? What are you doing? Does it involve Mother Russia?

Rebecca: No I'm a carer at the XXXXX View care home [Ed -- don't want anyone stalking the dear do we?]

Me: I thought you were a bit young to be an FSB agent.

Me: Ah well. It matters not. As long as you have a job. Is it just a temp thing for summer?

Rebecca: Err no....well they don't know but it's a temp thing until I, hopefully, get in the RAF

Me: Get in! I thought about that after uni. And the police force. Not sure I'd have been quite cut out for either in retrospect.

Rebecca: Yeah, it's something I've wanted to do for a while now so I decided to go for it

Me: Good on you. But you're not allowed to go to Afghanistan after training -- I will not permit it.

Rebecca: Well if I get in to do what I want to do then I will be going to uni for 3 years so hopefully it'll be done by then :)

Me: Good job. Wars are cyclical anyway in their severity. The West has one, finishes it, remembers how bloody awful they are and mostly stops fighting for a generation.

Rebecca: Well fingers crossed that I don't have to go because I don't know if I could stand the heat

Me: That is priceless. Ignore the bombs and IEDs, snipers etc -- it's the heat that will get you. :) It does get very cold in winter though...Siberia like cold.

Rebecca: I wouldn't be able to cope with that either, I'd be useless

Me: Okay -- let's hope the only wars we get into are in Ince or Platt Wazz then. ;) [Ed -- these are suburbs of Wigan which are renowned for their lack of hospitality to anyone who is literate.]

Rebecca: Yeah....I'd quite like to shoot those people

Me: Bless 'em. They are not blessed with any kind of mental faculty and therefore are vermin...to be shot.

Rebecca: between the eyes

Me: I have my old gun at my dad's. We should do a drive-by one night in the Wazz. :)

Rebecca: I'd love that, they drive by me throwing rocks at me, I'd like to up it slightly :)

Me: Right, that's one for a rainy night. We'll pencil it in. My new motor is a big black SUV thingumy (well, not quite as big). I'll get the windows tinted, buy some hardcore rap and have the suspension lowered. Maybe a purple neon light in there?

Rebecca: Ahahaha sounds like a plan, but maybe not on a rainy night because A. I love going running in the rain and B. I think they're allergic to rain because they never go out in it

Me: Well, you bring the baseball caps and bling. We'll do it when it is just slightly overcast.

The conversation then meandered into a plan for a bunch of us going out to dinner next weekend. I signed off with a warning to keep an eye out for the Landgate Taliban.

--

In other news, I will be traipsing over to Leeds every day for the next few weeks to get my head back into work so I may be a bit silent due to fatigue or manic depression.

--

And no, you will never be told of the scam (ref previous post). Only me and the arsehole who perpetrated said dastardly deed will ever know; that is unless I meet him again in which case I may have to explain to the jury what caused me to decapitate the scumbag and then half the head just to make sure he was dead -- at the end of my testimony, I will proudly announce \"I'm chuffed as a whippet that I killed the bastard. I had hoped that his bollocks would turn square and fall off but I was gifted this wonderful opportunity to murder the thieving, robbing scouse tw@t in cold blood while performing a jubilant plié followed by extravagant pirouettes of joy to the glorious sound of steel cleaving bone\".

With all the blog shenanigans over the past couple of days, it has dawned on me that I never updated you with the results of my gastroscopy. Firstly the procedure is not too bad if you don't object to a feeling of trying to throw up Nelson's Column. I was well disappointed with the valium. I was put in a room post-procedure and my mother (you are not meant to drive, sign legal documents or be left alone for 24 hours after the tiny squirt of valium they give you so I had to be accompanied) was told that I would be out for about a further 30 minutes. Cue Kenny metabolism. Precisely one minute after that statement had been made, I was awake and raring to get the hell out for a good old Silk Cut Ultra. Sedative, my ass. I didn't even get any residual la-la-land. I was duped. I did have a rather ace dream that night involving a certain Ms Gordon -- no, not a pervy dream -- just a verbal waltz followed by a stroll through a park. Just think if they'd hit me with a couple more milligrams...

And they found...

Absolutely bugger all squared apart from a 4cm Hiatal Hernia which is a) to be expected given my advancing years, b) about a serious as a paper cut.

What they didn't find is any evidence of utter idiocy which is almost certainly a condition I suffer from. I have just been scammed for £50. I am not going to tell you how. I am so embarrassed. It's really one of those \"f*ck me, I'm clueless\" moments.

Here's to more somnambulistic roving with Ms Gordon.

Okay -- I owe the guys at my hosting company a partial apology. They must have upgraded PHP and/or switched on some kind of strict mode. Where I had been passing things using:

http://www.gorners.com/permalink.php?id=1278007335

and then assuming I could reference them in permalink.php as $id without any work, I was obviously being sloppy. I've had to change everything that uses a URL argument to do the following:

$id = $_GET['id'];

before I try to use $id.

It took me quite a while to suss that one out.

I'm sure you're all very interested (sic) n'est ce pas? Ignore me.

Look at the time -- Lordy, Lordy, time does not half fly when you get in the zone. Schlaft gut meine kleine igels.

There is something going on with my hosting company at the moment and I'm buggered if I know what. They appear to be performing an upgrade of some kind.

Initially I thought I'd just lost a post and some comments due to some payment gubbins (they had the wrong card details and I hadn't checked my gmail to see the warnings) -- I sorted that yesterday. The account was not suspended at all. When Dr W informed me of the loss of a post and comments, I thought they might have done a restore or some such so I have manually re-added the post I lost (the comments are gone).

On further investigation, it appears that all my blog code ist gebrochen too so I have had to write a query by hand to insert this little update (the things I do for you all). On even deeper rummaging, I discover that all sorts of things are not working (control panel etc) so I'm assuming that there is some kind of issue or an upgrade problem that is not of my doing. I will sit on it for a while and see if they fix it -- I can't even submit a trouble ticket since that interface is gershafted.

Ah well. It's not the first time I've been baffled and it won't be the last.