mike[space] dot net

[for the really big news, feel free to scroll down, but if you have the time, why not enjoy the holiday with me?]

Several weeks back (and what feels like many moons ago), Claire and I did something pretty special. For the first time ever, we went on a summer holiday together. Generally, I'm more of a winter holiday kinda guy, and I had somehow managed to keep Claire on this path for 3.5 years. But sadly I gave in and we were jetting off (sorry planet) to Thailand.

As Tom put it so simply yesterday "you seem to be permanently hung over these days dude!" Now I think that might be a bit of an overstatement, but it is fair to say that the last couple of weeks have entailed a bit of an upswing on the boozing/partying front.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll have noticed that there has been a load of press about the LHC turning on today. It's pretty exciting that we have such a large experiment going on, it's a feat of extremely impressive engineering with some potentially fascinating consequences for physics. Sadly a lot of the press has instead been concentrating on concerns that it might create a black hole or that we could get switched into another dimension.

Last night, some guys get up on stage and pushes Noel Gallagher over at an Oasis gig. According to news reports, Liam gets involved and punches the guy out (that was what was being implied on the radio this morning anyway). Unsurprisingly, this is actually only after security are very heavily involved. The video is here.

Personally I much prefer The Rolling Stones way of doing it ... twat the guy with the guitar and carry on playing. Now that's far more rock and roll.

To explain my earlier tweet I realised I had made a bit of an error in clothing choice this morning, as I walked down the road and got a couple of funny looks. I was off to Adam's today to help him with painting his house, and had dug out an old t-shirt for the event. This was a t-shirt I won for the dubious achievement of drinking 8 pints of beer at the Cask & Bottle. It was 96, and the T-Shirt bore a picture of Saddam Hussein with the words "First the Challenge, then the world" (the challenge being the drinking that had earnt me the shirt.

This weekend was Nick's stag do down in Bournemouth. On Friday, I was buzzing from a successful week's writing, and feeling a little grumpy about taking the weekend out just when things were starting to go so well. But I headed out on the bus at lunchtime to begin the schlep down to Bournemouth. I had my first journey in a hybrid car as Dave currently has a Prius (after his continual problems with getting his car fixed, he just seems to get bounced around the various cars that come available at work). It's a little weird when it's so silent as the electric motor glides it around the car park, and the animations to tell you where the power is going seems a little over the top, but overall I was pretty impressed - the mileage is awesome.