election US style

David's written a better post than I could and even linked to the results of the 'world' vote. I decided against writing to my voter penpal in Ohio (Hallo, Debbie Cooper) as I suspect that if I had got an earnest email from someone in the US urging me to vote for a political party in the UK I would have been really pissed off at their nerve, particularly if they had encouraged me to vote Tory. Anyway, I don't have any interest in telling people in the US who to vote for, but as an outsider, I do hope that Bush doesn't get back in.

I have been appalled at the sheer nastiness and divisiveness of the campaigns and hope that we don't start getting into it over here. If anyone saw the US version of Question Time, were you as disturbed by the piss poor behaviour of the people in the studio as I was? With all the hissing and booing, I thought that I had stumbled onto an early Pantomime and someone was going to yell 'behind you' at any second. However, this is 'freedom', so I suppose we should applaud.

more drivel

Well this is a marvellous little thing from the BBC, for anyone interested in the election results. We believe in the BBC more than ever these days.

The new job is interesting. I have to close my door every so often and have a little smirk at how stupid they are to put me in charge. The people are very nice, but I don't have any chums yet and the pool gets smaller as I head towards the top of the pyramid (I'm about 8' from the ground now). I do miss Ms Ginger Cake's daily presence and I think that the rest of the division must know this because some higher ups have copied me into an email which suggests that the pair of us go to a conference together. Aah!

David has once again beaten me to it and done it better than I could. Damn him, Mr 'Zeitgeist' TEFLSmiler! He's not getting a link, I can tell you. Instead I'm going to link to an earlier post about smacking. I clearly forgot to mention at the time that it was only sensible to include an exemption for red headed step children. Please consider this a correction.

a big welcome...

Ms Ginger Cake has finally joined the blogging world. After a year of skirting on the periphery of it all, she has finally signed up for a Typepad account all of her own. She is a bit shy and doesn't want to make her first post with me watching, but just wait and see what wonders she produces (in the privacy of her own home, of course).

so sorry...

...for everyone who hoped that things might turn out differently. The will of the people is a strange thing.

Void

He'd said he'd do it and he has. The Machete of Truth has deleted his blog. We wish him well.

We have just finished watching Touching the Void, which was an incredible 'dramadoc' about two climbers that we had wanted to see at the cinema. I was amazed that Joe Simpson had managed to survive a massive fall into a glacier and drag himself down a mountain with a shattered leg. I was also touched at what seemed like a real honesty about their thoughts and feelings and amused despite the horror, that Joe did not want to die to the sound of Boney M repeating endlessly in his head. The book is going on my Christmas list.

looking good

I love my new job. All that anxiety, complaining and let's face it, fear and I'm really enjoying myself. It's going to be hard, as the team is depleted through training and there are scarily varying levels of competence, but it's nice being in charge of it all. I probably won't be saying this next week, so I think it's important for me to share the happy for once.

Like most miserable old gits, I'm not outside watching the fireworks as I can see the display in the park from my kitchen window. Last year I made an effort to go out and was very excited when I found one of those fairground stalls where you can hire balls and throw them at rows and rows of china. I was so overwhelmed by the thought of legitimately smashing pottery, that I went a bit mad with the throwing and one of the balls sailed over the roof of the stall into the masses. I bid a hasty retreat and retired to the pub with my chums. I think it was the sensible thing to do before too many people committed my face to memory.

mystery

We found a piece of bread on the dining room floor just now. An ordinary piece of sliced brown bread, nothing very unusual about that. The thing is that we don't have any bread like it in the house. Perhaps Slinky is trying to feed us, or the teenagers who like to walk past our house want to give something back (through the window) for all the times their obnoxious behaviour has bothered us. Very odd.

Update: Mystery solved. It must have been Slink trying to pacify us, as his behaviour has been truly unacceptable. Yes, I am up this late on a school night because that b*st*rd cat has sprayed on Mr McMuffin in bed again and I am doing clean up duties. Can't even blame the fireworks as he's really not been that bothered by them, apart from not wanting to leave the house.

Further Update: Actually it was those obnoxious b*st*rd teenagers. One put a tomato through the window and into the house earlier tonight. It was a good job Mr McMuffin didn't catch them. Personally I'm hoping that they'll send us gifts of foie gras and fine wines, but it's not that kind of neighbourhood.

i should be so lucky

My big sister has won a trip to Prague. Not fair is it? I considered being mean for a second and telling her to book a hotel near Wenceslas Square (great for junkies and prostitutes at night), or way out of town, but instead steered her to Mala Strana, close to the bridge. I know Prague has been so over for the last 10 years at least, but I like it. I'm trying to get her to visit Terezin, but I can't decide if that's because I want her to experience something different, or pure spite. Oh well.

Had an interesting compliment from the Police today. When I explained I was in a different job, I was told that they were pleased that they had someone sensible in charge. If the Police like me, what does that make me? I must be truly evil, or a shining light of joy. I'm going with the evil.

(This is Mrs McMuffin, I had to login as 'Mr' to deal with the spam scum and forgot to log out. By the way, Ms Ginger Cake has written her first post, go and encourage/harass her to write another. It will be worth it.)

i am man, hear me roar...

I don't believe it. I have finally worked out how to set the clock on our eight years old microwave. The instruction book went the way of all instruction books in our house, much to Mrs McMuffin's disdain. I don't need an instruction book to work out how to use new stuff. Throw a DVD player at me and I can work it out, eventually. I am truly supertechnologist. However, until today, the microwave had me defeated. For some strange reason I just could not work out how to make what is a very complicated system involving four buttons get the machine tell me the correct time. I even resorted to asking Ms Gypsy Tart to set it on one occasion and, God knows, she's not the sharpest tool in the box. Well, those days are behind me now. You know, I might just go and set it a few minutes ahead, just for the heck of it.

i am man, hear me roar...part II

I am a real man, and Mrs McMuffin knows this to be true, especially tonight and every second Saturday in June.

i was scared too...

I found the giant evil black cat that terrorises all the other cats in the neighbourhood in our kitchen this afternoon. He had just settled down to scoff Slinky's lunch when I spotted him, or rather heard him, because he wears a cute little bell around his neck. I chased him out of the house, but he just stepped out of the backdoor and turned around to look at me in that adorable way that, even giant evil black, cats have. For some reason, after five or six years, he suddenly wanted some loving from me. So, I spent a few minutes making a fuss of him. He was purring away and rubbing himself against me and for a second I forgot that he was the giant evil black cat. He then set off back into the house, completely ignoring my attempts to stop him. I eventually just picked him up. He must have weighed at least two stone. This is one solid cat. No wonder the other cats are scared of him. Poor Slinky won't even go outside if the giant evil black cat is around. I put him on the door step and gently shooed him away. He wouldn't move, and turned to come back into the house. I blocked his way with my foot, and tried to gently guide him out of the house. He still wouldn't go, and seemed determined to come back into the house. I bent down to push him out with my hands, but no sooner had I touched him than he turned on me hissing like a giant evil black cat with slashing and tearing on his mind. With my heart thumping, I was a little less gentle when I kicked him out of the house, but oddly he didn't run away. He turned and carried on hissing a challenge at me. This was a very scary cat. How many cats do you know that are willing to take on a human being? Anyway, I have learned my lesson. If it looks like a giant evil black cat, then it probably is a giant evil black cat, and I will never again mess with the giant evil black cat.

[I borrowed this picture of Bob to illustrate the story. The giant evil black cat looked a bit like Bob only he was giant and evil.]

naming and shaming

We returned home late last night from a pleasant evening with some of Mr McMuffin's psychotherapy chums and their partners to find a message from an obviously intoxicated Gypsy Tart. Amongst the slurring was a request to feed her cat in the morning, so I assumed that she was staying at a friend's and that Rock Cake was away for the weekend doing proper manly extreme sports. Imagine our surprise to find Single Cookie on our doorstep this morning. She had arranged to meet Gypsy Tart and go out, but found herself in the cold throwing rocks at Gypsy Tart's bedroom window in the hope that she had overslept. Anyway, the poor woman was forced to wait with us while Gypsy Tart made her way across London.

Gypsy Tart looked shamefaced and worse for wear when she finally staggered back to ours and of course I said I would humilate her by blogging about her, which cheered her immensely. There is a serious point though, Gypsy Tart completely forget her arrangements to meet her oldest and dearest friend, but even in the midst of her boozy befuddlement remembered to call us about her cat.

How do cats get us to do this? What is their power? More importantly what can we do to stop the urge to pander to their every need? Anecdotal evidence suggests that babies are able to counter and even surpass the demands of cats, but that really is a pretty high price to pay to break the cat stranglehold. At least cats can be left alone for the day, don't need their nappies changed or compell you to set up a university savings account. And you can give them really stupid names without fearing that other cats will beat them up, they simply don't care enough to answer to Fifi Pixie Peaches En Suite Bathroom.

i am condemned to the seventh circle of cat hell...

...who knew (apart from Mr McMuffin and Slinky) that Friskies Go Cat in Jelly is unpalatable, possibly toxic muck, but that Friskies Go Cat in Gravy is sheer, gorgeous deliciousness. While Slinky breaks his fast and condescends to eat, I am left to wonder exactly how much clean water the cost of his food might pay for in a developing nation.

Now I shall make a break with all things feline to prepare for our trip to the Carrot Cakes. I am a bit worried though about how he of who we do not speak will manage overnight without us. Perhaps I shall leave Gypsy Tart a slurred message to let him in in the morning and feed him. Of course, he could return home and contend with shabby old Whiskas.

dinner with the carrot cakes

We had a lovely time with Mr and Mrs Carrot Cake last night. There was just too much drinking and eating. Mr Carrot Cake prepared a feast for us. We started with mussels in a creamy winey sauce and leeks, and good soda bread to soak up the juices. Then we moved on to a rack of lamb with puy lentils wrapped in cabbage and mashed potato with leek. Pudding was a chocolatey heaven thing. Light chocolate sponge cake from which oozed a warm chocolate sauce when you cut into it. This was served with Mr Carrot Cakes home made vanilla ice cream. The meal was lovely, and I can't wait for him to cook again. He cooked his meal on their beautiful, gleaming black, Rangemaster cooker. I want one!

mrs carrot cake revealed

During the course of our evening with Mr and Mrs Carrot Cake, Mrs Carrot Cake revealed that during the great Thunderbirds drought of Christmas 2001 she had once made a Tracy Island for her son. Taking her lead from the very best that Blue Peter had to offer at the time, she produced a masterpiece that has stood the test of time. Here are some more photos of her great work: one two three four and, probably the best one, five. Many thanks to young Master Carrot Cake who helped to recreate the drama of Thunderbirds Five floating serenely in space.

ingrate

Last week I was just too tired to post about the lovely food that Ms Ginger Cake made us for dinner and I certainly didn't want to give the impression that it was not worthy of comment, far from it. Ms Ginger Cake's meal was a great mix of Jamaican and other food and we finished with a most praiseworthy syrup sponge. I would like to mention the bread that she drove over to Clapham to get, but I can't remember what it's called and I know she'll mock me if I don't get it right.

On the subject of ingratitude, I have to admit that two weeks on I hate my job. Not the job itself, but trying to function without key personnel and the incompetence of some staff. I have been sold a pup and it is making me a misery to be with. Sorry, Carrot Cakes! On a more cheerful note, here's some kittens. I am also feeling very clever for learning how to put a tag in. Kirsty tried to tell me ages ago, but for some reason it semed too complicated for me. I just had a look at her source code and saw how simple it really was. I am now equipped for those magical mouseover moments. Happiness returns.

fickle, moi?

Quite enjoyed work today. Nothing more to say as we're watching The Long Way Round in about two minutes. That Ewan McGregor is so charming, he's even got Mr McMuffin interested in watching motorbikes.

margaret hassan

It seems as if Margaret Hassan has been killed by her captors. I am not suggesting that her life had more value than any of the other citizens of Iraq killed in this war, but to single her out to die seems especially perverse considering her dedication to her fellow citizens and appears to be all about her colour.

bristol are brave or stupid

I'm going to watch this tonight. From what I've heard we get to see the classic clients as none of the middle class families involved agreed to take part.

I'm again feeling quite despondent about my profession after a day of forced training around supervision. The major issues impacting on us such as shortages of experienced staff and impossible demands were left unaddressed and I was left safe in the knowledge that anything that goes wrong is my responsibility as a manager. Funny that, they told me the same thing when I was a practitioner. It appears that all the responsibility and limited control is stalking me like the apparition of Christmas Past. Where are kittens when I need them? Even raindrops on roses would be acceptable.

Update: Interesting TV. Liked Leroy, didn't like Di. Was pissed off her explanations to clients about why she was gathering information and her not insisting on hair strand testing. Talked about her power to remove a baby-not without the Courts or Police you don't! Rather worried that the team seemed to see a child dying as mostly about a Social Worker potentially being in trouble rather than a child dying. However, who knows what went on when the cameras weren't rolling. Ah, Social Workers, we eat our young.

forgotten

We forgot our first blogiversary. We're the sad couple who can't even remember the date of our wedding anniversary, so there's no real surprise there. Well, it's the 26 or 27 June, but I'd have to check our photo album to be sure, or do a google search for Friday 26 June 2002 and Friday 27 June 2002. You can mock, I've actually done all of those things before.

We had hoped to have a pretty new blog, a cake with a single candle on it and a fabulous competition with a wonderful prize. Too late now, it's such a shame that I'm going to have to send that Fortnum and Mason's hamper back. As for that Mauritian holiday, the deposit's definitely gone now. Still, I suppose the Land Rover will keep for another year.

Anyway, Mr McMuffin is celebrating all things Apple at the expo with Ms Victoria Sponge tomorrow. Another friend (I cannot for the life of me remember her cake name) is leaving the UK tomorrow to look after her mother and Gypsy Tart (who was Treacle Tart before I forgot and inadvertently renamed her) will miss her a great deal. Single Cookie is celebrating her birthday (I don't even want to ask which one as she's the baby of the group and it makes me feel so old) and I'm doing some more training as my colleague dropped out and one of us really should go and be bored beyond belief for the day. I would like to join SC in her birthday celebrations, but past experience tells me I'll be more tired tomorrow (9.30-4.30 with an hour lunch and two 20 minute breaks) than after my usual 10 hour days. Learning hurts.

forgotten again

I meant to say something about the evil black cat that so terrified Mr McMuffin. It was lying in wait for unsuspecting pedestrians tonight, just by my neighbours house. I think it chose to stand there as the street lamp is out and it hoped to blend into the dark and take its victims by surprise. It leapt out at me, took one look and ran off as fast as its huge and muscular legs would take it. I, Mrs McMuffin frightened the evil black cat. I am feeling very proud of myself and I know that Mr McMuffin looks at me with new respect. Grrr! Watch out, Slink.

loving you is easy 'cos

...you bought me Leonidas chocolates.

another scary film

We just watched this Korean film. A tale of two sisters, a stepmummy, a wardrobe and a little girl who lives under the sink. Great film. We just couldn't work it out until the very end, when they told us what had been happening. A very odd film, which looked beautiful. Oh, and it's very, very scary. I'd never heard of it before, and only got it because the cover to the DVD was so striking. What is it about those eastern folk and their horror films involving children? I'd give this film ✩✩✩✩✩

important health information

If you are suffering from your own evil bug, then I think a daily regime of multivitamins may help. It certainly helped me over the last few weeks until I stopped taking them. Yes, that's right, if something works then why not stop doing it? It was a stupid thing to do and I'm paying for it by feeling too poo to leave the house. There are distinct advantages though, I have finished reading the Anne Tyler book I started Friday and have watched two films.

I also watched some crap tv about Heavy Metal. It wasn't totally crap as I found out that Saxon (Saxon? Fipping Heck) were the inspiration for Spinal Tap and I have been marvelling at the refusal of Lemmy to age or ever look completely ridiculous. That man certainly has something, I don't think I want it, but he's got it.

proper health information

Warning to Steve, this post contains information about women's bodily functions.

I've lost count of the times women at work have moaned to me about their periods only for me to find out that they're on the pill. When I suggest that they might want to do something about it, they look at me as if I'm mad. This explains what I've been trying to for years.

We try to keep this blog nice and fluffy, but sometimes I find myself becoming irate over some of the things I read at this excellent blog. Can you bloody believe it?

Rant over, let's have a picture of a slinky cat.

breakfast to go...

Ms Gypsy Tart came to visit us this morning. She brought us a copy of The Sunday Times, which is something she often does. Only this morning was different because she then offered to cook us breakfast. I had a bacon sandwich with HP sauce, and Mrs McMuffin had scrambled eggs with mushrooms on toast. She actually cooked the food in her house and brought it round to us. Wasn't that nice of her. I was very tempted to ask her what was for dinner, but decided that I might be pushing it too far. I found this picture on the internet. It's a bacon and egg sandwich, with what looks like HP sauce oozing out of it. This, to my mind, is the only thing better than a bacon sandwich.

a little quiz

Who do you think sang the following song (original tune and lyrics) about half an hour ago?

Slinky, I love you...yes I do...I do...I do...(repeat for seven lines and fade)

Which addled singer is reported to have said the following profound words on the subject of famine?

Whenever I watch tv and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean, I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff.

tadaa...

I thought it was about time that I unveiled the new design for our blog. There is still a little bit of work to be done on it, but I have been fiddling with it for a month, and it never seems to be right, so I thought I would publish and be damned. It's a little buggy and some of the toolbar links don't work yet, but they will soon. I started this with the idea in mind that I would have it ready to mark our first anniversary of blogging, but that didn't quite work out the way that I'd planned. For those of you who are interested, I made it using Rapidweaver 3, Dreamweaver MX and Photoshop CS. It's loosely based on a Rapidweaver template, but I can't remember which one. I have looked at in all the major browsers and it seems to work okay, but I only have the Mac versions of the browsers. I would appreciate any comments, especially from you Windows users out there. Screenshots would be even more appreciated. By the way, this is the third new design that I have done over the last few weeks, and maybe they will see the light of day yet.

As a special treat, I thought I would republish the very first post that we made on 17 November 2003, it is called starting over:

I have made one of these blogs before, but messed it up when I tried to remap the domain. I decided it was easier to start over than try to sort out the mess, although really I decided to remake the site. I was going to keep a blog all by myself, but as soon as my wife saw what I was doing she wanted to be part of it. We do everything together. We have matching shell suits that we wear at the weekend. Mrs McMuffin wears pink, and mine is a lovely shade of blue, which is a boys colour, by the way. Don't make any mistake about this, I am all man. Anyway, enough of that...I am not sure what I am going to write about, but I am going to try to make at least one entry every day. Welcome to our blog...

loving you...

We try to present as a loving couple on this blog. The banner picture only helps to add to the illusion, but the reality of that apparently tender moment is far worse. Mrs McMuffin has recently taken up the ancient art of Trepanning, and I am trying to suck her brain out through the hole she has drilled in her forehead. She, of course, is trying to throttle me. The oranges don't mean nothing. Sometimes an orange is just an orange.

thanks

A big thanks to everyone who has commented on the new design, and an extra big thanks to those kind people who sent me screenshots. I think I know what is wrong with it now, and work has begun to put it right. Although, there is still something funny going on with the table and I can't quite see it. I have said this before, but it is probably worth saying again, Microsoft has a lot to answer for! If it wasn't for their attempts to rule the browser world then we would have nice neat internet standards. It makes life for us website designers (!) so hard.

sleep eludes me...

...because I don't like my job (again). I really can't go into all the reasons, but it's not the job itself or the personalities, but the competence of the few staff that I have. I'm actually quite worried about their ability to do the work and ensure that children are safe and protected. They act as if the guidance and procedures are 'helpful hints' rather than the structure for their work. Actually, that's not true as I'd feel happier if some of them actually knew enough about the procedures to decide to bend them. Add to this the massive influx of work and I'm feeling quite frightened.

I'm also not feeling all that grateful for the advice from my fellow managers, as these are the people who allowed this situation to arise. Nice as they are, I think that they've been quite content not to address some of the issues I'm identifying (and people outside the team have been raising) and I can't decide whether I'm the 'new broom' or the 'fall guy'.

Not very cheery, but then it is almost 2am on a school night. Here's bunnies.

blogs we love

I think I have now sorted out our blogroll page. Does it work? I am still using the idea of screenshots, only this time I am using slightly larger images and featuring only one blog at a time. The idea is that a different blog is featured each time you visit the page, or refresh it. I am using a free script from Hypergurl, a great free resource for anyone wanting to spruce up their site. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have any taste control, and you will still find all those scripts for doing really annoying things with other people's cursors and the like.

mariah carey on flies and death

You'll never guess what has just happened to me. I received the following email from Connie Filippello Publicity, 49 Portland Road, London W11 4LJ T: +44 20 7229 5400 F: +44 20 7229 4804 fax 

"In 1996 a quote was posted on a number of websites claiming that Mariah had said the following: ‘…I’d love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff.’ Please remove the quote from your website immediately as it is untrue and Mariah Carey’s legal team are currently working on finding the source. An incorrect citing can do a great deal of damage and we ask that you take this into consideration with such a false accusatory article. Sadly national newspapers have picked up on this recently so it is imperative that it is removed from your website to prevent further inaccuracies."

I thought it was a joke, so I called the telephone number for the company, and it turns out that they're Mariah Carey's publicists in London. They're for real! A quick search of the internet has them linked to George Michael and others. Anyway, I spoke with a charming young woman, who tried hard not to laugh as she told me how personally damaging comments like this are to songbird Mariah, IQ42, and she pointed out that The Times was preparing to retract their report of the comments. She asked me if I was prepared to take the quote off our site. I told her that given what I know about Mariah, which is nothing, I wouldn't be surprised if she had said it, and it didn't matter to me if it was true because it was funny. The charming young woman then told me that their legal department was about to become involved in the matter. I've never been threatened in such a nice way before.

I only had one burning question, and that was how the hell had she got my email address. She tried to pretend that she had done a search of the internet herself and found the comments. But she sounded a little unsure of herself. I suspect that this company has been paying f**king spammers to send out these ridiculous emails.

We concluded our telephone conversation with another gentle threat from her. All in all I had a very enjoyable few minutes.

I now have a dilemma. Should I remove the comments now that I know that Mariah is so upset about them that she has actually employed someone to have them removed from the internet? Or, should I wait to hear what happens next? I think I will leave the quote where it is, just because Mariah Carey is too stupid for words, has more money than sense, and paid f**king spammers so that they can continue to clog up the arteries of the internet. Don't get me wrong, I do feel sorry for Mariah. She hasn't had a hit record for ages and the plastic surgery really hasn't worked out as well as she had hoped. I just wish I liked her music because then I could get my own back by downloading a few albums from one of those free sites.

You too can be part of this fun. You don't have to feel ignored by Mariah. Feel free to post the quote, or, better still, phone the publicists, and tell them you received the email anyway. If we can keep their phone lines clogged for a few days, then maybe they would think twice about using f**king spammers again.

I'll end with my favourite quote from Mariah: "My friends call me mermaid because I like to swim."

save the mcmuffins

I have emailed the news desks at The Times and The Guardian with my story. Hopefully they will be in touch with me soon offering six figure deals for the full story on how terribly distraught I have been since speaking to that charming young woman from the publicity agency. We are hoping that they will also offer to assist us with the costs of the legal action that will inevitably follow. If you would like to contribute in any way, but most especially financially, to save our loveliness please get in touch and I will let you have our Paypal account details.

sleep eludes me again...

Quite liked work today, so it's not the past four days of hell that is keeping me awake, but our impending destitution. Multimillionairess Mariah appears to be against McMuffin loveliness. Perhaps this is just a ploy to boost her sagging sales, she is hoping to generate controversy about an alleged quote from 1996! by hitching a ride on the McMuffin star. I actually have nothing against Mariah apart from the appalling waste of her exceptional voice. What a mean trick, to be able to sing and yet have no soul. Yes, you can make a lot of money, but in your heart you know you're a faker. I, on the other hand betray my Welsh heritage with an appalling voice, but I can move people to tears with it. Well, they cry when I sing and that's good enough for me.

wow...

I have just found this great free stat counter service called, unsurprisingly, StatCounter.com. It offers the most amazing analysis of visitors to your site, with lots of graphs. For example, over the last day or so, we have had visitors from these countries, and I can even tell you which city they live in. The information that they can drag from your machine is, I must admit, a little bit scary. How can they possible know that I am sitting in my dressing gown, smoking a fag and drinking a cup of coffee?

mcmuffin loveliness throughout history

I think I have finally got the site running properly, although I still need some content for a couple of pages. I have been up since 5am this morning working on rationalising the code across the different pages, and generally messing about with the thing. There have been a few close calls, but I was always able to bring it back from the brink of disaster. By the way, I was up at 5am because Slinky stood on my head and wailed so plaintively into my face that I was able to put aside my most immediate reaction, which was to slap him across the room, to cater to his needs. He wanted a few mouthfuls of food and was too scared to come downstairs by himself.

As I was working on the site, I got to thinking about the other redesigns that I have indulged in over the last year. This is the fourth version of the blog, and I am pleased to say that each design has been more sophisticated than the last. And, this redesign has been relatively painless compared to previous occasions when I have let in the blogdemon. I thought you might like to be reminded of past McMuffin glories, so here are a couple of screenshots (I kept the templates) of the last two redesigns. The first is from April 2004 and the second is from August 2004. Unfortunately, I have lost the template for our very first site. If, by any chance, anyone has a screenshot of that site (and why would you?) I'd love to have a copy.

Update: the lovely Kirsty, who by the way is even lovelier in person than online, found the first version of our site.

who said...

...When I think of all the poor people affected by flooding in places like Bangladesh, I sob uncontrollably. But then I think that every cloud has a silver lining. I mean, they're never going to be rich enough to have a home with a swimming pool of their own. I love to swim.

more giant evil black cat

The Giant Evil Black Cat has been hanging around our house again. It was being very friendly in a vicious kind of way. Its seems unsure whether it want to hug us or tear us to little bitty shreds. In the end it decided to tear us to shreds. Although I think that this was because I got in the way of it trying to tear poor Slinky to shreds. I took this photo only moments ago. As soon as the camera flashed, it tried to tear it from my hands. I tell you this is not a nice cat.

it feels good to get it off my chest

My name is Mr McMuffin and I am a stats whore. I have succumbed to the wonders of StatCounter and am now paying $9 a month for the superduper version. There was a time that when I logged on I would immediately check out the blogs we love, but over the last couple of days all I have been interested in is the details of the people who visit our site. It is all strangely satisfying. It doesn't help that our stats are going through the roof since the redesign. I'd like to think it's because there are people out there who appreciate the the design and it is all so much more user friendly, but I suspect that it is because we just have more pages. Remember folks more pages make higher stats.

Of course, I have told Mrs McMuffin that I only signed up for the 14 days money back trial period, but I don't know if I'll be able to let it go after that. I just have access to all this amazing information. Did you know that only 67% of people who have visited our site over the last couple of days use MSIE. Most of them use IE6 but there is still one poor soul who uses IE4. Why would they do that? This will torment me all day now.

i have the full set

A big thanks to Kirsty for pointing me in the direction of the waybackmachine, another amazing web based service. They archive 30 billion pages of information, and you can search for old versions of websites. I put pictures of all three versions of our site on our about page.

blogger of the weekend

With my new found love of stats, I can now declare that we have a blogger of the weekend. Steve, over at Eat Your Carrots, has visited our site no fewer than six times. He has left eight comments, and we've exchanged several personal emails. I know that some of you might be thinking "that man ain't got no life" but I prefer to think of him as a loyal reader, even if he does seem a little bit obsessed and he is beginning to scare us a little. By the way, for the stats junkies out there, Steve uses: Firefox 1.0 on a Windows XP machine with his screen resolution set to 1280x1024 and he has Javascript enabled (apparently 6% of our visitors don't have Javascript enabled. Why?). He has cable access to the internet through NTL. His inside leg measurement is 31". Scary, eh?

we done it

Mrs McMuffin and I have spent the weekend decorating. We have repainted the dinning room and it's back to it's original state. It had got in a bit of a state over the last couple of years. We quickly decorated it in time for Christmas last time, and it really needed another coat of paint. We decided that we would do it in the new year. That would be 2003. We then made another fatal decision to allow ourselves to smoke in the dining room, after all we were going to give it another coat of paint in a couple of weeks. Two years later, it had become a horrible yellow colour, and everything was covered in cigarette smoke/tar/nicotine or whatever it is that covers stuff. It was disgusting. We won't be smoking in there again. It reminds me of why we stopped smoking in the house. We lived in a rented place about eight years ago and decided one year to decorate. It was disgusting. I had never noticed it before, but everything had a yellowish film over it. We decided there and then that we wouldn't smoke inside again. We pretty much kept to that, with the exception of the odd bit of socialising, until the dinning room incident.

I want to move on to talk about more important stuff. We have been searching for good painting music, and we have discovered that Uncle Kracker, Plant and Page, David Bowie and Placebo make the perfect accompaniment for painting. They offer songs you can sing along to, for the most part. By the way, don't try to listen to Kraftwerk or Mark Lanegan. They will surely put you to sleep, and before you know it you are only a blink away from a serious painting accident.

a handy tip

Have a page on your blog that offers the opportunity for a different image to be presented each time you refresh the page. I was a bit puzzled for a few moments. Why would someone click on our site 38 times, then I realised they must have gone through all of the sites featured on our Links of love page. Who would have thought?

thanks, Mariah

Since the Mariah incident, Mr McMuffin and I have been posting fools. We just can't seem to stop churning out mindless drivel and I want to thank the woman who did not say that stupid thing for the inspiration.

I've quite enjoyed decorating this weekend and it's good to be tired from actually doing something physical. We only had one moment of conflict and that was when I asked Mr McMuffin what we were listening to. He threatened to divorce me there and then if I couldn't tell him. I appeased him by saying that I wasn't sure if we were listening to Plant and Page or Led Zeppelin. Crisis averted.

Now we have a lovely, fresh dining room Mr McMuffin is inspired to cook for everyone at Christmas. He's considering his menu and has come up with the controversial notion of serving traditional Christmas fare, including turkey. My family won't believe me if I tell them, as they have now come to expect seven courses of Michelin starred excellence. I'd better try and drop a few hints or we won't be having much of a joyful Noel. I'll just have to work really hard on getting them drunk.

post 667

Just in case the blogdemon gets in.

who would have thought that...

Our two most popular posts are the ones on Boobahs and mail order husbands. In fact, Google put us at the top of any search for mail order husbands. How does that happen? It is all very strange.

today mostly...

I have been skiving off work. I was filled with good intentions this morning and intended to go in, but before I knew where I was it was 10am, and I found myself phoning the office to say that I was working on a report at home. I decided to take the opportunity to go to IKEA. It was a lovely relaxed visit. The place was packed, of course, but nothing like the way it is at the weekends in the run up to Christmas. I bought a few sensible things (energy saving bulbs, a new colander, a couple of folding chairs for our new smoking perch and some coffee, which is pretty good and only costs £1 a bag) and a less sensible thing (a huge, and I mean huge, white with a blue pattern, enamel tray) and then I bought the thing that Mrs McMuffin will berate me for. I don't know why I did it, but I guess my boy genes got the better of me. It was just way too cool. I bought this. I can't imagine that we will be able to put it anywhere in the house. It is just too naff, but I thought it was fantastic. It is just soooo futuristic, in a Space 1999 kind of way. I would have loved one of these as a kid. Maybe I can put it in the office we are setting up in the once-was-room-of-shame.

It's not all been skiving though. I've put another coat of paint on the window in the dining room and done a bit of tidying up too. All I need to do now is to make some dinner for when Mrs McMuffin comes home. And then we will be ready to have the debate about whether we miss Battlestar Galactica so that we can watch Children of Dune (BG is repeated on Thursday). The problem is I refused to miss BG a couple of weeks ago so that Mrs McMuffin could watch something else.

spooky

We have 667 email messages in our in box. That is just too much of a co-incidence for me to cope with.

drowning not waving

Work. Aargh. I am reduced to emailing my former boss and offering him money for the loan of a couple of workers. He is driving a very hard bargain and so far we are up to £145 plus a promise to return the favour for free at any time. We can't actually do this, but it has distracted me from seeing my name in the national papers as the incompetent who was unable to save the chil-der-en. Weirdly I am past the point of cracking and greet each day's bad news with a smile, safe in the knowledge that it will be worse tomorrow.

I have also been struggling with the idea that I am not as secure about how I look and present myself to the world as I thought. While I generally don't have any difficulty in loving my inner headmistress (she is old and strict, wears a tweed suit and is not very popular) she is at war with my inner fluffy bunny (who wants to be pretty for boys and described as 'nice'). The Headmistress is winning.

Penblwydd Hapus to the Niece. 14! How can it be?