A writing questions meme from Melli:

You reply to this post and I ask you five questions about your writing. It can be about anything. Then you post the answers in your own LJ and can if you wish do the meme yourself.

Melli asked me some questions, which I have finally answered:
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I can't believe nearly a day of the weekend has gone by already, I feel as if I haven't got nearly enough done.

I started the day by doing a logic problem. I had a cupboard full of boxes and three that needed to go in there. With lots of rearranging the cupboard and the top of the wardrobe I not only fit them all in but have a bit of space to spare. I still have the other logic problem of where to put my speakers, though.

Then I phoned Barclaycard. Back in June I discovered £100 on my statement that I didn't spend. I sent off the dispute forms and since then I've not been paying that amount and not paying the interest they promised not to charge me. I wanted to know what they were doing about it. After explaining this, I got put through to the Fraud department who then proceeded to fail to ask my security questions. Well, that's not quite true. They asked me them, we just disagreed on the answers.

She asked me what music I'd bought recently. I don't think I've ever bought music with my credit card, so I said that and she disagreed. After lots of um'ing and ah'ing she asked what shops I regularly buy from. Well, that's none really, but the one I've probably bought stuff from most, at least recently, is Amazon. So I said that and she asked me what Amazon was. I boggled at her having never heard of it, then she said she had, but she'd asked me that question before. I was left trying to work out if she was even on this planet, when she confirmed that Barclaycard had done bugger all with my dispute and would continue to do bugger all unless I rang them back on Monday. Preferably in the afternoon.

What gets me is that they must deal with lots of this sort of thing. So do they ever sort any of them out I wonder?

I've been tired out by work, so while I'm waiting for Ugly Betty to start and get twenty minutes through, since Channel 4 are putting twenty minutes of adverts into an hour (!!!), I did the books meme going round.

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The long version...

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It was fortunate I'd done pretty much everything I wanted to before today because it didn't stop chucking it down with rain till I got home. I'm so pleased to be here - it's cold because turning the heating on just before I went away seemed stupid, and my neighbours have decided I need to hear every word of their TV really clearly.

A proper write-up to follow - I still have 2 hours 15 mins of TV to catch up on and 40 unread RSS Feeds. For now, though, there are photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/paranoidangel/tags/cardiff/

I read six Chalet School books in preparation for my TARDIS Big Bang story, and now I think I need to read more. But I definitely like the Austrian ones better than the English & Welsh ones. I wrote 10 pages of notes on A6, which hopefully I'll be able to make some sort of coherent sense out of. I'm not sure some of the original makes sense, which doesn't help.

I watched SJA live:

Spoilers for Eye of the Gorgon part 1:

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I'm ready to go home now - my feet hurt, my legs hurt, my knee hurts. I'm tired; I want to not have to walk any further than round my flat and to do nothing except lie on the sofa and go to bed in a nice comfy bed.

But, I have seen Sarah Jane's house, Torchwood's invisible lift, a concert in the Millennium Centre, Cardiff Bay Barrage, Cardiff Castle and lots of other sundry bits of Cardiff. I can definitely say that I've done Cardiff now. It'll certainly make the next series of Torchwood that bit more interesting, if nothing else.

Amazingly, it's not rained much at all. Although I saw BBC News 24 on the bus (!) - it was a bendy bus, which never gets less exciting - and they said it was going to be raining tomorrow morning though.

The best part is that I've spent les than £20 on entertainment. And since I brought breakfasts, lunches and snacks, I've not spent that much on food either. So it has actually been a cheap holiday. I'd just like to not have to go back to work on Tuesday - I've been away long enough for it all to have gone horribly wrong, I am sure.

Hello from sunny Cardiff. Yes, it is sunny. Or has been, I think it's a bit cloudy now. It will rain at some point this weekend, though, since it always rains when I go to Wales.

So far I've been on an open-top bus tour (which was a bit windy), where I found out more about what to do in the city than the tourist information. I've also walked around all of the city centre (ie where the shops are) and found the internet cafe where it's £1 an hour.

They've just opened a Borders here today and this weekend is 15% off, so my suitcase might be going back heavier than it came - although it was mostly full of food (I am not exaggerating - I brought breakfast, lunch and snacks with me).

The worst part was the train fare: £38 for a 1 hour 20 minute journey! Not being able to use my railcard makes it even worse (it doesn't work this far West).

Now, Edinburgh is the only British capital city I haven't been to - I have plans to go there in the next couple of years, though, and get the sleeper train back.

I went to the I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue stage show last night in Oxford. In order to get there in time and eat, I tried a pot noodle thing from Trufree, on dad's recommendation. I'd never eaten one before, but this was really nice and filling, even if it did seem a bit like eating baby food.

Non-Brits, the rest of this post will not make any sense - ISIHAC being a very British comedy.

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I now have a new 23 inch flatscreen widescreen TV. Or monitor, as it more technically is, since I never watch anything live. It means I now own four digital and four analogue tuners. I was quite happy with three of each, but the TV came with them.

But now I can watch tennis and see the ball. I can watch widescreen in widescreen without black bars. I can watch dodgy quality videos on my computer on a really good monitor.

Setting it up was really quick - I put it on the stand, plugged it in and turned it on. What took far longer was playing with four bits of polystyrene, one box and one TV as I tried to put the old one back in the box. I only moved nine months ago, you'd think I'd remember how it went from then. But now. I tried just about every combination and it's now in there. I'm not convinced it's right at all, though, since two of the pieces of polystyrene seem to be completely redundant.

I've even found space for my tribbles in front of the screen. What I haven't yet worked out is where I'm going to put my speakers. Or the boxes. I'm going to need to rearrange my box cupboard when I next have a free weekend.

I got home from work and watched both parts of Revenge of the Slitheen. I could have done without the CBBC logo in the middle of the screen though. I did switch over to the second episode and fast forwarded only to discover Lis Sladen being interviewed by a bloke and a cactus. Don't ask.

SPOILERS following:
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I'm still really excited about the Davis Cup yesterday. While standing waiting for a tube yesterday with Tanaqui I almost jumped up and down in excitement. However, first there was a signal failure at Earl's Court, which meant we had to get three tubes there. But we got there in the end and followed the crowd to Wimbledon. I actually got hot walking in the sun, which was unexpected after the weather this week.

We were sat in the very back row, which was handy because it meant you can stand up whenever you like (the seats are not designed for comfort). However, we were at the end that meant Tim Henman and Jamie Murray had their backs to us during the warm up and at the end. It also meant that on screen we were just dark shapes, so we weren't on TV.

Before the match started they had what I assume were cheerleaders. They had white towels and short green dresses and looked utterly ridiculous. They weren't even in time with each other.

The match, though, was worth it. I said in advance that I wanted a good match, to 4 sets, but us to win. I got my wish but there were times I wished I hadn't - it's so exhausting on the nerves. And the throat. It's impossible not to shout 'Yes' with the rest of the crowd when we've won a particularly big point. There were times during change of ends that the British and Croatian supporters were trying to outdo each other in loudness. We won, unsurprisingly.

I have to talk about the volume of the crowd. Centre and No 1 Court are surprisingly loud when the crowd gets going during Wimbledon, and Davis Cup more so. Put them together and you couldn't hear yourself talk. During the last game there was so much shouting the Croatians had to wait to serve. I had to wait until I got home to find out what Henman, Murray and John Llloyd said in their interviews - Henman started before I had any idea, it was so noisy. Although the echo didn't help, and Jamie Murray could have been saying anything, due to the echo and his Scottish accent.

Afterwards we had a wander round and I took a picture of Centre Court as you don't see it very often - without a roof. And surrounded by cranes. They had everywhere from Centre Court southwards fenced off due to the building works going on there.

My binoculars picked out Andy Murray in the crowd and Judy Murray. I couldn't find Lucy Henman, although now I've watched it and found out where she was I can see her in the photos. At one point Andy, and then Judy, had a little girl on their laps. Apparently she was Andy's niece, which implies they have an older brother or sister. Who's not mentioned anywhere I can find.

I am still excited at the whole thing - a good match, a win (although we won't last long in the World Group with only two good players again), and being on court to see Tim Henman's last professional match.

Our boys really know how to put us through the mill, so I am exhausted after seeing Great Britain beat Croatia in the Davis Cup 3-0. I'll write up a post tomorrow (assuming my dinner isn't going to make me ill - I had a whole battered fish), but in the meantime you can see the photos.

I am feeling the need to pimp soniclipstick the new SJA newsletter to go with Who Daily and Torchwood Three. Mostly because I did tonight's, which is very exciting. Although it took me a while - I will learn for next time.

From hhertzof

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Entirely out of interest: what are the Firefox extensions you couldn't live without? And ones that you'd rather not live without too.

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I've been testing out the alpha release of Trillian Astra. It's quite exciting because I've never seen an alpha release of anything before. And possibly not even beta. Although I am using a release candidate version of RSS Bandit because it works better than the version I upgraded from and better than the version I could upgrade to.

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I've read a few books recently that I feel the need to talk about.

One of the ones I got cheap when the Friar Street Bookshop closed was a BBC Doctor Who was Three, Jo, Iris Wildthyme and Tom (Verdigris). If it was fanfic it would be described as crack. It is completely mad - and only partly because it has Iris in it. As I was reading it I thought that the summary on the back didn't really describe the plot. But then I realised, I don't think it's possible to adequately describe the plot. But it has killer robot sheep in it.

I read another Three & Jo one yesterday (The Suns of Caresh), which was much more normal. At the start, there wasn't much of the Doctor or Jo, but I got so caught up with two of the other characters, I ended up not caring. It was a good book, although the Doctor introduced a question five pages before the end which was never solved. It bugged me, although obviously not for long because I can't remember what it was any more.

I got Emily of New Moon from the library and have just finished it. It was interestingly, and I think I'll get the other two, but I don't think I like Emily as much as Anne. Although with Anne of Green Gables it helped that I found the relationship between her and Matthew and Marilla really interesting. With Emily, the relationship between her, Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Laura isn't nearly so interesting.

On a non-book related note, I watched Michael Palin tonight (there is TV on TV again!), which was really interesting. Although at the start he said he'd not really been to Eastern Europe and I think I've been to more of Eastern Europe than West!

I am also testing out the Trillian Astra (codename for 4.0 - the next release, not prizes for knowing where the Astra comes from) but I'll blog about that tomorrow.

The noise is very quiet still. I've occasionally heard it this evening, but you have to be silent to hear it. Hopefully it will continue that way.

It's definitely not the height of summer any more. I was in London today and as it was nice, we sat out in St James Park. But after a while it was a bit cold in the shade. What was nice, though, was that I got on a semi-slow train at 8pm and was home at 9.30. If I'd had to have got the bus from Reading, I wouldn't have got home till 10.30.

I just happened to look at the TV guide and notice that Diana Rigg was on Parkinson. Then I sat down to read and when I looked at the clock I noticed it had already started. I put the telly on anyway, just before she came on. She's 69 but looks amazing. She's changed a bit in the last forty years, obviously, so it was quite strange to hear Emma Peel's voice coming from a stranger - until you looked more closely and it was clearly the same person.

More coherency and replies to comments etc tomorrow when I'm more awake.