I'm going with a few of the Cherries to see Gavin F's band, Shapes, at The Flapper, in Brum. It should be fun, but I'm driving back to Tamworth after, so I can't partake in any alcoholic beverages.

Nowt solid planned for the weekend, although I quite fancy going back to The Green Man in Middleton for Sunday lunch.

I had a pretty good weekend. Spent most of Saturday and Sunday relaxing and socialising with friends and family. Oh, yeah, and playing on GTA IV, which is awesome by the way.

Yesterday, I had planned on visiting the Moira Furnace with my brother. The morning bought rain, so we called it off. Then in the afternoon it spontaneously became lovely out so we went for a drive with my mate Mole to Middleton where we had a cheeky drink in the Green Man followed by a walk around the church grounds.

After drinks I drove us over to Kingsbury Water Park where we had a good walk round, rode the miniature steam railway and watched the jet-skiers in action. Pretty good day all in all!

I had last weekend off, it was great. I also got some new toys including a new digital SLR camera. (A Canon EOS 400D to be precise). It's great. I've got to add some of the many pictures I've already taken on it here at some point. I've really got into taking HDR photos recently. Here, have a butchers at my HDR photo album on Facebook, while I get around to adding hi-res pics on here.

I finished American Gods by Neil Gaiman yesterday. It was very good, indeed - the twists at the end were great.

I've moved onto an anthology of short stories, poems and essays by the same author called "Smoke and Mirrors". I've already read the first 5 short stories, (a couple are only 2 pages long), and they were all excellent. I especially liked the first story "Chivalry" which features an OAP who finds the Holy Grail in an Oxfam shop. Very funny indeed!

My car insurance is up for renewal soon. I'm planning on trading in the Clio when I've paid the loan off and was toying with the idea of getting a Toyota MR2 Roadster. I assumed that the insurance would be high for someone my age to own a sports car, so I got a quote off tinternet - it was pretty suprising!

At the moment I have a 1.2 ltr Renault Clio. When I got the insurance I had 1 year's no-claims bonus and I was 27 years old. The insurance cost me over £900! A year later and I can get a 1.8 ltr convertable Toyota MR2 Roadster insured for just over £600 - what's that all about?!

Things seen / Observations made during my commute this week:

Yesterday, PM
Saw : Lots and lots of joggers, esp. around the Sutton area.
Observed : Chavs always turn to stare at busses as they pass. Must be all the shiny metal and glass.

Today, AM
Saw : An emo guy with brightly coloured girl's hair grips keeping his dyed black fringe in place over one eye.
Saw : A BMW M3 with the licence plate "M3 0WND".
Observed : Virtually all West Midlands Travel bus drivers are complete ass-hats with no respect for other road users. Especially those bendy busses - I HATE those.

Naomi Campbell is in the news once more for throwing a tantrum. What a self-absorbed spoilt brat she is. How many times is she going to throw her toys out of the pram before someone has the good sense to give her a slap?

I've got a full social calendar this weekend :

• A leaving party tonight for an old work-mate who's emigrating to Australia


• Lunch in town tomorrow with friends


• Dinner tomorrow night at an Italian restaurant in Tamworth which is owned by the brother of Renee from the singing duo Renee and Renato. Apparently he sings there occasionally... jesus...

We've currently got Bloc Party's album "A Weekend in the City" on at Cherry HQ. It's dreary crap, if you ask me. According to Wikipedia, Bloc Party fall under the genre of Post-punk revival. This may be true for a couple of tracks from their debut "Silent Alarm", but the new album just sounds like bed-wetter music to me.

We're all breaking up from work today for the Easter break. I love the 4 day weekends! (Who doesn't). I have no set-in-stone plans, but I'm sure I'll find something amusing to do.

I started a new book today : "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman. I'm only a couple of chapters in, but it's already turning out to be a riveting read.

Canopy Bed