I've also had a few beers (well, I'm on my third), so my typing may be a little awry. I better remember to spellcheck and proofread this before posting. My latest beer is an Old Golden Hen (from the same stable (coop?) as OSH). I have to say, it has a rather pleasant aftertaste - a bit basil-y (which is better than it might sound).

I was reminded of this old advert this evening, mainly because the music came up on the radio.

Apropos to Joistmonkey's recent comment about being recognised by the pub barmaid, last week I was recognised (separately) by a security doorman and a "dinner lady". Both commented on a departure from my usual custom: the former that I had arrived later than usual (because I'd driven up from Eastleigh, not Smalltown); the latter that I had only one item of fruit with my lunch (It was Friday, so I substituted an apple with a double decker).

I was looking (for reasons that I shan't bore you with) at train details from Eastleigh to Salisbury. It takes over an hour, which is pretty clever, as it takes only 30 minutes by car. But here is the really amazing bit. If you catch the train from Eastleigh, it costs £13. But if you catch the train from the station before Eastleigh, it costs only £9. So £4 cheaper to cover a greater distance. I'm sure it makes sense to someone.

There were a few glitches in the power supply while I was typing this. I noticed because the extractor fan in the kitchen stopped and restarted. I heard some people talking about power loss while I was in the post office this morning, so maybe there was a proper outage in other parts of the town.

There's a beer festival on the outskirts of Eastleigh next month. However, there doesn't seem to be too much joined-up thinking in the advertising of the event; you need to do a bit of information aggregation to get the full details. There are posters that give the date but not the venue, and a website that gives the venue (and lots of other details) but not the date.

We (work we) had a letter from t'union concerning the increase in prices in the canteen. While, on the one hand they do have a point, it did reek a bit of the industrial relations of the 1970s. The useful advice from t'union was to "vote with our feet" and not buy coffee from the canteen. Which is pretty much what I was doing anyway. Not that I ever did buy much coffee in the first place.

Last week I saw trailed, but didn't watch, a programme about the guy in Cleveland (Ohio, not UK) who kept three women locked up for ten years (it must have been Tuesday as that was the only evening I had access to a TV). It's been only a few weeks since they were discovered; how can there have been enough research in that time to present an accurate picture? I suspect it would have been full of speculation, hypothesis, and neighbours report "I always knew there was something funny about him". Plus, isn't there a sub-judice aspect? Releasing information and opinions that may influence a future jury? Or maybe as the event was in the USA and the broadcast was in the UK it doesn't matter (because the judicial system hasn't caught up with the power of the internet and streamed TV).

Which brings me neatly on to the machete killing of last week, and the subsequent media coverage. Again, speculation and hypothesis and neighbours reporting "he was always a bit odd" and/or "he seemed like a really nice bloke". And, all the while, increasing the general public's fear of terrorism (which is, possibly, what the terrorists want).

Oh wow! I've just found £20 in my wallet I didn't know I had. Bonus!!