Happy New Year

Helloooooooo

I'm back sports fans!

Wow, so much has happened. I found and bought a house (well the lawyer's still mulling over the contract, but as good as); went home for the Winter holiday (popularly known as Christmas); and......hmmm, is that it? Well, there are interesting facets to both the above items, but by grouping them together in such a manner, it really doesn't seem like that much.

To be honest, the point of a Blog is to ensure you don't forget your day to day life. After all, it's only the real highs and lows you remember; who would want to remember all the chaff in between? Which if we follow to its logical progression, would make Blogs a rather boring and pointless employment of time. Never the less, one man's (or woman's) pointless blog, is another's interesting insight into the crazy world of others.

I will, I'm quite sure, bore myself frantic with the ins and outs of buying my house, which by the woolly thinking above will mean that it will be of interest to someone. I'd just like to say right now, that I was aiming for a speed record on this house purchase. I spent ages researching all aspects of buying a house so that I wouldn't be shafted, pardon my French, in the process (seeing as that is what I do: I research, therefore I am...). The record I intended to achieve was quickest buy for a first time buyer. Public holidays and the lawyer's bout of illness excluded, it is a mere 3 weeks since we placed, and had accepted, our offer on the house (£4000 under the asking price too). In that time we got the survey done, the mortgage formally agreed and the solicitor is just finalising the draft contract for me to read.

We'd like to be in by the end of the month, ideally, particularly as we have no home appliances and want to get them in the sales, but we can't order anything (heavy) until we have a firm date for moving....unless we can pursuade the vendor (who's not living in the house at the moment) to let us stick a couple of them in the house before exchanging contracts?

COS (Change of subject): Work is much better at the moment. Same old deal, proteins that have previously functioned are no longer functioning. There are experiments to tie up and a paper to be written. I have re-arranged the paper now, to exclude some experiments that were just not happening because of things I couldn't possibly bore you with. So now I'm happy that there is an end in sight with regards to getting material for this paper. Which is a good thing.

Tsunami. Awful. Have donated what I can afford so far. My question, having watched many online amateur videos, is why a small majority of beach loving tourists stood staring at the wall of water coming towards them? I've never been in a tsunami, but I've spent many years living next to the sea and seen plenty of storms, neap tides and other apocriful events. I've watched storm waves roll right into the rushes at the beach head and not stood there watching them come from the beach! They may not be 20 feet, but they'd still smash you around and carry you out to sea. So why stand and stare, when others are already running? Is it curiosity or stupidity? The life toll of these few people pales in comparison to those of people completely unaware of the impending disaster. How much warning could you ever give to the hundreds of thousands living in straw hut villages in the poorer countries affected? It's all very well having an early warning system, but this is only as good as the local communications at ground zero! It's something for the planners and NGOs to advise on I guess, but I hope something does happen about this.

I was particularly worried about the Andaman tribes who have fascinated me for years. They are the most primitive of people, separated from the rest of us long before the agricultural revolution. The loss of these communities could be seen as an extinction in many regards. Populations require a certain infrastructure and population number to maintain cultural and genetic diversity, and I wonder whether some of them are recoverable.

It's wet, but not too cold outside today. I'm in the mood to do something tonight, perhaps it will be The House of Flying daggers (Shi Mian Mai Fu)? Either that, or another trip to the land of furniture shops....got to order a damn mattress too. Oh life.

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