Christmas went well, I had a guest, aunty_marion and we ate various comestibles all either from packets or from frozen. I don’t believe in cooking if I can avoid it. Aunty Bessie does roast potatoes much better than me. aunty_marion doesn’t like things like raisins or sultanas so I had all the Christmas pud, which made me very happy. Having a guest for Christmas was lovely, and Aunty Marion is welcome any time.

My two cats are still not on speaking terms, though Pixel (the new cat) almost put a foot out of the bedroom yesterday. So minor progress there. Smokey and she hiss when they encounter each other, though judicious use of treats as a reward for quiet is reducing the incidence of this.

I’m considering how Pixel might be brought into the living room without World War III breaking out. Any advice gladly received.

In other news, I have had a cold over Christmas and New Year, much coughing was coughed, and it is threatening to return. I can so live without that, and so can the cats. No sooner has a cat settled on me (either Smokey in the living room or Pixel in the bedroom) than I start to cough and the poor cat leaves in a huff. It’s not much fun for me, either.

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No news I can give you on the job front, things continue to grind on in a grindy sort of way.

I do, however, have a new cat.

It is thus: a friend of a friend was looking for someone to take on a cat of hers. She started the year with four cats. One, the eldest and grande dame of the household, Pippo, died. This left three cats, Pixel, Squeakerton and Polar, none of whom were happy without Pippo. Pixel was being bullied by Polar and Squeakerton was acting out (peeing where he shouldn’t and so on) so she decided to try to rehome Pixel, and Squeakerton if she could find anyone suitable.

I said I’d take Pixel. This was in June. The FOAF was going to South America in August, so said she would wait until she came back to pass Pixel over. August came and went, and I got in touch with her, and she said she’d got flu, so could I wait. I waited. September came and went, as did most of October.

Finally, she said she was ready to pass on Pixel and even then it took a little while to arrange a suitable weekend to bring her down from Norfolk to London.

Pixel spent the first two weeks here living at the back of my wardrobe and only coming out to eat, drink, pee and poop. In the last ten days or so, she’s come out into the bedroom and now sleeps either on my bed, on me or on the chair I’ve sprayed catnip all over. But she won’t come into the rest of the flat, and if Smokey goes into the bedroom, Pixel hisses and spits at her. Smokey just looks confused, but does do that fur-all-out thing that cats do – her tail looks like a bottle brush and she looks twice her normal size, and hisses, but doesn’t spit. Every other day they have a yowly disagreement, but separate without damage to either party.

Sometimes Pixel will growl at nothing – no sign of Smokey, but she sits under a chair and has a growl to herself.

I’m not sure what to do now – I’ve bought Feliway Friends and put it in Pixel’s room. Smokey has ordinary Feliway in the living room.

I want them to co-exist, if not peacefully, without fighting or growling. Any suggestions?

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Still applying for jobs. Still not getting any. I get the odd interview, but so far none have been successful. I’ve got one interview outstanding since March – they interviewed me in March and I still don’t have the outcome. But then one of my FB friends applied for a Civil Service job last June and started a week ago, so I’m not quite losing hope on that one.

In other news, there is no real other news.

Smokey is very well, full of beans and cat food. She’s currently asleep on the sofa – we had a lovely cuddle this morning, but then I had to get up from my recumbent position and start doing some work on the computer. So she stretched out into my spot, perhaps thinking it would stay warm.

Oh, I know what I’m doing – I bought the AD&D 5e (Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition for those who aren’t geeks) and have been writing a basic scenario so we can see how it runs. In this I’ve been assisted by my friend Patrick who is such a geek he even out-geeks me, and he calculated everything on his character sheet out by hand to ensure that I wasn’t cheating him out of any advantages his character should have.

What between him and me, we managed to spot a bug in the computer program I’m using to roll up characters, which made us both very happy. We’re strange like that.

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I’m safely back from redemption_con; the journeys were totally straightforward and the trains were on time there and back.

I enjoyed the convention. Numbers seemed down (if you like a fan-run convention do go along to Redemption in 2019, it runs better with more people) and the convention over-organised for the numbers (at times there were nine streams of events), but that didn’t bother me. I just went along to what appealed to me and dodged anything that didn’t.

I spent a lot of time with legionseagle and julesjones over the weekend, and with various other people whose LJ and DW names I have forgotten. Much gossip was gossed.

Guests were Dr Lynette Nusbacher, Steve Lycett , Miranda Gower-Qian, Thalia Evans and David Wake. Probably you’ve never heard of any of them, I had only heard of Dr Lynette who is one of the presenters of the wargame TV show “Time Commanders”. She was lovely, though I didn’t go to any of her talks she was very nice and approachable when out and about and she always wears lovely clothes, which she told me mostly come from TK Maxx.

The only complaint I heard about the food offerings in the restaurant was from the two people I know who can’t cope with spices. All the cheap restaurant meals (Chinese, Indian and Mexican) were not suitable for them. But they had the option of pizzas in the bar, though one person did mention that it was a bit same-y to have a plain pizza two nights running. I liked the desserts on the cheap restaurant meals, the fudge cake was yummy, and they were quite happy to supply cream if asked.

One night I had the New York hot dog pizza and that was very nice, though I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so physically hot for some reason, and hot cheese is a really hot thing when you bite into it.

The carvery baps were very good, decent portions, as were the sandwich bar options.

Breakfasts were adequate mass catering, though I liked the fact that they were frying eggs practically on demand.

Other things: yes, some of the panels were under attended, but I put that down to the convention being somewhat under attended overall and the sometimes nine streams meaning that people were spread a bit thin. The panels I attended went off well, even if there weren’t that many there. I thought six streams would be fine for the number we had attending, with room to expand it if more sign up.

I forgot about slash Pictionary. I’d have been there if I’d remembered.

One thing I would like to see for Redemption 19 is a slash/adult stream as there’s no general slash con (that I know of) being run in the UK currently.

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I bought some map designing software because I've always wanted it since I saw it advertised a few years ago when I was poor. I couldn't buy it then, and it disappeared of the site of the company that was selling it.

The other day, I found it again and couldn't resist it. Since then, I've been playing with it - the learning curve is practically vertical with it, I've never used computer aided design before, and it's complicated.

Today I produced a map of a village. It's a rough old village, but here it is:



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I used my iPad as phone, today. My first use of Skype. What a weird thing that is.

Anybody wishing to Skype me will need to know my real name (and there are many people with my name, including three also living in London) and also let me know so that I can have the iPad or the laptop on. My desktop, which is my workhorse computer has no microphone or camera, and is staying that way. I have enough trouble with the bloke who contacts me through FB chat if he happens to catch me - I keep it mostly switched off to discourage him.

On the plus side, though, I have managed to finally find an app which allows one to use an iPad as an extended screen. The odd thing about it is that it's wired, not wireless. Good thing is that there's no lag, but it is strange. I've invested in a six foot fire cable for the iPad for my trip to Wales.

Knowing my luck, they (that is Lone Wolf Development) will announce their browser version at Gen Con, and I'll have bought it all for nothing. We will see.

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I got three hours sleep last night. This is not enough, and I'm really feeling it.

Normally, I sleep very well. Insomnia is not an issue for me, partly at least to the medications I'm on, some of which have a soporific effect.

Last night, they did not cast their usual magic.

The first thing that went wrong was that yesterday was a very busy day at work and by the end of it my head was spinning. I had eight things to achieve, all of which had short deadlines, plus two interviews with lambkins with problems – this is about twice the amount of work I would have on a normal day.

The second thing that caused me trouble was my upstairs neighbours. Anyone who follows my Twitter stream with any assiduity may have noticed that I occasionally spit venom late at night in the direction of my upstairs neighbours as they can be irritating.

Last night was the nadir. They kicked off by having a noisy argument at around 11pm, moved on (as they often do) to noisy sex, and then they prayed and chanted, loudly, until about 1am. I went to sleep around this time. I woke up, or was woken, at about 4am to find that they'd kicked off again with the noisy argument – it sounded like the same argument as earlier, but what do I know. Then they prayed and chanted until about six, or half past, at which point my alarm went off.

I have no idea what religion these people are – I have gathered from the content of the chanting that it's some species of Pentecostal Christian. If so, they are the most thoughtless Christians I've ever encountered, because this is not the first time they've prayed and chanted long into the night. Sometimes they invite friends over so that they can pray and chant even louder long into the night, and then have long, loud, conversations on the stairs.

So, today, I am not my usual bobbish self. I cannot wait for these people to move.

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OK, so I’ve reinstalled Windows (yes, Linux users, I know) and everything is running very much faster and happier than it did, not least because the system is now free of 2+ years of dead software and crappy registry entries. Boy, did I have some tut on that system.

Having said that, I still have a couple of programs still to reinstall, but they’re things I don’t use that often and can install as and when needed.

The other outcome of this whole problem is that my desk is fantastically clear. There are huge bits of time when you're installing software when you're waiting for something to happen but can't leave your desk, and I filled in the time by clearing the papers and assorted detritus from my desk. My cleaner is going to be so proud of me! I also found a few bits of things that I'd forgotten I had, including a rather handsome brooch and a pair of lapis earrings.

While I was doing this (I may be slightly hypomanic) I sorted out my spare room and have three large bags of stuff needing to be taken away. I will book AnyJunk on Monday, leaving enough time to sort through my wardrobe and get rid of some clothes I don't wear any more.

I am preparing the room and the flat for the stuff which is to come from the Aged P's next week, and I now have a clear shelf on my shelves in my hall for china and glass, and I'm planning a reorganisation of my china cabinet to accept the Coalport.

I was in pain by the end of yesterday, but I slept very well once I'd taken painkillers.

Just to add, I hate iTunes, so so very much. To me, it's a nightmare program which works in a totally counter-intuitive way. It's one of the things which puts me off Apple's products - if that's an example of how their stuff works, I can't risk buying anything of theirs because I'll never get my head around it.

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I barely have time to breathe, I'm so busy, and yet very little of it is of a kind which can be repeated. I don't even have any opinions other than 'this government stinks' which can be repeated.

Having said that I came across an entry on the "Where's the Benefit" blog the other day (yesterday) though it was actually posted on the 17th. Shocked headline as fat disabled woman has fun. It appears that the Telegraph now views the idea that someone who is fat and disabled might want to go out an enjoy themselves as evidence that she is (a) faking and (b) therefore not entitled to benefits. OK, the article is more nuanced than that, but not much.

It's not the article quite so much as the stupid little questionnaire thing. That really got my goat. Now I'm someone whose idea of amusement is a committee meeting, but as one of the people who made comments said, you'd think by now I'd be used to this kind of hate, but I'm not. It's almost like you don't dare be fat, disabled or (worse) both in public.

They can fuck off, frankly. The idea that there are Torygraph readers concern-trolling my menu choices is enough to make me eat a litre of chocolate ice cream just to be contrary.

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And Merry Whatever, for those who don't.

I'm doing better than I expected with being alone. I miss the Aged P., but I'm glad not to have had to travel and I've spent the morning in selfish reading of a book, which I wouldn't have been able to do at her house.

I ordered a chicken to eat, and that's in the oven. Tesco didn't have the size I ordered so sent what they had. When it arrived I just noted that it was bigger than I ordered and put it in the fridge. On looking at it when I came to put it in the oven, I realised that the packaging says that it feeds eight. So there's going to be a lot of chicken curry in my future.

Trimmings are things I like rather than the traditional things. Go me!

Presents are a very good haul, gloria1 gave me some teabags from Betty's of Harrogate, which are particularly welcome. I love me my tea.

My brother has sent me some Dr Who vids, which I'm going to watch this afternoon while I wait for the Dr Who Christmas special.

There is also champagne in my future, and I have enough chocolates to sink a battleship.

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I'm back from redemption_con. Met lots of fascinating people, and spent far too little time with all of them. Now going to rest what passes for my brain and watch some more Boston Legal.

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It's amazing what you overhear in the Ministry of Magic's canteen – or rather, what becomes mangled between someone saying it and my ear. I was minding my own business trying to cope with spaghetti bolognese when I overheard two blokes at the next table, one of whom was saying to the other, "He was in a band call the Gelatinous Poodles."

A quick google search shows up that there is no known band of that name, so what on earth can he have actually said?

Somewhat similarly, I'm convinced that I once saw a band called "Careful with that axe, Eugene". It was in a pub, in a back street in Birmingham in the mid-to-late 1970s – the best I can say is that it was before I left school, but only just before. I know that there's a Pink Floyd song of that name, but as far as I'm aware there's no band.

Now, I could have misremembered or misunderstood - perhaps they did that track and I've remembered the track as the band name, or something like that. Or perhaps they did just one gig and never played again. I'll never know.

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