My mobile is fubar, so if you need me, e-mail me. Bloody Windows phones...

Astute observers may notice that this site has been left bereft of content for some months now. The reasons for this are legion, but essentially summed up in that I didn't have anything I wanted to write about. And once I did, I was too lazy to write about it: a fine example for all of those who would worship procrastination. But since I find myself in Christchurch hotel, sipping tea and awaiting the moment when we can sensibly venture unto the airport, it seems a good time to rectify my omissions and offer some form of an update.

Last year, when I last posted, things were going from bad to worse on the job front. My telecoms job had gone from suffering an impatient and somewhat disorganised customer to sitting on my hands awaiting said customer to sort out their internal difficulties and come up with some more exciting things for us to work on. And so I continued, waiting, while new people were hired for product work and we were left to keep our seats warm. Eventually, after some three months of this, I regretfully left. And I anticipated better times - after all, i my interviews I had emphasised why reasons for leaving and my desperation to be kept busy. Thus I was more than a little surprised when my new employer left me in a similar situation - filler tasks while waiting for more work.

This did not go down well, and, as Polly will gladly tell anyone interested, did not make me pleasant to live with. Given this was my third job in two years I felt somewhat trapped, and given their constant assurances I felt it necessary to offer them a chance to fulfil them. Nevertheless, my probation came to an end without any work materialising and I once again resigned, this time without a positioned lined up.

Normally, the thought of being without a job in the middle of one of the world's more expensive locations would strike far into my somewhat anal heart. It may therefore serve as an illustration of my state of mind that I spent the following week doing anything except thinking about work. I made some good progress in Warcraft, I read a lot and I spent a lot of time fielding calls from agents, who quickly started to cluster like flies to a carcass. And I was justly rewarded for my carelessness when I started job hunting and had a contract signed within two days.

So, after a bit of time wondering in the wilderness I'm once again gainfully employed and a lot happier. This time I'm working for a small company - I've given big companies another chance and received my just desserts, and shall be working to avoid such entanglements again. Now I work in a relaxed and passionate environment with 7 or 8 other developers where the mention of words such as 'synergy' is justly greeted with sniggering. We have a Wii, lots of beer, and the only thing that irks me is that my workplace is out in the depths of Hammersmith. Still, one cannot complain too much, even if I do have to trek into the West End and out again each day.

This all leaves my life a little more stable, Polly a little less stressed and provides no excuse for the lack of posts here. So stay tuned and, if my flight is boring enough, who knows what could appear here?

I've been distracted from writing opinionated and ill-informed articles for a little while now. Why?

• The implosion of my last job through a lack of work.
• The discovery and joining of a new place of work.
• World of Warcraft.

Mostly the latter.

Unfortunately my work at JR dried up, thanks to a customer who ran in to some problems with other vendors and sent their plans up a certain creek minus rowing implements. After three months of driving Polly mad (and playing too much WoW) I regretfully found a new job. So I'm now working for Inspired Gaming Group, working on the platform that runs the distributed gaming machines and generally corrupting the nation's youth (or rather pub-goers and old ladies playing electronic Bingo).

WoW has also proved a terrible temptation - I tried the Burning Crusade trial and got hocked by the much improved Draenai and Blood Elf content. I've now got a level 63 blood elf mage who is rather talented in the freezing-things-to-death department. Very different play style from my old paladin - a lot more fragile but much more interesting to play. The major downside is Blizzard haven't bothered with the mid-level content, so levels 20-60 are spent drifting through a ghost world as fast as possible. A shame, really.

I've also had utilities going silly - T-Mobile decided I owed them money I didn't and screwed up everything it was possible to screw up. Wankers. So, if you're in the UK: avoid T-Mobile. The others may be rubbish, but T-Mobile is more clueless, more useless and have a rubbish UTMS network. And the ROM on the MDA Vario II is buggy as hell, and no updates have been forthcoming (which is a shame, as the hardware is rather good).

I also decided to jump to Be and ADSL-2+. It's all good - when it works. Connection was buggered up between them and BT, leaving me with no ADSL for a weekend. Their help-desk is only slightly better than Demon's, but at least they had the good grace to refund me for the unused time. And now it's working it is running at a rather nice 16Mb (about 1Km from the exchange). The major downside is that my WAG200G (which is an excellent modem) won't go above 7Mb on Be's connection, so I'm stuck using the extremely rubbish Alcatel that Be supply.

But life is once again good (well, presumably) so hopefully I can stop neglecting this quite so much...

We have just knocked off our first calendar year in London, and we celebrated by buying tickets for Somerset House. After braving the Embankment to watch the fireworks last year, we had sworn 'never again!', and so the discovery of Somerset was quite handy. This turned out to be most fortuitous, given that 350,000 people swamped the shore and ensured that Waterloo bridge was packed by 2300.

The BBC was hosting their 'New Year's Live' at Somerset and so there was a wee stage, large numbers of cameras and a room on the waterfront full of VIPs. Unfortunately, the entertainment didn't start until 1130, at which point everyone was moving to the balcony, despite one of Auntie's representatives suggesting that we might have a better view via the big screens in the court. Few seemed convinced. And so we ended up with a superb view of the fireworks, and champagne in hand we watched the crush below.

By the time we got back inside the entertainment, such as it was, was over and so we watched the keen souls on the ice. And thinking we had perhaps left enough time for the tube to clear we abandoned our post at 0100. Only to find Waterloo in chaos - all bar one exit was blocked by the Police, and the one open was pandaemonium - no one could get inside, and no one thought to say what was going on.

So we walked. It's probably a sign that we can expect the same from London Underground in 2007, but at a higher price. Jolly good.

But in any case, happy New Year to all, and hope returning to work isn't too stressful!

Well, it's not that bad. However, one always feels a bit regretful at the expiration of one's holidays. A week of (relative) peace and quiet exhausted, and a return to the daily battle (aka commute) and requirement to do more than decorate the sofa while absorbing book after book.

While succumbing to the temptation to do bugger all for part of the week we also managed three days on the Isle of Wight. We trekked down via train to Southampton and, after finally finding the ferry terminal and waiting for the staff to decide what to do with us, spent an extortionate amount of time floating in the Solent awaiting landfall. This was due to our taking bikes - Red Funnel are apparently unable to accommodate cyclists on the fast[er] passenger ferries and hence we were consigned to the glacial vehicle ferry. Worse, while cars, trucks and motorcycles swept past us we were forced to walk our bikes on and off - most peculiar. On the upside, I've now found a ferry with even less to entertain than the Interislander.

We then cycled up through Cowes to a B&B near Osborne House. After a quick tea (ah, clotted cream) we explored the remainder of Cowes, handily split in half by what is quaintly termed 'the floating bridge' (that is, a chain ferry). We enjoyed a mediocre pub meal and then turned in early, ready to arise at first light to go out cycling.

The major highlight of the B&B became apparently in the morning - breakfast. It was superb, with fruit, croissants and tea aplenty, along with one of the best English breakfasts I have yet encountered. Being thus filled we leapt upon our bikes (which we had previously swapped to off-road tyres, only to find all the tracks are on what can at least technically be called roads) and headed out along the coast. Unfortunately Polly's resolve collapsed a couple of miles after Gurnard, and so we retreated, and took the bus instead.

We soon discovered that the buses make London look cheap. £9 each bought us a days travel (£5.90 for London), however this did cover the open-top tourist buses as well. So we headed up to the Old Battery and the Needles, took as many photos as possible, and then retreated to Yarmouth, only to discover there is little there beyond the pirate-like name. So we hopped on the next bus and headed back to Cowes. On the way, in a bountiful display of kindness, the driver even stopped so Polly could search a nondescript bench in the middle of nowhere, thus retrieving the keys she had dropped during our cycling excursion. And so, to round off the evening we retired to a Thai restaurant in Cowes for a superb meal.

The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast, we hopped back on the (late) ferry, and found ourselves back in Southampton just as the rain started. It conveniently abated after about 10 minutes, giving us the chance to explore the mediaeval walls and remains of the castle before joining a train back to Waterloo and civilisation.

So, a nice break, a change from the bustle of London, but I can't say I'll be joining the apparent queues of people house-hunting of the island. Nice clotted cream though.

Finally the heat has risen to that level where a trip on the tube becomes an exercise in torture. The cause isn't helped by my being on the Northern line; worse, by the time trains get to Oval getting on-board becomes a task of throwing oneself at the heaving mass in the carriage and hoping the doors close before you bounce out again. So, I've decided not to renew my tube pass this month, save some money (or at least spend it on something else) and use my bike.

One week in this is all working out very well. I've cycled to work every day and have even done all my chores today on the bike. I even used it to head down to Battersea on Tuesday for a spot of drinking. So it's all working out very well. The major challenges are fitting a clean shirt into my bag so I don't knock people unconscious after my arrival at work, surviving the messes at Elephant & Castle, Borough and near Liverpool St. Station (pedestrians seem to edit cycles from their vision) and, as I discovered today, avoiding the mass tourist coaches and their contents at weekends.

Even better, it relieves the guilt when I start scoffing Jaffa Cakes post shopping...

However, there is one other thing that must be ranted about: bendy buses. What were they thinking? "The RouteMaster is rubbish; people only want to get on and off buses at bus stops - let's replace them with 20m monstrosities that will send cyclists flying through the air should they be anywhere near one attempting to turn". One wonders why one pays council tax...

Rants aside though, one reason to gain a few more calories to use during the day: Fuller's Honey Dew.

At long last we decided to make use of the Eurostar terminal but two stops up the tube from us and go to Paris for the weekend. It is remarkable at just how much of the time the fast trains spend drifting along at suburban speeds, both in France and on the UK's antiquated rails. But, nevertheless, we finally made it to Paris at 2300 on Friday night. We then got to experience the RER (rapid suburban rail system) after an evening where France had played football and polished the night off by spending 20 minutes trying to work out how to get from La Défense to our hotel. We did eventually find the place with minimal adventures and, after a chat with the Egyptian Shakespeare fan at reception, collapsed in bed, only to be awoken 6 hours later by our alarms.

Saturday dawned bright and stinking hot, which was all rather convenient. For some daft reason you have to pick up pre-ordered Métro passes at Pryamides in town, which is a pain if you're starting in zone 3. We then wandered from the Louvre down to the Place de la Concorde, before crossing the river and wandering down to that most unknown of monuments, the Eiffel Tower. We then had a most cheap and nasty crêpe and tea at a riverside stall before drifting down the Seine on a tourist boat. Following this and being quite sick of the crowds we left the centre and headed out to the Catacombs.

The Catacombs are in an inconspicuous building south of the city. A steep spiral leads down about 20 metres, before you find yourself in miles of tunnels and, eventually, the caverns containing the remains of some six million Parisians. Unfortunately flash photography was verboten and the lighting atmospheric so we have few pictures, but it was certainly a sight worth seeing. And there was almost no one there. The one problem - we found ourselves spat out in the middle of nowhere, with no idea of how to find our way back to the Metro station. Luckily it just provided an excuse to browse and find a decent Patisserie, from which we procured some bits and pieces with the help of Polly's French.

We then polished off our day with a browse of the Champs-Elysées and the Arc de Triomphe, before heading down to St. Louis for dinner (after the endless hunt for food for Polly in the world's worst place to find non-meat dishes) and, of all things, retired at 2100 for an early night. Shocking.

Day two we decided to investigate the tour at the Opera Garnier. In the pouring rain at that. However, after a certain amount of waiting, we looped the building and eventually found someone who said that today it was cancelled - surprise! So we went to Montmartre, still in the pouring rain. To add insult to injury the funicular was out of action and so we had to climb the rather soggy hill. At least it cut down on the number of tourists...

Post climb we were a touch hungry and wondering the back streets back to the station we came across a lovely little crêperie where we had some excellent crêpes and beer from Brittany. They were even kind enough to speak English. Of course I should note that everyone we talked to was happy to speak English, with the appropriate introductions in French of course. Nor was there any of the snottiness for which the Parisians are so renowned, bar one stereotypical waiter. But having been approached three times by people who just came up to us and starting talking English (only one of which bothered to ask if we spoke English) one can appreciate why it so annoys the French.

We then did the most touristy of things - we climbed the Eiffel Tower. I do mean climbed, however - there was no queue for the steps, so we climbed the first two tiers in the pouring rain. Despite the inclement weather we still found immense queues for the top level and so avoided it. And so we finally adjourned to St. Michel, where we found an Indian restaurant and enjoyed a traditional French vindaloo.

And so we eventually found ourselves back in London at 2100 on Sunday evening. A most excellent weekend, but one that does make one appreciate the range of restaurants that serve things other than meat in London. And now I just need to find the time to catch up on all the missed sleep - shame I've got to spend that time working instead, really....

Previously infernal.net.nz was hosted via a Lower Hutt based company, KiwiWebHost. And they were very good - good pricing, quick to respond to support, no hassles whatsoever.

However, a few days ago I received an e-mail informing me my monthly bandwidth had reached 80% of its limit. By the time I could log in (CPanel uses port 2082 which means I can't access it at work) it was up to 950Mb of the allowed 1Gb. The culprit - Yahoo, eating huge amounts of bandwidth. So I quickly created a robots.txt file to block it, only to find I was too late. Only two thirds of the month was gone and my site was suspended.

The good news is it has spurred me to greater things. Firstly, I've invested in a top-level domain name, infernus.org (unfortunately some bloody tits have bought up all the infernal variants and are trying to flog them off for silly money so I've got for the latin version). Secondly, I've moved my hosting to the UK, via DataFlame. I don't have an NZ credit card anymore so this was going to have to happen at some point anyway, and given they offer 10Gb of bandwidth it seemed like a good time to jump.

The bad news is infernal.net.nz is down at present... Drupal is throwing a wobbly when requests arrive via infernal.net.nz. God knows when I'll find time to fix it - I've got the CPanel problem at work and I'm off to the Globe to see Titus Andronicus tonight. Probably over the weekend...ah, such an exciting way to spend the bank holiday!