Prior to my jaunt to San Francisco, I rang my trendy Euro-styled, British-owned hairdresser this evening and booked an appointment.

The last time I booked a haircut, I found to my dismay, that my regular hairdresser - Stephanie - had left the salon for pastures new. I was assigned a new "stylist" - Terri - who was old enough to be Stephanie's mum, but could cut hair just as well.

Anyway, today, I spoke to the young man working the desk. As with my Christmas shopping anecdote, I was weary, and therefore short on patience. The conversation went like this:

Me: I'd like to make an appointment please
Guy: OK, for what?
Me: Well... a haircut.
Guy: OK. Is there anything you wanted?
Me: Yeah, less hair at the end of it.

Update - PUN ALERT
I wanted to leave this piece just there, but in an effort to stave off certain neferious pun-makers, I'm forced to suggest that (given the headline of this piece) the conversation continued thus:

Guy: Where do we go from here?
Me: Is it down to the lake I fear?

Dear Lord have mercy upon my soul.

Last night I saw Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

By now, of course, most of the western world (and probably various other parts of the globe) has seen the movie, so there's little or no point in my reviewing it, other than to give you my opinion for the sake of it.

Re-arrange the words in the preceding sentence into a coherent format, and enjoy.

The cinema was about half full, and a lot of the audience were kids with their parents.

Ordinarily, this sets off alarm bells in my head, about the prospect of people talking during the movie.

People talking in cinemas is one of my all-time biggest pet-hates with the general public. It's way above people pulling in front of me without signalling, or not noticing when the traffic lights have turned green. It's even above people dawdling when they drive on the scale of things that make my blood boil.

Part of the problem, is that anyone under 30 has grown up in a world where there have always been video recorders in the house, and if you miss something during a movie you're watching on tape, you can rewind.

So now, we have an entire generation, who've grown up, without any conscience about shutting the fuck up in cinemas.

Over the years, I've come up with a number of barbed comments, that one day, if I'm feeling either bold enough, or drunk enough, I'll launch at these inconsiderate morons, when the movie ends.

My favourite so far is, "If I'd wanted a running commentary, I'd have brought Harry Carpenter with me."

Anyway, as it goes, my fears were largely unfounded. In fact, the audience of young kids was better behaved that a lot of all-adult audiences it has been my misfortune to try and watch a movie with.

I think the sheer quality of the movie, in terms of storyline, performances, and visuals, helped keep all the little tykes spellbound, throughout.

That was no mean feat, because this is a long movie. Nearly three hours in fact.

All the cast were good, no-one stood out as being in any way bad. I just wish they'd use Robbie Coltrane more - he's a talented actor and he deserves more to do.

Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint are all excellent in the three main child roles. This time round, Radcliffe really gets to kick butt with both wand and sword.

Visually, the movie is a real treat. Lots of CGI seemlessly interwoven with real actors and sets. I'll not give too much away about the story, but if you're afraid of spiders, avoid this movie!

I think my favourite prop was the flying Ford Anglia - a tribute to 1960's British car making!

If you enjoyed this first Harry Potter movie, this sequel is a really worthy successor, that has me looking forward to the next instalment.

OK, so another boring post, but it needs doing.

Whilst I was in Britain, my loathsome Compaq iPaq PDA met with an unfortunate accident, that resulted in it being unreadable. The data was still there, but the machine itself was not in a state where I could use it.

Santa (yes, he really does exist, so don't tell me otherwise!) very kindly furnished me with a lovely new Palm PDA.

It's so nice dealing with the PalmOS over that God-awful abomination of technology known as Windows CE. When I was a Windows software developer, CE was bearable, because it interfaced with the systems I worked with, (well, it tried to at least).

I'll ramble on about "my favourite PDA operating system another time (Epoc - in case you care).

Now, I need facts!

I got most of the data off the iPaq, and onto the Palm, except that most crucial of information, my contacts. Somehow, the iPaq, with it's usual lack-of-reliablity not seen since British Leyland cars of the 1970's, managed to loose my contacts and diary data.

So, dear reader, if you know, or even suspect that I previously had your email and/or postal address, your phone number, your hat size or favourite colour on record, please could you email me with the information again.

I've managed to find a conduit to synch the Palm up to Entourage (my email client), and have an extensive list of names and email addresses, but it's the "real world" information I'm largely lacking. This won't happen again, because now that I have a Mac-compatible PDA, all contact details will be stored and synchronised between two Macintoshes and my PDA, thus making it pretty difficult, even for me, to lose the data.

So, if you could all oblige, I'd be really grateful. Thanks.

:)

I've fixed the archive problem. Well, kinda. OK, so Blogger's Javascript wouldn't play ball, no matter what I tried, so I worked around it.

But hey! At least you can now click on the DMfM Archive link, and get to a page that'll give you links to each month of Englishman In Denver and Dial M for Maxwell so far.

For those of you who've joined us recently, it's a chance to see what you've missed (don't get your hopes up :) )

Today I rang my mobile phone company. They had sent me, what I consider to be an astronomically high bill. I mean, they're well known for dreaming up extra little unexpected surcharges, but this was bold, even by their own weasel-like standards.

I started off all nice and friendly, and in fact, never once raised my voice or swore. I like to start difficult calls like this as it lulls the unsuspecting corporate drone into a false sense of security, about me being just another mild-mannered customer.

Throughout the call, my "customer advocate" tried (in vain) to get me to "change your calling plan, and not worry about all those mysterious charges, which will go away when you give the phone company all your worldly goods, and your mortal soul".

I was having none of it. I questioned every single detail on the bill, and just to piss him off a bit more, made him repeat back to me, what we both understood about each query I had.

A number of times, he tried to say, "Oh those are just some miscellaneous charges, don't worry about it." or even, "I'm not sure what that's about." On all such occasions, I made him go and ask someone else.

The longer the call went on, the more money he was losing. I talked him into a whole raft of deductions. I think if I'd continued the call into the afternoon, the phone company (Who I won't mention, but take a look at the headline and work it out) would have ended up owing me money.

By the end of the call, I'd gotten him to deduct nearly half of the original bill. I then demanded he remove his "advocacy fee" (yes, they have the gaul to charge $5 if you ring up to complain about your bill!) which he did. I'd also managed to get free web access for three months, after which I'll be getting it for half the price that they normally charge. I also got an hour of free daytime calls, because I kept mumbling something about switching to one of his competitors. All of this without agreeing to sign up for another year of service.

All in all, quite a successful phone call.

The thing is though, why should I, a customer, have to go head-to-head with the phone company's best brains, in order to not get screwed?

Time after time during the call, the "advocate" tried reel out numbers relating to my bill, in what seemed like an attempt to confuse me, and make me just give up and pay the damn bill.

This seems to be the overall approach by this company to its customers. Confusion equals acquiescence. I've seen it used in a number of other businesses in the States. It's like those "mail-in rebates", which work on the principle that a lot of people will never get round to mailing in their proof of purchase, and so the company gets to keep the full price of the goods.

My mobile phone company's bills typically take up about 10 pages, and are about as easy to read and understand as your average legal document (if your average legal document was written in Chinese).

As of today, that certain company we won't name and I are all buddy-buddy again. They've got me to pay my bill, and I got them to pay about half of it, and give me some freebies while they were at it.

What they don't know, is that I'll almost certainly be switching to one of their competitors, just as soon as I can get off my arse and go do it.

Then again, maybe I should stick with them? Afterall, they seem keen to chip in with paying my bills.

After the move from EID Towers, DMfM is now located in a secret underground lair, somewhere underneath fashionable and über-posh Creek. At the moment, I don't have all my technology up and running at the new location. Part of the problem is a severe lack of electrical sockets (or outlets if you prefer). The other problem is, there is currently... ... no broadband! Yikes!

In the new year, I'm planning on adding more pages to DMfM. One idea is a Review page, detailing who has the best coffee, nicest staff, best atmosphere, and where they have internet access (can you believe some places don't think that's essential? No, me neither! The fools!).

My latest new place is Buzz Café on 6th. It's scoring high marks in all categories. The coffee is good, the décor is nice and low-fi, and there's free DSL Internet access. Expect a full review soon.

Previous reviews that have been featured on EID/DMfM will be pulled out of retirement, and added to the page.

Thanks to one vigilent DMfM reader for letting me know about Paris on the Platte, which I visited before my UK trip, have pictures of, but haven't reviewed.

Sidenote
As is the way with technology, a month or so ago, I had a file get corrupted on my main email machine. That file was my email database. Deep joy. So, if you emailed me in the past few months, and I've not responded, that's why. Feel free to write again.

And before anyone asks, "didn't you have a back-up?", yes I did. That has the same corruption, which went unnoticed for a while, before refusing to allow me to view the contents. By this time of course, the last good back-up had been overwritten by the corrupted one. Microsoft - don't ya just love them? No, me neither.

See? I told you The Selecter where good for a few more corny headlines. I had this song in mind when I wrote "On My Radio" (another Selecter hit). But I digress. Frequently, it seems.

It's been a busy week since I got back from Blighty.

Today, Christmas Eve, I'm dog-walking, and then off to KUVO to try and record my demo tape for the station. I'm told that if I do a good job, I should be on-air, doing shows on my own, within a couple of weeks!

Mind you, in a couple of weeks, I'm off to sample the fog and rain in San Francisco. It's a last-minute deal from Site59. I've used them before and they have some great flight and hotel packages, as long as you can go on short notice. Typically, they have stuff that's available for "the weekend' and "the weekend after next".

And damn if they aren't cheap! For example, flight from Denver, and four nights in a hotel for $376 each! That's about the cost of the flight normally! I'm going for five nights.

Whilst I'm there, I'm planning to meet up with Imelda a fellow blogger, based in San Francisco, for coffee.

I'm sure I'll try and report from San Francsico whilst I'm there, provided my iBook, which is in need of some repair, holds together long enough!

When I'm tired, my sufferance of fools goes way down. My sarcasm goes way up.

After several hours of Christmas shopping this afternoon, I walked into Restoration Hardware, put down my heavy bag of gifts, and collapse into a very comfortable leather armchair. I laid my head back and sighed.

Assistant: Can I help you sir?
Me: Yeah, be a love and fetch me a cup of tea will you. Milk, no sugar.

Saturday. 7.30am
It's waaaay too early to be up on a Saturday, but I am.

So I'm watching Wacky Races on the Cartoon Network (there's sod all else on, and NPR doesn't get good until 10am).

I haven't seen Wacky Races for years, not since childhood in fact, but it's all coming flooding back.

The first thing that strikes me about it, is that Dick Dastardly wasn't nearly as dastardly as I remember. I mean, he would never qualify to be a Republican politician or get a seat on the board of Enron. And unlike those dastardly folk, he gets his comeuppance soon after every single wrong-doing.

If anything, Penelope Pitstop is just as evil. Throughout the race, she constantly uses the fact that she's "just a woman", to get other contestants to help her out of a jam, after her abysmal driving has caused her to get stuck. How many women, even in this day and age, have we met who've done just the same.

Unlike modern day motor racing, there's clearly no check on competitor's cars being unmodified. Prof. Pat Pending would never survive in a modern day rally, with that car that converts into a whole bunch of different shapes and vehicles. And BTW, someone should tell him that the balding mullet look isn't working.

You can tell that it's an old cartoon, because if it took place this year, rather than the late 1960's, the Army Surplus Special would win every race, due to the Republican administration's insane increase in military spending.

Peter Perfect - gay. In the closet, very butch, but gay.

The most realistic entrant is the Arkansas Chuggabug. From everything I've been told about Arkansas, it's still on the money, and Luke and Blubber Bear are probably still fine tuning the Chuggabug. Of course since the cartoon was made, Blubber Bear went on to become President of the United States, until an unfortunate incident with a cigar.

The Ant Hill Mob are an odd lot. OK, maybe compared to the Gruesome Twosome or the Slug Brothers, they looked normal, but really... four-foot tall mobsters? Purrleease. How did their extortion racket work? Pay up, or they bite your ankles?

I wonder who'd be competing in a modern-day remake of Wacky Races? The Colorado entrant would be a soccer mom driving a Ford Excursion, badly. She'd probably be competing against The Lunkhead Brothers, driving their Ford F150 pickup, which has never hadd anything more heavy duty than golf clubs in the back.

The Californian entrant would be driving a Lexus or a BMW, and would have no fucking idea whatsoever on how to drive it it rains or snows.

Of course if you commute on I25, you may be for forgiven for thinking that they're already filming Wacky Races, every day, during the drive home from work.

I don't know about you, but many's the time when I've been going into the I25/I225 interchange, gotten cut up by some asshole in a 4Runner, and thought, "Drat, and triple-drat!"

I look over at Miles, who's glaring at the 4Runner, and muttering, "Sackenfrackenwrackbastard4Runnnerdriver."

One of these days, I'll give him a medal.

Could someone please explain to me why there is this obsession, when someone mentions someone having a baby, about how heavy the baby was at birth?

If we were living in a third-world country, with a high infant mortality rate, I could understand it being a concern. We don't. We live in the first world (be it Europe or the Americas), where the healthcare technology pretty much ensures that any baby, no matter how heavy or light, or even premature, will survive.

So what the fuck does it matter what the baby weighed at birth, and more to the point, why the hell do complete strangers, who may or may not know the parents of the newborn, give a damn about the weight of the latest little ankle-biter to join the planet?

Sorry, I just don't get it. It's one of a long list of dumb, santimonious little bot mots or routines, that middle-class people seem to feel obliged to do, that just make my skin crawl.

And yes, I know I'm a miserable old git, so don't bother telling me that.

There's going to become a point at which, I run out of song titles with the word 'radio' in them. No doubt you'll all breath a collective sigh of relief when I do, but not today (it's by The Selecter, in case you care). Actually, for a band I couldn't care less about, they have some very good song titles I'll be able to use in the future.

But enough of that.

And incidentally, for those of you concerned about how late I stay up (my average is 3-4am) I'm up at 5.33am because I went to bed early, not stayed up this late.

Why am I telling you this? Because I need to be up early, to go to the radio station.

It's all part of my burgeoning media career daaarrrhlings!

I'm doing Susan's show with her, where I'll mainly be practising operating the equipment, but will no doubt end up being her on-air sidekick too, reading the weather and so forth.

The point being that the station is keen for me to put together a demo tape of me doing a show on my own A.S.A.P., so I can become one of the substitute DJ's there! Woo-hoo!

Me? Excited? In these socks? Surely not!

You can tune in this morning 9am - 12pm mountain time (4-7pm GMT). Click the link above and there are now (allegedly) a number of streaming media options.

OK, so I've been a little remiss in keeping you up-to-date on my trip, but y'know what? It's the first vacation I've had in a year, and in fact, the first since I started this site. I think I've earned a little down-time.

Anyway I've started a piece about Britain and my thoughts on it after this trip, but that can wait for now.

As I write, I'm on a plane, flying to Chicago, from where I'll catch a flight to Denver.

It was all a bit touch-and-go as to whether I'd be flying today or not. You'd think, that given that my ex-employer (who's paying for this trip) is in the airline reservation business, they'd have no problem making airline reservations. You'd also think that they'd be able to get the cheapest fares possible, wouldn't you?

I shalln't bore you with the minutiae of their travel booking attempts, suffice it to say that at every turn, I was able to find a significantly cheaper fare (a quarter of their price for both the journey to the UK, and the journey back to the US). You wonder why I was the one that got laid-off, when I seem to be that much better at their business than they are!

Anyway, last night I dined at my favourite Turkish restaurant - Mamaris, in Bath. With me, as ever, was my trusty partner in crime Tim.

After a mixed mezee appetizer (a sample of several starters including humus, taramasalata, dolmades and taboule), we used our super-hero powers to tackle, and defeat anything the Mamaris chefs could throw at us, including the vast amounts of lamb in every entrée.

As ever, with Mamaris, there are freebies throughout the meal. It starts with a plate of olives, pickled chillies, and carrot sticks, and fruit salad to cleanse the palate after the main course, and then, after coffee, a free Turkish liqueur. Tonight's was tangerine flavoured.

If you've never had Turkish coffee, you should try it. I know people who don't drink coffee who like it. It's rather complex to make (Mustapha showed me once), with each single coffee hand-brewed over a rapid flame. Taste-wise it's like the mellowest espresso you've ever had. There's no bitterness, just good smooth, almost chocolaty taste.

After that we proceeded to the Pig & Fiddle. It was 9.30pm and so far, I had no flight booked for the following day. No flight booked and it's less than two weeks to Christmas. I was getting nervous that I'd be stuck in the UK a while longer.

My contact at my ex-employers rang me just as I arrived at the pub. No flights booked so far. It seems that the person charged with sorting it out, had decided to take the day off work. That's nice. For her. I got the feeling that if I hadn't chased them, they'd not have discovered her absence from the office.

A series of trans-Atlantic phone calls then continued with my contact, who we'll call N, trying to get someone to get me flight home.

At one point, I was told there were no flights to Denver, from London, with seats available, until Friday, and even then, I'd probably have to be strapped to the wings of the plane as Economy class was full.

At about 10.30pm word came through of a flight, the flight that I'm now on. I'm not strapped to the wings either.

I got to Heathrow Airport on time, and checked in. Terminal Three must be due for an overhaul, because the whole departure area looked like it had been designed with making people want to leave the UK in mind.

The service was British service at it's most sullen. Exactly the sort of service I'd not encountered on this visit to the UK (with a few exceptions). The whole experience said to me, "you're better off in the US mate."

Tim had tagged along, taking the day off work, and we made the best of the God-awful food that was available. At least the coffee wasn't instant.

I breezed through the security screening - with no special searches of my every orifice (unlike in Denver, if you remember). My spirits were high, I was headed home to Denver.

Then, after the traditional 20-mile route march along a series of dull corridors to the gate - which was located somewhere near Scotland, judging by how far I had to walk - I entered the gate, and this was where things went bad.

I was told that I didn't have a ticket. I had a boarding pass, but there was no record of my electronic ticket. They said to go sit over in the lounge and they'd find me a seat somehow. I was handed my boarding pass back, with the seat allocation scribbled out. It had been a window seat.

As I said earlier, if you remember my journey from Denver, I had a hard time with airport security. Obviously, because I was a male, under 50 and travelling alone, I was a prime candidate to be an international terrorist. When the day comes that a terrorist on an aircraft is a middle-aged woman travelling with her child, I'm planning on going down to Denver International Airport to laugh my arse off at those officious idiots who were so fucking sure that, due to my age, gender, and the fact that I was travelling alone, I must be a terrorist.

There was a security station at the gate, and they had me remove my shoes whilst they checked them for foot odour. Apparently, foot odour is a big problem on aircraft these days, as every flight I've taken in the past year has involved having my socks and shoes thoroughly scanned. What the authorities aren't telling you, is that the so-called shoe bomber was set up. He actually had a really bad case of Athlete's Foot.

The British security guys were a whole lot quicker than the US ones. I guess they've been dealing with the threat of terrorism for a lot longer than the year or so that America has suffered it.

So, I'm then called to get a new seat allocation. It was 14B in case you care. More importantly, it was in Business Class! My policy of dressing smart but casual for flights paid off yet again. This isn't the first time this has happened going across the Atlantic.

And so I've been enjoying Business Class service, Business Class food, and more importantly, unlike in Economy Class, I'm able to breath in as well as out, whilst sat in my seat.

After all that, an uneventful flight from Chicago to Denver, except of course for the 200-mile hike required to change planes in O'Hare.

So, I'm back, legal, and ready to restart. Now the fun really begins...

Whilst waiting to have my flight details back to the US confirmed, I'm dinking around with Moveable Type, trying to install it into the DMfM webspace.

If in the next day or so, things go a bit mental (well, more than usual at least), then that's the most likely cause.

With any luck, you'll not see DMfM disappear.

Please bear with me!

OK, so a little update between curries (I seem to have eaten a lot of Indian food this week).

I found out today that I have my new visa, and that I'll be getting my passport back, with it in, tomorrow. To say I'm relieved would be an understatement! Now I can get any job, anywhere in the US, without having to get a work visa specifically for each appointment.

Yet another major stress in my life, "has left the building".

So, I now have my elite team of travel arrangers, working around the clock to find me a flight home to Denver.

Expect (ab)normal service to resume sometime next week.

WARNING: This post contains no rants whatsoever, and is really quite sweet-natured. don't say you weren't warned. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow.

In my secret capacity as a loveable uncle (don't let on, I'm trying to maintain this "cynical old git" reputation) I attended Watch Week at my niece's ballet class.

Watch Week, as the name suggests, is where they're all given Rolexes if they dance well. This at least, was my theory. Given that those heavy metal bracelets, and chunky watches could really slow down a four year-old, I figured Uncle Max was likely to get an early Christmas present, and so it was worth going.

Oh, OK, maybe that was just a veiled attempt at maintaining my hard-man of the web image.

It turns out that 'Watch Week' is when parents are allowed to stay and watch how their little darlings are doing. It isn't a special performance, or show, but a regular lesson with parents watching.

The class took place in a school on the other side of town, and consisted of about 10 girls and one boy, all about 4-6 years old.

Whilst my sister parked the car, I (who for once was early!) supervised getting my niece into her ballet shoes, and whilst I did this, she gave me an update on all her news, most of it ballet-related. She also showed me around where we were. I should point out at this point, that she's four, or as she would put it, "nearly five".

The class lasted half an hour or so, and even a dedicated cynic like myself, couldn't help smiling, as each child did their interpretation of each move called out by the teacher.

I snapped away with my camera, and my sister captured footage on her DV camera.

What no cynical comedy about it all? No humourous deconstruction or commentary about a society which sends kids to ballet lessons?

Yes, even Mr Grumpy has to have a day off.

And when he does, I expect he goes to watch his nieces do ballet too.

I live 4600 miles from the city in which I grew up. It’s a different country. It’s a different continent. It’s supposedly a different culture.

Yet everywhere I go, I see the same types of people.

Whilst I’m back in Bath for a few weeks, I’ve been reminded of one particular type. They exist in both the UK and the US, but my primary experience of them has been in Britain.

I call them “Cravat Man”.

They’re middle-aged, middle-class white folk, who seem to care more about what people think of them, than about their own happiness.

I’m not thinking of anyone in particular, they’re everywhere. There’s probably an American equivalent, but I haven’t experienced it yet.

I call them “Cravat Man” because they are the only people I know who would actually wear a cravat without being involved in a period drama. These days, most of them don’t even actually wear a cravat, but you just know it’s there in spirit.

They don’t party; they have people round for drinks. They don’t go out drinking, they have a drink at the bar whilst waiting for a table at a restaurant where the music is strictly (ch)easy-listening.

They talk about their, “standing in the community”. I’m sorry but unless you’re a member of the Royal family, funded by taxpayers’ money, how you conduct your private life is your own business, and unless you’re actually running for some sort of civic office, no-one really gives a shit about your “standing in the community”. Get over yourselves, you pompous arses.

Having people round for drinks, and for that matter anything which involves dealing with multiple acquaintances, involves hours of agonising over who to invite, who not to invite, who’ll be offended if they’re not invited, who didn’t respond last time they were invited, and who, if not invited, will bump into people who were invited and be pissed off that they weren’t. Still with me?

It’s the same deal with Christmas cards. I’ve noticed that people in the US don’t go in for sending Christmas cards with anything like the fervour of the British. Frankly, it’s another reason to love living in the US, as far as I’m concerned.

Cravat Man and his wife will spend days just planning who they’re sending cards to this year. It involves drawing up a list of all the people they sent cards to last year, and cross-referencing it with a list of people who sent them cards last year, adding anyone interesting they met on holiday in the past 12 months, and subtracting anyone who’s died, and anyone who’s the bad-guy half of a divorce of friends.

I think there are further sort-routines involved, but I don’t have the will power to think about them. Suffice it to say that if Mr or Mrs Cravat-Man were more technologically savvy, they’d have a set of relational databases, and a stored query to calculate who they actually need to send a Christmas card to.

One thing that I’ve been on the receiving end of, is their “What will the neighbours think?” approach to life. Sadly, for the cravat-centric community, my approach to life is more one of, “the neighbours should mind their own damn business, and stop living vicariously through me.”

Whilst I’d never do anything to deliberately upset those around me, life is too damn short to spend time worrying about what a bunch of people who you didn’t choose as friends think.

Of course, the latest fashion in Britain, as far as cravat-enabled neighbourhoods go, is the covenant-controlled neighbourhood. It’s an idea that will be familiar to those of you in the US, where it’s been around for a long time.

However, word has reached me that in certain parts of the UK, as with the US, these neighbourhoods have started to become known as ‘communities’, and or more worryingly, ‘gated communities’.

The term ‘gated community’ sounds to me, rather like a cross between a retirement home, and a military prison. The difference being of course, that both those institutions are far more welcoming of newcomers and visitors than these so-called communities.

Such neighbourhoods are set to flourish however, as Cravat Man and his like find them ideal. How much better does it get when you live somewhere that your parties can never be gatecrashed by anyone from outside, because there’s no way outsiders would be able to break through the barricades and past the machine-gun nests?

You have to wonder why, if these people are seeking to be thought of as “pillars of the community” in their town, they spend so much time and money, trying to isolate themselves from so many sections of the community.

It’s as if they’re saying, “ I want to stand out in the community, as long as the community is exactly like me.”

The problem is, if everyone were all like Cravat Man, there’d never be enough nibbles when we all came round for drinks.

On Saturday night, Tim and I braved the artic winds and driving rain of Britain, to venture into downtown Bath. Actually, in terms of sheer unpleasantness, the weather was nothing compared to the drunken assholes that were parading about, shouting the odds and blocking the pavements in every street.

What is it about these people, that after a few beers, they feel the need to conduct their personal lives at a volume normally reserved for opera singers and yodeling champions?

When I get drunk (yes it's hard to imagine, but it does happen occasionally), if I'm in town, I generally have to put all my energy into

a) staying upright
b) not tripping over my own feet
c) remembering where I'm supposed to be going
d) resisting buying a kebab

I don't have any time or energy to be bellowing my personal business at the top of my voice

The other thing about these amateur Pavarotti's is this business of going around town, in weather conditions that would cause your average Eskimo to say, "Sod this, I'm staying home tonight", wearing nothing on their upper-half, but a short-sleeved shirt. It's possible that the whole shouting and singing routine is some technique they've developed for keeping warm, by causing the blood to flow more rapidly around their body, but then if we're lucky, it's possible they'll do us all a favour and die of hypothermia.

Tim had spent the previous night, in a bar in Reykjavik, drinking his way towards dawn. Given that Iceland has about three hours of daylight at this time of year, this was a bold plan, considering how late it gets light, and the fact that as soon as the sun was up, his plane would be leaving.

Consequently, after a night of no sleep, and then a plane ride to the UK, he wasn't in the mood for the classic "Tim and Max sit in The Porterbutt and drink Guinness for five or six hours" kind of Saturday night.

So we were downtown, with a view to reacquainting me with the Eastern Eye. This is one of Bath's best Indian restaurants (IMO), and is located in a great Georgian building, that used to be a bank, was then an art gallery, and now houses some works of art of a more edible nature.

I snapped a picture of the main room, but it's sheer size, meant that at night, my camera's flash, just wasn't powerful enough to give you a well-lit image. I've Photoshopped this was best I can:

Click to enlarge image

The meal was superb - the best Indian meal I've had this trip. My Chicken Tikka Masala Balti was purportedly only medium heat, but I definitely saw a waiter standing by with a fire extinguisher, as I started it.

He needn't have bothered. It was the next morning when the fire danger was at its highest.

Having consumed three courses, plus coffee, we gathered several waiters to help lift us into standing positions, and rolled out back into the night.

We made an abortive attempt to find somewhere to get good coffee, and ended up in the Coeur De Lyon pub for a quick Guinness. The Coeur De Lyon is one of several Bath pubs that whilst very cute and quaint, is smaller than the average SUV, and has fewer seats.

After just one pint we hit the road again, with every intention of going straight back to Tim's, and doing something intellectual. Unfortunately for us, the Porterbutt had its tractor beam switched on, and as we passed it, we were drawn, helplessly, into it.

A momentus event, as Dr Evil (Tim) buys a round of drinks

Our heroes, recharging their superhuman powers, whilst engaging in lively philosophical debate

"The future's bright, the future's black with a reasonable head on it"

Quite how both of us managed to shoehorn three more pints of Guinness into ourselves, after both having two pints in the restaurant, a three-course meal, coffee, and a pint in town, is beyond me. Mind you, I did notice some Guinness trying to escape through my tear ducts, as Tim and I chuckled our way home.

It's Thursday afternoon, and I'm in Islington, London.

As boroughs of London go, Islington is the success story of the 80's and 90's, rising up from mediocrity to über-trendiness.

If you're familiar with Denver, think "Wash Park but more expensive, and less sunshine".

I'm in, guess what? A coffee house. Well, espresso bar really. It's called The .

There's no mistaking the fact that I'm in a European coffee joint, rather than an American one.

The place reeks European styling. Whereas an American coffee house would typically have that bourgeois bohemian look, with lots of armchairs and sofas, and real wood everywhere, European ones are stark, sharp and look more like operating theaters than somewhere to relax.

I'm expecting that Mike Myers character Deiter, to walk in at any moment, gaunt and all in black, and announce, "And now iz ze time when we daans."

Everything is chrome, stainless steel or glass. Even the large industrial espresso machine looks like the controls of some art deco science-fiction spacecraft. I think they had Lockheed Martin in to do their interior design.

Some of the seating consists of old, leather-bound aircraft seats (business class judging by the size of them).

True to my oft-touted cliché of Europeans, I'm dressed all in black, in fact I'm in WPU++ , wearing the Mac-user specs, and drinking a latté made with that infamous European weapons-grade espresso.

Everyone, and I mean everyone has at least one, if not several mobile phones. Being Europe of course, the phones are still a few years ahead in design over US ones. Apparently, the current design trend in such things, is, "too small to hold comfortably for any length of time". I'm reminded of that Will Ferrell character and his cell phone, in the "Jefferies" sketches on SNL.

Even I have one. Yes, I'm only visiting, but I came to the conclusion that as I always end up borrowing my father's mobile whilst I'm here, and the pay-as-you-go phones are now only £69 for a good one, I might as well get one for my European trips. Two visits to the UK and it'll have paid for itself, over hiring one.

I've needed a mobile more than ever this trip, so that I'm instantly contactable by my immigration lawyer, the consular services company handling my new visa, or the US Embassy itself. One panicked phone call from the US at 1.30am last week, proved that.

The place is packed. There's a good mix of people, and some of them aren't wearing turtleneck jumpers.

The large latté I've got is nothing short of a work of art. I don't know what they did, but there's a cute design in the foam of it, that's remained whilst I drink it. The taste is one of the creamiest, smoothest lattés I've ever had.

All in all a nice little diversion, with the best latté in living memory, made by one of the elite team of Lattologists, most of whom seem to be from the former Eastern bloc.

And now, I'm off to face London traffic, at rush-hour. I may be some time.

Note To UK Coffee Houses
If you're going to boast "Internet Access Available Here":

a) have the damn thing working at all times
b) get a wireless base-station.

It's not rocket science, and you'd be amazed at how much more coffee people will drink when they can get online on their own machines.

Nowhere that I've tried to get public Internet access in the UK has had a wireless system. I thought Europe was supposed to be cutting-edge? Come on guys, it's only a couple of hundred quid, and then we're all saved from having to touch your filthy and inadequate machines, and you can go back to laughing all the way to the bank.

OK, this is more of an informational post than particularly rivetting reading.

Tuesday afternoon, I drove to Bristol, and John and I had a very late breakfast. The late night beers of the previous night were finally silenced by another fine English Breakfast, and large quantities of coffee.

That night I saw and old school friend, Mark, who I've not seen for five years. That's typical of us though, we don't see each other for a few years, go out for a few pints, then leave it another few years. Of course my moving to the US 3.5 years ago didn't help matters.

We caught up on our lives, whilst each consuming a very mediocre curry. The chat made up for the lack of spice in the curry, however. A lot has happened to both of us. We talked until the small hours, whilst working our way through his beer fridge. Yes, a whole fridge dedicated to beer, now that's living!

Wednesday morning started late for us, but I eventually drove back to Bath, did email etc, and then hit the road, going east, to my current location; Maidenhead.

I went to see a college friend, Jon. We did the whole dinner thing, and then went back to his house where he not only has a beer fridge, but an entire room that is a bar! There's even optics and a mini jukebox!

This afternoon, I'm going to drive to Hertford, north of London, to see my longest-suffering... err serving friend Jo. I'm toying with driving into central London and snapping a few clichéd pics of the capitol, but I've heard rumours that they've started charging tolls on the roads in, during peak times.

It's all part of the British authorities' "You Are Evil If You Use Your Car" campaign. That used to piss me off when I lived in Britain. I wouldn't have minded if they'd invested in public transport and made it cheap and accessible, but they didn't, they just keep upping the tax on petrol, the Road Fund Licence, and anything else they can think of, with no sign of it being spent on improving the transportation infrastructure.

And as for my home town, the City Of Bath. Don't get me started. Every damn time I come back there, they've pedestrianised another key street, making it sodding impossible to get into, out of, or through the city centre. Yes, we need less traffic congestion, but fewer roads are not the solution, you planning morons! Better planning is the solution.

I'm sorry, I'll get off my soap-box now.

More news as we get it.

On Monday night, I stayed in. I read. I surfed the web. I had a quiet time.

By 10.30pm I was bored. At 11.20pm, I left my folks' house, and drove to the Porterbutt.

When I got there, it was just the landlord and landlady - Helen and Andy, a barman and two regulars. I got a pint in, and Helen and I discussed the state of the world, including Cuba, Iceland, and several points in between.

As the conversation went on I was given a couple of pints on the house by Helen, before getting to serve myself a final half. I love pouring my own Guinness from the tap. I think, as a dedicated Guinness drinker, it's a feeling of power - being able to pour it just how you want. This wouldn't quite be the same with other beers, as other beers tend not to be so fiddly to pour correctly.

There's something about having Guinness, hours after it's become illegal to serve it, that makes it taste all the better.

Somehow, I got talked into doing my Leonard Rossiter as "Rigsby" impression, and for the rest of the evening, the "What Would Rigsby Do" theme continued in the conversation.

I left at 2.30am, and proceeded - against my physician's advice - to a popular late-night kebab take-away place, linked to my favourite Turkish restaurant in town. More on that restaurant, its wonderful food, and characterful staff next week.

There are many historical landmarks in Bath. One of the most famous, is the Royal Crescent:

click to enlarge

Saturday
The day had a slow start, with me helping my Dad with his computer. It looks like he's found a bug in some commercially available software! Who'd have thunk it? Actually the amazing thing was that it wasn't in a Microsoft product.

Late afternoon I went back to downtown Bath, and sought out somewhere to get a coffee that had Internet access. I was in the middle of writing the previous post about Friday, and fancied the buzz of a coffee house, instead of the slightly more sedate atmosphere of my parents' house.

Coffee Republic has Internet access, but the place was packed (despite being somewhat vast as coffee houses in Bath go. You may have seen my Coffee Republic mugs on EID, usually holding a homemade latté.

So I then spent an inordinate amount of time wandering through the damp streets of Bath to where (when I was here last) there had been cyber cafés. Nothing doing. In the end, I visited Doolally's in Walcot St, as my buddy Tim had recommended it.

It had character alright, and cute waitresses in pigtails, but it took the owner so damn long to operate the till (how can it take three goes to enter a single number and then the amount of money tendered?) that by the time he'd finally given me my change, I'd lost the only spare table in the joint to some people who hadn't even been in the building when I'd handed him my money. Eventually, I found a space, and fired up the iBook, to finish my account of Friday's fun.

Actually, there was a bit of games of musical chairs going on as better and better tables opened up. A number of us got chatting, as we moved about, and the atmosphere was all very jovial.

That's something that I've noticed this visit. I've said to friends in Denver that I love the US because you can strike up conversations with strangers and everyone's so friendly (OK so I don't live in NYC). I've always said that it doesn't happen in Britain, and that the British, by and large are a bunch of miseries (friends and families excluded).

I think it might just have been my living in Bath for so long that clouded my judgement. There are some snotty-nosed people in Bath. Actually they tend to be the yuppie element that have moved from London in an effort to push the house prices up and intimidate the real West Country folk.

Suffice it to say that so far on this trip, I have encountered really friendly and chatty people - which has made it so much more enjoyable a visit (if you've met me, you'll know that I like to talk). Even at the car hire place in Heathrow, the staff and I were chatting away, like old friends.

After a nice latté, and some prolific writing whilst watching the rain outside, I drove to Bristol, where John and I had a Greek dinner (mediocre, with mediocre service) and then went to a favourite pub of his. The two bars in the pub consisted of the main bar (full of students), and the Snug (where the "old gits" sit and drink). Knowing our limitations, we sat in the Snug.

True to its name, it was tiny. We were the only ones there to start with. Throughout the rest of the evening we chatted with everyone who came in. Again, this whole thing about the British not being friendly to strangers was being disproved. Good!

Sadly, I didn't have my camera with me. I really wanted to bring you (particularly American readers) a picture to show you just how small this bar was. I may go back there before I leave and take the camera. That said, it's not a unique bar, there are many such places in the UK.

Sundae Sunday
Another incredibly laid-back day. But given that my fate lies largely in the hands of chaps at the US Embassy, and there's nothing I can do about it, why not kick back and whittle some?

I got an email from Tim, who yesterday flew to Iceland for a holiday. Yes, Iceland in December. He plans on renting and SUV and exploring, sleeping in the vehicle if needed. Yes... in the vehicle... in December... in ICELAND. Still, it's a week off work, I suppose. I really must tell him I do believe he's a hardened northerner, and he doesn't have to keep trying to prove it!

My sister called in, late morning, and, together with her husband and kids, took me over to the other side of town, to the village of Bathampton, where we rendevoused with my parents for lunch at The Old Mill At Bathampton.

Given my childless state, and the fact that I only get to see them once or twice a year, every opportunity is made, when I am there, to get me to look after my two little nieces, aged four and two. Being the soppy old sod I am (beneath that cynical facade), I'm more than happy to play at Uncle. In fact, it's one of the things I look forward to when I visit Bath.

The pub, as with most things in Bath, is ancient. It's also by the riverside. After ordering lunch my nieces, sister and I stepped outside into the bracing English weather to go and feed the ducks. We had brought bread for that very purpose.

I looked out across the fast flowing river, and to paraphrase Admiral Nelson (or was it Napoleon? I never did history past 8th grade), thought, "I see no ducks". My sister threw some bread out towards the water - a hard task when throwing into the wind.

As if from nowhere, or perhaps from a gap in the space-time continuum between dimensions, a number of ducks arrived, and gobbled up the bread. We threw more bread, more ducks arrived, then, yet more ducks. Eventually, when it was starting to look like an aquatic remake of a certain Hitchcock film, with the ducks getting more and more bold in their approach, we stopped throwing bread and took some pictures. and watched the main group of ducks arguing - presumably about who was taking care of the bill! (Geddit? Bill... ducks...? I'm so sorry... I couldn't resist.)

Lunch was nice, not stunning, but nice enough. The service was friendly too.

After a bit of a respite at my folks' house, I went to my sisters, to spend some quality time with her and her family. We had a great time. When I was my nieces' bedtime, I was put in charge of supervising them both cleaning their teeth. If you're familiar with the phrase, "It's like herding cats", then you'll know how well I did that job.

Every time I go to my sister's, they end up introducing me to a UK TV show that I've missed out on, living in the US. They're always good choices of programme.

Last time it was Trigger Happy TV, which we now have in the US. This time, it was the sit-com Spaced. I now have their video of the entire first series to work through whilst I'm here. I'm half-expecting either BBC America or Comedy Central to buy the rights to show Spaced in the US. It's prime Comedy Central material.

OK. That's my weekend. In case you're wondering, yes I do have pictures of me and the kids, and the ducks, but I'll not subject the entire readership to them. Ask if you want to see.

Out of the corner of my eye, on this desk, in my father's home office, I saw a headline on a piece of paper, printed from his computer printer. It was for some sort of roster. I misread the headline.

It actually read: "Hillier's Christmas Grotto"

But out of the corner of my eye, I read it as, "Hitler's Christmas Grotto"

...which then made me do one of those cartoon character, head-waggling, double-takes.