h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi All

As usual, it's been quite a while since I last posted...

Not a lot has been happening, really. I've been working - passed the 'Basic Mix' test which allows me to keep my job. I've got the questions for the next optional test, which is associated with a pay rise - the first one made me laugh 'Name one Old World and one New World wine that we sell' - probably the only time a geography degree is going to help with bar work! Other questions relate to knowing stuff about the wines we sell, and the food, and making 6 perfect cappucino's over 2 shifts, upselling wines, spirits and food, selling 10 portions of bar snacks and 6 side orders and stuff like that. Very exciting. But it'll get me an extra 15p and hour, so it's probably worth doing.

Something more fun - I've started playing soccer on sunday afternoons in Hyde Park with a group of guys I met thru Gumtree.com - a website of all kinds of useful things for 'Antipodeans' (as Aussies, Kiwis and probably Saffa's are known) in the UK.

And I've joined a gym near work so I can go swimming (at least twice a week if I'm going to justify the membership). I figure the best way to make myself exercise is to pit my laziness against my stinginess and hope that the will not to waste money will inspire me to get off my fat behind. We shall see...

Tonight I'm going out clubbing for the first time in ages - not sure where yet, but I also want to do a bit of reccy so I can drag Vicki and Lukas out somewhere cool when they come to stay in a week or so

And our favourite physicist will also be in the area at the end of the month, so we're going to go and try to watch a good game of football. No premiership tickets available, but hopefully we'll make it to a champions league game.

Oh, and I'm coming home in April, arriving the 20th, and staying for about 2 or 3 weeks. Haven't booked a flight back yet, but I'm going to - despite the depressing lack of sunshine, which I'm increasingly convinced really reduces the quality of life here, I'm not quite ready to abandon europe for the sunny shores of Oz.

That's about all the excitement in my life, aside from reading a couple of cool books: Darwin's Children, a sci fi novel by Greg Bear, the follow up to Darwin's Radio - gripping and hard to put down, but not quite as good as the first, and Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins, which was laugh out loud funny, fascinating and incredibly stimulating. I'll have a crack at his book The Selfish Gene sometime, and I'm sure the Blind Watchmaker is also worth a look. I'm equally sure my Dad's got copies of both in his study so I don't know why I've decided to read them now that I'm halfway round the world!!

Love to all, more soon. (well probably, maybe, when I have time in my new exercise regime. Ha ha.)

Cya