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

I slept in till 11:30 today.

Then, I smelled gas. I called Transco; they sent a man with a "sniffer box" round, but he couldn't find any leaks.

I headed round to the COGS premises, and tried to fire up the inkjet printer/copier. No joy. I'll need to go back over at the weekend with my multimeter to find out if the fuse is OK, and if the PSU is actually putting out any power. At least it wasn't a wasted trip; I bought about £3 worth of goodies from Frankie Still's shop, including 2½ litres of (fairly naff) for £1.

When I got home the smell of gas was still here, but I ignored it. I was tired, so I crawled under the quilt for 15 minutes... and woke up 2 hours later. And that was *before* I opened the !

I just finished watching ER on E4... It was rather good. Last in the series, though.

Tomorrow I'm going to head round to Graham's and have a look at his first attempts at HTML coding...

I'm still tired; I'm still miserable and I'm still without inspiration.

Traveller in Time offline
"Do not forget to ventilate !


free gas ! "

Peet, this gas smell and you falling asleep for 2 hours is frankly worrying. How much are the Transco Johnnies paid (i.e. what is their expertise)? I've no experience of calling them round for suspected gas leaks, but if you think you can still smell it you should get a couple of friends round for confirmation and then call Transco again.

Sorry to hear you're low and glum: I'm having such an interesting week I haven't had time to visit H2G2 or Mustardland at all. If they aren't contra-indicated for diabetes, try munching some fresh pineapple, almonds and bananas for a boost of tryptophan which you will metabolise into mood-boosting serotonin. When I was terribly ill with a physical injury these really helped.

With very best wishes,

Bonsie

Can you get detectors for gas like you can for carbon monoxide?

I agree, it's worrying that the "professionals" couldn't find a leak, though Peet's nose can obviously smell one.

Bonsie, the sleepiness didn't quite co-incide with the gas smell; it had crossed my mind. The smell's gone now. It was also *very* faint - I'm just very sensitive to it.

I've cheered up quite a lot now, although my sleep's still disturbed. I was up at 5am with mild stomach cramps; I had to sit up for half an hour till it settled down a bit.

Thanks for caring! Be reassured that I just use this journal to whinge on the days that I don't have anyone else to complain to.

Peet, I'm glad to hear the smell's gone. You take care of yourself, won't you! (the pharmacist in me can't help disapproving of high alcohol intake etc when you've got diabetes...)

Bex, the guy from Transco had a "sniffer machine"; basically a gas detector attached to a hand-held hoover that sucked in lots of air. It registered some "background noise", but nothing to set alarm bells ringing. He checked my gas system (the flat's, that is... ) and found it was safe.

btw, Bex, don't worry about high alcohol intake this time... The was only 3% ABV, and I had to have three attempts at getting through the bottle because it tasted so disgusting. (Artificial sweetener... )

I'm sorry about your being "miserable" Peet. You usually sound so full of beans.

Pineapple, almonds and banana? I didn't know about that but I will try, sounds delicious. What about grapefruit?

I can't help thinking of thathilarious passage in the Lucia novels when Lucia is sure there is a smell of gas but it might be drains all the time. Actually it is gas.

This is so dangerous potentially. Perhaps you should trust your nose after all.

What is 3%ABV?

I am disappointed that this is not your first port of call when you're int he dumps.

"...You usually sound so full of beans..."

Well, that could explain the gas...

3% ABV is three percent alcohol, by volume. AKA p*ss-water.

(Douglas says "Hello!")

there! there!

UG

I don't want to jump uninvited into a conversation, but we smelled gas a couple of years ago which the gas man's equipment couldn't pick up, but was very noticeable to me. It turned out to be next door - they eventually put the sensor through the letter box and it registered nearly off the scale.

Hi, Bernadette! I think we spoke briefly once before, a couple of years back. You're Jim's wife, right?

When the guy from Transco left he said he was going to do that to every flat in the building. He didn't call back, so I don't know the outcome; it's quite possible he did find something but just didn't bother to tell me. I did go out for a while in the afternoon, though, and none of the other flats had their windows open and "venting", and the smell was still there when I got home. It disappeared slowly over a period of a couple of hours.

Martine - I wasn't necessarily advocating pineapple, banana and almonds together.

However, if you did want to combine them, you could whizz up a smoothie containing: 1 banana with 1 quarter of a pineapple, a teaspoon or two of ground almond, adding as much carton pineapple juice as desired to get a drinkable consistency. If this sounds too sweet, you could cut it with a little freshly squeezed lime juice.

Oats, dates and good-quality chocolate also contain tryptophan, but didn't think the last was a good recommendation for Peet, because of having diabetes. Banana, dates and milk with a little grated nutmeg make a good smoothie too. There's a small amount of tryptophan in grapefruit.

I've seen few results of clinical trials for tryptophan from _food_, though its role as a natural sleep inducer, antidepressant and treatment for SAD (seasonal affective disorder) seems to be widely accepted from anecdotal 'evidence'. From memory, it's possible Tufts university may have done proper trials. Given the other, obvious, benefits of the foods I've mentioned, I'd certainly recommend to anyone feeling low at least trying them before going the prescription route.

Peet, revolted by all this fruity talk hijacking his journal, wanders off determined to have a good fry-up.

Ironically, one of the thoughts cheering me up is the prospect of a good fry-up tomorrow morning.

I'm getting a lift to Tesco later, via Maplin. At Maplin I'll be returning a fan I bought on Friday but didn't use (their return policies are wonderfully lax! ) which will get me the best part of £10 to spend in the supermarket. First on my list is a tray of "just on their sell-by date" sausages for a big Monday morning breakfast! I have mushrooms to fry with them, and a couple of large crumpets to toast alongside.

I just spoke to Grambo. His first words were along the lines of " computer doesn't work worth a damn any more"... He went on to say "...I'm getting more of those bloody pop-up thinks every time I try to connect to the internet, asking me if I want to allow it..." - he's complaining about "Zone Alarm"...!

It seems somehow appropriate, as it was installed to stop menaces from getting online, and in his case that's just what it seems to be doing. I need to get an all-day ticket tomorrow, so I'll pay him a visit in the morning and "pre-approve" all his legitimate apps. The next trick will be training him to say "No" to any apps he doesn't recognise...

It's all my own fault, of course; I left because the machine was about to do a 3-hour Scandisk. I should have stayed and done that afterwards, rather than assuming even the remotest glimmer of common sense from Grim. He's had Zone Alarm installed before, but it mysteriously disappeared because, as he said, "it wasn't working"...

(Note for the uninitiated - Grambo = Grim = Graham; I tend to drift between nicknames depending on my mood.)