Daily Post - Thursday

Perhaps it was tempting fate to download a sleep diary app for my iPhone, but I woke up three times last night from odd dreams about queuing in a pasty shops in York. Most strange. Still, at least the sun is shining today which always makes a world of difference to the way that I feel.

It was a bit quiet in the office today as well. I was the only person in my team for most of the day, with two people on hols, one in a meeting with customers, one off sick and the last one going to get red hot flaming lasers of doom shot into his eyeballs, or something.

At least the big boss has realised that we are behind on testing (mainly because she didn't anticipate people being away on summer holidays during the summer - go figure) so the cut for the beta release has been pushed back a week to give us a little breathing space. I've got one bit of work to get done for early next week, that I would have been working on today if I hadn't got sidetracked by a customer query and a testing bug that I was the only person available to deal with because there's nobody else around. Hmmm. Working from home tomorrow, so hopefully I'll get a chance to do it then.

Xbox news is that my console has been under the soldering iron in the Microsoft secret base in Germany, and is even now being shipped back to dear old Blighty. It doesn't look likely that it will be back in time for the season finale of 1vs100 though, although given that the grand prize is a new car the chance of actually getting into a prize game is likely to be rather remote. Ah well.

Podcast of the day is the last episode in Stephen Fry's brief series 'Fry's English Delight' in which he ably fulfils the BBC remit to inform, educate and entertain on the many and varied origins and uses of the humble word 'Hello'. Fascinating stuff - there are not many presenters who could effortlessly link Norman hunting calls, to Shakespeare, to Charles Dickens' adventures in America, to early telephone etiquette via a murdered music hall star and the saucy tones of Leslie Phillips.