Daily Post - Monday

Still not sleeping particularly well - I woke up at around three this morning from an odd dream about Iain Dale, of all people, and didn't nod off until four for another hour or so. More worryingly, I have been waking up feeling tired and aching, as if I'm never getting any real rest.

Work has been a bit frustrating, to put it mildly. I've been testing a bit of payroll code against a series of test cases specified by our director, but the figures that I've been getting did not agree with hers. I've been stepping through my code checking it, and reverted to the original version to find that my figures were consistent.

As a last resort I did my own arrears calculation in a spreadsheet and then realised that the test cases had been calculated on the wrong basis (31 days instead of 29 days) - enough of a difference to throw things out in ways that were difficult to reconcile. That means that I've wasted days of staring at code that was actually correct - the word 'doh!' does not even come close.

In happier news, last night's opening episode of 'Last Chance to See' with Stephen Fry and Mark Carwardine was a joy to watch. I remember following Stephen Fry's live tweets from the expedition last year, particularly the painful incident where he fell off a gangway, breaking his arm in three places. The original radio series with the late, great Douglas Adams is also available to listen to on the programme website.

Also worth a listen is today's Coverville tribute to the late Ellie Greenwich, writer of such classic songs as 'River Deep, Mountain High' covered here by Katrina and the Waves, 'Do Wah Diddy', 'Leader of the Pack' and Jonathan Richman's version of 'Chapel of Love'. Good stuff