Oh my stars, the agony of two geeks bereft of Internet!

You don’t realise how much you use it (i.e. far too much) until it’s gone, and then you start devising ways to shove your hands down the telephone wire so you can choke the life out of the BT representative on the other end and listen the his last few ragged breaths escape his incompetent frame. Seriously, we’ve just begun a 12-month contract with BT for phone and broadband, and once it’s over, I’m never, ever dealing with this company again if it is at all possible. If you ever hear me saying, “I’m thinking of giving BT another try”, you have my permission to punch me in the gooch and call me a moron.

Rant over.

We’re in our beautiful new flat and things are going swimmingly, at least as far as property concerns go. After a tumultuous first month which saw us using garden furniture in the living room for a short while, we have a comfortable futon, a grotesquely large armchair which needs three throws to cover it, a desk and enough shelving…for now. The guinea pigs have had an upgrade to their living arrangements, we have managed to deconstruct the bed, rotate it 90° and reconstruct it, our kitchen is fully equipped, our bills are set up and our respective degrees hang from the wall like the massive nerds we are. All in all, it’s been a successful and rewarding month of settling. Pictures, I’m sure, will follow shortly.

We’re both full time at Norwich Union now, which is a considerable transition for me. Leaving Waterstone’s was tough - everyone there was great and I got to work with books all day, but Norwich Union has been equally welcoming, and after two days of induction, two weeks of training and a week of actual work, I’m starting to get my brain around what I have to do. For anyone who’s interested, I work in Defined Benefit Pension Quotation and no, I can’t tell you how safe your money is in the credit crunch.

I think I’ll call it an evening as far as this post goes, but expect another one soon with some meditations upon the new series of Heroes, some frankly unsightly gushing over the new TV On The Radio album, and other assorted pop-cultureness.

Stay frosty, marines!