At Last:

I am typing this on my new Macbook Pro with Retina display and SSD. Never used such a nicely made piece of kit. Could go on and on but will end up sounding like those über annoying Apple Weenies. It’s cool. I’m glad I’ve bought it. Moving on…

Other Stuff:

Carluccio’s Caffe – were exceedingly cool a few weeks ago. I Tweeted a pretty minor complaint to @Carluccioscaffe whilst seated in the Euston Station outlet. 30 min elapses and their PR was all over it like a rash. Bam! – please email me with the problem. Pow! – we are very sorry. Ooomph! – please have dinner on us. MFTS and I had a very agreeable evening at our local branch. A lovely bottle of wine was given as a parting gift.  Talk about exceeding expectations and cementing customer loyalty.

University – I didn’t really expect to make the cut when the talking was over but I managed to secure (blag) an offer of a place to read history at Ruskin College in Oxford. I started off on the English and creative writing route and rather cheekily changed horses mid-stream during the Open Day. The more I heard about that course the more I knew it wasn’t for me. I got talking to one of the Profs on the history course and it took about 15min of chatting before I knew that was the correct path. I need to decide between now and September. Get the strong feeling that if I don’t do it now then I never will and will regret an opportunity lost forevermore.

Portraits – MFTS bought me a really neat birthday present. She has commissioned an illustrator called Kate Madigan to draw me and Héloïse. Today we met Kate in Blackwell’s so she could take a load of reference photos of me and H to work from. She then draws directly into Illustrator using a sophisticated pen and tablet arrangement. I like Kate’s style and am looking forward to the end result.

Oil Changes – that’s right, you heard me. I was so impressed by the mobile mechanic that came to service my car. I have never seen an oil change other than get under the car, unscrew the sump, try not to get covered in old hot engine oil and stop it going everywhere. Chris from Mobile BenzTech rocks up, opens special hole on top of engine and shoves a pipe down it that is connected to a cylinder that looks like the Hozelock pump sprayer and hooks that to a compressor in the van. Moments later the oil is being sucked out. No mess no fuss no drama. I was really impressed. If you’re not you ought to be.