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Sunday evening has dawned yet again, and it is time for me to write some little snippet of information to provide some excuse for sending you all another elephant joke. When I say “dawned”, I mean it off course in a symbolic way. Dawns are not very prevalent in the UK in winter as the light outside simply oscillates between black and a dullish grey without any strident reds or yellows of any kind. And dawning in the evening is just plain silly. The weather forecast for the weekend was quite promising with loads of little sunshine symbols pasted all over the map of the British Isles. Of course this forecast was brought by the same people who placated the people of Britain a few years back by telling them that a Hurricane was not likely. Funny that they are still giving out weather advice. So you will not be surprised that there was loads of sunshine over the British Isles this weekend - pity it was all above the thick and drizzly cloud.

This weekend was an even more extended affair than usual, as I returned from Cardiff on Wednesday after loosing my patience with the boring environment and despondency of people around me knowing that their days were numbered after the u-turn the project has taken. After five weeks of people doing very little of value, the bubble had to burst and as I understand it from a phone call on Thursday - all but a small number have got their Christmas termination presents. I am unsure as to whether I will be continuing at SWALEC, it depends if the other areas of the company that I have been doing some work for want to retain my services. All will be revealed tomorrow I guess.

This weekend has been very frustrating in the land of the LAN. Now, you will know by now that P5-60 (the catchy little name for the oldest PC on the LAN, the one I brought over from South Africa) has the internal US Robotics Sportster (28.8 modem). Well you may also remember that I had a struggle about five months back when I tried to move the modem to Tomcat (the much more fun name for the P5-166 - the latest family pet - sorry, that should read family PC). There was a problem with IRQ’s and general frustration on my part. So this weekend amongst other purchases (I will come to these later), I bought an external 33.6 US Robotics Sportster Voice. The Voice part of the label simply reflecting on the fact that you can use it as a hands free phone, so if you can beep along you can “talk” to the internet without your PC I guess. You can also use if for voice mail, but the current R200 fax answer machine is still providing a better service than this new 179 pound black box with flashing lights which are not flashing at the moment.

The trouble is not actually with the modem to be fair. Being an external modem, it needs to be plugged in to the PC of course. Into a serial port. Well Tomcat has a Com1 and Com2 on the motherboard, so I did not expect any problem, and after doing all the right stuff in Control Panel, System I fully expected to be able to surf the net and teach Tomcat all about IP addresses and the delights of a well organised URL. “Unable to open port”. Bummer. OK, rip Tomcat open again (I hasten to remind animal lovers that Tomcat although being a family pet is not really a Tom Cat). The cables looked secure enough. “Unable to open port”. OK, lets swap the Modem to Com1 and put the mouse on Com2. Modem is now flashing away merrily - apologies to all those who were flashed by an over enthusiastic US Robotics 33.6 Sportser Voice on Friday night. But the mouse stayed rooted to the middle of the screen. Saturday I went out and bought a new Com port card (15 UK Pounds) finally coming to the painful conclusion that Tomcat had a duff mother - bored. Oh, sorry - duff motherboard.

Well the card was duly inserted into Tomcat. “Unable to open port” Bummer. So now I have a working Com1, a resolutely closed Com2 and a resolutely closed Com3. The IRQ’s are all correct and Win95 is not showing any conflicts. If anyone has any bright ideas, then please let me know because at the moment the 33.6 Sportster Voice is just about as much use as Wimpette (the fourth member of the PC family - a very useless 386 which is languishing in Cardiff. Wimp - the other PC is now very much happier after I replaced his Soundblaster and CD-Rom drive. They were stolen from him last weekend and given to P5-60 who’s Blaster had expired in a deep whining and who’s CD-Rom was also not cutting much mustard. The new 8x CD-Rom is actually in Tomcat and his 4x is now in Wimp. Are you all keeping up with this. I almost got Wimp a new Triton HX motherboard and extremely cheap P133 chip, but the motherboards were held up at the airport so maybe next weekend. Although then I will have to rename Wimp, and Wimp will have to join the original Wimp (a 386-25) who is perched up on the top shelf along with all the other bits and pieces - surveying the influx of technology with much envy.

The other bit and pieces which I bought this weekend included a full sized MIDI keyboard with all sorts of knobs and dials. Maggie and I gave it a good testing at PC world on Thursday, Maggie providing a slightly uncertain rendition of “The Entertainer” which I recorded and set playing in a loop while we walked away from the Packard Bell and browsed the books at the far side of the shop to the strains of the same mistakes over and over again. As to where exactly we are going to fit this latest peripheral I am not sure. It is currently in the top room gaily wrapped in Christmas paper.

Other Christmas presents for which we haven’t got nearly enough room include a snooker table which I bought on Friday and which should be delivered next Friday, about the same time as the largish dining room table and sideboard. Oops.

The curtains are finally up after more struggling with technology and translated Chinese instructions - in this case for the curtain rails. Sadly we did not go for the remote controlled curtains, just a more labour intensive model. The first one was a bugger to put up, but the other two were a breeze after I had gone through the trauma of deciphering what exactly “clip into place” meant as there was plainly no way that the two pieces in question were ever going to just “clip” together. Now the lounge looks pretty weird with curtains for the first time (we have almost been here a year now) - and also looks disquietingly smaller - a problem for the snooker table then. The fire place looks like it is going to be an “After Christmas” addition as “Naked Flame” have still not come back with their ridiculous quotation yet, and “Fireplace City” (or some other weird name) didn’t even bother turning up to quote.

The kiddies are all doing pretty well. Nicky has been graded with her flute and is now in Grade 4 - playing with a class two years ahead of her. Tarryn’s violin is also going well and they both have a Christmas repitoir (spell checker has given up on this one) of piano pieces which make one want to go and crunch through the snow outside with yonder peasant.

They helped out at a car boot sale in aid of Blue Peter today and made 86 pounds by selling pieces of junk at 50p a time including some of our junk which was cleared out to make room for the snooker table. They are also organising a repeat performance of their carol singing which they did last year for the Salvation Army night shelter in Winchester. This time they are planning an orchestral accompaniment so there could be many a resident crunching through the snow with me and yonder peasant.

Maggie has been busy with the curtains and last minute construction of some Christmas presents - clickity click. She has also been supervising the transformation of the lounge into a suitable resting place for the man in red and his raindeer (not a very festive spell checker if it doesn’t recognise raindeer). The trusty plastic Christmas tree is out of it’s box again and has been adorned with various red balls and lights. The Christmas cards are lining the wall and various Christmas scenes block out the dim gloom from outside. There is also a tasteful Christmas wreath on the front door.

What other news. Oh yes. After years of grief and expense from the BMW, I have finally gave it the boot and sold it for 6000 pounds. Good riddance I say. The guy I sold it to (buying it for his company) didn’t suspect the dodgy head gasket or the “brake light circuit” warning which although seems to have gone into hibernation since the last control module replacement is still a not too fond memory. So car-less, we went in search for a new company car. After considering various options (Porsche was on the top of the impractical desires list) we finally made our choice and plumbed for a great looking Calypso red BMW 535I. The guy I bought it from assured me it was in perfect condition - and that it had definitely not suffered an expensive head gasket replacement or anything like that. The price was pretty reasonable too - 6000 pounds. So now we no longer own the car but do have the full use of the newly acquired company car. All of this tax shenanigans took place at 8:00 this morning while we were still tucked up warmly in bed.

OK, enough of a boring introduction - here is the main event - the star of the show - the elephants…

Q: Why do elephants need trunks?

A: Most beaches won't let them in without them.

and an encore…

Q: Why don't elephants wear bikinis?

A: They already have trunks.

Have a good week all…