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Star Date
Jun 24, 2008

So the Star was born.

21st June 2008. 22.53.

A boy. Name tba - state your preference between Ilya and Ignat here.

6lbs 13 ozs or 3.08kg.

(14 replies, Latest reply: Jul 7, 2008)

Your journal
Jun 23, 2006

Somebody recently put the wind up you by suggesting that h2g2 might not have an infinite lifespan - striding down the milenia and being the last thing to be switched off when everyone has left the building sort of thing.

This was deeply disturbing.

You're not the most prolific or even pertinant of contributors to the guide or the community, but there are a number of things without which your life wouldn't be the same.

You enjoy the architecture of the site, but obviously what you'd miss most would be the people.

However, optimistically, people are keep-in-touchable with.

What would be actually irretrevably lost would be these journal entries. Which you started because you've been cross with yourself for being unable to keep a non self indulgent personal diary ('So how are you feeling today, Sol'), email has put paid to you frankly splendid letter writing skills and, crucially, because there it was on the page in front of you.

But the thing is, it's like photos. They're nice to keep and rifle through occassionally to remember what was happening at a particular time.

So what we are building up to here is that you've decided to move that part of your online life off hootoo.

So here you go:

http://solnushka.wordpress.com

(6 replies, Latest reply: Jun 27, 2006)

Formula One
May 10, 2006

Every time the beginning of the Formula One season rolls round, it triggers another bout of soul serching regarding why on earth you are, in fact, such a fan.

It's not like you have the slightest interest in, or knowledge about, cars.

You might be tempted to flirt with the idea that it might be the glamourous drivers and the handome lifestyles they lead. The problem with this is that it was years before you actually noticed the drivers or realised what the significance of living in Monaco is.

Plus, if your goal was to ogle Hot Male Bodies (a description of any sporting personality who earns more than 5 mil a second and does anything more strenuous than darts. Unless they are female) then Formula One is hardly suitable. You get approximately 5 minutes of the top three divers in all their jump suited glory and two and a half hours wtching the top of their metal encased head. It's hardly skimpy shorted football.

So it's not that. No, really.

For a while there you thought it might be the manifestation of your family's engineering gene, conspicuously absent in most other respects. After all, your favourite movie (before the advent of Master and Commander) is Appollo 13 - which is a movie about the triumph of engineers over adversity (in the form of Tom Hanks, among other things). To be honest, it's not about who the best driver is (appologies to M Schumacher for the heresy), it's about who built the best car.

In fact, it can't be denighed that you have, in the past, waxed lyrical regarding the superiority of a sport which does have a high degree of practical usefulness to, say, football. The point being, that building the best car you can and then test driving it madly against everyone elses' cars had a deeply satisfying smack of real life relevance which, I'm sorry, the skill of tapping a ball into a new _with you feet_ ( ) just lacks.

But it has recently been brought home to you that actually you have a thing about organisation. This will suprise anyone who knows you, but what you have to remember here is that organisation is not tidyness.

And if you want to be soothed by worship of the holy grail, then three hours of a sport whose main characteristics are: the ability to win the race to get a fiendishly complecated car built to a tight deadline, take it and what looks like an entire travelling circus around the world and set it all up only to strike camp a couple of days later and move on, drill a group of men so hard that they can strip and rebuild the car under pressure and whilst wearing a spacesuit in a few seconds, and, of course, have the best stratagies and tactics when supervising the race.

And on top of this, you also get to see the results: cars going monotonously and boringly and regularly and consistantly round the track lap after lap after lap after lap after lap after lap after lap after lap after lap after lap after lap after lap. After Lap. Just like they are supposed to.

Pure porn.

Still, none of this explains why Top Gear is pretty much your all time favourite TV show.

(23 replies, Latest reply: May 17, 2006)

Convalescence
Sep 27, 2005

After nearly two weeks, I have now reached the actual limpidly lying on couches making faint 'Tea?' noises and generally enjoying being ill stage, thank goodness. Or I would if I hadn't run out of books to read. Except I landed back in hospital this weekend as the wound started oozing. Luckily, when the doctors who are allowed to do stuff turned up on Monday, they decided it was good oozing and I was out within 5 minutes having had a large syringe stuck in my neck and lots of grubby liquid extracted. Still, I am now so awash in antibiotics that I can withstand a direct strike from anything antibiotics are designed to keep at bay, so go on I dare you to stand next to me with flu.

I was actually having a fun time trying to work out the hirachy of the hospital. Guessing the status of nurses before I looked at their badges and clocked their uniforms, and trying to work out who all the doctors are. Obviously the nice young lady who was looking after me over the weekend must be someone fairly junior: you can tell this mostly because she never seemed to leave the hospital and was the one stuck with me when A and E finally let me in at 1am.

The consultant (I've seen him twice: once as the anesthetic kicked in and once as they were kicking me out before) is obviously the top dog. Who are registrars then? I've got a registrar surgen who seems to be the mouth pice of the surgical separtment, and who keeps wanting to cut me open again (to drain the wound) which, I assume, proves he's definitely a surgeon. Then I've got this chap who I see in the clinic, who seems to be allowed to send me on to have tests and operations, and who got to overule the whole 'lets slice her up again' thing, but although he came and prodded at the neck this weekend it wasn't him who did the needle thing. I decided that might have been a hematoma expert (that being the reason for the swelling) and therefore outside the foodchain, but then he got to go and prod at the other ENT casualty on the waqrd as well.

Then there were a whole bunch of people I saw after surgery who moved in packs and were anoyingly breezy about everything and who kept getting overuled by the surgical people (from afar): I assumed these were the ent department doctors (rather than surgeons) but then they weren't the ones I've seen before or since.

Sorry, you can tell I've been bored, can't you? But it's very interesting. Still, it looks as though I'll be becoming intimately acquainted with most of the ent department over the rest of my life, as they've decided not to do radiotherapy to mop up any cells they missed when the surgery went a bit complicated, but to haul me in at regular intervals instead and prod a bit more until something happens. I might actually have to try and remember their names.

So that's that. Huge scar, which I'm assured will fade after a year or so. No feeling in the skin on the whole of the left hand side of the face, which I gather is normal at the moment. A large lump, which I'm told will (eventually) dissipate. I can chew again and the nerves of my face have apparently escaped radical harm, which the doctors are unanimous about seeming more relieved than they really should be about, which tells you just how hairy it was, I suppose.

I'll tell you what though, and that's I had no idea how trolleyed I would feel after this. Not sure whether this is a good thing or not, but there you go.

(6 replies, Latest reply: Sep 28, 2005)

Victory
Jul 11, 2005

Now I have to say that there have been times in your life when you would have been vying for the person least likely to be found standing under the balcony at Buck Palace cheering their Royal Majesties award. But there, this Sunday, you were, although luckily you can use the excuse that you were honnoring the WW2 veterans. As long as you don't mention the fact that you really only got there for the Royal progress and balcony visit.

And it was the oddest sensation. You read about/ see endless footage of people standing under the Royal Balcony feeling terribly proud and excieted and all that, and when you actually do it there actually _is_ this feeling of tradition and associated good will towards the tiny figures beaming down from above. It's absolutely horrifying. You must sit in a darkened room and purge your mind through rigourous fasting and meditation from the creeping sickness of patriotism and flag waving. Thank goddness you didn't have a flag. You would definitely have been waving it entusiastically.

They played 'Rule Britania' (You taught B the words. He rolled his eyes) and 'Land of hope...', although this might have had something to do with the concert they'd been having for the Veterans, so ok. But you weren't so far gone that you didn't find them playing dam busters as the planes flew over exquisitely funny.

Likewise that the women standing near us (in suitably WW2 stylee uniforms) came from an organisation called 'FANY'.

Anyway, after that a bit of wondering around allowed B his fill of medals. And at least you can say that the biggest cheer of the parade was definitely reserved for the veterans.

(No replies)