Here’s a groovy idea, linked by Alex Singleton, who popped up out of nowhere last night and pointed at his site, which in turn points us towards: Tax Freedom Day.

It’s a simple idea: instead of working out how much of each wageslip you pay to the government each month, imagine you paid it all – 100% of every pay packet – from January 1st until you’d met your tax burden for the year. After that, you can keep 100% of all your pay for the rest of the year without paying any tax on it at all.

The day when you’d stop paying all of your money to the government and start being allowed to keep it is what the Institute calls Tax Freedom Day, and by tracking how early or how late in the year it falls, you can keep an eye on how well off you are – tax wise – under successive governments.

At the moment, Tax Freedom Day for the average employee is 30th May (151 days into the year). In the early 60s it was in late April. In 1982, it was 15 June.

More here.

Dad’s here. I picked him up from amid the delayed crowds at Liverpool Street and we squeezed ourselves onto a packed train. With hot and bothered commuters squeezed into every crevice, we crept through the suburbs as though afraid to wake the driver.

After that we didn’t much feel like going out, so gave into the charms of the BBC until this morning when an electrician arrived to fill holes in the ceiling with lightbulbs. Our cue to leave.

We headed north in search of steam trains. We didn’t find them. Well, actually, we found some, but not the ones we wanted. Something to do with getting lost, I think. Anyway, we did a quick about turn and span on to Castle Headingham (closed on a Saturday). In fact, pretty much the whole town was closed. The pub we ate in shut as soon as we’d finished, at which point there was ‘no more food in the village’, according to the guy behind the bar.

The tight knot of streets around the empty church were deserted. There was one couple in the tea room, and a woman in the tat-shop telling her only customer how she lived in a house built in the 12th century. She looked like she was probably the original occupant.

It was pretty, though, and out of the shade it was warm enough not to need a coat.

I guess if we’d stayed longer it would have quickly cooled down, but we were gone by half three and home by four.

Tonight, another strange trip to Cineworld in Braintree. Every time we go, we book tickets, and make sure we get there nice and early because you don’t get an allocated seat, and every time we arrive we find the place empty. Five people there the last time, when we went to watch The Village.

Six people this time, the three of us included. And then only four as the two girls in front of us walked out after the first ten minutes.

It was a great film, though: Saved. A thing about fundamental Christians, a girl who tries to save her gay boyfriend from hell by sacrificing her virginity for him, a disabled Macauley Culkin… Hmmm… it doesn’t sound so good when you write it down, does it. It’s had good reviews, though, and rightly so. I just don’t think it’ll do so well in the cinema.

About six months ago, London Transport stopped saying the tubes were running to time, and instead said they were running a ‘good service’. These two words cover a wide gamut of running conditions from perfect to… well, tonight’s debacle.

Over an hour to travel five stops. And even then it was only because I gave up on the Central Line and did a bit of Crystal Mazeing and ran the gauntlet of the Northern, Victoria and Metropolitan Lines in an effort to get to Liverpool Street.

That, complete with crowded, sweaty carriages, was considered ‘good service’. No doubt that’s how they’d describe the delays on the overground trains, too. In all it took almost three hours to travel the 30 miles from my desk to my front door. I could have cycled it in that time.

Except it was pissing down with rain, so I suppose the delays weren’t such a bad compensation.

I also bumped into Steve’s Challenge and the Midnight Weatherman, similarly furious from the delays. It had taken them about the same amount of time to get from the far west, so we sat on a train full of half-term children and bitched. In the end a fat Essex mother gathered together her offspring and herded them off the train.

Coincidence? Hmmm…

Last night was much more fun: dinner with Kathryn, Emilie and Mark, and Mark telling us all about his bizarre Sunday night in St Petersburg. The whole city – apparently – goes gay on a Sunday. Kind of like a weekly pride march. He and his friends decided that they ought to combine this with a trip to the local midget bar for maximum strangeness.

After hours of searching, they found it – eventually – only to be disappointed: there are no gay midgets in St Petersburg. At all. So instead they were having a tall peoples’ themed night.

Hmmm… OK. Maybe more amusing if you were actually there.

At least I got next week’s travel sorted out. Out on the roads, mopping up places we should really have seen, but never really paid much attention to.

So, Monday it’s Stratford upon Avon. Tuesday, Warwick and then Nottingham. Wednesday, York. Thursday, Manchester. Friday, Birmingham. Saturday, head back home.

I’m not even going to guess how many miles that is.

One window, one wall, one projector. One massive free MacUser advert.

After a day working on various words, up to London for Will’s “This is not a stag do”. Of course it was a stag do – kind of – as it’s inextricably linked to getting married, but without the obligatory tying him to a lamp-post and smearing him in honey, I guess at the same time it wasn’t.

And so we went to Jerusalem on Rathbone Place; so close to the office it was like going in to work for a shift.

London is so different at the weekend to the way it is during the week. It’s full of people who look very out of place; girls on platforms taller than Piper Alpha and Slip Knot t-shirts, late-teen guys risking neck-strain under the weight of gel in their hair, tourists looking lost having just got off the boat-train from Harwich.

Anyhow, Jerusalem. Comfortably full, and uncomfortably loud, so we ended up screaming at each other all night (in the nicest possible way, of course). The whole place is so warm and so red it’s like spending the night inside a smoky womb. At the bottom of the stairs leading to the mens loos there is a machine selling sex toys. Very strange.

It was a very good night. Loads of people there I’d not seen in ages. Ben, for the first time since Mark’s second leaving do. Guy – second time in a week after not seeing each other for about three years. Oh, and Rupert who I pointed at and said ‘who are you?’ I couldn’t remember who he was at all – even when he said about having sat in the same studio as me for so many hours.

To be honest at that point I couldn’t work out whether we’d been doing TV or radio together and so made a complete fool of myself by insisting that we’d never met.

Hmmm…

Anyway, he did move to Italy to write his novel and I’d assumed he wasn’t coming back, which was a semi-acceptable excuse.

Turns out it was a good move, though, as the first draft of the book is finished and we spent the next hour and a half comparing notes and methods and discovering we both have the same problems with the same bits of our stories.

I dropped him a card as he left so we could stay in touch. Now that he’s back in London, it would be good to have a writing partner.

Excuse me if I look a bit green this morning. Last night was the PC Pro Awards so my head is bleating gently. Add to that not much sleep and you can see why I don’t feel like doing much writing this morning.

So, I dug out the tux, bought a new pair of black shoes for the first time in about the last ten years and tarted up with the rest for a posh drive to the Park Land Hotel – the same place we had our awards last year. And will again next month.

It’s a very nice place – kind of like the dining room on the Titanic, at the bottom of a wide twisting staircase. Once inside there must have been about 500 seats set out around tables, but even then there was a mix-up and I ended up being turfed off my table when the paying guests had brought along one person too many.

In all honesty, though, it turned out to be for the best. I was relegated to the back of the room, where I ended up sitting with Gordon and Mark and, in spite of not having a good view of the stage, had a great time. Gordon brought along his book, which by yesterday morning had reached number 38 in the Amazon top sellers list, putting him ahead of Delia Smith and Jamie Oliver. Very impressive. The Amazon review I wrote still hasn’t shown up, though – in spite of posting it well over a week ago. Do they really vet them all?

Not that I’m jealous or anything.

I bumped into so many people I’ve not seen since leaving PCW it was like a reunion, and there were even more who I spotted going up on stage to collect their awards who I’d wanted to catch up with, but didn’t manage because there were just so many of them there. Lots of people asking me what I ‘really think’ about PCW since leaving it, too, which was strange. I never did work out what they were really getting at.

Everyone seemed remarkably well behaved, in spite of the liberally-flowing alcohol and the heat in there. I think it must have been the candles, but it was absolutely baking by the end of dinner.

But then if you will go smoking them…

Travel has been miserable these last few days. Rain and delays, basically, since the start of the week.

Last night I let Chris of the Brennan talk me into getting on to the Central Line early enough for it to still be rammed.

The platforms were packed and the next trains weren’t for another four, 11 and 18 minutes. Clearly something very wrong was going on, although as usual there was no explanation.

So, by the time we got to Chancery Lane we were packed in like the proverbial small tinned fish in oil when it all came to a grinding halt. We must have sat there on the platform for five minutes if not ten, everyone still gripping onto the overhead rails in case they should lose their hanging spots. Everyone getting hotter and stickier. Everyone getting more and more annoyed.

And then along came the Nolan Sisters.

I’m in the mood for dancing, romancing
Whoo, giving it all, tonight
I’m in the mood for chancing, I feel like dancing
Whoo, so come on and hold me tight

Not the real Nolan Sisters, of course – just a man on the platform with a very VERY loud stereo and a copy of I’m in the Mood for Dancing that filled the station and echoed up and down the platform.

Only Chris and I sung along, and only Chris knew all the words, which didn’t immediately impress everyone else at our end of the carriage.

I think the irony of being in the mood for dancing in a space where you could barely even breathe was lost on them.

I’m hooked on this 1920s cookery book now. I’ve got to page 176: Vegetarian dishes. My favourite all-time vegetarian dish has to be Susprise Potatoes. What a fantastic surprise.

We had Mike and Ursula and little baby Jacob around for lunch today, but didn’t surprise them with anything so inappropriate. I’m getting the hang of this new kitchen now. I don’t wrangle with the back-right gas ring as it refuses to work for me (but is only too happy to spring to life for anyone else) and while solid things cook quicker than you’d expect in the oven, anything with a liquid centre (like today’s quiche) takes forever.

It also cools to sub-arctic temperatures the moment you turn it off, so you can’t drop a fruit pie in there to warm through in the residual heat while you’re eating your main course.

Jacob, it turns out, is two weeks off being one year old, and is twice the size he was when we last saw him (when he was about two weeks off having just been born). Back then, he spent all but about two minutes asleep, but was far more sociable, and unbelievably well behaved for something so full of energy this time around.

Ursula and I compared book writing progress and I’m glad to hear she has progressed no further on hers in precisely the same amount of time that I’ve progressed no further on mine.

I’m not sure that’s a good thing, but at least it makes me feel better about it.

Gordon’s book is out and it’s selling very well. It was 127th best-selling book on the whole of Amazon a couple of days ago. It’s hovering around the 300ish point which, when you consider how many thousands of books Amazon sells is pretty good.

To put it in context, the latest Harry Potter is only the 700th best-selling book. Amazon is already showing Gordon’s as running very low in stock, while there are loads of the Harry Potters on the shelves. One listing says it’s got ‘limited availability’ and the other says the delivery time is 3 to 5 weeks. That probably explains why the sales rank has dropped by a couple of hundred.

I’m not surprised it’s selling out, though. I got a review copy from the publisher and it’s fab. As soon as it came into the office everyone pounced on it, and it’s already gone off around the rest of the floor for everyone else to look at.

I’ve forbidden them all from turning over the corners.

Gordon was thinking about this book when we were presenting The Lab together, and although he hadn’t pitched it back then, he certainly outlined the idea to me, so I’m going to use him as a shameless namedrop hook, and point everyone in the direction of www.digitalretro.co.uk

Pete, who may or may not contain peanuts (nobody’s quite sure) commented thus on the last but one entry:

‘The recipe for brain sauce (page 196) please. I’m sure it would be thoroughly delectable.’

Sadly, it’s rather predictable. It comes just before Brandy Sauce and Bread Sauce, both of which I’d far rather eat, and is made like this:

Wash the brain in salt water, and skin. Tie in muslin, place in cold water, and boil for 10 minutes. Chop finely and add to 1/2 pint of parsley sauce (see page 194).

The more of this ghoulish ‘Radiation Cookery Book’ I read, the more it starts to feel like one of those old choose your own adventure games (turn to page 13 if you want to open the treasure chest, page 42 if you want to go through the door or page 22 if you want to shred a sheep’s brain).

So, for Pete’s benefit, to save him a sleepless night over the mystery that is parsley sauce, think of that nasty muck you get with boil-in-a-bag fish. Or, as page 194 puts it, it’s white sauce with two teaspoons of chopped parsley plus salt and pepper to taste.

This whole book is just so fantastically outdated and has loads of stuff about using up old food in it:

Cut some stale bread into thick slices and place them on a baking tray. Cook in the oven for 20 minutes (regulo setting mark 6). The time will vary slightly according to the staleness of the bread.

That makes rusks.

There’s lots of talk about dripping, too, and an implicit assumption that you’ve got loads of the stuff just hanging around your kitchen. The recipe for Large Spanish Onions only specifies ’5 or 6 onions (large)’ in the ingredients list, but the method is far more involved:

Place in a greased tin. Spread dripping over and cover with greased paper and place on a baking tray.

I don’t have a clue what’s so Spanish about that.

Unless it’s dripping from a matador.

Come to that, I don’t know how you’d cook it. The instructions tail off enigmatically after you’ve put them on a baking tray.

Two bizarre ones to close on (there is 310 pages of this madness), the recipes for ‘potatoes’ and for ‘peas’.

Potatoes

Ingredients: 2lbs of potatoes
Method: If old, these should be cut up and baked in a tin with chickens. If the potatoes are new, place them in a paper bag with a lump of butter and salt, and put in a casserole half filled with water. Cover with a lid.

Peas

Ingredients: 3lbs peas, salt, sugar, butter
Method: Melt some butter in a casserole [dish]. Pour boiling water over the peas just before they are required. Drain the water from the peas, leaving them damp, and place them in the casserole [dish] with the butter. Add salt and sugar. Cover with a lid, shake well and place in the oven.

Notice how there is 50% more peas than potatoes there. That’s a lot of peas (and sugar). I’m almost tempted to try some of these (sans dripping or sheeps’ heads) for a themed dinner party…