One night, a few years ago (on a train to London), I met someone very special. And, today, on a train from Manchester, I met that person again. Yes, I met Maximilian the wonder dog for the second time. He's fallen on hard times recently; his owner died a while back so now he commutes between Durham and Berlin (he still has a house in Berlin). Apparently he closes his eyes on take-off from Newcastle whenever he returns home. Such is the life of a wonder dog. It would have all seemed quite bizarre if I'd not been in the company of that particularly nice lady, Ms Stella Artois.

Went to see Richard Dawkins tonight. Have to admit that I'm very pleased with myself; only fell asleep once!

It must be inspiration from my recent rediscovery of Forbidden Planet, but I've a cool idea for an improvement to the web page. The Lost in Space robot is a much nicer looking thing, though, so I'm now giving this thought.

I may think for some time. Perfection's not easy, you know.

After an absence of over a year and a half, my Forbidden Planet disc turned up today. Now that's a quality film, 'monsters from the id' and all.

I'm typing this from my sick bed, where I've been most of the day. I can't find my illness, which has worsened since last night, on the NHS Direct site. It simply wasn't possible to identify just one area of me that's affected. To complicate the issue further, it's impossible to read a laptop screen while lying down.

I'm debating upgrading to a death bed.

I'd been sniffly most of today, and had put it down to the amount of time I've been spending with the rabbit lately, but then the pain in my head started ... and my sore throat ... and my nose ... well, I probably shouldn't mention my nose. So, then I thought I might have a cold. But it's a lot more serious than that. Yes.

My local now has an Eels album on the jukebox ... Beautiful Freak ... what could be better?

Mental note ... rabbits don't appear to be able to digest chocolate.

After returning (soaked) with man-shopping this afternoon, I went into the living room to say hi to bird and rabbit. Bird was sitting, looking out the window, watching buses and old ladies go past. He ignored me. Rabbit was sitting on the rug, looking almost nice.

I'm sure that bird will want dialogue later. And that the rabbit will pee on the rug.

Today was originally dedicated to Tesco. But, instead, I had lunch with two very nice people.

But then encountered a vehicle of memories.