I was convinced I had my address book quadruple-mirrored (Thunderbird, Palm, Gmail and ScheduleWorld) secured on resilient disk storage using RAID-5 with offsite backups. However, when I came to start writing my Christmas cards, this assumption proved be to false. I think something must have gone awry during my disaster recovery testing in the summer. Anyway, if you can remember aunties name, street name and town, you can obtain the correct postcode from the Royal Mail. ...

…has been cancelled due to lack of interest and sporting personalities. Even UK students couldn’t be bothered to mount their annual, oh so amusing, campaign for Beth Tweddle.

Penny Coates is an overpaid idiot who thinks East Midlands Airport should be renamed ‘East Midlands Airport - Nottingham, Leicester, Derby.’ Personally, I think ‘Brian Clough Airport’ would be better because Cloughie is primarily associated with Nottingham, had links with Derby and also occasionally enjoyed a curry and a few pints in Leicester. Also, the proposed name will mean that most people will miss their flights. By the time you’ve told the taxi driver your destination, the plane will be on the runway. ...

I suspect the following notice in not uncommon in toilets throughout the world. Please show consideration for others and leave this toilet in a state you would expect/hope/pray to find it. However, this closing line is quintessentially British A toilet brush is provided, should it prove necessary.

I find it weird that I can carry around 4GB of disk storage in my pocket. I find it staggering that I can buy a disk drive with a credit card that could comfortably store 95% of all the production Siebel OLTP databases I have encountered.

Tighten security for all parties by addressing this issue: ‘The Password must contain only ASCII alphanumeric characters.’ The ‘Quick Links to the Latest Patchsets’ is a great idea spoilt only by the absurd complexity in navigating the resulting pull-down. If you possess the hand/eye co-ordination and reflexes to successfully navigate to the correct platform and the desired version first time, you could probably make a fortune playing those impossible ‘Win a cuddly lion with this crane like mechanism’ kiosks at the fun fair. ...

I bought my children an advent calendar each to initiate the Christmas celebrations (and shut them up). As soon as my son got home from the supermarket, he eagerly ripped open the little door panel for 1 December and wolfed down the chocolate. As it was already the 3rd of December, I gently enquired whether I might be allowed to sample the delicious chocolate for the 2nd December. He agreed because he truly loves his father - ‘Yes. Go on then although they do taste a bit funny’. ...

Absolutely nobody writes in to ask: ‘Norman - what fabulous, chart topping, pop-tastic long playing records are on your Christmas list this Yuletide ?’ Snow Patrol - Eyes Open Pleasant enough. Why change a winning formula ? (see also R.E.M). Minor obsession with open and shut (Eyes Open, Open Your Eyes, Hands Open, Shut Your Eyes) and a nice contribution from Kate Bush Martha Wainwright on ‘Set The Fire To The Third Bar’. ...

Who will be next to bolster United’s strikeforce - Pele ? I really hope Ferguson recalls Rossi from his productive loan period spent sitting on the Newcastle bench.

Good evening. My name is ‘Google Bot’. It was a difficult (N-P complete) and very time consuming task to decide on the precise content for this article. After all, I have crawled 2.6 billion pages in the last seven days so I am a little tired. However, here is the pick of the blogosphere for November. Oracle release 10.2.0.3 patch set (currently available on Linux only). This release includes several fixes related to the cost based optimizer. Siebel 7.8 customers using Oracle 10g should note the following bug fixes: ...