Ladies and gentlemen. Please be upstanding and don your ear protectors for this unique version of ‘God Save The Queen’.

I’m not sure I’m cut out for a career in pre-sales as I have an irritating tendency to blush and my left eye twitches horribly when I tell half-truths. However, on Sunday afternoon, in order to welcome my loved ones back from Holland, I donned a smart dark suit with a crisp white shirt and business-like grey tie. I then loitered around the lower level of Heathrow Terminal 1. I chose to invest the money I saved on the standard taxi fare in a very stylish (and not stupid looking) Bluetooth headset offering hands free operation. ...

‘Holy Father. It is almost 31 years since City’s last trophy. Since then, I have: Failed to install Oracle 10gR3 Grid Control to experiment with the Siebel Management Pack. Failed to configure bridged networking on my Siebel 8.0/Oracle 10g/RedHat VMware environment. Consequently, I have just deleted the complete 20GB environment in a fit of pique. Nearly exploded at the woeful response to a ticket with Bluehost asking why two functioning cron jobs were a) removed and b) failed to work when reinstated. Failed to resolve a trivial but incredibly annoying problem with AVG mail filter. To top it all, I don’t even know the difference between MB and Mbps. ‘My dear son. You are indeed a worthless sinner. May the Lord may mercy on your soul. To seek forgiveness and redemption, please say three Hail Marys, one Our Father and request a transfer to pre-sales.’

As part of the ongoing vinyl replacement program, I finally bought ‘Unknown Pleasures’, ‘Closer’ and ‘Still’ today. 25 years on - ‘New Dawn Fades’, ‘She’s Lost Control’ et al still sound absolutely fantastic.

What could possibly be better than a romantic city break in Amsterdam with your loved one in the glorious spring sunshine ? That would be lovely but, unfortunately, Norma has chosen to take her loved one, Norma- Jean to Holland to indulge in culture, canals, Anne Frank, trampolining, tulips and space-cake. Never mind. What could possibly be better than a lazy weekend dedicated to father-son bonding ? A chance to catch up in the beer garden on all the events of the week at work and school respectively. A chance to hire ‘Borat’ on DVD and laugh helplessly. ...