Why call your company "Bumhat"?

I only ask as I found this link and, well, it's amazing.

So anyway, it's been a while since my last post. I'm really very bad at this. I apologise.

The last time I posted the main happening was that Remarc had been sold, and bought by our biggest competitor. Since then not an awful lot has happened as far as we can tell, but it's clearly all going on behind the scenes. Next week we've got a meeting where we're being told what's happening to us, so that's a bit worrying, but I'm not losing too much sleep as, well, whatever happens happens, and there's always a plan B. I'm trying not to think about what plan B may actually be though, but well, we'll see.

I've been off this week, using up the last of my 25-days annual leave, and have had the delightful job of decorating the kitchen. It's not fun, is it? I borrowed my dad's Dulux "Paint Pod" and it was a frankly disappointing experience. The advert for it on TV looks amazing. It's quick! It's easy! It cleans itself! Look at it! LOOK AT IT! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! WANT! WANT! WANTWANTWANT! Sadly the reality is a little different. Here's a rare consumer review...

Firstly it's quite a big beastie, although quite light. You need to buy special paint for it, which is a) more expensive than normal paint, b) really hard to find if you're looking for pure brilliant white emulsion in silk rather than matt - this took me a long, long trip to four different branches of B&Q to find - and comes in a swanky jar kind of pot with a screwtop lid, and c) is rather more watery than normal emulsion. Anyway, you stick the pot of paint into one side of the pod, push a long rigid tube into the paint through the top of the pod, and then switch it on. The advert doesn't tell you that it is noisy. It's seriously noisy. I was listening to a CD while I was using it (the new Green Day album, which is actually pretty brilliant, and noisy) and while the Pod was running I couldn't hear the music.

To begin you remove a small pot from inside the pod, and fill it with some paint pumped from the Pod. There's a small brush provided, and you use this to do your "cutting in", painting the edges and awkward bits. Once finished, you switch to the roller, and while you are using this - you pull a trigger on the handle and paint flows into the roller - you are regularly splashed with small blobs of paint if you don't get it just right, but you begin to paint your walls and ceiling. Simple, except it's noisy when you're pumping the paint through, and by the time I'd finished the room I looked at the bits which were drying and realised it would need at least another coat, and that the bits I'd done when cutting in stood out like a sore thumb. So the next day I did it all again from scratch.

What about the self cleaning part? For this you remove your tub of paint, fill the space it had occupied with five litres of warm water, and press the "clean" button. Now walk away, close the door, and put some loud music on because it spends the next ten minutes buzzing and grumbling loudly as it runs through its cleaning cycle. Once finished you empty the five litres of now painty water into the sink, and maybe do the whole thing again as it won't be completely clean. Now you have to dismantle the roller, clean its parts manually, then clean this little "O" shaped plastic ring inside the machine... It's a bit of a faff. Top tip: Buy a five litre tin of emulsion and a brush or a roller, and do it the old way. It works a treat, and you can hear your CDs.

Talking of loud music, we went to see Muse this week in Sheffield and Liverpool. They were as excellent as usual, if not as amazing as they had been at Wembley Stadium. Tomorrow we're off to see the ever-wonderful Morrissey, which should be brilliant.

As for my declining health it seems fairly stable at the moment, my seven tablets a day keeping me ticking along nicely. Thank heavens for prescription medication.

With regard to writing, I started writing "Dive" a few weeks ago and it's more of an exercise in style than anything but is quite pleasing. As usual I started it, wrote a big chunk in one go, and then left it mid-sentence and haven't looked at it for ages. "Can't Remember?" is also on my mind as well, and I'd like to get this finished before "Dive", if only because I started it on (looks) 11th March 2008 on a train to Leeds, so it's about time I finished it. Mind you, I started "Cover Girl" in 1990 and that's still incomplete.

I'll be back one day.