Via Gerv, Maladies of the Information Age. It’s funny ‘cos it’s worryingly true – but I’m getting better now.

There’s more of that sort of thing in the Slowpoke archive.

I forgot to mention what I did last Friday: a trip to SPICe, the Scottish Parliament Information Centre – the Parliament’s library, although it has very little in the way of physical collections, focussing very modernly on electronic sources. It also provides research briefings for MSPs and their staff. It’s an interesting organisation: it can’t be that often that a new library is started completely from scratch, but this was their task for the formation of the Parliament in 1999.

As well as a trip to the SPICe office and the Donald Dewar Room, which contains books from his collection, we had a tour of the building. I’d been once before but had time on Friday to see a greater amount and learn more about the building. We also crossed paths with former Scottish Tory leader David McLetchie who was showing a few people the chamber at the same time as we passed through.

Saturday 10th:
Went to see the musical Avenue Q in London. It officially opens next week but has been in preview since the beginning of the month. It’s Sesame Street for twentysomethings, with a hint of Team America. It’s a funny show with catchy songs, although it’s interesting to ponder how much of the humour comes from having puppets on stage as protagonists rather than coming from the script. The whole cast was great and really brought the muppety characters to life. Definitely worth a visit.

Thursday 15th:
To Liverpool for work (it feels odd using the term “business meeting” as we’re not really a business, but that’s what it was). Took the opportunity to visit the pub – specifically, the Wetherspoon’s across from Lime Street station. The pub is named after the founder of the department store, Blacklers, that used to on the site until its closure nearly twenty years ago. The co-founder was Richard John Blackler, the son of my great-great-grandfather, also Richard John Blackler.

Sadly, there wasn’t any information about the family on the walls amongst the illustrations of Liverpudlian history. According to a very helpful barman, the last time the pub was refurbished some of the furnishings were thrown out, and this included the display explaining the history of the building. In the corner of the pub, though, sits Blackie, the Blacklers Stores rocking horse. And, yes, I am therefore twice as Scouse as I am Welsh.

Saturday 17th:
On Saturday, I went down to Durham (hence the photo from the A1) for a lovely civil partnership ceremony, and then on to an excellent reception where I caught up with loads of fanboy mates (bloggers Paul, Jim and Jules amongst them), wittered on about the new series, and danced to ELO.

Sunday 18th:
Watched Doctor Who. I now have my Out of the Blue/Discovery/Time box set on hand and am resisting the temptation to put Mr Blue Sky on repeat.

I’m experimenting with Opera Mini (link to follow via PC) on my mobile phone. It’s much better for browsing than the installed browser, with an improved display and proper handling of cookies. This means I’ve been able to update my CNPS stats on the move – having got four plates today after another slow week – and now I’m trying WordPress.

Alas, there seems to be a limit to the number of characte