Yes, today, I have officially become middle aged; I have reached that time in life where I have had to buy my second can of WD40. For some people, WD40 is a passing thing; mechanics get through tons of the stuff. For most of us, though, it's that essentially accessory that you can't do with out, but rarely need. Losing the straw can be a highly traumatic experience, which can leave you scared for minutes afterwards. Your first independent can is a rite of passage, a move to adulthood.

It's, perhaps, a sobering reflection that at the current rate of usage, I will own two more cans before I leave this mortal coil, or have no further use for the stuff.

Still, bike's running better, so mustn't grumble, eh?

Today, UNISON were on strike over changes to their pension rights. The comment above came from the BBC news website. It's an odd point of view; the private sector magically creates wealth, the public sector spends it. So, someone on tax exempt business lunches is creating wealth — at least if they are private sector. I, on the other hand, when researching new knowledge that enables biologists to do new things, am just a sponger, because I work in the public sector.

At least now I understand the PFI: while the NHS would previously have built hospitals using public sector workers, thereby consuming wealth, now they use private sector workers, thereby creating wealth; this is quite remarkable, given that they are doing the same work, paid from the same source, and achieving the same end. Whoever came up that idea must have been very clever indeed.

I don't like the bike lanes that I ride on every day to work; it has to be said that there are many worse ones around. The BBC News site had a great set of photos of these today. It's a pity; bikes lanes are normally put into to fulfil government targets, but not actually to be useful. A little more care would improve the network's usability enormously.

The image of a fat man in a sauna is a bit of stereotype. This never made a lot of sense to me. Surely, thin men are as likely to go to a sauna? Think I finally solved this conundrum today: fat men have a good layer of insulation around them; so, they will heat up more slowly than otherwise; which means that they will be in the sauna for longer. Which means that, at any one time, there will be an over-representation of fat men.

I thought, last night, that I had seen the clear winner for my weekly "Most Surreal Experience" competition. While sitting in the pub, looking out of the window, two blokes walked passed carrying between them a 6ft, blue, plastic swordfish.

However, today, this was defeated: the swordfish was robbed. During our strike action, we had the traditional rally, where people stand in front of a microphone and talk at other people who are feeling cold. For some strange, ill-conceived reason, someone came up with the idea of bring along entertainment in the form of a left-wing accordionist singing, among other things, a strange rendition of the "Teddy Bear's picnic". The middle part involved a Freudian analysis of his childhood, during which he swore and almost got arrested for a public order offence.

Strange. Very strange.

Been a bit strange, recently. I'm an occasionally emacs hacker. My last big package, pabbrev however was first released about three years ago, and hasn't had a new version out for at least a year.

In the last week or so, though, I've had a flurry of fixes for it, even added a new feature. More over, a new package called "predictive" which is similar but more powerful (good!), but more complex (bad!)o has been released. Added to the work done on muse mode which I use to publish this journal, I've been deeply embroiled in lisp.

I never understood this sort of synchronicity.