Torchwood Day Three, Diabetes Day Five and a Cool-er Reader

Another good episode of Torchwood yesterday, though not quite as hot and on-the-edge as the first episode, I think. It’s also strange how Jack and Ianto seem to blow hot and cold, and there’s very little consistency in it. In Episode One they appeared to be a normal couple (well, relatively normal, bearing in mind Jack isn’t entirely human …), yet in Episode Two when Jack dies several times and is then rescued by Gwen & Ianto from his cement prison by the means of dropping the whole lot into a quarry so he dies and lives again, neither man appears to be that pleased to see each other. Bizarre really. Perhaps they have evil twins who occasionally take over and that’s another Torchwood secret yet to be revealed? And, while I’m on the subject, Lord H is rather puzzled as to where the Government managed to get hold of such quick drying cement and why can’t they let any of the rest of us have it … The plot thickens indeed, Carruthers, much like the cement.

Still, I’m looking forward to Episode Three which I plan to watch on the i-player tomorrow as I’m out with Jane H for pizza and chat in Godalming tonight, hurrah! (Hello, Jane).

In the meantime, the Diabetes charity auction continues and Maloney’s Law is still up for grabs. It’s a wonderful chance to support a very worthwhile cause and there are only five days left to do so … Says she, sounding only ever so slightly desperate that she’s one of the two authors who’ve received no bids yet. My reputation goes before me, I fear.

At work, we’ve had a briefing meeting for the upcoming open day next week – though I won’t actually be involved in that one, it’s always worth knowing what the plans are, especially as I’ll be organising our office team for a couple of them coming up later in the year. The excitement of the day though was when one of the Students’ Union staff came in and wanted to stamp a letter with a “Received on …” date stamp. However, without the Dean of Students’ office here today, nobody knew how to change the date stamp, and it took four of us and a lot of wasted ink to work our way to that conclusion. In the end, we just used a pen. Ah the old ways are sometimes the best, you know. New-fangled date stamps – bah, we say, bah!

And, horrifyingly, it’s that time of year for our annual review – yikes! I don’t think I’m even halfway towards completing last year’s goals yet. Best get a move on then … Oh and this week’s heroes are the Monty Python team, Ram from Student Advice, Lauren from Mentoring, and Brother Lawrence. Just because they are, really.

Still no news on the car front though – I was hoping to get it back today, but it’s all gone very quiet. Perhaps poor Rupert is beyond all hope now? Sob. Mind you, I might finally get round to looking at a new (well, second-hand new …) car at the weekend, so maybe this is a push in the right direction? Trouble is, all the cars we’ve looked at appear to be silver or black, and I was hoping for a colour this time round. Has the car industry run out of spray paint? UPDATE – sadly the car is worse off than we feared and the aircon, clutch and fanbelt are all very very unhappy. The garage man’s going to ring me again tomorrow with an ultimate price update – deep deep sigh, combined with sobbing …

I’ve now finished reading Chris Cleave’s novel, The Other Hand, which I hope to review for Vulpes Libris later. Hmm and hmm is all I can say, and editors aren’t really what they used to be … Mind you, the great news is that my new Cool-er Reader (in the picture, mine's the violet one) has arrived and I'm now charging it up ready to upload my first eBooks for reading away from my computer, hurrah. I can't wait.

Today’s nice things:

1. Torchwood
2. Charity auction
3. Date stamp fun
4. The week’s heroes
5. Thinking about a new car, maybe
6. The Cool-er Reader
7. Dinner with Jane.

Anne Brooke - bringing her reading into the 21st century at last