Updateness

• This house is very twitchy. The power supply blips very slightly every couple of minutes, which produces a blip in the lighting that makes me unsure if maybe I just did a particularly substantial blink. Also, little bits of the house rattle and vibrate. I don't know if it's the tubes, the trains (we are near the East Coast main line, after all) the traffic outside, something infirm in the building itself or some combination of all of them, but every few minutes something will rattle very quickly for half a second, then something else will a second later, and then you feel a lower frequency rumble for a moment, and then there's another micro-quiver in a completely different place - and then it might go quiet for a while again, but I always have the impression that it knows it's only waiting for the next little twitch. It seems happy with its twitchiness, though, it's not uncomfortable, just awake. I quite like it, although the lights are a bit disconcerting.
• Brighton is still a very nice place, especially when seen from the outside of a pint of Dark Star Hophead. The snow was also ace, happening at a much more scenic time of the day than in London. Walking to the pub for a roast through falling snow! Snowmen on the beach!
  
• I made it from Darlington to a pub within shouting distance of Brighton Beach in four and three quarter hours on Friday night. It felt very slightly like the future to be able to do that, and by train.
• Jake and Naz offering us whisky when we got back to the house at about 1am, when I'd had to prop a trollied Chris up all the way home already, seemed like a bad idea but not bad enough to be resisted, which was a *really* bad idea.
  
• I need a new rucksack, a medium sized one. My usual daypack thing is getting rather battered, and while it's surprisingly capacious for putting shapeless things in, and very comfy to wear while cycling and when full of heavy things, I can't put my current laptop in it at all and it's generally useless for anything with a strong shape. Except for its baguette elastic on the side, mind. So if I want to take my laptop anywhere I use this shoulder bag I got for nowt, which is a good shape and size and has many handy pockets but which is actually nasty to carry when it's heavy, i.e. if it's got a laptop in it, and anyway its strap's now broken. It's not often I feel like I should spend money on some specific piece of equipment like this, I should sort it out while I do.
  
• Urgh, sorting things out. There is a big list of things to do with my house in Brighton that need sorting out, like the belt on the washing machine keeping falling off and the boiler being unable, again, to produce hot water. Also I need to talk to the managing agents which makes me wince on principle; they charge me lots of money to send me officious letters about how bikes in the hallway are a breach of the terms of my lease, and to put an advert for themselves by my front door. But you never know, I might be able to get them to do something useful.
  
• Yes, I am talking in bullet points again. I have been writing a presentation which has been put off til next week again because this is my boss, innit. But since the other lab has had the huge machine crate in it emptied, the possibility has once again opened up that I might be able to do some actual academic work. Realising this about four o'clock has made the rest of the day very much more cheerful, even though I'm pseudo-ill again.
  
• I think I'll stop there for now.

Boring House Prices Post

Sorry, but this occurred to me while commenting somewhere else and it amuses me. I was trying to think of things that would reduce the value of my house sufficiently (while not being covered by buildings insurance) to put me in negative equity. Having it drop-kicked into the English Channel by aliens? A giant stone tablet that reads 'I H8 Atheists' falling out of the sky and squashing it? And the thing is, I can't think of any situation where the selling value of the story wouldn't offset the loss.

Seriously though, where do you get proper financial advice? Do you have to pay an independent financial adviser? Or if their pay comes from commission from the products they sell you, don't they object if you don't buy anything? I am going to have to extend the lease on my flat at some point and I'll need a remortgage to afford it; it'd make sense to have someone take an overall look at my financial situation at the same time.