...to Bahrain. Should have gone two weeks back for AM's birthday, but what with the Stress Technetium test, then that cold, the trip got sidelined. Stayed at the Diplomat for a change rather than the Gulf, mainly because the former did me the courtesy of responding to my emails. This was not a cheap weekend, at least not by the time I'd bought a suit, a jacket and sundry other clothing items from M&S in Seef Mall. Enjoyable though, even saw a decent band for a while in the Fiddlers' Green called The Boxtones. Good musicians, even if they couldn't remember the words for 'Leaving on a jetplane - should they be reading, they could do worse than check out the bottom of this post.

All images from the trip.

Leaving on a jetplane - John Denver

All my bags are packed I'm ready to go
I'm standin' here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye
But the dawn is breakin' it's early morn
The taxi's waitin' he's blowin' his horn
Already I'm so lonesome I could die

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go

There's so many times I've let you down
So many times I've played around
I tell you now, they don't mean a thing
Every place I go, I'll think of you
Every song I sing, I'll sing for you
When I come back, I'll bring your wedding ring

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go

Now the time has come to leave you
One more time let me kiss you
Close your eyes I'll be on my way
Dream about the days to come
When I won't have to leave alone
About the times, I won't have to say

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go

Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go

...you really would like to bang some heads together. In one of my weaker moments, I agreed to become a moderator across at The Photo Forum. For the most part, it's simply a case of dealing with a bit of spam, moving a few misplaced threads, helping out with a comp here or there, and just keeping the place tidy. On others days, not sure whether it coincides with the full moon or what, but it's like a war zone; everybody wants a piece of somebody else. Today has been a bit of one of those days. There seems to be a belief on the part of some of our current belligerents that it's perfectly OK to talk to people as if they were something they stood in, or at very best evolved, Darwin like, from a toad, but probably only last week [Slight aside, do toads have opposable thumbs? They'd need them to hold a camera you see]. It baffles me that people slip out of the real world and write in a manner that would probably get them thumped by someone of a sensitive disposition if they said it to their face. Is there no civility in this world? I'm perfectly capable of constructing a very pointed phrase or two, and often do in daily business life, but I can't ever recall committing anything to print where I've described my co-respondent an idiot [mild I can assure you], a dungball or something rather worse. All this seems fair game when you're the safe side of a flat panel monitor. Still, the world continues to turn and I like to think that karma will take care of those who need it - karma in this case controls the big bad 'banning' button...

I get the urge to turn out some real crap with the camera. Case in point...

If you're watching (the stats say you are), you'll have to excuse my temporary absence in these parts. Since last Tuesday (not yesterday) I've had a bit of a pig of a cold. Nothing to actually stop me using the PC, but certainly enough to put me that way out and (more so than usual) rather non-communicative. I've variously coughed, sneezed, sweated & shivered over the course of the week, but still it's not entirely gone away. I cannot recall in recent times when I have been capable of producing so much top quality mucus from such a small selection of orifii, not only that but it was the colour of a legal pad. Now that in itself wouldn't be itself, but on a couple of occasions the subject matter was so voluminous that a careless blow resulted in my chest being slimed a la 'Ghostbusters'. If it wasn't so hilariously funny I'd have been quite disgusted with myself - but it was funny. I think things are improving as I said, so I'm hoping that the strange things in the neighbourhood have been restrained.

I have come across dialogue between Man City and AC Milan superstar Kaka. Unfortunately I only have the script from the City end but I think it is clear for all as to the total content:

"Hello, is that Kaka? How do you fancy becoming the supply line to Craig Bellamy and Darius Vassell this winter?

"No, your fellow countryman doesn’t like the cold and will be out until mid April - but you will play alongside Stephen Ireland"

"No, Kaka, Ireland is a person not a country"

"yes, I fully appreciate that he is not Ronaldinho, Pirlo or even Beckham but many fans have him in their fantasy football"

"I know you are currently the richest man in Italy but we can double it!"

"erm, well, we have had a bit of a slide recently and we are currently 15th"

"erm, out of 20...... but Mark Hughes once won the double for our neighbours"

"Hughes"

"Ex Blackburn boss"

"Blackburn, Blackburn Rovers"

"No, Blackburn......Black.....Burn"

"HUGHES man, HUGHES!!!"

"He once scored a good goal against Spain"

"No, thats Gerry Armstrong..... anyway, are you coming or not?"

"Usually about two thirds full but if we play a big team its really rocks"

"yes I know, but we dont even have a car park cos all the fans walk to the ground they are so local"

"Relevance? well, I suppose its all they have to brag about whether its true or not"

"Only the one to be fair but its called 'blue moon' you will love it"

"Blue"

"yes, definitely blue, always has been"

"No, no, no, they are in Trafford"

"yes they are, steeped in it in fact but what good is history to you my ambitious friend?"

"erm, 1976 I think"

"it was the er, the er League cup if memory serves me right"

"Well, the plan was to get in the top 4 this season and then....."

"yes, I realise that but....."

"Aston Villa? Whats it got to do with them?"

"Yes, I know but we have been down this history route already"

"How the heck does a Brazilian playing in Italy know about Nottingham Forest?"

"Yes, yes, and Leeds United also made a final but you are missing my point, this is all about the future"

"Give me strength......HUGHES!!!!"

"yes I know he did and he was a legend there but he is a changed man"

"forget them, they are falling apart"

"But all those trophies were won last year! They have won nothing in 2009"

"I have told you.... 1976!!!!"

"How the heck does a Brazilian playing in Italy know that Virginia Wade has won Wimbledon since then?"

"Yes she probably is in her 60's"

"I dont know, probably about 10 league titles, 2 european cups and countless domestic cups what has that got to do with it?"

"76,000 why?"

"yes, every game, even minor cups I suppose, but where is this getting us?"

"Yes, the league cup is considered a minor cup over here why?"

"I know, I know, I know, ok perhaps they won the FA Cup in 1970 or something does it really matter?"

"look, Kaka, we will treble whatever you are on now, buy you a mansion in Alderley Edge and give you a helicopter for your front lawn....are you joining us?"

"NO!, its owned by the council - what has the ground got to do with anything"

"well, officially its the city of manchester stadium but most people call it Eastlands"

"EAST!, not Waste"

"You will be adored there"

"No, not there, here I meant"

"No, thats Old Trafford, I meant adored here at Waste....erm, Eastlands"

"Anderson??? what does he know?"

"Ok I hear what you say, but other than Pride, Ambition, Achievement, History, Passion and a large car park - what can they offer you?"

"what do you mean no credit left in your phone.....I phoned you"

"Hello, Mr Kaka,...... Mr Kaka are you there?............................YOU RED B*ST*RD!!!!!"

I shall spare her blushes and not mention which birthday it is, but she seems very pleased with the Sony-Ericsson G700 she found in her present this morning. Since then, an 8Mb M2 card has been added to it so she should be able to take a fair selection of music with her to work, assuming of course she remembers to put the earphones in her bag.

We're off out to DUO in town very shortly, apparently it serves a menu comprising a mix of French and Italian dishes. From what we've heard so far, it's supposed to be a very nice restaurant, we'll see shortly I guess.

For me, well the cold is still making itself known, hope it sorts itself out shortly, as I'm playing in a golf comp that starts at 08:00 tomorrow and I have a 05:30 start to ensure I'm there in time - my turn to drive. The bad part of this is that the forecast temperature overnight is -2C - this is the Middle East I'm in isn't it?

...so here's something colourful for you:

Sort of anyway. Took my little trip to the KFNGH this morning for my stress technetium test, it turned out it was 09:30 after all the earlier phone calls. As the procedure involve injecting a radioactive substance into your blood stream, the first thing they have to do is get a cannula into a vein in the back of your hand. Past experience has shown that trying this on my left hand where they seem to prefer putting them isn't overly successful with me - last time they tried this it took three very painful attempts on my left hand before they gave up and found a vein in the inside of my left elbow. This time at least, they only failed once on the left hand (it felt like they'd set my hand on fire) before trying my right which went in an absolute doddle. Next time, they will be pointed very firmly and directly to that side. Whilst they were doing all this, another nurse spent her time shaving my chest for the ECG sensors. It doesn't look great and AM really doesn't like the prickly effect for a couple of weeks afterwards.

The stress test itself was very straightforward. All they needed to do was get me up to 85% of my calculated maximum heart rate - max being 172 in my case (how do they work that out) and 85% being around 150 BPM. All in all it took about 11 minutes on the treadmill at which point they inject the technetium into the cannula. So once I'd eaten the obligatory cheese and cucumber sandwich they provide, it was off across the other side if the hospital to nuclear medicine.

The wander across KFNGH is always a rather pleasant little interlude, as there are gardens dotted around the place in between corridors and wards and so on. The sun was shining as always and the staff are rather friendly over there. For some reason, NM always seems to be tucked away in a corner, as if almost forgotten about. There's a quiet waiting area round there though and it did give me time to get my nose stuck back into the book I'm reading at the moment - Trudi Canavan's 'The High Lord'. Good escapist stuff when you're stuck around with nothing better to do till they're ready for you.

The scan itself involves nothing my than lying on your back for 15 minutes, then turning over and doing the same on your front for 10, whilst they run the scanner over you to pick up the stuff injected earlier. That done, it was out with the cannula, which for once I was allowed to do myself - blood runs out really fast when you don't put your pressure on it fast enough - easy enough to stop though. And that was that.

As always, I got slightly confused on the way back through the hospital to get back to where the car was parked - I always seem to find myself in a corridor that I shouldn't be in on the way back - but at least this time I didn't need help to work out where I'd gone wrong. I had to get petrol on the way back, but was concentrating so hard on spotting a filling-station, that I missed my turn on the way past the camel souk and ended up on the Dammam highway for 20 Km until I got to a junction I could retrace my steps from. At least it meant that I could go into somewhere for petrol that I don't normally use and get a shot of someone new for my 'Petrol Pump Attendants' series on flickr. I'll pop it on the bottom of this post later, once I've downloaded and processed it - I think I may have got one of the better ones today, but I'll know for sure once it's off the camera.

I have to go back on Saturday so that they can do the same scan, but without me needing to go on the treadmill. This will be a resting one, but still the same messing about with cannulas and 'glow in the dark' chemicals being introduced into my veins.

Now all I have to do is see if I can shake off the cold I seem to have acquired over the last couple of days. If it's not one thing, it's another as they say...

As promised then

Link: http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect-server-ubuntu8.04-lts

Alright, only a small success to be truthful, but I have managed to get a little further with the Ubuntu server build. At long last, I managed to get it fixed up with a static IP address, have been connecting from the Vista box to 'PIGLET' with PuTTY, have the basics of using Vim worked out and I've finally got something other than a default "It works!" page into the root of 'www'. It's not much, but then I never claimed to be much of an expert in some of these things. Next step is how to connect using FTP, then finally, I may be able to push content into it from Dreamweaver CS4. Much thanks go to the page above for the low down on how to fix it all up.

OK, so I know I've not been very reliable at posting anything this week, I can't really claim I'm massively busy or something, but I was short of something to say that would be of any real (or suspected) interest to anyone. Did I mention I'm not very reliable at this sort of stuff? Thought so..

What to tell you then? One thing I could tell you is that the image in the header above is about to change, but unless you are paying very close attention, you'll probably not spot a thing. All I'll say is a brief thanks to Andrew Hreschak who created this skin. Nice work there.

One thing I do wish to get off my chest is the press treatment of Stoke City in the coverage of our games. Almost every time we play a side that doesn't beat us (as apparently some have mandated they should), you see endless sloppy commentary about how such and such side didn't play their best football and that somehow they are flat and listless. Does it never occur to them that the manner in which Tony Pulis sets out our game plan might be responsible for that. Always, the result is attributed to the opposition playing badly, never is it that we were might have been playing well and never is the team credited with that. After a while it really does stick in your throat what is said about us. I know we're not fashionable, I know we're unlikely to ever win any major honours, but at least show that you understand what is going on on the pitch and drop the cheap, lazy and 'big four' biased coverage.

I should also mention that I'm off for another stress technetium on Wednesday - or at least I will if KFNGH can decide whether the appointment is at 12:00, 08:15 or 09:30 - at least I've managed to establish that it's 'no caffeine' from 17:00 the evening before.

No pics from yesterday's Fight Cub this time - competent they may have been but, they didn't exactly set the world alight this time, though the voting isn't over for a while yet. If you're desperate, head over to the Chris of Arabia's Trash Can and look for yourself.

Link: http://forums.b2evolution.net/viewtopic.php?t=17567

Well that was fun. Had a problem with my widgets there for a moment ( those things over there --> ) full details to be had by following the link above.

So that's my first week of 2009 over in the office and we hit weekend at last. There are any things to be done this weekend; shopping, find AM a birthday present, perhaps get some plants for the back garden, get a corner shelf to put the SoundDock on - life really is a whirl round here at times you know.

Seems Stoke have bought themselves another player. This time Matthew Etherington from West Ham, a winger by trade, if only I could work out which side. Hopefully he's left-sided, as Richard Cresswell has been filling in for some time and it's really not his natural position and at times it has shown. I wish Matthew all the very best at the club and would like to think he could start like that on Saturday against Liverpool - we need the points desperately. Come on you Potters...

Not much else to report, other than all the luggage survived intact. Can't really complain at that to be truthful. More from sunny Riyadh soon.

It arrives in around 7 hours actually, of to grab us and our baggage and cart us off the Manchester airport at Stupid-O-Clock in the morning. I don't really mind being in any given place for a period of time, but I'm really not keen on the travelling in between part of it all. Taxi's at some god awful time suck, airports suck and airline meals they wake you for at 4 in the morning excel at pulling a golf ball up a hosepipe type sucking if you understand me. Not even is business class worth the indignity of being cooped up with ones fellow travellers in an alloy tube for 7 hours. When will they get round to inventing the Star Trek style transporter beam - how much would that help I wonder? No doubt my bags would still end up diverted to Dhaka by Heathrow baggage handlers.

On the subject of bags, they're all packed now and will hopefully escape the attentions of the BMI weight limit police on the check-in. Passports are at the ready, as are the tickets. The only thing to do now is to see if I can grab a couple of hours kip before the damned alarm goes off again. Guess I'd perhaps better sign off - next post from sunny Riyadh. See you soon.

It's 2009 you know. Welcome to a New Year on Izdihar.com