As a part of my minimalist approach to life, this week I decided to add something instead of taking away. That thing is an alarm clock. It might not seem like a big deal, but 'installing' this little puppy at the side of the bed means I can leave those things otherwise delivered via wi-fi while I'm asleep downstairs and keep them the hell away from me first thing in the morning.

I'm quite liking the look of this. When it makes a noise, simply reach out and drop your hand on the button to silence it. I know it's a relatively simple thing not to see if you've had any messages while you were sleeping when you wake up... but I don't, so this is my solution.

The phone thing can stay downstairs in the fruit bowl with the bananas and the car keys and in my book, that's known as a good start.

I got wind of a new show this week that appears to be right up my street - though how it passed me by, I'll never know. Over on Sky Atlantic, Vinyl (from HBO) has recently started. I'm hoping it's got a touch of Californication about it but I'll take it at face value and funnel in news when I've tracked it down. I must know somebody with the damn station that can do magic.

If you happen to be wondering how the creation of words that will one day find their way into a book is going, it's going pretty good.

Slightly derailed by a magazine going to print across the next 24 hours, two birthdays within four days of each other, a dog haircut and a broken finger that seems to be getting worse instead of better, but it's going good.

I'm starting to think I should maybe take a trip to the doctor or hospital over this finger instead of my current method of home-surgery that makes use of those two well known traditional body fixers: fire and salt.

Maybe tomorrow.

Finally, gotta love a bear in the wild:

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