British Summer Time

I don't send children to school, my work doesn't rely on daylight, and the office is pretty flexible about what hours I work. For me Daylight Savings Time is nothing but puritanical bed-time police telling me that I'm getting up too late in the mornings, and going to be too late at night.

Richard "forgot to bring my sandwich" B

Obituary

Knut the polar bear, who was hand reared in the Berlin zoo after being rejected by his mother (and namesake to a stuffed polar bear that I won in a raffle) died this weekend. He was found dead, floating in a pool in his enclosure.

Richard "I blame Micheal Barrymore" B

Plympton is going to rack and ruin

I went to a fundraising event at the local community centre, it was the middle of the day, there were loads of kids about, and I saw a really really nasty fight. Some poor woman was getting beaten up by her husband, and when a policeman tried to break it up, the man managed to grab his batton, knocked the policeman out with it, and then went back to beating his wife up. As if that wasn't bad enough, then a crocodile turned up and stole her sausages.

Richard "weekend rock-star" B

2011 Lottery Emails Omnibus

Each week I send an email to members of the lottery syndicate. I sometimes include a joke or observation, and I usually assign myself a joke middle name. These are my names from 2011:

Tue 04/01/2011
I will send the new year's day results after I have set up a new spreadsheet for 2011. Good luck to us all.
Richard "excel" B

Tue 04/01/2011
Richard "back to work" B

Mon 10/01/2011
Richard "my bike's got front brakes again" B

Mon 17/01/2011
Richard "It was supposed to say 'The Kicks' above 'Puppet Show'" B

Mon 31/01/2011
Richard "stayed up past my bedtime" B

Mon 07/02/2011
Richard "pub quiz champions" B

Mon 07/03/2011
Richard "geriatric nurse" B

Scarface

This weekend I watched "Scarface" for the first time. I now see why the phrase "say hello to my little friend" pops up so frequently in popular culture, and have a much better understanding of a very dirty joke that an ex-girlfriend once made with it. My favourite scene was when Al Pacino was arguing with his wife Michelle Pfeiffer, by that point he's a crime lord, a murderer, a cocaine addict, a drunk, and he's been rude to his mother. His wife's main complaints seemed to be what he chose to watch on TV, and that he swore too much. Some arguments are seemingly universal.

Richard "Are Hannah and Tony Montanna brother and sister?" B

Formalities and procedures

I try to keep this lottery syndicate as informal and friendly as I can, however, I need to keep track of who paid what and when, and I need records of a standard that will hold up in court when we're arguing over hundreds of thousands of pounds. Ideally you should pay me in person, at my desk. I will sign your receipt while you watch, that is your legal record. Sometimes I'm not at my desk when you want make a payment, when that happens you can leave a payment with one of my colleagues, preferably Helen, and you must email me to tell me how much you left and when. If the timestamp on your email, and Helen's account match, then I'll happily accept that you made your payment before the draw.

Yes, someone could conceivably notice that their number has come up when they're not paid up, and then persuade Helen to presenting the payment as though it was made before the draw, and convince Rich I to turn back time on the email system while they sent me a notification email, but it's not a risk I'm prepared to guard against.

Richard "dictator" B