Hello hello hello hello...

I thought this week I'd tell you all about someone I met yesterday. I was coming out of Tesco's yesterday and I saw this little old lady. She can't have been more than five foot two, and she was all wrapped up against the cold. She was having some trouble with the stairs, so I helped her up them, and at the top she turned to me and said, in a thick Eastern European accent "Thank you. Ah! I am so old, to be out here... I am (ninety, she held nine fingers up so I would understand) so I am bit old for this..." she paused for a moment, then looked me square in the eye, as if considering whether she was alright to be out on her own like this. "But if some man is... you know", she made a serious expression and gestured at her temple with a gloved hand, "In the head, then by God", she continued, with a shake of the fist "I rough him up!". Beware, Coventry. There's a little old lady with a gammy foot about town, and she doesn't mess around!

These last weeks have been pretty sparse of any real news, but I have a couple of really exciting things to tell you guys. The First is that, after five weeks of searching, we have found, and signed for, a house to live in next year. the rooms are huge, the kitchen is new, there is a huge garden out the back and it's forty minutes walk from the University. I'm really looking forward to living with Vince, Kitty, Emma and Johnny next year, and in the mean time I know we're going to have terrific fun. A new feature on the blog will be 'Words of the Week', where I will enlighten you all, dear readers, to the wonderful words of my flatmates, overheard or directed at myself. This week's award goes to Emma, for her outstanding contribution "We all love Vince! I mean, I'm not a huge fan, but yeah."

Fun times.

The course I'm on continues a it's usual pace, by turns interesting and boring me, which makes me a bit sad. I wish I could be as motivated about all of my work all the time, but I suppose I'm only human. One particular lecture I had that surprisingly interested me was the Aesthetics lecture on twentieth fashion. My one quibble was the way the lecturer failed to mention men's clothing until the 1950's, completely skipping over the suits of the twenties and thirties. Some of the most elegant tailoring seen in Britain, and it was discarded completely. On the other hand, he did at least mention the classic James Dean look... Even though I could never pull it off, the T-shit, Jeans and leather jacket look is pretty awesome. For those of you who feel this interest in fashion makes me some kind of wuss, I direct you to this video, and remind you that the best suit in the world is the Iron Man suit.

Anyway, with little else to tell you of my exploits here, I will return to the oddly popular Rogues Gallery. This week it is the turn of my friends from London, now spread across the nation at various educational establishments. Once again, the Internet fails, and the photo uploader is not working, so I'll try and get some photos up soon. Gentlemen first, then...

David Lindley.

David is a stand-up bloke who I've known for years, and was instrumental in my coming to faith. never far from a computer which he has mercilessly hacked, improved, extended, broken, fixed or personalised, his fantastic qualities as a friend are exceeded only by his nose ("It's under your nose, you twit" "Yeah, but be fair, so's China") and his amazing capacity to listen to anything you come to talk to him about. He will listen to you rant, rage, blunder mistakenly through your PCs Boot Sector and then pat you on the back and recommend you have a good stiff drink. "Phoenix" has his own University of York Student Radio show on Saturdays; listen online at URY.org. He is also fantastically under appreciated, especially by me. David is a Scout. It says a lot about him, really.

Note scar on nose where he burned it on a CPU. Hey, you fill my camera with photos, I will post them without warning on the internet.

Phil Baxter

With his flowing blond locks, Phil was once described as "Quite fit, actually" until the speaker realised that he wasn't a girl. In fairness, Phil is the only one of my friends from home that has anything approaching a steady girlfriend, and is always willing to walk a ridiculous distance with me to a pub for a pint of London Pride (at least when we can pry him away from his latest WOW character or the new episode of [insert subtitled anime here]). I have spent time in a tent with both David and Phil, and have to say Phil is the better roommate. He is an awesome guy, and more clever than he lets on to the average observer; he completed his A level Electronics coursework in the space of a week, to 'A' standard. When he finishes his foundation year in Engineering at York, he will use his uncanny abilities to build an army of robotic ninjas and conquer the world. Hence, I stay on his good side. He was also one of the people who led me to faith, wittingly or not.

Phil, right, on leavers day. I believe those cans are hardwired into his flesh.

Beth King.

Beth is studying English at Royal Holloway in London. She loves tea, cake, Cadbury's chocolate and her boyfriend David (not Lindley), and has listened to me complain about anything and everything til the cows come home. Once photographed on the way out of school as research for the next St Trinian's film (make of that what you will) she is an amazing person, and tolerates my presence despite not understanding any of my jokes or my love of mathematics-based subjects. She keeps her notes very neat, and corrects the spelling errors in my blogs. Beth, thakyou sow mutch 4 teeching me bout punkchuashun an stuff. It iz reely uzefool. I doubt she will ever truly forgive me for that sentence.

Beth, looking lovely as always.

Anusha Coutiganne

Anusha has enough clothes to attend an eight week term at Oxford without needing to do a load of washing. A walking pharmacy (note; all legitimate and prescribed where necessary, but she was who we went to for aspirin and paracetamol) and guide to the the bars and cocktail lounges of London, Anusha is one of the most clever and hard-working people I know, despite doing an Arts subject. She's something like a bi-lingual, intellectual, partying fashionista. Oxford isn't to far away from Warwick so we shall see if I can't randomly descend on the old place for a day or two, if only to terrify her with my dress sense...

Anusha looking blurred but lovely, me looking like I have a double chin. She relentlessly outclasses me.

Guy Gifford

An upright member of the British Socialist Workers Party (just joking), Guy elected to stay in the real world this year, and is awaiting the end of a recruitment freeze to the Met Police. He can march, weld, drink and fight better than me, and also has a steady girlfriend. Why they don't elect him to Prime minister I shall never know (no, seriously, I could manage the engineering industry, we could get Burrell to handle the House of Lords, it would be jokes...). He marched with me on Horseguards once, and that's not something a man forgets lightly. One day, we will finish the boat we began to build together.

Guy, left. Shortly after this photo was taken he wanted to know if I wanted to carry my teeth home in my hands. the camera was put away. Guy's from East London.

A note to all my friends, featured or not; Love you guys loads. If I have inadvertently offended you here, I am sorry, it was never my intent. :D

That's all for this week or so, I'm afraid; time gets on and I need to go and cook my dinner. I have a memory like a sieve; if I haven't included something important, comment about it! More people will be included next week, so watch this space, viewers!