Just come back from the excellent Edinburgh Zoo .

The boy who robbed me in Corfu by charging me like 3 million pounds for a couple of grapes seems to have got himself a new job working for the zoo canteen. A hotdog, beer, panini and cake (not all for me) came to about £15. Tell you what …..

The rest of the zoo experience was top.

One thing I did notice though was that tigers are really really really lazy bas*ards …. they easily could go get a job in my office. The tiger they had there just about managed to wake up before the zoo closed at 16:00pm, walked around a bit, looked grumpy, farted (probably) and then went back to sleep.

Penguins are quite cool though.

Next time I`m gonna get me a net and and a BBQ to see what they taste like flame grilled!

…… no not my career……… well actually now I think about it, maybe it is ……

I hate people creeping up on me at work.

I have been known in the past to let out big girly screams when someone walks up to me from behind while I`m at my desk and starts talking to me.

I aim to combat this threat with the cunning use of mirrors.

That way I`ll see the nasty creepy people coming and be prepared to face them. No more catching out the grinch! Ha! Another part of the plan is in place.

Every so often Fiona goes bananas and locks herself in the kitchen for a few hours. No problem, I get a bit of snowy time watching the football, have a few beers or thinking up tricks of how best to disrupt ext years Edinburgh Festival.

She usually comes out the kitchen a brandishing tray loads of baked goods, apple pies, muffins, cheese cakes, banana bread that sort of thing. This is top, as 1, I love backed goods and 2, Fiona does’nt eat them which means I get the lot. This is also the problem. A couple of months ago she emerged from the kitchen with a big wide smile, an ENORMOUS cheese cake and a spoon the size of a tennis racket. “It has to be eaten today". Apparently cheese cake does’nt last long.

That cheese cake nearly killed me. Nearly death by cheese cake.

Yesterday, Fiona was baking again ….. for 4 hours.

The picture below shows the apple pie and only 1 batch of the 4 batches of muffins that were made.

So I`ve now got 2 days to eat the whole pie and nearly 50 muffins.

Perhaps she has found out how much my life insurance is worth.

A good many years ago I worked for the British government. The mighty Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. It was alright, had a good crowd to work and socialise with, and I got paid. Top. Mainly I was doing network and system administration stuff, and that occasionally meant going and talking to the boys in “The server room". These were the kind of guys who were kept in the padded basement, were fed pizza by the postman, and generally kept away from direct sunlight. They never seemed to do very much. Their saying was “If you can ‘ping’ it, then it aint our problem". Indeed.

One particular day I was down there arguing with someone about something and an old geezer slowly walked up to me with a look of expectancy in his eyes. He threw down a crossword puzzle in front of me which had only one question left to answer. As I said this was a good number of years ago, so I dont remember the cryptic clue I was expected to give the solution to, but what happened next stayed with me forever.

“Sorry mate, no idea what the answer is. How long have you been at it".
“Fifteeeeeeen yyyeeeeeaaarrrrssss!!!!!!” he shreiked and dug his finger nails into his eyes.

Poor fella, I must have been his only visitor that month and I failed him. DOH!

I had’nt thought about that experience for a while. But it all came flooding back to me while I was in Corfu – thanks to fresh fruit salad man.

This boy should have been wearing a mask. He walked up and down the beach all day trying to sell fruit to sun worshippers shouting “FRESH FRUIT SALAD ….. MELON ……. BANANA …….. GRAPES". No-one ever bought anything from him….. not ever, not even once, and on the last day I found out why.

Taking pity on the fella I called him over. “Just a bunch of grapes dude!". Before I knew where I was I`d been charged 15 euros (12 pounds) for a couple of grapes, a slice of melon, (I dont even like melon), 2 pears and a banana.

I only wanted a bunch of bas*ard grapes. Thats a euro a bloody grape — BTW dont beleive it when they tell you grapes are natures Malteser….. totally different I can tell you.

I was in so much shock when he told me how much I`d been stuffed for that rather than my usual “on your bike son", I just opened my wallet and handed over the cash.

I felt like I`d been raped.

While still in shock and handing over the monies, I remembered the 15 year crossword dude. What if fresh fruit salad man was cursed 15 years ago to wonder the beach night and day to try and sell fruit. The evil spell might only be lifted when he made that first sale.

“Tag!!!! Your IT!!” he would shout!!! “FIFTEEN YEARS!!!!!!” and scurry off into the distance laughing at me while I took over the burden.

It did’nt though, but if every in Roda, Corfu, watch out for Fresh Fruit salad man. He be nasty ….. and possibly cursed.

Call off the search for Carbon Footprint Sandy . I found him today hanging upside down in a cave.

Perhaps he does this every day, or perhaps he is still recovering from the last project night out. Who knows?

He’s ok though. I took him out for a quick ale and the lad seems to have recovered from his ordeal and is ready to spearhead the Carbon footprint reduction campaign once again.

Top couple of weeks. Been away in Corfu since the start of September and have had a great time. Fi and I went to a place called Roda in the North of the island. Great place, great people, awesome food, excellent bars … particularly Crusoes Pub along the main road. If you are ever in Roda go along and say Hi to Alex and Sara for me. Best pub in Roda by far. Over 100 cocktails to try and a quiz each night … which I was very very bad at.

The scenery was excellent with views out over to the Albanian mountains and some excellent sunrises.

All was not perfect however. We were staying at a set of apartments called Valentinos, but a more suitable name would be Doctor Terrible’s House of Horrible.

It looks nice from the outside, but the same could have been said for Dracula’s Castle.

The problems started on the Monday after we arrived. The maids, who only came times per week decided that they dont need to knock before they come into your bedroom and start cleaning up. I sure showed them. On the Monday one of the clears burst into the bedroom and found me there in my next to nothings. She and her cleaning pal ran screaming from our apartment yelling something at me in Greek, which although I dont speak the language I am fairly sure went something like - “you dirty pig! We`ll show you, we`ve just nicked all your towels". And sure enough ….. they had. We were left for 2 days without any towels. Of course we complained to the management who then accused us of stealing the towels (WTF???) and refused to give us anymore until the next Wednesday. We learned our lesson not to p*ss off the maids again. What would they have taken the next time?

Then there was the friendly and helpful bar staff who prided themselves on being the cheapest place to drink on the island. The apartment bar was run by a couple of middle aged grumpy old men who really just wanted to sit in the sun and not be bothered doing much else…. including cooking you anything from their own snack bar On my first day there I ordered a hotdog.. the main guy just scowled at me and told me that it would just have to wait until later. Someone else was having food just then and he could only do one thing at a time. Top!

I did catch the guy telling his friend one night that he gets “really pis*ed off helping people out all the time". Wow! How nice is he?

Then there was the other guy, who I`m fairly convinced must have done some serious drugs in his time. He just sat there at the pool all day staring into space. I only managed to speak to him the once. The evening after I had been in Albania. “Where’ve you been all day?” he asked. “Albania mate, you can get a Ferry across from the island to over there in less than an hour". That was the extent of it though. He just looked at me blankly, but I could tell that his internal voice was yelling “HOLY SH*T!!!!! I`M ON AN IIIISSSSLLLLAAANNNNDDDD!!!!!!!!!!!". I left him to mull it over and did`nt see him for a couple of days after that. When I next did see him, he was in a car racing around honking the horn. Perhaps looking for a way back to the mainland. Who knows?

On the last day we paid an extra 25 euros to have the room until 6pm rather than being kicked out at midday. Come quarter to six the maids burst in to kick us out. One was carrying a bible and the other a bottle of holy water, no doubt ready to carry out an exorcism on our apartment to clear out all the daemons that shared the room with us during my time there.

Other than the apartment, the place was great. Fishermen bring in nets of fish each day which they sell to local restaurants for people to eat that night.

Above you can see the days catch for the Dolphin restaurant in Corfu town centre. That night the fish BBQ was red snapper, salmon, cod and swordfish with chips. All for just over six pounds sterling.

The food everywhere was great and most places did a Greek night which was amazing. But I`ll save all that and my crazy and near death experiences of visiting Albania to another day.

Right. I`m just about to head off for my two week holiday in Corfu, I`m just about to start packing … so this is a quick, but important post.

Last night we had a team night out in Glasgow and the last I saw of my technical lead — Carbon Footprint Sandy — he did not look at all well. I`d as far as to say that he did not know where he was or where he was going. But go he did …. very fast in the opposite direction of everyone else. So, if you dont see Carbon Sandy for a few days call the police.

I`ll be back in two weeks …. 2 stone heavier and thousands of pounds poorer.