I owe my colleague David Laurie of Dumfries an apology.

Before I left for Paris back in January I lent my Nintendo Wii to Dave so he could get some well needed practice on the bowling game so he stood at least a slim chance of beating me some day.

I came back to California on Saturday loaded with a couple of new games that I`ve been itching to try out for the last 4 weeks.

But Dave has gone on holiday, with his last reported location being somewhere in the middle of the Utah desert.

He still had my Wii in his flat rather than giving it to someone to pass on to me.

Or so it seemed.

On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday morning I cursed, swore and called Dave every name under the sun. I even tried summoning up a plague of locusts to descend on him in the middle of the Utah desert.

But now those locusts are needed for someone else.

Daniel Watford.

On Tuesday morning I was chatting to Dan about how I couldn’t believe that Dave would go away and not give my Wii to someone else to give back to me. Pretty much the same things I`ve been saying since Sunday morning.

Then Dan just comes out with - oh yeah - you can come and get your Wii from me later. Dave left it with me and its been on my dinner table for a week.

What?

You!!!! ………..

So anyway. I now have my Wii back and if those locusts have not attacked Mr Laurie yet then I`ll be sure to get him a drink when he gets back.

Dan on the other hand is set for a nasty surprise.

It seems as though I am scheduled to baby sit for Dan next week while he and his wife go off to a Foo Fighters concert. Well I hope Dan wont mind me taking Alyssa to the gym with me and then on down to Brians Bar and Billiards.

I`m sure they put a high chair in the bar for her, no worries

In the past year or so I have posted pictures of my residence in California and my residence in Edinburgh. Quite a few people have asked to see where I live whilst in Paris. So here you are, these are some pictures of the apartment where I stayed on my latest trip to Paris:

My Kitchen

My living room:

A bedroom:

And finally the outside of the building:

What else did you expect?

On Tuesday I had to move out of my apartment and into a hotel for the final few days of my latest trip out here in Paris.

For the past 4 weeks I have meticulously been saving all of my receipts for every single item I have bought. Restaurant bills, train tickets, supermarket bills, taxi receipts and absolutely everything else so that when I get back to California I can add up all the money that I owed back from my company.

I had hundreds of them, all wrapped up in a clear plastic bag.

I reckon I had about 6 - 7 thousand euros worth of receipts, so not surprisingly I kept them in pride of place on my apartment table, right where I could see them, and that is exactly where I put them when I turned up at my hotel on Tuesday. Right in the middle of my desk next to my phone.

They were not there when I got back from work on Wednesday.

No.

It turns out that the maid assumed that they were just rubbish (to be fair she was kind of right) and threw them out.

So now I have to explain around 6000 euros worth of expenses without having any receipts.

This could be tricky.

Although I have now explained all this to my manager and this is what he came back with:

“Those for which you have no record you should enter what you believe was the cost”

Wow … I think he may regret that Off to a 3 star Michelin restaurant tonight me thinks………

No, not me. Thats obviously not the case.

When I`m here in Paris I have to share a rather small office with sometimes up to 7 other people. All either from the UK, USA or Canada. The French folk get given their own much larger offices which they need to store their stashes of cheese and wine.

During one of the more quiet points last week the English speaking office occupants decided that we needed an office pet.

So we have decided to get a pet frog for here in the english office in the French capital.

All we need now is a name for froggie. Personally I think we should call him Jean-Pierre, but some people think that might be pushing it. So we thought we`d ask you out there…

what should our office frog be called?

Suggestions in the comments section please.

For the long term readers of the mighty 1point21gigawatts.net you will remember that last year I forgot mine and Fi’s anniversary. I vowed not to do that again.

So here is part of the email I sent to Fi last Thursday morning:

“Just into work now. Got a few things to do before I get back on project GP, have a great day”

and this is the response I got back:

“And happy anniversary to you too!”

DDDDOOOOOOOHHHHHHH!!!!!

Fortunately I went back to Edinburgh the very next day and was able to make up for it. Well, at least that was the plan. I arrived in Edinburgh at 17:20 and went straight to the gym, and then on to the pub, then I went home to Fi.

Not a good move I can tell you.

Fortunately for me though there is a graveyard just down the road from my flat, and as fortune would have it there had been a funeral that very day for a guy who seems to have been pretty popular which supplied me with a great selection of flowers to take back home.

Job done - what a save!

So I`m told that today is Valentine’s day.

I wonder if the graveyard does deliveries.

To combat my recent spiral into becoming American I have decided to do a U-turn and become French, a move which is sure to delight my mother.

All weekend I have been smug, arrogant and smarmy whilst munching on nothing but garlic, onions and snails.

I`ve even bought the clothe:

I`m even thinking of going on strike over the price of cheese - do I even need a reason to go on strike now I`m French?

Dont think so.

I knew this would happen. Bit by bit I`ve started to become an American.

It was bound to happen I guess. Living in SoCal working with Californians every day, living in an American apartment, shopping in American stores - I mean shops and eating in American restaurants.

I`ve even started enjoying (some) American tele.

Shocker.

I`ve started saying words like ‘whatever’ when people say something that I disagree with and worst of all I even started to detect the start of an American accent. The other day I pronounced the word ‘address’ the way you would expect to hear it in a Hollywood film.

So I need to do something drastic, something that will send out a powerful message that I`m not going to stand for it.

and I know exactly what…..

…. but I`ll do that later. Its dinner time so I`m off for my peanut butter and jello sandwich:)