Shirty

Today's pointless survey is on the shirts of my colleagues. A strong showing for plain, blue shirts, which is less than surprising. What IS surprising is that a chap around the corner pitched up at work today wearing a light green suit in combination with brown shoes (albeit lovingly polished). I hadn't realised that it was "Dress like a German" day.

The UK airport system has ground to a halt over a purported terrorist plot, that has been (in descending order of hysteria) "Uncovered" (Grauniad), "Thwarted" (Telegraph), or "Foiled" (Sun, Mirror, Mail, Times, Independent). Why can't you take a book onto an aircraft. God. The most unpleasant result of all this is that people travelling with babies are required to taste the contents of any bottle being brought onto a flight. Have these people ever tasted baby milk?

I guess a little light relief would be provided if an irate female passenger had to argue the toss with a government bureaucrat about what constitutes "sufficient and essential...female sanitary items". Eek.

Maybe it's a decade's exposure to the opportunistic fibbing of Mr Blair's mob, but I'm not entirely certain that anything's happened. If we're all supposed to be concentrating on long queues of angry people at airports (hardly unusual), I wonder what's going on unnoticed somewhere else?

My own theory is that the uncontrolled rash of road-digging that has erupted in the last couple of days on the capital's streets is something to do with Al-qaeda. Maybe they're planning to shut off everyone's gas simultaneously or something..."Damn, the grill's gone off, now the Welsh rarebit will get cold. Time for a global caliphate, I suppose".

Top eight things not to do in an open plan office:
1. Repeatedly use a speaker phone, oblivious to the death stares of all
2. Speak annoyingly loudly
3. Leave your mobile unattended with loud and / or "amusing" ring
4. Drop the phrase "spit roast" into a conversation when 25 people can clearly hear you
5. Converse loudly in Afrikaans then refuse to explain what you were talking about
6. Read someone else's PC screen over their shoulder
7. Answering your phone with a loud "HAIR-LAIR"
8. Converse with your bank manager / lover / recruitment consultant