First the stag do, and then last Saturday was the hen night back at home in St. Helens. Yes, I said hen night. It was pretty damn good, thank-you. When I've figured out the best way to publish them, the pictures will appear here on the website in all their drunken-haze glory. In a slightly disturbing but very pleasant coincidence/surprise, in the bar next to where we were all meeting up was another group of hens - for another of my school friends. It was just a bit of a shame that I couldn't go to both, although the others seemed to be sticking to the whole women-only thing. Besides, they were going to Manchester (note to self - need a night out in Manchester).

Rather unhelpfully, the "just the one" I was intending to have on the previous night turned into rather more than one. I ended up going downstairs in The Wardrobe and dancing to Kava Kava who were, quite literally, funky. However, pretty much all I can remember was that the lead dude had lots of black hair, and had a black Motorhead shirt on.

I don't particularly remember getting home afterwards either, but I do remember waking up at around eleven on Saturday morning and wondering how I was going to make it home. I only had to be in St. Helens for eight in the evening, but even then it seemed like a nightmare.

Somehow I made the sixty mile journey across the M62 from Leeds to St. Helens. What annoyed me was that I really should have learned from my experience the fortnight before, when I got in at three in the morning before having to get to Haydock for the stag do at one in the afternoon. I spent most of the afternoon at the racecourse drinking overpriced cans and bottles of cola, in between the kamikaze betting.

As a result of some changes that were made to the Celebdaq exchange, a lot of people appear to have lost the will to play. The vitriol being aired on the Celebdaq message boards (always a good place for tips and lies) confirm this. The fact that I've not written anything on Celebdaq for a while might indicate my feelings on the matter, although things seem to have improved of late. Besides which, I'm lazy.

The formula used to calculate a share's price was made crazy, meaning that you could enjoy massive gains in a short space of time or alternative lose weeks of gains in just a couple of hours. Not much fun, compared to the steady and sure exchange of the past. It does now seem that they've found a much balance, and it's more of a laugh again - but it's much more difficult to make your millions. Not a bad thing.

Got roughly 24 hours to spare? Happen to be within a million miles of Santa Monica, California? Have a unhealthy Apple obsession? Do people say that you need to get a life? If you answered yes to any or, especially, all of those questions, then why not try the Apple Store Campout?

For the interested, here's the bait. Not quite as glamourous, I'm sure you'll agree, as the North Michigan Avenue store.

I realise now that I've obviously done something very wrong in my life. It might have been this year, it might well have been years ago. Perhaps, even, my wrongdoing is yet to come around. However, I realise now that my eleven weeks on jury service was pain resulting from some other please - penance for an earlier sin, or a sin I have yet to commit.

It is, of course, over now and I returned back to the world of the working yesterday. It'll probably be the longest break I'll get from work prior to my retirement (if such a concept still exists when I reach that age), yet I was thoroughly pleased to be back at work. I'm sure the enthusiasm won't last, but I'm fortunate that I'm in a job that I genuinely enjoy and get something out of.

I don't really want to talk too much about my jury experience, and I think after I click 'publish' on this entry I'm not going to talk about it again. It's a shame, because there's so much I have to say. However, despite doing the justice thing and meeting some nice people along the way, there's a certain emptiness at the end. This, I'm guessing, is the emptiness you get when you expect something but get nothing. I thought there would be lots of positives from my experince, but there are only really negatives.

Evening, news fans!

Here is a list, in no particular order, of ten ways in which I have squandered money in one way or another.

1. On one Saturday some years ago, I withdrew

The last seven days have been pretty remarkable by anybody's standards... hence my failure to grace the site with anything new and uninteresting. Unfortunately, most of the remarkable bits will have to stay unpublished - but at least my jury service is now finally over and done with! Yay!