Ok folks, I'm a bit stuck. If you view this site using any normal modern standards complaint browser, it'll render properly. If you use Internet Explorer, it won't. I believe my CSS stylesheet to be valid and correct, I believe Internet Explorer to be rubbish.

In browsers I've tried except IE, the width of the dark gray line between the main section and the left hand links section should be the same as the height of the other gray lines throughout the layout. The links column has it's own div, as do the body. To get a consistent effect regardless of which of the two columns is longer, the links column has a right-hand border to provide the gray line whilst the main body column has a left-hand border to achieve the same - the two borders should overlap. In IE, it decides to ignore the explicit 240px left-hand start point for the main body and makes it effectively 260px - so the border appears twice a wide.

In other stylesheets I've seen (noteably here) small workarounds have been required within stylesheets to get around the crapness of IE. But I'm stuck. Can anyone in the know make any useful suggestions to try? I can cope with visitors using a crap browser to view my site, but I can't cope with it looking crap.

Working nine-to-five in a location 220 miles away from your home means you have to live in a hotel. In the past two weeks I've stayed in two seperate hotels. I can't say I've really enjoyed staying in either. At least this coming week I'm staying in the better of the two, and I get to spend my Friday back in Leeds.

The hotel situation is something I can put up with, and surprisingly it does seem to have it's benefits if you look for them (although a complete lack of any reasonably accessible or reasonably priced internet access is not something I'm considering as a benefit).

What I am having tremendous difficulty with, however, is the journey each Monday and Friday. It sounds pretty easy - essentially just M1, A43, M40, A404, M4. On my second Monday morning I opted to leave at 5am instead of the 6am the week before, hoping to improve on my 10am arrival time by at least an hour. I actually arrived later. Leaving Reading on Friday at 1pm resulted in a 7pm arrival in Leeds. That's eleven hours spent on the road over the two trips.

Having the ability to plan my activities weeks in advance would mean that I'd be able to get train tickets in advance and travel by train. But I don't have that ability. I know what I'm doing tomorrow and the rest of the week, but no idea what's happening after that. So, I've got to keep driving down.

This is the negative side to what I'm essentially treating as a new job. Happily, it'd probably take me too long to list the positives. Whether I'll be saying that in a week's time will probably be heavily influenced by how many hours of my life I waste sat trying to get on or off the M40 at High Wycombe, or whether the M1 magically becomes a couple of lanes wider overnight.

My first day working in our (massive) Reading office was something of an experience. I remarkably managed to get here on time (well, I should have given that I left at 05:45) and even more remarkably didn't get lost along the way. The first day was really a feet-finding exercise for me in this unfamiliar world, and the enormity of the work that I'll be involved in is now starting to become apparent.

Everything has been explained to me in very high level terms up to now, which gives you the big picture of the task at hand but does make you wonder how you're going to get from now to then. Hopefully though, we can make a good start on some tangible stuff today and get the show on the road. I'm sure that the good night's sleep that I had last night will help me get through today a little better than I managed yesterday.

As I indicated earlier there is crazyness afoot in the workplace, and the next bit of it starts promptly on Monday morning. I'll be working at our Reading offices all next week.

Basically, the part of the company I work for is looking to take a bunch of people aside to do a nine-month piece of work to move our processes closer to our customers. For reasons that I only partly understand, I've been picked to become part of the task force that will make it all happen. It's sizeable job - I'll be working on the team permanently, and so someone will have to do my normal role whilst I'm away. It's all rather exciting although at this stage I still don't have much of a handle on what the work will actually entail on a day-to-day basis.

I've had the last few days off work and, for a change, I've not actually wasted them. On Thursday I travelled to Bradford to spend the day in the fabulous National Museum of Photography, Film & Television and also managed to catch The Matrix Reloaded on the gigantic IMAX cinema screen whilst I was there.

No trip to the museum is complete without an hour in TV Heaven. Hundreds of episodes of shows from 1960s onwards are available to watch in your own little private viewing area - this time round I watched an edition of So It Goes, a rather good Not The Nine O'Clock News show from their first series, and an all-time classic episode of Hancock.

If you've never been to the museum, you really have to go - it's a treat!

If you don't think that this is totally fantastic, you're obviously crazy.

Here's a little message from the Milkmasters to all those who want to spend their Friday night with a bunch of net techies... connectivity and server fault resolution is on the house...

"They said its your birthday - gonna have a good time"

It's Milk's first birthday! It's been a whole year since the first Milk at the Brundenell Social in Headingley so it's an occasion to celebrate in style. Milk's first birthday party is this Friday 12th September when we'll be celebrating with birthday cake, goodie bags and sweets and perhaps even a deal on White Russians (maybe).

Music? The usual eclectic blend of soul/funk, ska, alternative, soundtracks, hip hop, beats and whatever else takes our fancy on the night.

It's a bargainous

I am feeling pretty knackered out at the moment after a busy week and an even busier weekend.

Last Monday it was Gordon's birthday, so there was the obligatory birthday night out - drinks in The Reliance, cocktails in Sandinista, an impromptu (and pretty nondescript) curry and... well, I'm not quite sure what happened after that. I can recall that I ended up sleeping on someone's floor and that it was a school night - for a little minute, it was a little like being back at university again (although the morning lecture isn't optional for me these days, as they pay me these days).

If that didn't knacker me and my week up enough, the time came for my last manager to leave on Friday resulting in yet another obligatory night out and further carnage. And another curry.

By the time I'd made it back to my flat around midday on Saturday, it was almost time to jump in my car to cross the M62 again and get back to St. Helens for an evening of pizza, vodka and eighties music. The drive across didn't seem so bad considering Friday night, but the fact that I was going to have drive back again after another night of all that was everpresent in my mind. In the past few months I've had self-induced horrendous early morning drives back from stag and hen nights, wedding receptions (times two), and random nights out all going back to Leeds from my old home in St. Helens. Once you've done it a few times, it's a scary prospect.

A trip to see Beth Orton at the City Varieties on Sunday night was pretty good and a fabulous way to end the week. However, the planned pre/post drinks turned into "do you fancy a lift there?" and "I'll just have a coke thanks".

I've got the second half of this week off work, which is excellent. The weekend is messed up again though as it's Milk at the George on Friday - attendance mandatory - and I'm sure something equally unmissable will come up for Saturday. The weekend afterwards is already fully booked - a housewarming in Oxford followed by the Richard Herring gig on Sunday.

I'm guessing that I need take a bit of a break sometime soon. And probably get down the gym.

I got inspired earlier this evening and ended up writing a new stylesheet for the site from scratch. The appearance of the site is a bit fluid at the moment - things are likely to change, perhaps the colours might need adjustment. Some of the pages haven't been messed with yet, and so will look very peculiar. Any feedback? Please leave me a comment.

I know, I should have waiting until it was all ready before flicking the switch... but I managed to break everything while meddling with the site. Better planning required next time.

[Sat 15:00] Ok folks, after going back to the CSS drawing board yet again here's the new design. The front page is still the only one to receive any attention, so the other pages are going to look a bit red and itchy until I've worked the rest of the magic.

This poem dates back to 3rd August 1996, so quite a while ago now - a bit of teenage angst for you, in fact. I appear to have been quite keen on the word "shite" when I wrote this. I think this will be the last poem I'll be putting up here - there's one or two more, but they're even worse than these. They served a purpose at the time (that's all the poems were for, an outlet) but I think I'm right to be a bit choosy about which ones appear.

Thinking

Most of the time you just cannot complain
You don't even mind if you drive yourself insane
Now and again though you see a warning sign
Maybe it's not like that quite all the time

Just as my eyes can't stop themselves from blinking
My mind just won't stop itself from thinking
When I think, then it's time to worry
I'll be in a different mood without a hurry

There's news of a new skateboarders ident premiering on BBC ONE before Eastenders (some situation comedy or something) on Friday night. I'll say it now, that I actually quite like the current set of BBC ONE idents - although the criticism that they pander to stereotypes/political correctness/dumbing down of television (delete as applicable) is not without basis.

Some nice places to see/read about television presentation beginning with the letter "T":
The TV Room
TV Ark
The Continuity Booth
Tyne Tees Logo Page
TV Cream
Transdiffusion

Another bit if writing I found, dated 6th April 1997 at 9:50pm.

Specific Uncertainty

I've found someone special in my little life
But where am I stood?
I could try and maybe force the issue
But at this, I am not very good

Even though I've been there a few times in the past
It is different each time
As usual I have no doubt how I feel
I just need to connect
I just need to be sure

I like to ride with my feelings and go with the tide
As plans often go wrong
This time this might not be right
I'd rather I was sure before too long

"Ask" is the cry yet I am a little too shy
And there is an important twist
There is friendship, the most important thing of all
And that is not something that I'd like to put at risk

Do I risk or do I not?
Or let someone else call the shots?
Do I smile or do I fail?
I can only hope common sense will prevail

I always look at things from the completely wrong perspective
And this may be true now
I could find disappointment or the opposite quite soon
I just need to know... how

I like to put a short quote or song lyric in the signature lines of my emails. This is the quote I'm including this month.

"We dressed up in thoughts, and thoughts make amends"
-- Pet Shop Boys, "Being Boring"