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Those lovely tiles are gone, the skip is nearly full, we now have french doors (wonder why they’re called that) where a window used to be, there’s a fine layer of dust over everything, and the builders, electrician and plumber have put a big dent in the teabag / milk / sugar / biscuit supplies. But they have worked very hard.

With a couple of days off work I have been mainly responsible for getting ripped-out kitchen units and various other bits of crap in the skip. Not much of a job, eh? Actually yes, because Adams Towers is located at the top of a narrow lane which the skip lorry couldn’t reach, so the skip is down on the avenue several hundred yards away. And this being England, it’s been raining. A lot. In the picture here, Adams Towers is the house at the top-right. The skip is located where the word ‘Avenue’ is. No, that’s not our swimming pool.

My other job was sorting out the cable to feed the new television - from the splitter box in the loft, through the airing cupboard (following the route of the old analogue cable) and into the ceiling cavity. The electrician took over at this point.

Speaking of the electrician, he discovered some real horrors. He basically condemned some of the outside light fittings, and found an extension double-plug socket attached to the main electrics using lighting cable (which is apparently a no-no). Our fuse board is no longer within UK regulations and will have to be replaced. Up goes the budget again.

It’s now that I realise that the kitchen really is the hub of family life. Although we’re managing okay with cooking in the dining room we feel a bit like refugees in our own house. And I can only start to imagine what it’s like for people who were forced out of their homes by flooding last year. At least this temporary ordeal was our choice.

Once again CES are hosting LCTY in Scotland, this time on Thursday 29th May at the Menzies Belford Hotel in Edinburgh. The format is some keynote speeches followed by two tracks in the afternoon. I would say “see you there” but on this occasion I won’t due to a prior engagement. However there are some great speakers lined up so no-one will miss me that much. The agenda and registration details can be found at CES’ web site.

Having painted nearly every square inch of wall in this house, and having had to carry out some fairly serious remedial work to a number of rooms, all that’s left to do is the kitchen. It’s really rather grim (despite being re-fitted about six years ago) and needs ripping out and starting over entirely. If you are in any doubt about the grim-ness, check out the picture - these tiles adorn the wall behind the hob and pretty much sum up the tone of the kitchen (if anyone does have some tiles like this in their kitchen, I’m sorry, I’m not being rude, they’re just not to our taste).

So, starting tomorrow, we face a number of weeks of washing dishes in the bathroom and cooking with a camping stove in the dining room. The fridge-freezer, which didn’t look so big in the kitchen, looks huge in it’s temporary location (in the hallway). Why six weeks? Well, there’s a bit of a gap between the building work (including a new door to the garden) and the kitchen re-fit, basically because of the availability of the parties concerned. Then there’s a week in-between the kitchen fitters and the granite worktop fitters completing their work, and then finally the floor people finish once everything else is done.

But I look at it this way… six weeks of microwave meals and the wife fussing about the building dust will be worth it to get rid of the bloody grim kitchen.

One last thing - I’m removing those tiles carefully and they’ll be on eBay by the end of the week, and if anyone wants a bigger version of that picture to have as their Windows / Mac / Linux desktop wallpaper just let me know.

I’ll be the first to admit I’m a terrible mobile phone user. I have hardly any numbers at all stored in my address book and therefore always struggle to ring my colleagues if I’m out and about. So, even before I’ve really tried out any of the other aspects of IBM Lotus Connections on the BlackBerry, the Profiles feature is an absolute revelation. All I have to do is go to the Profiles search page, type in the name, search, and then I can call their number or e-mail that person directly from the results.

This being Connections you can also look up a person’s about-me information and background. And as well as looking them up purely by name you can also perform a search on their information and tags.

Dogear (not pictured here) is also worth a mention - you can search for bookmarks, add new bookmarks, view the most popular, view your own, and view the bookmarks of your watchlist (those people you think are interesting).

I have to confess I don’t when this is scheduled to ship, but you can get some more info at the BlackBerry web site. By the way, the features of future products may be subject to change, etc etc.

BlackBerry screenshots made possible by the Rove Mobile Viewer for BlackBerry.

While I was away, ‘Mario Kart’ for the Wii arrived. I’ve always been grateful that no-one except our neighbours could possibly see into our games room - the sight of a man holding a white plastic thing as someone would hold a baseball bat, or waving it around like a tennis racquet, must look a bit strange. We don’t get passers-by in our remote corner of Camberley, but if we did they now might see a man holding a white plastic steering wheel… and a small blonde girl telling him it’s only a game. That’s easy for her to say, she won’t be suffering peer-pressure from her brother-in-law.

Unlike ‘Wii Sports’ and ‘Mario & Sonic at the Olympics’, ‘Mario Kart’ doesn’t demand that you get off the sofa… so I’ve felt a bit of a couch potato today. But that aside, this is a great game. The steering wheel approach (the Wii controller just snaps in) works really well and is very responsive. The sore thumb comes from having to hold down the ‘2′ button in order to accelerate and keep the speed going. The button on the back of the controller is used for braking, but let’s face it, slowing down is for pansies.

The really nice feature about this new version (compared to the GameCube version) is the on-line competitive driving - I had a few goes today (the wife would say that’s an understatement), racing against opponents from France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland and Germany (obviously the people of Denmark and Norway have better things to do). It’s very easy to set up, assuming your Wii is connected to the Interweb. You can also do a world-wide game, but I bet there’s thousands of American kids who are already experts and will wipe the floor with me - I have been holding my own against my European rivals I’ll have you know.

You can also set up races against your registered friends (assuming you have any) - Choddo also has the game, and has set me up as a friend to race against. If anyone else I know wants to do the same, let me know.

First, just a quick re-cap on O R Tambo airport in Johannesburg. Last year I witnessed the new lavish, spacious departure lounge for the first time. It’s very nice and a vast improvement on the cramped and disorganised departure lounge of the past. Unfortunately check-in, security and passport control are still an utter nightmare.

Speaking of nightmares, let’s move on to Heathrow’s Terminal 5. Yesterday I noticed that BAA’s Chief Executive Colin Matthews had stated “BAA fully recognises that the inauguration of Terminal 5 has not been as smooth as we and BA would have wished”. No, really?

So, here’s my guided tour of the T5 arrival experience:

• Disembark the plane - delayed three minutes because of something
• Walk a fair distance (although some of it is covered by moving walk-ways)
• Go down three flights of stairs
• Wait for a little shuttle train which isn’t big enough for a 747-size load of passengers
• Get off the little train and go up double escalators (which aren’t big enough to comfortably handle a 747-size load of passengers)
• Go up another set of escalators, past the unfinished walls - anyone over six foot should duck to avoid the sharp metal frame hanging down over said escalators
• Go through passport control
• Go down the escalators to baggage reclaim
• Hunt for the right baggage carousel because the announcement board wasn’t working

At this point, after many changes in altitude (down, up, down again), I was ready to pick up my suitcase and be on my way. I arrived at this point at 06:50, about half an hour after the airplane had landed. At about 07:00 an announcement stated that they apologised for the late arrival of baggage from Joburg and they were doing everything possible to get it to the carousel quickly. At 07:25 (over an hour after landing) some suitcases appeared. And after a while a few more arrived. I picked mine up at 07:40 - after fifty minutes of waiting.

Now here comes my ‘favourite’ bit. I had to go upstairs to departures to meet the minicab (that’s their arrangement, and it is less busy up there so a good idea really). So how do you get upstairs? Easy, take an escalator. Which is what I did… I went up the first one, did a u-turn to go up the next one… and found that it was coming down. Yep, the first up escalator was met by a down escalator. A member of staff was standing nearby, and I asked about the logic of this and how I was supposed to get upstairs. He pointed to a nearby lift. It’s a shame ‘One Foot In The Grave’ has finished, because they could do a one-hour special with Victor Meldrew arriving back at T5 from holiday. The scary thing is that the script would write itself.

‘Brain Thrust Mastery’ by We Are Scientists - I am a big fan of their first album ‘With Love And Squalor’, but this is much better. Since that album they’ve lost their drummer (the aptly-named Michael Tapper) and continued as a duo. Where ‘With Love And Squalor’ was a fairly straightforward vocals / guitar / bass / drums in-your-face offering, ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’ is more intricate, varied, catchy and ultimately more interesting.

Tracks like ‘Let’s See It’ and ‘Impatience’ are lively echoes their first album but are just better all round. ‘Lethal Enforcer’ is a clever mix of all the hallmarks of an ’80s pop tune, ‘Spoken For’ is nearly their first ballad (not quite, but it’s slow by their standards), and ‘Dinosaurs’ is the album’s grand epic offering. Best track is a toss-up between the next single ‘Chick Lit’ and the jazzy melodic ‘That’s What Counts’.

Listen to the two albums back-to-back and you could be forgiven for thinking you’d missed a few and they were ten years apart. ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’ is a giant leap forward… and it’s so damn catchy, it’s been in my head all week.

‘Diamond Hoo Ha’ by Supergrass - I think Supergrass are one of the most under-rated yet consistently great British bands… ever. Especially when you compare them to the current crop of British bands I hear on the radio (Scouting For Girls I find particularly irritating).

After their previous rather short offering ‘Road To Rouen’ (eight proper tracks plus one throwaway instrumental) it’s nice to see them serve up eleven full very strong tracks. And thus the equation is simple - if you like Supergrass you’ll love this because it’s probably their best album. ‘Road To Rouen’ was fairly mellow, but with ‘Diamond Hoo Ha’ the guys return to what they do best - lively pop / rock. Occasionally they sound like the Rolling Stones, on ‘Ghost Of A Friend’ you can hear echoes of Mott the Hoople, and the final track ‘Butterfly’ reminds me of Bowie’s ‘Heroes’.

At the risk of a bad pun ‘Diamond Hoo Ha’ is an absolute gem.

Trouble, it’s said, comes in threes. If that’s true, then I hope my quota for this week is done.

Trouble #1 - the flight to Cape Town was delayed and eventually took off three hours late. All down to an inch of snow earlier in the day apparently. Having said that, I will consider myself lucky. An IBM colleague I saw at the airport had her flight to Boston cancelled outright.

The Cape Town rendition of Lotusphere Comes To You (LCTY) was a great success - I’m told it was the biggest-ever IBM Software event held in Cape Town. Personally I didn’t rate my presentation as one of my best - I would have given myself 6 out of 10.

Trouble #2 - my suitcase went missing in between Cape Town and Johannesburg. As we approached the luggage carousal I joked with Brendan Tutt that luggage came off the plane in reverse alphabetical surname order. Quarter of an hour later, when all other bags were claimed, I wasn’t joking so much. The airline’s baggage management team didn’t seem to give a toss and I couldn’t get them to understand the gravity of the situation. The lady said it was now late so they’d try to find it tomorrow. She then said she’s make some calls and ring me later. “Later” meant 07:30 the next morning. I should also mention at this point that it was lucky that I’d kept the free toothbrush supplied by the airline. I received a call saying they thought they’d found my bag, but asked if I could describe it. “Yes, it’s a suitcase with my name on the tag”. She went off to have a look.

An hour later I called them and was told it wasn’t my case. What were they doing about it? “We’re going to call Cape Town”. Not inspired with confidence, I put yesterday’s clothes back on (it was either that or the white bath robe) and headed back to the airport. And there was my case, sitting behind the desk. Overjoyed. Annoyed. I asked if or when they intended to call me to let me know. The lady shrugged her shoulders.

The pleasure of clean underwear, a fresh shirt and a full range of toiletries did wonders for my mood, and after a shower and a shave I headed to the venue of the Johannesburg LCTY, Summer Place. The event was great, over 150 attendees, and if I do say so myself I was on top form and I awarded myself 9 out of 10.

Trouble #3 - that evening I agreed to pay for some customer entertainment, but my credit card was refused. This has happened before, with the over-cautious credit card company blocking transactions suddenly appearing in a foreign country. I phoned them, explained I was in South Africa, and they said everything would now be okay.

A day later, my card was declined again, this time because it was apparently over the credit limit. I checked my account on-line and found there were over £900 worth of pending transactions. This was about £500 more than I could account for, so again I rang the credit card company. They couldn’t tell me what the transactions were, so after a discussion we took the decision to cancel the card.

Now, hindsight is a wonderful thing, and what I should have done is gone to this hotel’s reception first. It turns out that they took a holding deposit of 10,000 Rand from my card (that’s nearly £700). This would have been refunded when I checked out, but now the card is dead so the process is much more difficult. Great. Shouldn’t a hotel tell you they’re doing that?

Trouble #4 - hang on, there’s only supposed to be three. Today I upgraded dadams.co.uk to WordPress version 2.5. First I upgraded a test installation and it all went fine. I then upgraded the main blog (this one) and it all went tits-up. After some remedial work it’s mostly okay… there’s some controls missing from the authoring palette (this can be fixed) but the main problem is that the new management interface is crap. It’s poorly laid out and difficult to navigate.

Tomorrow I fly back to sunny England, and this should go without a hitch as I arrive back at - let me just check my itinerary - Heathrow Terminal 5. Ah…

According to the BBC News site, Bill Gates got up this morning, went to the toilet and had a cup of coffee. He then had several brilliant world-changing ideas for which we should all be grateful and the BBC love him. Just an average day’s publicity for Microsoft from the Beeb. Then he said some words of wisdom about the next version of Windows… Windows 7.  Bill said it could be released “sometime in the next year or so” although a spokeswoman (who is presumably more in tune with Microsoft’s success rate on delivery dates) later said the new version was scheduled for 2010.

Hang on a minute… Windows 7? Okay, we had Windows 3.0 and 3.1 - straightforward version numbering. Then we had ‘95, ‘98, 2000, XP and finally (eventually) Vista (or ‘Vaster’ as Pete Hampton calls it). If each of those is a new version, that means that Vista was version 8, and therefore the next version should be 9.

It’s possible that Microsoft regarded ‘98 as a sort-of half-release update to ‘95, but that still means the next version would be 8. How do they explain ‘7′?

There can be few IBM offices in the world with a view as incredible as the Cape Town office. Just beyond the hot-desk area is a set of windows and double doors which lead to a patio area and provide a full view of Table Mountain. It would be even better if there wasn’t a bloody great crane and a half-finished building in the foreground. I’d post a picture but I left the camera’s USB cable at home. So go and do a Google image search for Table Mountain, and then add a big yellow crane. It pains me to say it but (even with the crane) it’s more impressive than the view from any window in the Staines office.