Michelle's corner

It's 3:30am and I'm sat here, attempting to drink a cup of tea and eat biscuits, after talking on the great white porcelain telephone.

It was someone's birthday and they brought in a chocolate cake. No kidding but if they'd dropped the thing on their foot, it would be a hospital visit with broken toes. It was that big. It was so big, that some of it actually made it out of the office uneaten... a feat previously unheard of.

Anyway, this was chocolate cake, with chocolate filling, and a thick, crispy chocolate coating, topped with chocolate shavings... and stupid me, having been trying to diet (and failing) had a piece and it was so rich that my stomach gave me a piece of my mind.

I also offered myself up to help a friend again. His grandfather is still with us, but isn't with us, if you know what I mean. Anyway, he played accordion and later on couldn't hold it so played a stand up accordion. There's a picture of him and the instrument, on the cover of this home made cassette tape. If you imagine your usual two-tier keyboard, but replace the bottom keyboard with the buttons that you'd normally see on an accordion, then that's what it looks like.

Anyway, I offered to digitise it for him. I took one look at my retired three head tape deck, which is currently sat underneath my old integrated amp, which is behind a pile of unsold books and thought, "Nah, that's waiting 'till tomorrow."

So as you can guess, I've made no progress with Genie... but if I ever need to write the literal equivalent of the phonics of someone being ill, I've got that one down pat.

Addition for my American fan - the tape had four tracks on it, but it isn't a four track. It's one of those tapes that you flip around and play the other side of... so I guess that makes it a two-by-two-track.