Inspired by Ed Brill who in turn was inspired by his chum Volker I decided to see if I could find some equally silly place names in the UK. Actually for such a small country we're packed with them, but here few choice ones. Nempnett Thrubwell (NE Somerset) Little Snoring (Norfolk) Long Duckmanton (Derbyshire) Friskney Eaudike (Linconshire) Zeal Monachorum (Devon) Middle Wallop (Hampshire) Pease Pottage (W.Sussex) Thrumpton (Nottingham) Morchard Bishop (Devon) The Birks (Grampian) Anyone ever been to Uggly in Hertfordshire?

Well it's been a week now since the new car (well three years old to be precise) arrived and it is quiet frankly...amazing. It is truly the fruit of some mad German engineer's fevered imagination. Take one small convertable sports car and drop in a 3.2 M Power engine, add a roof, a tiny hatch back and rear tyres wider than Vannesa Feltz's arse and there you have it...a BMW Z M Coupe. I'm glad that madness it not a bar to working for BMW. Long may it continue.

Some people just have way too much time on their hands. As if that wasn't enough they have a web site full of this stuff. Genuis.

Whilst Microsoft is getting all the headlines about security, Linux has a dirty little secret.

As the world of corporate instant messaging hots up now both IBM and Microsoft have products which sit in this space you'd have thought that it would have be a good idea to use some of your own technolgy when fronting customers. Image my complete lack of surprise to find that one of these companies doesn't. I mean what's the point trying to support the sale of your own software? IBM bless 'em, not the most customer orientated organisation I've worked for, use IM in their support centre. So far so fantastic. I'm a big fan of IM and believe that not to have it on every desktop these days borders on the luddite. But wait for it...you'd suspect they'd use the rather fabulous Sametime right? Oh no that would be way to easy especially as there's some cool partner developed apps for it. They use some third party tool from someone you've never heard off so when customers contact the support centre they never make the connection between IBM and Sametime. Opps IBM/Lotus Instant Messaging. I guess the most frustrating thing for Sametime fans is that the product has been able to do this sort of stuff for ages...but it wouldn't be the first time or I wager the last that a large corporate like IBM wastes it's own assets.

If the fun of driving an amazing car last week wasn't enough I have finally tracked down one to replace the company car and ensure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer isn't quiet so happy about me at the end of the tax year. It's the same as the one in the picture and even the same colour. As BMW stopped production in 2002 it's a couple of years old so someone else has already suffered the lions share of the depreciation, always a plus. I've never had a car with quiet this much performance and I hope my currently clean license will remain so, I do hope it doesn't turn out to be a 'Police Magnet'. I'll be checking out radar detectors for sure. I mention it because it was supposed to arrive today. The kind people at BMW said they'd fit a CD changer for me FOC but hadn't realised that the car wasn't wired for a changer and as Z3 M Coupes are thin on the ground BMW don't hold the necessary parts in stock. No parts, no delivery. A quick call 'sausage side' hopefully has the parts winging their way to Blighty. Fingers crossed for next week.

Hurrah...Deadringers is back. For those of you who haven't a clue what I'm talking about have a listen.

Those of you who remember life before MacDonalds and Burger King probably have spent sometime sampling the wonder that was a Wimpy burger. I don't know about you but I thought they had long since stopped flipping burgers and mixing shakes so imagine my surprise when I spotted one in Henley the other day. And yes there were people inside and they appeared to be eating!

Izzy the Hungarian Vizsla grows ever larger. Those of you who remember the early puppy pictures will immediately see how much bigger she has got; and she's still growing. Current she tips the scales at about 17kg at five months (you do the maths for Imperial units) and a fully grown Vizsla is between 25 and 30kg. This is going to be one fairly big hound. She has also darkened in colour to this deep russet red which makes her look quiet regal. The shiney white nashers show the milk teeth have gone and anything that gets chewed is invariably destroyed, we've been fortunate on that front as Izzy prefers hide chews and soft toys to furnture and general house hold fixtures and fittings. Being a Vizsla she is fully of energy and I'm convinced that some Newtonian Laws are being broken regards the amount of food she consumes and the amount of energy this produces. One upside is that I'm doing more exercise than I have for a while. I'm now hoping that the back of the car arriving next week is gonna be big enough.

An Aston Martin DB6 and Raymond Blanc's cooking all the on the same day, things don't get much better than that. So lets do this in order. Firstly the DB6. I've always been a big fan of the Touring of Milan bodied DB's cars so when this kind gentleman gave me the keys to the 1965 silver with red leather example in the photos I was a bit nervous. First thing that strikes you is how big they are, the bonnet seems to stretch all the way to the horizon and you also sit with about as much car in front of you as you do behind. The second picture shows how narrow it is compared to a new DB7 (it was lucky coincidence that someone had a DB7 at the Le Manoir for comparison) which makes for some interesting handling. But it isn't until you drive a car this old that you realise how lazy modern cars have made us, the brakes mean you have to give yourselves about twice to three times the space to slow down and cornering is a more sedate affair. Despite this it's a fabulous car to drive, the 4.0 litre straight six making the most amazing rumble that drops a couple of octaves when you floor the go pedal. And the looks...stunning! Few cars have every looked this good and I'm guessing none ever will, it borders on automotive art. I haven't and probably never will drive such a beautiful car again. Luckily for us Raymond Blanc was in that evening cooking at Le Manoir, Mrs C and I spotted him in his chef whites touring the vegetable and herb garden. The hotel is superb and the sevice excellent just as you'd expect. But as great as the room and the service is what you come for is the food and that was simply amazing, those two Michelin Stars Monsieur Blanc has had for the last nine years means this is the culinary premier league. Probably you'd expect it to be fussy, but it wasn't. Yes there's a few things on the menu that the meat and two veg crowd might find a little too 'avant garde' but if you're willing to be a lttle more adventurous then it's a foodie version of heaven. We had the seven course fixed 'Menu Gourmand' which gives you a chance to try a lot of different small dishes. The wine menu needs a mention because it's bewildering in it's choice, every decent wine growing regoin in the world was mentioned but as you can imagine the bias is towards France. Besides a good French wine is still in a league of it's own. The final word has to go for Mrs C for organising such a fabulous few days to celebrate my forthcoming birthday milestone. I really am a lucky chap.

I'm one of these unfortunate people who have their birthday so close to Christmas that in ancient cultures I would have probably been worshiped as a god or something, so this year Mrs C has decided that September is the month for my 'unofficial' birthday. After all if it's good enough for Lizzie Windsor it's good enough for me. It's also one of those milestone birthdays that's either where life begins or ends depending on which side of the divide you stand in our youth obsessed culture. So for my 40th (there I've said it a feel a whole load better) Mrs C has planned something rather special. Tomorrow some guys are going to turn up with an Aston Martin DB6 for me to drive around in for 48 hours, sadly they will want it back. If that wasn't enough we're going to drive it up to Raymond Blanc's hotel Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons. Lord it's going to be tough.

Looks like my poor buddy Ed Brill has found himself at the top of some internet search engine listing as a potential porn baron. He's ranked third after some transexual escorts and XXX photos apparently. He of course blames me because of the way my family ancestors decided to spell their surname. I may have to change my name under Deed Poll to prevent embarassment to my friends in the future.