Nixta Sinks

With luck I may be moving into a short-term lease apartment near Marylebone High Street. It's still far from a done deal, with temporary overdraft to arrange and more such nonsense, but it would improve things to no end.

In other news, with nothing better to do I have decided to attempt the Guardian crossword (a topic of recent interest to both How It Happeneders Dr. Rufus and Charlie "Kneez" Beez). Before you loud-mouthed belligerent infosnobs have a go at me, the Guardian is the only paper the hotel will deliver free. I believe they'll do the FT too, but they seemed to imply they'd charge me for that one, and I'm buggered if I'm paying the hotel any more. Most days I have been able to manage a few clues, with a very marked improvement day by day until yesterday. I managed one bleedin' clue. Just one. And I was lucky to get that. Just the previous day I had impproved to 13 of the blighters. 13 to 1 is quite a drop in anyone's books, and the shock and irritation at not making it to even 2 clues kept me up and fuming until 3am. It's pathetic. It could have been because Sly Stallone was strutting his stuff opposite Rutger Hauer in New York that I was distracted, but I know the truth is that I just wasn't up to the challenge. Back to the drawing board. Or today's Grauniad.

In yet other, sadder news, it appears that South Africa's crime problem is still as healthy as ever. A couple of days ago, Rufus was robbed of all his worldly possessions. He called me at 8am on the nose (quite reasonably so, yet quite unreasonably I was rather pissed off at the time) to ask me how to determine the serial number of one's stolen iPod. I have no idea if the robbers targetted Rufus' room only, but it seems likely that all Cartwrights would have found things missing to some degree. Really rather appalling behaviour, and I hope those responsible are brought to justice by means of clamps, hobnail boots and barbed wire, though I expect they will instead be taking a nice holiday.

I hope I get paid soon.