The first day of a new month seemed like an appropriate time for a return to active duty. The flat is now really taking shape with just a few major additions left — the rest will be purely cosmetic. The living room is everything I had hoped with the Sony Bravia KDL-40W2000 taking centre stage. I have been stalking that screen from a distance for over a year, and it was with no small sense of accomplishment that I finally switched it on. The delivery man enviously described these screens as looking “like water” and he’s not wrong. This level of stunning television construction is approaching an affordable price at last (although the truly extravagant can still easily drop three grand on the new Philips Aurea — you know a launch is special when it requires Wong Kar Wei direct a short film). The only downside is that while the Xbox plays divinely and upscales DVDs with aplomb, it has proved stubbornly unwilling to communicate with wirelessly connected PC. Trailing a dozen metres of ethernet cabling between rooms is not really a solution so this needs to be investigated further.

You have probably gathered that we now have internet access from the flat, which also makes work decidedly easier since BPP conveniently make most of their resources available externally. Thus I can continue to keep unsociable student hours rather than restricting my work to the hours that librarians keep (the hours they are paid to keep at any rate). It’s no secret that I am a technophile but, while I wouldn’t characterise myself as dependant, I admit I was surprised by just how comfortable I instantly felt once the dual combination or the internet and TV were sorted out. In honesty I barely watched broadcast TV in the past few years, but I still needed my DVD and Xbox fix, particularly with the release of Halo 3. Yes, I have been playing it avidly, but I feel it probably deserves its own post shortly.

Given my absence there are obviously all manner of things I could ramble on about at length but I’d like to keep posts a bit more focused in order to ensure you retain a steady stream rather than the occasional deluge. Rest assured that regular service has now been resumed.