Well, I've been all over the place in the past week or two.

I went down to Yorkshire on the 25th for my Birthday (with a God-awful hangover) where Tom and William promptly got me drunk again. Waiting for me at home were presents of a new watch, a hipflask, a book on weirdness and a new soundcard.

Easter was great, chocolate and all. Headed down to London soon afterwards to catch up with some of my Africa Venture friends, many of whom I hadn't seen since we'd come home. That also was great.

I'm now back in Edinburgh wanting to murder my computer. Whilst installing my shiny new soundcard, I've run into a few difficulties. Whatever I try to do, I just get the same error message "This device cannot start. (Code 10)". I've tried all of the little technical tricks I've learned over the years to get it working, yet still it mocks me like a geek's version of Poe's raven.

All the more infuriating is the fact that I use my computer for everything - it's my music player and library, DVD player, television, games system and work system, so without a working soundcard I'm stuck in a weird and silent world. It's so bad I've started reading.

If this sound problem goes on any longer, I might even start revising...

Hal