I was blogging in sufficient volume that my homemade scripts and Demon's non-scripting homepage service simply weren't good enough, so I've moved over to a proper hosting service (34SP) and I'm using WordPress to manage the content.

I've imported old posts going back to the middle of 2004, just for fun. The import isn't perfect, but it will do.

So, off you go to the all new and improved At Home With John And Debbie. RSS users, there is a new feed to add to your application.

They could have made a Grant Naylor style joint pseudonym, Roy Walcker. It's good but it's not right.

Tom thought here was blood on the glass, so when I called it in to the police (primarily to get a crime number, in case we decided to claim it on insurance), I mentioned the possibility of blood, and they were keen to get a sample.

A SOCA officer came on Sunday. I still wasn't sure it was blood, but he had a testing kit that showed it really was. They're going to check it against their database of criminal DNA, and we'll see what happens. The policeman told us that windows are very seldom broken by "ordinary people".

Today I contributed to this crimewave, by paying a glazier cash-in-hand, in exchange for which he waived the VAT...

Careful though, it get's a little blue!

Our mystery commenter apparently lives upstairs from the Lock Dock. More convenient for Bollywood Spice than we are! Swine!

Just to make them earn it, we made them dress up.

There's lots of beer left!

My pictures
JV's pictures

As the coverage continues ("True horror emerges") adding only greater death tolls, and grimmer details, I'm ashamed to say I can only bring myself to skim read: we know it's terrible, it's already on an unimaginable scale, and doubling or trebling the scale simply moves is further past the line in my head marked "big".

This morning's Guardian has a death toll chart: Indonesia 79,940, Sri Lanka 27,268, India 7,330, Thailand 4,500. Again I'm ashamed to say that just for a moment I thought, "well, India didn't do too badly then" -- as if Indonesia's huge losses made India's thousands of deaths insignificant.

Meanwhile, the letters page is full of nonsense about science (which while explaining the phenomenon, apparently leaves us bereft of a means of coping emotionally with the tragedy) versus religion (scrambling to understand how their deity could allow such strife to occur).

Richard Dawkins' eminently sensible contribution (to paraphrase, we can help without supersitions to guide us) yesterday has been knocked back by some halfwit

"As a Christian, I know exactly why I should love and care for others. If I were an atheist, I can't imagine why I should bother to help anyone whose genes might compete with mine."

Imagination isn't required. It seems foolish to pick an argument with Dawkins without at least some familiarity with his work. Dawkins has written extensively and in a very readable fashion about how Darwinian evolution can lead to cooperative behaviour and to altruism. To summarise, it is the gene that is selfish, not the individual. The people you are helping share many of your genes. By helping them, even if you fail to reproduce, you are aiding the survival of those genes.

Does our letter writer (Dr GJ Welch of Chester) prefer the idea that he acts with compassion because someone (or something) told him to, rather than because compassion is in our very nature?

Mum and Dad turned up on cue on Friday afternoon (Christmas Eve), we fed them pie, served them various drinks, and watched Spiderman 2 (far better than the overly talky first one -- seemed very violent for its PG rating).

On Christmas day, we had a nice cooked breakfast, opened our presents, fretted a bit about a cooking oil shortage, took a stroll through Jephson and Mill Gardens, finding the shop formerly known as Londis open for oily business, then prepared a very successful Christmas dinner with all the trimmings. Our carefully created bread sauce demonstrated to Debbie how a bread sauce should be (her only other experience being the boring bread sauce provided at the Metropole).

Later we played a game of Jacob Marley Esq. -- a practice ready to thrash Ruth the following day. Mum won, despite only clicking with the rules halfway through. We also played N-Tropy, an excellent wooden stick stacking game bought for me by Debbie.

Sadly, I the meal was so sumptuous that I never mustered the appetite for the turkey sandwich I'd been looking forward to for weeks. That would have to wait.

Ruth and Dave came on Boxing day, bearing more gifts. We fed them a traditional leftovers meal, and at last I got that turkey sandwich. After our lunch, we braved the freezing temperatures for a nice walk along the river towards Warwick, turning around by the canal aquaduct and returning along the canal.

We had a quick six player game of N-Tropy, then Debbie and I left them to play with / read their presents while we rustled up a lasagne (from the 20 Kg of delicious bolognese I'd prepared and simmered for three hours on Friday). The meal finished off with Christmas cake from Mum and panettone from Dave.

An evening game of Marley saw Debbie win after a tight battle for first place. I lost badly, having sat in last place for most of the game.

Ruth and Dave left early on Monday morning, and we took Mum and Dad into Leamington for some shopping (having decided that the crowds of Solihull would be too much for their parochial sensibilities). We drew a blank on binoculars for Dad, but Mum got some nightwear.

We fitted in a couple of games of Nom before going to the new Zizzi restaurant in Leamington: a chain, to be sure, but excellent pizza in nice surroundings. Some of the staff were clearly still learning the ropes, but it was quiet enough for them to cope with aplomb.

Debbie left for Heywood early this morning, with Mum and Dad leaving shortly afterwards. I'm left in the house relaxing. I accidentally snacked myself into a mid afternoon slump, and watched The Manchurian Candidate (the Frank Sinatra one).

Back to work tomorrow! Probably from my home office...