My word, but don't I look rough this morning. Just as well I'm not going anywhere important.

Well I went out to see The Matrix: Reloaded last night and it wasn't really very good. Also, the cheap cinemas at Camberley and Aldershot are closing down, so we (Ruth, Nick and I) went to Bracknell instead. For £6.25, I was mightily disappointed. At the end of the last film, Neo was wiping the floor with the agents, and everyone was wondering how they could make the fight scenes in the next film be any good. This they achieved by ignoring continuity - clever. I also wonder why, if he can stop bullets by holding his hands up, he can't stop hand-to-hand attacks in the same way. What is more dynamic about a person's limbs than about a bullet? Oh, and they talked a lot of sh*t interspersed with bits you were meant to be listening to so that you knew what was going on. What was going on didn't sound very interesting. I wonder about this prophecy too. Who prophesied it? Where did it come from? If everyone was so happy about the prophecy (everything's going to be fine - just hang on) why did they even need it? Bah.

Because I have a small room, paperwork build up pretty easily. Thus it was that I spent half an hour this morning organising myself a bit. Then I went to mass at Ss. Peter & Paul. Found Dad looking down a manhole cover outside St. Martin's, ad thus putting his glasses in peril. I asked if he wanted anything doing in church, which he didn't exactly answer, but I found myself doing a spot (literally) of weeding in the garden. Then I circled some jobs to investigate in the local papers, but I haven't phoned them yet. I'm a bit worried about this Jobseeker's interview on Friday. I think Dad thinks I'm being silly.

I downloaded the works of Clement, Irenaeus, Ignatius, and Justin Martyr available at www.earlychristianwritings.com and read some of them, and a bi of Isaiah, and also the original Eusebius. I should be well supplied with gnostic context for The Matrix: Reloaded now.

More New Eusebius; on the Novatianist schism. It seems the chap set himself up as a rival pope. There was a disagreement as to whether serious sins (In the Decian persecution many professors went to eat food sacrificed to idols) could be confessed. Novatian thought idolatry unpardonable. So he set up his own church, and for a while there was another church, kinda like the Pius X chaps now, I guess. Except after a few centuries the Novatianists were declared orthodox, yet schismatic. It's all a bit confusing. They packed in in the seventh century ultimately.

I phoned Vicki to see how she was doing, and had a chat with her whilst drinking gin and tonic, which is something I do only whilst at home. Perhaps I should talk about the conversation, but it was slightly all over the place. If you were that interested you'd phone me. I shall phone Rosie at some point too, only I'm going out to see The Matrix: Reloaded this evening (Wednesday - bit slack) with Ruth.

Then I watched Fawlty Towers. It was good, but was a bit confused, because I thought I'd seen that episode already. Not getting very far with Emma; it's all this church history I'm reading.

It is a strange thing for someone to bemoan their eternal bachelorhood to me, of all people, and yet it happens. Odd.

Today I've been filling in the forms that the man at the Jobcentre gave me to fill in before my interview. All very tedious stuff. This I did until Mum got back from Tesco's where she had just done the shopping. She said that there was a notice up advertising for - ahem - checkout operators, so Nick and I went down to Tesco's, waited in a queue for a bit, and found out that there were no application forms. Every little helps.

Back to the forms. At one point it asks for details of your nearest post-office, in case they need to get money to you in a hurry. Anywya, I had to go round the corner to ask their address. To my mind, a form that's completion depends upon one's going out of doors is a form that is flawed. On the way back from that I ran into a kid. I knew he was a pupil of Cordwalles Shool by his garb. "Hello," says he, "I know you from somewhere... church, the guitar playing kid." Having settled this matter, which was confusing me also, we went our separate ways. However, I am disturbed by the notion that this person in miniature might think of me as a kid. I suppose it's possible that I misheard him. I must remember to bring some money to church next week, for upon meeting him the first time, he got a little sponsorship for a walk that he was doing. Precocious, I think, is the word; saving the presence of his mother, he was apparently going to dob on Alan, our keyboard player, for falling asleep during Dad's sermon. One to watch, and forseeably lock up. Naturally, I jest

My room is now sorted. I put it all away, or in the bin. I decided to have my guitar in my room too, so that I can blast it through my expensive (for me) amp, but it's a bit squashed. I shall see how it goes. I kept on finding random things and seeing if Nicholas wanted them, like a copy of The Communist Manifesto that I had printed out from Project Gutenberg, and Freud's essay on the uncanny (unheimlich?). I was always rather disappointed with The Communist Manifesto; it's not very good. I'm not clever enough to read Das Kapital though; I tried that once.

I ran out of steam from thereon in, and I thought that I should perhaps read my bible. I haven't for a while; finished Job a bit ago, and then got into Narnia. I think I must be about to start on the major prophetss, but for some unfathomable reason I feel like skipping to Jeremiah, rather than reading Isaiah, so perhaps I shall. What I actually ended up reading was more of A New Eusebius, which was interesting - Clement of Alexandria and Origen. They're a somewhat confusing pair. I think it was Clement who called Christians to be perfect gnostics. Such statements as these understandably make everyone a bit suspicious, but they have their advocates as well. Clement, I think, was dropped off the list of saints a bit later becasue the pope thought he was dodgy. They were very into their philosophy, so everything's a bit strange and speculative.

My parents were good enough to take me out for a meal last night, which was very good. There doesn't seem to be much to say about it, but I think I might say what I had.

• Wexford-style mushrooms with stilton


• Layered squash, goat's cheese and vegetable pie


• Summer pudding with custard

Had we been able to get the wine we wanted, I would be able to tell you what it was, but they were out and we had some manner of Qualitatswein which was rather good.

The Summer really started for me when I picked up Emma last night and started reading it. It would be a wonderful thing to have read all the books I own by the end of the summer. A for Austen.

A small mystery solved. I just saw the opening credits for My Parents are Aliens. It seems that the fake alien parents did not kill and eat their real parents after all; they found them in an orphanage. Simple really.

Dad dropped me off in town and I paid in a cheque for him. Then I went to the Jobcentre and arranged an appointment for Friday. The chap took some details and gave me a pack full of forms to fill in. He asked me if I was Nigel Dobson's brother; close. On Friday, I shall try to look as though I was kicked out of university after a disagreement re. The Phantom Menace. Phone battery next. I needed a new one, as it keeps dying mid-conversation. I had ordered one, at a cost of £25, to 5 Kingdom Mews, but I don't live there anymore, so thats more money down the drain. This kind of thing always happens to me. Gavin had the same trouble. If you're reading this Gavin, I'd still appreciate you sending my mail on if you, by any chance, get hold of it. My parents have the same phone, so maybe they can have it as a spare. I mananged to get a battery in town though. I thought I would have a quick look in the Rock Box, though resolved to spend less than £5. I emerged with "Pin" (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, £2.99) and "In a Room" (Dodgy, £0.50), althought I was sorely tempted by Lounge against the Machine a compilation of lounge settings of alternative standards.

Naturally, I'm back now. Dad found a Marks and Spencer jumper (Cardigan? I'm not actually sure how one defines a cardigan) in our car and was asking how it might have come there. Do you have a clothing defecit Mino? That might be it.

Good morning. Going to town today, to try and sort out some things. Gavin, can you put some comments on your blog, post-haste? I think you have made a good start as blogs go, for what it's worth. Very good.

Well, I guess I'll be needing to update my template again. I think I might put Mr. Shinwa on as well; He likes links he does.

Hi guys. There's a big ol' house fly on the monitor. Not much to tell today. Went to church and played, as per. Not as per, Dad said that I had got my degree, so there was a fair bit of congratulating going one. It was not remotely like The Graduate by Charles Webb.

I have now read the Chronicles of Narnia, and jolly good they are too. I remembered most of the ones that were on TV. Did they do all of them? I don't remember The Magician's Nephew, The Last Battleor The Horse and his Boy being onscreen, but I think Neil must have, in the mists of time, got speaking book versions out from Sheffield library, for I remembered some parts. Sheffield library had a papier mache dragon and a god selection of Asterix books.

This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD
- Ezekiel somewhere near the beginning

Lewis' version of heaven in The Last Battle sounds good enough, but naturally the real deal is meant to be better. It's this kind of thing that can cheer a chap up.

I unpacked a bit today. The stereo came first, naturally. Nick was a bit bored I think. He offered to help me unpack, but its a small room, and not really practical to interfere with me in an orderly mood, so we played games instead. That's on his blog. G'night.

Hmm. I'm still getting hits from saruman and hera, but as far as I know, everyone who reads my blog has left Exeter. I wonder who it is.