To the National Rail Museum. It's a lot to take in, and after a couple of hours I've had my fill. Too much information, too much nostalgia, and the prospect of a hot room filled with old engines and yowling kids is more than I need right now. Besides, many of the exhibits are out of their time, or factually inaccurate. Do like the passage on commuting in the 1860s, though: The companies put as many people as possible onto their services, regardless of comfort. Plus ca change.

Very strange competition on Teletext: Jimmy Neutron's middle name is Einstein. Einstein was a real life genius. What was his first name?. Jimmy, obviously. Unless you're Jade, in which case you probably think it was Sherlock, but then if you're Jade, you wouldn't be reading this...

York itself has fewer old bookstores than I'd expected, but a lot of old cultural stuff, and rather a large tourist contingent. Evade them, and the smell of history can be caught in the air. Evade the yowling kids and half your battle is won.

Try not to go out on the first really wet day in over a month. And certainly hope that your boots haven't lost their grip and developed a leak since they were last in heavy rain. Mine have, and will need replacing Real Soon Now.

Usual levels of bull from U2 in this month's Q magazine. 'Staring At The Sun' was the one tune the band could never get to work. Bullocks. The version on the album is complete in its own right, and worked just fine from the off. You can't be caught in a late April blizzard to anything better. There's 'The Fly,' which I'm not sure ... whether it's stood the test of time. It hasn't. It is quintissentially early 90s. No other tune puts the fear and optimism of the opening years of the decade in a better sonic package. That's why it is still so refreshing to hear.

Watching the end of the Fame Academy XI -v- Slovakia match, and spot a lot of ads for Wimpy. Twenty years ago, this burger chain was the great rival to McDonalds. One one side, the clown Ronald; on the other, the cartoon character, more than loosely based on one of Popeye's friends. Eventually, the Macs won, Wimpy sold out to Burger King, and survives only as waitress service restaurants in London and Glasgow. Set me thinking of other early 80s brands ... Fine Fare ... Tandy ... the Today newspaper ... Visionhire ... Rumbelows ... Suntours...

So off to York it is. The new Voyager trains look decent, all shiny and new. They come with on-board audio channels, which are almost up to crap airline quality, but not quite. Best of the bunch is the childrens' channel, it's the only one with audio books. Seat reservation doesn't tally with anything on anyone's ticket, causing needless confusion, delay, and a few sharp words. In spite of sluggish going for the first ten miles from Birmingham, we're only running about 3 late, and make that up in a crew change (and fag break, for those who must) at Leeds. The seats are not unreasonable, but two and a half hours is about as long as I'd like to spend on one of these trains. They're a little too cramped for anything longer.

Thought about taking the Ghost Walk, but decided I was a bit too tired to do that tonight. Good job, too. Fell asleep before 9, and didn't get up before 8.

The Thurthday Thearth...

• bush inflatable plot (Almost right. Bush is a blow up doll.)
• blazing squad crossroads video (Burn, baby, burn!)
• strip uno how to play (Play uno. Loser of each round removes something. Alternate: winner removes something from someone. Don't play with Jade.)
• simon cowell's address (19 Star Boulevard, Antandec, Hungerformillions, Berks)
• free pictures of naked granny
• banzai e4 mr shake hands
• cara ball snow and rock
• one song to the tune of another

Let no one say I don't deserve a day off work. Over the first three days of this week, I personally handled more trouble tickets than the whole department of four manages in a full week.

Thirty five calls today, each requiring an average of 15 minutes attention in a seven hour day. You do the math. No wonder I'm writing very short comments.

The things I do for the gameshows column. Watching everything FAME ACADEMY this week, and suddenly finding myself pining for Tyler and Maria dissecting the micro-movements of the Russell 2000 and the 30 Year T-Bond on CNBC. By the second show of the night, I'm soundtracking with the new Sleater-Kinney album in an attempt to keep myself concentrating. The trouble is, S-K's brazen, untamed punk is the complete antithesis to the micromanaged winner of FLAME ACADEMY.

BRITAIN'S FAVOURITE HOAXER told the story of Karl Power, the man who starred in the Man U team photo, became twelfth man at Headingly, played on Centre Court and won the British GP. There's a great film of his antics to be made, but this is not it. All we got was a bunch of guys posing around and larking about.

Highlights from the Monday Mission

1. Does your family ever have any reunions or annual get-togethers? Do you enjoy them? Father's side is just him, his sister, respective spousen, and five offspring. Mother's side involves five sibs, eight spousen and ex-spousen, one stepmother, and about 30 offspring and offspring squared. I really can't stand such occasions, they bore me stiff, and I have nothing (other than DNA) in common with those in attendance.

2. Are you a picture person? Do you like taking photos, and having yours taken? Very much like taking pictures, but not of myself.

6. What shows (if any) do you own in a video collection? What TV shows would you like to see collected on DVD or video? I have all 19 episodes of MY SO-CALLED LIFE, the greatest serial drama of all time, ever. And I've all but about three episodes of MURDER ONE. Wouldn't mind seeing the complete DARIA available on video, though the complete BUFFY feels like overkill.

You know Something Is Up when the receptionist asks you to go see the manager before you've even walked through the door. Apparently, we got around twenty virus thingummies over the weekend. For whatever reason, the server-based "solution" didn't delete the messages, just removed the payload, causing flaky client-side messages.

The upshot is that people are panicking, as they tend to do when viruses are mentioned. We throw a bone to the clueless, making them scan their PCs to prove to themselves that it's not infected. And we throw the same bone to people outside the firewall, who will actually be able to disinfect themselves with this bone. Then do the real work on the server. Not that this fails to confuse.

As I've suggested before, these viruses only spread through the Microsoft Monoculture. Put a bit more diversity into the computer ecology, and you're far less likely to be attacked. My setup uses Pegasus Mail, Mozilla, and a reasonably smart user. While it's not 100% secure, I'm confident that it's far more secure than the MS run-as-root default.

Speaking of Mozilla, I note that argos.co.uk is *still* refusing to accept connections from Gecko. Six months after I first tried. Four months after Moz reached v1.0. Does Argos not want my money, or something?