An award!

You'll see a change in my blog today - a new feature called 'Followers' in the sidebar, provided by Google. Be the first to follow my blog!! Lola II, that means you! If I don't get more than 2 followers, then it will indicate for all to see that people don't follow my blog, in which case it will be embarrassing and I'll take it down. I might take it down anyway. We'll see.

Another change you might see at some point is an award, from Brett. Thanks, Brett! Brett has pledged to post a photograph onto his blog every day for a year. I'm hoping he'll carry on after that, because his photos are always striking and sometimes amazing. Awards fly around the blogosphere like confetti, and until I received one I wasn't sure whether I wanted one, but it feels good. So I might display it, or I might not. I'm definitely feeling equivocal today. Or am I?

We had a nice holiday last week, for a few days in Surrey, Hampshire and Dorset with friends. I might write some more about it, but then again, maybe I won't. That will depend on having time available, although I ought to have enough time because the new semester doesn't start until next week - I thought we would start lectures at the end of this week, but apparently not. I've chosen Food Commodities as my optional module, by the way. It doesn't look very thrilling, but the other options were worse.

Today, along with the long list of fairly trivial jobs I must do (like tying the head of Dennis the Menace back onto the pull cord in the downstairs loo and replacing the car headlight), we have a Man In. Derek is sitting cross-legged on the rug by the TV fiddling with cables and computers and stuff. This is because we have been selected at random to be one of those people who contribute to TV audience figures.

A long time ago a leaflet came through the door saying that if we wanted, we could join the UK's BARB Television Panel; BARB being the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board. I thought that might be interesting, so we agreed to a short interview with a nice lady who explained what was involved. There's a gadget they hook up to the TV, and an extra remote control with a load of buttons to indicate who's watching the box at any particular time. And as a small reward for our efforts on behalf of BARB there are points to be acquired, and we all know that Points Mean Prizes. Luckily, points aren't awarded on the strength of time spent watching TV, because BARB are going to get very little data of that sort from our particular household.