Optimum Strategies For Postponing Death #

24 September 1998

I decided to try viewing my journal from a PC at work. Not out of narcissism, you understand, I merely wanted to check that it was working OK. I only ever see it from my home PC, and I was shocked at the differences - IE3 rendered the pages totally differently to IE4. OK, so some of this could be attributed to my use of stylesheets and occasionally sloppy code, but even so, it was just… ugly. I can’t believe cross-browser compatibility can be so hard to achieve. Oh well, never mind - soon everyone will be running IE4 anyway…

When people are good enough to take you for a meal, it’s impolite to gripe about the details. But I was mystified as to why my colleague insisted on a smoking table in Pizza Hut when none of us smoke. He pointed out that the smoking section is at the rear of the restaurant, and claimed that you’re 89% more likely to be killed or injured if you’re sitting near the front of a restaurant. I kid you not. In the meantime I increased my risk of lung cancer, and ate a Grand Pan Pepperoni Feast mixed with a side order of cigarette smoke. Mmmm…

Oh, and I’m sure that the likelihood of death is greatly increased if your designated driver misjudges turns and careers toward traffic islands, but as I said, it would be impolite to complain about such things. The food was good, and didn’t cost me a penny.

I intended to finish off England, England (incidentally, a Booker nominee, I see) before retiring, but for some reason I dropped off before 10pm, so Julian Barnes’ exquisite prose will have to wait a little longer.