Man and Mannikin

After yesterday's webcam excitement it was back to reality with a thump today. Printer's proofs yesterday had been less than ideal, so I had to do some tweaking and prepare replacement artwork. Yesterday it seemed like only two pages were involved, but a more leisurely perusal quickly brought other problems to light, so what started as two finished as seven pages to be amended. A call from the printer at 8.30, just as I'd started, didn't help matters. We'd tentatively arranged to meet at 11.00, but now he preferred to meet before another meeting he had lined up rather than after. I had to slap him a bit to get back to our original arrangement. All changes were made and revised artwork burned to disc at 10.00, and off I rushed for what I'm sure looked like a highly suspicious handover from one parked car to another.

I always breathe a sigh of relief as a print job gets to this stage, and this morning was not exception. I decided to park the car and treat myself to some quality blip time as a reward for all my labours. As it happened, I was spoiled for blip choice when I got back home. While nowhere near as dramatic as G's amazing car park view, I still got a few nice shots from the roof of Brown Thomas's car park to begin with.

After a stop in a quaint old-fashioned café for apple tart, rhubarb tart and coffee, it was time to rescue the car and head homeward, not missing the irony while stopped at traffic lights of this poster (more especially so in view of later developments when the sky did a monsoon-like dump right over my house at 3.00 pm). I called in to the bank on the way to lodge a welcome cheque for another recently completed job. Just down the road I'd spotted a place which offers a printer cartridge refill service, so I walked back there to make some enquiries, taking a moment on the way to admire the sartorial elegance of the local population. So, all in all, unusually productive blippingly-speaking. But, happy as I am with those, the image I finally chose was a clear winner in terms of the morning-after boost it gave me after last night's near miss.

Carl is not a great one for going to the cinema (much prefers watching DVDs on his home-cinema setup), so it came as a complete surprise when he suggested on Monday that we go to see a movie during the week. We met when he finished work, I had two large bottles of yummy Bulmers cider, he had a couple of pints of Bud, we went to a gastropub for one of their 'legendary gastro burgers', and just got to the cinema as Das Leben der Anderen (brilliant) started. A Guinness in the most old-fashioned old pub imaginable was followed by a cup of coffee in Carl's place, and then it was time for me to head across the city for the 'home, bed, sleep' thing. I know I should have gone to the toilet in his place before I left. I know now, anyway. I got across the East Link toll bridge without incident, but then the toilet urge began and got increasingly more intense as I reached the Port area. I did a quick calculation and decided that putting the boot down a bit would just get me home before the need became totally unbearable. I think I may just have been a bit heavy-booted. I know I was, actually, as was brought home to me by the flashing blue lights I saw in my rear view mirror. I pulled in dutifully, rolled down the window, greeted the men in uniform, apologised for not having my driving licence with me, and told them I was rushing because I was bursting to go to the toilet. They laughed, told me to take it a bit easier, and waved me on my way. It could have been much, much worse. I don't think it fully sank in when I got home in the early hours, but the full extent of the lucky outcome of my encounter with the Law came home to me at 7.30 am today when I got up and knuckled down to artwork revision.

Spotting this blipportunity after my tarts-and-coffee interlude really cheered me up no end and totally expunged the after-effects of my narrow escape. A hearty 'well done' to anyone who's actually survived to this point after that long-winded narrative. The moral of the story: Be honest with the authoriities and you'll find a good blip the next day.