Get On, Clip In, Fall Off

Insomnia

The BBC World Service sustaining feed on Radio 4 has just informed me that it's 3 hours, Greenwich Mean Time.

There's something lousy about seeing 4 o'clock in the morning when you don't really want to. Having got to bed at around midnight, I got woken by a persistently irritating and bleepy car alarm - at least, I think that's what it is - at about 0230. It kept going on and off for just long enough that I was thoroughly awake and unlikely to get back to sleep in a hurry, leaving me with a faintly icky feeling that in turn meant I was less likely to get back to sleep without some kind of hot milky drink.

So here I am at four in the morning, sat in front of my computer with a mug of Milo and a sense of annoyance at overly-sensitive car alarms. Now, I live about 25 metres from the South West main line and the new, louder horns that trains often sound when passing the station don't bother me. However, there's something about this particular car alarm which seems designed to not only wake the dead but make them crawl out of their graves to puncture the offending vehicle's tyres.

And now the iTunes music store is refusing my debit card for some reason. This is probably a good thing, as given my state of mind I'd probably go off on a frenzy of buying stuff that would make me scratch my head and look embarrassed in the morning. On the other hand, it's a bad thing as it's making me worry about why my debit card's being refused (plenty o'cash in the bank account, at least for the time being), but hopefully it's just one of those weirdo cyberburps which affected the UK iTMS and Switch cards in the early days.

Don't you just hate not being able to sleep?

One thing that's definitely cheering me up during this long dark early-morning of the soul is the news that the new Hitch-Hiker's Guide radio series actually sounds rather good from the trailer. Made according to DNA's notes with an appearance from beyond the grave by the man himself who, in an alarmingly prophetic act, recorded the part of Agrajag several years ago. With, and this is the kicker, The Original Cast. Peter Jones is of course now sadly dead and therefore no longer available for work, but William Franklyn seems to do a pretty good job as The Book, and the rest of the cast remain, for me, the definitive and one true HHGTTG cast. Looking forward to hearing it. Check out the trailer (MP3) and, well, anticipate.

Posted by mpk at July 28, 2004 4:34 AM | TrackBack