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Not many things make me laugh out loud. Especially about Oracle. With enough preparation, a Siebel installation (Next-Next-Next) could use a similar technique which is something I would dearly love to accomplish.

You can take the lad out of Liverpool but you can’t take Liverpool out of the lad.

Not so much a walled garden as a high security prison with barbed wire and electric fences.

I finally caved in and replaced a 15 year old Sony TV with a Panasonic 32″ LCD TV (TX32LXD700) for Christmas. Although the aging Sony still worked fine, it did cycle through Red/Green/Blue and took 5 minutes to fully warm up. Before taking the plunge, I read various reviews and looked at the televisions on my shortlist in shops. Most stores (understandably) use High Definition (HD) broadcasts or Blu-ray discs to show the digital technology at its best....

Just placed a Christmas present under the tree. Had a sneaky look at the tag to see whether a shake, rattle and roll was necessary. I was very surprised and somewhat upset to read: ‘Happy Christmas to the best sister in the whole world (and quite a nice brother-in-law).’

January - Andy Murray reaches the quarter finals of the Australian Open but mysteriously withdraws citing a ‘bad hair day’. An inquiry is immediately launched into irregular gambling patterns preceding the match and his choice of shampoo. Manchester United triumph 7-4 in a thrilling FA cup-tie at Villa Park. February - England beat Switzerland 5-0 at Wembley in a friendly. Frank Lampard scores a goal that is not deflected. Fabio Capello is hailed as a footballing genius...

…from Surrey Traffic Police. Unfortunately, my friends appear to have sent me a ‘Notice of Intended Prosecution’ instead of their customary Yuletide greetings card. I wrote and told them I had been a very good boy all year long. Well, a very good boy apart from my recent brush with their colleagues from the London branch. Assuming Surrey Traffic Police content themselves with another fixed penalty notice and 3 points, this is quite inconvenient for me as this takes my tally to 9 points so I will now have to drive like an old man wearing a trilby hat....

There are two words that are guaranteed to send Norman Junior and myself into fits of helpless laughter: ‘Giraffe’ - Rick’s wrong answer on ‘Trick or Treat’ to the question ‘What is the world’s tallest mammal ?’ ‘Horace’ - My spontaneous answer to my son’s question ‘What were you going to call me if it had not been Norman Junior ?’

A week savouring the joys of commuting to Waterloo on South West Trains. Oxford Street is packed, the Christmas lights are on, the temporary ice rinks are open and lots of people are enjoying Christmas parties. Inevitably romance, as well as alcohol, is in the air. I am fairly shy and reserved so I took the opportunity to place a couple of small ads in the wonderful London Paper and am eagerly awaiting a couple of calls and an early Christmas present next week....

I always was led to believe that Bobby Charlton and George Best didn’t get on. I read it in books and interviews and heard it from various different sources. Of course, this fact wasn’t a total surprise as the two gentlemen did appear to be completely different personalities with rather contrasting interests and, err, hobbies. A month ago, I saw Charlton interviewed by Michael Parkinson where he recounted his memories of the Munich air crash....