22 October 2009 (Thursday) - A Sabbatical?

I was up with the lark today, shirts ironed and off to Tesco for “lunch”. As always I used the self service tills. It would seem that these are the future. Tesco are now opening branches that only have self-service tills. That would suit me, but where are the retards going to shop? My guess would be Asda, as they seem to be against the whole self-service idea.

I must admit to a degree of disappointment with regard to how well my telly is doing on eBay. The thing has only been looked at 23 times, and six of those were me. It’s finally off the mark with a single bid at the starting price of 99p, I‘m hoping to end up with at least the price of a pint. Mind you, it’s got two “watchers”, and I’ve had a couple of questions emailed in about the thing.

I spent a final five minutes on my Mars presentation for the weekend. I know I should leave it alone, but I found something to add. The European Space Agency wants volunteers for a mock-up of a mission to Mars. These volunteers will spend 520 days in a simulated spaceship (in reality somewhere outside Moscow), and then make themselves available for up to a year afterwards. I qualify for some of the required criteria – I’m the right age and height, and have one of the required scientific backgrounds. The family are supportive. Or, that is, they were once they stopped laughing and realised I was serious about it. Which I am. A Mars simulation might be fun.

The two main stumbling blocks are that I’m too fat and I don’t speak Russian. Well, the diet’s progressing well. I just wonder how long it would take to get fluent in another language. “Perestroika, Glasnost. Roubles” – I’m half way there already…