When the train is full to overflowing, I send off a letter to the Department for Transport. Here's one of their replies:

27 January 2012 Dear Mr Locke, Thank you for your email of 10 December 2011 to General Enquiries at the DfT about your journeys from Trowbridge to Bath …

Before meeting the others at the Boater, Bill and I went so have a look at the field of lights.

Quite alien.

I had a look at the Taxpayers' Alliance report Ending The Green Rip-Off. It seems to advocate removing subsidies for renewable energy. I agree, but at the same time the subsidies for all types of energy should be removed too. The report says:

it seems very reasonable to expect that …

Have you seen Sintel? Apart from being an excellent short animated film, it's licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution licence. That means that it's an Open Source film, nobody holds a monopoly over it. I hope and expect that this type of licensing will become more popular, as it has …

It was my 40th birthday on Wednesday. I went out for a meal in the evening to Yak Yeti Yak. Julia brought this helium balloon, and made me close my eyes and sprinkled glitter in the shape of '40' all over the table! I got a brilliant card, and excellent …

On the 12th December, we went along to the Bath Science café, to watch Prof. Chris Rhodes give a talk on What Happens When We Run Out Of Oil? We actually managed to get a seat, these events are always packed out. Perhaps it should be moved to bigger premises …

The greatest sight in the world, a cream tea waiting to be eaten! This is at Charlotte's, with Lou in the background.

If I had regular readers, they'd know that I think that Alastair Reynolds is a genius. I read his series all out of order. Reading Redemption Ark, I gradually realized that I'd read the succeeding book in the series, Absolution Gap. I'm not very good at navigating around the country …

At the work pre-Christmas drinks evening, Emily painted the nails of my right hand black! Very glossy.

I picked up a random book from the library. Bloodmind by Liz Williams. The book appealed to me, and I'm trying to work out why. Whether or not it would appeal to others in the same way, I don't know. I think the atmosphere that Williams creates, a kind of …