Now I know that most young people’s understanding of copyright law, the BPI, and why DRM is a bad thing isn’t that advanced, but sometimes the mind boggles.

“But even if we do download songs for free, we have already paid for them in a way because we have had to pay for our broadband internet connection.“

No, no, no, no, no.

I don’t need to pay for the shopping, in a way, because I paid for the petrol to get to the supermarket?

More comment on this, perhaps, later.

Dan Cederholm is a staunch advocate for the breast pocket. I rarely use mine, if I have one (and if I do, it’s usually as a convenient place to put cutlery). But another pocket holds its place in my heart, even if it does always force me into difficult decisions.

It’s the left-hand pocket in a pair of trousers.

Trousers have always had two pockets in them, minimum. (At least, all the ones I’e ever worn have, and one of my favourite pairs had six on it). These two pockets are mounted on the front, one on the left, one on the right. For me, the purpose of the right-hand pocket has remained constant, but the left has changed its role over time – and always been invaluable.

To begin with, only the right pocket was filled, and I put my wallet and my keys in it. Nothing in the left pocket permanent – its duty changed with time.

When I was 13, I got glasses. I didn’t wear them all the time, so my left pocket became home to my glasses case. As I got older, I tended to wear them more and more, and they saw the inside of the case less and less.

When I was 18, I got my first mobile phone. That instinctively went in the left pocket. That was the final nail for the glasses case. I had just got new glasses I liked wearing far more than the old ones anyway, so I resigned myself to wearing them full-time, and kept the phone in my pocket. (The fact I no longer carry a glasses case explains why, if you know me, I have a habit of placing them upside down on the table in front of me once I’m seated).

I could check I had everything with three short taps – wallet in right pocket, phone in left, keys in back pocket. It’s a bit harder now: my phone is so small I sometimes can’t feel it, and I put my keys in the right pocket too ever since they started wearing holes in the back of my trousers.

Now, I sometimes put my iPod in the left pocket, running the headphones up under my shirt or jumper. There’s not quite room for both it and a phone, so I have to put the phone somewhere else – and somewhere I’ll be able to get at it quickly. I don’t always wear a jacket. So where should it go? I am now, irrevocably, confused.

I cannot help but pine for a simpler time, when I didn’t need to be contactable, didn’t want to drown out the drone of the commute, and did not need to carry my own money with me.

I think I should be a hermit. Either that, or buy more jackets. They are, after all, just pockets with sleeves.

On my desktop I have a folder entitled “Odds and Ends“. This is for all that stuff that I don’t want to throw away just yet, but that doesn’t belong in my documents folder, either.

Basically, it’s stupid .avis, some PDFs of interest, and reference material I’ll never need again. This morning, I cleared it out, and deleted:

• The Hutton Inquiry.
• A Whorechalking card.
• A Sony Ericsson T610 manual.
• Some icons.
• Manuals for products I do not own.
• PDF of Lambeth council tax rates.
• Some crap mophos.
• A Cheltenham restaurant sample menu.
• Some “amusing” avi files.

See? Utter rubbish.

It’s quite nice to clear out. I’ve been reading 43Folders and been feeling the urge to streamline things – more time doing, less time organising. My desktop is now nice and decluttered – temporary files and aliases only – and now it’s time to go down a level, and clean out the folders. This is only the beginning.

Tiddlywiki is a wonderful, wonderful implementation of a wiki. It stacks entries one on top of another as you view them, so you can always see your history; entries can be closed when you don’t need them anymore.

When you see them stacking up, you begin to see how the information in the Wiki itself is structured; you can edit them in-place without distubring your train of thought.

The problem with Wikis is that they don’t display train-of-thought so well. Well, this one does, and I can’t wait for someone to find the killer app for it. It’s also not lost on me that it looks more like a traditional columnar weblog than most other wikis. Everyone gets weblog design; hell, everything looks like a weblog these days. Applying it to a wiki isn’t so stupid, and Tiddlywiki implements it fantastically. Who’s going to get on with the killer app, then?

I was reading the recent Guardian interview with black erotica writer Zane over breakfast the other day. I commented to the girl on the reference it made to the practice of “72”ing.

(It’s like a 69, but with three fingers up the ass, apparently).

The Girl didn’t get it. She was trying to work out how two human bodies could represent a 7 and a 2 whilst engaged in, you know, sexual acts.

“No,” I said. “69 + 3 = 72“.

“Ah”.

I was clearing up after breakfast, and had a look at what now covered the pad we write the shopping list on. Lots of two digit numbers, little cursive things, with little hands and faces.

All having sex with each other.

Every morning she thinks up new challenges. Apparently 34 looks quite good. I liked the look of 38, myself.

Think about it. Nice and cuddly.

It’s my birthday on Sunday. I got in from work and chatted to the Girl. “Oh,” she said, “I made you an apple cake”.

I don’t really like apple cake. Or tart. Or pie – unless it’s swathed in custard.

“Great,” I said. I went into the kitchen.

I hadn’t fully understood what she meant.

Dorkiest birthday cake evah!