Thankyou, by the way, to all the people I just removed from Facebook. It was cathartic. You see, you are all the worst kind of human being. I am really happy to say hello to old friends. But adding me to Facebook only not to say hi? Would you call a person up for the first time in a decade and then put it on mute? So I'm glad I was able to increase your friends numbers for a while, but now you have to go. I don't want anymore of your ridiculous facebook invitations to become a vampire, or exchange music, or touch each other. I want you gone, and for you to know that you are gone.

By the way, some people on the list just stayed on it because I remember you being very nice. Pretty much, I can do what I like.

We have booked a wedding. This is the venue. The date is the weekend of the 9th May 2009. Do not book anything for then, unless I don't like you.

This is not the actual invite, of course.

Last night was the first Wheatsheaf Imps show of the term, and my first proper bit of improv since June. And you know what? We rocked it. Not perfectly, by all means, but I thought everything came together wonderfully. In the second set I did not one but two scenes that I personally think were a couple of my all-time favourite, so thank you Becca and Andy.

I don't know if its noticeable from the audience, but the show seems to me to have a different feel to it. I think this was inevitable, given the people who have left the group, but I certainly noticed the change. Yesterday felt like a show about everyone on stage. I like it.

Come to the Ministry tonight. It'll be excellent, and then you will be as well.

I've been listening to a lot of music recently, and I thought I'd share it with the world.

First, my favourite album of the year is "Harvest" by a Swedish blackened melodic death metal band called Naglfar. Try "The Darkest Road" which is actually really accessible. The title track is one of the best tracks I've heard in a long time, and is epic in the most evocative meaning of the word.

Next up, progressive black metal band Negura Bunget, who actually come from Transylvania. Last year's "Om" is a really impressive piece of music, blending the Romanian heritage of the band and the traditional music of their homeland with a more recognisable black metal aesthetic. The result is an hour of the most hypnotic and mystical extreme music I've ever heard. "Tesarul Di Lumini" is a good introduction. For fans of post rock as well as extreme music.

Moving up the extremity curve, Birmingham's Anaal Nathrakh are part black metal, part grind and part industrial. They sound a little like the end of the world. Get blasted with "When The Lion Devours Both Dragon and Child", off of last year's "Eschaton".

And finally, winning the name prize, Rotting Christ are twenty year metal veterans who I only heard for the first time this year. They are Greek, and their ethnicity is apparent throughout their music. I recommend anything on the player, as "Theogonia" is a great album from start to finish, but "Sign of Prime Creation" is my favourite track (mainly because it was the one that made me notice the band).

There was a spider the size of a dog in our sink this morning. That is the second one in a week. I hope this does not become a pattern.

If anyone is after a listening experience, you could do much worse than Be'lakor. Melodic and dark, like the Finnish.

...The term 'Beefeaters' apparently comes from the traditional meal given to Yeomen of the Guards, and reflects their regular culinary habits. In these more enlightened times, however, most people think it is cruel to serve up the feet of a bee, which are needed as part of the bee's distinctive walking style. Today's Guards tend to prefer a more ethical bee foot substitute that, while similar in looks and texture, in made of cow...

For more of this, head over to Project Brainstorm, later today or in the year, and learn.

Went to watch a few bands at the Wheatsheaf last night. There was a clear split in the lineup between bands made of kids and bands made of adults. The first two, Fee Fi Fo Fum and The Youngs Plan were probably fine at what they do, if I had any interest or connection to either Biffy Clyro-like indie rock (the latter) or what I am going to label wank-core (the former). The drummer in Fee Fi Fo Fum was pretty good though. As Charles said, its hard to talk about the band, because you knew all their friends were probably standing by you.

Red Paper Dragon were great, and their burly, bearded slabs of heaviosity in between the more delicate softer builds made me think of bands I love (Isis, Cult of Luna). Their set marked the point where the children left, which tells me that they were not as rock as maybe they would like to believe. I bought their CD, and I'm sure I'll have it playing a lot over the next few weeks. This band should be big.

City Lights Just Burn were a lot of fun, combining punk and post rock traits to varying degrees and making a sound that didn't fit under any label I'm familiar with. I would go watch them again, and if they had any CDs to buy (even though it was their EP launch party) I'd probably have picked one up as well.

More gigs in Oxford, please.

I am engaged to be married.

Cath is as well.

We are thinking about doing it together.

A small pin fell from then power socket of my laptop. Hewlett Packard believe this should cost £385 to replace. I tend to disagree. A man in London says he could weld it back on for £140. I have sent it to him in a box. I hope he is right.

I wish I was in Edinburgh. Everyone seems to be having a great time. I could be performing at the Cellar one Monday night, but I seem to be having a case of performance jitters that I'm sure the only way to combat is by going on stage. Ain't that always the way?

There are a whole host of US series that I should watch, of which 24 and Sopranos are on the drama list, and My Name is Earl, Arrested Development and Curb Your Enthusiasm are on the comedy list, but they require a large time and money investment, and I don't always get around to it. That said, I started watching Prison Break today, and it is really compulsive viewing. I have no doubt I'll fly through the DVD just like in my early West Wing watching days. Speaking of which, although I have had the final series since Christmas, I still have Tomorrow to watch. I can't bring myself to finishing it. I think I need help.

Americans make better TV than Brits. Furthermore, Americans make worse TV than Brits. Discuss.

As yet, we remain on dry land. We took a quick walk down to the end of Marlborough Road, where the Isis is just below the edge of the bank for the most part, but some of the towpath has been flooded. I don't know exactly how these things work, but the people of the news tell stories of how fast the water rises once a river bursts its bank. On the other hand, the Thames is supposed to peak within the next two hours, so we may be lucky.

If anything changes, I put it here. Thankyou to the people who asked after us and volunteered their help. Should this become necessary, I'll send word by carrier swan.

Just so you know, I wrote something for Project Brainstorm, for the first time in almost a year. I plan to do a lot more this summer, but it is a start.

Over the weekend, I was delighted when all my grandparents, aunts and uncles took time out of their day to tell me they thought I was looking, variously, "healthy", "like I'd put on some weight", "fatter", "chunkier", "like a human meatball Sub" and "in the wrong direction". I especially enjoyed how each comment was individual, spread carefully during the cause of the afternoon, rather than a collective opionion as the result of a debate, where it was at least theoretically possible for some people to dissent, though be outvoted.

It should also be noted that my nan did not think this made me any less a nice person. That would only happen if I developed a stutter.

No matter. I am the ostrich. I am the ostrich.

Mostly everyone who reads this does not watch the professional wrestling, so if this is hard to understand, I apologise in advance.

Chris Benoit was a favourite wrestler of mine. Never my all-time favourite, just a guy who you knew would put on good-to-great matches every week. He made other guys looked better by being in the ring with him, and helped them reach the next level. He worked hard and always gave the impression that he would do anything for a business that he loved.

Three weekends ago, he murdered his wife and 7-year old child, before committing suicide. Some facts that have been reported. Medical reports suggest his wife, Nancy, was bound and strangled on the Friday. His son was strangled late Saturday or early Sunday. He hanged himself on a weights machine on Monday. A Bible was placed next to both his wife and son. He sent a series of odd text messages over the weekend, giving his address to several other wrestlers at shows he had cancelled his appearances over. There has since been a question over his drug use, especially steroids. There has been a further question that his son, Daniel, may have Fragile X Syndrome, a rare condition that causes mental and physical disability.

In comparison to this list, the range of media speculation in the US can not be summarised anywhere nearly so succinctly. The deaths were blamed on roid rage, an unusual suggestion given the deaths occured over a three day period. They were blamed on the parent's struggle with the son's condition. They were blamed on Benoit being frustrated in his career. Stories about divorce and domestic abuse were produced, and connected to other wrestlers' experiences (and those of their familes). They were tied to the deaths of other wrestlers and former wrestlers. The likes of Bill O'Reilly went as far as the blame Nancy for the murders, as she should have "known better" about living with such a dangerous individual and not adequately protecting her child. Most seems, with even a little examination, ludicrous, just further examples of the sort of mainstream reaction everytime professional wrestling receives unwanted spotlight.

There are a million other twists to this tragic tale that have emerged in the past three week, none of which have done anything to make the whole thing seem any less surreal to me. I have found it very hard to get my head around much of it - it doesn't make any sense to me that someone I could enjoy watching work could do this. This being the crazy world of professional wrestling, there is also a small part of me that is mournful for the lost matches, the tainted career and the fact he'll never be doing what he was good at on TV again. And because the more sensible part of me says it is ridiculous to care about this where the events are so tragic, the whole thing becomes even more confusing.

My opinion on crime has always started with the premise that a person's life shouldn't be defined by the very worst thing they did, though this is often the case. I think it is perfectly possible that people that did good in their lifetime can also, for a myriad of reasons, do something very bad indeed. I think this perfectly describes the situation with Chris Benoit. He spent twenty years risking his body to entertain wrestling fans, and in doing this, has probably entertained millions. He was also, by most accounts until this final weekend, a caring father to all his children, and a good friend and mentor to many. The consensus amongst these friend's is that the final few days of his life were without warning, and were completely out of charachter, suggesting that these were not the actions of an innately evil human being, but possible a temporarily deranged one.

I guess what I would like would be, one day, to be able to watch old matches of him and be thankful for his work and his effort, and try to seperate the two people. At the moment, that is clearly impossible, and aside from the horror that developed as I learned more about these crimes, my overriding feeling is that all that went before them is ruined forever.