Douglas Adams has a new book out titled, interestingly, The Salmon Of Doubt. Which is a neat trick since he's often referred to as the late Douglas Adams, being nothing to do with punctuality. Glancing through the inner sleeve this lunchtime in Waterstone's, the quaint offline bookshop, it seems that this posthumous effort contains ten chapters of an unfinished Dirk Gently novel (remember the interconnectedness of all things?) plus various other morsels recovered from his Macintosh hard disk.

Oh, meant to mention before I carry on that I'm writing this aged 5x7, but I'll almost certainly be 6x6 by the time I finish. Yep, quality writing takes time, narf.

Back to Mr Adams, who was at pains to point out that he didn't live in Surrey. Arguably his most well-known words can be found in chaper 27 of The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, part of which reads:

For today we will finally learn once and for all the plain and simple answer to all these nagging little problems of Life, the Universe, and Everything!

I wouldn't want to compare myself to Deep Thought (pause), but I believe that I've stumbled across the platinum key to modern living. Like that supercomputer however, I have to say that you're not going to like it. You see, it's this:

— Have lots of spare batteries and screws —

For those of you who work better with pictures:

Since I purchased a bulk load of dry cells (from AAA to D) and assorted multipurpose screws (from 12mm to 40mm) in the same week, life has been sweet, barring the odd mishap as described on the RHS. No more scrabbling around for mismatched AAs to power a Maglite, nor wall fixings for the kids' bedrooms. A tough assignment to be sure, but it's either that or 6x7.

If You Take Away With You Nothing Else

1. be flexible: they might want 9V worth of PP3
2. be prepared: also carry mints & stamps
3. be secure: Rawlplugs are recommended

Be seeing you!

Ed