This will be old news to some, but Mrs RH has just told me of a little snippet on the Russell Brand show that highlighted the fact that I Want You by Bob Dylan sounds exactly – and, folks, I mean exactly – like it's being sung by C Montgomery Burns. Here's a link to an except of the track on the UK iTunes Store, so you need to have iTunes installed and be in the UK. Otherwise take your pick from the links on Google's page for the album.

Also, should you not have seen the summer's sleeper hit yet, here's your chance:

Soundtrack courtesy of Lee Maddeford.

Ah, the West Country! If it please the court, I humbly submit a few pictures that prove that this is The Nicest Place to Live™:


A G&T in the H&H
(Gin and tonic in the Hare & Hounds); some more photos of the afternoon's sketchin’-readin’-drinkin’ here.


The Westonbirt Arboretum
Less than half an hour's drive from chez Receding Hairline is this huge, idyllic fancy forest (as I like to call it). Trees, shrubs, glades, dappled sunlight, dogs, people walking incredibly slowly, the desire to wear sandals and a hat and walk with a stick; it has everything. Including The Festival of the Tree, where there are lots of Phil Harding types all busily turning wood. Into tat in most cases. The worst thing that can happen to you at an arboretum is that you twist your ankle in a hole and fall down; anyone who meets my wife over the next fortnight must offer sympathy. More pics in the Flickr and .Mac galleries. (Same pics in each; .Mac is a bit prettier, but Flickr does more. All pics are untouched cameraphone snaps.)


Mrs RH doing some craft!
This is a happy accident; I was testing some webcams and happened to snap this. For some odd reason I like the photo even though it makes it look like the crafting is being done on the high seas in a force nine. Includes a guest appearance from my best friend Erik the filing cabinet.

UPDATE Mr Stonebridge tells me that my code was fine; I was just being impatient. If the below works, hurrah; if not, read on.



Bah. I've tried embedding the video here directly, but clearly I'm doing something wrong. Click here to watch Jeff’s Opus hosted on .Mac; it's well worth it.

Oh, and if anybody can tell me why the code below isn't doing what I want it to do – it just shows the blue QuickTime Q, but nothing loads – I'd be most grateful.

<embed src="http://www.recedinghairline.co.uk/othergraphics/Opus.mp4" type="video/quicktime" width="467" height="274" href="http://gallery.mac.com/chrisphin/100077" kioskmode="true">

The wife and I took our wee car to visit Cheddar Gorge today, and since he was going too, we decided to go along for the ride. You can come too! Well, virtually, that is, thanks to the wonder of iLife ’08 web galleries!! Click here to see lots of pictures!!! Well, nineteen, anyway!!!!

Also, I'm mucking about with some video at the moment, and Mrs RH has been filming anything that moves recently with our trusty Canon MD160. The resulting opus has been in preparation – merci bien, iMovie ’08 – for some days now; you'll be invited to the iPremière shortly.

And finally, paying lip service to this blog's title – and in the hope that it nets me some more lucrative receding hairline Google ads – please view the below video which demonstrates the ultimate evolution of the humble comb-over. Only in Japan.

Today is Mr & Mrs Phin's second wedding anniversary. The last twelve months have seen us move to Bath, slow our pace of life down, and buy a car. All good, folks. Next year in Acapulco. Or maybe Bath again. It's very pretty, after all. Such events inflame my dormant Hallmark tendencies, and so I make no apologies for the barely-credible self-consciousness of the picture that accompanies this post.

Just a quick note to say that the address for the RSS feed for this site has changed. The old one will continue to be published, but if you could resubscribe to the new address it will make things a bit easier down the road. Apologies if your RSS reader went a bit nuts with Receding Hairline posts.

Also, this article on the ol’ Amstrad PCW brought back fond memories; my first proper computer was the PcW10 with its 'paper-white' display. I'm a LocoScript boy at heart.

And finally, below is the phenomenal volume of paper and assorted tat – note that the mug and pen are special Induction-branded examples, though you can't see it – from my official Future induction. Note too that the foil-wrapped thing is a lolly, not a condom; they don't encourage that degree of colleague interaction. Future. Is. The. Best. Better. Than. All. The. Rest. *beep*

Mrs Receding Hairline and I are seriously considering buying a car, which has me almost micturating with excitement. At the end of the discussion, during which we'd um'd and ah'd about the pros and cons of spending what is in reality a paltry sum on a second-hand hatchback, we fell to justifying the purchase to ourselves. Finally, I made the point that our wedding had been so cheap (case in point: the bride's dress was bought in Jigsaw for £110) and we'd been such well-behaved little Thatcherites – school, uni, jobs with no gap years or other life-enhancing fripperies – that we were in some way due a bit of middle-class, twenty-something expenditure.

“I mean, how much does yer actual wedding cost these days,” I asked.

“Can be twenty grand,” she replied. “Which is frankly ridiculous. I mean, I know you get a nice day, but how nice can a day be? For twenty grand, I'd want a day of continuous orgasm. And I wouldn't want to get all dressed up and have to be polite and gracious. I'd want to lie in a hotel room, farting and watching films, and being fed rare delicacies. Or actually, have the actors themselves come in and act out scenes from the films.”

Amen, sister.

EDIT She has just opined that she'd like a rooftop jacuzzi for in between the orgasms. But, ever the logical male, I pointed out that with a continuous orgasm, there's be no ‘in between’; if it were a continual orgasm, there would. She just gave me a funny look, suggested instead that the jacuzzi could be to round off the day, and went back to reading her book. Le sigh.