Well, New Cross, we've lived in your filthy yet strangely comforting bosom for just over two years, and we're almost ready to pack up and ship out. You've been fun, frustrating and – it's worth saying again – filthy in almost equal measures. Folks who say you have terrible transport links are just plain old wrong; the 453 goes straight into the heart of the metropolis via Waterloo, the 436 to Paddington via Victoria and the 172 to St Paul's if you feel in need of spiritual nourishment, and the 177 will carry will passengers at annoyingly infrequent intervals to the myriad delights of Grinij should you require top-notch gastropubs. The view from the window of the new flat in Bath isn't as diverting as the one from the lil' flat at 186 New Cross Road, but then again, we do benefit from not living at a fairly major junction of a four-lane A-road, next to a bus depot. Plus, emergency services of every stripe seem to have an irrational fondness for this particular route, and having the ability to pause live TV just to let sirens wail past – or, more often, sit at the lights making noises like amplified queens – is less of a luxury than a necessity for us. Oh well. I imagine that in years to come, we'll tell our children that “your mum and I used to live in London, you know” but the ungrateful little shits (I think it's important to begin developing an appropriate parental attitude as soon as possible) won't have an inkling of the sheer hard work and emotional trauma living in the capital city entails. It has been a phenomenal effort, but while we're undoubtedly making the right move for us right now – we may find ourselves back here in the fullness of time – I am grateful for everything the city and the people we've worked with in it have done for us, and I'm so glad that we had the opportunity to work here when we were young enough to live it properly. Thank you, London. See you around, yeah?

Hands up, those who'd like to be jealous of my new life in Bath. The below is the view from the beer garden of my local pub, the Hare & Hounds. Rather pretty, yes? It was micturating down with rain this morning, but by lunchtime the sun was out, and by this evening one could happily sit sipping a pint of something brown and room temperature.

Ma and pa are down in Bath at the moment, en route to their holiday-of-a-lifetime in South America. It is, of course, very good to see them, and not just because for the fortnight plus that they'll be away, I have the use of their car. Hurrah holidays and hurrah Peugeot. In theory, the world will be able to follow their travels on the simple blog I set up for them, phinsinperu.blogspot.com. Bookmark the site or the feed, why doncha?

As a public service, and because this sort of intelligent contribution to the public debate is what blogging should strive to be, here is a link to Mr Betteridge's superb post entitled Why the BBC will never distribute DRM-free TV programmes. Thoroughly, thoroughly worth the read, and though he is, I believe from his writing, an advocate of liberalising the intellectual property laws, it's not a Doctorow-style rant, and addresses the reality of the system in which the world does business. Cory might well have valuable things to say, but he has never managed to convince me that he's not simply a dangerous alloy of wide-eyed dreamer and stickin'-in-to-the-man zealot.

I'm reviewing a graphics tablet at the moment, and today opened up a blank document to have a bit of a doodle. The below sub-Howson scrawl is the result of fifteen minutes' tinkering, and I was quite chuffed to see that, five years after graduating from art school, and rarely having picked up a paintbrush in the intervening years, I can still begin to knock together an underpainting. Do you have any dormant skills you sometimes use?

I'm off to the big smoke this weekend to see t'old ball and chain, do a bit of packing, and spend Monday doing work-ey things up London. Not long now, kittens...

Little by little, my existence in Bath is becoming a little less Spartan. I now have a can opener, I today bought a bottle opener – for the lovely, lovely bottles of real ale purchased at the weekend, before realising, bottle held forlornly in hand, that I didn't have an opener – and in about a week's time I should have a toastie maker. Yum. This is all just as well as my wife today realised that there is technically a four-day window between the release of the new Harry Potter book and The Big Move, and so it's entirely possible that come the day I expect to have all my stuff here with me, I will instead have nothing except the knowledge that Mrs Receding Hairline knows who dies. (My god, there's a hell of a lot about Harry Potter on Wikipedia...)

Hello Chris,

Please can you call Phil Hadler @ FSC Music on no peeking, folks.

The message I took is 'Rock Frog £89'. He said you would know what that meant.

Thank you
Sam @ Monmouth Street Reception

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Try saying the last sentence in an ominous voice: “He said you would know what that meant...” Also, I'd like to point out that this entire communication was intended for a colleague of mine, Chris Vinnicombe. I thought not working with Chris Finnamore at Dennis would have put paid to hilarious crossed wires...

Random fact I learned today: the phrase “the man on the Clapham omnibus” has been incorporated in Canadian patent jurisprudence. Canadian, I tell you. Madness.

I went to visit Mrs Receding Hairline last weekend, and it was surprisingly like checking up on an ageing relative. I helped make sure she had clean clothes. I threw out the nice full bowl of mould – never lift a plate without first checking with the woman of the house how long it has been there – and sterilised the crockery in the dishwasher. We took a carload of cardboard to the recycling and a sack of old clothes to the charity bins. And then we went for a run in the country and had fish and chips in a pub near Westerham.

In fairness to the poor dear, life has been almost intolerable recently – worse for her than for me – and just keeping body and soul together is challenge enough. Also, last weekend wasn't all country jaunts and hilarious tales of hyphae, and I damn well need a holiday. That won't happen until after The Move, and that throws up new head-fucks every day. Dear everything: please just all be over.