Did I hear correctly on the news last night that around 15% of people in Britain suffer from asthma � more than any other country in the world?

I slept a for a long while last night � about 10 hours � twice my usual duration. There aren�t that many ways of managing a sleep pattern that I know of � in fact the only one that really works for me I use anyway. This has disrupted my plans for today but they were already rather shaken about. I had been planning to go to Crewe to the Bentley works, now owned by VW. But that meeting was pulled at the last moment. So I thought that I might spend the day at the Meriden motorcycle museum � not looking at motorcycles � but it transpired that my invitation was only to lunch and the afternoon. But then a colleague added on a 6 oclock lecture at Austin court � an attractive refurbished 18C building near the Ikon Gallery in central Birmingham.

I have also been asked to do a presentation on quite a major topic in a week�s time which will become the main focus for a bit. At least another project which I have been asked to research has moved onto implementation, which is must less my forte. This happened at a meeting yesterday.

The soundcard � internal and external � is in something less than a 100% stable state. But over the weekend I did realise that using the external box there is a route from the latest save disabled version of Wavelab to CDR . So I can make the most of the wonderful facilities in that software and save the results digitally

Nick Brown has invited me to the Hughes Hall City Lecture about Government and the Media. As someone whose job has been threatened for talking to journalists and who has done some quite outrageous things trying to track down other miscreants � this sounds like fun. This will give me a chance to link in the Buskers to the concert.

Peter C has been busy with the vocal section of the concert and has come up with two candidates � one he met in Dublin � an all fem barbershop outfit � and the other in Swazilaland when he was a guest of the king (along with a lot of other people). Peter and I are trying to get a project going on the history of the Automotive College � there is an opportunity to present at the end of the Summer to a suitable audience.

One of my excuses is that I am paid to explore and make linkage which might turn into strategic opportunities for the organisation � a kind of scouting function. That linkage element happens in its own eccentric way and part of being effective is going with the grain on that facility.

Carl Craig�s remix of the B52s Mesopotamia is great fun. Detroit meets Athens meets Ur perhaps. Must get his Detroit Experiment.