Saturday Variety

A varied bunch of news and thoughts for a Saturday.

• I saw a bit of The Incredible Hulk today on TV, the version with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferigno. The pace is a lot slower than films of today, that's not necessarily a bad thing. My wife has Lou Ferigno's autograph, just thought I'd mention that. I prefer the most recent Hulk film.

• My wife bought me a Micro Scalextric set yesterday, it was reduced to 13 pounds from 40. It's great fun, I was playing with my kids with it today. I remember Scalextric racing cars and tracks from my childhood, my brother was well into them. That was the bigger track with bigger cars. I remember that they used to smell of rubber and a sort of burning. I think it was because my brother had a lot of Scalextric track that I was never actually bought any as a kid. He had a lot of Hornby trains and track too. He took all of his toys when he left home. I was bought a racing set called TCR, which stood for Total Control Racing. TCR was a smaller track and cars but did have the features that the cars were able to switch lanes. I had a police pursuit set and I think the car headlights had bulbs in them. I don't know if you can buy TCR sets anymore, I haven't seen them for years. On the subject of racing, I think the French Grand Prix is tomorrow. Not that I've seen any races in the F1 season this year. I have been playing F1 2003 on the PS2 a lot, I have wanted a F1 racing game for the PS2 for a while and 2003 is a great version.
  

• Health-wise I'm a bit of a mess. I've still got my chest infection, so am coughing. I am waiting to attend some counselling sessions to help me work through some stress-related issues. I have a heamorrhoid that hurts when I cough, it just popped up this week to teach me a lesson that when you think you're down something else can come along and get you down a bit further.

• I have been listening to some podcasts this week. I want to hear the new Muse album and I like what I've heard of Lily Allen - she's number one in the UK charts I think. It's not the song I've heard though. I also have enjoyed a song by a group called The Boy Least Likely To.