Another one for b3ta.

Oh, and ta to Douglas Adams for the original basis of the idea (I think it was in So Long and Thanks for all the Fish), and to my friend and colleague James Whitehead for additional inspiration.

But I was still surprised to see this shower in our first B&B:

I will say one thing, however - in a lot of the finer houses the bathrooms remain as they were in the fifties, prior to the revolution. It’s an interesting perspective on design standards of the time, and mostly things were pretty good if you could afford good tiles. The fact that a lot of these bathrooms are still serviceable fifty years on is pretty impressive.

Now, I’m not about to go back to updating weekly. I’ve been busy, I’ve got trips planned, and it’s hard to update this section every single week unless some of you start sending me quality material!

But I enjoy trawling the netterweb and have come across some gems to share with you until normal service is resumed.

The Paris-Dakar rally isn’t the safest one in the world, even for photographers

Safety standards on track days have improved somewhat since the seventies. I especially loved the four-up driving in the Beetle Cabrio…

Streetluge shows that even if our beloved internal combustion engines are banned by green requirements we’ll still have ways to race. This video nicely explains what it’s all about although there’s a bit of overuse of words like dude, buddies, and the like but they’re American so you have to make allowances. I’m trying to find videos of the rather less slick Brazilian stuff I saw years ago - that was amazing. But for now:

Bike messengers are some of the most hardcore cyclists in the world. They ride day in, day out, in the busiest cities. They dodge between the traffic, pick up speed by grabbing onto trucks and cars… and they deliver stuff. Quickly. They may have a disrespect for the rules of the road, and even for pedestrians and other more sedates cyclists but you can only respect the skill of some of them. Sometimes they even arrange races:

Thanks for everyone’s patience while the site went quiet. There’ll be more soon.

It’s a good video of a run up Loton Park’s Hillclimb too. And accurately captures the feeling everyone gets the first time they reach the final bend, Museum.

Welcome to our site - it’s taken a lot of work to get this far and… hang on, let me just check the site’s still up. Oh I’d better save this file just in case. Hang on. Right where was I? Oh yes, we’re trying to do a lot of work here to help folk who… wait a minute, I think I can hear a hot water tap running I’ll just check it. Ah it’s ok. Right, so we’re a self help group of people with obsessive compulsive disorder (ocd) who want to help each other through the… oh wait a minute… Christ! I’ve left the iron on! No I haven’t! Yes I have!

Ok, if you’ve come to this site via the usual route, you’ll be wondering what the heck is going on.

Basically we were sat watching a trailer for the very funny Catherine Tate Show and she made a gag about obsessives who should log on to http://www.christivelefttheironon.co.uk/noihavent/yesihave

And well, James and I were wondering if the domain had been registered. The computer was just there you know…so we had no choice but to check - and it was available! We couldn’t resist and, for the princely sum of a fiver, we had a shiny new domain!

Then, erm, what were we going to do with it?! And I realised, it shouldn’t be difficult to record the entry url - I’d simply redirect the domain to this post here that you’re reading now, and see what happens.

So - here’s the gig. Suggest how many people are sad enough to log on to a domain they’ve heard on the TV. After the show has aired (anyone know when it will be?) I will reveal the web stats to all. There may even be a prize in it - I dunno, a souvenir or something. Maybe it could be like when I listened to Radio Kiev on my shortwave radio as a kid and got excited by their offer of a “selection of Kiev souvenirs” for anyone who reported their signal strength.

No bets are being taken on how many people are sad enough to actually register a domain they’ve heard on the TV - that’s just two. James and Me.

If you’re a really big fan of the lovely Catherine Tate, just click here to see a big list of DVDs, books and related items from Amazon.co.uk

PS. I wanted to add the links to the official site and to some products not just because I’m shamelessly commercial, but as a way of thanking Catherine Tate for all the traffic I might get. Not that I’m sure there’ll be much traffic, but let’s see….

PPS. The show returns to our screens on BBC 2 at 9pm on Thursday 26th October! Watch it and wait for the url. Perhaps we could also bet when it’s used in the show? Any takers?

On a more serious note, be aware that the real OCD UK web site can be found here by clicking on this line.

Last night our request for two “GeenToneecs”, as listed on the menu, provoked an explosion of confusion with the staff at “Ellens House”, a bar round the corner from our hotel. After a few minutes two large glasses, with about 250ml of vodka arrived.

We pointed out the problem… that a G&T usually has gin in it. And tonic. The glasses were taken away, four bar staff held a conference, and they returned with… two glasses of vodka with a dash of sparkling mineral water. I took a gulp and my taste buds immediately caught fire. Another return… this prompted more confusion and they came back to say they were just nipping to the shops for a bottle of “agua tonica”. Ok… they were getting the idea. And then we got what I still think was vodka, with a dash of sparkling mineral water… and a dash of tonic. We gave up. Angelique had also failed to drink her “Baylez”… a cheap and eye watering version of Baileys.

Peruvian service is often like this. They do their best, bless ‘em, but sometimes they’re caught out by their own menus. They then utilise a Just In Time system, as popularised in Japanese factories. This means having stock arrive just in time for manufacture - so saving on inventory costs and storage space. But for restaurants that just means that your entrée may well arrive after your main course because some of the ingredients involved sending a member of staff to the market with a shopping list in his hand. Still, the food at these restaurants is often surprisingly tasty - just don’t arrive hungry….