Seachain an duine a bhíonn ina thost

I've written over a thousand words today, so I'm feeling virtuous and have awarded myself a break. We get lots of Sunday papers at home, so I've nabbed all the magazines. I love reading magazines. It's awful, really, because it stops me reading educating books, but you learn so many random things from magazines. For example, I didn't know that Jodie Kidd's sister is a Countess and a make-up artist. That's an interesting combination of careers.

I'm actually a bit disappointed that people aren't continuing to debate the relative merits of the Students' Union on the debate boards. It smacks of apathy. I really want people to care, to know enough about the Students' Union to form an opinion, good or bad.

It's quite nice sitting in the same place for more than an hour. It means I have time to listen to music. Today's recommended band (actually make that the third recommended band of the day) are Gogol Bordello, a gypsy punk band from New York. You can hear their most wonderful tune, Start Wearing Purple, on The Best in Pop Rock And Dance Storm 87.7FM. Haha, what a plug. Anyway, they're extra-cool, and you can download their music here.

For cheap and sort-of-well-mostly-kind-of legal downloads, try AllofMP3. It's a Russian website, and they're not really big on copyright in Russia, so the tunes cost about a tenth of what they do on iTunes or wherever. The law regarding importing music is a little hazy, far far too hazy for any record labels to want to challenge it in court (I looked this up because I wanted to not break the law). If you feel guilty about depriving artists of money, stick a cheque in the post for £4. That's more than they'd get for the CD anyway, and still much cheaper than buying a CD.

There's horrible yellowy-brown smoke coming out of my neighbour's chimney. I hope their chimney isn't on fire. That happened to us once on Christmas Eve 2004. It was terribly exciting cos you see Santa comes and visits our road around 8pm every Christmas Eve. He gives everyone presents their parents have given him in advance. There's mulled wine and it's all very jolly. Except when you get to around ten it's a bit tedious. So we livened things up a bit when a big shiny red fire engine pulled up across the road from Santa. You should've seen how excited all the ten year olds were (okay, I was excited too).

Obviously it was a bit distressing having a chimney on fire, but Dad had valiantly put out the fire before the fire engine got here anyway. It's important to call the fire engine anyway, though, because the chimney could reignite and if it does that and you haven't called the fire engine in the first place it affects your house insurance (so the fireman told us).

Actually there's a thing that bothers me about some student houses. Where are the fire extinguishers? The fire blankets? The things for putting out fires? I'd rather not have to wait for a fire engine if something went on fire. It's scary. Fire alarms are all very well, but fire extinguishing devices are also very useful. Wasn't Sam suggesting something about having certificates for extra-good landlords? It would cost something to acquire these certificates because people would have to go out and examine the house and things, but it'd be a nice thing to do I think. Fire safety measures could be included.