Are you in touch with your inner squirrel? Have a look at the Squirrel Name Generator to find out. Apparently, mine is known as Commander Nuttykins, and therefore I must ask you all to call me by that name henceforth. Squeak!

Recently, the list of search engine hits on this blog has been getting more and more worrying. I invite you to consider the following:

• ssx3 naked riders
• gymnastics voyeur gallery post
• guzzling sounds
• the woolly bugger slogans
• amazons of the bidet
• anal scrumptiousness

What the hell is going on? "Anal scrumptiousness"??

Me tired. Not use big words. Want sleep. Sleep, good. No sleep, bad. Small child want drink 3am, bad. Small child make big noise. Me give small child milk. Small child want to play. Small child squeak loud. Me try put small child in bed. Small child squirm like bag of rats. Small child make lumps on my face. Small child make big noise like stuck pig until sun come up. Brain hurts. Eyes feel like rocks. Me go home now.

Attention lurgy sufferers! Does your head feel like it's been stuffed full of rusty iron wool? Throat swollen and scratchy? Neckal glands the size of tangerines? Lungs labouring like a small donkey with severe arthritis carrying an enormous basket of aubergines? Then you must have...

PASTAMASTA'S HYPER-LURGY
New! Improved! Now with Extra Sputum!
Hyper-Lurgy is available from all reputable pharmaceutical stockists. Hurry, hurry, hurry!

What have the poor innocent gnomes done to deserve this?

Anyone ever feel inspired by a photo? Does a picture tell you a story? Check out 1000 Words, an intriguing project by a chap from Australia. "Visitors are invited to share the memories, emotions or creative stories triggered by a photograph of personal significance." Thought you might be interested.

Another medium-sized redesign of the Daily Linguini, partly to take advantage of my new PHP skills [struts about looking smug and braggy] and partly because I just fancied taking a lick of paint to the walls. Let me know what you think. I should mention that I'm not entirely convinced about the pale green colour around the individual posts; it reminds me of something upon which I'm frustratingly unable to put my finger, although I think it may have something to do with airports.

My shoulders hurt. Possibly this is because I've been used as a horse, and a cruelly abused and put-upon horse at that, for the last couple of evenings, but who knows. My daughter seems to think it's terribly funny. [resigned whinny]

Don't you just hate going to unfamiliar supermarkets? I loathe it with a passion bordering on surliness. I had to go to one yesterday evening on the way back home from a customer site, and got immediately and completely lost. You can never tell where everything is supposed to be, and then annoying things happen like being at one end of the supermarket being confronted by Confectionery or Domestic Cleaning when you are in fact looking for Children's Wear, which should, by all reasonable principles of good store arrangement, be at that end, but because the various supermarkets have inexplicably failed to communicate this fact to each other, isn't.

Mind you, to be honest I have trouble memorising the 'usual' aisles in my local shop, so I get lost anyway and do that thing which supremely pisses off all experienced supermarket shoppers, which is stopping at the crossroads of an aisle and the main thoroughfare which runs laterally down the middle of the supermarket (there really should be a name for that bit), frowning and biting my lower lip as though I'm trying to work out a spot of impromptu integral calculus, craning my neck to try and see the aisle-signs over the top of the shelves (which are of course just that little bit too high), rubbernecking from side to side and going "erm" like a chicken with a stammer, or chanting "sausages, sausages" sotto voce in the childish hope that the shopping trolley will suddenly act like a dowsing rod and immediately point itself in the direction of Processed Meats. It hasn't worked yet, but hey, hope springs eternal.

Something really, really annoying is happening. Every time I open my blog front page in a browser window, I'm suddenly getting popup advertisements. This has just started today. It is, frankly, not bloody acceptable. The Daily Linguini is not a commercial website, and I do not, nor will I ever, support advertising for commercial websites on it (except those discreet little buttons linking back to providers of useful script services such as guestmaps or commenting, which seems only fair).

Is anyone else getting these popups? If so, I apologise profusely, and assure you strenuously that it has nothing to do with me, and that I shall be trawling my list of script-service-providers to stamp heavily with spiked boots upon whichever poxy degenerates are spooning out this unwelcome blancmange of commercial filth.

Please stick a comment on the end of this post if you're getting advertising popups, as I could do with the evidence to present to the offenders. I am severely hacked off about this. Many thanks.

Sarah had her first birthday on Friday. She marked this momentous occasion by taking her first solo steps, on the way to her morning bath, and subsequently by peeing all over the bathroom carpet. A moment of mixed pride and exasperation, which should be a familiar feeling to any other parents reading this. I took the day off work to help with the celebrations, dousing my own sorrows at being yet another year older in a vat of formula milk. We had a relaxed lunch at Sarah's favourite Italian café, where she is a regular, because all the staff think she is a tiny goddess who must be pandered to every five seconds. We then spent the afternoon opening presents and teaching her how to eat chocolate ice cream. I have never seen such a mess, and neither has the kitchen floor, which is now threatening industrial action along with its workmates Stove and Refrigerator. Socialism is a fine thing, but not when it applies to your household accoutrements.

The Official Birthday (yes, Sarah has an Official Birthday as well as the traditional one, much like the Queen) happened on Saturday, when hordes of relatives descended upon the Casa de Pasta, Land Rovers and beige Volvos churning up a cloud of dust as far as Leamington Spa, in order to coo, gurgle and otherwise make ridiculous noises at the baby. It was much like a warmer re-run of Christmas (circular arena of adults, surrounding inner ring of brightly-coloured boxes, surrounding small and bewildered child) except that Sarah is now considerably more mobile and has a better grasp of how to destroy packaging.

We spent about three hours removing shiny wrapping paper from her mouth, before heading off en masse to a wildfowl sanctuary and petting zoo to which we have been previously, and which Sarah liked so much that we thought we'd make it an official party venue. Much delighted squealing ensued, and of course Sarah was fairly excited too, particularly when the ducklings repeated their command performance from last time and shat on my trousers. Brushing off gobbets of duck poo I strode indignantly to the gerbil enclosure; these chaps, I thought, will pose no problem, as they are furry and cute and intelligent, and will recognise instantly that I mean them no harm and will instead befriend me and teach me the language of gerbils. I was about to insert a hand into the cage when there came an abrupt tap on my shoulder. I turned, and saw a bloke of roughly my own age, dressed in sensible outdoor clothing and wearing an expression of sorely-tried patience.

"Gerbils," he said, in a voice rich with anguish.

"Pardon?" said I.

"Gerbils. What d'you think of them?"

"Er," I temporised, trying desperately to think why a complete stranger would want to know my opinion of gerbils.

"I'll tell you what I think of them," he interjected, relieving me in mid-cogitation, "Bastards, wee fornicating bastards, the lot of them."

"Oh. Are they really?" I felt at this point that calling all gerbils bastards was probably a bit harsh, if only to the parents of the gerbils in question, and that a defence of their honour was needed. "I must say I haven't ever had any trouble with them."

"Look at this," he said in aggrieved tones, holding up a mildly lacerated digit. "Look what the little bastards did to my finger. Look." And I looked, nodding and tutting in sympathetic agreement at this possibly dangerous lunatic with small and harmless dents in his index finger.

"I shall stay resolutely away, then," said I, "Many thanks for your sage advice." And he left, apparently satisfied at my acceptance of his wisdom on the subject of homicidal gerbils. To myself, I said, "Bugger this weirdo, I shall obtain a gerbil for my daughter to giggle at, be they man-eaters or no." Whereupon I began to scoop up the nearest available rodent, only to be met by bared teeth and the sort of maddened, red-eyed squinty gaze which would terrify an SAS commando unit. "So, you wish to play rough, do you, small ratty person?" I cackled, relishing the challenge. At last, a worthy opponent! All I can say is that that farm has clearly been breeding some special kind of ninja attack gerbil, because as soon as I started really trying to catch them, these little buggers began leaping about the cage in a manner reminiscent of the better class of Jackie Chan movie. It was all I could do to stop them hurling themselves through the opening in the top of the cage and assaulting me with tiny nunchakus. I withdrew, exhausted, and as if to show their disregard for my pathetic attempts at capturing a member of their elite sword-swinging clan, one of the black-clad rodent warriors gave me a last contemptuous nibble on my left pinky. I will bear the scar with humility for evermore. Sarah, of course, thought all this was better than Barney the Dinosaur.

It's unbelievable to think that she's a year old already, this tiny person who's wormed her adorable little way into my being. This time last summer, I couldn't imagine the degree to which she would take over my life, nor the degree to which I would be completely unable to imagine life without her. I think I've become a Parent.

Two of my colleagues have announced today that they will be producing little bundles of joy in December (independently, not with each other). Add these to the one who made a similar announcement last week, the three others who have already dropped sproglets this year, plus myself and two further very knackered people who reproduced last year, and we will soon have enough for a football team. There really does seem to be a craze for baby-manufacturing in our team at the moment; either that, or it's contagious. I detect the crafty hand of the Fertility Fairy at work.

Have been making my first wobbly steps into the mildly-terrifying world of server-side scripting. Snippets of PHP and SQL syntax are capering madly through the draughty corridors of my brain like twisted binary hobgoblins, cackling uncontrollably and beating up defenceless passing neurons. If this blog suddenly disappears into a black hole, you'll know why.

Went to see Bill Bailey, the shiny-browed maestro of British surrealist humour, performing live at the New Theatre in Oxford on Friday night. I have not laughed for such a continuously lengthy period of time, well, ever. I was actually sweating with laughter. The man has an uncannily perfect turn of phrase, in which every sentence becomes an almost literary comic gem, and his musical abilities are astonishing (both in his virtuosity of performance and in his ability to work perfectly-timed humour into the songs). It is clever, intellectual humour without being either patronising or inaccessible. Certainly one of the best twenty quid I've ever parted with. If you ever get the chance to go and see this chap, book a whole bunch of tickets immediately; your friends and family will thank you profusely.

My arch-foes, the dire Wardrobes, no longer strike fear into the hearts of the folk of Pjastaheim. Instead they are bound and tamed and hang silently on the wall of my longhouse. Why, only yesterday, my housecarl Fnord slapped the feet of the greater Wardrobe as he passed, and my war-councillor Bjastardt now keeps his mead in the innards of the lesser! Tonight there will be a great banquet in my hall, where we will sacrifice a dwarf lamb to Odin, and all my thanes will drink mare's milk with mead and recite sagas of days long past. Then we will feast on the succulent flesh of a roast boar and smite each other's helmets with our battleaxes! A ha ha ha ha ha!!!!! [I really need to stop this Viking business]

Victory is mine! The hunched and gnarled Wardrobe fell beneath my hammer last night, and now only its twisted mate remains to be vanquished. Already I hear its groaning, croaking cries echoing through the lofty halls of Pjastaheim. Tonight I will cleave its hoary head with my battleaxe, then feast upon a spitted stag roasted over its burning carcass! A ha ha ha ha ha!!! [Viking mode OFF]

Success in the field of furniture-construction continues to elude my grasp. The new wardrobe remains smugly unvanquished. In a fit of pique last night I threw a pillow at it, and succeeded only in breaking a mug which was lolling unsuspectingly on the adjacent bedside table and thereby also soaking the pillow in the contents of the aforesaid mug, viz, hot milk with honey and cinnamon in it, resulting in (a) a rancid pillow and (b) a disgruntled and bedtime-drinkless Missus. Back to the grindstone tonight, then. Woe is me.

In order to address our increasingly troublesome domestic storage issues, yesterday morning found The Missus and I traipsing up the M6, kiddo in tow, to our nearest IKEA store to spend staggering wodges of cash on a couple of wardrobes. Luckily we - okay, The Missus - had already perused the catalogue at some length to determine the perfect items of Swedish furniture to complement the décor (such as it is) of the master bedroom, so we already knew what we were after.

Unluckily, yesterday was a public holiday, and therefore the M6 resembled a very linear car park, the actual car park for IKEA was sporting a 30-minute queue just to get into it, and the store itself was thronged with the sort of heaving crowds normally associated with Mecca during pilgrimage season. You know those meandering couples I mentioned? Well, there were at least 37 pairs of these inconsiderate doughnuts wandering about the store yesterday morning, each and every one merrily oblivious to the queue of scowling, muttering fellow shoppers shuffling behind them, pine-veneer curtain rails raised in smite-readiness. In the end we were forced to use the front of Sarah's pushchair as a battering ram to move them aside. Eventually, having run the gauntlet of the store cantina (try the herring platter, it's really quite good) we managed to gain the safe haven of the Bedroom Department at 1300 hours and procure an order for two "Pax" birch wardbrobes.

We were advised to go for Home Delivery, as apparently the items were "a bit on the big side", even when flat-packed. We were mildly taken aback to hear that Home Delivery would cost fifty smackers. We were taken considerably further aback when the damn things actually pitched up at our house shortly before 6pm, having neglected to spot the "Same Day Service" notice in bright blue 3-foot-high letters above the Home Delivery desk. I had hoped to rest from my day's labours, but The Missus was insistent; furniture had been Delivered, and furniture must therefore be Built, Arranged, Re-Arranged, and Fixed To The Wall In Accordance With Strict Feng Shui Principles. I managed to convince her that two wardrobes in one evening was beyond the limit of even my own incontrovertibly magnificent carpentry skills, but on the remaining item she would not budge a solitary inch.

Never mind, thunk I, I have put up a truly stupendous amount of IKEA furniture before, and I will have this 'ere wardrobe standing erect in our bedroom before sundown, by Jove and all his little wizards. Then I unpacked the parts, and was immediately taken so far aback as to constitute being taken afront, because the thing is BLOODY ENORMOUS. The display unit in the shop had been a smaller model, and moreover had not been placed in a small bedroom, which probably accounts for the apparent discrepancy with which I am now faced. I have just about managed to get the frame together and standing upright without causing irreparable damage to the ceiling; unfortunately, I can no longer get anything into or out of the bedroom. The inside of the wardrobe, on the other, is roomy enough that a cat could be swung inside it in relative safety. I gave up at 10:30pm, finally heeding the call of my rumbling stomach, made myself some pasta and ate it inside the wardrobe. It's actually quite comfortable.

Tonight, the drawers go in, then the doors. At some point The Missus is going to ask me to build the second wardrobe, at which point I will emigrate to Mongolia. Yak herding must be easier than this.

Those couples you invariably get in only the most jam-packed of supermarkets, who insist on meandering arm-in-arm down the aisles, at a pace which would make an asthmatic tortoise look like Linford Christie, just wide enough apart that you can't squeeze a trolley past on either side. And any time they look as though they're moving to one side, they'll suddenly veer off in the opposite direction, so there's no safe overtaking margin. And then, just as suddenly, and particularly if you're only three inches behind them, they'll stop abruptly in the middle of the aisle to discuss the truly fascinating bag of rice they need to pick up. These people need to be fitted with mirrors, or failing that, leashes.