Welcome to Sheffield

George Orwell called Sheffield 'the ugliest town in the Old World'. It's not now - it's mostly beautiful and the rough bits have charm of their own.

I'm here for the European Fencing Championships and Wheelchair Fencing Championships, as a volunteer. As a special prize, our t-shirts are shocking pink, which clashes rather violently with my pasty Irish skin. Armourers and medics get sharp black, the lucky dogs.

However, I have wifi when I'm not working, so I'll try to get some exciting pictures of fencers - most of them will be at the Olympics next year too.

Meanwhile, it turns out that Plashing Vole was mentioned on Radio 4's You and Yours show yesterday. I didn't hear it, so I've no idea what they said about me. Hopefully it wasn't an item on how to get fired through blogging about work…

This time it's personal

After five years, my old mobile phone is defunct and I've replaced it. Not, you might think, earth-shatteringly interesting or notable even in the life described to you so lovingly day-by-day. 

However, it's a big thing for me. At last, I can have my revenge. I'm tormented on the street, on trains and on buses by selfish, arrogant, noise-polluting gits who play music through those rubbish little speakers on their mobiles. It's a form of bullying, an announcement that their pleasure is more important than the comfort of the many people around them. When I'm in charge, there will be a special camp for them, with Penderecki's Threnody piped into the cells 24 hours a day.

In the meantime, my new phone will suffice. It's a cheap, boring phone, but it has a radio, a speaker and a 'record radio' function. I shall abuse these features mightily. I intend to record Veg Talk, You and Yours, Moneybox or even a specially bad episode of The Archers, one of the ones with Linda Snell or Jack Woolley in, and use them as weapons of retaliation. The next time some selfish bastard poisons the air with Akon, or Pussycat Dolls or some godforsaken emo, I shall blast them with the very worst of Radio 4 until they go away. Or stab me.