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A varied, and educational, long weekend laying down laminate flooring (one of the Uniclic range from Quick-Step) to help an acquaintance improve his house in London. The task was to lay about 3 rooms-worth full of Uniclic Laminate (28 packs), and moving a lot of furniture around - the killer reason for needing two people. My protagonist in laying the laminate, and moving all the furniture, is a detail-of-finish man, and at one stage was whittling away with a multitool for 20 minutes at a piece of laminate to match the outline of a curly 1930s doorpost; a demented boy-scout aiming for "Floor Laying, Advanced". Inevitably the worst happened. As at Beauvais Cathedral in 1284, the integrity of the structure did not quite measure up to the aspiration of the designer, and there was a sharp crack followed by some of the most creative language expressed in 750 years. It worked second time around. Having bought a car with the dimensions of a small barge (aka my new Skoda Superb Estate), this was the first opportunity to really test the performance over a long run. An MPG of 59 on the way down to London on a Thursday afternoon / teatime, and 64 mpg on the way back on a clear run, measured on a tested-and-accurate car-computer, will do for a car that can fit in a couple of coffins, and tow 2 tonnes. It is about 10-20% more economical than my old non-turbocharged Citroen BX from the mid-1990s, and has twice the power. Whilst on waiting time, I was able to binge-watch on Netflix the documentary The 9 episode 11hr documentary mini-series The Civil War, by Ken Burns. I never studied this historical period at school, and time to reflect provoked a few new insights for me - a bit of an eye-opener. I had not absorbed just how contemporaneous is the American Civil War. We (or at least I) think of it is a long time ago, but the war was only 5 years before my own Great-Grandfather was born. The last Civil War widow - Maudie Hopkins - only died in 2008. Yes - she was a 19 year-old who married a pensioner during the depression, on what looks like a classic security-for-care type arrangement, but the point stands. Sobering.