I've just returned from an appointment with a consultant at the BRI . Before every vist to a hospital I'm always worried by what I'm going to find, if you believe the reports of the national press then you would expect to find: the wards will be full of illegal immigrants sponging free hip operations; forgotten old people dying on trolleys; wards full of patients made worse by the diseases given them by nurses.

In fact what I found was: polite and informed staff; prompt service; a clean environment. On top of this I was not expecting to be seen by the Doctor this year, having been referred there by my GP back in January.

So in answer to the question, certainly not the NHS seems to be in excellent health (if you'll excuse the pun.)

There's a difference a couple of weeks make, not to the weather but the quantity of salt on the roads. I've just been out on Whiteladies Road and the council have done such a good job of salting that it's actually starting to drift.

What a difference to a couple of weeks ago when snow was forecast and no gritters were sent out in preparation; then I had to abandon my car.

So this is the first proper blog entry, and how are you supposed to start a blog?

Well first of all I'll begin on a food note, last night I had my last curry of 2003 from the best takeaway in Bristol, The Bilash at the top of Whiteladies Road. This takeaway may not look like much from the outside but believe me it's absolutely fantastic food. After years of eating bright red onion bhajees that are the size of walnuts, eating a Bilash bhajee is something every Bristolian should try.

So on the technical side, what can you expect from Hairy Spider? I guess the first thing I can explain is how the multisite filter works. The next version of multisite is ready to be put up on the site, I'm just waiting for an opportunity to rewrite the pages. On top of that I'll be exploring CSS, I think the first thing to do will be to markup external links differently to internal links. Unfortunately IE doesn't come close to supporting enough CSS. So I guess that 90% of the viewer won't see any improvements.

I have to throw some thanks to Kevin Brown's blog after meeting up for a few drinks earlier this Christmas he convinced me to get my arse in gear and start blogging.