For the people who seem fond of lists, the approximate contents of my half of the computer table, after "cleaning up", as it were :

• One ceramic drink coaster, saying "WANTED. one mug of coffee". Except I hardly ever put a mug of coffee on it. I never seem to drink coffee at home.

• One Parker pen, given to me by a uni friend about 8 or 9 years ago, and it's still going. There's nothing like it.

• Numerous Post-It^TM pads, reminding me to pay the rent, or buy that new Fall album, or whatever.

• One Microsoft ergonomic keyboard. Second (or later) version, with the silly diamond arrow keypad bit. it seems less "polished" than my original version one one, that had a bit more weight on it, but died after being hotplugged into the gateway box one day.

• One Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer. It's two-tone grey, and I've come to realise that I have absolutely no use for the 4th and 5th buttons.

• A couple of Anthon Berg liqueur chocolates, as received as a Christmas present from my mother.

• A picture of Mavis, that she took with her Polaroid JoyCam.

• A USB CompactFlash card reader.

• A pair of Koss headphones, ear-enveloping but fairly daggy looking. And they go over the top of my head, which tends to mess up your hair if you're not careful.

• A pair of Koss speakers, that've kept me sane for about 5.5 years now.

• A yellow stress ball, with a smiley on it.

• A cheap 19 inch monitor. it does 1280x1024 at 85 Hz, which is good enough I suppose.

• Some Post-It^TM Tape Flags, wide version. I use these to cover the writing area on my Palm V.

• Some loose change, sorted in to piles of 20c, 10c and 5c.

• A pile of business cards from cafes like Orange or Blue Corn, and so forth, in case I need a bookmark for something.

• A bottle of monitor cleaning spray (given to me, I think, by my sister.

• A bottle of moisturiser, and a bottle of some random Lancome beauty product, left behind by Mavis.

• A "world's thinnest torch" from the British Museum, with a picture of the Rosetta Stone on it. A present from my mother's recent UK trip.

• An 8 Gigabyte hard drive, in an anti-static bag, that I removed from a spare PC while putting it into emergency service as this very webserver, last month.

• A couple of CDs. The All Things Must Pass remastered box I just picked up earlier this week, some old Pollyanna album that's patiently waiting to be listened to, along with a Johnny Cash one, and one or two others.

• A wedding invitation, for a wedding I'm going to next month.

• A pair of earplugs, waiting to be used at the next gig I haul myself off to.

• A key, for a removable hard disk bay that I don't use anymore.

• A Sri-Lankan good luck charm (at least, I think it is), given to me years ago when I worked at Monash Uni.

• An old remote control from a no-longer-used stereo. I was playing with the IR receiver on my PC, getting this old remote to fire up my MP3 player when I hit "power on". The novelthy wore off.

• A couple of screwdrivers, a box cutter, some highlighters and other assorted stationery.

• A letter opener. Everybody ought to have a letter opener.