Oblong Scone

Apparently Princess Diana is dead again . She first died in 1997 and to this day is continuing to die on an almost weekly basis. Tonight she died in a tunnel in Paris and ITN News at Ten are on the story with Tom Bradbury who seems very upset about the whole thing. More upset, you could argue, than a reporter should be. I mean when she originally died, he had every right to shed a few tears even as a supposedly hardened journalist. But this must be the seven thousandth time she’s died and he really should be getting used to it by now. It’s always in the same place in the same city and it’s always everybody’s fault. Mine because I’ve watched television and read newspapers, yours because you were breathing on the same planet as the people’s princess. We've all got her blood on our hands. Reporter Bradbury talks to camera in a solemn Captain Kirk manner. “The last thing she would have seen, would have been the flashes of the many cameras.” He looks for all the world like he’s trying

Carol stared at her, concious she should not blink, “I wont turn out like you…”. ‘I thought I could do what ever TV show I liked and it would be OK….’ Anthea ran her hands slowly through her tired drunken hair, ‘now look at me… Stuck talking to you on Christmas Eve wearing yellow shorts.' ‘You‘re ok…you’re fine.’, Carol's eyes could no longer maintain an honest contact, they dropped blurring the vision of the washed up celebrity who stood before her. ‘It’s too late for me,' Anthea replied, she looked over to the empty marble fire place, 'Killing a colleague’s cat when I worked for GMTV because I had a hole in my coat and it was the right colour. It was wrong, I can see that now. Wrong fucking colour and the fat Irish twat loved that thing. I wish I hadn’t done it, I really do…and now…I don’t even remember the name of the TV show I work on Carol…It’s…it’s…something about me…It’s not important; only my mum watches it anyway and she doesn’t even realise I‘m in it. It’s got

National days and weeks are very much the things or thing of the moment. Last week we missed National Tree week. I say we missed, maybe you didn’t, maybe last week was totally jam packed with tree related activities for you, and if it was, I hope they were both rewarding and spongy. National Tree Week did of course include Tree Dressing Day( December 3rd) where we were encouraged to “Decorate and celebrate a living tree in your street”…”show how much you value it.” I haven’t seen one living tree decorated, and I certainly have not witnessed anyone celebrating a living tree. People were throwing down beer at Birthdays, making vaguely witty comments in leaving cards and submerging babies heads in water at christenings; but I saw no body sharing a bottle of cheap red wine with a Birch. National Non-Smoking day is one of my favourites. I’m sure the creator of this day had the best of intentions. But they didn’t really think it through in my opinion. And though my opinion isn’t important, l

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6159857.stm Are A-Levels getting easier? That’s been the question that literally everybody in the entire world has been asking. Just to put a picture in your mind of the widespreadnessness of people asking that question; A seven year old boy from Brazil, in the middle of a conversation with his mum regarding Comfort Cooling, suddenly and spontaneously directly asked “Mum, Are A-Levels getting easier? Mum? Are they? Mum? Mum? Mum? Are they?“ Well the answer to this question has been given by the QCA (Qualifications and Curriculm Authority), another organisation that feels that the word “and” isn’t important enough for their acronym. I would sincerely like these anti-conjunction-recogniser snobs to survive without this word. “Can I have Fish Chips please?” What you want chips made out of fish? Get out of my Fish And Chips Shop (FACS) you food mutating perverts! Anyway they’ve been working on the problem of A-levels, which are now officially recognised

'I'll close the door then' , the bloke working on the platform said as I didn't close the door behind me whilst getting onto a train, because I don't work there. Don't get me wrong, I have no real objection to closing train doors and would happily do it just for the pure orgasmic enjoyment only closing train doors can bring a person. The trouble is the last time I closed the door behind me after thinking I was last on, I got the guard ripping the door open with a 'that's my job' look in his eye and an old woman who smelt of goat wobbled on moaning about the 21st century like it was nothing to do with her.I've had 30 years of influence on the world, she had probably had about 70. Statistically all the problems in society are more likely to be her fault than mine. She’s had longer to stir her wooden spoon of contempt in the dirty fat cake of earthly affairs. I hadn’t closed the door in her dumb-folded face deliberately, but I remember that look of

We’re gonna six you all over the place you Rolf loving sun stealers. Anyway I reckon Rolf wants England to win cause we let him make Animal Hospital? Did you heh? All those animals and did you give the bearded hummer a tele-program where he could unsquash cats? No…you’re too busy tying kangaroos down onto your barbeques and squashing full cans of Fosters with your bare dirty hands, spilling that shit everywhere so your whole country stinks of dull tasting lager. We’re gonna whack yer twenty nil you Ramsey Street peepers! Then you’ll come back to us crying, asking if you can use our queen again. Well you can’t - Lizzy don't like your accent and Phillip reckons your eyes look funny. COME ON ENGLAND!

A middle-aged colleague paying 10p to get a drink out of the vending machine that isn’t standard tea or coffee. Standard tea and coffee is free. His selection is made but the drink fails to fire into the cup properly. He pulls out the plastic cup, a look of disgust on his face as he surveys the brown sludge lodged to the bottom. He strolls with indignity around the whole office showing all he encounters the inside of the cup. “And I paid 10p” he says repeatedly. “Not on.” some reply. “Go get the money back off the bastards” says the one who has never smiled. And with that, a man who got nothing for his 10p storms off to find “the bastards“. And we may never see him again. The middle aged man who put petrol in his Diesel Car. A sudden letting go of the pump trigger and he stares down, eyes pushing as hard as they can out of inadequate sockets. “Shit!” And then two desperate looks around: The first to see if there’s anything he can do to rectify this terrible mistake. The second when he

Tom Cruise has married Katie Holmes. It was somewhere in Italy, which is a European country. Tom and Katie wrote their own vows as is probably not required in Scientology. Here’s a transcript… Tom Cruise: I Tom Cruise from Top Gun, Mission Impossible and in a more emotionally complex performance “Born on the Fourth of July”, in the name of Sam from Quantum Leap, Spock and Mr Spoon, wanna say how enthusiastic I am about my love for you, the Seventh lesbian satellite of Kron - Katie Holmes and you were in that thing on Channel 4. Normal people can only express love. I as Tom Cruise wish to express something more than love. Love is not a strong enough emotion for me, as I am Tom Cruise. My love for you is a gushing spurting tide of pure thick and sticky devotion, that in physical form would resemble a come covered hamster. I cry when I look in the mirror and realise how many years Tom Cruise has been denied such a deep and spongy vibrant emotion. Come to me… Katie Holmes: I love you Tom C

There’s a creeping sense of foreboding in the road outside my flat. A road hidden in the heart of Bristol - remote from chatter and coffee . There’s rain - a superficial cliché of the sinister. The ice-cream van came past as usual. But the strong dull wind skewed it’s tune into a painful chiming scream. It didn’t stop - Ice cream today would be crass and unnecessary. The cars are parked further onto the pavement than normal. Whatever’s coming shall be encouraged to pass through as quickly as possible. Now all we can do is turn off the lights and wait. Close the widest of eyes and push our faces hard into the mattress. Hope that when a tired and useless sleep expires, the hangover’s gone for good.

Today was a day when it was foggy. I wasn’t sure what it was at first, the funny foggy stuff that was obscuring my view. But then as I reached the motorway, and the electronic matrix signs started flashing the word “fog“. It all became clear. The man who owns the paper-shop never looks at the headlines. The woman in the Post Office who never sends anything through the post. They might play cards together on a Wednesday afternoon, glance out a dirty window, and try and wake up the day with a dirty smile. But they already realise that it’s never going to change. Up come the motorway road-works. I realise they’re road-works because a sign tells me I’m only allowed to go at 50mph and there’s a couple of cones on the side of the road…but that’s it. Motorway road-works never have works on road. Who’d want to hold a Stop/Go sign on the hard-shoulder of the M4 unless they were tanked up on Stella and their name had one-syllable. ‘You have to keep the floors clean in this job…’ says the man in

When your phone rings in the middle of the office answer it. Don’t stare at it grinning nodding your head in what you hope is shared amusement at what we can’t see. Flip it open, look slightly embarrassed by your ringtone of someone shouting “Answer the phone! Answer the phone!”. And if next time you don’t answer it quickly, I’m gonna shove it up your ass and continually ring it; watch your hopeless face as your insides muffle those dumb fucking words, with you having no hope of fulfilling this quest.

“The future everyday“, the corporate slogan says. ‘Wireless, all wireless‘, he says, pointing upwards to something wireless. I nod and slowly look around. There I was wondering around a Transport technology exhibition in Berlin, because that‘s the kind of life YOU are envious of. Loads of companies each covered in disgusting corporate spunk. The half-smiles, empty eyes, rehearsed tightening of the ties, and shirts uncreased beyond the achievement of conventional ironing hardware. ‘So……..they’re………all…………..wireless?’ I ask. ‘All wireless,’ he nods, ‘everyone, even that one with the wires; completely wireless. That‘s the key you see, the lack of wires.’ I said something about wirelessness and then threatened to kill him if he didn’t leave me alone right that second. And he went over to talk to someone else, about wirelessness. That’s what “The Future Everyday” is like you see, and I don’t want it yet. I don’t know how this company tangibly experiences the future everyday, I’m even sligh

When I turn on my DVD player, the digital display says “HELLO”. I rarely reply, there’s no sense in it. Talking to DVD players brings little reward and if there are others in the room it pisses them off that you would rather engage in conversation with Japanese electronics with a two word vocabulary (It also says “GOODBYE”) than talk to them about cars or angels.

It's the end of summer again. And people are already worried about its classification. Was it a good one, an OK one, or a bad one? If you can't really immediately judge it, does it really matter? An old couple walking down the pavement in early September. Their every step heavy, weighed down by the worry of the day's weather. They ambled on neither hot or cold and definitely not wet. There was no sun in the sky, yet the clouds were not grey and the breeze was light and friendly. "I bet you'll it'll rain any minute", he said looking upwards shaking his head. "Typical" came a reply half smothered by a loud tut. Yes it's typical; its England, and it isn't some kid breaking your wing-mirror. It's the weather, controlled by whatever controls the weather (probably a magic elf). It's not Tony Blair and Gordon Bran-flakes deciding that they should subject us to rain. The local council isn'tmeeting to discuss the possibility of raising

“Why the hell are you wearing that hat Matt?” is not a question I was asked today as I was not wearing a hat. Also the fact that ‘hat’ and ‘Matt’ rhyme could make this sentence sound clumsy if the annunciation was not of a high standard. Tuesdays are rarely a day when people are really putting out their best work aurally, so none of the people I encountered today were willing to go near such a sentence. Even if they were feeling confident enough to say the words ‘hat’ and ‘Matt’ conjoined, the fact that I wasn’t wearing one would have catastrophically diminished any kudos gained from their competent use of verbal emphasis. It‘s also worth noting that if I was wearing a hat, it would have been of an adequate quality and worn in a suitable context, so as not to have attracted an enquiry punctuated with ’Why the hell’. So nobody said that to me.

Bristol is not meeting any of its recycling targets, so has put into action a new rubbish collecting plan. What’s the brown bin for? That’s for left over food. And the green one? That’s for garden waste. What’s that one for? That’s for cardboard and only carboard, nothing but cardboard. Do no place anything in it it……except cardboard. If you’re not sure it’s cardboard take it to our new ‘Is it Cardboard? Office’ in the main council building. They can tell you if the piece of cardboard you’re holding is suitable to be recycled as cardboard. They may decide it’s not cardboardy enough, in which case you need to take a long hard look at what you are doing to the environment of Bristol, in fact the United Kingdom. The whole world could very well be completely fucked because of your lack of care in discerning cardboard from very thick, cardboardy paper. What about the black bucket? For recyclable goods that aren’t cardboard. You put cardboard in there and we will kill you. Not a euphemism ,

I had a day off this week to catch up on some stuff. I may have accidentally switched on the television mid-morning and it may have been on ITV. And who was on the television?(Who am I asking this question too?) It was Jeremy Kyle, the Trisha replacement, talk-show host, goat-loving (unsubstantiated, in fact made up) over-opinionated, person I’d most like to punch. Everybody always used to laugh and look down on people on American Talk-shows. But, I think they should be laughing at us. Laughing at people who’s lives are so fucked up they’ve decided to embarrass themselves, by washing their shit-stained laundry on television. The episode I saw, I mean glimpsed at, I mean barely noticed, featured a man who was unsure about whether the child he had been raising was his. Actually…I think this was on the Jerry Springer in the UK show, not Jeremy Kyle. But is accuracy really necessary in the world today? How faithful was the film Lord of the Rings : The Two Towers to the events that really o

“I don’t fucking care anymore.” he shouted to noone in particular, dazed in a smart business suit in the midday sun. His zig-zag walk down the pavement of Gloucester Road in Bristol was slow and hampered by his substance intake. His head was pushed out in front of the rest of his body, so he had to stop himself from tipping over every ten seconds by stopping. “You don’t care about me, and I don’t care about you.” he continued. Everyone carried on walking, lifting their heads up the minimum amount so they could observe him but not gain his attention. An old man with a bright orange coat and scruffy blue trousers walked past and offered “Just calm it down eh mate?” “I am calm” he replied with massively exaggerated arm movements; movements of someone who wasn’t calm. Movements of someone who didn’t fucking care anymore, but might of just hours ago. Who might have cared more than anyone about something or someone, but was drowning under the glare of those that lived around him. People who

What was it with this sun that’s suddenly been doing its heat thing over the last few days. Has it warmed for a reason. To burn the St George’s Crosses from the sides of all the cars in England. We’re all surprised again about how late it stays light in the evening. As if it’s never been this long before. Are we right to be suspicious? Is it the government bringing in longer nights and a hotter sun. A not so prudent chancellor raising the temperature by 2 degrees in his weather budget, putting 10% on the evening illumination. Then today nothing but rain. Nothing but people in soaked summer clothing screwing up their eyes, running through supermarket car-parks with trolleys full of salads and ice-cream. “It’s good for the garden” they nod, and close the door.

Though I can honestly say, I don't buy women's magazines.(Honestly, Reveal magazine was an accident. I thought it was a retrospective on Teletext)I do enjoy having a quick glance at the headlines as I walk past them in a newsagent. "I slept with my daughter's boyfriend ","My husband found out the baby wasn't his when he came out Welsh' and 'My partner stole my ankles' all being typical headlines. The "I slept with my daughter's boyfriend' is a very popular headline. Such a story appeared in a Sunday tabloid's magazine a couple of weeks ago. The article ended with the woman, who was telling her story in this article, saying that 'I deeply regret what I've done, and hope that one day my daughter will forgive me.' This wasn't an anonymous telling of the story. The woman telling the story, proudly displayed herself looking sorrowful; a quote from the story "Don't make the same mistake as me" rested be

"I think Sven is going to go 4-1-4-1", I mentioned to a work colleague of England's upcoming game against Ecuador. "He'll play Rooney up front and Hargreaves just behind the midfield." He nodded his head solemnly."I think that's definitely what's going to happen" he replied, "What else can he do?" Football gives you the opportunity to talk about something we know nothing about with a perceived legitmate confidence. There's no tone of irony in conversations in which bankers and bin-men discuss how a football manager with 30 years experience has no idea what he's doing, and here's how to make it all better. I, like I'm sure most others, am not actually even aware that I don't know what I'm talking about when I'm engaged in soccer chat. The brain of the football-loving man has an extra section that modifies football related memories. It wont touch the normal brain functions such as that which deals with ea

I’ve always hated using scissors. I’ve also always liked using the excuse that I’m left-handed; although not in an American ‘I’m a persecuted member of society’ kind of way. Just that, whilst I don’t think it’s ruined my life, having to use right-handed scissors always gave me some kind of excuse at school for my badly cut out paper-cat-shapes. To this day I think there was an over-concentration on cutting-out at my primary school and of course neat hand-writing. The children that could write neatly and then accurately cut out farm animals and stick them around their writing always got the A++s (Yes there were ++’s --’s and all sorts.) My highest mark was a story about a man called Jack who went to Mars in a spaceship and died because he didn’t pack enough lunch. This captivating tale earned me a B--, which in a funny kind of way looked more depressing than my usual C++. A happy ’C’ must be better than a depressed ’B’. I would of got a straight B if I hadn’t cut off Jack’s head before

The best thing about pubs is the licence to engage in conversations that may seem a little out of place in the office, at a football match or in Devon. One such conversation a couple of nights ago brought up the concept of computer Artificial Intelligence. Because of computer power doubling every two-years, it was speculated that in ten years they would be able to think like human-beings, even maybe surpass them. I can’t buy this. I mean what makes us human? What makes us more than just micro-chips, RAM, and running around killing monsters with a laser cannon in a badly lit cave complex? For example, could a computer ten years in the future be better than Shane Ritchie? I’m the first to admit that a PC of 2016 would be able to forge out a career as a light-entertainer, presenting shows similar to ‘Run the Risk’ and ‘The Shane Ritchie Experience’. It may need to be fitted with a dedicated ‘Cheeky Chappy’ processor card to handle the intense unrelenting glint in the eye, but with this ad

“So will you be supporting England during the world cup?” asks yet another reporter to another uninterested Scottish person as if the answer would yield some great politically vital question. “No” comes the answer. Occasionally, some Welsh or Scottish person might answer, “Yes I hope they do well.”, especially if they don’t like football and are a celebrity promoting an album or a film. I presume all these reporters and interviewers are asking Scots and Welsh whether they will be supporting England in the World Cup for some reason, but I am at a complete loss to know what it is. Maybe I’m the only English person that doesn’t care what Charlotte Church thinks about England’s chances against Sweden. Maybe I’m the only one who doesn’t care what Rod Stewart thinks about Wayne’s Rooney stupid broken foot.. I love living in Bristol, but being a Saints fan I really don’t care if Bristol City or Bristol Rovers win or lose. So please various media people, stop asking uninterested people uninter

I’m on my internet banking site. You have been pre-approved for a loan of £24,000. Click here to accept. Really? Have I? I don't remember ever asking for a loan of £24,000. Then I stopped talking out loud at my computer as it seemed uninterested in responding. If it had chosen to respond it may have pointed out that you don't have to ask for something to get it pre-approved. But it didn't answer so it didn't make that response so leave me alone you..you…anyway… 'So what is the problem with this?' you might well ask, or you might not if ignorance is the road you're driving your soul down. The problem is the most dangerous combination of things since fire and flatulence; the internet and alcohol. It starts off innocently enough. With small-fry drunken use. You've had a sack-full of Stella and in through your front door you walk singing the last song you heard, and it may be Steps. Just maybe. Look I’m not saying it will be but it maybe. You slap the PC whi

Sort of got the BAFTAs on in the background on the television for it is a program that can only ever be on in the background. Foreground watching it is not. If there’s one thing actors are always desperate to do, is to make it clear that they are not actually anything like the characters they play. David Tennant (Doctor Who), proves he is not really a time-traveller, pissing about the universe in a Police Box by sporting a rather embarrassing beard. He’s probably getting back to the theatre (which he really loves) appearing in a play written by a cat from Hull who has turned its life of fish-eating, bird-killing and looking peeved around into a successful playwright. Worst of all is Martin Fowler from Eastenders who has decided to wear thick-framed glasses. Every shot of him, he’s there beaming away as if to say “Don’t be stupid, I’m not really Martin Fowler and here I prove it by wearing these glasses. Glasses that actors wear, not people from the East-End.” And on the subject of awar

"They just decided they didn’t want them and dumped them there.” the mid-forties checkout-girl who must have been called Sue replied to the Security Guard in a voice so exasperated it made me want to take out a notebook and rewrite the definition of the word exasperated. The subject of this lady’s distress? Three big bottles of Ribena sitting just in front of the conveyer belt of her checkout. The bizarre parallel universe that is the Sommerfield Convenience store near my flat continues. The security guard who was quite rightly named Steve, himself unbelieving of the scene of, I repeat three bottles of Ribeena cordial sitting on the end of a shop check-out slowly shook his head. “I don‘t understand why someone would do that.” he solemly enparted as if he was looking at the body of a kitten that had been set alight by teenangers. There then followed a long pause. Steve and Sue stared at the bottles unsure what their next move should be. They hadn’t signed up for this, this is not

I was sitting in the launderette watching my pants dancing inappropriately with my socks in the washer. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a discarded copy of Hello magazine, the classic launderette better life aspiring read. The cover had a picture of Charles and Camilla, with the headline “Charles and Camilla : What you really think about their marriage“ . And I don’t know what kind of witch-craft those Hello magazine journalists using to find out this information, but the underlining of the word ’you’ left me in no doubt that they had been rifling through my sub-conscious with a fine-tooth comb. At first I felt violated, but then slightly excited. Finally I would have a my random thoughts on the future monarch and his thoroughbred woman thing put into coherent sentences. I read on. Apparently I felt that Camilla could never replace Diana, and that I would never accept her as the queen. I tried to look into my thoughts, to see if I could verify the words on the page, but it’s all

This queue, my queue ( I‘d taken responsibility cause I was at the front. ), had a certain level of complexity in that it was a single feeder queue for two basket checkouts. And as it was in We-really-couldn’t-be-arsed-to-put-any-thought-into-the-shop-layout-Sommerfield the pressure to hold order was palpable ( No idea what palpable means!) But then, a figure not unlike Ob-wan Kenobi, stumbled to the second basket checkout, ignoring ‘The Queue’ and muttering something about ‘the force’. This incredibly rude and unexpected turn-taking violating movement, meant, by my approximation, a further 40 second wait in the queue, for me and each of my bitches (members of the queue) Should I say something? I mean, would I really miss those forty seconds anyway? There's nothing I could really do with them. I admit that well within a forty second time limit Michael Johnson has run 400m to win an Olympic gold-medal, Isaac Newton has conceived the notion of Gravity after seeing an apple fall form

We're going forward an hour this weekend. That means it's lighter in the mornings, or darker, or something. Anyway it will definitely mean there's a change in light at some point in your brand new reorganised Sunday. What the Lionel Ritchie are they going to do with my hour anyway? Store it in some huge warehouse in Kent? Logistically it must be quite a tough operation thieving sixty minutes from each one of us ’victims’ around the country. They justify it by reminding us that they give it back in October, deliver it at some stupid time in the morning. But they don’t always get the right hour back to the right person. October 2004, I got given the hour of a middle-aged lady from Staffordshire who was obsessed with Shane Ritchie. Even though I slept through the hour, I really shouldn't have had to have those Ritchie thoughts in my head affecting what would otherwise have been a dream about that dark haired girl from Watchdog. Anyway, to solve this problem, I'm not go

I thought it would be easy. Wearing an MP3 player. Thought I could still be a normal member of society, fit in like everyone else does. You shouldn’t listen to the Ricky Gervais podcast in Tesco’s. Because it’s funny, and funny can bring on laughter. Seemingly spontaneous bouts of laughter in the frozen goods isle, brings on confused looks and derision by those that hang around such places. I just needed frozen chips for those moments when only frozen chips will do. And with them in my hands, Gervais springs a funny in my ears and I fall into laughter. People stare at a man seemingly laughing at a packet of frozen chips, so I drop them and shake my head. I pick up another packet of chips, and look around with a solemn face that tells people that unlike the previous packet, this one holds little or no comedic value. They seem to understand. But it’s music that’s the real danger. It has far too much say in how you walk and generally move. That’s ok when music’s coming from big speakers,

Taxis you either hate them or you're odd. When you're not a passenger they'll weave and swerve with psychotic purpose, when you are a passenger they'll give-way to a dead slug in a bucket. A well known taxi driver hobbie involves driving to a mini-roundabout and performing a seemingly pointless U-turn. Taxi drivers record every mini-roundabout they’ve U-turned in a little notebook, detailing the location of the roundabout and how close someone came to crashing into them whilst they performed the manoeuvre. Champion George (53) from Bedford has U-turned on 2156 mini-roundabouts and has no friends. Driving up a road with cars parked either side so there's only room for one car, you may notice a taxi parked slap bang in the middle blocking you way. So you flash your lights. No response. So you beep your horn, and finally they take action. On come the hazard-lights. In the taxi drivers mind, they are now blocking England with legitimacy. The hazard-lights are a special

It was cold this morning leaving my flat, probably any other flat would have been the same. And the cat was sat on my car bonnet, keen not to be disturbed. I said hello, and he/she said nothing. He/she/it is a cat, but still they could have made the effort. “You’re gonna have to move, I need to go to work.” I stated shrugging apologetically. Maybe the cat didn’t understand me, maybe because it’s a cat, but that excuse was wearing thin. A push of the button on my key and the locks unlocked and finally the cat stirred, stretching like a cat does. A slow rotation of its head, and the cat’s eyes made the welcome effort of catching mine. With a confused and irritated cat like look, it asked me what I thought I was doing. “Get off my car, I have to drive to work.” The unimpressed cat looked unimpressed and told me how unimpressed it was. “I’m unimpressed” it said. “Why are you unimpressed?”, I said talking to a cat. Carefully, with the speed of a sleepy cat, the sleepy cat rose to its feet a

“Football’s just eleven men running around a field chasing a white sphere, what‘s interesting about that?”, she said reading an article about Posh Spice’s breasts. “It’s not eleven men, it’s twenty two men as there‘s two teams. Then of course there’s the referee, who doesn’t specifically chase the ball but has to remain in its approximate vicinity.” I replied boring even myself. “It’s not as if there’s any real point to it.”, she continued flicking the page over to an article on coloured contact lenses. “I mean at least with tennis you use a racquet.” I ignored this comment, partly because I was sure I saw the point in football, and partly because I didn’t understand the relevance of the racquet. And a couple of days later I settled down in the pub to watch the not so mighty Southampton take on a team, though not as mighty as a mighty team, considerably higher up the ladder of mightiness than Southampton; who‘s position on the mighty ladder is at the bottom holding it while every other

There's always a moment of pride. The Iron content test. Before you go into the main session they take you aside into a little room prick your finger and extract a drop of blood in a little transparent straw-like thing. This drop of blood is then dropped into the test-tube, and the nurse times the amount of time it takes to reach the bottom of the test tube. My drops of blood throughout my doning career have always performed incredibly well, thrashing the specified time-limit.. The various nurses have always exclaimed or faked a slightly surprised compliment as it bangs into the bottom of the tube such as "Well there's definitely no problem there" or "That was very quick.". I always try to look like I'm not bothered by their praise, not surprised by this further indication of me possibly being a close relation of God or Daley Thompson. But a little self-satisfied grin is always bubbling just under the surface. All was going as normal, and a single drop o

I was in a hotel, I was tired and I wanted to make a phone-call. I was passing reception which was completely empty except for the receptionist. "Do you have to dial a '9' to get an outside line from my room?" I asked. And with that question the grey mid-forties man, name-tagged 'Lloyd' slowly tapped his favourite chin and decided on giving me an answer more useless than saying "I have no idea"; more rude than saying "Why don't you just F*** off"; and more irritating than Carol Vorderman crying over Richard Whitely dying. "Let me answer your question, with a question?" Why? I thought to myself, have I jumped too far ahead in the whole concept of telecommunications? Do we need to discuss something else more fundamental first before getting on to the fun bits? But from the smug grin on this man's face, it was apparent that some cutting and unnecessary remark was about to pop its ugly head out of his ugly head. "What but

Hello, The scone has moved. Here of all places. Below are my previous postings from the other place. Cold there.

"Well you only live once." was the final argument put to me. But what does it really have to do with buying an overpriced car? I had all but claimed victory in an argument with someone about a car they bought that they really couldn't afford. My argument incidentally was that they really couldn't afford it and just as I had beaten them into submission they threw this last five word punch. My brain told me that this was indeed a valid statement and as such I felt I had lost the argument. But by this logic it would only be a problem buying something out of your financial means if you believed in reincarnation, that you had multiple lives. And of course you couldn’t buy an overpriced car if you were a cat, who would have been stuck with the financial burden throughout all of its nine lives. How many other arguments have I lost by someone throwing in "you only live once", which with further analysis I would have realised was irrelevant to the argument? There'

05 January Listening to Movie Stars “It’s so much bigger than all of us” said some actor off some film on , talking about this some film on the radio on my way home from work. The some film was called “Brokeback Mountain” and it’s about Gay Cowboys. Which is ground-breaking apparently, as there’s never been a film about Gay Cowboys before. But there’s probably never been a film about gay toothpaste factory operatives or gay goat murderers, but noones crying into their Cornflakes. I shouldn’t really joke about it. I mean obviously Movie-stars are the most intelligent people in the known universe. Who else can make millions of dollars out of pretending to be angry. In fact thank god this actor made that statement about the film, or my brain would have just been constantly running over the possibilities of exactly how big the film was. “I wonder if this film is smaller than me or bigger than me,” it would have been contemplating, ” or it might actually be bigger than a large amount of peo

22 December "I've got some very exciting projects in the pipeline... hopefully, please!" The newspapers, and those people that read them nodding their head( often named Geoff ), are always saying that there are too many celebrities around today (and that they get headaches when they read). Apparently Former Big Brother contestants will go along to the opening of an envelope. Not even interesting envelopes, just boring normal brown envelopes that contain bank statements or letters written in blood. In the old days, it was easy to tell who a Celebrity was, they appeared on Wogan. Wogan grinned at them entranced as they wheeled off tedious details of their latest film ( normally filmed on location but set in LA) or a book about their life (which they‘d written themselves with a tiny bit of help from someone who bothered to learn reading and writing skills and wasn‘t addicted to pain killers), with a few shite anecdotes tagged on about when they tripped over a cat at Bruce Wi

20 December Christmas Classical Music Shopping Walk into Virgin Megastore and it's just crammed with DVD Boxsets of Doctor Who and Desperate Housewives. Oasis are snarling loudly from invisible speakers, and the place is full of middle-aged men that shop only once a year. One of them goes to walk out, his plastic Virgin bag swinging back and forth with very over-confident stride. But as he passes the detectors, the sort of high pitched, sort of low-pitched alarm decides it needs to express itself. Teri Hatcher and Billie Piper look up from there respective Box Sets tutting. The man stops and returns their stares. A thick irritated grin punctuates his smug face as he waits for some kid in a 'Virgin Megastore' T-Shirt to give him the wave of ‘I don’t think you’re a thief’. I make my way over towards the far corner of the store, in search of some 'Classical Music' for Christmas present buying purposes. It has its own separate room. I open the door and enter, letting it

05 December Sorry That’s the trouble with catching trains in this country. ‘What is?’ you might ask, irritated by the fact I started off this entry as if I had already told you. Well the fact they’re fucking useless, is at the very least mildly irritating. And when whichever one you’re waiting for is inevitably late (because if it was on time it would only confuse people), you get a nice women saying “I’m sorry, but the 18:22 to London Paddington is delayed by seventeen minutes.” Except the nice women is a recording controlled by a computer. In fact she always seems slightly amused by the whole situation. Maybe someone had told her a knob joke just before the recording, and much as she knew her voice would become a symbol of commuter misery, was unable to hide her amusement and indifference. They could have recorded it again, given it one last shot at conveying a single ounce of regret. But they didn’t have enough time as she had to record her “I’m very sorry” version of the message fo

Being Smug on a Bus The only space left on the bus was on the back seat next to Vicky Pollard’s ugly sister who was busy on her phone to someone who obviously liked being shouted at. I went to sit down and was told “My boyfriend’s sitting there!” I looked around to see evidence of someone ugly enough, but noone looked likely so I sat down. “He’s getting on at the next stop.” she mumbled. “Oh” I said smugly and loudly, “So, My boyfriend SHALL be sitting there.” I leaned back, happy with my semantic correctional performance. And everyone looked at me laughing, clearly also enjoying my….Oh..

29 November Walkabout Southampton were playing at 12:30pm, which is far too early for pub-visiting, but what with the new 24 hour licenses, it is our responsibility as British citizens to now drink in pubs at inappropriate times, because we can. Anyway, I could have just drunk coke. Arriving at the ‘Walkabout’ pub slightly past 12:30, the game had already started. I walked in still wearing my woolie hat that I had just bought, enjoying the feeling of having hair. I don't mean my hat felt or looked like hair. It’s just that to the outside world, whilst I wear the hat, people are unable to identify me as a de-haired person, thus, I allows me to enjoy brief moments as a person of hair. I walked to the bar to order my beer or coke, I forget now. The screen above the bar was showing the football, but it meant I had to slightly arch back from the bar to see what was going on. As there was a rather competitive queue, each arch back to catch the exciting action lost me valuable 'It

21 November Sommerfield Loving You have to love Sommerfield Supermarkets, not because there's some kind of law enforcing your love for them, just because they ignore any innovations/standards of competitors and tread their own directionless path through the murky retail jungle. Whilst the uninspired Tesco and her friends will try and place goods in some kind of logical order, allowing shoppers to get a picture in their mind of where the next object on their list might be, Sommerfield are much more artistic, randomly spreading goods into every nook and cranny with aisles that seem to have categories like "Yellow things" and "Stuff that's boring". For example, one day you may come across a jar of mustard. If you are a mustard fan, buy as many jars as will fit in your basket, because you'll probably never bump into them again unless you form some special mustard locating task-force. In fact fire a flare in the air to tell your fellow shoppers that mustard h

13 November Kelly Clarkson Kelly Clarkson Kelly Clarkson ‘Everybody’s talking about Kelly Clarkson’ says the TV advert advertising an album by Kelly Clarkson, and I’m not actually sure who she is. But everybody’s talking about her. Look at me now, just another person on the all encompassing list of everyone talking about Kelly Clarkson. No work is being done, no papers delivered, no bread baked. Nobodies playing football or cleaning their teeth, arguing about sofas, videoing firework displays or driving Volvos. No one can eat because a mouth full of food would block the flow of Kelly Clarkson related words escaping from their gob. The two minutes Armistice Day silence, utterly ruined by constant Kelly chat. You’re not reading this now because YOU are unable to shut up about Kelly Clarkson. And because of this, there is no future for this planet or you or anybody. I hope you’re happy Kelly Clarkson.

08 November Firework Displays Fireworks exploding, children excitedly pointing to the skies open mouthed as sharp and fevered colours light up the sky. An old couple look on, smiles on their faces with the comfort of knowledge that some things don‘t need to change. Then there’s a bloke in his mid-forties, with his Sports-Action fleece, eye firmly fixed on the view finder screen of his skywards pointed Sony Cam-Corder. His wife reaches into her bum-bag and brings her Oakley Sunglasses sliding them onto her overly tanned face. Then suddenly silence. Four seconds of it as people turn their heads from the skies to each other, with a look that asks ‘Is it finished?’ It is, and everyone cheers then walk away happy with what they’ve seen. Except mid-forties guy, who replays a short excerpt of his recording, smiles, nods his head and flips the screen back into the camera. He smiles at his wife as if to say ‘A job well done’. But when, will this video ever be used? How bad would television have