Oblong Scone

It’s quite quiet here. Tucked away in a little tree-lined street near the centre of the city. Two minutes away from every pub there’s ever been. Five minutes from a man who thinks he’s Jesus. He’s not Jesus, he’s not even called Jesus. Parents don’t tend to be that cruel if your mum’s not a virgin. ‘I’m Steve…I’m fucking Steve’ he’ll shout and noone has any reason to doubt his sincerity. But when they ignore him, when noone can even muster the tiniest flicker of polite interest; then he’s Jesus. When he addresses the traffic; when he wanders out into the middle of the road, arms outstretched, eyes skywards. When he talks to Vauxhall Novas, his disloyal metallic flock with alloy wheels and unrepentant beeping. When they take him away. And that’s what makes it quiet. When Steve’s gone and the streets are refilled with mortgages and semi-skimmed milk, motionless bus-stop standers and an unenthusiastic three-point-turn.

‘Snob!’ That was the accusation ejaculated at me. Me Matt, man of the people, defender of the working man. And why was this nasty remark so viciously lobbed at my fantastic face? A couple of times a week, one of the women from the office canteen will wheel around a trolley full of different snack based opportunities to purchase at your desk. I fancied a cup of tea so bought one. That’s the kind of snap decision people like me feel entirely comfortable with making. Two minutes later, a colleague who I rarely talk too, wandered past my desk with a face so incredulous, I took a picture of it and wrote the word incredulous on the back of it. ‘You paid money for that tea?’ he asked looking directly at the tea I paid money for ‘Yeah’ I said answering his question with the word ‘yeah’. ‘You can get tea free from the machine!’ ‘I don’t like the tea from the machine.’ ‘Snob!’ he said disgustedly walking off like a pocket-sized Liam Gallagher. That’s right I’m so fucking upper-class, I live in

"Ding-dong” The PA system comes alive, “Can Kate from the Mobile Phones department please go to the Mobile Phones department.” This is Monday night at ASDA, and Bristol is throwing lumps of everything into trolleys packed with lumps of everything . A short angry looking near-pensioner lady in a green jump-suit pushes past me quickly with her trolley, ushering her partner along with frantic head-movements. “Whatever happens I really need to get some butter!” she announces as if something's about to happen to cause this task to become an epic challenge. “Well get some butter then”, comes the disinterested but startlingly logical reply from a disinterested but startlingly logical looking husband. “You’re the one who spreads it on your toast,” she responds in a tone that indicates she believes spreading butter on toasted bread is the deviant act of a sex offender. “Not all of it I don’t!” comes an overly-hostile and rather disconcerting reply. And off they go, the trolley trusted

Popped to the toilet whilst in a bar on a Saturday night and it’s time to wash your hands: Got to turn the tap on…YOURSELF. Actually use energy from your own body to dispense water...the indignity! Then you have to summon the strength to push your hand against the dispenser to release that clean gooey fresh smelling soap gooey goo. If you're still able to stand you can again activate the tap, this time to swill your hands. Sounds hard work so far? Hold onto your desk, cause this next bit might just blow your bollocks off: An energy sapping four second walk to a hand-dryer!!! Yes this whole process does not cost you anything financially, but with only 190 calories in each of the four pints of lager you've had so far, this has surely been a reckless expulsion of valuable energy. At least this is what someone thought. Sometime, I don’t know when and I don’t know where, somebody saw this as a gap in a market. And that’s why, sprinkled throughout bars whose names begin with the word

Good evening this is the ITN news at half-ten. Get ready for the ride. “One hundred and sixty five mile winds in Mexico” the newsreader announces. I make that five miles an hour more exciting than dull old one-sixty BBC. Now reporter Neil Connery’s reporting from Cacon, Mexico. He’s out in the storm with arms waving erratically, screaming at the camera as the water pounds down on his half-bald head. “Water falling from the sky“ he explains to all those unfamiliar with the mechanics of rain. “It’s bad, but it’s not as bad as was feared.” he concludes, the disappointment in his voice barely disguised. Bored of this now. Let’s switch to BBC 1. It’s Piers Morgan interviewing Abi Titmuss on ‘You Can’t Fire Me I’m Famous‘. She’s learnt so much through her experiences her hair’s now brunette. Venessa Feltz pops up to make a comment to the camera that doesn’t particularly make any sense and Piers tells Abi that shes makes the same excuses as a prostitute. Abi explains how all the people watc

There’s no other shop like Debenhams. Well actually there is. And while you could now argue that the first sentence, while short and, in an almost drunken way, beautiful, has lost a great deal of its initial integrity, it sort of still says what I want it to. Debenhams has its own smell, its own wit, and a big enough selection of men’s clothing so as to make visiting any other clothes shop ever, totally unnecessary and, in actual fact, rude! What makes Debenhams different in my opinion (recently voted the seventh most important opinion ever by readers in the March 2007 edition of Opinion magazine ( a magazine for people with opinions.) ), is its ingenious staffing policy. Whilst there are the normal positions that every department store offers, Debenhams has a couple of tricks up their sleeves to ensure you purchase: Take trying on clothes for example. You’ve just tried out an item. You’ve done the five minutes of staring in the mirror arching your body around like an inebriated aerobi

I’m going to Hell apparently, so I’ve been told. Told directly, not by someone shouting or screaming at me, but by someone who actually doesn’t want me to go there. So I’m headed there, not because I’m a bad person, but because I don’t believe. I don’t believe that Jesus is the son of God, and also part of God, along with the Holy-spirit, who is also part of God, as of course is the Father. Three of them, all distinct and at the same time all one God. You can see how difficult it’s going to be for me qualify for Heaven. And I know I sound like I’m taking the piss, but I really don’t know how to start believing, which I sort of want to do if it means I have the opportunity to avoid being thrown into an eternal fire. I do try, and I think I sort of did believe a bit until I bothered to look a little closer at the whole religion thing. Then I found that I really couldn’t, which is sort of the opposite of what’s supposed to happen isn’t it? God created the universe and the planet Earth, I

I open the door and take a quick glance behind. Now this glance is only to check that there is no one directly behind me. It’s not some grand commitment to hold the door open for whoever might next come along. But whatever the intention of the glance, it can bring with it clumsy etiquette baggage. The problem occurs when there is someone walking towards the door behind you at what is called middle-distance. That is they are stuck between two categories, these being, A) close enough so that it’s clear that I should hold the door open until they get there and B) being far enough away that I can move on and let the door close behind me without having committed any kind of social spunk. Trouble is, it’s not always immediately obvious as to which category the person may be in. Often the second taken to ascertain this may have moved them from category B to the dirty cusp of category A. Uncertainty means I often just have to stand there and bare it. Now you may be asking ‘Why is it a problem

Forrest Gump said "Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you gonna get." Why do I mention this now? Don't expect me to answer that, I have no idea. I can barely remember my name or what my name is. Anyway, I've never understood what it meant. I'd never really spent any amount of time pondering it, although I'd always meant to set a side a week for intensive contemplation on the subject. And that week has just come and gone. I’m pretty sure that Gump was wrong. Things were different in 1994, but the way people handle boxes of chocolates remains unchanged. With a variety box, people are all too aware of what they're "gonna get". Hours of staring at the chocolate key sheet ensures the only surprise they experience while chewing on the selection they arrived at after hours of careful deliberation, is that an "Almond Surprise" delivers no specific 'Surprise'. Maybe the surprise was intended to be the presence of the

I know when I need to buy a new toothbrush: When bristles are a distant memory and the minster for Pearly-Whites drops around because "he’s concerned about me". People have always told me I don’t talk about toothbrushes enough. I do find it a deeply personal area, but I shall somewhat attempt to redress the balance now. I can’t help but be baffled by toothbrushes. I do actively try to avoid bafflement, but bafflement comes so naturally to me, I always seem to be swimming against its tide. Drown. I’m not even talking about electric toothbrushes, I’m talking about the calorie-burning manual variety. I shiver at the thought of getting involved with the electric ones. All that shaking and holding thick handles, it‘s not right. We should fear them. And there I stand in Tesco Extra, a rack full teeth cleaning technology towering above me, asking me to give them a new home. I can only be confused, in fact sad, that things aren’t just a little bit simpler. Do I want to ’cross -stroke

Lionel Blair's appearence on the 1980's best gameshow Bullseye. A legendary piece of footage by any standards. Obviously this is an early television outing for Lionel and he's a little unsure of exactly how the whole thing works. He has seemingly seen Jim before the start of the show and asked where the audience will be sitting, to which Jim has replied, "Don't worry I'll point them out to you as soon as you get on stage." As Lionel enters his fears immediately dissapate as he easily locates the audience and acknowledges them. Just as well, as Jim nearly, but doesn't, forget his promise. Audience located, it's time for business. The business of comedy: Lionel Blair is determined to crack Bowen. And a lesser man than Bowen would have cracked under the barrage of sharp wit from Britain's favourite celebrity dancer. Jim has held out though, and there's only twelve seconds of the clip left. Blair knows he still has one comedy gem hidden inside

Sometimes I feel tired. Really knackered, not because I’ve done anything particularly strenuous or stressful just because because. And on these days I have no thoughts. I mean I can walk (lethargically) and mumble “Hello”. I can even just about scrape together a bit of what is called work. But there are no thoughts, the lights are not on and the bulbs have been removed. It’s a curious feeling. I can see things happening, but can make no judgement on what they mean. Often I’ll wander into shops and buy things like toothpaste, get home and realise that I can’t push my flat door open as it’s already over-packed with Aquafresh 3. I’ll be unable to follow the plot of an episode of Neighbours, I’ll get confused by celery. But I can lie back and enjoy it, as the actor might say to the…stare at the ceiling, feel all these little start-thoughts being born, bursting within a thousandth of a second in a hostile, sand-stormed brain. Simply nothing there, just a small crack in the ceiling…then it’s

I’ve decided to become a tabloid entertainment reporter. That is the decision I have made. My finger is on the celebrity pulse more than anyone I know. I'm always hanging out with Hawkes and Thornton. I am so damn perfect for this job. So here’s my first column. I call it BLING BLING, cause the kids get it right? GIRLS ALOUD ARGUE OVER BUOY The five members of pop sensation Girls Aloud have been arguing over a buoy located just off the Blackpool coast. “I saw it first”, mentioned the dirty looking ginger one, “There it was bobbin on top of them little wave things. I wanted one straight away.” Girls Aloud are not the only ones to have been seduced by the latest celebrity craze; Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have a buoy just off Southsea and Carol Vorderman was seen cosying up to one in Poole harbour. POSH SPICE IS THIN Posh Spice is most definitely thin my sources have been telling me. She’s not fat. SPOTTED Kate Bush stroking a dead cat in Leicester Woolworths. SPOTTED Michael Parkin

Bank Holiday and Weymouth: There’s can be only one outcome. A whole town wading through a fermented Saturday. Every person, all ages and circumstances, joined together as a community bladdered, and it’s only just gone six. This is wasted Weymouth. We’re all at it, they’re all at it, and the dirty sun casts shadows through the windows of the fat grockles walking past. “This is my table “, says Ted pointing to a sign on the table saying ‘Reserved for Ted'. “They reserve it for me…for the football. Love the football...it's God's sport aint it? Some people reckon it's cricket, but I know, I can feel it. It's football I love....One hundred and twenty grand a week he gets paid…” Ted shakes his head, his bending yellow finger pointing accusingly at Sky Sports, “…for kicking a football around. I didn’t get that in my day” “Did you used to play football?” “Worked on the Shop-floor mate, all my life…never any good at football. ” And then the voice of the short bloke lost amon

Always nice to see a bit of fighting. And there was a bit of fighting . The Rovers are playing Swindon at FOOTBALL ( a sport ) and there is a lot of random chanting and traffic stopping posturing. That’s there Saturday and even if I had just spelt ‘their’ properly, I still wouldn’t quite understand the logic of smashing windows in your own city to show how much you love its football team. That’s because I’m missing the deep under-current of football allegiance that only Bristol Rovers fans understand. Anyway, my team, the mighty SAINTS, maybe being bought by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Will it happen? Maybe. Am I excited The answer to that question has so little consequence to the planet Earth I can’t answer it. That the big bang all those billions of years ago has created a moment of such insignificance is startling. You might have realised I’ve not really made any point. That’s not why I’m here. On a completely different kind of thing, I was just looking at the BBC News website

'Obviously, the mental image of me, sat in the back of a Merc looking smug as I’m carted off to film in Soho annoys even me.' http://www.dailystar.co.uk/blog/

Sometimes two people decide they want to fight on the traffic island of Gloucester road . I don’t know how often these skirmishes occur as I’ve only witnessed one at this location. I’m thirty years old. So probably once every thirty years then. It really wasn’t much of a scrap to be honest. There was sporadic shouting at first. Then seconds of crappy silence with the swagger of each limited by the space available between the two dark funnels of uncaring traffic. There was a lack of focus, two lost figures in the middle of a road with anger but nothing to say to each other. Must be time for violence. Except there wasn’t really going to be a fight as such. I know I said there was but I didn’t think you’d read this far. Isn’t there something more constructive you could be doing with your time like painting a fence or letting yourself down? It was a push. A simple fluid movement of the arms from the stronger man as his temper folded up his face into a dirty far-right leaflet. The other ma

I’m not one for witchcraft and magic. I mean, I’ll read Harry Potter if I’m drunk enough but I wont go around casting spells on my mortal enemies – I just haven’t got the energy. I can understand why people believe in God, Jesus and Princess Diana but I’ve never really understood why anyone gives even a second of their time to Astrology. I know it’s a well worn path slagging this stuff off and I should be turning my attention to more obscure and difficult things to criticise like biros or toothpaste, but frankly I’m lazy and know very little about pens or mouth-hygiene. One of the most irritating aspects of the whole Astrology thing is the way certain people lump you into categories based on your star-sign. ‘Oh you’re a Cancer, that explains it.’ Yes because I was born sometime between June 20th and July 21st, I happen to have just acted in that exact way. I complained about being short-changed in Woolworths or shouted at a cat. That’s because I’m Cancer. If I’d have been born in Febr

There’s nothing like a meeting at work. Not of course the high-powered, full energy ones that people on the television go to, but the slow meandering blame-games, with the same points repeated until we die. Everybody disagrees, noone changes their argument, yet still a plan of action is agreed. One which is forgotten as soon as the chair is pushed back and the attendants raise to their feet. The middle of the meeting. Slap bang in that difficult baldly structured middle-act. Everyone’s made their points. And before they make exactly the same ones again, there’s a moment of tired silence punctuated with exploding sighs and beard stroking. That’s when my mind will leave. When it takes its twenty minute holiday in a place called Somewhere Else. Who would win a fight between Jane Seymour and Phillip Schofield? Why is that newspaper called The Mirror. Is it because reflections are some how socialist? Maybe they're just less fascist than that giant ball of fire we orbit. Could there be a

‘Nice isn’t it’ said the man in Curry’s Digital as I stared at a television in Curry’s Digital. Those are the televisions you look at when you are in Curry’s Digital. Ones that are in there. It’s a limitation of Curry’s Digital. I might position a television outside the Curry’s Digital window so, for a nice change, I could stare at a television not in Curry’s Digital whilst being in Curry’s Digital. I probably wont though. I’d most likely have to use a power-source from Curry’s Digital to plug the television into. That would cheapen the exercise. ‘It is’ I replied with my voice. ‘Course it’s high-definition ready’ he continued with the obvious intention to banish any disgusting thoughts I might be harbouring that it wasn’t. There before me was a television that was high definition ready. It was prepared for high definition; bored of not being so; waiting for someone to let it be what it always wanted to be. ‘Digital to’ he said in a voice that missed off the second ‘o’ in 'too

England is preparing itself for when the ban on public drinking comes into affect on July 1st. Scenes of cold patrons huddled outside doorways, quickly sipping dirty pints, is set to become common place as it has done in Scotland. Many English publicans point to the problems experienced in Scotland, where the public drinking ban has been in affect for some time now. Many have reported having to shed staff and facial hair in the wake of the ban on selling alcoholic beverages. The suggestion is that many people visit the pub simply to consume alcohol, is a charge that Health Minister Patricia Hewitt refutes. "It's certainly an old-fashioned position to suggest that people go to pubs and bars simply to drink. In fact I believe most people welcome our stance on public drinking. From a personal view point, I think it will be nice for me to return from a night out at the local with my clothes not covered in my own vomit." Hewitt also believes it will have a positive effect on