Monkey With A Typewjkl;

2007-01-03T13:55:00.000Z

Happy New Year. I have been moderately indulging, not staying up past 3am, and failing to keep my single resolution of 500 words a day. These, I should point out, are non-blogging words, lest anyone think they now have the right to badger me for slowness and decrepitude.

Dude. I got a USB turntable for Christmas. So I've been doing that, as well. I have set about my 7" singles with a vengeance, rooting out the most obscure ones first. Naturally, these are also the worst and most unlistenable, but I still get the same thrill of childish delight I experienced at first listen when... a JJ Barrie (he of "No Charge" infamy) tune is faded out to maximise the effect of the homily about fairness and tolerance delivered by Brian Clough. And so on.

I also read The Damned United, a descent-into-hell telling of Cloughie's ill-fated 44 days as Leeds manager. I recommend it, like everyone else. Fuck all on the telly, wasn't it? Dreadful.

I'm still on holiday, so cannot be arsed much. Sorry. I just want to wish a big fat belated Happy birthday to newly sexagenarian blogger, Peter. There, with the grace of God, go we.

2006-12-19T09:11:00.000Z

The man who has been killing those women has apparently been caught. His workplace colleagues expressed shock.

"I'm so surprised. It's hard to believe. I mean, I suspected him, of course, yeah, obviously. I mean, I followed him a few times, and saw him dumping the bodies and that, and I thought hmm, that's a bit odd, and so I asked him, 'are you killing all these women?', and he said 'yeah', but still... who'd have thought it?"

Weirdo Daily Mail readers were in a tizz yesterday about the victims, who were prostitutes. Prostitutes, obviously, deserve to be murdered, because they're "greedy" - like paedophiles, apparently. Well, not "deserve", but really, what do they expect? Fortunately, one points out that there is a solution at hand, and that is for the government to control prostitution. Quite what this would involve, apart from a 24-hour Prostitution Direct helpline, and a complex serious of private finance initiatives, I don't know.

2006-12-18T01:11:00.000Z

I am very tired, after an exhausting week - particularly the journey back from Far Flung, which had been unpleasantly rerouted thanks to global warming. I had disputed this with the man in the high-visibility waistcoat at Far Flung railway station, but he was adamant that the flooding was unforeseen. We had an enjoyable discussion about the ability to see rising water one day, continued rain the next, and the extent to which these mysterious signs flummox idiot functionaries; but like the true professional that he was, he hid his enjoyment well.

At the time, there was concerted and focused disgruntlement on the part of several dozen other would-be passengers, which arose from misunderstanding the meaning of the phrase "Replacement Bus Service". No-one was aware of the alternative meaning of "Replacement", which I can reveal is "non-existent".

Anyway. It was all very wearing, and the last time I spent that long in transit, I managed to get to Toronto. Still tired a day later, I am enjoying sitting on the sofa flicking through the papers.

"What are you doing?" I ask, as something hard rubs my back.

"Yeah! How do you like it?" she replies, brandishing the remote control.

This, for the benefit of those of you who were not in bed with us the previous evening, is a tetchy reference to a noctural erection.

"No, don't stop; I rather like it," I say, hopefully imprinting the correct response for future dick-pressing events. I consider turning round and putting the remote control in my mouth to underline the point, but remember that it routinely slips down the side of the sofa, where there are probably germs.

"I think it's great that you want to have sex at 4 o'clock in the morning," she says. "Just don't expect me to do anything about it."

How galling, and how rude. It is time, I can see, for some low animal cunning. To be honest, all this talk of not having sex is slightly titillating. She is either grumpy from lack of sleep, or from a lack of sex, and I demand to know which. This is a trap! If she says lack of sleep, I will suggest we go to bed immediately; if she says lack of sex, I will suggest we go to bed immediately. Awaiting her response, I am pleased at the way the evening is shaping up.

With impeccable timing, the Former Mrs Curtis chooses this exact moment to call me, fooling me by calling from a number I do not recognise. I am only slightly annoyed when I realise it his her, because I have been pestering her for some time to actually talk to me about The Little Curtises' Christmas presents.

She is in the hospital. The Boy has been hit by a car.

I do not dither on the 'phone to hear the details, but make my way immediately to the hospital. The Boy is bruised, bloodied, and slightly broken, and missing most of his front teeth. He tries to tell me what happened, but cannot due to a combination of shock, pain, and toothlessness. I gather that he ran into the road without looking, and got clipped on the trailing leg by a car that did not stop afterwards.

"You can't say fairer than that," I point out.

No one laughs. It is a rubbish joke anyway, which I stole from Jimmy Carr. So really, I am still hilarious.

2006-12-15T10:20:00.000Z

My girlfriend - and oh, I was once upbraided in the 1980s by someone accusing me of "sexist possessiveness" for using the word "my" in relation to "girlfriend", which still boggles me - and I both use Vodafone. She's away a fair bit, so Vodafone's lovely Friends And Family package lets us stay in touch for peanuts. (For a fiver a month total, a network of four Vodafone numbers can be established, and they can all talk to each other for free - or £1.25 each, if you want to be petty and split the difference. Brilliant.)

My brother is on Vodafone as well, so I thought to myself I will buy my aged mother a mobile 'phone so she can call her children whenever she wants for free.

I know: I'm just lovely.

I go into her local Phones4U store, overcoming my revulsion at their ghastly advertising campaign which is something like

EDUCATIONALLY CHALLENGED PEOPLE ARE HILARIOUS AND EDGY. BUY YOUR PHONE FROM PHONES4U.

I explain the following requirements

a cheap phone
service provided by Vodafone
no extras

I am pointed at a 'phone that costs £40. Fair enough. I am about to pay, when I spot a notice that promises not to affect any of my statutory rights, yet declares that 'phones cannot be returned unless they are faulty.

I query this, pointing out that

this is a gift
she is an old woman
she may not be physically able to use the phone

and that I will certainly want her to try it, and return it if it is unsuitable.

"If it's Vodafone, we can't take it back unless it's faulty," I am told.

"So I am expected to pay £40 for something that I cannot return if it's unsuitable?"

"Yes. But, really, £50, if you are paying in cash."

"Hmph. Good day, sir. Oh, one more thing though: this if you are paying by cash, you must buy an extra £10 of call time to prevent fraud clause I see here and there... what sort of fraud does that actually prevent?"

"I don't know. It is to prevent fraud."

Unfortunately, I cannot respond with my "if you are under 18, this bottle of cider will cost an extra 50p, to prevent underage drinking" comparison, because all my facial muscles are engaged in expressing disgust and contempt.

So. I go to the Vodafone shop, where I get the exact same 'phone for only £20, and proper customer service that is based on the smiling reassurance that of course I can return the 'phone if my mother can't or won't use it.

Selling things to people that want to buy them - still rocket science to the folks at Phones4U, apparently. You'd think it wasn't a competitive market place.

(My mother - or, for those of you reading this in the 1980s, "a relation whose gender is entirely irrelevant, and who exists as a person in their own right and therefore should never be shackled to fascistic possessive adjectives" - is delighted with the 'phone.)

Other Good News: Serenata Flowers have apologised. Thank you to anyone who made the tiny effort to bring this about. Does it warm your heart to make a positive difference for so little effort? It should.

2006-12-11T11:00:00.000Z

Oh, thank you, Natasha Woods: like an extra in a zombie movie, my eyes are bleeding and I am hungering for brains. And, as Natasha herself might write, I am a zombie Mark Anthony, stabbed in the back by Hamlet, like in King Lear.

We shall deal with metaphor soup in a moment, but it is still rising in the oven, as you can smell from my words. First, lend me your ears: I come to praise the sports pages. Therein: wit, invention, and a love of writing. Egregious clunkers I can stand elsewhere in the paper, as I apparently must. Perhaps it is the tension of this prolonged and reluctant tolerance that causes such upset when, expecting succour, I instead have to struggle through the hideousness of
"...a Hibernian team whose bandwagon derailed spectacularly during a first half at Ibrox in which the visitors were hoisted by their own petard" I humbly submit that "...a Hibernian team which was comprehensively outplayed in the first half" would have done the job.

I know, I know. My alternative suggestion is too boring, too simple, and omits the magic imagery of bandwagons that are on rails and contain bombs which blow the terrorist footballing musicians into the sky. You can see why I am not a sportswriter. What I am, is a wanker.

Not just a self-appointed wanker, though: I am under doctor's orders to jizz into an insultingly-small beaker on my mother's seventieth birthday. It is, apparently, the only way to be sure that the vasectomy was more than just fun and shaving, although I'm uncertain of the optimum point in the birthday celebrations to perform this.

Speaking of shaving, it seems to have stimulated the grey hair population into what is presumably ironic breeding. Little wonder then, that my ears pricked up as Andie MacDowell alerted me to the stupendous properties of Loreal's HairPaint which colours all grey hairs, "even those short wiry ones." Until I see Andie's short wiry ones getting the treatment in an advert, I will abstain.

I may use that time to revisit my Steve Reich records, which I confess were bought in fits of pretentiousness, having too much money, and a vague appreciation of the hypnotic nature of the music. Having watched last night's South Bank Show I learned a lot more, and was struck by what an engaging, intelligent and pleasant man he is. Not everyone's cup of tea, but then neither is tea.

2006-12-08T04:41:00.000Z

Oldest problem in history since ever 'easy'
Schoolchildren in Wimbleford have become the first in the country to learn about a new concept - 'bollocks' - which solves 'thing' problems neither Adam nor Eve could conquer.

Dr Theophilus T Crackpot, from the University of Rubbish's janitorial science department, says his new theorem solves an extremely important problem - the problem of everything.

"Imagine you're docking with the Tardis on a space rocket, with lasers and girls with big boobs in peril, and the automatic pilot's working," he suggests. "If it tries everything at once and the computer stops working - you're in big trouble. If your brain helmet does everything at once, you're dead."

Computers simply cannot do everything. Try it on your calculator and you'll get an error message - which, as Dr Crackpot points out, could kill your head right off. So maybe don't try that.

But Dr Crackpot has come up with a theory that proposes a new thing - 'bollocks' - which sits outside the conventional thing line (stretching from negative everything, through nothing, to positive everything).

The theory of bollocks is set to make all kinds of things possible that, previously, scientists and calculators couldn't work around.

"We've just solved a problem that hasn't been solved for three billion years - and it's a piece of piss," proclaims Dr Crackpot having demonstrated his solution on a boys' toilet wall at Lowup School, in Humma Haw.

"It was confusing at first, but I think I've got it. Calculators are dangerous, and I'm a genius? I think that's it" said one pupil.

"We're the first schoolkids to be able to do it - that's quite cool," added another, although he may have been talking about something else.

Despite being a problem tackled by the famous Bible people Adam and Eve without success, it seems the Year 10 children at Lowup now know their bollocks.

It's all true.

2006-12-08T00:09:00.000Z

In a fit of complete laziness, I decide to have an opinion on something that is not worth having an opinion about. This, while lamentable, will at least save you from having to get in a taxi just to hear someone mouthing off about something you don't care about.

It is the story about the mother who had her son arrested for opening his Christmas present early. What, after all, is the point of such stories, if not to solicit opinions? It's not news, it's just a daft twat who both puts her Christmas tree up far too early, and has no idea how to parent. Whether a child has ADHD or is just a little bastard, you are a moron if you think leaving a present lying around is somehow a good idea.

Speaking of Christmas presents, and also feeling a bit apologetic for being so cheap as to comment on fluff stories, The Second-Littlest Curtis wrote again to Santa today. Again, that is, after the FMC had somehow managed to let the previous letter to Santa lie rotting in the rain. Don't ask. I am genuinely weary of dealing with the results of her slovenliness, and have - sincerely - no wish to detail it all. Trust me, it would just depress you.

The Littler Curtises are typically modest in their expectations, which comes of having accepted that they have to share Santa's munificence with their three siblings. The Boy and The Middle Curtis, meanwhile, are still in denial about the existence of Littler Curtises, which is reflected in their exorbitant demands. So it was with fond relief that I noted requests for "sweets, clothes, a jewellery making kit, High School Musical DVD, gymnastics lessons for me and The Littlest Curtis."

Aww.

"But what I really really really really really really REALLY want is a PSP and an iPod Nano and a computer with the Internet for my room. I love you Santa."

Huh? Wh'appen? I am especially confounded by the PSP. I ask The Boy if The Second-Littlest Curtis ever plays on the GBA that Santa stretched to last Christmas. No, he says. She only wants one, he says, so she can go back to school in January and say 'I got a PSP for Christmas.'

Well: fair enough, I suppose. Children's Christmas wishes have always been subject to a bit of bragability, and if I was stinking rich, I just might consider this a whim and a trifle. I strongly suspect that I will never know whether I actually would, and it remains a moot point. In any case, I am - as a result of one experience - very careful about what The Little Curtises wish for. (Remind me to tell you about that - I thought I had, but a search for the key words draws a blank.) So. Another Christmas of managing expectations roughly to the floor it is, then.

Unless.

Dear Other Little Curtises

In an exciting change to my usual habits, I am showering only The Second-Littlest Curtis with gifts this year. I have based this on my new league tables of Likeability, which means that I don't like any of you as much as I do her. Maybe next year, if you buck your ideas up a bit. In the meantime, I suggest you suck up to her, and she might let you have a go on her cool stuff.

Notwithstanding your horribleness, Happy Christmas to you all.

Santa

Coming soon, in the next few weeks: fewer posts! I will be busy visiting the far-flung Mother, and generally fretting about Christmas, as I'm sure you all will. I will do my best to squeeze out Opinions Not Worth Having or Stories That Nearly Really Happened, but the Haemorrhoids Of Real Life are likely to discourage me from straining too hard on a regular basis. There is, of course, plenty of Old Shit for you to have a sniff at.

2006-12-06T15:06:00.000Z

The just-resigned abbot of Buckfast Abbey, not content with overseeing the production of noxious ned fuel, decided to branch out into raping children, it is alleged. What that means is that a number of boys say he abused them, and he denies it.

Well, you would, wouldn't you?

Not that I'm saying that clerics in a position of responsibility ought to be assumed to be child-abusers - wait, hang on... that's exactly what I'm saying. Why don't we just do that? Assume that any grown man who holds secret conversations with an imaginary friend of unlimited power is perhaps Wrong In The Head? Let's err on the side of caution, and say: it's a free country, you can believe what you want, knock yourself out. Just don't expect to have authority conferred on you, just because you have won first place in some mumbo-jumbo contest run by similiarly deluded fruit loops.

No. Let's not. Let's carry on according respect and power to wackjobs who practice celibacy when, and how, it suits them. Let's not even entertain the idea that if you really truly believe that you are "fated" to celibacy, maybe you ought to cut your balls off.

2006-12-05T05:03:00.000Z

I have written before, and to little effect, about what a fanny George Osborne is. He still is. The purpose of today's post is therefore To Get George Osborne To Stop Being Such A Fanny. To which end I have employed a behavioural expert to decode George Osborne's actions.

The expert, who refuses to be named (but Really Is A Top Expert) said:

'Whoever does this sort of thing is a fanny. Hmm. Is he the Tory Shadow Chancellor, by any chance?'

It's almost spooky how these anonymous experts manage to hit the nail on the head. Which makes me think, why is that phrase used to indicate high praise? Hitting nails on the head is a pretty unremarkable feat, unless you are a cat. I think you'll find that I've totally got the sock on the foot there.

In the interests of political balance, the purpose of today's post is also To Get John Reid (Labour) To Stop Being Such A Fanny. Here he is at the weekend, talking pish. Not that I'm in favour of an independent Scotland, because I intuitively oppose it. I have no economic or even social understanding of whether it would be good or bad, but given that I've heard the SNP banging on about it for 30 years, you'd think this:

if it was a really good idea, we'd know it by now.

Did I ever say I'm descended from Robert The Bruce? Not that that is unique, given he lived over twenty generations ago - so there must be hundreds of thousands of us. I merely like to mention it when some eejit accuses me of having no sense of history. As someone surely will, now. I used to engage these people in lengthy debates about the likely state of Scotland had it tried to resist the Act Of Union, that 300 year-old legislation is responsible both for Scotland being part of England - oops, the United Kingdom, sorry - and for giant bees in the bonnets of eejits. Nowadays, life is too short - it takes a full ten seconds to go through all the greats in great-great-great-etc grandfather. Fuck off, eejits: 0.96 seconds.

As an added bonus, the few SNP MSP's - who, for confused and weary readers, are the political pygmies most likely to burble on about independence - I've had the sour and boggy misfortune to meet have been ghastly sleazebags. They probably want an independent Scotland for purely lecherous purposes.

Anyway. Back to John Reid (Labour, Fanny). He bravely makes the link between the war in Iraq and terrorist attacks on British soil - pinch me, is this Labour Party policy? - but then fucks it up by saying an independent Scotland would be as at risk as Canada. Canada, which opposed the Iraq war, and where a bunch of terrorists were rounded up a while ago.

Fair point, if the point is "terrorists don't give a shite about your opinions on the Iraq war, they still want to kill you." Actually no, that's still a pretty useless point, isn't it? Whatever. More pertinently, it is distortion on a Daily Mail scale to suggest that if Scottish people vote SNP, then Al-Qaeda will kill them. Would it be all right for me to say "if you don't vote SNP, then you are Letting The Terrorists Win"? Seems to have the same sort of logic going for it.

Plus: Canada has troops in Afghanistan, doesn't it? Maybe terrorists aren't bothered about war in Afghanistan. Can't blame them, no one else is.

Sorry. I am very distracted by real-life heedrum hodrum. I have a stern email to write to The Brother, who is acting peculiarly. Another stern email to write to the FMC, who is still an idiot - it's important to stay on top of that. That sort of thing.

How are you?

2006-12-02T00:43:00.000Z

Welcome to the bottom of the barrel. I am here because I have drunk the contents of the barrel, and all that is left are the dregs that are Google search terms. I am number one in the Brussels dog shit everywhere charts, which are quite big because there are no quotation marks involved. I expect you would say it was an honour, if you weren't so consumed with jealousy. Now you know how Posh Spice and Dane Bowers feel about Sophie Ellis-Boxhead. Given that Google now hijack the top referral spot for themselves whenever they feel like it, you are right to seethe.

Alas, this puts the kibosh - whatever that is - on today's proposed post. It was going to be tyrannical hectoring at you to link to my Brussels post so that I could get to numbet one in the Brussels dog shit everywhere charts, which I have coveted secretly. I would have appealed to your senses of comblogmunity, decencblogy and geneblogral kiblogndness, hypnotising you with my repeated neoblogologisms until your fingers tippy-tapped across your keyboards before you knew what you were doing. It would have been a masterclass in persuasive writing, but now: nothing.

Hmm. I am stuck.

Oh, I know: real-time blogging: I'm off to look up kibosh. Hold on.

Ah. The etymology is unknown, or "unsettled" as etymologists apparently like to say. So much for real-time blogging, then.

Hmm.

Ah, I know! I met the World's Cheeriest Delivery Man today, which is a novelty since I live on the top floor; they are usually very unpleasant by the time they have lugged up whatever it is. And recently, what with Christmas shopping and all, there have been a lot of parcel deliveries. I've lost track of the parcels, to be honest; they're piled up in the hall, from Firebox, ebay, and now - what's this? QVC?

Oh dear.

Still. They do employ remarkably chipper delivery people. About which I do not have an entertaining anecdote or anything, just that observation.

Hmm.

Man. I can see it's going to be a long way down from being the leading authority on Brussels dog shit everywhere. It's tough when you know you've peaked. I'm ready for my close-up now.

2006-12-01T09:52:00.000Z

The BBC is planning to make people stupid by broadcasting fiction as news, resulting in a nation of drooling idiots.

There is no evidence to corroborate the threat.

An abundance of caution is not the same as hysteria, claimed a shrieking politician.

All non-existent threats and fictional scenarios have now been re-classified as Aspirational Threats.

Remind me to set my alarm for 5 minutes after the "news."

2006-11-30T16:41:00.000Z

"Woouuuaaah uhh wooh!"

Damn. My mouth is not working properly, because I am having a nightmare. In it, I am attempting to shoo some Rough Boys away from outside my bedroom window, because it is 4 o'clock in the morning. They mock me because I cannot speak properly. The Boy is one of them. I wake up, agitated, and have to go and read for a couple of hours, because the agitation will not leave me.

"Wake up!"

I have fallen asleep on the couch. I was in the middle of quite an interesting dream about ambergris, and I am slightly annoyed.

"What?" I grouch, because I have a day off; I don't need to get up.

"You should go to bed. I'm just off now."

"All right."

"AHEM."

What now? For fuck's sake, I have been awake for less than five seconds. I pull an expectant face.

"Do you notice anything different?"

Of course I don't! have been awake for exactly two seconds, which is technically still asleep! What sort of sadistic practitioner wakes people up to deliver a quiz about minutiae of appearances?

"Erm... you are more lovely than you were yesterday?" I bravely try. It does not wash.

"Tchah! Men!"

Yeah. It's their fault.

2006-11-30T11:39:00.000Z

For some reason, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service - ACAS - have issued a set of guidelines to employers about office Christmas parties. Hilariously, this includes cautioning against selling raffle tickets for the Christmas party, because "some religions forbid gambling". (To be fair to ACAS, they put this advice out every year; it's just there's been a slow Fury and Outrage day at the Daily Mail, so it made the front page because Political Correctness Has Not Been Taking Its Medication. But let's run with it anyway)

Obviously, these religions must be the ones which hold no truck with that pulse that throbs through every gambler; the very thing that drives and consumes them; that belief, without evidence, that Everything Will Work Out.

Faith, in other words. It follows that these religions have some hard proof of their belief systems, because if they don't, then... well.

Prophet: Gambling, it's a wrong 'un.

Unwashed: How so?

Prophet: God told me. There it is.

Unwashed: Oh, OK. About this God: is he going to prove himself?

Prophet: Durr. God will be good to you on the basis that you do not doubt him. He only asks you to Believe.

Unwashed: Hum. So I wager my immortal soul on your word, is that it?

Prophet: On God's word.

Unwashed: So, God wants me to gamble? I'm confused.

Anyway, back to the hilarity. Ha ha ha. What religion "forbids" gambling? Well, Islam, for one. And really, that's OK. Forbidding things is a large part of every religion, and since they are all stupid mumbo-jumbo, who cares one way or the other? The ACAS site does not mention Islam specifically, or any other religion that "forbids" gambling. I'm sure there are others.

But this is the UK. We have a significant Islamic population. The advice offered - by this UK government organisation - is likely to have relevance to Muslim employees more than any other religion, I'll - oh ho ho - bet. So let's call an egg an egg, and let's call ACAS blithering idiots.

"Want to buy a raffle ticket for the Christmas do? First prize a bottle of malt!"

"No thanks, I am a Muslim. No raffles for me. Anyway, I don't drink."

"Oh, of course. No pressure: I wouldn't want to exclude you. There'll be soft drinks and halal meat, so you don't need to feel awkward at the annual office celebration of CHRIST THE REDEEMER."

"Right, thanks. Gee, the UK sure is a swell place to live and work."

2006-11-29T13:02:00.000Z

(continued from here)

I smile brightly, and wonder at his pale blue eyes. They are very like my father's, which were shut and waxy the last time I saw them.

"This is a 30 mile per hour zone," I say. "You were doing less than fifteen."

"So what?" harumphs the old bugger. "It's not against the law. I know!"

I bet he does.

"No," I say, producing a pen and a bit of paper while peering at through the windscreen, as if at his registration number, "but leaving your car unoccupied with the engine running - that is."

He glares at me, while I scribble on the bit of paper. I brandish it at him, still smiling brightly, and tell him to move his car.

He snatches the paper from my hand, stuffs it in his trouser pocket, and scurries back to his car. The lights have turned red. He sits there, staring at me in his rearview mirror. I smile and wave cheerily at him. I know about bits of paper stuffed in trouser pockets - they are always unfolded and inspected before being thrown in the bin. Just in case.

The lights change, and he negotiates the corner with great focus and control. I tootle along behind him, eventually arriving home to witness the End Of Time.

As the stars explode overhead, I imagine the man in the flat cap, standing by the bin in his kitchen, staring at the words: Dad. Dad.

2006-11-28T16:57:00.000Z

9 pm. It is dark. Raining. Traffic is light. I look, again, at the car in front. I look, again, at the dashboard. Jesus. I try to formulate:

Elderly man + flat cap + car = 12 miles per hour.

I am not sure that this is empirically true, even although it is borne out by repeated observation. Perhaps, I think, the flat cap slows down the brain by overheating it. Why wear a cap in the car anyway?

I look, again, at the dashboard. We are going round a corner at 3 miles per hour. I have been in faster church pews.

On the other side of the road, they finish building the new hospital. Patients arrive, get treated, and leave. Some die. We are still going round the corner. I wonder if you get anything for being the millionth patient? A bed, maybe.

We hit the straight. Both engines gun to 14 miles per hour, and my life flashes before me. Several times, until I get bored of it. There is a hazard ahead: traffic lights, less than 300 yards away, and - ominously - they are green. I fear the worst.

The man in the flat cap can obviously smell my fear, because he preys on it. A full 200 yards away from the traffic lights, he begins to slow down.

Time passes.

The man in the flat cap achieves his goal, which is to get to watch the traffic lights change from green to red. It is a wonder that he has lived so long, and also a great shame.

A greater shame is that the traffic lights are at a junction. The man in the flat cap has careered recklessly into the wrong lane. I know this because he gets out of the car, and tells me that I'll have to back up, so that he can back up, and change lanes. Naturally, he waits until the lights turn green before doing this.

I think fast. I have to, because my emotions are staging an intellectual coup. He is a dangerous and unpredictable character, and while I sorely want to antagonise him, I recognise that this may not be the best course of action.

I smile brightly. I will tell you what happened next, later.

2006-11-28T14:08:00.000Z

You are a miserable bunch of bastards. Over a hundred visits since yesterday's post, and not one new link.

Shame on you. Really.

2006-11-27T13:01:00.000Z

Further to Peter's entirely reasonable fightback against comment spammers, I see that his critique of Serenata flowers comes in 21st place on a google.com search for Serenata Flowers, and is the 15th item on google.co.uk.

Good. Could be better, so please join in: every link posted to Peter's original post pushes it further up Google's rankings. You don't have to make a whole post on your blog, if you are concerned about your - ack - 'blogtegrity'; go and see what Jonnyb has done at the foot of his page, or scroll down to the bottom of Mike's sidebar. ~~Hell, you can even make your link invisible, if you want: make the font tiny, and the same colour as your background.~~ (No you can't, as two lovely obsessives point out in the comments below.)

Obviously, I have a bee in my bonnet about this. But then I have a bee in my bonnet about advertisers anyway (which you can revisit here, if you particularly want to read me frothing at the mouth). But this sort of "marketing" is absolutely despicable. If, as the analogy has it, the Internet is like being in a big pub with all your mates, then comment-box spam is like having your conversation interrupted by Barry Scott bellowing about Cillit Bang. You'd deck him if he did that in your local, wouldn't you? Perhaps that's not a good analogy; most people would deck him if he just stood humbly and mimed an apology.

Anyway, now that I've finished hectoring, some rather geeky news:

On page one of both google.com and google.co.uk, is a scathing review of Serenata. I'd recommend linking to that, too.

For the truly interested, it appears that Serenata Flowers have hired a company called Responsys to do their internet marketing. Do you suppose that Responsys are a bunch of comment-spamming bastards?

In any case, I don't think the money people at Serenata Flowers will be terribly impressed by the backlash caused by whichever comment-spamming bastards are responsible. It would be jolly nice to think that whoever is responsible faces financial consequences for their despicable behaviour. But hey, let's not point fingers without proof. Let's just stick to saying

Serenata apologised.

2006-11-27T00:07:00.001Z

Watching The X Factor with The Little Curtises the other night, I let out a snort of disbelief as the chorus of Lady Marmalade was bowdlerised into Voulez-vous chanter avec moi ce soir?

I understand that The X Factor has a high kiddy audience, and we must not fling pop filth at our kids, but it's in French for fuck's sake. We don't learn to speak French in this country until we have started masturbating; it is therefore a perverse act to put words that belong in The Sound Of Music into the mouth of a hooker. It's a necessary presumption for such galumphing propriety to be enacted that our pop kids are innocent linguists, which is a fantasy so outlandish that it qualifies as a fetish.

Clearly the producers are hell-bent on sublimating their baser desires on The X Factor. Last year's contenders included an outfit called 'Journey South'; if you run this name through an online translator a few times, you will end up with 'Suck My Cock Why Dontcha?'

"What is it?" demanded an angry little Curtis. She was already tetchy with me for dismissing her favourite as an oily plastic balloonhead with the diction of a very busy rent boy, a description I managed to encapsulate in a single twitch of my upper lip. This favourite of hers, incidentally, was allowed to Elvisly wiggle his pelvis with no censure. Some readers may recall that when Mr. Presley pioneered this in the 1950s, he was only allowed on television if he was standing in a chest-high vat of gravy. Balloonhead gets away with it because he is as sexually charged as a vat of gravy.

Always ready to grasp the opportunity to educate, I eagerly explained the difference between "coucher" and "chanter" to the Little Curtises, and the licentious significance of the second person plural verb ending involved in "voulez-vous". So all's well that ends well. Had the lyric been unchanged, I might never have had the opportunity to give an impromptu grammar lesson. But get this, you X Factor pervert producers - they all thought it was a stupid thing to do, and the oldest one is 10.

Of course, I could have completely the wrong end of the stick. Maybe "sing" is actually a euphemism these days for "fuck", which makes the whole concept of a live "singing" competition something that Channel 5 are presumably kicking themselves for not having thought of first. If that's the case, I am totally out of touch with not only modern argot, but modern morals as well: yesterday evening, the BBC screened The Scottish Big Fuck.

2006-11-26T02:36:00.000Z

The Boy goes from strength to strength, and is taking the ned world by storm. This is good news, since he is such an adept that all other neds will give up, and start paying attention in school and being polite to old people. Good news for everyone else, but a sore and chronic trial for me. A planned quiet day of laughing at The Independent's ridiculous list of Christmas gifts for men was spoiled by repeated demands to be financed tae go oot tae eh dancin an stay eh nite at divs hoose.

"A moment there, my little ned pumpkin, I am having a chortle at the attempted strain put on my credulity by this description of manFaceCream as 'hardcore'".

Ehll need aboot thurty quid fur it.

"Why, by coincidence, that would buy you one-fifth of this manBeanbag, which is apparently 'rugged'. No."

And so it went on, until I finally banish him for a quarter of his asking price - interestingly, not even enough to buy a pack of Crap Trumps cards - and established a return time of 10 pm. By which point, I am too worn out to figure out why anyone would bother with a description for such a manly-titled gewgaw as - wait for it; a proper build-up is required. For this, I can do no better than deploy the uber-manly introduction the would-be guitar hero used to announce at my hometown local pub every time he launched into 'Freebird'. Prepare yourselves, it's a hell of an introduction.

Boys: buy us a pint; and girls: cream your knicks.

Nordic Fire Steel.

Whatever it is, it certainly doesn't need any cunning manWords to persuade me to buy it. My manMan-ness is all pumped up, and I respond helplessly to the exciting adjective fascism of Nordic Fire Steel. TO ASGARD! COME, MASTERCARD, WE MUST MAKE HASTE!

In other children, something to marvel at. The littlest Curtis joins me on the piano stool, where I am half-consciously plonking out One Of The Things I Can Play, demanding to be initiated into yet another Dad Thing.

I show her A Tune With Only White Keys, and she perseveres for a while.

"I keep forgetting what comes next; I'm going to write this down."

I tell her that's a good idea, and suggest something symbolic rather than EEFGGFEDCCDEEDD and so on. I have her draw a fence, and put blobs for notes. She gets the hang of it immediately, but sees a problem.

"Some of the notes are longer than others. Maybe I should stretch the blobs out to make them different sizes."

I propose, instead, adding little sticks to the blobs on the fence, which can be amended somehow to show how long each note is to be held for. It is laborious, but she is at that age where drawing sticks on blobs on a fence is enjoyable.

It is still confusing, since all the blobs seem to run together, and she sometimes forgets where she is.

"Put some fenceposts in," I suggest. "They'll break the blobs up into groups, and then you can just remember what group you're in, as you're 'reading' it."

It goes much better. She cracks the right hand, and I show her the left. Straight away, she sees the need for a separate fence, ideally directly underneath the first one, and is delighted to discover that blobs can be stacked up, when more than one note is played at the one time. However, she is ultimately disappointed to discover that rather than invent a clever new way of writing music, I have conned her into being only a couple of strange squiggles away from the boring old way.

I, on the other hand, am jolly proud, and will take the time to bask in this for as long as it lasts. According to my experience, that's only another five years; then she will become an annoying prick.

2006-11-24T12:37:00.000Z

Buying flowers? Don't buy Serenata.

Peter is being pestered with comments spam. If you link to the post linked above, mentioning Serenata and flowers in your link, then that post will rise up the Google rankings. Do all of us a favour, and - as we say in these parts - get these spammers to fuck.

2006-11-24T09:55:00.000Z

Spyman died last night, and now I feel a little ashamed.

No, not really. He was in the KGB. No saints there. The best anyone can say is that he died as he lived: by the skulldugger.

You want tasteless? I've just been invited by a banner ad to win a free laptop if I answer the question: "Did Paul abuse Heather?" The word 'abuse' is in red for some reason. (I sure hope he did, or else I'm down one laptop.)

The world spins faster and faster. So fast, that the only time Vodafone can find to encourage me to spend another 22p so that I can have free calls all weekend is at half past fucking one in the morning.

I did not hurry back to sleep after that. The Boy announced his intention to go to "the dancin'" this weekend. By the oddest of coincidences, he is also keen to spend the night at a friend's house.

I think not, and I lay in bed thinking not for some time. When I was a lad, I was just as bad, which makes it no easier.

2006-11-23T12:07:00.000Z

The plight of poisoned Alexander Litvinenko, who peers out from the papers looking like Catherine Tate's 'How Very Dare You' man, warms a forgotten corner of my heart. I'm aware that this makes me sound as if I delight in the misfortune of others, which of course I do, but that is not the same as being a horrible person - which, of course, I am not.

The warmth is nostalgia, plain and simple. My youth was terrorised by the giant spectre of communism; or more specifically, the giant spectre of crawling about a post-nuclear landscape vomiting blood as I succumbed slowly to radiation poisoning. We were all going to die, endless hysterical dramas promised us, and it was all the fault of the Russians and their evil Communism. You need something to cling to, as a young chap only seconds away from Doom, and righteous indignation was the cuddly toy of choice for many of us. It is not the Communists! It is the reactionary imperialistic capitalists who stoke the furnace of destruction! we bleated, to no great effect. It was fun, though; being absolutely convinced that you are in the right always is.

The apparent skullduggery perpetrated on Mister Litvinenko that excites the media so much is a muffled echo of those times: when no-one could be trusted, conspiracy theories grew like mould on old fruit, and when the regular news and fiction that the bad guys - whoever they were - were devious and bristling with secret technology was a great thrill.

The warmth felt is a flicker, rather than an eruption; because whereas in the past the Mystery Poisoning of someone we'd never heard of would beg to be slotted into a grander, more epic scheme of Good versus Evil, the current story is much more mundane. Or, at least, the context surrounding it is. There are no zealous ideologies slugging out for global domination in the background, because the Cold War is done and dusted. We accept now that Communism is a shit idea, simply because it failed to prevail. Sure, there are still Believers, who ignore the evidence of history and fact, whose faith endures - and it is faith in the meanest, stupidest sense of the word.

There's a story about the young John Stuart Mill, who was once asked by his father what could be inferred from a situation where a sound theory failed in practice. Mill replied that the practice of the theory must be in error, and was sent out of the room to think again. He was readmitted only when he announced that if the practice fails, then the theory must be flawed. Any time I hear Communism being touted as a valid ideology that had been spoiled by the ascension of thugs like Stalin/the unremitting undermining of capitalist sanctions/, I'm reminded of this, and of myopic football supporters who trot out how West Bromwich Albion would be a supreme force in football if only all their matches had lasted only 62 minutes.

So, it's nice to see a media frenzy again about something that makes no sense, but only a little nice. I don't care enough to wonder why anyone would want to assassinate Mister Litvinenko; I accept that they have their reasons, but reluctantly conclude that since these reasons are most likely petty and venal, that I am not going to get my knickers in a twist about who is Bad and who is Good. What it is, is Moviestupid; why not just shoot your enemy?

And so, I look back on the distant shores of the long ideological clash between The West and The Soviet Bloc, and remember that it was all unnecessarily complicated by drama and obscure machinations, which served no purpose except to entertain us. This latest story, if you'll allow me to be a bit hard-hearted, is a poor rehash.

2006-11-22T10:06:00.000Z

I am annoyed, by a funny news story. I am not averse to funny news stories, as they play an important part in helping us all to not give a toss about people dying from cruelty and stupidity.

The funny news story concerns some sausages, made in Wales, the flag of which features a dragon. The sausages are called "Welsh Dragon Sausages", and the funny news story asserts that the world has Gone Mad because the makers of Welsh Dragon Sausages are being asked to specify that their sausages are not made from dragons.

It is utter bollocks, yet some News Monkey has decided that what the world really needs is an unfunny spin on "sausage makers asked to specify on their packaging that their sausages contain pork, like every other pork sausage maker", which is the actual, dull, story.

I am not annoyed that the truth is being stiffed by a twat who imagines they are the Prime Minister Of Hilariousland, I am annoyed that the twat responsible is unlikely to become known to me, thus depriving me of my right to point out to their face quite what an unfunny, muck-shuffling, no-game-having arse they are.

Still. That is what the Internet is for: virally co-ordinating guerilla protests. So, if you know anyone who works in the News Industry, please punch them in the face. If enough of us do this, eventually we will serve Truth. Unfortunately, I do not know anyone in the News Industry, and you may not either. Fortunately, I have previous experience of indirect protests (having once not bought a South African orange from a supermarket while Nelson Mandela was still in jail), so I know that all links in the chain can be held culpable. Accordingly, I will be giving my newsagent a shoeing this morning, the cunt.

2006-11-21T10:11:00.000Z

The site feed is cocked up, somehow. Having no interest in why, I am posting a very short post to see if this kicks it back from delinquency.

Are you a MoveableType user? If so, and especially if you are pre-version 3.2, then you might find this useful: an anti-spam thing for your comments.

2006-11-21T02:03:00.000Z

I need a hobby; and when you find yourself saying "hey, I need a hobby," then you know you need a life.

So: I have a life. It's just a very boring one. I am bored of watching The Boy evolve into a ned, bored of watching the FMC slobbing the house to ruin, bored of watching TV. Bored, I tell you.

This is serious: I have started to annoy people on purpose, just for something to do.

I cornered the FMCs boyfriend and annoyed him about the botch plumbing job he half-arsedly administered. He looked annoyed, and I was pleased. He's quite a nice chap, as far as I know. Not that that's an excuse for failing to understand gravity.

I 'phoned up a devoted LOTR fan and complained at length about how dreary and stupid the movies were. He was furious, and I squirmed with delight. They are crap, though.

I rang up the electricity people and goaded a Phone Monkey into being rude to me, just so I could demand to speak to the Alpha Phone Monkey and complain. I beat them at arithmetic, which was not at all difficult, and yet I was hughly satisfied. To be fair to me, they are idiots.

I rang up my mother's bank and pretended to explode when they used the word "limbo" to describe where some of her money had gone. THE POPE DOESN'T EVEN BELIEVE IN LIMBO, AND YOU EXPECT ME TO ACCEPT THAT? I faux-snorted. They stuttered and bumbled, and I saw that it was good. Which it was, because they are liars and thieves.

But none of these things changed anything for the better.

If this doesn't sort itself out, I may find myself voting to keep The MacDonald Brothers in The X Factor this weekend, just to annoy people with ears.

Please help me.