Oi Sparky! Where's the malarkey?

That's what Marcosy said to me when I met him for lunch yesterday. Good grief, you go a few days without making a post, and people start making demands on you!

Well, Marcosy, this one's for you - here's a breakdown of todays traumas and triumphs!

• The lovely Lauren Laverne played my 8 o'clock shuffle on the XFM breakfast show this morning - 'No one knows' by Queens of the Stone Age, 'Ace of Spades' by Motorhead, and 'Everlong' by the mighty Foos in honour of saturday's gig. It made me all misty-eyed recalling that momentous day, then I remembered I was driving down the Chiswick High Road in heavy traffic and I should probably concentrate on the world around me before I run an old lady over or something.

• Went to Starbucks at lunchtime. A lady went to sit down outside and the wind blew her dress right up over her head so EVERYONE in the shop got to see her knickers - and she knew it. If that'd been me, I would've turned bright red and run off (though it'd be unlikely I'd be wearing a dress in the first place). Kudos to her, she sat down, lit a ciggie, and sipped her coffee. Hang on - you don't think she did it on purpose, do you? Dirty minx!

• I have two new friends on my myspace page! And who are they? Glad you asked - none other than George Takei and William Shatner! I'm wondering if I should rearrange the pictures on my 'friend' list so George and Shatty aren't next to each other - I think we all know that they don't really get on. Anyway, Shatner's already sent me, like, three emails telling me what he's up to, and I'm, like, "Bill, chill out, take it easy, we can catch up soon." I do hope I won't have to take out a restraining order. A celebrity stalker - muchos fun!

• My local village (yes, I said VILLAGE!) is holding a fayre on July 1st! How very 16th century! Part of me thinks I should go along to check it out. Another part of me reckons it'll just be full of old people showing off their buns to all and sundry. And by 'buns' I do mean 'baked goods,' not 'aged bodily parts,' you dirty bleeders!

What else... Oh:

• SPOON UPDATE! Once again I used every teaspoon in the house while preparing my dinner. I think I might have to sort out some sort of emergency spoon system. Maybe like a fire alarm with a little piece of glass you have to smash before you are able to access the spoons...

• I've just eaten a curry that was supposedly intended for two people (yeah, right - two midgety people!), and followed it up with half a tub of Häagen-Dazs cookies and cream ice-cream. If this makes you think that I'm a teenage girl getting over a break-up, well, you'd be wrong, sister. I do think I should go out for a run now, in case I wake up tomorrow the size of Jabba the Hutt.

Elastic bands are my drug

Everyone should have a hobby, I think. Whether it's extreme knitting or shoplifting, the human mind needs something to keep it occupied.

Here's one of my ongoing side projects.


As you can see, it's an elastic band ball (let's ignore my patented stress relief device upon which it sits for the time being).

Now, I first tried my hand at creating an elastic band ball when I was at my last job, ooo, years ago. The thing was, whenever someone needed an elastic band they'd damn well come to me with absolutely no consideration for what I was trying to accomplish. Selfish wenches. By the time I left I'd reached a slightly despondent impasse, so I bequeathed the ball to Mr Chunt, never to hear from it again (the ball, that is, not Chunt).

Anyway, the folks at my current place of employment are a lot more considerate to my elastic band needs, and are constantly feeding me with a seemingly never-ending supply of new, er, bands. Think of me as an elastic band junkie and my colleagues as my devious dealers; I just keep coming back for more.

The picture doesn't really give a good sense of scale, and I didn't really have much to put it up against, aside from the fuzzy-wuzzy Andorian and two Hulk-smash hands that I keep on my desk. Still, take my word that it's marginally bigger, and a damned sight heavier, than a tennis ball.

And, the best part is that it bounces like Tigger on speed; when it's the size of a basketball I'm going to take it down to Ravenscourt Park and shoot some serious hoops.

What is the world coming to?

When I was a lad we had quality toys. Action Man. Thundercats. He-Man. Transformers.

But what is there these days? Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. And... stuff. stupid stuff.

Let it be said, though, that if I ever have kids, they will most certainly NOT play with Pee and Poo.

I mean... seriously?! People sell this shit?

At my lowest ebb

I cannot believe that today, while engaged in everyday conversation, I used the word "pysche."

As in "Watch us wreck the mic, watch us wreck the mic, watch us wreck the mic - psyche!"

As in the PJ and Duncan/Ant and Dec song 'Let's Get Ready to Rhumble.' (and yes, that's how they spelt 'rumble')

Normal service should hopefully resume soon.

Everything's going KITT

T-Minus five days to the 10k run, and I've hit upon a new strategy.

I am going to base my performance on KITT.

Yes, KITT - from Knight Rider. (I really don't think Eartha Kitt would be a suitable role model)

Thus I have formulated the following strategy:


As you will see, this is a replica of KITT's control panel, containing all of the necessary functions I'll need to see me through the run.

They are as follows:

• Central button - and central to my goal – is to complete the course in normal cruise mode, i.e. without undue stress or fatigue. However, due to unforeseen environmental conditions, this may not be possible, so I have prepared additional functions to aid me.

Lefthand column, from the top down:

• Air - a pivotal part of my attempt; monitoring of the air intake will prove essential throughout.
• Oil - it might be sunny, so I should whack on some quality SPF cream.
• Jump - to avoid fallen competitors, wonky pavement, and doggy turds.
• Turbo – for the final straight when the adrenaline kicks in massive-stylee.

Righthand column, from the top down:

• Silent - I'll be trying my best not to gasp like the sweaty mouth-breather I've been in the past.
• Flame - If another competitor is getting on my tits, they'll feel my wrath.
• Traction – very important! I don't want to be slip-sliding all over the place.
• Die - quite a distinct possibility.

I might also attach a red strobe-light to my top, depending on how I feel on the day.

Me, Dave, and 84,999 other people

And so, Foosday dawned. One incredibly confined and sweaty tube journey, and we were at Hyde Park.

Unfortunately, we were a little too late to catch Juliette and the Licks, but unless Joy from My Name is Earl came on stage and roundhoused her before stealing her teeth, I wasn't too bothered. We also missed most of Airwaves and Arseholes or whatever Blink 182 blokeys new band is called; unfortunately, we did not miss his inspiring speeches about how he is "gonna conquer the world," and how we're all "amazing," and we're going to help him conquer the world, or some such nonsense. He actually came off sounding a little like a mad dictator. *Cough* twat.

Next up was the mighty Queens of the Stone Age. I quite liked them, though Josh Homme appears to be transforming into Elvis. We were, by this time, all shook up.


Following the Queens was Motorhead. Yes, Lemmy - warts 'n all.


Y'know, I'm not a big Motorhead fan, I've decided - though Ace of Spades did rock. I bet Lemmy's leather trousers chaffed in the hot weather though.

I got a little distracted while waiting for the Foos to come on.


Seriously, I bet they chaffed too.

Anyway, then it was time for Dave and the boys. And how great it was...



They even had lasers. And god knows, I do love a frikkin' 'laser' show.


And for the encore, they even had bloody Brian May and Roger Taylor from Queen!

I promise this is Brian May (You could see his massive perm from where we were without the screens!)


And then, after a beautiful version of Everlong, it was over, and we were left to fight our way through the sea of bottles and paper cups back to the tube. On the way we discussed how we could combine the surviving members of Queen with some of the members of Korn to create a new supergroup: Quorn.

(None of us like the idea of the other alternative: Keane - ugh!)

Anyway, it was, it must be said, Foos-tastic.

Some things to note:

I only got hit by one bottle which was NOT full of wee.

I was never quite THIS thirsty:



Rock 'n roll!

Spoons EVERYWHERE!

How is it I can have a quick dinner and end up with this amount of cutlery at the end? Seriously - was I using a different knife/fork/spoon for each bite?

Is this nudging OCD territory?

Preparation H(yde Park)

If I had a crystal ball I'd be gazing in it now and making lots of "oooooo-ing" and "aaaaah-ing" noises. Y'see, tomorrow, along with about 4.2 billion other people, I'll be heading to Hyde Park to see the Foo Fighters.

This'll be my second Foos gig; I saw them for the first time at Earls Court in December. And damn good seats I had, too - you could see the white's of Dave's eyes. Somehow, I don't think that'll happen tomorrow; the last gig I saw at Hyde Park was the Red Hot Chili Peppers a couple of years back. On that occasion at least, Flea was very aptly named. I figure we'll be looking at a bit of a Where's Wally-type scenario for trying to track down the Grohlster.

Whether we actually see the band or have just paid 40 quid to sit in a big manky park with a load of drunk pikeys, I'm expecting (at the very least hoping) to have a good time. The weather forecast is, as Robin Williams might say, "Hot! Damn hot!" so I'll no doubt try to top up my tan, which annoyingly has already shown the initial signs of peeling off.

The most troubling thing about a gig at Hyde Park is that you've got to be prepared for the pints of beer that come sailing through the air, inevitably toward me; I might not drink it, but chances are I'll be wearing it. Still, it could be worse. If you're in the 'posh' bit right at the front, chances are those plastic glasses will contain a completely different amber-coloured beverage.

Hmmm. 'Urine' trouble if you've bought the expensive tickets... They don't call it the 'golden circle' for nuttin'. Do you see where I'm going with this or do I need to spell it out?

Glasses. Full. Of wee.

You have my permission to vomit!

You know it's time to go home when…

… you write the 'Ringo Starr Empire' instead of the 'Romulan Star Empire'…

MY BRAIN HURTS!!

ARRRGGGGHHHHH!!!

I imagine if I had the time and inclination…

…I might also make a full-size astronaut out of coat-hangers.

Seriously, some people have waaaaaaaay too much time on their hands…

Finally getting some culture

So last night, Yaz and I rocked up town for a night at the theatre. What stuffy old play or camp old musical did we go to see? Why, it is was neither a stuffy old play nor a camp old musical - it was Avenue Q.

(And it was thanks to Xfm that we went 'cos I won the tickets off their website)

Avenue Q you say? What the hell is that?! Well, it is a musical, featuring puppets, that is also quite rude, smutty, and offensive; think of it as the unholy love child of South Park and Sesame Street. I loved it. And I knew I was going to love it when I read that the musical numbers included songs entitled 'If you were gay,' 'Everyone's a little bit rascist,' and 'The Internet is for porn.'

So the songs are great, but what about the plot? Ah, you know... it's the age-old story of boy meets monster, boy falls in love with monster, boy and monster engage in some hardcore puppet sex… Nothing you wouldn't have seen elsewhere, but done VERY well.

Note to Andrew Lloyd Webber: if more musicals featured offensive songs and puppet sex, I'd probably go and see a few more. Imagine the Sound of Music if the Von Trapps stopped singing about "dough" and "deer" and started bumping nasties with each other.

What do you mean they're related. REALLY? Gosh... Eeooou!

Anyway, if you're in London, go see it. I think I might again. And hopefully the old man that Yaz got chatting to on the tube was convinced to go see it too; I think she sold it really well by saying it was just full of "puppets and sex"; I saw him raise his eyebrows. I bet he instantly regretted buying those tickets for Sunday in the Park with George…

Just gimme the damn pills!

Bloody typical England - swelteringly hot yesterday, rainy today. Damn it!

What made it worse, though, was that for some reason, for the first time in years, the weather made me all damned wheezy. Skillz - I literally DID turn into Darth Vader. Minus the cool suit, robot hand, light sabre, and any inkling of the Force.

It got progressively worse throughout the day, not helped by the fact that I'd forgotten to take a Piriton in the morning. So, come late afternoon I wandered down to Hammersmith to buy some damn Piritons. How difficult would that be?

Not very, you'd think.

You'd be wrong.

First of all - since when did they become over-the-counter? Secondly, if you were the old bloke in front of me who wanted to run through his entire receipt with the cashier - just you wait till you desperately need some drugs, mister; I'll be watching and waiting, bitch. Watching. And. Waiting...

Anyway, when the old fart buggered off, I just about had enough breath to wheeze out "... Pi..ri...ton..."

I was like the disabled wheezy kid in Malcolm in the Middle.

"Do you want the Boots' own brand, dear? They're basically the sa–"

"Piriton!" I gasped, hand outstretched.

"Now, you do know that these may make you a little drowsy don't y–"

"GIMME THE £@*!ING PIRITON!"

She handed them over in a flash, and even as she offered me my change, I'd torn the box open and was actually crunching them between my teeth.

Of course, the situation improved a while later when Yaz offered me the use of her becanase (or whatever it was) inhaler; I haven't used one of those in ages.

That's some quality shit my friends.

Set me right up for seeing Avenue Q at the theatre (of which they'll be more tomorrow!).

I was young and I needed the money

As you may recall, I've been posting a bit recently about my training for the 10k run (or, to put it honestly, my lack thereof).

On saturday, I noted three areas of concern:

1. Mouth-breathing
2. Hay-fever
3. Excessive sweating

I've literally just stepped in the door after another run, and I'm glad to see that these problem areas are in the process of being beaten into submission, as follows:

1. I'm concentrating more on my breathing, regulating it and ensuring that I use my nasal passages, and not my cakehole.
2. Thank the loooooord for Piriton !
3. Well... I thought I might just say I'm doing a series of educational photographs with Heather Mills.

If I could talk to the animals...

... I'd tell them to bloody well get out of the office - it's not Mrs Tiggywinkle's bloody animal sanctuary, despite any claims to the contrary I'm NOT Dr.-sodding-Dolittle, and there's loads of friggin' work to do.

After last week's tortoise invasion, today we had a bird in the office. And I actually mean a bird with wings, not a ditzy blonde tottering around in high heels looking for her latest Babycham hit.

Look:


There it is after it tried to hide behind the CD units. Stupid tit. Well, actually it was a sparrow, but, y'know...

Anyway, IT man Dave decided to risk life and limb by wrestling the beast. Like he's been know to do with many birds in his lifetime, he grabbed this one by the neck and gamely held on till it stopped screaming.


The question is this, though: how does this exciting tale of Man Vs Beast conclude? Only one of the following truly happened...

a) Dave crushed the bird in his mighty paw, and smeared it's broken, bloody corpse on his face in a warning to all other winged beings to stay away.

b) He pitched it out the door like a bowler in a test match.

c) He was a tad peckish, and in lieu of any Jaffa Cakes, popped the bird in his mouth. Sparrows, it seems, do not share Jaffa Cakes' "smashing orangey bit," and are, in fact, a little "feathery."

You decide!

Weeeeeeeeeee ... SPAM!

Well, I think today will go down in history as the day I realised that I'd made it in the world of blogging.

I've been spammed - multiple times!

You love me, you love me! I'd like to thank my parents, my brother, my dead goldfish...

Let's take a look at the praise I received from my new best friend 'Anonymous,' who helpfully posted throughout my blog in the space of about three seconds today...!

• I say briefly: Best! Useful information. Good job guys.

I say briefly: you're an illiterate tit. I do appreciate a semi-coherent sentence structure, so go away and have a think about what you've done, maybe check out the epic works of Janet and John to see how words fit together nicely. But thanks for the hollow complement. Oh, and I thought the blog generally came across as being written by one person, and as far as I'm aware, I'm not half a siamise twin.

• I'm impressed with your site, very nice graphics!

Really?! Well, bugger me, 'cos this is my blog, and even I'm not impressed with the graphics. It's called a "template" you nutter. Say it with me. C'mon... "tem ... pl ... ate." There... You're still a tit. A stupid blind one too.

• This site is one of the best I have ever seen, wish I had one like this.

I'm kinda warming to you now... (I'm such a cheap date!)

• I'm impressed with your site, very nice graphics!

Erm... didn't we cover this already? If that's how you're playing it - did I mention you're a tit?

• This site is one of the best I have ever seen, wish I had one like this.

You can - you can buy this one for one million dollars ... Muwahahaha ... MUWAHAHAHAHA! OK, I'm not Dr. Evil.

More's the pity. I'd frickin' vaporise this S.O.B. with my "laser."

And so it begins...

Saturday: Up early-ish, out for a run (geez! Quite a long one too!), although on the downside, hayfever finally kicked in like it's been threatening to for the last week, so not only did I look like a sweaty mouth-breather, I looked like a sweaty, snotty mouth-breather with blood-shot eyes; in fact, I probably looked a lot like one of the zombies in 28 Days Later. And what's the rule about how many sneezes it takes to kill you? I did about 12 in a row, and I thought the old wive's tale was that nine would drop you? Maybe I'm an immortal... "THERE CAN BE ONLY ONEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

On the plus side, the weather is scorching, and the sun felt great; Ooo, maybe I'm Kryptonian...? When do my damned powers start kicking in. Oh, wait, I think the heat vision is beginning; I gave some chav a particularly withering gaze... Muwahahaha.

I've got some killer new tan lines too.

Of course, today was the day of the first England match in the World Cup. Hooray, I thought, for completely different reasons to everyone else in the country (not that I begrudge everyone their footie; in fact, I like the way everyone's united behind a common goal - I just don't need to be a part of it). Two minutes after kick-off I was in the car and off to Kingston (Upon-Thames, not Jamaica, as if I needed to say it again). The roads were empty, I had the new album by The Feeling blasting out of the stereo... life was damn fine! That said, I have to admit that the shops weren't actually as empty as I'd expected them to be, but there was an incredibly high female-to-male ratio; I felt like Y – The Last Man, just without the pet monkey. Shame. I'd like a pet monkey. Anyway, blitzed Dad's Father's day AND birthday presents (how damned inconsiderate of him to coincide both within the space of a week), and grabbed an iced latte to cool off.

Around this time I started checking my phone, firing off a few texts to see what people were up to... And that's about the time that I realised something Earth-shattering.

Something that made me realise you have to take the good with the bad... I'm paying a price for my empty roads, my empty shops... my chance to streak through Hammersmith's Tramp's Urinal in the middle of the day without being seen by a soul...

For the next four weeks, I have no friends.

I am a football widower.

Shit.

Bits 'n pieces

Blogger's been playing up a bit recently, ain't it? I've had to keep things stored in my little brain... until now!!!

MUWAHAHAHAHA!!!!

I went for another run the other day. It's funny, I can run for ages on a treadmill down the gym, but out on the street it's another story completely. Maybe it's because I'm constantly looking out for uneven pavement on which to trip, and curly whirly dog poo on which to slip. I've also noticed that after about 20 metres I start mouth-breathing, which is pretty upsetting to admit to because then I start looking like a sweaty mouth-breather. Not a good look. If I can't rectify the situation by the day of the 10k run, I might feign some sort of spasmodic attack and writhe around on the floor in an attempt to get some sympathy around 30 seconds in.

I'm sure that'll work.

Ooo, I saw Poseidon today. What a complete waste of time. I read that Wolfgang Peterson said that the characters were more realistic than those in the original; well, I'd have to agree, as long as your idea of realistic characters consists of former fireman and ex-mayor of New York Kurt Russell, ironically-named Lucky Larry who is dispatched pretty early on (and played by Kevin Dillion who looks and acts a bit like I'd imagine a failed, slightly retarded clone of Matt Dillion would look and act), and the obligatory annoying kid, feeble crying women, and stereotypical gay man.

I sat there actively willing the ship to sink faster.

I mean, who the hell thinks dialogue such as "You're a hero. You saved us all," and "I love you Mom!" is acceptable in this day and age?

It was either that or The Omen. No doubt I'll see that and moan about it next week...

Pledge your allegiance!

OK, let's get this out of the way early on: I do not like football.

And by do not like, I generally mean I'll pretty much do anything to get out of watching it, or playing it. In fact, when I was at school, I managed to wangle my way out of football and into netball for P.E. The added bonus of that was that I was the only boy in a class full of hot sweaty girls in flourescent bibs.

(The phrase 'pig in shit' comes to mind. Oh, and I was pretty good at netball; throwing the ball at the opponents faces made me and my girls an all-conquering combo, unbeaten in the '94-'95 school league)

Anyway, I digress. So, as a football-hating veteran netball champion, you'd pretty much expect me to be dreading the next month or so as the country goes World Cup crazy. But that's not so! In fact, bring it on, I say. BRING. IT. ON. The reason I say this is that, to be honest, life gets a little easier. The roads are empty, the shops are empty, the gym is empty... everything is pretty much empty. Except the pubs, but seeing as I don't drink anymore that's a small price to pay.

I could pretty much walk the streets naked if I wanted to.

But I realized today that I shouldn't alienate myself totally from the World Cup. So I've decided to support Togo.

Who!?

Togo.

WHO?!

TOGO! Geez!

I like the idea of putting my hand on my heart and pledging allegiance to my Togo-go-go-an brethren as they take on the big guns in pursuit of World Cup glory.

Look - I even fashioned a rudimentary Togo-go flag and attached it to my desk fan at work!


Yes, there's a little corner of Togo in deepest, darkest Hammersmith.

Tomorrow I might even pop down to JD Sports and try to buy a team shirt.

So what I'm, basically saying is: who's with me!?

C'mon! Together we can do it - TOGETHER WE CAN WIN! Here's the Togo-go national anthem – download it, learn it, sing it loud, sing it proud! It's coming home, it's coming home - football is coming home - to Togo! We want the World Cup, and we want it TO GO!




(In other news, we found a tortoise in the garden at work today - how odd is that?)

Squeezed from the beefy teat

I had the most bizarre conversation while at lunch in Starbucks with Yaz today. It started when she announced that she was planning a family dinner. I knew we were going a little off-centre when we had this brief exchange of words.

"I've made a trifle and chicken pilau."

What? You've made a chicken trifle? That sounds a bit weird."

Before you rush off to vom, let me point out that I'd simply misunderstood what she'd said. She'd actually made a trifle, as well as a chicken dish (and never the twain shall meet, apparently).

Then she went on to explain that as she's gelatin intolerant or something (quite frankly I couldn't be too bothered to ask why), she has to use some sort of special, fake gelatin for the jelly in her trifle. Magic jelly, I assume, one that can no doubt gather into a special jelly cloud and whisk you off to a faraway land.

Erm, anyway, she added that the special ingredient in this magic jelly was something that sounded like it was called 'arrrgh arrrgh,' 'ugh ugh,' or 'har har' ... maybe 'Hagar' ... Hang on! Hagar? Hagar the Horrible? In jelly form?!

That got me started thinking about vegetarians. Do they have to eat magic Hagar jelly because of normal jelly's meaty animal origins? That's probably why it's called 'ugh ugh' then - my limited experience of vegetarian dishes usually lead to a fair bit of 'ugh ugh' while residing face down over the toilet bowl.

The thing is, there are so many variations of vegetarians, although for arguements sake I'm leaving out the lazy ones who will eat anything living so long as it doesn't breathe oxygen. I've always been slightly fascinated by the ones that rule out ANYTHING that comes from an animal - milk, cheese, butter ... basically anything that's been squeezed from the beefy teat (and please, I do not mean Ian Botham).

If I tried to live life like that I'd be dead within a day. And c'mon, we all know they're lying if they say they've never thought about chowing down on a cow's bum when no one's looking.

Anyway, coming full circle - I seriously think someone slipped something into our Grande Mistos.

Blue skies, nothing but blue skies...

Well, what a nice day - the sky's a perfect shade of blue with a scattering of fluffy white clouds.


Hammersmith is full of people enjoying the warm weather and the wonderful ambience of King Street's Tramp's Urinal.


The perfect day to have gone back to work, I think (without a hint of sarcasm).

The perfect sort of day, also, to pop your computer in the bin and go play on the swings for the afternoon.