No thank you, Mr Sid Meier

I had rather descended into a fug of late. I was waiting to hear back about things so instead of starting new projects I was just sitting around fretting.

If I did even feel mildly productive I would start off okay, do some work in the morning then decide to 'just have a couple of turns' of Civilization IV during my lunch break. I would look up after a pause in the action and it would be dark and I would have wasted a whole day seeing if it was possible to take over the globe with out the power of flight.

For those who don't dabble in games Civilization is a classic, you start off with a tribe of settlers and you have to build an empire to stand the test of time. You get to found new cities, explore new lands, start religions and even change forms of government. Okay so it doesn't sound thrilling but I got the T.P. to play through the tutorial and then she wouldn't stop for three days. Her Eyptian empire managed to finally defeat the Romans and she was hooked.

Needless to say, if you have any sort of job that requires self control DO NOT get it. I deleted it yesterday as it was too dangerous to have around. I'm going to get a nice, safe, manageable hobby like smack instead.

Changes

I think this blog is going to have to change. It used to be a blog of wistful thinking about girls and the such, but my situation has moved on. I've got a girlfriend one who has been around for a while now (6 whole months, and yes I was the one who remembered the date).

So things are going to be different around here, I may whiffle on about gloves and hats on occasion but I think it's mostly going to be things about my girlfriend I don't understand.

Here is the latest one. We were talking about Horoscopes, I told about a website I visited on occasion because the predictions were enjoyably specific. It once said my bike chain would break (amazingly it did) and this month it was warning me about getting insurance for water damage.

Anyway she read hers and it said something about how someone very close to you will do something you really disapprove of at the end of the month. It was more specific than that but I was laughing too much to really concentrate. She then read my horoscope to see what was going to happen to me. Apart from the potential of water damage it said something about a friend will do something to shock you, or words to that effect.

She has taken this to mean some friend will try and hit on me, and so has banned me from touching or being too close to anyone male or female for the last two weeks of the month. She even checked the other horoscopes and so she thinks it's likely to be a Taurus or a Virgo.

This isn't a joke, it's to save our relationship. Yesterday while walking back from the park she was mentally going through all my male friends trying to work out which ones could be bisexual and thus more of a threat.

This is brilliant, I can't wait to see what happens next.

Swimwear

I've been invited to a party where the dresscode is vintage swimwear. Going to a party in just swimwear is a challenge in itself, but vintage swimwear? Male swimwear of the past has not been very inspirational.

I can't bring myself to say to the person organising it 'I'd love to go but I just don't want to go drinking in a pair of beige speedos.'

Maybe it's just a sign that I'm getting old, or at least tasteful.

A note to my ex-girlfriends

Dear All,

I do hope you are well and all that. I know I haven't spoken to some of you in a long while, years even, but I'd like to think we can still remember the good times.

We aren't together anymore which is fine, it wasn't working and I have no doubts you will find someone who will make you very happy. Which brings me to my request, please can you stop getting married so much.

Over the last week 4 different ex-girlfriends (You know who you are) have got married and have sent me the pictures. While I wish you all the best can you not do this all at once, it's a bit weird to see you prancing around in a smashing frock with someone else. I don't want to be going out with you or anything, I think we gathered that when you threw a plate at me, but it's still a bit strange.

Anyway, hope your hair has started to grow back and that your mum is well.

Louche

Hurrah the sun is back

I'm a hot weather person, I'm such a sun worshipper I'm practically solar powered so I've been enjoying late appearance of the summer, I only wish it had got here sooner. Summer has arrived so late all the dip is gone and people have starting drinking Creme De Menthe.

On Saturday I went to a family bash with T.P. this bash turned out to be the celebration of Peruvian independence, that she had forgotten about. I was rather mocking her for this and then I remembered I couldn't recall the exact date of St George's Day.

The party was packed, there were lots of Peruvian women who were dating English chaps, but strangely no Peruvian chaps dating English women. Or maybe the women were just banned? Either way there was a lot of drinking of Inca Kola (the Peruvian equivalent of Irn Bru) and eating of traditional Peruvian food in between bouts of dancing. The dancing was a mix of salsa and more traditional Peruvian forms. As far as I could gather traditional Peruvian dancing is either a bit like Spanish dancing where ladies put a range of great expressions on their face while waving their dress about or it involves dressing up as Pocahontis and waving a bowl around to Shakira.

Someone with nice hair from the Peruvian Consulate even turned up and gave a short speech about how he was there for us or something like that, he could have just been announcing that a Taxi was waiting outside, my Spanish isn't that good yet.

The last post about cars for quite some time

When you are a little chap you often dream of things, things that will probably never happen like meeting a dinosaur or getting to fire the cannon of a pirate ship. It's extremely rare when things like this come true.

Yesterday, I with some friends, were left in charge of about half a million pounds worth of super cars, on an airfield (so no speeding laws or people to endanger) for a day to see what they could do.

My face still hurts from smiling. If you are going to get a stupidly expensive car ( and after having driven a reasonable selection of them I would have to say they are definitely worth it) it seems like a shame to never see how fast it can go.

They can go jolly fast, and give a vague impression of how going fast is effortless. So when you decide to see what happens when you go around a corner and press the pedal that makes the entirely needless 450 horses roar out of the engine you discover that these cars can spin out of control very quickly. It was wet and luckily we were in a safe controlled environment so no-one got hurt, or damaged but I still aged a year as I flew backwards.

I really want one now.

Cars, mustard and flowers.

I have returned from Devon. Yet again it was a pleasant trip. Strangely my ancestral home was spared any sort of bad weather so we were feeding geese broken biscuits in bright, life-giving sunshine while the rest of England was being slowly washed away in floods.

The family party was good fun, it was in a huge tent in the grounds of one of the family piles in Dorset. This estate had loads of slightly snooty looking Alpacas striding around much to the amusement of my little brother. They were just the other side of a ha-ha so you could safely eyeball them from the croquette lawn with minimal danger to your gin and tonic.

The meal was good, a large pig on a spit roast fed the 150 or so distant rellies and in between courses my little brother and I had a fiercely fought mustard eating contest followed by a round of see-who-can-eat-the-biggest-flower. I won that but felt very strange for the rest of the day.

I've just got back from a test drive in the new Aston Martin, H has one for a few days to review so we went for a needless drive up to the Heath and back again getting as lost as possible so more driving could happen. Strangely unlike other high-performance cars people let you out when you are driving it.

It is a splendid car, at low speeds it's almost silent and then when you step on the accelerator it roars into life. You could almost feel the Polar bears dying because of the excessive petrol consumption but I think their deaths were not in vain.

I want one, actually I need one (the car, not the polar bear - our flats have a no pet policy) I just need to find some way of getting £120,000. I wonder how much my cravat collection is worth.

The black door

The party was a roaring success. It started a bit later than I had planned, which caused me to have a slightly nervous half-hour where I was alone in a flat with a large amount of crisps and cake wondering if anyone is going to turn up at all.

At around 7:30 T.P. appeared with some work chums and some of my friends that she had found at the tube station wondering around looking lost. The party burst into life and shortly after that more people arrived, and then more, and more.

Every room was packed with people drinking and laughing, even the small basement garden we have was standing room only with people having in-depth conversations while smoking.

Someone even fell asleep in the bathroom, it was brilliant. It's good to know that when you are at least superficially a grown up you can still have house parties like a teenager.

One of the naughty smokers opened the black door in the garden. I've never opened as I thought it was just the door covering the electricial supply, but no it leads in a huge room under the street, that appears to lead to another room and possibly something more. It's like having Narna outside the flat.

After breakfast I'm going to make some sandwiches and go exploring. If I don't come back, tell my family I love them and to stay away from the black door...

How to drink from a horn

The massive order of party supplies didn't arrive yesterday, I'm not entirely sure why but this means instead of the flat being lavished in booze and exciting cakes for the guests we are only going to have rum and flour.

Oh and we only have 6 cups and one drinking horn, so if more than 7 people want to drink at the same time its going to be from cupped hands. Still the person drinking neat rum (we have no mixers) from a drinking horn is going to feel pretty macho. The horn holds a pint and a half, and requires a special technique to drink from it successfully.

Asethetically one is always tempted to drink from the horn with the tip raised which is fine initally but in the latter stages of your drinking experiences a bubble of air will charge towards the tip resulting in a tidal wave of booze rushing towards your face. This is an acceptable side effect when quaffing ale in a tavern after defeating some goblins or Cardinal Rishlou's guards, not when drinking neat rum which makes your eyes feel warm across the room let alone if it has been liberally splashed into your retinas.

Remember kids, always drink with the point down.

I wonder if I can make a rum and flour based party snack.

Pizza rage

My girlfriend hates pizzas, not dislike or would choose something else given the choice, hates. They are forbidden in the house. She used to live with a chap who was an extremely fussy eater so all they could ever have for supper was a margarita, that’s every night, for months.

I would have broken before her, but she put up with this chap for quite a while and as a result despises pizza. I can’t even mention it in front of her. But I am a simple man, a man with yearnings.

It started off fairly innocently; I was looking at a cookery website and found myself drifting towards the Italian food section. One evening when she was out I secretly downloaded recipes and a few pictures into a hidden folder on my computer that was tucked away in a subfolder of a subfolder labelled ‘invoices’.

Now it’s become an obsession, I’d like go to secret places with hut in the title and gorge myself,constantly checking over my shoulder like a gazelle at a watering hole in case she spots me, but then I’d have to lie in the evenings about how my appetite has mysteriously disappeared while wiping the sweet red juice off the corners of my mouth.

I keep pamphlets under the bed, ones full of salubrious offers of free garlic bread or extra toppings if I would only just place an order. I’ve thought about it. Whole afternoons have been spent day dreaming of ways of getting her out of the house for just a few hours so I can enjoy something deep pan with extra cheese. Sometimes I think even placing an order would be enough, just to get me through the day.

The pamphlets are laced with numbers, manned by people who can’t wait to talk to me about crusts and pepperoni. Perhaps I could just place an order and then cancel it, just to feel what it would be like to be able to eat but I worry my girlfriend would see the numbers on the phone bill and then I’d be in trouble.

I’ve tried sating my habit in other ways; slyly adding a tomato or two to cheese on toast or ordering a Bloody Mary with some mozzarella on top but it’s not the same. I want the subtle layers of flavour on top of a circular, crisp base. It’s spreading to other food now, I only want ice cream on a round wafer, of it has to be strawberry ice cream with a good dollop of custard on top.

I even dress like a pizza, brown trousers, red t-shirt with a yellow shirt on top. If I could get away with it I’d have green earrings for the seasoning and little sausage coloured epaulettes, perhaps with a spare pair shaped like an anchovies for when I want a change.

So I’m trapped in a breadless relationship and all I want is to bite into the soft dough covered in the intoxicating mix of fresh vegetables and cheese. It’s strange; before I met her I wasn’t much of a fan.

My lovely bucket

I brought a bucket today, well I brought a bucket for work. We needed something to hold ice and bottles of wine so I got to trundle around Soho looking for a suitable container. After careful consideration I got a lovely steel number that clanks pleasantly as I walk.

This bucket was much admired as I walked around, two chaps and one lady remarked on it. Forget man bags, this season a good solid bucket is the way forward.

The wine isn't bad either.

My first coffee

Due to moving in and other things I've not had coffee in a while. I love coffee, proper coffee made in a needlessly complex way in something made out of either brushed steel or chrome.

My first cup after a week of no coffee was bliss, velvety smooth. Oh how I missed it. This got me thinking about smoking and cycling. I read in the papers that people like smoking because it is a poison. Their bodies release endorphins because of presence of the smoke and that is what makes them feel nice. So when people ban smoking in pubs people get all angry about the government taking their endorphins away.

A few weeks ago I was drunkenly talking to the editor of TimeOut, he said that subject that gets the most mail is cycling. If they even mention it people rant on both sides of the argument. I cycle a lot. It's a great way of getting around London, it's good exorcise but more than that after I've been on a good bike ride (at least 30 minutes) I'm as high as a kite on endorphins. When I cycle to work I spend most of the day buzzing away happily.

If that was banned I bet I'd be furious too, although I'd probably still do it in secret. You know, find out who could sort me out with a couple of bikes and go to some underground cycling den full of whacked out people doing a couple of laps to take them away from it all.

Hello Soho

I've rather disappeared of late. With out an Internet connection I felt as if I disappeared off the face of the earth, well I'm back now. At least at work, yup I'm sat at my new desk, in the new office in London's trendy Soho. I saw a Drag Queen as I cycled into work, is there any better sign of a good area?

The office is small and slightly spartan but only because we haven't really moved in yet, Soon art created by chimps will adorn the walls and later today a delivery of wine is arriving (40+ bottles) so we will have an extremely well stocked wine section for the office. Thank you PR company. We don't have a bottle opener yet but it is only a matter of time.

I'm extremely excited, this company is so cool it makes my teeth hurt. I'm listening to French Jazz in the office as it seemed like the right thing to do. I must admit I'm slightly concerned as what my exact job will be. So far it seems about having lunch in members clubs and talking to people at parties but that can't be all.

The new flat is lovely, it's still a mass of baggage and the sofa isn't completely made but it is starting to get there. We have plates and everything now, so the days of eating out of recycled Chinese food containers are over.

I saw a parking attendant on the way into work, he was putting a parking ticket on someones car and his hat was at an angle which almost anyone would describe as jaunty. It doesn't seem right that a supposed authority figure should have a hat resting on his head in a stylishly rakish way. Would you accept a telling off from a police officer if their hat was on backwards?

In which a cup of tea seems impossibly sophisticated

This morning has been a mixed success, I decided to have a cup of tea, mentally adjusting for camomile because it doesn't require any milk. We have one mug (it has a Springer Spaniel on it and tells you about the breeds history which was a Christmas present from the gun-dog Buster) so that part should be okay and T.P. said she packed a travel kettle so warm water shouldn't be a problem.

Sadly the travel kettle has a plug configuration I don't recognise so I'm not entirely sure where to plug it in. So my breakfast drink options are champagne, rum or gin. Not your classic starters.

If we had any pots or pans we could boil some water in one of those but all we have is a bread making tin so that is going to make things, tricky.

We do have a toaster, but no bread, jam or means of spreading jam.

This flat doesn't feel much like civilisation when you can't have a refreshing cup of Earl Grey and some marmalade on toast.

Moving

Today is the big day of the move, I say day optimistically because I don't want to do two days of moving, I hate moving house.

So far I've managed to pack 12 bags of clothes, giant bags and I'm only just starting on other things. It took me only moments to move my things out of the bathroom which I suppose is an indication of how little I really moved into this place. I think because my flatmate has lived here for 10 years he thinks the place is his (it is a very long time to be renting) so I never really shared anything. The only place that was mine was my bedroom and even then he would pop into there on occasion when I wasn't about...

I had a bit of a think as I walked down to the shops to get more moving supplies, it's been an interesting period in this flat. I've learned a lot about real relationships and troubled young ladies, I left my job and found a new one. I even started wearing waistcoats again. I think this flat has been a catalyst, I will miss it but then I can't wait to move into the new place, I just hope there is enough room for all my cravats.

*** Time passes ***

Well I have moved, it was tough but it's over mostly. T.P. is currently taking a bath while we wait for a pizza to turn up, we had to order a pizza because we have no plates, or forks or spoons or anything like that. We do have a few bottles of champagne and four large martini glasses so at least we will be fine on that respect.

The new flat is wonderful, it's on an adorable street in a lovely part of London dappled with trees and interesting looking shops. Just looking around I expect chimney sweeps will burst into song and girls with roses will sing asking if anyone will buy this wonderful morning.

Oh yes it's going to be marvellous.

Flying shoes and relationships

This weekend was a strange limbo, I was supposed to be moving flat but that has been put on hold due to woes with the bank, so many woes.

I cleaned my room, read the serious papers over the weekend (A friend knows someone on them so I'm furiously trying to think of things to write about) and went to see a film with T.P.

Just before the film started I asked T.P. a hypothetical question.

"What would happen, hypthetically speaking if your shoe fell off and flew to the back of the cinema?"

Her expression after I asked this made me laugh more than the film.

It also made me think about what relationships are about, you know really about. People say things like companionship and the such. I think it's about having someone to mildly annoy and buy flowers.

On Sunday evening T.P. wanted to have a go on my laptop but I said she had to sing the Louch National Atheme before she could, she ended up having to sing it three times as she wasn't singing with much conviction the first time and the second time she wasn't standing to attention. Girls eh?

We will fight them in the branches

I've just recruited my forth person to my campaign to get people to leave Lloyds TSB. It's amazing how many customers who bank with Lloyds TSB hate them, everyone has a story to tell about incomepetence or struggling with the sea of call centres when you just want to talk to your bank manager.

The person who has just joined the campaign was talking to someone today asking how long it would take to get some information back. The reply?

'How long is a piece of string?'

How is that helpful to anyone? I wonder if that call will be played back as part of their customer services training?

I hate Lloyds TSB

I hate banks, my bank has had massive negative effect on my life for the second time in 12 months. Which bank may you ask? Lloyds TSB. I'm going to mention that a few times so that if anyone searches for 'Are Lloyds TSB a good bank?' They will come to this blog and find out that they are not, Lloyds TSB are terrible.

Today involved missing faxes (sending a fax from a faceless call centre to one of their own branches was beyond them), delays which included treating me like an fool ('Well we don't have a fax, are you sure the were sending it here?') and just being bad. Their tomfoolery today may cause me to miss out on a flat I want to rent, making me homeless, thanks Lloyds TSB.

The incident before involved a missing credit card which they were unable to 'find' for 28 days, nearly stopping me going on a trip to raise money for charity. I spent a total of 2 days in one branch trying to track down that card.

Lloyds TSB branches are extremely ugly too, instead of having a 'help desk' Lloyds TSB have a sort of space where you are supposed to hang around vaguely and hope that someone comes to your aid. This someone will probably tell you to queue somewhere else and then after half an hour finally deign to help you. I mean help in the loosest possible sense.

For something that gets so much money out of me they have a remarkably poor level of customer service. A club which I am member of gets far, far less money per year and I'm greeted by my name when I call and they remember exactly what I like, plus they don't treat me like I'm trying to eat the desk pens while making hooting noises.

So here it is Lloyds TSB, the gauntlet has been thrown down. I'm leaving you as soon as I can (which sadly may take a couple of months while I shift things about) but it's not going to stop there. I'm going to speak ill of you Lloyds TSB when-ever the moment comes up. I think if I can make one person leave your horrible company every few months then I've done my part.

Just so you know, the first one is my little brother, I'm going to give him £50 if he switches his savings account to a different bank.

Oh and my girlfriend is changing banks too so that's three people (including me) and I've only just started.

I swear on my very best gloves I'm going to reduce your share price Lloyds TSB.

Don't cross a fop.

Waiting...

I'm waiting for some news, some big news that could be extremely good, extremely good. Waiting is lame.

Actually thinking about it I'm waiting for a few things but this one thing is exciting and I should get an answer today. I'm crossing everything I can for a yes.

One of the less exciting things I'm waiting for is a reference from my bank to get a new flat. I requested it over two weeks ago, at first the sent back a note saying they didn't believe I was me and so I had to go into a branch and re-do my signature so that they would believe I was me again. This is in the hope that some faceless drone in a processing centre somewhere relent and acknowledge that I am me and give me my blooming reference.

I don't like banks, for a start my one has really ugly branches. If I'm going to invest my money with a company I want a bit of old world splendor, a dash of gold leaf and some marble, not green and blue signs and beige carpets.

Would it be too much to ask for a man in a nice hat to open the door? If they are going to make millions from my bank charges I'd like to see a little bit of ostentatious wealth in return.

Mime, wine and plagiarism

Last night was very good fun it was an extremely hard music quiz, I was of almost no use to the team until a section on Quincy Jones came up and I trumped home thanks to my extensive knowledge of his involvement in the Italian Job sound track.

We drank a lot of free wine and threw biscuits at the other teams, just like a proper pub quiz.

After the quiz had finished we went to a late-night drinking den in Soho to talk about nonsense. I ended up doing some complicated Mime with an old friend, why is drunken mime so entertaining?

The next morning I opened a fresh copy of a magazine that I have a big piece in (v. good) but also noticed that later in the magazine one of my ideas has been plagiarised by someone else. This is a tricky issue because I like writing for the magazine but I can't have my ideas given out to other people.

Oh and everyone liked the waistcoat, apart from Henry who said I looked like a snooker player on the way to a wedding. Cheers Henry.

Waistcoats

I managed to get a new waistcoat this morning, it's a feisty little gold number. It might have a touch of 'wedding usher' about it but I think I can tone that down with the right tie, something subversive with guns on it.

Waistcoats have had a bit of a revival of late, before then there weren't that many inspirational waistcoat wearers apart from Jeremy Fisher and that British Bulldog that you see on stickers. I'm glad that waistcoats are no-longer strictly the preserve of second rate magicians and zany uncles.

A weekend round up.

Quite a lot has happened in the last few days so I've not had time to blog, well I have but I was too hungover to do anything productive.

1) I went for a meeting with someone (in a pub of course) to talk about a photograph, by the time the meeting had ended I had sold some art (don't ask) and accidentally pitched an idea for a T.V. show that Watch With Mothers would hate.

2) I borrowed a friends brolly, it's a proper stout brolly with a point and everything. I'm in love, I carry it everywhere like a Samurai, warm in the knowledge that if I was attacked by ruffians I could have at them with my brolly, it even keeps the rain off.

3) On Saturday T.P's aunt had a birthday party, we arrived separately. Her an hour late so I spent an hour at the birthday party of people I had only met once before, most of whom don't have English as a first language. They were terribly nice and I even made my first joke in Spanish. We stayed till 1am dancing and drinking and yet again I was hung-over the next day.

4) My new job starts today, I've got a desk and everything. I really want a new waistcoat for my first official duties but I don't know if I will have time to find one.

Gordon Ramsey Vs The Buffalo

I heard about Gordon Ramsay's buffalo-herding car crash I lost all respect for him. What kind of man uses a 4x4 to herd animals? Back in my day we never had the luxury

I grew up in a small farm in Devon so our traditional method of rounding up cows was the bleary eyed 3am dash in pyjamas. Cows are escape artists second only to goats; they wait till everyone is fast asleep before crashing through hedges and trumpeting for joy as they dash for freedom or at least someone else’s garden.

There are three stages to a cow hunt, stage one is finding the cows. This is normally fairly easy as they leave a trail like a crashed spaceship through hedges and they fart when they are excited so you can hear them from miles away.

Stage two is to get behind the cows, so you can try and scare them towards the farm. This is probably the bit that Gordon had problems with. Heady with freedom the cows are strutting around like troubadours and so take any attempts to get around them as inspiration for more jumping and hooting.

The third stage is the actual herding; this is the point where you wish you were in a 4x4. Cows are bigger than humans, much bigger, so they really aren’t that scared of slightly unfit 8 year old boys in stripy pyjamas who would much rather be in bed. If you walk towards them they jump about a bit for effect and then charge.

If a cow charges at you the best thing to do is to not be there, the second best is to stand your ground. Cows, unlike Bulls tend to break off the charge at the last minute and pretend they didn’t mean to charge you anyway. If you run away the cows take this as encouragement and chase after you, mooing frantically to get other nearby bovines to join in.

Either way your father will tell you off for not grabbing the cows horns and wrestling it to the ground like a hero from a Greek legend. Farmer’s sons are the lowest of the low on the farm, somewhere under naughty sheepdogs and hens that don’t produce eggs. After all a cow can be worth a lot at market.

We tried rounding up cows on horseback using the overweight carthorses that were in the next field but they had got all excited by hearing how much fun the cows were having so they were impossible to catch. Motorbikes were used next but they ran out of petrol long before the cows had even finished doing their warm up excises.

Eventually we managed to get the cows back in through boredom more than anything else, they haughtily stepped back into the shed as if a early morning run was just part of their routine and the hedge was patched up using part of an old gate and my bicycle.

When ever someone tells me that eating a steak is bad I think back to the shivering 8 year old in his pyjamas chasing after cows, the meat always tastes better after that.

Respect the family

Today I learned an important lesson about the power of bloggers. Ask and you shall get.

I'm only slightly worried that at some point the people on the internet may ask for a favour, I bet they don't ask twice and wear snappy suits. No-one will mess me with now, because if they do I'll set the bloggers on them.

The Beagle and I parted ways today, he got all upset and howled, I told him to sit down and be quiet, he did as I walked off into the sunset. It was a good fairwell.

I had other dogs to train and adventures to have, probably in a 45 minute format with a commercial break.

Affable Nonsense

I need a new job, writing affable nonsense for a few magazines is good but I think it's time to get into newspapers. Not reporting or anything like that, but writing about trousers and beagles. Stick to your strengths, that's what I say.

As far as I can tell you have to become a superhero and then you instantly get a job, failing that I'm not entirely sure. I got work in magazines by getting drunk at the right parties so I could try that again. I've emailed my friends asking them most of whom have replied.

'If I knew I would be doing it'

Oh well, boozing it is.

Why I hate farming

I have been thinking about Farming recently, I grew up on a farm. It was a little one in Devon that was run in an organic way before organics had been discovered. It only had one aged tractor that was addicted to Quick start (Which is like smack for tractors) and most of the work was done with horses.

Ooh, that sounds lovely I bet you are thinking. Well you are wrong, real small-scale organic farming isn't all Mills and Boon covers.

I'm trying to think of the best place to begin, so lets start with the with New Year's Eve. While everyone is nursing a hangover you will have to get up first thing in the morning to chase some cows who have escaped into a neighbour's field. These naughty cows will have been doing it all winter so you will already have had to chase them about while wearing your new pajamas on Christmas day. Cows don't observe religious holidays.

After the cow catching starts to calm down a bit you get into the lambing season. Sheep are crap at giving birth, really crap. Some of the wilder breeds are pretty hardy so you can leave them to it but the normal ones are terrible. This means that 'Spring' (although really winter) is spent surrounded by the smell of afterbirths and the kitchen floor is covered in cardboard boxes full of lambs at various stages of death. You get to nurse them, hand feed them warm milk on your lap and then most of the time they just die for no reason at all. If by a miracle they do survive then you let them outside to join the other sheep and some neighbour's dog will come and savage them in the night.

Late spring is a slightly calm time as most of the things that will die have already gone, ideally in your arms for maximum effect so you are left with fields of moderately healthy animals and at least it is warm. With sheep you have to cut their coats which causes them complete terror and means you have to try not to snip off anything vital while this hot snorting body flails against you as if it's life depends on it. Oh and after you give them a hair cut some of them die because it is too much of a shock for them. Think about that when you next get a bad 'do'.

As summer approaches the hell of hay making draws closer. The weather reports become of vital importance and there is a lot of fretting over the right time to do it. Then you cut the hay, with aged machinery that was last used in the dark ages of course. After the hay has been cut you have to get it to dry out, so it has to be turned twice a day, partly by machine (The old crack-addict tractor mentioned earlier) and then by hand for the bits the machine misses. This is of course done in the blistering heat.

While this is going on if it rains the crop will be ruined, completely ruined. At the first hint of rain the bailing must begin even if the hay isn't completely dry yet. For the bailing you need to get the crop into nice rows for the even more temperamental baler to turn into small scratchy bales full of thistles. This machine some how manages to break down even more than the tractor and occasionally explodes as a bit of baler twine gets caught in something it shouldn't. The first sign of this happening is when it starts to give birth to deformed bales that warp when they hit the ground and then explode in a shower of thistles.

Provided you get through this stage the bales need a bit more drying out and then you need to get them into the barn. The horses trundle around the field as you sling bales onto a trailer (Which is like repeatedly chucking a full suitcase over your shoulder), one person receives the bales and stacks them. Once the trailer is loaded the horses normally try and shake a few bales off and then when they have been replaced you go over to the barn where you load them in. The barn stage is the hardest because you are starting to get tired by now and you are doing this heavy lifting inside surrounded by dust. It's worth mentioning at this point you should be wearing gloves, good strong gloves that cover your arms otherwise your skin will be flayed off after about five minutes of handling bales, sadly this isn't an acceptable excuse to get out of bailing, nothing ever is.

This continues until the bales have gone, if it starts raining it happens faster and with more shuoting, by the end of it you just want to lie down and die. I think only people who have never been bailing day-dream of having a tryst in hay, for anyone who has being around something you hate that much would be a distraction.

The rest of the year is spent repairing fences, and taking very reluctant animals to market. Occasionally you get to sleep for a full night but usually only because the sheep/cows/chickens have all been murdered by something. This something is usually the star of a Disney film so when you tell people you hate foxes they go on about how they are really nice citing the cartoon version of Robin Hood as an example.

And you wonder why I became a fop?

What have I learned?

Well it's my final morning with the beast, so lets have a round up of what I have learned.

1)Beagles are hunting dogs so they shouldn't really live in swish studio apartments, they need places to run around that don't have precious art on the walls. It ran into something worth £80k yesterday while chasing a rubber bone and I aged a year.

2)Walking a dog isn't that relaxing as you have to always keep an eye out for nasty things on the floor for the dog to eat and keep a constant monologue of 'good boy, heel, good boy, sit, good boy'. Even worse you find yourself doing this with friends who don't enjoy being told they are a 'good girl' for stopping at a road even if it is a compliment.

3)Alpha dogs eat food first, go through doors first and just do what ever they like. Being an alpha dog is cool but you always have to watch out for the next dog to see if it is going to challenge you. When pretending to eat dog food you do sometimes accidentally eat some. It doesn't taste nice so don't try it even if it gives you a shiny coat.

4)Owning a dog means you have to think about poo a lot, the poo of something else, your social life will have to work around when the dog needs to do a poo. You will have to learn never to go out with out a plastic bag for poo. For some reason you have to say 'good boy' when it does a poo.

5)Dogs smell, but you quickly stop noticing.

6)Once you get a dog to behave on walks you start spotting other people with naughty dogs who are struggling. You can't help them though, only have a bonding conversation about how their dog was being very good a moment ago but now it is distracted.

7)Everyone in London talks to you if you have a nice looking dog, everyone it can take ages to get anywhere because of this.

Which isn't to say I haven't learned anything useful. I've learnt a lot about subtle power struggles thanks to this dog. I used to work with a chap who would steal my food from the fridge, I never found a way to deal with that but now I think I could counter it.

I've also learned that I'm not ready for a dog, let alone children. Dry clean only clothes and plastic plants are as far as much as I can handle now.

101 Rabbits

In Peru when you click your fingers and other bones it's called releasing rabbits. I don't think rabbits in Peru click. I mention it because the creature and I are starting to work out the final kinks in our relationship.

Yesterday some neighbours came over for the afternoon. It was someone I used to work with and her boyfriend. We ate food, boozed about and it was very nice. The little monster skipped about sniffing all the new people and spent a lot of time trying to steal food from the low table.

hundreds of years of selective breeding to make the beagle a fantastic game hunting animal and it spends most of it's spare time trying to run off with pastries from the coffee table.

This is our final full day together, I'm only going to have one more night with it fighting to get into the bed and barking like loon the moment he sees a dog in the distance. At nights he likes to go on to the balcony and yap at other dogs across London, it's like that bit in the cartoon version of 101 Dalmatians where they send out a message dog to dog that the puppies are missing, but with out the charm.

I really hope I don't miss him when this flat sitting is over. That would be a terrible thing to happen, even worse than his doggy breath.

Alpha dogging

My adventures with the beagle are progressing. We had very long walk today and he was good, very good. He was responding to commands, staying by my side, not being distracted by food on the pavement and it was even a little bit fun.

He still goes bananas if I try to go to bed before bedtime for any reason (I think this is mostly because he isn't allowed on the bed), but on the plus side he does know that barking at me will not get him what he wants and that I am in charge.

There was an ace bit at lunch time where he just tested the water to see if it was possible to steal my lunch, I bared my teeth at him and he immediately slunk off and then rolled on his back to show he wasn't a threat. I've never hit him or anything, this is all from pretending to eat his food and dominating with eye contact.

Sometimes being an Alpha dog is cool, but I'd love to be able to take an afternoon nap every now and then.

Herding Peacocks

Well the visit to my father went okay, he is a bit wobbly but he is having a whale of a time of morphine. While I was there the test results came back (again) and they showed that nothing new was up with his legs. This is good news, as it means the pain is something else less sinister.

My Dad got on with the T.P. very well and she seemed to enjoy herself watching goats and stroking horses.

On the Sunday one of the neighbours pet peacocks decided to come over to say hello, this was fine until it got into the field with the horse and the mule. The Mule, Thelma is rather naughty and was chasing it around the field trying to stamp on it's tail. I had to run into the field to save the peacock at which point Thelma and the big horse, Lisa (who is an Ardenne horse, a large working breed for eating and riding into war) decided to charge me.

I faced down two charging beasts and they swung aside at the last moment, farting loudly to emphasize their rage, it was like something from Dances with Wolves, but with mules and parping noises.

After that I engaged in some high-speed peacock herding as I tried to get the naughty chap to go back home rather than get stomped on by the mule. Peacocks are surprisingly fast when they have their tails down, so I had to weave about to get him to go in the right place while a mule menaced me from behind. After about half an hour of running about the peacock finally jumped over the fence and scampered off home. Only a fop would end up herding a peacock

I'm back in London looking after the naughty dog, who is being quite good and quietly destroying one of his toys and someone else's shoe.

I've also learned that if you eat coleslaw after it's sell-by date it goes fizzy in your mouth and have to fight not to be sick on a beagle.

Boris Johnson!

I went out last night, I had a book launch to go to and I wasn't going to drive till the next day so it seemed like a good idea. Sadly bad news and a free bar are not a terribly good combination.

From what I can remember from last night I made a quip about gym lessons and camel dung to the editor of Timeout, spotted Boris Johnson and shook his hand at the traffic lights, blocked the loo with a newspaper (Who knows why?) and locked T.P. out of the flat for a bit.

I now feel like death warmed up and I'm pondering if I should write the Shadow Minister for Arts an email to apologise for my unruly behaviour.

Either way I've got a five hour drive to Wales to look forward too.

'I'm on lovely morphine'

I've just heard from my Dad, something is wrong with his legs. Very wrong, he is in constant pain. They were given an X-ray by the NHS but in a typical NHS bungle the tape that the specialist dictated his/her findings onto was broken so the message was impossible to hear.

He said it's not that bad as he is on some lovely morphine but I think I should visit him anyway. Terminal illnesses are like that, it's not like a book where you can see how many pages are remaining and have a guess at how much longer it will last.

He mentioned the phrase amputation as a joke, I think. While I admire the stiff upper lip of that generation I do think that amputation humour should be off limits when talking to children.

Anyway, I've managed to arrange for the devil-dog to be looked after by some other people while I go to Wales for a few days to see him, which goes to prove that every cloud does have a silver lining.

I hate this dog as much as I love the moka pot

The mental war between man and dog hasn't ended yet.

The beast behaves itself in the flat and if I alone take it on a walk but it is still naughty at other times. When I tried to accompany T.P. to the shops this morning it was very, very bad.

First it was pulling on the lead if T. P. got ahead of us, then when T.P. went into the shop to get some things and the creature went bananas. It was barking, jumping about and bucking on the lead. It continued to play up until T.P. was well out of sight and even then it only moved off with great reluctance.

Once T.P. was gone again the thing started to behave itself again, so the battle of wills isn't quite over yet.

Are all city dogs this much trouble? I've looked after dogs before and nothing has been this awful. I wonder if I can get away with putting it in a kennel for the rest of the time it's owners are away or maybe just in a big hole?

I'm not sure what I'm going to do otherwise, is it possible to die from dog sitting?

In more positive news this flat has a moka pot. I used it for the first time today, my word that's some strong coffee, it was like a pure hit of velvety caffeine.

I want to use it again but I'm not sure my heart could take it. Saying that if I did die from a coffee overdose I wouldn't have to see that beastly creature again...

The miracle of television

I don't know if you have seen a program called It's me or the dog; for those who haven't it's a show where a lady with a slightly posh voice and a nice line in more than mildly. S&M clothes goes to houses and sorts out problem dogs.

It's fun to watch as at the start of the show the dogs are awful monsters who think they are in charge of the pack and exhibit very naughty behaviour then over the course of an hour with three advert breaks these dogs are transformed into paragons of canine manners. The methods she uses to do this are all subtle and don't involve any hitting or sticks and I must admit until today if someone had mentioned them in the pub I would have said

"That's a load of bollocks, it's all cut for television that would never work."

And I would have been wrong. I took the thing (it won't get a name-check until it has been good) out when I walked T.P. to work, after about 10 metres he went mental; possibly because he had seen a dog.

'Ha!' I thought it my head 'It's time to use the power of knowledge to tame this foul beast'

So I calmly walked in the opposite direction. This confused the devil-dog, he barked and tugged and fought but I was the Buddha of dog training, my force was absolute and delivered with a small smile. So after quite a bit of fighting it returned to my side. I waited and then we continued on the walk. It started to tug on the lead again so we changed direction. This happened a few more times until the doggy neurons started to connect.

By the time we were half way into the diamond district of London he was walking alongside me next to me and sort of responding to my commands of heel.

It was nothing short of amazing, actually amazing. I wouldn't have believed such a big transformation could have taken place in such a short amount of time.

In the future I'm know to trust television, perhaps I'll take the dog to Albert Square, the pub in that documentary about the East End looks very nice.

I fought the dog, and the dog won

The house sitting has begun and I've come to realise that the dog I thought was 'charmingly naughty' was actually a little demon sent to cause misery and do large poos in front of the police.

I hate this dog.

It barks if it doesn't get attention, requires three long walks a day and it has decided to be a chastity monitor and so if I even so much as kiss T.P. when it can see it goes bananas and barks.

Walks are a nightmare, this thing is completely untrained so it tries to eat everything it comes across. You can imagine the sorts of things that you encounter in the streets in central London.

Yesterday I tried letting it off the lead in a park, it ran off and with in about 30 seconds it had eaten several hundred pounds of luxury foods from other peoples picnics. It was completely shameless, and I was surprised I didn't get me into a fight.

I really can't see the point in having this dog, there is no unconditional love only a battle of wills and cleaning up of shit.

After three days of this with not enough sleep due to a constant need to be let out to go for a pee I'm a broken man. I had a stress headache yesterday from it all. It's got to change or I'm going to need some start taking sedatives.

Today is the day things change. I've been looking up dog training on the Internet and when I gave it it's breakfast of luxury food in a funny rubber thing I pretended to eat it before I handed it over.

Yeah, I'm totally going to try and establish myself as Alpha dog and when I take it out for the morning walk today I've got special passive-aggressive tactics to use when it pulls on the lead and tries to eat a tramps foot.

In your FACE dog*

*unless this doesn't work, then I'm really in trouble.

The Green room

Last night was very informative, which makes it not sound like fun when it was. I nearly got lost when trying to find the studio but I finally managed to locate it by following the massive queues to be in the audience.

After a few frantic minutes of phone calls I went inside and found a very nice chap with highlights who had a list of special people. We got taken to a holding area with booze and my friend turned up a few minutes later. We ordered a round of drinks seconds before being told we had to go into the studio, so we downed our drinks before we were led through the labyrinth of the television studios past pictures of Fern Britton and Ant and Dec.

When we arrived at the set prime seats had been set aside for us so I was sat in the third row from the front exactly in the middle. So close I could even read the note of instructions the Camera man had on a clipboard.

The warm up guy was good, he got the hang of the audience of Have I Got News For You very quickly and everyone was giggling away while the final preparations were made. This involved people frowning a lot while they whispered at each other.

The guests arrived to a mass applause and took their seats (Paul Merton is much taller than you think) and then the fun began. It was like the show but for every question everyone had far, far more attempts at making an funny answer. I laughed a lot but mostly at bits that probably won't make the final cut - Moira Stewart was being brilliantly rude and sassy.

After the show was over we went up to a wonderful bar on the 14th floor and drank free booze while we mingled and admired the amazing view. My friend and I thanked the person who supplied the tickets and she said it was an open invite we would be welcome anytime. She was also telling her friends a story I had told her sister at New Year's Eve so that was a strange moment.

Anyway after a few drinks we scampered home on the last tube, but not before a very important person asked for my email, I wrote it on a sheet of paper from my notebook.

It was a brilliant evening, I'm not sure I want to work in television anymore, it looks like far too much hard work but I do fancy Moira Stewart.

A question of cards

So this thing this evening sounds like it will involve meeting quite a few interesting people. According to my friend we will be in the green room and stuff.

This would be an ideal time to hand out business cards to various people but sadly I don't have any at the moment. The business cards for my old job rocked, I specifically asked for them to have as little information on them as possible and they looked brilliant.

I can't really use them anymore, since I have left the company so what am I going to do? I don't really have time to get cards printed properly, do they still have those funny machines at train stations?

Can I get away with no cards at all? While that might make me seem mysterious and interesting, it would be wise to be able to give my contact details to some people.

What would Batman do?

Have I got socks for you

The day has finally arrived, I'm going to go to a recording of Have I Got News For You with an old friend. It's not just any studio visit. It's going to be a VIP tour - my friend knows the sister of the senior producer.

I've already spent an entire morning thinking about my sock options, because like all studio visits you have to allow for the possibility that some cigar smoking T.V. mogul will say

'Hey see that that completely unknown chap with the marvellous socks, we should give him a job'.

To be fair this actually happened to me once, but I was wearing a silly shirt and it was in Scotland where these things happen all the time. I rather messed it up by going to a different party to meet someone when I should have stayed and talked about program ideas.

At the next party I got into quite a serious fight (ended up in A&E) for talking like an Englishman in public and then bumped into a ex who had turned stalker on me, but by Jove I learnt my lesson about staying at the right party.

If you were wondering the sock I have settled on it's a pink one with a red heel and toe, if that doesn't say 'six figure writing contract with a production credit' I don't know what does.

I have no idea what a production credit is, it's just something you are supposed to ask for. I think it might be some sort of space aged money that they use on T.V. sets instead of normal cash.

I want to buy an elephant to commute on.

Man cannot live on Brioche alone

I've had a terribly productive few days, super productive. I think it is down to the vast amounts of brioche I have had for breakfast, and as a mid-morning snack, then second breakfast and finally for a pre-lunch warm up. It's been a brioche packed time indeed.

I was so invigorated by the brioche that I finally told my flatmate I was moving out, I thought it would be like a break up with wailing and gnashing of teeth but he took it rather well. Things haven't been perfect for a while now between us, he didn't like it I had friends around and he kept leaving me little notes with 'tips' and 'hints' on them but we did have some fun times, he has not been the worst flatmate by a long stretch.

I'm moving out because I'm going to live with T.P., in a flat with rooms and doors and everything. I'm really looking forward too it. She doesn't have any interest in watching football, she likes my cooking and she promises to walk around in her pants a lot.

What more could anyone want from a flatmate? I just hope she doesn't try and eat my precious brioche.

Dogs and pirates

I'm going to be dog-sitting next week. I'll be staying in the flat so the doggy doesn't get lonely (my place isn't dog suitable). It's a little doggy I know well so it should be lots of fun. We are going to have all sorts of adventures, my only worry is who will look after my Bee while I'm away?

Anyway, I met the owner at a friends birthday drinks and I made a joke about hosting loads of wild parties at her flat. She told me the only rule I would have while staying at her flat

'No cocaine on the low table'

I was speechless for a moment, I don't take mild drugs (I feel guilty about taking paracetamol) let alone something as naughty as that. Then she explained she didn't want any hard drug taking on the low table just in case her dog decided to have a sample.

I laughed for about half an hour.

In other news the L word was mentioned this weekend by T.P. I was asked the question 'Do you love me' and well it seemed like the right time to say yes. So I replied.

'Yes, I love you, I love as much as pirates.'

For some reason this didn't go down as well as I thought it would, I can't see why. Pirates are brilliant.

Clandestine hats

When I was in the Americas I felt a burning desire to have a Panama hat. I've never been much of a hat person, oh I have a nice top hat to wear when the occasion warrants it and a fine selections of ridiculous head gear that I have collected over the years for parties and things but sadly a fez isn't day wear really.

Anyway, I have a panama hat now, and I love it. I doffed it today when I was out buying eggs and I saw a policewoman on a horse.

I could even use my hat to hide things, like if I was a spy and I needed to smuggle some top secret plans out of the country I could conceal them in my trusty Panama. Of course I can't really do that now I've mentioned it on a blog with literally dozens of readers but maybe I'm saying that so people won't search my hat, like a double bluff.

Or maybe I just said that as a triple bluff so people do search my hat and the plans will be somewhere else?

Being a spy is complicated, but it's worth it for the head gear.

The naughty bee

Every morning I have a routine, I get up make a cup of military strength fresh coffee and then start writing. Although by writing I mean checking emails while I put off doing proper work.

Then at about 9:30 the naughty bee pops in to say his hellos. He bimbles around for a bit and then he nips off again out of the window. This has happened every day for the past week, it's become part of our routine.

It's like a sit-com. Two friends from different worlds who live together with hilarious consequences, and also learn a bit about each other. I imagine we are going to have all sorts of japes and adventures.

So who wants a recurring part in Bee and Me?

Fairwell Mounir

I just spoke to an old work college from my old job. The chap who left about a week before me is dead.

Mounir was a lovely man, he put up with a lot of crap from the head of sales and was still chirpy. We had quite a few adventures together including an incident in a hotel room with the female owner of a sex toy company and her P.R. woman that is not really for public consuption.

We even had some proper grown up converations, he lost his father last year and I had a long talk to him about stuff like that when I found out my father was unwell. I can still remember his laugh when he said something shocking to one of the girls.

What makes it worse is he was in his flat a month before anyone found him, it's one of those urban myths you hope never comes true.

So that's three deaths this year, and quite honestly I've had enough of it. A chap really shouldn't get this much use out of his funeral suit.

These are a few of my favourite things...

The lovely lady at The Urban Woo has just posted about shops, she was inspired by this post on Oye Billy.

Anyway, I'm stuck on some work so I'm going to be *ahem* constructive and write about my favourite shops ever too. This is excluding restaurants that can be saved for another day.

Fortnum and Masons
The best hampers in London (I've done scientific testing and everything) you can pop in to them of an afternoon and pick up a beautiful wicker hamper full of exciting goodies. It's surprisingly good value considering you get to keep the lovely hamper and it's a gift for any occasion. Get one, go to Hyde park and try not to have a spiffing time. Just try.

Geo F Trumper
Barber and perfumer since 1875, recently I went in there for a new fragrance and spent almost an hour discussing what I wanted my scent to say. That's customer service, they even threw in some free soap. It's like entering a different world, one that smells lovely.

The Real McCoy
On Fore Street in Exeter there is a little arcade that has the best vintage clothes shop in Great Britain, fact. If you want to get a spiffing three piece 1920s tweed suit or perhaps a flapper style dress for less than the cost of a Top Shop shirt then this is the place to go. Although if you are male and the same size as me then you are banned, it's my precious.

I think that's enough for now.

I have a cunning plan

I've been thinking about Blackadder a lot over the last few days, and I have come to the conclusion that he is inspirational. So now if I get into a tricky situation I ask myself, what would Blackadder do?*

He's glib, he's got a nice beard and he's not afraid to wear a codpiece. How could anyone be more inspirational than that?

Now I just need to find a servant and become friends with The Queen. I wonder if my flatmate will answer to the name Baldrick?

*Excluding the first series of Blackadder where he was stupid and Baldrick was cunning

The nature of comedy

Last week all sorts of work things were going splendidly and then I got hopelessly side-tracked into a debate about the nature of comedy. It's completely stumped me to the point where I can't write anything.

The view presented to me was that all comedic characters are pathetic, that is what makes them funny.

Is this true? I can't decide, Blackadder wasn't pathetic (apart from the first series) so what made him funny?

Can you be funny with out being pathetic? What about witty quips?

Wisdom of the pipes

T.P. Brought me a present at the weekend, a pipe. I don't smoke, and I won't ever smoke but the idea of chomping down on a pipe while writing something always seemed very appealing.

Anyway I have a pipe now, and I've already spent a large portion of the morning pretending to light it and posing by the mantelpiece.

My only concern is will filling it with bubble mix detract from the gravitas it gives me?

Rum Inferno

I just learned two very important lessons.

1) Prusser's Navy Strength Rum will burst into flames if you boil it, Proper roaring flames of death.

2) If your rum is on fire, don't try and blow it out, you just get a fireball in your face. Instead calmly place the lid on top of the pan to suffocate the fire and then run to the bathroom to see if you still have any eyebrows.

Baking is fun.

Boozing and Baking

I went out for drinks last night and now I'm terribly hungover. I think the Spirit of Jeffrey Bernard possessed me as I had far, far more than I should to drink and now I feel wretched. I did have an excellent idea though, for measuring tapes where the scale is off so when you measure something it appears to be larger than it is. Just think of the potential for falsehood...

Well it seemed like a good idea last night. Much like the extra round of drinks to see us on our way, now I'm paying the price, oh yes, but when a chap is feeling a touch 'bliffy' there is a sure-fire to get the spring back into his step.

Bake.

I think a feisty little banana bread would get me right back into the spirit of things, perhaps some macaroons as well. Yes, that's an excellent plan.

Now I just need to work out a way to get to the shops without vomiting, maybe if I construct some sort of nose bag to cover my mouth.

Lets talk about beards

Now, lets really talk about beards, they are a source of a lot of angst for chaps. As we know, ladies don't go back to the places of men with hairy faces, but why?

Maybe it's just such a male thing, from almost the moment that we get to proudly grow our first facial fuzz we are being encouraged to shave it off when what we would like to do is grow it in to a proud beard, perhaps we a dash of wax, should the occasion warrent it.

But alas, it never happens. Have you ever noticed that explorers always grow beards? Or that in all male environments, like remote research stations or computer game conventions beards are much more acceptable.

It's oppression man, it's time we chaps stood up and burned our razors! And I will join you, just after tonight. I'm out for cocktails and you can't drink cocktails with a beard. With a 'tashe, maybe, but not with a beard.

Oh and Brian Blessed is the man of the month, just look at rich rug of a beard.

The very nice man at Dell

This blog has been around for a while and has probably talked about enough nonsense to make most of you believe that it isn't a marketing plant. With that in mind I would just like to say how surprised I am about how shockingly good Dell have been about my laptop.

I managed to break the R key by inserting a knife behind it trying to get a stone or something out. The key pinged across the room (and hit my flatmate in the head) and I couldn't get it back on properly so it has been hanging on limply, useable but annoying.

Anyway, I contacted Dell online and after explaining the problem they are arranging for a replacement keyboard to be sent out tomorrow with instructions on replacing it.

I was thinking I'd have to shell out for a new one. So yeah, Dell get my recommendation.

Now I know that if I stick a knife in a computer, I'm going to be fine as long as it's a Dell.

They should use that as a slogan.

The worst anecdote

I've played a game with my friends a few times where you try and come up with the worst anecdote possible. This sort of comes from an ex-girlfriend who was extremely pretty and lovely but would tell the most boring stories as if they were amusing asides in the style of Oscar Wilde.

The one where she tried to buy some forks but was told you could only buy the nice cultery in sets was especially fine, but I don't want to say too much and spoil it for you just in case you ever meet her.

Anyway, I was at a party with the T.P. on Saturday and I met a chap who told me the following very funny story. I know it was funny because he told me it was.

'Yah, so I needed to stir some paint because I was touching up some of the woodwork in the kitchen and I used one of Craig's wooden spoons for cooking. I just stirred the paint with the other end and then I thought. God Craig is going to go mental.

But he didn't he was just like, oh that's fine we only use the other end anyway,'

At this point the story teller paused to wait for roars of laughter. I thought about sharing the fork story, or at least putting one in my eye.

Alligators, Steath Bombers and lame gifts

I'm back in England now, and I'm glad.

Don't get me wrong I had a lovely time in America. I played Beach Volleyball in the evening sun, saw a Stealth Bomber zoom over the palm trees on Miami beach and ate more than I really should which is pretty much all a chap can hope for on an a holiday but it's nice to be back in England with the hills and Peruvians.

I'm trying to think of more to say, but I'm still on American time so this is 6am for me so I think I'll go and drink my body weight in coffee and see if that helps.

Oh and T.P. loved the dresses, lingerie and even the rubbish jewellery I got her. I still can't really believe she quite liked the gift I spent hours choosing to be as tacky as possible.

Blimes, thinking of gifts, I finally brought some well thought out gifts and got to give them to the girl they were brought for, that's a new experience.

Blimes!

Tales from the Keys (part 4)

Yesterday was fairly relaxed. We got up late, went and did some light shopping for pointless electronics, including being hard sold insurance. I said no, and the fact that 'I am only in the states once every couple of years, so couldn't bring broken unit into a store to have it replaced' wasn't really enough to stop him getting in the manager who was going to offer me a special reduced rate because I had a nice face and he liked my style.

Armed with our freshly shiney gadgets we took the dogs to the doggy park so they could run around excitedly and sniff other dogs. There was a crazy dog lady there who was pretty but extremely annoying so we left after only an hour. The dogs enjoyed the experience and spent a lot of time in the car trying to get their whole bodies out of the windows to get as much wind on fur action as possible.

We dropped the dogs off for lunch and then zoomed over to the cinema to catch Grindhouse. It was funny, pleasantly strange and I laughed more than I thought I would. After the film we got changed into fancy pants ready for the evening event which was Conrad's birthday party. This was held at 'The Cheesecake Factory' I ate lots but avoided the cheesecake. Loads of Conrad's friends had turned up so I got to meet lots of Floridites (Floradoids?) who were really good fun. Then we went to another bar for some champagne, I only had a sip becuase I was driving.

At about midnight we set off back to the house, the streets were deserted so I was zooming along in the car happly until I saw some blue flashing lights behind me. I pulled over and started hearing the theme from Cops in my head.

The chap turned up resplendent in beige with a gun and asked for my license and registration just like in the films. Thankfully I managed to 'oh my gosh' my way out of the situation and after a few more 'Oh officer I am so terribly sorry' I was told to go on my way, but try not to go twice the speed limit again.

So yeah, I'm like totally a gangster now, I should probably get myself a street name and and possie of homos, or at least I think that is what they are called.