To hell in a milk float

Oh, Christ. I feel like I've just joined the NRA. As a fucking target. I've got the mother-in-law of all headaches. My skull feels like Mervyn King's dartboard. I've been overdosing on Neurofen and paracetamol for two days now, and I physically can't move faster than half a mile an hour or my head'll explode, like that car from that film. What am I going to do, dear reader?

I wish I knew. A doctor once told me that if you wait long enough nature will cure almost anything. I personally feel that if you wait long enough, the NHS ought to do the same thing, but it doesn't work that way - my going to my GP and asking for a cure for headaches is about as likely to produce results as Basil Fawlty managing Norwich City. Plus it would require my first getting out of bed, and putting on something more appropriate than my current attire of Hawiaan shirt and boxer shorts. Which I categorically refuse to do for anyone.

Well, what have I done recently? Finished my exams, but then so many people are saying that now it's not really news. I've bought a two litre bottle of Woodpecker's (Yeah! Big up the chav massive!) which I plan to mix with ice cubes made from lemonade, thus enabling me to stay cool for just about long enough to retrieve The Italian Job from wherever it's hiding and watch the thing, in lieu of going to McDonalds with my sister and some of her friends, which would present me with the twin torments of listening to people who talk about shoes and eating parts of a cow the vultures refuse to. I'd be able to infect 'em all with the worst virus in the world - including the one from Resident Evil which turns ordinary movie extras into homicidal lunatics - though, so it may be a plan to pop in later.

They're making me go to the Lake District in a few days, in order to do geographical things I don't understand simply because the people who do understand 'em are not thick enough to spend a couple of weeks up a hill with no phone connection, no television and no shop within an hour's drive, during Wimbledon.

But future spells of incarceration doesn't bother me, now. What does is the fact that I feel like I'm a puppy that Rolf Harris has been practising on, so if you don't mind, I'll just get quietly on with trying not to die. If I never see you again, remember me in your hearts,



Sniff.





Oh, and if you meet ex-travelocity.co.uk-icon Alan Whicker, kill him for me, the filthy betraying blighter. Doing Tesco's adverts, indeed.










Nor, If ever I need to feed that many people, I call Jesus.

DJ, yes, but the Aussie didn't understand our barbecue much in the same way as we wouldn't understand a group of children making mud-pies in a sandpit.

Nor, hell if I know! Somewhere coastal.

Ant D, never thought of it like that. I guess you're right!

Bec, yes, but then I've previously dedicated posts to shoehorns, facial hair, kebabs and the citizens of Manchester, so it's not much of an achievement, is it?

Vindy, forty degrees? Blimey! And I'm complaining about the heat!

Rosie, I'm ashamed! Disguising your gingerness! Don't let Laura corupt you, the pink-haired little rebel!

Yes, and I've cooked enough meat to feed every aunt in the world. The Aussies were present, and I'm fully qualified to say they're a strange bunch of people. I got on well with the mum, who found every single thing I said or did terribly, terribly hilarious, while in return I found everything she said or did slightly scary. The dad was alright, too. He looked - naturaly enough - with scorn upon our English barbecues. We had an interesting little conversation, which went something like this:

Aussie Dad: Well, well, well. A barbecue!
Me: Yes.
AD: Well, how does it work, then?
Me: Err, you put charcoal in the bowl, set fire to some wood with a fag lighter because you can't find the firelights, give the whole thing a good squirt or two of parrafin and leave it to it's own devices.
AD: Ptchah! My barbecue back at home

- and that's another thing: they say "back at home" when they refer to any thing, event or concept that isn't actually present. Which becomes a bit annoying after a while, I mean, when someone says "My house, back at home, has X windows, Y doors and Z toilets. We have a Ride-in lawnmower, which we keep in the garage back at home, but it's broken at the moment, so we sent it in to a mechanic, who has a workshop in the high street back at home. Back at home..." ARGH! Do you really feel the need to explain to me that, while travelling abroad, you tend to leave your lawnmower behind? I think I'm capable of assuming that you don't billet your garden equipment in Singapore, say, or Cornwall. I had guessed that you tend not to lug heavy mechinery halfway around the world to have it repaired. And "My house, back at home" - what?

anyways:

AD:"Ptchah! My barbie back at home is six feet long, gas fired, with four independant grilling pads, a compartment for heating buns and things, a variable gas/airflow control, a wheeled undercarriage (pneumatic, of course), a drinks-cooler attached and a rainshield.
Me: Yes, but this one doesn't take a team of four men to move it, and rear-axle-mounted drum brakes to stop it again.


But the little Aussies. God, what a terrible bunch of human beings. The teenager is the sort of typical moody, morose teenager that only exists in sitcoms, and the little one doesn't really look human. I know that's a pretty big thing to claim, but there genuinely was something vaguely unsettling about her. You get the impression that while it isn't very likely that lizardmen from the Moon are living among us in disguise, if they are then she's one of them. She kept giving me the sort of stares that people give convicted sex offenders they meet in the local Mothercare outlet, and playing with little dolls that have rugby ball shaped faces.

Even the teen played with the deformed dolls! God! I mean - most English girls swap their dolls for Burberry scarves at the age of twelve, but these weird, weird Aussies are still fooling about with 'em at seventeen!

But I'm not saying all Aussies are like this.





Just ninety-nine percent of them.







The rest have emigrated.










Vindy, err... because you are?

Biscuit, Toilet? Bath? I'll consider my purchase wasted if I don't use the thing up the Matterhorn.

Chaos Fairy, I know a bloke who's fond of saying "Possesion is theft", too. It's an anarchist thing - the correct response being to take their wallet.

Def, tell you what - I'll roll around laughing anyway, just on the offchance, okay?

Shan, horseball is class! I never thought I'd say this, but there is something horses are good at! I saw the British open finals, England V. France, and it's actually a really brilliant sport! You like my favourite band? Woah - Oasis and Horseball! You go, girl!

Rosie, you're not supposed to have that, you little stalker!

Laura, tell you what - I've got some magic beans you can have, if you want! But you have a regular job! I have to do random, difficult, tax free odd jobs for tightwads who won't pay professionals! You ought to be rolling in it!

DJ, female? Not when you see the way it goes about disk ejection, it 'ain't!

Sara, don't you discourage her, now - she's got to become a world horseball champion in order to get me free tickets to international matches!

Ant D, the internet connection is to the laptop as the jar of baby oil is to the drunk supermodel.

Vindy, you can't blackmail me! I'll post the picture on here anyways soon!

Shan, I suggest we kidnap her. Her folks must be loaded!

The bitter I'm currently sipping was made from hops grown at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Does that make me the world's biggest ponce? Yes. Do I care? No. Why? 'Cause I'm typing this on the brand new laptop I've just gone and bought, is why. And I think I'm in love with it. You have no idea how powerful it makes you feel to check the stockmarket while in bed. Not that I have shares in anything, but if you can't find out the value of J Sainsbury on the FTSE 100 index at two in the morning in your boxers, what's the point in forking out for a laptop?

Seriously though, I think I've got feelings for the dam' thing. In fact, I'm pretty close to talking baby talk to it. I've formed emotional relationships with other inanimate objects before. My car, for instance, and my microwave. But those things are different. I love them in a manly, Starsky-and-Hutch-bonding-after-shooting-up-a-drugs-baron sort of way. But toward the Laptop I feel protective, caring, attached .

And this is a problem. I have the worst record in the country when it comes to technology. There isn't a device in my possesion that hasn't either been smashed up or narrowly avoided such a fate through blind luck and waterproofing. Mobile phones I've owned have met with fates that would make Vlad the Impaler flinch, and they're thinking of nominating my wristwatch for the St George's Cross. So my darling laptop stands the same sort of chance in life as a stray budgie in the KFC kitchens. Oh yes, it's got a guarantee. But what consolation'll that be, when it's just discovered gravity the hard way? I can picture myself weeping over the debris, screaming at a confused IT technician "I don't want another one - I want him".

But then, I can picture alot of things. Another problem I have is the shape of the thing. It's built in just such a way as to set off lines of thought in the "If I put a slice of cheese on the keypad and stood quietly behind the screen, I could wait for a mouse to come along, and Bam!" direction. And how I'd hate myself afterwards.

What else, pussycat, is new? (God, how I hate that song!) Not alot. Later on I gain almost unlimited power in the form of a pair of steel tongs and a skewer. I am doing a barbecue, for some barbecue-wanting folks I happen to be related to. I anticipate a sucess, but only due to my plans to pre-cook what is known in the catreing trade as the whole bloody lot. Then whang it on the fire for a few minutes, give it a squidge of barbecue sauce and that's that sorted. Day after, is Rosie's birthday do, to which she has A) Invited me, and B) Not told me the time or place. After that, I am free to do whatever I want to do for an entire week, provided it's revision.






Bec, oh yes it was! Watch the news once in a while, why don't you!

Ant, you little perv! I'm interested in women's breasts purely for scientific purposes!

DJ, even if it was just me, at variance with every other man in the world, I assure you I would be right!

Laura, whadya do, then? Walk into the lingerie department, whip 'em out and ask for a tape measure? You must know!

Rosie, "B-flat"? Woah! Musial breasts! Why oh why hasn't nature thouught of that?

Sara, Paula Radcliffe is one of Britain's most famous athletes. Famous, that is, for crapping during the marathon.

Vindy, Find out. Now. You're currently the only woman in the world who doesn't understand the bra sizing system!

Chaos Fairy, Err.. thanks - you couldn't arrange my sock drawer too, couldja?

Biscuit, Skill? Perversion? No, no, no, no, no! It's a sign! You're destined to become a fashion designer!

Deity, "Always out of sight"? Clearly, you don't read the tabloids!

Rosie, y'know, I don't really know. That'll be the first thing I'll ask if I meet one!

Gingery, yeah! she'll scare more people off MSN than all the viruses they can ever make! Good ol' freedom of speech!

The following is solely the result of thumbing through a NEXT. catalogue, and in no way represents any effort on my part to provide something worth reading. You have been warned!



What is it that makes a man a man? I mean, we all know what makes women women - Intuition, Inbuilt Incubators and Intense desire for yet more pairs of bloody useless shoes.

But just what makes males males? Is it the ability to appreciate a really good goal? Or the little bit inside your brain saying 'There aren't any speed cameras down here and I am in a hurry...."? Or even the mindless ingrained sexism that insists there actually is a single defining factor that forms the basis for an individual's entire sexual makeup?

Nah. I'll tell you what it it. It's bra sizes, is what it is. Don't get me wrong - I have noticed that bras tend to have more to do with women, simply for sound biological reasons. And I'm astonishingly liberal - you can be into anything - women, men, Power Rangers toys, snowmen, Michael Moore, oak trees, anything. But you still apply to this: If you're male, you don't know how the bra sizes chart works!

Girls, however, seem to be born with the knowledge. It's been several times, actually, that I've asked an attractive girl just how the number-less-than-100-except-where-major-surgery-
is-concerned-followed-by-one-or-more-letters-of-the-alphabet scale is supposed to work, mainly for two very good reasons - partly because it gives me that creepy, corpse-in-my-basement air that everyone secretly wants to have but which really only belongs to the villians out of the Hannibal the Cannibal series and to backbench MPs, and partly because I'm secretly hoping for a live, 3D demonstration. (But seriously, though, if ever I meet a girl who doesn't know how to work a bra, perfect match!)








DJ, what!? You had a friend? Oh god. Tell me he hasn't died due to a running-related accident! Please!

Gingery, I believe that HM prisons provide a similar service.

Sara, clearly not on a level with Paula Radcliffe, are we?

Bec, Is it really true? the article I read in the paper about the Australian govenment calling in helicopter-borne sharpshooters to take out troublemaking camels? Pathetic! We Brits effectively killed off all troublesome wildlife sometime during the Ninth Century.

Laura, what is it with you and pink? Pink garage, pink hair, pink everything! Probably fell into a tub of Angel Delight as a child.