Back by popular demand *

* 'Popular demand' may be a mild exaggeration but a couple of people said 'Oh do you still do that blog thing' which I've decided to take as 'Write your blog again, I live for that shit you know'.

I'm sure a million things have come and gone since I last scrawled; The UK's biggest pantomime starring Simon Cowell is upon us once again, the BBC gave Nick Griffin enough rope to hang himself only for him to use it to lasso more disillusioned and mentally challenged supporters, The Sun cashed in on dead soldier grief and Boris Johnson became some kind of crime-fighting hero wielding an iron bar and some out-dated middle class slang.

But all of these things happened in the real world. No point labouring over them, there's little I can do to affect anything. It's not like I'm Jan Moir or anything, I'm smallfry to her big homophobic pike.

Unfortunately back in the real world, not a lot has been going on. I did have a lovely exchange with a doorman at a pub on the Walworth Road though on Saturday night.

Doorman: "Hello ladies, and it's £10 to get in for you mate."
Me: "Really? It doesn't say it's £10"
Doorman: "Does mate, up there" (points to handwritten shit sign on A4 paper bluetacked to the door saying '£10 Entry')
Special looking woman hanging around the entrance: "Yeah it does, says it on that sign" (points to same shit sign)
Me (after looking at the shit sign): "Oh ok, I'm going home then"
Doorman: "Ok mate, ok. £5 then."
Me: "No, I'm Ok mate"
Doorman: "Ok mate, Ok. Are you local?"
Me: "What?"
Doorman: "You local?"
Me: "I live down the road..."
Doorman: "Ok mate, Ok. Go on in. No trouble though."

That's some good door policy. Apart from the fact there was no till and the doorman was clearly pocketing the cash - the insinuation that people 'local' to the Walworth Road area won't cause trouble is pretty amusing. And deluded.

Perhaps more amusing was the steady flow of our male friends who all came into the pub saying 'Did he ask you to pay £10?', before explaining on threat of leaving the doorman had in fact let them in as he did for me. Not before pointing out the shit sign though.

Oh and then three policemen came in (classy pub). Doubt they got showed the sign.

I'll try to be back soon. Bye.

Long time no blog

Ok so I’ve now left this an embarrassingly long time since my last post. It’s shameful. If anyone actually ever regularly read this I’ve now almost certainly alienated him or her. Wah, wah, poor ole me.

Sad thing is, haven’t actually had that much to talk about. Since I jetted back from Spain (see previous post) I’ve been mainly living the 9-5 trying to remember how to work. Rock and roll is has not been.

So I’m not going to rant on and on about nothing. That’s for real bloggers to do. I’ll just summarise some small notes below for your pleasure and leave you until I have something valuable to say. Ciao.

1. Rockband on the Nintendo Wii is a heavily addictive game and no matter how much I think I can, I cannot sing Reptilla as well as Julian Casablancas. Well done on that Julian, you sing it well. Repeat ten times "I am not Julian Casablancas" and go to the back of the class. Wiseass.

2. If offered ‘extremely restricted view’ tickets at The Theatre Royal Haymarket don’t take them, no matter how cheap they are. When I pushed the ticket attendant further on ‘how restricted was extremely restricted’ he bluntly replied ‘you won’t be able to see the actors’. Nice. That, my friends, is not a play. That is some kind of warped radio rendition of a theatre production, played out in a theatre. Oh I don't know. All I know is if I want to sit not watching a play, I won't be paying £15 for the privilege.

3. Fortnum and Mason’s is pretty much heaven. Harrods is for chavs, F&M is the real deal. Eat my words Al Fayed you croon. It’s like going back in time, in a good way. And it stocks vegetarian haggis! (cue the distant groan and rumble of several thousand Scots turning in their cholesterol-laden graves at the sheer suggestion their precious national dish has been healthified in any way). If you haven't been there, pop on down. Take out a loan and buy a tin of biscuits. Treat yourself.

I'll be back soon with some actual news. Big love and all that.

España

MAINLY CANCELED DUE TO BLUSTERY CONDITIONS

Hello, or should I say Hola? No I should probably say Hello as I am now no longer in Spain. On reflection I mainly spoke 'Over-accentuated English with a Latino twang' rather than any actual Spanish when I was in the land of the Raging Bull anyway, so there's no point littering this post with my Del Boy-esque grasp of a foreign tongue.

Besides, the football hooligans and holiday reps have worked hard on establishing the English reputation abroad as a race of ignorant, uncultured apes who are wholly unwilling to embrace foreign language or custom, so who am I to ruin all of their hard work with a few scattered token por favors.

Anyway, I could write about the FIB (Benicassim Festival) to which myself and a merry band of friends went, but like my Blur entry, I don't want this to turn into some ten-a-penny music critique telling everybody what they already know; Oasis fans are mainly on parole, White Lies do not have enough songs to perform a 90 minute set and Paul Weller is scared of the wind.

Fairplay to the Modfather though, it was frightfully gusty on the Friday night, which saw the festival organisers break out into a cold sweat - ironically something the peasant camping collective would have paid good money for as the scorching rays of sunlight breathed fire into their tents at 8am without fail.

Realising there was not enough Euros in the kitty to pay the life insurance claims if the hurricane caused a scaffolding pole to skewer Kings of Leon, they wisely pulled the plug and sent the camping massiv back to their tents without any headliners. Only when they got to where they left their tents, they weren't there. So they had to sleep in a sports hall. I even felt a pang of pity as I was whisked off by 4x4 to our nearby apartment. That's a lie, I was an unbearable smug tosser.

I conclude with a short summary of things I learned, or had confirmed, by my trip to Spain. Read, digest and enjoy.

• The more amusing the menu translation, the less delicious the meal. For example, there were few delights to behold in 'Delights of Pig'. Essentially a plate of barely-cooked pig throat and ear morsels.
  

• The Spanish severely lack entrepreneurial nous. Hundreds of people in our apartment village needed ferrying 5 minutes up the coast (and would have paid good Euro for the privilege) yet we were left to squeeze into an illegal taxi run by an overweight, but lovely, homosexual man called Timo. He made the repeat trip so many times his KIA actually broke by the end of the festival. True story. Official taxis, where were you?

• Spain is windy. I know I made light of the gusts which put the stoppers on Friday night's line up, but it was awfully strong wind and it is a miracle no one was hurt. A miracle, and a shame in the case of Oasis.

• There's a dirty street urchin in Barcelona with Paula's handbag. Filthy thieving bastard.
  

• I won't be going back to Benicassim next year. Sorry Spaniards, I know you'll miss me.
  

The Britpop uniform

Pierre ventures cautiously into fashion blogging:

Well aren't I a sporadic little toerag. Firing off two blogs in 24 hours last week like some kind of badly wired mortar, and then not coming back for a good week. What a prick.

Since we last spoke (I like to feel this is direct conversation between me and you, no one else reads it) I went to Hyde Park. Oh and Blur were there too.

Yes I, like many, got to see the Britpop scallys rifle through their timelessly excellent back-catalogue in front of a sun-baked, half-cut cast of thousands. It was emotional and brilliant, but if you've picked up any form of newspaper over the last few days you will have already read a review so I won't attempt to bore you with my oh-so-hazy version of events.

We defy gravity on a daily basis flying tonnes of metal through the air, technology can tell us what is happening so far away that it happened so long ago our brains can't comprehend it, we've developed devices which scare hoodlum youths away from cornershops by probably permanently deafening them, but for some reason when a few thousand people congregate in a field no one's mobile phone works. Orange took delight in telling me I had no network coverage. In an open space in the middle of London. What an endorsement for their claims to have some scandalously high percentage of the UK's landmass blanketed in their signal. 99% of the UK reception coverage, unless you're in an open space in the capital of the country. Then you'll have to go back to waving in the direction you hope your friend is in.

It's ok though, cause when I did get through I managed to tell my friend I was wearing cut-off Levis and a black Fred Perry polo shirt. Turns out a few other people were too. He found me an hour later. Through no help from those descriptions.

Oh and I punched a guy in the mouth.

Hot hot heat

Frig me it's warm. Baking hot. I like it though.

It mainly floods in the summer where I hail from (rural Worcestershire, not somewhere with an actual monsoon season) so it's nice to have a bit of warmth. We all know it's not going to be a six week long heatwave, so let's please try and embrace it with a bit of Britishness. Hop on a train to your nearest seaside resort, buy an above-the-rate-of-inflation ice cream and paddle up to your shins in the unbearably cold and definitely polluted sea.

It's too hot to blog. Meanwhile until the mercury stops rising, here's a short exhange I had with a lady in Specsavers for you to mull over.

Lady: (slumps into the chair next to me, not an action I encouraged in any way) I like summer, but this is too hot. It wasn't even this hot in Turkey. It was a different kind of heat. I walked to the end of my road and nearly turned back it was so hot, but my son needs his contact lenses.

Me: Yes, oh right. Yes.

(ten second pause while she pants and mops her sweaty brow)

Lady: I don't understand how Michael Jackson died when there was a doctor with him. How could that happen?

Me: Yeah......(realising this was not a rhetorical question I continued...) I don't know. It's bad. (no pun intended)

Lady: I saw him at the O2 when he announced the concerts. I wasn't going to go, but I did. I caught it on the camcorder. I've still got it on there now - the last time he was seen alive in the UK. I asked my daughter how to work it so I can watch it back.

Me: Oh. Cool.

Lady: And I exchanged my ticket to his gig a few months ago, really glad I did now. Do you know most people with tickets won't even get their money back? That's terrible.

Me: Yes awful.

Specsavers employee: Your lenses are here now madam.

Lady: Oh thank you (turns to me) Lovely to meet you. Bye.

Me: Bye

Not sure if that snippet offers a profound insight into modern society's relationship with celebrity, the weather or indeed anything. It might just prove that overweight people from South East London don't like the heat, seeing anyone lose their money, or celebrities dying when there are doctors nearby. I don't know. Take from it what you will.

Laters.

Karma killer

I've never known where I stand on Karma. It's a deliciously appealing balanced theory of one act complementing or corresponding in some way to another, and as humans we do desperately strive to rebel against and ignore the fear that everything might simply just happen for no reason at all. A world without reason scares us, and so it should. Because rules and reasons make everyone a lot less jittery.

So I'll buy into it, temporarily at least, and relay how I think Karma has punished me recently.

YING: Wednesday evening last week I used a cheat code found on the internet to help me complete Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on my DS. (Yes, I am definitely too old for computer games, before you ask)

YANG: BAM. 24 hours later Michael Jackson is dead.

Turns out, God didn't like me being a computer game cheat. So he killed Michael Jackson to punish me. Shizlak.

Most people would say that's not how Karma works, and that the two acts must complement each other's severity, and that me cheating on a game wouldn't result in Michael Jackson dying. Maybe Cher, or Billy Zane or someone, but not Jacko.

But then that's just humans making up even more irrational rules about something which they already made up. You can't just go around making up rules and then making up some terms and conditions which govern said rules. You're not Gordon Brown you know? (If, by chance, you are Gordon Brown then this jibe obviously doesn't apply. Sorry Gordon.)

Anyway if I'm going to buy into this Karma craze, I want dramatic results.

I don't want 'I forgot to thank the postman so my bus was three minutes late'.

I want 'I didn't offer everyone in the room a cup of tea so Carol Vorderman exploded live on Countdown'.

Or 'I ignored my Mother's phone call so democracy collapsed in Canada, masses rioted and it was renamed The People's Maple Leaf Republic under the rule of King Bryan Adams'.

I couldn't hack it with depleted body armour and shitty pistols, so I cheated myself a flamethrower to scorch any little pixelated Triads who got in my way on the final mission. Thus, the King of Pop left for a better place (for you and for me and the entire human race....cheap joke). That's what happened.

MJ: Killed by Karma....


Sorry pop fans.

Just one question: Am I going to die?

I've been ill. Not exactly at Death's door, perhaps more like at the end of the cul-de-sac where Death lives. Death Close. But regardless of my proximity to Death and/or his door, I spent the vast majority of two days sleeping off the effects of my stomach and head trying to outdo each other with the amount of pain and discomfort they could cause me.

So while wallowing in my state of illness/self-pity, my mind turned to Swine Flu which is now, officially, a global pandemic. It's strange that the overall feeling towards this GLOBAL PANDEMIC is one of mild confusion and indifference. Although at the same time it's hardly surprising when the media through which we are meant to recieve level-headed informal news on important issues such as this, has become so caught up in sensationalism over the past decade we now no longer know what to believe.

Well, take your pick:

The BBC, that British bastion of independent journalism, seems to be flitting all over the place. One minute we have Paxman wheeled out to grill some World Health Organisation official about what exactly is being done to prevent the spread; wanting to know insane levels of detail like how many vaccines have been produced to the nearest dozen at that precise second in time, which automatically gets me all worked up. If Paxman is worried, should I be worried?

Meanwhile the boffs in the BBC Online News department, seemingly affected by being holed up in the basement of BBC HQ, have gone all morbid and graphic producing some kind of interactive DEATH GRAPH showing where all the people have died from the virus, when they died and how old they were when they died. Pie charts, world maps and pull-down boxes, all full of DEATH STATS and things like that, just to keep everyone at ease. Cheers.

Big, cuddly Fern Britton and ever-tanned Philip Schofield on GMTV managed to interview a virologist 'on the sofa' in terms so dumbed-down the families featured on Jeremy Kyle would have felt patronised, had they been watching and not sleeping with their brothers' wives while selling crack to kids etc. All I managed to get out of that exchange was to wipe tables if people sneeze on them. I should hope people do that anyway to be honest.

The papers have managed to report on the story with a finely balanced angle of ambiguity and scare-mongering, with the Daily Mail reporting how fine public elementary schools have had to be shut down because of those dirty Mexicans, leaving swathes of posh kids missing literally hours of education and having to put up with horrific sniffles. And The Sun just has just resorted to telling us which celebrities are stupid enough to ring them and explain their fears of being struck down by the virus, in the absence of having that many British deaths to actually report on.

Even the World Heath Organisation itself hasn't helped matters particulary with it's overdramatic 'phase' system for measuring severity. Everyone can read off a sheet which explains what each 'phase' means, but it essentially just instills images of 28 Days Later in people's minds when they hear words like 'PHASE 6 PANDEMIC'.

What phase are we in now? And what phase do we need to get to before I start shooting pigs and stop talking to people, even down telephone wires, for fear of transmitting this disease. This disease which, and the clue is in the name, is in effect a bad case of flu.

I just don't know what to think. I'll stick with the masses and just continue making jokes about it until we're all quarantined and shipped onto offshore floating prisons to create a new sub-race of infected beings.

Strike a light

In times where everyone's job is about as secure as the buckling foundations of the Celebrity Fit Club mansion, it is at least mildly heartening to see people take on a bit of 'Blitz spirit' and unite against the common enemy, which in this case is 'being poor'. Slightly less terrifying than the gun-blazing Luftwaffe swooping through the night indiscriminately bombing the hell out of houses as the term suggests. But still, no one wants to be poor do they?

Unfortunately for people like me who have tentatively bought into this gotta-laugh-or-we'll-cry mentality, just when we're all trying to make the most of a pretty dour situation the Union which seem to own the brains of all London Underground drivers has decided to piss on everyone's parade.

Our faithful leader, Boris Johnson, went tête-à-tête with some socialist trout called Bob Crow (General Secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers) on Radio 4, and for once in his political career came out on top. Mr Crow, you have been beaten by a man who can barely ride a bicycle and has perpetuated an unfathomably successful career out of bumbling aimlessly and endeeringly from one political blunder to the next. How does that feel Crow? Yeah? You should feel silly.

So they're pretty much going to bring London to a stand-still for two days - who do they think they are? Two inches of snow? The cheek.

But these people must have good reason, afterall they won't get paid for being on strike. There must be solid moral grounding behind a ploy which will cause the vast majority of working Londoners a whole heap of extra hassle. I'm assuming there has been some heinous injustice at work here, perhaps London Underground has got Karl Lagerfeld to design the new uniforms. That would make me strike.

Oh hang on. Turns out they're doing it because they're unhappy about the company not backing down on having to make compulsory redundancies in this unprecedented period of global recession, which has seen countless people already lose their jobs. And the other reason, which they're now claiming isn't a factor, was because they didn't fancy the above inflation pay rise packet.

Sort it out yeah?

Oh and if you're not from London and reading this, I apologise. To you this is just another thing for us insular, whinging southern nancies to moan about instead of having real problems like the outdoor lavvy breaking, or running out of bread to mop up your dripping with.

Man at work

I bought a thick-bristled durable rake. I bought heavy duty gardening gloves. I put on an old t-shirt, one which I didn't mind christening 'the gardening t-shirt' should it get torn beyond repair, dug out some old pumps from the wardrobe and set about being a man.

The congealed cocktail of moss, grit and gunk living a life of filthy luxury on our concrete patch (alternatively known as a 'patio' if you're an estate agent rather than a normal human with eyes) did not know what had hit it. It was the horticultural equivalent of Pearl Harbour. Moss was visably shaken as it was swept away by the almighty combo of broom and hose, forced to seek refuge down the drain near the decking. This was no flash-in-the-pan battle, no firing across bows; it was a war of attrition, but you can't simply give up when armed with a thick-bristled durable rake and heavy duty gardening gloves. It would be a crime against masculinity. Geoff Capes would rock up to your gaff, give you two dead arms and neuter you as punishment.

Sweat, testosterone, mud and grime was whipped up in a fury of frenzied brooming and scrubbing (sporadically punctuated with lapses of activity as I re-attached the broom head - cheers hardware store) until the concrete area was left spotless. The last fleck of moss only had to be glared at and it sacrificially threw itself from the wall into the bucket, rather than face the might of my broom.

And why this flurry of activity, all of a Sunday morning? Well how apt it is that this most masculine of tasks was to facilitate another of the male's most proud rituals - the BBQ. The area is now clear for what next week will be another manfest, only this time involving meat, crisps and beer. I can almost smell the testosterone.

If it doesn't rain.

A very European dilemma

With a (fake) name like La Rouge, there was no way this politically-charged ape was missing out on ticking a box down at the Carrib Youth and Community Centre, which for one day only parades itself as POLLING STATION for the European Elections. A little map on the back of my polling card told me where to go, and big signs saying VOTE HERE and POLLING STATION told me I had arrived.

Through the swinging doors of paint-stripped wood and reinforced glass (textbook community hall chic) and after a short, polite conversation with the Returning Officer I was stooped over in a booth. As I clutched my squat, blunt 4B pencil and unfolded the reams of paper I felt, the weight. The weight of democratic responsibility. That soon faded, and I began to try and decipher the jumbled words in front of me. Below is what I read, accompanied by what I thought.

"Liberal Democrats"
"Conservative Party"
"The Labour Party"

Your basic threesome. The idea of European elections suggest an air of je ne sais quoi, a continental allure if you will. I don't want to pick a party I always hear about when Andrew Marr or Nick Robinson weasel their way onto my tellybox. Next.

"Jury Team"

Jury...Team.....Jury Team? What does that even mean! I imagine a crime-fighting outfit headed up by Judge John Deed (packing serious AK47 heat), flanked by Kavanagh QC (back from the dead, wielding filthy switchblades) and Judge Judy (all angry-looking as she spits the pin of a grenade from her lipstick-laden gnarled up mouth). "Court DISMISSED," she howls, as jurors dive below their benches for cover and the defendants flee back to cells from whence they came, relieved to take a life of imprisonment rather than face..... JURY TEAM. Coming soon to ITV2.

Concluding this is NOT what Jury Team are, I move on. Disappointed.

"The Socialist Party of Great Britain"

Is this Labour? No, already had them. So this must be a racist Labour. I don't want to vote for a racist Labour.

"The Green Party"

All trees and shit. 'Ride a bike, save a tree', yeah and kill myself. Tree saved. Me killed. Fuck off.

"Socialist Labour Party"

Another Labour party!? How many do they want? Greed bastards. I'm not voting for them now, mainly because I'm not sure if these ones are the racists. I think 'socialist' suggests they aren't, but you can't be too sure. You're never more than ten feet from a racist. Wonder if the Returning Officer is one?

"Libertas.eu"

That's a website, not a political party. And, it sounds too much like Veritas. The party once headed up by that big racist silverfox Robert Killroy (if 'roy' is code for all foreigners) Silk.

"No2EU - Yes to Democracy"

Text speak? In the name of what they are clearly hoping to pass off as a credible political party? Oh dear. Is that how easy it is to name a party these days? Grab a policy and give it to a 16-year-old to write down? What next, NOtax4DApoor? Rubbish. Next.

"English Democrats Party"

Now these must be racists. They're not even British, they're 'English'. Even the BNP invite Welsh and Scottish skinhead numbnuts to their rallies.

"Christian Party - Proclaiming Christ's Lordship"

I'm not going to knock anyone for their religious beliefs. It's a very ignorant thing to do. But, I can see some problems ahead for this party. Proclaiming a faith which is based wholly on a book written 2,000 years ago, I very much doubt The Bible will have answers for some of today's European political hot potatoes. Unless some lesser known books within the holy text have been discovered without my knowledge. Perhaps the contents page of God's bestseller now reads; 'Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Immigration Between Member States, Numbers, External Trade Agreements, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Environmental Policy etc...'. Or maybe it doesn't. In fact, it definitely doesn't.

"British National Party"

Daft racists.

So where shall I put my 'X'? I'm not that convinced by anyone, and what could be worse than accidentally voting for the wrong ones!? What if the wrong ones win, by one vote? Too much pressure. Spoil your ballot La Rouge. 4HB, do your worse.

One poorly sketched giant cock and balls later and I'm outta there. Away from all the political nonsensery and home in time for Hollyoaks.

Sexpenses

Enough political heavyweights, satirical wiseacres and breakfast television gloryhacks have waded into the MPs' expenses debate already, albeit with the collective aplomb and composure of a Zimbabwean election, but nevertheless this young upstart need not throw his twopenneth into the pot.

But. I would like to make one, solitary point. And that is that we do re-evaluate the case of Richard Timney, husband of soon-to-step-down Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

One weekend when left to his own devices, Dickie settles down to an evening of television, nachos and Vienetta. Jacqui is off playing Kerplunk and Buckaroo with Brown, Straw and the Millibands, so he can chillax without fear of the evening being shattered by his howling banshee of a wife.

Unfortunately, a few drams of whiskey later and Dickie has an inmistakable urge to give Dick Jr a run out from the stables. A jaunt around the paddock should suffice, no need for the full 16 furlongs, but it is a dilemma which needs to be addressed. Asap.

As hookers aren't as discreet as they used to be and going out on the pull in Redditch is, well, a fucking stupid idea, he peruses the naughty channels for any films which catch his eye. I imagine the brief was something like: anything which doesn't have Jacqui Smith in it. And thankfully for us all, the majority of porn ticks that box.

Approximately seven minutes later, post clean-up operation, our horny hero is back to watching Oceans 13 and Dick Jr has returned to the trouser kennel, lying dormant in satisfied slumber. Job done. Or so he thinks.

A few weeks later and it turns out we bought that film Dickie, not you. It was Taxpayers porn, and we want it back. Only we can't get it back. So we'll settle for letting the paparazzi hound you, send GMTV reporters to sit on your drive and get Andrew Marr to grill your wife (which incidentally, had you done in the first place we would not be in this fine mess).

But if I can appeal on his behalf, to the nation's better nature, to any sense of humanity for fellow man to let this small oversight slide, and to let Richard off the hook this time. Why? Well every night while you cuddle up to your wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend/full-size Gordon Ramsay doll from the internet, poor Dickie has to bed down with this.

Which came first? The name or the acronym?

Imagine you're a purely fictional inventor created for the purpose of illustrating a point, like Dr Ottaker is.

Dr Ottaker is the finest fictional inventor I've created in the last ten minutes. He may be the best I ever create, only time will tell.

Dr O, as he is know to his friends and creator, has invented a device which when strapped to your head, emits a shield of invisible particles over you to absorb any water droplets heading for your otherwise unprotected hairstyle. It's not going to save lives. But it will save groomed hair which, in the USA and UK, is probably viewed by your average citizen as just as important.

Today, having the use of every dextrous limb is paramount, so an umbrella - the once accessory for every lady-what-does-lunch and diamond gent - is now just something you hold which isn't as fun to hold as an iPhone is. Dr O's invention will free up that extra hand to hold your second iPhone. So both of your iPhones can iChat to each other and unbeknown to you laugh at what a dick you are for having two iPhones using some clever little 'app' you downloaded for only £250 and then £1,000 a week until Steve Jobs pulls his iFist out of your arse.

So patented and packaged, Dr O's little device is ready to be sold to L'Oreal or VO5 or Duncan Bannatyne from Dragons' Den, but there is a problem. Dr O for all his brains, of which there is a whole heap, is not the best with words. The working title of his invention is The Particle Beam Droplet Sythesising Protection Device with Built-in Radiograph Streamlining Technology, or something like that. And this my friend, is not catchy. So some wise-cracking BA Marketing graduate is flown in to 'dynamise' it using an acronym - the idiot's grammatical weapon of choice.

Literally tens of minutes later, Dr O's invention is reborn as The Airborne Invisible Droplet Synthesiser. Or more importantly to your run-o-the-mill Superdrug customer, all thanks to our BA Marketing graduate, the invention is now known as The A.I.D.S. Mr Ottaker has invented The AIDS. Strictly true? No. But that's what it now says on Wikipedia, so that's what the majority of the internet-browsing world thinks.

Ottaker is devastated, he hits the gin with vigour and reaches for his crack pipe. Mrs O kicks him out when the tabloids snap him trawling the streets for hookers, changes the locks, files for divorce and tells the kids Daddy has gone away for ever.

All because of an acronym. A point well illustrated. If not concisely illustrated. No need for them.

For the record, Dr O is now not even the best fictional inventor I've created in the last ten minutes. It is now Mr James Lefrionais, a Parisen racounteur who dabbles in alchemy and invented the broad bean.

Things look shit for Dr O.

Food for thought

London is the capital of England.

London is the world's foremost 'global city' and the world's leading financial centre alongside Tokyo and New York.

More than 7,500,000 people live in London.

London is where more than half of the UK's 100 largest companies, and more than 100 of Europe's largest 500 companies, have their headquarters.

London's public transport system is the most extensive in the world, with the London Underground carrying 976million people each year.

London is a major tourist destination for both domestic and oversees visitors, and will host the 2012 Olympics.

Boris is in charge.

Parental guidance

Well I'm not going to come out of this bout too well I fear. I'm tackling a taboo. Nothing too controversial, this is afterall only my second entry and I don't want to climax too early, but it is a taboo never-the-less.

"The magnitude of a taboo should not be measured by the subject sensitivity, but by the nature of person or social class whose views and opinions you are questioning." La Rouge (2009)

And herein lies the hitch. I'm potentially ruffling the feathers of that oh-so-firey breed; the new mum. Young, old, fat, thin, black, white or purple, the new mother - it seems - wants to share everything their newborn bumpkin has done to date. And what can your average Pierre say to said parent? Any hint you may not want to hear about the exploits of junior will surely be interpreted as "It's wrong to love your baby. Don't love your baby so much. Stop coming over and talking about how much you love your baby". Do you want them to hear that? Because that's what they'll hear.

Children are wonderful little blighters, You've Been Framed has taught me that, but what most new parents fail to realise is the reason their children are so fantastic is because they are precisely that; their children. They're not mine (no matter what the Jeremy Kyle Parentometer Test said), so when young mummy and daddy care that their nipper licked a stick in a hilarious manner, tottered after a puppy in the park, or woke up pulling a face like Ray Winstone, it's fair to say I don't. I'm not heartless, I just don't care.

My advice to any adults who may have just ventured into the alien world of parenthood is to consider this; what did you talk about before Zeus/Orange/Princess Toshiba was born? There must have been conversation before babies? Yes. Of course there was. Now let's not stop loving our offspring, but for the sake of Pierre, let's stop talking about them all the time.

A blog is born

So I'm blogging. And, more to the point, you're reading. Silly billy. 

Born out of a heady combination of boredom, the need to rant, and a desire to keep my writing skills in check, I will be popping thoughts/dreams/theories/reviews up on this; my little corner of the interweb, for you to read at your leisure. Big love to the masses.