I am livid

I rarely go to bed before midnight. I think it dates back to when, as a child, my parents used to make me go to bed early, though I suppose my rebellion phase should have finished by now.

Anyway, I was really quite tired on Monday evening so I was in bed shortly after 10pm, a ridiculous hour to go to sleep I am sure you’d agree, but it meant I would get up early to go for a run. It was not long before I drifted off the land of nod.

“THWADUNK!”

I shot up in bed to the sound of something collapsing downstairs. This was followed by some muttering and shuffling from my flatmate, who had clearly knocked something over. I could not be arsed getting out of bed so I let him sort it out and tried to go back to sleep.

Flatmate too, went to bed, and I began to drift off back to the dream I was starring in with the lovely Rosamund Pike.

“waa waa waa waa waa WAA WAA WAA WAA WAA”

A siren noise was coming from downstairs, not unlike a toy fire engine. But I do not own a toy fire engine, and it was a strange hours of the day for my flatmate to be playing with his.

“WAAA WAAA WAAA WAAA!!”

The noise got louder and the landing light came on as my flatmate went to investigate. I heard him go downstairs and then try and hang up the phone. He had obviously knocked the phone to the floor and didn’t hang it up correctly.

Some further muttering convinced me he was unable to hang up a phone. He is an accountant, so he should be able to hang up a phone, though I have heard about people who are good with numbers being rubbish at every day normal tasks like hanging up a phone or dressing themselves.

There was further muttering, and then I heard him head to the kitchen and leave the WAAA WAAA WAAA-ing which had now reached a crescendo.

He returned and I heard some fiddling with what sounded like a screwdriver, all to the continuing WAAA WAAA WAAA-ing. Eventually, after about three hours, he pulled the cable from the wall and silence returned.

Despite the waiting Ms Pike, I could not sleep for worrying about what damage the worlds most clumsy man had caused to my flat. I am of the firm conclusion that after this, and previous incidents, he is slowly trying to demolish my home before he moves out in a few weeks time.

This is why you should not have early nights.

He stood in front of me defending the territory like a Goal Defence in netball (so I have been told. By girls). He picked up a piece, then a second.

Paw. Paw. Paw.

He moved some more of them out of the way, in order to reach the ones at the back. Paw. Paw. Paw. He picked up two of them, but did not want either of them, so back they went. Paw, and fucking Paw again.

“Excuse me, I think if you look closely there are two in there that you haven’t yet touched.” I interjected.

“I’m sorry? My hands are clean you know.” he responded, somewhat surprised.

“Oh, is that right. Did you ’scrub in’ before coming to the vegetable aisle?”

“Well, no, but chill out mate, it’s just a vegetable.”

I do not like being told to chill-out, it is like waving a Bollywood actress at a Jade Goody. However, even I would find it very hard to come out of fight in a Supermarket aisle, over fresh broccoli, looking cool. So I reluctantly back down.

I do not understand the need to pick up and feel every single item of food before making your decision on which one to buy?

I can understand picking something up, and then changing your mind if it was slightly marked or bruised, but trying to identify the perfect piece of broccoli is like trying to find the perfect politician. Such a thing doesn’t exist. They all have varying degrees of imperfection and unfortunately you have to make do with what is available. Unless of course you go for a different vegetable, like Cabbage, or Sprouts, but I will stop there because this already weak analogy is beginning to crumble around my ears.

Anyway, I do not normally buy pre-packed vegetables, but in this case I made an exception.

There was a great deal of media coverage last week of the Gambian President, Yahya Jammeh, and his claim that he can cure HIV and Aids.

Apparently he has invented a sort of herbal remedy, which when mixed with his mystical powers, will cure people within days.

Fortunately for us though, he has not let this power go to his head. In fact he is behaving much like any health professional you could visit in the UK, in that if you try and make an appointment you are told he only does Aids on Mondays and Thursdays. Fridays and Saturdays are reserved for curing Asthma. The rest of the week he focuses on running the country. I do not know if he has a day off.

I am however, appalled. The selfish fucker has completely ignored Man-flu. As someone who has recently suffered, I feel it is more than deserving of a cure from such a gifted individual. I personally would have paid over a tenner for a cure. He could make a fortune!

Unfortunately, I have my suspicions on whether he actually can cure Aids, or not. Which is is a shame, if you happen to have it and live in Gambia. When watching him on TV it is like looking at a child who has been caught in a lie. I would imagine his claims were not meant to leave the Gambia, and were mainly to solidify his position of popularity, but now the world has found out, and we want to know more.

There was a brief interview on Sky the other day where his paraphrased response to the the demand for evidence from around the world was, “I don’t need to provide evidence, you can see people cured all around you, you just need to believe it.”

That is like saying, “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction that could be launched at us within 30 minutes, we know they are there, you just need to believe us”.

No-one would fall for that, surely?

“Hello NHS Direct, how may I help you?”

“Hello, yes, er, I think I need your help.”

“Right, certainly Sir, what appears to be the problem?”

“Well, I am pretty certain that I am dying.”

“And what makes you think that?”

“I’ve been feeling a bit peaky for the last few weeks, and then this morning I read this thing on the Tube, and now I think I am dying, in fact I am pretty damn certain of it.”

“OK, so what are your symptoms.”

“You know, general peakiness, being a bit tired and that”

“Anything else?”

“Well, I’m not sure, the advert didn’t mention any specific symptoms, it just mentioned the death bit. In fact, nine people have died of it whilst we’ve been talking, and I am sure this cough is getting worse!”

“OK, what advert are your talking about?”

“It said that in the time it took me to read the sign, nine people had died of Poverty. I am pretty sure that I have got Poverty, and possibly flu as well.”

“You can’t catch Poverty Sir, that’s not how it works.”

“But what if I had sex with someone that had it? I went with a girl a few weeks ago and I can’t be sure, but she looked like she might have Poverty. I didn’t ask her outright if she had it, that would have spoiled the mood, and I was careful and everything, but condoms aren’t 100% safe are they?”

“Well, you’re correct about the condoms, but Poverty isn’t a disease, so you can’t catch it.”

“What if we shared a toilet seat? Not at the same time like, but me going after her?”

“Nope, you can’t catch it, it’s an economic issue, not a purely medical one.”

“People are dying! I read it on the Tube so it must be true! We’re up to 36 dead in the time its taken us to have this conversation, I really do not like those odds, it could be me next!”

Click.

I have read in the news that the US television station ABC are going make a new celebrity reality show, the format of which will be similar to our own “Strictly Come Dancing”.

This is not a first, the Americans have been stealing the excrement from our screens for years now, so this should come as no surprise. What is a bit of a shock however, is the name of their first celebrity dancing contestant. It is the serial Beatle botherer and publicity-shy monoped, Heather Mills.

Unless it has grown back in the last few months, I believe she still has only one leg, which something of a disadvantage when it comes to dancing. I am not saying she should stay at home polishing her stump, far from it, but if I wanted to watch one-legged dancers I would go to the circus or get Bravo TV. As far as the actual competition is concerned, she is not really giving herself a chance here is she?

I am sure she is good at many things. Like smiling, marrying millionaires, and other stuff, but I just do not think her skills currently extend to moonwalking, which as everyone knows, is the secret to dancing success.

I am all for giving less fortunate people the chance to compete, which is why we let Fat Jim have a go at the Karaoke machine, but surely it should be a fair competition, one that could be won by any one of the contestants? You wouldn’t expect to see Kate Moss on Celebrity Fat Club, or Jade Goody on Celebrity Mastermind would you? This is just a publicity stunt, and it is clearly working.

And what about the other competitors? There is a very real chance that she will secure the country’s sympathy vote during the Okey-Cokey, and as a result might not be the first person voted off. Can you imagine if you were voted off before the one-legged lady?  I personally, would be fucking furious.

However, I admit that it would make great live TV to see Beverly Hills 90210’s Ian Zeiring screaming, “What? Are you kidding? She’s got one fucking leg! Seriously dude, I played Steve Sanders in hit teen drama and ratings winner Beverly Hills 90210, there is no way she can dance better than me!”

What odds do you think you’d get on a tearful Heather Mills winning the whole bloody thing?

NB: I reserve the right to change my opinion if she can actually dance. Which let’s be honest, is pretty unlikely.

Marks & Spencer can be a busy place at lunchtime. For this reason they have added small tills for people who are just buying a couple of things for lunch. People like me.

On Friday lunchtime I popped in to pick up a sandwich. I was dressed casually as Friday is the office ‘dress-down’ day, which basically means the men get to do what the women do every other day of the week, and wear what we like. I was planning on heading straight to the pub after work, so I was wearing reasonably smart casual clothes.

When it was my turn, I was lucky enough to be served by the prettiest of the till operators, which is always nice. She rang in my goods quickly and efficiently, like only a pretty girl can, and then asked me for payment. I rummaged in my pockets for my cash card whilst trying to think of something suave and charming to say, when it happened.

Onto the counter between us, fell a condom. From my pocket I might add, she had not thrown down some sort of intercourse-related payment challenge to me.

She looked at it. Then looked at me. Then back at it.

“That’s £4.90 please.” she continued like the true retail professional she is.

“Ha, better safe than sorry eh? I hear the lunchtime rush in here can be a right den of iniquity!” I joked, trying to deflect attention from the condoms appearance whilst handing over my card.

“Would you like any cash back?” she asked avoiding a further direct look at the condom.

“Err, no. Thanks.” I backtracked, whilst putting the condom back in my pocket.

It became clear to me, in that instant, that she was under the impression I wanted to have sex with her. Which I suppose was quite correct, in the strictest sense of the word, but I am not normally so forward with it. I suppose it was also possible that her calm reaction to a potentially embarrassing situation suggested that she too, wanted to have sex with me.

Unfortunately, there were lots of people in the queue and I would probably have suffered some form of performance anxiety with all those eyes on me. We would have had to go somewhere quiet, like the menswear section, and she did not get where she is today by leaving a queue full of hungry people unserved. I was not about to ruin the career of promising retail operative for a few moments of sexual gratification, no matter how quickly I could get her back to her till. So I let it go.

We silently agreed to keep the transaction on a purely professional, customer and client basis, without the sex bit.

“Can you put your PIN in please” she continued.

“I’m not a weirdo or anything, obviously. It just fell out.” I said tapping away the four digit code that I will never give away on an Internet site.

She handed me my carrier bag and receipt, with the merest hint of a smile, and our brief dalliance was over.

It is a good lesson for us boys to learn, keep your condoms safely tucked away in your wallet, because although girls admire a responsible attitude to sex (which I have got, feel free to admire it), they do not want to be reminded of it whilst selling you a chicken salad sandwich.

“I would like to buy some tennis balls please.” I say to the man behind the counter at my local sports shop.

“Certainly Sir, for what surface would that be?” he enquired helpfully.

“Oh, I am not sure, whatever is on the inside of a tumble drier I suppose.”

After looking at me like I was the first person ever to ask for tennis balls to help with the laundry he agreed to go and get his most tumble-drier friendly tennis balls. The tube did not say they were safe for tumble-driers, but the man assured me they would be fine.

He would know. After all he was the professional in this transaction.

This all came about after accidentally leaving my big winter coat in the kitchen of our ski chalet a few weeks ago, it now reeks of cooking and assorted kitchen paraphernlia. It is not a pleasant odour.

I was planning to wash it at home and just hang it up like I would any other jacket or coat, but it says quite clearly on the care instructions that it must be tumble dried with two tennis balls. As someone who does not own either a tumble drier, or two tennis balls, this presented me with a problem.

The tumble drier issue is easily resolved as there is a launderette a few hundred yards from my flat, just like in Eastenders, but I am forced to buy tennis balls as a brief telephone call the launderette confirmed that they do not, and will not, hire tennis balls by the hour, despite my tennis ball-less pleading. I briefly considered using golf balls, of which I have many, but I was concerned by the potential for damage to my coat.

What I do not understand is why the care instructions mandate the use of tennis balls? I have asked around, and am amazed to learn that the addition of tennis balls to a tumble drier is not the unusual instruction I had first thought.

Have you ever deliberately put a tennis ball into a tumble drier?

I am genuinely suspicious that Slazenger have been lobbying clothing manufacturers to include the use of tennis balls on all clothing care labels. There are many more coats in the UK than tennis courts, so it makes good commercial sense doesn’t it? It is a plot like something off of BBC 2’s Dragon’s Den.

After all, I was not going to buy any tennis balls, and now I have bought four, yet I am about as likely to play tennis in the next few months as I am to have sex with Fearne Cotton (Fearne, if you are Googling yourself and have found this, then Hello, I am not averse to taking up tennis, if it will help with the sex thing).

Every now and then, life presents you with such an incredible opportunity to secure yourself a bargain that you cannot, simply must not, pass it up.

“A dozen red roses is 90% off, that’s just 60p instead of £6.” announced the utterly bored tanoy man at my local Tesco.

I took my eyes of the wide selection of luxury toilet paper before me, and braced myself for the inevitable rush to the front of the Tesco store where the flowers are kept.

There is of course a limit to how fast you can walk in a supermarket without drawing attention to yourself, it is 3.539 miles per hour for those who keep track of these things. Due to my increasing pace, I considered calling out the name of a not-really-lost child in order to justify my speed through the ailses.

As I approached 3.539 miles per hour I remembered that today (last Thursday - this is a historical piece), the day after St Valentines day, I did not have anyone to give a dozen red roses to. This was momentarily upsetting, but a bargain is a bargain, after all, and so I continued onwards. Past aisle 4 with the household goods towards aisle 2 with its enormous variety of tinned vegetables.

I found myself looking at the women who were shopping alone and wondering how romantic it would seem if I gave the flowers to one of them. They would have to be fit of course, as I am not going to waste 60p on just anyone, that would be financial suicide (or small-scale financial self-harming at the very least).

One or two of the shopping ladies presented themselves as possible candidates for my incredibly romantic gesture, and I was planning my approach, (”Hi, I’ve been looking for you since yesterday when these were still six pounds, would you like them?”) when I must have jumped up to 3.540 miles per hour, because two people at the flower counter glanced in my direction and immediately picked up the last two bunches of roses.

I bet they did not even want them, and had not even gone to the trouble of creating a rather contrived plan in their head to accost a quite fit, yet completely unknown, women in the bread aisle, in order to present her with day old roses in the hope of securing a cheap date.

They could have ruined a potentially beautiful relationship, or saved me from a restraining order. I am not sure which was more likely.

I went to meet some Internet friends for drinks on Tuesday after work. I was early, so had to spend an hour reserving the biggest table in the pub for people who would “be here in a minute”. People like it when you say that, really. They especially like it when they are stood next to the table 45 minutes later and your friends still haven’t arrived. My presence here today is proof that looks, do not, in fact, kill.

When everyone arrived the conversation began to flow nicely, and amongst other things, the topic of gym visits came up.

“So my new personal trainer is working me really hard at the moment”, said one of the friendly Internet-based women I had not met before, “but I have got good core strength apparently, so I can beat him at some of the exercises, I just wish I could beat him at more of them.”

I made a mental note not to arm-wrestle her for bar snacks later in the evening.

“Unfortunately after the gym, I feel I should treat myself so I eat a piece of cake, as you do.” she continued.

“You could challenge your personal trainer to a cake eating competition!” I said helpfully.

The entire planet froze in an instant.

“How rude!” she answered, looking directly at me.

“No no no, I was just trying to suggest something you could beat him at.. you know?” I concluded feebly.

“You can’t say that!” another lady chipped in from the other end of the table.

People began looking around the pub in the hope of a suitable distraction, like a stabbing, or a car crash outside the window.

“Err, no, that’s not what I meant, I meant you want to beat him at something, and we were talking about cakes! I didn’t mean, you know, you’re good at eating cakes, which you might be of course, but I wouldn’t know. Maybe you are rubbish at it?” I continued, clearly highlighting my original chivalrous intentions.

“Stop it now!” all three women screamed at me.

The evil glares and stifled giggles from the others at the table suggested that I had perhaps overstepped the mark.

A little tip for the men out there, complimenting a women you have only just met on her ability to eat cakes is not the way to make a good impression. It merely creates an atmosphere heavier than a room full of death-contemplating hippies.

As kid I was afraid of the dark. I don’t think there is anything unusual in that, and you need not be concerned for me as I grew out of it many years ago in my early twenties. Today, I am even happy in rooms with black-out curtains that make it magically appear like night time even when it’s actually daytime.

It has got the stage where I can get up in the dark and find my way to my bathroom at home without the need to turn on the light. I am of course then instantly blinded when the spotlights in the bathroom come on, but that is beside the point.

The biggest problem I have with visiting the toilet at night is simply, etiquette. This is not an issue when you’re at home, but when you’re visiting people, and you have to make in night time visit, the big question is, to flush, or not to flush?

At night, in a quiet house, a long toilet flush is surely going to wake the entire house. You might as well go to breakfast with a t-shirt bearing the slogan, “I did a midnight shit in your house!”. My fucking Englishness makes this very hard for me.

During the early hours of a recent Sunday morning I had to find my way to the bathroom at a friends house. Pretty fucking urgently if you don’t mind me saying. I blame the curry we had the night before (note to self, you must increase your fibre intake Angry).

So, after depositing my load I am struck with the dilemma of whether to flush and wake the house, or leave it festering in situ and let everyone sleep, for now.

I put together a cunning plan whereby I would not flush, considerately allowing everyone to sleep (I am good like that), and set my alarm for 7:30am, whereby I would rise and flush, giving the impression I had only just gone to the toilet at the not unreasonable hour of 7:30am.

Sometimes my ingeniousness scares even me. Seriously, there is not a situation I can not think my way out of. Or so I thought.

At 7:30am, right on queue the alarm went off and I made my way back the scene of the previous evenings deliberations. I opened the door and reached for the flush. And then I noticed it. Or rather the lack of it.

The evidence was gone!

I don’t think poos can just evaporate (can they?) so someone had clearly flushed it, and without waking me up! I could have flushed the damned silent toilet after all!

Crestfallen, I went back up to bed and got up later for breakfast and watched everyone eat bacon and eggs whilst I was served a bowl of Muesli to the sniggers of all present.

Today is the day that the postmen of my home town dread above all others. They know that today they are going to have to deliver literally dozens of cards to my flat, all from secret admirers wanting to be my Valentine.

My level of desirability is creating work for them, work they wouldn’t have to do if I was just a normal man.

Of course, to save their backs they ditch the sacks of cards before they ever make it to my flat, so I never actually see the cards. But I know that they exist. I can not blame them, I would do the same if I was them. However, this does not change the fact that many women want to sleep with me.

Unfortunately, you women do need to learn a thing or two about men and their attitudes to Valentines Day. It appears that the convention is to send anonymous cards, and quite frankly, this is just ridiculous.

If a man sends a card to a woman, it means, “I want to sleep with you and I’m grateful for this day so I can say it without actually saying it”. I can only assume that women intend to communicate the same sentiment when they send one? If so, let me give you one little tip. Do not send it anonymously. There is not a man alive that would not react positively to a “I would like to have sex with you” card. We dream of such cards.

An anonymous card is incredibly frustrating. You know that out there, somewhere, there is a woman that wants to have passionate monkey sex with you, but they will not tell you who they are. The bitches.

So, in an open message to all my female readers, I ask each and every one of you to please please just say what you mean in your card. And if you’re sending me one, then could you leave your name, phone number and address in the card, along with your approximate whereabouts about ten minutes after the first post delivery. Thanks.

I popped home for a couple of days a few weeks ago, and whilst in my old local I bumped into an old school friend, Rob, who I hadn’t seen in over ten years. This is not an every day occurrence, obviously, but after a few seconds of back-slapping and hand shaking, the conversation flowed like it had when I last saw him, back in 1996.

“So what are you up to nowadays Angry?”

“Well Rob, I spend my days trying to convince organisations that they want software they probably don’t need, for sums they can’t afford, in time-frames they can’t achieve.”

“Oh. Right. Do you enjoy it?”

“A little piece of me dies every day Rob. Every. Single. Day.”

“Err..”

“So come on, what do you do? You were always good at French at school.”

“Well I gave that up after our GCSE’s. I work in America most of the time now, I studied Physics and work in the aerospace industry. I spent the first part of my career working on aerodynamics, but nowadays I’m mainly involved in projects with propulsion systems.”

“Propulsion systems?”

“Yeah, it was mainly commercial transportation at first, but recently we’ve been getting involved in military projects, new fighter jet propulsion methods and so on.”

“So, you’re quite literally a rocket scientist then?”

“I guess you could say that, yes!”

“You utter utter cunt.”

The Smith’s sang it best, but I really wonder if that song should have been called, “We hate it when our friends who got worse GCSE results than us become super successful international scientists of some renown, the utter utter cunts”.

Though I do admit that even Morrisey would struggle to make that scan.

I am a big believer in the saying, “What goes around, comes around.”

It implies that people will get what is coming to them, and this is extremely satisfying when someone has done something deserving of retribution. It could be a speeding motorist who flashed his was past you, that you later see by the side of the road changing a flat tyre. Or the guy who pushes in at the bar who then ‘accidentally’ has the tray of drinks knocked out of his hands.

These are all heart warming things.

So, with this in mind I want to point you back to a few months ago when I put a foot through the ceiling of my flatmates bedroom.

The night before I went on holiday I returned home late from a meal with my sister for her birthday, and was about to head upstairs to complete my packing when my flatmate stopped me.

“Oh, Angry, I had a small accident earlier.”

“Did you wee on the carpet?”

“Err, no. I fell through your ceiling.”

By any definition of the term, this is not a small accident. Breaking a glass is a small accident. Spilling some wine on the carpet is a small accident. Falling through a ceiling is is a pretty fucking significant one.

Just to rub my nose in it, he had gone to the trouble of forcing his entire torso through a hole in my ceiling. Clearly a foot wasn’t enough for him. Or he doesn’t have ninja-like reflexes similar to my own.

Either way, I now have a massive hole where previously I had no hole. Holes and ceilings do not go well together unless it is filled with a window, or you are a fireman. This means I must now interact with some of the devils own minions. I have to, in the next day or two, call the Insurance Company claims department.

Wish me luck.

The French have contributed some wonderful things to our world. Probably. It is just that I can’t think of any right now.

Give me a minute.

No.

Still nothing.

Having just spent a week in Courchevel, my views on the French have not been greatly improved.

The wear ridiculous luminous one-piece ski-suits on the slopes, they do not queue for the ski-lifts, and they do not get out of my way quick enough when I’m about to fly off-piste like a fucking dart.

So many people return from holidays in love with the place that they have just visited. “Oh, I could live there”, is not an unusual statement to hear. I could not live in France. Really.

I am not going to make use of clichés about them eating cheese and surrendering at the first opportunity (though lets be honest, the only reason they joined the alliance in invading Iraq was to finally feel what it was like to win a war). It is just that I am finding it very hard to like them.

Several times a a frenchman cut across me in the queue for a lift up the mountain. Now, I do realise that us snowboarders are considered the poor relations to skiers on the piste, but we are very cool and this is all that matters. Having a board strapped to my feet does not give you the right to ski right across me, you utter bobble-hatted cunt. It is not like you were in a rush to burn some sheep and we were miles away from nearest port in need of a blockade.

Given these views, can someone explain to me why I have just agreed to go on another French snowboarding holiday in March?

Perhaps you could all give me a more balanced view of the pro’s and con’s of the French?

No?