What I think of Barack Obama

I first became aware of Barack about two years ago when The Today Show with Jon Stewart did a piece on how CNN had accidentally called him Barack Osama Hussein in a broadcast. I was impressed how Barack dismissed it with a comment along the lines of admitting that it was a tricky name and had taken no offence. 

I then saw him be interviewed on the show and really warmed to his confident, easy and humorous disposition. From this I tracked down his influential speech at the 2004 Democratic Party conference when he talked about Red and Blue states. It was hugely impressive, written with common sense, hope and humour and all delivered with inspiring gusto. Here it is

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=eWynt87PaJ0

I went into 'sponge mode' and the more I learnt and read, the more impressed with him I became.

I didn't look at him as black or mixed race but rather simply being a very credible, driven, intelligent man who was offering something new. He had a hard working mentality and his history demonstrated that he wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty. 

During his campaign for the Democratic nomination against Hilary I thought he handled himself brilliantly. His answers were always measured and thoughtful, he never lost his temper, humour or composure and in my eyes was head and shoulders above Hilary.

This was echoed in his handling of his presidential campaign. He always seemed to do the right and sensible thing. When his grandmother was ill he went and saw her, during the TV debates he was cool and composed and didn't rise to any digs that he might have received. Even his part funding by public donation was inspired and I gave serious thought to contributing. 

I always knew he would be president and thus his victory came as no surprise. For me he was just miles ahead of any other candidate whether Hilary Clinton or John McCain. I love America but if they couldn't see this I just wouldn't understand it.

He has an air of importance and magnetism to his persona that you can feel that he's the real deal. He might not be my president but I think in his presence you would still feel the greatness and the respect. 

His win is historic but it does need to be remembered that he is of mixed race. I don't blame him but when the media bangs on about him being the first Black president, but he is of mixed race, white and black which couldn't be more relevant in today's multi race society. He didn't get where he has because of his black heritage or his white. It was because of his ambition, his drive, his hard working attitude and the support of his family, which primarily was his mother and grandmother.

When black voters talk of how they were motivated to vote for him, and never had before, it does make me despair that they basically are saying that they only voted for him because of his colour, which is no different to the prejudice that they accuse white voters of having. I'm sure Barack would prefer that he had secured votes because of who he was rather than what he was. 

Martin Luther King talked of having a dream that his children would be judged on the content of their character rather than the colour of their skin. When commentators reference him, his dream and Barack's win, I think they miss the point. It should be judged that the best man became president for who he was and not because of his colour. That he didn't secure the black vote because he was black but because he was the right candidate. If we want to honour Martin Luther's dream then Barack's colour should always be secondary.

Personally I think it's great that he has been elected. It couldn't more clearly demonstrate the American dream that anyone, with the right dedication, can become the President. I do feel that the US, and the world, has the chance of becoming a better place with him helping to shape it.

People's one upmanship when it comes to Christmas dinner

I do have to laugh at people when they seem intent on trying to out do others when talking about their Christmas dinners.

If its not enough that they are desperate to impress with the amount of different meats that they intend to serve "Just having Turkey, oh no I'm having Turkey, Ham, Chicken and Beef" now it's with the exclusivity of meat "Just having a Taste the Difference Turkey, oh no I'm having hand fed Austrian Turkey, small lobed Pheasant, Armenian Gammon and Guatemalan Duck"

Mention an enjoyment of a pig in blanket or eating the Turkey skin and they literally shake with revulsion at your lower class!

Changing my mind about people

I know I'm pretty judgemental and have black and white opinions on people. There are some people that I will stoically defend because I like them or because I rail against the popular mood to slag them off ie Tom Cruise or Michael Jackson. Or there are people that I utterly despise such as Piers Morgan or Boy George. 

I do still try and maintain an open mind to these people meaning that on occasion I can even change my mind. Yes the knee jerk, opinionated arse is capable of change. Here's two examples.

George W Bush: I did for some time try and defend him. In a way I felt everyone was slating him as a means to slating America which does sometimes piss me off. Everyone is entitled to dislike a country, hell I do of France, but I don't like people's hypocrisy in labelling all of America as dumb and then enjoying so many elements of their culture. 

Hence when 9/11 happened and everyone derided him for his reaction, I attempted to defend. Even after Katrina I tried to answer the criticisms of his inaction on having to following State government protocol. Ultimately though I had to concede that he's not a very good president and have seriously damaged both the office of the presidency and also that of the image of the USA. One of the reasons why I think Barack will be such a force for good.

Stephen Fry: Here's a man that I never liked. I concede that he is an extremely intelligent, articulate man but I felt he used his superior intellect to dismiss those beneath him with contempt. He seemed so stuffy and wooden with no humility or consideration to his personality. P used to defend him and say that he was funny and self deprecating on QI but although I listened, I did not believe.  

I've recently been watching his tour of America programme on BBC1 and I've been very impressed with him. I thought he would be deriding the Americans with sneering contempt and pompous British arrogance but far from it. I've read him saying that they couldn't be more friendly and polite and how he'd feel far more comfortable knocking on a strangers door for help in the US rather than the UK.

When he has come across things he doesn't enjoy, like the dancing in Florida, it would have been very easy to label those doing that activity as silly or senile but he described them as sweet and didn't take the cheap easy shot. He would have been the last person that I would have believed to have got the US but it seems he did. The final most telling thing that he did though was when at a US football college game. He was amazed at the amount of effort that had gone into was what simply a derby between two local colleges. The game had a huge crowd, cheerleaders, marching bands and even a fighter jet fly by which left him speechless. When he turned to the camera to express wonder at the crazy, mad, largesse of the American people he did so with his eyes misty with tears.  

Just like I had been when watching the closing ceremony of Cedar Point with it's singing of the anthem and patriotism or witnessing Illuminations on the World Showcase at Epcot he had clearly been humbled by the American people in exactly the same way I had. He is a man that I now respect and appreciate and would like to meet, though I do think he would think me a fool.

The pleasure of killing a mosquito or midge after it's been feeding on you

There must be few things more satisfying or primeval than 'taking out' a mossie after it's been chowing down on you.

You've been asleep and you either start scratching or hear that occasional but irritating buzzing that tells you that something has been feeding on you. So it's up and on with the lights whilst you quickly try to transform your dreary eyes into those of a movement detecting hawk. You curse the items of dark furniture or wall coverings that you have in the room which help it to keep 'cloaking' like the predator as it moves in front of them.

It becomes a man vs. beast battle as you try different tactics like switching on and off the lights to dis-orientate it but only end up screwing up your own vision. Then suddenly you spot it. Do you use your hand for the killer blow or try to grab an implement giving it the chance to disappear again?

As you get closer, the importance of knowing that you have to kill it first time grows in your mind. You're tired and you still might be able to get to sleep again but if you miss it, it will be 'spooked' and go to ground meaning it could take even longer to find and there's no way you'll be able to get off knowing that it's still buzzing around the room.

Your hand, or the implement, becomes a praying mantis. You feel yourself loading up the tension in your wrist and forearm so that you can explode in a flash of speed like a coiled cobra. Miss it and the defeat is crushing but get it and you feel like a proud warrior that's defended a town of small blind children. It might be late but you still have to cry out a muted 'Come on….!!'

The sense of victory is even more intoxicating if you can tell from its carcass that there is blood which is clearly yours.

"Oh you liked my blood did you? Good, because it was the last thing you enjoyed before I smashed your fuckin' brain through your face and onto my wall" Sometimes I might even leave the destroyed remains on the wall for the remainder of the night as a warning to any other flying mofos.

Cashing a lottery winning cheque in the current Oct 08 financial crisis

Granted this hasn't happended to me so I'm hardly in a position to grumble but it is an amazing state of affairs that if you were to win a good few million on the lottery you would need to think carefully where you cashed it.

I'm not talking about your eventual investments but rather where it's initially deposited. Imagine if you'd won £60 million on the euro lottery and then stuck it with a bank/building that could only offer a £50,000 guarantee return.

Again I appreciate facing this kind of 'dilemma' is all pie in the sky and hence I'm not taking it seriously but it would be interesting if Camelot handed you a huge cheque and you said "would you mind holding on to it for me until I'm sure where I can put it thats 100% safe".

Over dramatic home appliance failures

I was in the sauna recently and heard a guy talking about how his boiler had blown up and I got to thinking, really did it actually blow up? I wondered if there were any other appliance malfunctions that received similar inflated descriptions. The only other one I've heard is about dishwashers exploding.



Length of shorts

OK I'll put my hand up. I'm a middle aged man that isn't adverse to wearing shorts. If the weather is hot enough then I think I little fresh air blowing around my legs is quite pleasant and cooling.

If I can I'll wear shorts that end above the knee though nothing as tight or as short as what Magnum used to wear. I can even take the more recent fad of 3/4 lengths and actually have a couple of pairs.

But can someone explain the latest offering which are like 7/8th's. What's the point? They are too long to be considered as shorts and hence have none of the cooling abilities, yet are too short to be trousers. People who buy them might as well just buy a pair of ankle swingers.


I really like snails

I'm not usually a big insect fan. The kind that fly deserve immediate extermination, apart from bee's and butterflies that is, and spiders are treated with a modicum of respect. There's just something about snails though that I find really endearing.

I don't know if it's because they carry their homes on their back, that they move slowly or that they don't look offensive but I always do everything I can not to accidentally tread on them. I remember times when we lived at our other house and after a drive I'd come home, open the gate to drive my car in and have to carefully move about 10 - 15 snails off the drive so I wouldn't crush them.

Fat men and the waistband of their trousers

I've always been intrigued at what point it is that really fat men go from having the waistband of their trousers under the over hang of their belly to having it over the top?

If you think about it's a huge decision as it can add a lot of inches to the waistband as well as a big increase in the amount of material needed for that front gusset.

Well done to Take That

I have to say that I'm delighted that these guys have got back together. I'm not a massive fan who goes to their concerts or even has any of their albums. But I wish them well because they seem nice, down to earth, happy to have another chance kind of guys.

What's especially sweet is how just as they re-find success that Robbie Williams seems to fall away. I never could stand him. Granted some of his earlier songs were good but I got very tired at his continual bleating and whining about how unhappy he was. What was more astonishing were the amount of girls who thought he could do no wrong.

Here was this arrogant chump who could and would shag a bevy of beauties but never be tarred with the playboy brush because he'd pull on the sad eyes and say how he was just looking for love and the right girl. Meaning that he kept all his options open because every woman would think maybe they could be the one that could make him happy.

I'm not knocking him having for fun and if I was in the same position I would have the same fun though I wouldn't always talk about it negatively. It's just the blind gullibility of some girls that can't see him for what he is, that is so infuriating.  

Jimmy Saville. Godfather of bling

Really. If you look at Sir Jimmy he was the very first to live the bling dream that so many rappers aspire to.

Always in a leisure suit, dripping with massive, chunky jewellery, smoking a fat cigar and certainly when he introduced Top of the Pops surrounded by sweet honeys.

Guide dogs

It never ceases to amaze me when I think of guide dogs how wonderful they are. To think that they take the responsibility of a human in their paws and that people are prepared to put their faith fully in that of an animal is both wonderous and incredible.

Traffic light jumpers

It never ceases to amaze me when driving in London that on the few (!) occasions that I might scrape through a set of traffic lights when they are on amber, how a quick look in the mirror reveals another three and sometimes four cars that have followed me through.

You can't help but laugh and think 'Christ, I was close but they must have blatantly run a red'

Racism or bullying

This thought was helped into my consciousness by the recent big brother furore. I'm not a racist and cannot abide bullies but it's an interesting line that if you ridicule someone:

For being fat (fat bastard) - you are a bully

For their ginger hair (ginge bastard) - you are a bully

For wearing glasses (four eyed bastard) - you are a bully

For the colour of their skin (brown bastard) - you are a racist

All are unpleasant yet why are the first three considered unkind and the last one almost criminal. Being made fun of for the colour of your hair must be just as uncomfortable as that of your skin.

Legislating against what people say as opposed to what they do will always be a contentious issue.

Greenpeace car stickers

Can anyone else see the irony

Feeling for the Conservative leader

You have to laugh at the fickle nature of the media and public when discussing opposition leaders. They are currently berating David Cameron for being too image obsessed and populist when he should be concentrating on sound policies.

Wasn't that what the previous leader, Ian Duncan Smith, did but was then ridiculed for not having a persona or enough razzmatazz. With the media so quick to pigeonhole and label everyone is it any wonder that the public simply can't be arsed anymore.

Really cheap toys

I must confess that when younger the idea of cheap toys horrified me. By cheap I don't mean inexpensive, but rather the nasty tat you find for sale on dusty shelves in post offices & newsagents above the cigarette rack, made by companies that you've never heard and using the sharpest, thinnest and most brittle plastics.

Normally they'd be fire engines or such, supplied with unbranded batteries that contained enough charge for 15 minutes, buttons that wouldn't work and the only element of real creation being in the packaging copy which was perfect for wooing the lazy purchaser that this was in fact the greatest toy ever made.

Even now the notion of anyone ever buying this for a child is still concerning and I think stems from my father once buying me an aforementioned piece of shit.

Never seeing an emergency vehicle stuck in traffic

I realise that when racing to an emergency they shouldn't hang around but what about when they are coming back or just driving around. I've never seen one being delayed so either they are incredibly fortunate or simply class heading back to HQ for a cup of tea as another emergency.

Chav's and exterior christmas decorations

Really, what award is it they are going for or hoping to win with these energy sapping, un co-ordinated arrangements of colour on the side of their house. Is it to divert people's gaze from their gaudy stone cladding. Is it to be the biggest prick in the street. What pleasure do they get from it when they can't actually see it and what does it say about the quality of their interior decorations.

I've nothing against some of the more subtle ones where they've highlighted the line of the roof in plain white fairy lights or decorated a garden tree but these gaudy mis-matches of bright colour replete with illuminated figures of Santa in a sleigh, or even more irrelevant a hot air ballon, do confound me.

The world's strongest man

Are these televised events worth watching anymore. Not since the years of Geoff Cape, and that was a good twenty years ago, have I seen one that's been hard fought or even remotely close. There is always a contestant who wins every event with ease and then has to explain to the 'struggling for anecdotal material' host why he excels in this particular event. 

Differing tap pressures at other people houses

How many times have you been to someone else's house, turned on the tap to get a drink or wash up and the pressure has taken you by surprise and you ended up doused in water.

Even better is how some taps turn one way and others the other way. This can in turn generate hilarious soakings as you attempt to turn off a tap yet end up increasing it to fire hose levels of force.

I like David Hasselhoff

You gotta love the Hoff. Not only was he the star on a seminal 80's show that I loved as I grew up he also put his and some other investors money where his mouth is to buy the rights of Baywatch and market it to the world.

He doesn't take himself seriously, does have a good voice (my bro saw him live in Chicago and confirmed that he can certainly hold a note) and isn't one of those actors who makes his name in something and then does all he can to distance himself from it.

He's self deprecating, entertaining, funny and obviously likes a drink. I think he'd be great to hang with.

Using your head to increase the range of your car key

It never ceases to amaze me how when you get too far away from your car that clicking the remote locking button doesn't seem to work that if you hold the key against your head the range of the fob increases and you can now lock or unlock your car.

Maybe it's irradiating my brain or just turning my body into one big antenna but it always makes me smile.

The arrival of 'indulgent offerings' in fast food chains 

I was reading a welcoming article recently about how fast food chains are bringing in large meals and burgers that are vegetable free and unashamedly unhealthy. It's in response to how even though members of the public might have filled in surveys and questionnaires saying that they wanted more fruit and veg, in reality they didn't.

What they seemed to forget was that the fast food chains customers weren't the self righteous filmmakers or pompous healthy eaters who would never visit a McDonalds. They were in fact Joe Average who only had four or five pounds in his pocket, was hungry and wanted some hot food pronto.

I'm glad that the chains offer healthier options if customers want it but moreso delighted that they haven't completely bowed down to the food fascists. That they still assume that there are members of the public who would like the choice to consume a big, juicy, meaty, fattening burger if they damn well please.

Have DFS, or any other store, ever sold a piece of furniture at full price

I don't think there has ever been a time that DFS didn't have a sale on or be offering interest free credit until 2020. Makes you wonder how they'd react if you said I would like to buy this item at full price and in cash.

Nike or Adidas

I'm not a chav who regularly bums around in tracksuits drinking Stella but I was pondering when in the gym recently which sport brand I prefer, Nike or Adidas?

You can't deny that Nike always feel like quality items. If you stayed round someones house and they lent you a Nike hoody, although not normally that colourful and crazy they do have an assured quality feel to them. Their logo is very distinctive and they are exceptional at what they do.

For me though it has to be Adidas. I like their brand and I think they do more with it. Their materials are a little more innovative and they are more prepared to experiment with colours. They also aren't afraid to use, albeit sparingly, neon green and fluoro orange, two colours that I really dig. I think they are a little more creative with, and integrate more, their three stripes logo into all the clothes that they produce.

Carrying shopping from your car

Next time they do The Worlds Strongest Man or Superstars they really should have a contest that involves seeing who can carry the most amount of shopping bags/items from the car in one journey.

I don't park my car that far away from my front door but it's just enough that I'd rather struggle to the door with my arms practically coming out of their sockets and the handles cutting off the circulation to my fingers than have to go back a second time.

I think my limit is about seven or eight, with a gym bag over my head and shoulders and a set of keys dangling precariously from my mouth.

The West Wing

Ok I know my favourite TV shows like Angel and Quantum Leap are hardly realistic but I did get very tired, very quickly of the supermen and women that were meant to be employed in The West Wing.

These people apparently work from 6.00am in the morning, write three speeches, handle a diplomatic crisis in Latin America, chair an urban regeneration forum, spend the afternoon with a trade delegation from Indonesia and stay up late prepping for the following days live broadcast from the senate. They are eventually told to go home by their boss at around 4.00am yet still apparently manage an hour in the gym, the chance to grab a shower and a bagel and return to the office 50 minutes later having explained the small business tax situation in North Dakota to the bus driver. What's more they manage all of this without getting haggard or older, creasing their clothes, smelling or even getting a five o'clock shadow.

I can understand the need to make them seem aspirational but plain unbelievable is another thing.

The skin on your arse

After thanking god or evolution for the wonder of self pleasure you have to raise a glass to thank him / it for the layer of skin covering your bottom (and for us blokes the skin of the nut sack).

No matter how many times you scratch it, it never gets sore and delivers the same dose of tingling, relaxing pleasure on the 100th scratch as it did on the 1st.

Lebanon and Beirut

I'm not going to get embroiled in the politics of who fired first in the latest troubles in the area but I must comment on one aspect. Seeing journalists doing reports from rubble strewn Beirut and talking about the piazza's of laughing children and bustling, colourful markets that existed before does stick in my craw.

Beirut has been one big, anarchic, lawless, crumbling mess of destroyed buildings for about fifteen years now and although the bombing isn't helping it certainly hasn't been fully responsible for the state that city is in now.

They say a picture paints a thousand words

This might be true in the real world but I've got to say that in the blog world that I've been recently perusing it's the opposite. Sifting through a multitude of images of peoples kids, dogs, kitchens or obscure, artistic photographs tells me zippo about the person.

In the blog world you can paint a far more personal and illuminating portrait of the person with what they write and how they write it. I read blogs to get into the minds of maybe similarly like minded people and images have the opposite effect. They are also a cheap way I think of hiding an inability to generate written content. I guess some people are turned on or tuned into pictures and others, and for me, it's writing.

The smell of the inside of your nose

What does this smell like I wonder. If you think about it you never really get to find out because you are always smelling everything in the air around you. I have a theory though.

When you sneeze the very first smell you get immediately afterwards is like an oxide smell and I think that this is actually what the inside of your nose smells like. Almost as if the sneeze forcibly expels all the air from your nostrils so that the first inhalation you take is nose smell before the surrounding smells come in to dilute it.

A mad theory maybe but something at least to ponder.

Everything ending up inside the duvet cover

I wondered if they have invented a mathematical formula yet to explain how it is that everything within the washing machine will end up inside the duvet cover unless you popper it up. When I pull that baby out after a wash I feel like hoisting it over my shoulder and setting off on an expedition.

Getting dressed in a swimming pool cubicle

Being a misery at my local supermarket

Do you want help with the packing - No but thanks

Do you have a nectar card - No, I'm afraid I do not

Do you have a car parking ticket - No

Are you collecting school vouchers - Jesus, no I'm not

Do you want cashback - For fucksake no, just take my money and let me leave.

The recent lottery TV advert

What a lovely advert this is. Simple concept but bearing in mind what they normally turn out this is surprisingly good and with its classical music and recreation of bricks as migrating birds is almost moving.

Buying plots of land on the moon

Really, who is stupid enough to buy these. Don't these people ever wonder who will be enforcing their ownership if and when we colonise the moon.

It's the same with naming stars. Do we expect future space captains to grandly announce that they are entering the John Smith system.

Life expectancy (shelf life) of stick deodorant

I might not be the best looking guy in the world but I do try to smell nice and am paranoid of kicking up. Hence in the morning I apply both underarm stick deodorant and then an all over spray.

The thing about the stick though, and I'm not saying I've got acid sweat, is that after two months or so your pits seem to develop immunity to it and it just gives up. Almost like the stick creates a barrier and then over time your body figures out a way to beat it. This means that every two months one has to upgrade or source a new stick as your old one has become so useless that you might as well rub an ice cream under your arms.

The gym and pub/clubbing is always a good leveller

Whenever you go to the gym, pub or a club you can always guarantee that you will see someone worse than you - be it fatter, uglier, smellier, worst dressed to make you feel better about yourself and think 'hey, maybe I'm not that bad'.

Within five minutes though you can be certain that you will see someone that is bigger (ie muscley), more handsome, better dressed than you to remind you of your place. Oh, what it must be like to be top of the food chain.

Premature toilet flushing

This could well be limited to us guys but I do find I'm somethimes prone to starting the flush process before I've actually finished pissing. It's a hollow victory when you consider what's left in the pan but there is something immensely satisfying in just beating the flush.

The pitfalls of corn flakes

How frustrating is it when you fancy a nice bowl of corn flakes or frosties, shake them into the bowl, pour on the ice cold milk and then manage to hit that one upturned flake that manages to piss the milk back out of the bowl and across the counter.

Good vest wearers

Overlooking the fact that a crisp white vest has been tarred with the labelling of yellowing, sweat encrusted, food drying wife beaters there are some good advertisements for the wearing of vests:

Bruce Willis - Die Hard

Mickey Rourke - Sin City

Chris Isaak - Wicked Game video

Ed Norton - American History X

The joy of Ikea

As well as having fantastic meatballs and gravy I do love taking the time to amble round Ikea at half speed. I never seriously consider buying anything but prefer instead to dream whimsically of owning an empty, blank canvas style apartment where I could move around selecting different items of furniture to populate my pad with.

Better to have this utopian dream than corrupt it by purchasing the odd piece here and there I say (you now think I live in a dank cave).

Rain is romantic but not as much as snow

I've decided that I like the rain.  I don't do as many things that are weather dependant as most and I know that after saying this I will be cursed with bad weather for ever more but there is something good about rain I think.  It clears the unnecessary folks from the streets.  Less people walk for fear of getting wet and people will be more inclined to stay indoors hence the roads seem a little emptier.

Yes it can be miserable but clothes can dry and with short hair I'm never worried about that getting wet. Walking in the rain, if isn't too cold can almost feel cathartic. Almost like as you feel the dirt being flushed out of the air you can somehow feel some of your own worries or concerns being cleansed with it. There's also something lonely about walking in the rain, like you just don't give a damn anymore. I've always imagined that the most passionate kiss would be in the rain. Where both parties were more concerned with each other than the triviality of getting wet.

Even with all these reasons the ultimate wonder for me lies with falling snow.  Anything else that falls from the sky (rain, sleet, hail) makes a noise but snow just simply falls.  You can't hear it, you can just see it. Like it's quietly getting on with it's business of creating a white blanket and not making a fuss. Maybe I also have images of women wrapped up warm yet with cold, rosy cheeks and flakes of snow gently landing in their hair.

Either way snow is the most romantic but rain's benefits should not be overlooked.

Mother's day and every single woman

Why does every single woman, no matter how old or whether they have children feel compelled to remind every man of his duty to buy a Mothers day card.

You never see the same amount of pressure or persuassion from men, or even women, approaching Fathers Day.

Record breaking months for weather

Why does every single month have to be, or feature, a record breaking event of pointless tedium.

"The wettest consecutive Tuesdays in a month, the mildest Saturday of an Easter holiday for 100 years or the most snowfall on a Thursday in Exeter in the month of November". 

Same shit, different year

Examples of things repeated to us year in, year out.

The media talk of an 'Indian' summer - let's get it straight that in the UK the summer runs from July to October.

The rail fare commuter group - Every January they get on their high horse 'demanding an improvement to services' yet by February are queuing with the rest of the mugs to pay an extra 7% for their ticket with no increase to the level of service.

Exam results (GCSE) - How many times have you got to hear about how easy they are 'now', and to prove your point get a swotty girl (live on GMTV) at a private school opening her envelope to reveal 9 A stars and look surprised.

Exam results (A level) - Repeat the whole episode above word for word about two weeks later.

and Finally when the media in the event of there being no 'real' news ask "how long can houses prices stay so artificially high?" - Well I guess as long as people keep buying them.

Tip of your knob touching the inside of the toilet bowl

I'm not claiming to have a huge one and I wouldn't say that I sit that far forward but there is something really unpleasant when you are innocently sitting on the toilet and feel the tip of your knob touch the cold enamel of the inside of the toilet bowl.

As if its not enough that you receive that sudden jolt of retraction it's the notion that your tip has just brushed the area where some would concentrate their urine flow. For all the bacteria that might be present there you might as well have just flopped your tackle into the mouth of a Komodo dragon. 

What's worse

Imitation alloy hub caps or the multitude of plastic ties holding them on.

Feeling compelled to complete a million tasks when you sense an imminent dump

You can laze through a day at home, pottering around, perusing old newspapers and making unneccesary cups of tea yet feel the tingle of an oncoming toilet trip and suddenly there are loads of things to do.

Almost as if the 'dump time' will be such wasted time that it will be easier to enjoy it if you have accomplished, or at least started, some tasks.

Indeed you spend so much time suddenly putting on washing, refilling the kettle, turning it on, putting the dishes into soak and grabbing some reading material that you run a genuine risk of actually shitting yourself.

Discarded underwear in the shower cubicles at my gym

What is that about? Who just drops their kacks, showers and then wanders off? You could fully stock a Primark from the amount of clothing that I must see on the shower floor.

Messages on Faceparty, hotmail or tidyaddict

Feeling your heart lift as you think 'hey someone might have written or responded to one of my tentative messages' for it to come crashing back down again as you realise, and deep down knew, that its just an advert offering you to upgrade your membership so you can highlight in greater detail the lack of action your profile gets.

Feeling a little wary of

Having the car stereo volume at number 13. I've got a stalk for the controls on mine and I might flick it a few times, see the 13 and then think well it could be a little quieter or louder.

People that drive wearing hats

Aren't these just the worst drivers ever.  Either baseball cap attired chavs or flat cap wearing doddery old bastards.

Buying a DVD that you haven't seen in years

Only for it to then be on TV less than a week later.

Are you a folder or scruncher?

When I go to the toilet I'm a definite folder.  Anyone who scrunches is subscribing to anarchy and chaos and that ain't a good thing when you are about to wipe your arse.

I like the Polish

I always feel they've gotten a real bum deal out of the last century. We might have gone to war for them but it didn't stop them being invaded by Germany and then after the country had been smashed to pieces being taken over by the Russians.  Poor sods, they try to do the right thing but end up being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Even when they had the balls to stage an uprising in Warsaw to liberate their own city they fell foul of international politics and a Red Army that didn't want to help for fear that Poland would want independance after the war.  After killing nearly 16,000 Germans and fighting for over two months the Poles were broken with over 200,000 civilian casualties, the remaining 700,000 forced to leave Warsaw and almost 85% of it destroyed.

They seem a tough, plucky little race and I've got a lot of time for their national identity.

I Tunes radio

Wow, wicked. No more having to play the same old playlist. I now have a host of dance, trance and house stations which ever changing fresh music to listen to while I pontificate on what next to write on my site. Outstanding!

The so called curse of winning the lottery

I saw in a paper recently an article about lottery winners who haven't found happiness and had been struck by the curse of the lottery.

It isn't a curse, it's just they were too stupid to not keep their anonymity and are now blighted by begging letters and people watching their every move coupled with jealous/greedy friends and relatives who assume they are entitled to some of the cash and will sell their story if they don't get any.