New Year's Eve on Mercury

Cadmore End, Buckinghamshire.

How fortunate we are that the Earth began orbiting the Sun on the first of January, back in the year whenever it was. If it hadn’t, we’d have to celebrate New Year’s Eve maybe in July or September, thus extending the Christmas period intolerably. And how equally fortunate that it takes the Earth 365 days to orbit the Sun, before repeating the process ad infinitum. That, to me, seems a reasonable length for a year. Better, anyway, than, say, a Mercury year, which is only 88 days long. Should humans ever settle the planets of the Solar System, that could cause all sorts of problems.

For instance, the legal drinking age on Mercury, in Earth terms, will only be around five. Therefore Mercurian pubs will be full of pissed toddlers “glassing” one another and shagging in the car park. The finger on the Mercurian nuclear button will be that of a ten year old. New Year’s Eve will come round so frequently that, no sooner will they have finished all the parties and cleared up all the puke than they’ll have to start organizing for the next one. How terribly tedious.

Then again, I suppose it’s possible that, if you do settle on Mercury, you’ll eventually synchronize with it. So, in other words, your life and body clock will speed up to Mercury time in order to compensate. This could have several advantages, both to Mercurians and to Earth dwellers.

For example, if, here on Earth, you suffer from premature ejaculation, you’ll no longer have to recite football fixtures to yourself during sex or do the multiplication tables in your head to stop yourself from “popping off” too early. Instead, you can just get on a rocket and fly to Mercury. There, your pathetic 30 seconds will undoubtedly be regarded as a “super stud” performance. (Of course, your wife or girlfriend will go from being an attractive teenager to a pensioner in under 10 years, but you can’t have everything.)

Then think of builders. On Earth, if you want an extension put up, the Earth builder usually quotes you something ridiculous and grossly underestimates the time it will take to complete the job. But if you phone up a builder on Mercury, he’ll still quote a ridiculous price for rocketing over to your home, but the “six weeks or so” to do the job will be six Mercury weeks. Consequently, your conservatory or out-building will appear almost overnight. Similarly, if you employ Mercurian plumbers or painters and decorators, their presence (and associated mess and inconvenience) will be a mere blur.

But, as yet, we don’t operate on Mercurian terms. Just the usual, boring Earth calendar. This being so, I suppose I’d better head off to The Old Ship to see in January 1st.

In case I don’t see you on the other side, have a good one.

Gorgeous

Cadmore End, Buckinghamshire.

Yesterday evening I visited Alessandro, my hair artiste, and bade him work his usual wonders. On this occasion he surpassed himself. In fact, so good did the hairstyle look that I felt a need to buy some new clothes to complement it. Accordingly, I purchased a new Crombie jacket in Jermyn Street, together with an assortment of shirts and ties from Thomas Pink. And, damn, I look marvellous in them. Indeed, I am become the Beau Brummell of the 21st century.

There is, however, one problem. So astounding do I look that mirrors are now loath to give up my image. Whereas other people just see a real-time reflection of themselves that moves as they move, when I look in a mirror, I see a series of still pictures. It's as if a cinema film has been slowed down from 24 frames a second to one frame every five or more seconds. This is obviously because the mirror wants to savour each and every moment of me and my adornments. Naturally, there are disadvantages to this.

Take clothes shopping, for example. The purchasing process involves standing in front of a mirror and examining how the clothes hang. This in itself isn't a problem. I can, for instance, turn my back to the mirror and then look round and see how the jacket looks from behind. However, when I'm done and the next person comes along and looks in the mirror, my image is often still in it. He sometimes has to wait for up to half an hour before it clears.

Shaving, too, has become more of a hassle. It can take forever, because I must wait several seconds to see the results of each stroke of the blade. Now I'm forced to put on a disguise in order to fool the mirror into thinking I'm someone else. Sometimes, though, I overdo it. This morning, by skilful application of Leichner waxes, I made myself up to look exactly like Johnny Vegas. Unfortunately, when I then went to shave, the mirror refused to reflect my face and went black. It still hasn't quite recovered.

The people I feel most sorry for, though, are those who visit public washrooms immediately after me. This is because my image is still in the mirror when they wash their hands (assuming they do). Seeing it, most believe themselves to have undergone a sudden, extremely beneficial transformation, and so say, "Fuck me! I'm gorgeous! I shall go out on the pull and have the pick of all the most delectable women on the planet!"

Sadly, it's only when the police arrest them for harrassment that they realize the sad, awful truth about themselves. But that's a small price to pay for me being a sex god.

Cottaging Conspiracy

Cadmore End, Buckinghamshire.

This morning I went to purchase a loaf of bread from the bakery in nearby Lane End. While perusing the merchandise, my eyes happened to alight upon a curiosity on the bottom shelf billed as a “cottage loaf”. When interrogated on the matter, the baker explained that it's so called because it resembles a cottage. “Like fuck it does!” I replied, cuffing him, sharply, round the head. “How many circular two-storey, doorless and windowless cottages have you ever seen?” Then I beat him up some more until he retreated, whimpering, to the comparative safety of his bread ovens.

Aesthetics aside (the fact of the matter is, the thing more closely resembles a big, inverted mushroom or one of those primitive Earth Mothers than anything else), my baker is guilty of flagrant profiteering. This is because a “cottage loaf” is priced at £1.90. However, a conventional loaf, composed – as far as I can tell – of exactly the same amount of dough, costs just £1.50. Nevertheless, people are obviously willing to pay the difference. Why?

Because people are stupid cunts, that’s why. I’ll bet if the baker started up-ending baguettes and describing them as “high-rise development loaves”, and then pricing them at £2 apiece, those same stupid cunts would buy them in droves, as well. Indeed, he could probably sell breadcrumbs for a tidy profit, too, if, instead, he called them a “Gaza police headquarters post-Israeli bombing loaf”. Or a single slice of bread, maybe, advertised as a “current value of your pension following depreciation due to credit crunch loaf.”

I blame the Christian Church for initiating these doughy deceptions. After all, for thousands of years they’ve been able to get away with calling a tiny, circular wafer of unleavened bread not, “a slice of Christ” or even “a tasting menu of Christ”, but a full-blown “body of Christ.” And people have lapped it up, uncomplainingly, without a single, dissenting “Is that it?” in recorded history.

Anyway, this afternoon I’m going to go round to the deli to buy some “cottage cheese”. If it doesn’t have doors and windows and at least one mouse tenant, there’s going to be some fucking serious trouble. You do not want to mess with me, I can assure you.

FUCK WITH ME AND YOU FUCK WITH THE BEST.

Lady Luck

Cadmore End, Buckinghamshire.

Whenever a person wants to suggest that the likelihood of something happening is nil, or thereabouts, he’ll generally say that there’s “a fat chance” of its occurrence. In other words, the chance is so bloated and so disgustingly overweight that, because of its obscene physical condition, it cannot possibly come to fruition.

This causes me some concern.

You see, if a “fat chance” is basically no chance at all, then, conversely, whenever a chance's BMI becomes progressively reduced, its likelihood of happening should be correspondingly greater. Logical, yes?

You'd think so, but no.

Going way down the scale, a “slim chance” is, in fact, actually regarded as being little better than a fat one. Indeed, in many cases it’s synonymous and only used because of the demands of etiquette. For example, if you ask a doctor “Will I survive this triple-whammy of AIDS, Lhassa fever, and an anally inserted jack-handle?”, rather than replying, “Are you fucking joking? There’s a fat chance of that!” he’ll normally try to let you down gently by saying something along the lines of , “The chances are only slim, I’m afraid.” Whichever, they both mean the same.

So what, in weight terms, does constitute an acceptable likelihood? Worryingly, extrapolating from the above, we can only conclude that it’s a chance that carries even less weight than a slim chance. We're talking a “Size 00 Chance” or a “Sickeningly Emaciated Chance.” The sort of chance, in other words, that puts its fingers down its throat after every meal and throws up. The sort of chance that, if it were on a beach, would repeatedly get sand kicked its face by bullies but wouldn’t ever have the option of rectifying the condition by buying a Charles Atlas Dynamic Tension course.

Henceforth, therefore, when we hear the term “Lady Luck”, we should picture, not some voluptuous maiden, but an anorexic Karen Carpenter or Lena Zavaroni lookalike who, if invited to blow on your dice in order to enhance your chances and bring you luck, would in all likelihood follow through by puking all over them (and you), too. Little wonder, then, that “the house always wins” when it comes to gambling.

Drunk

One fukking christmas mparty too many m......

Christmas Message

The Monarch’s Christmas Message to the Nation and to the Commonwealth has been a feature of the Festive Season ever since the days of George V. Using the wonders of radio and television, the words of Her Majesty the Queen are transmitted globally to millions of excited listeners, simultaneously. How different it is to the Bad Old Days before modern telecommunications technology. Back then, of course, royalty would have had to have visited each home individually for five minutes apiece, like Santa Claus. The logistics must have been horrendous, especially for those rulers without the benefit of teams of flying reindeers and elf assistants, leading to all sorts of problems.

Take, for example, the story related in Matthew’s Gospel. On Christmas Day in the Year Zero (post-turkey, most likely), Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus were settling down for the afternoon, expecting a single monarch to address them with the usual "My family and I" spiel. But unfortunately, no doubt due to some administrative cock-up, three turned up at once, and all of them wogs.

The trouble with monarchs is that they more or less take over your living room, especially if, like Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, they bring their camels, too. This is probably the real reason why the Holy Family decamped to a stable for the Holiday. In the same way, if our own Queen announced she was coming round here with her horse today at 3.00 pm, I'd no doubt remove myself to a stable, as well, just in case my carpet got covered in equine shit.

Poor Mary, Joseph and Jesus had to put up with these bastards doing their "As I look over the past 12 months and ahead to the coming year" bit in unison. Unlike nowadays, when you can turn this sort of stuff off or reduce the volume using an infra-red remote control, back then, they couldn't, and so everyone had to put up with the cacophony, unedited. And if that wasn’t enough, in the same afternoon, the neighbouring farm labourers came along, too, and brought their sheep.

No wonder the Boy turned out as He did.

Happy Christmas, anyway. Good Tidings to all Men, and all the rest of that crap.

Great Lay

It’s a fucking good job that humans aren’t laid in eggs.

For a start, if we were, would we celebrate our birthday on the day of laying or on the day of hatching? Or both, perhaps, in order to maximize our receipt of presents? I suppose hatching makes more sense because there’s always a possibility that a laid egg won’t hatch. The mother might forget to incubate it, for example, or some grandmother who’s successfully completed a correspondence course in egg sucking and achieved a much sought-after HND in the field might put her newly acquired skills into practice, which I imagine might render the egg unhatchable. Or you could just get poached or scrambled before your time. The possibilities are endless.

And what would the equivalent of a premature birth be in such circumstances? That you’re laid before your egg shell has fully formed, and thus come out as a load of liquid? Or that you hatch before you should, and emerge with a fully formed body but with a yolk in place of a head. If the latter, and you were then placed in an incubator, would you eventually develop a proper head, or would your yolk simply go hard?

Another thing: If you said to someone “I laid an egg”, couldn’t that be misconstrued as paedophilia? What about “a great lay”? Is that where you produce a dozen eggs simultaneously?

Excuse me, I’m pissed.

Body Language

Cadmore End, Buckinghamshire

When a woman is interested in you sexually, she’ll signify the fact by making all sorts of small, subtle gestures. Lightly touching her hair, for example, gently licking her lips, exposing her wrists, and so on. Essentially, she's attempting to enhance her attractiveness. Usually, she’s unaware that she’s actually doing it, yet is nevertheless subconsciously communicating her desire with this body language.

As you can imagine, I get this rather a lot. Yesterday, however, on the train to High Wycombe, one particularly attractive young lady appeared to be laying it on with spades. Not only was she continually brushing back her hair, preening herself, and the usual, but, throughout the journey, she kept applying make-up such as eyeliner, lipstick and rouge until she began to resemble a model on the cover of a magazine. (The fact that she mentioned to her companion that she was on her way to a portfolio shoot is neither here nor there. The important thing is that she obviously lusted after me.)

There is one thing that worries me, though: If a woman is prepared to go to these lengths to express her lust for me, how much further might others go in order to outdo both her and one another, and what could the consequences be? Might I get on a train tomorrow, for instance, to find women, not just unconsciously preening themselves in front of me, but unconsciously injecting themselves with Botox, too? Or maybe even performing minor plastic surgery on themselves, like dermabrasion and face lifts? Indeed, they could go further and opt for complete body restructuring, with extensive plastic surgery and liposuction.

If this does happen, then trains will have to become sterile environments with medical equipment and nursing staff onboard. Consequently, they’ll no doubt be run by the NHS. As a result, anyone wanting to travel a short distance from, say, London to Windsor will have to go on a lengthy waiting list. But would anyone want to when there’s a risk of catching MRSA and other super-bugs during the journey? The only way to get a clean train and “jump the queue” and travel when you want to travel will be to board a BUPA train. Even here, however, you’ll first have to book an appointment with your GP who’ll then refer you to a private Consultant who, in turn, will refer you to the appropriate rail operator.

Or maybe not. People who say they want to travel to places like Liverpool or Birmingham will probably be sectioned under the 1983 Mental Health Act. And quite right, too.

All this because I am irresistible to women.

The Nativity

When you think the matter through, a stable was actually a very dangerous place for the Virgin Mary to give birth in. As for laying Baby Jesus in a manger, that was bordering on the irresponsible. How so?

A manger is basically a cow-feed receptacle, and cows aren’t particularly “with it” when it comes to intelligence, hence the term “bovine stupidity.” It would therefore have been just like a dumb cow to mistake the manger’s divine contents for some sort of high-protein, animal-based grass replacement, along the lines of that mulched up sheep carcass that gives everyone BSE. As a result, our Lord and Saviour could easily have got himself eaten by accident.

If this had happened, Joseph and Mary would probably have used their combined ingenuity to try to get Baby Jesus out of the cow, resulting in a very different Nativity scene to the traditional one. The shepherds and the magi would now have been confronted by the sight of Mary forcing some sort of plunger down the cow’s mouth, while, from the other end, Joseph stuck his hand up the cow’s arse and groped around inside, James Herriot style.

The success of this extraction operation would have depended on exactly how far into the cow’s digestive system the Light of the World had travelled. If He’d only been eaten an hour or so previously, then it might have been just possible to get the cow to puke Him up using some sort of emetic. On the other hand, had several hours elapsed, then Jesus would by now have been inside one of the cow’s many stomachs, gradually being converted into milk and, ultimately, cow shit.

Whatever, it’s hardly the sort of stuff to inspire many Christmas carols or cards. And in a worst-case scenario, the whole basis of Christian civilization might now centre around the worship of a divine cow-pat. Consequently, the term “Holy Shit” would no longer just be one of Batman’s expletives, but an infallible article of Faith, expressed ex cathedra by the Pope himself.

Moving Lips

This morning I have been reading the holy Qur'an and various hadeeths (or ahdithah, if you want to be overly pedantic). The reason that I've been doing this is because I'm a bit confused by a few aspects of the conversion-to-Islam process and how they might apply in certain atypical circumstances.

As you're probably aware, conversion is, on the face of it, at least, quite straightforward. All you have to do is recite the shahadah in Arabic ("I attest that there is no god but 'Allah ….", etc. etc) three times and you're in. You can then start doing a Cat Stevens and dress like a Slough minicab driver, or wear a burqah and get yourself honour-killed for not marrying some 80 year old Pakistani, or whatever else takes your fancy.

But (and this is where my extensive research has failed me) what happens if you're a professional ventriloquist who hears a sudden call to 'Allah, mid-act? If you recite the shahadah while you've got the dummy on your knee and your hand up its arse, operating its mouth, does the dummy get converted simultaneously? Or, since you're not actually visibly moving your lips (leastways, you shouldn't be if you're any sort of half decent ventriloquist) is it only the dummy that ends up a Muslim, leaving you as a vile kafir?

I imagine an Islamic ventriloquist's dummy poses quite a few theological problems, too. At least, someone like Ray Alan's Lord Charles would. This is because he's a fairly lifelike figurine, and might therefore go against Islamic teaching which forbids figurative and pictorial representation of the human form. So how would the Muslim faithful regard the newly Islamicised mannequin? As a fellow believer or a blasphemous abomination that needed a good stoning? Unfortunately, it's not something that the Qur'an or any of my Islamic sources can make clear.

I suppose Roger de Courcey has it easier with Nookie Bear. At least he clearly is a bear and so people can't bitch about him being blasphemous if he converts (unless he subsequently comes on with a turban with a bomb in it and does some sort of Prophet Muhammad skit). But the one who has it easiest, of course, is Shari Lewis. Her "Lamb Chop" is quite clearly just a sock. So if she converts to Islam mid-act, she'll end up with a perfectly acceptable Muslim sock. No-one can object to that.

Then again, you might want to have to have a separate sock draw for Muslim socks. If you didn't, and you put the wrong one on a Christian or a Zoroastrian sock, say - and you then did your two rakaat, your sock (or you) might go to Hell. And if you washed your sock, which you'd probably have to do five times a day (and in a separate washing machine from everyone else's socks), you probably wouldn't be able to use any sort of washing powder that claimed to wash "whiter than white." This is because, being a Muslim sock, it would arguably already be in the highest state of purity. So even if it honked a bit, you'd have to leave it be.

There must be an Imam somewhere round here who can put me right on all of this.

Ashadu an La illaha ill Allah, ashadu ana Muhammadan Rasul-lu-lah

I'm Flying Back to the UK

Fuck it.

My Alligator Problem

As everyone is aware, my lean, super-fit, muscular physique makes me irresistible to all discerning women. Unfortunately, however, it also makes me irresistible to alligators.

While this isn't too much of a problem in the UK, here, in South West Florida, it potentially is. This is because this particular estate is criss-crossed by dozens of drainage canals, most of which have hundreds of hungry alligators in them, all no doubt yearning for the opportunity to taste the gourmet fillet mignon of Manhood that is my body.

Naturally, when I'm over here, I have to take certain precautions to avoid being eaten. Perhaps unsurprisingly, not swimming in the canals heads the list. Not gardening comes a close second. Surveys show that the majority of people who are eaten by alligators hereabouts are mowing their lawn when it happens. Apparently, while they're distracted by the grass cutting, the alligator crawls out of the canal, nips up behind them, and catches them unawares. For this reason, I employ Mexican illegal immigrants to do my gardening. Not only are they cheaper to replace when eaten, but when one sees a discarded sombrero floating in the canal, it's a pretty good indication that an alligator is around, so one can then be on one's guard.

Captain Hook of Peter Pan fame had a similar problem to mine, though he didn't employ Mexican illegal immigrants. Instead, his solution was to feed a clock to the alligator. Thereafter, whenever he heard the clock ticking, he knew that the alligator was in the vicinity and so had time to run away. I would like to be able to do the same. The trouble is, modern clocks are quartz and so don't tick. Also, Hook only had the one alligator to worry about, whereas I've got thousands of the fucking things. And even if I could find a quartz clock that ticked, it would cost me a fortune to feed one to each and every alligator in Charlotte County (and, besides which, there are probably local bylaws prohibiting this very practice).

Perhaps a better solution, therefore, would be to feed them all a Mexican illegal. Then, whenever I hear the words "Ay caramba!", I can be reasonably sure that there's an alligator nearby who's swallowed a Mexican, and so effect my escape.

Oysters

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Gone Fishing

Why do they call it "fishing"? After all, if I were in pursuit of, say, deer or wild boar, the said activity wouldn't be referred to as "deering" or "boaring", would it?

I suppose in the latter case, at least, the reason why it isn't is to guard against having to come out with statements like, "I was boaring all yesterday afternoon", because, on occasion, it could, of course, provoke the riposte, "Yesterday afternoon? You're always fucking boring, every day of the fucking week, you tedious fucking cunt." Which would then no doubt lead to arguments, fights, or worse.

Or, then again, perhaps this is exactly what used to happen, and why the term "boaring" subsequently fell out of favour. After all, if you'd risked life and limb, and been gored a few times for your trouble in pursuit of a hairy, tusked wild beast, you'd inevitably feel a bit pissed off when, having proudly announced the news of your triumph over Nature red-in-tooth-and-claw, everyone just responded by calling you a monotonous wanker who was probably functionally impotent, too, and with more than just a touch of BO.

Anyway, I only mention this because I went fishing yesterday afternoon. But en route, I encountered a dead wild boar being eaten by buzzards (probably roadkill - I can't imagine anyone wanting to take out a contract on one). Maybe the buzzards describe what they're doing as "boaring". It certainly looked it, and not very appetizing, either, as you can see from the photograph below.

Sponge Woe

I'm glad I'm not a sponge. The main disadvantage of being one is that, if you're washed up on a beach somewhere, people always have this near atavistic urge to squeeze you out until you're dry. If the practice were applied equally to all washed-up sea creatures - if, 12 months ago, they'd tried to put those sperm whales that were stranded just off the West Florida coast through some sort of giant mangle, for example - then it needn't be an issue. But the fact is, they only ever do it to sponges. Which strikes me as manifestly unfair. I know all this, and more, because I was reading about sponges last night.

Something else I read is that, if you take a sponge and put it into a blender, the resultant goo will eventually turn into another, unique sponge. So in this respect, I suppose it has certain advantages over the aforementioned sperm whale which, under similar circumstances, most probably wouldn't reconstitute.

Then again, I doubt if anyone's ever really tried (where are you going to get a blender big enough to fit a sperm whale?), so you never know. On the down-side, now that the encyclopaedia has gone public with this fact, it's going to most likely encourage people who otherwise wouldn't have done so to put sponges in blenders, if only to see what happens. Which, in the long-term, is probably going to piss off the sponges even more than being habitually squeezed out does. It's not as if they can assuage their frustrations by having spectacular sex, either. This is because, in order to reproduce, a female sponge ejects an ovum, while the male sponge ejects a sperm, and both bits then meet half way between their parents and fertilize. It's boring. The sponge sexual act is the equivalent of going to an orgy but only being a spectator, never a participant.

I suppose, at the instant of fertilization, both sponges could simulate a modicum of excitement by going, "Oh God! Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh ..... Jesus Chisssssst!!!" However, they'd then risk giving their position away to people who wanted to put them in a blender, so, overall, it probably wouldn't be a good idea.

I wonder if a loofah has similar problems? In its natural state, I think it looks not unlike a giant cucumber. I'll bet, thanks to this, quite a few end up mistakenly sliced and put in giant, crust-less sandwiches. I shall investigate the matter further.

Water Bed

I've just been to a bed sale in Punta Gorda, with a view to replacing my existing, though worn-out king size. Nothing appealed. One concept in particular which didn't appeal, despite the persistent efforts of the saleswoman to change my mind, was a water bed.

Water beds, I told her, are a fucking stupid idea. Mostly, they're owned by people who have never had a shag in their lives, but would like to fool their friends into thinking that they're "at it" all the time. The reasons why a water bed is no good - if not downright dangerous - for sex should be obvious to all but the most stupid.

For a start, there are the risks from tidal activity. Couples who are engaged in foreplay during the bed's ebb tide state might lose all track of time. Then suddenly, an unexpected rip tide could come in. The result is that they would be squashed against the ceiling by the rapidly rising waters.

Then there are those dangers posed by external factors. For instance, enthusiastic surfers might come in through the window, anxious to "catch a wave." They would pay no heed to the lovemaking couple, writhing in passion on the bed. Instead, in their rush to "pull into the pipe", they might actually surf too far "in front of the curl" and suffer "wipeout." If their surfboard had one of those sharp fins on the bottom, it could cut everyone in two, and do untold damage to the bed itself.

And of course there's the water itself. Left for too long, it would become an independent eco-system, full of living organisms. Over time, these would give out carbon dioxide, which would naturally carbonate the water in the bed, making it fizzy. As a consequence, continual bouncing up and down on the bed would have the same effect as shaking up a bottle of fizzy drink. At the point of orgasm, the bed would explode, blasting the couple out of the window, and no doubt destroying their house at the same time.

Whatever, now I look back on it, I suppose it's quite possible that the saleswoman wasn't, in fact, trying to sell me a bed at all. It was merely her coded way of soliciting a shag. How could I have ignored all the obvious signals?

Flabby Bastards (2)

Lots of Americans really are as fat as people claim. Yesterday, for example, I was forced to endure the sight of a woman weighing around 20 stone, at least, waddling into my local restaurant, her flabby arse following on about 20 minutes later. This is disgusting. This should be stamped out as it offends my finer feelings.

The thing is, if I go into a bar, swerving, slurring my speech, and obviously drunk, the barman - quite rightly - will refuse to serve me. This is because I'd be suffering from an excess of alcohol and could damage both myself and others were I to continue imbibing. By the same token, therefore, restaurants and supermarkets should refuse to serve customers who are quite obviously overweight. Indeed, in my opinion, the full force of the Law should be brought to bear on these disgusting fat cunts.

For example, the local Sheriff's officers should be given powers to randomly pull over drivers whom they suspect of being flabby. Having done so, they should ask "When did you last eat, sir?" If the answer is some time in the last three hours, then the driver should be required to step outside the vehicle and submit himself to a fat calliper test, where measurements are taken from the waist and tricep areas. Should he give a positive reading - ie body fat composition of 17% plus - then he should be taken down to the Station and booked. The charge would be driving while overweight. I think a 12 month ban and a heavy fine would be in order.

Indeed, food in general needs to be more regulated. The food should be served and priced in individual measures of 160 calories. If you ask for a double - ie two fish fingers (or "fish sticks", as they call them here) - the Waiter ought to look at you contemptuously, as if to say "You don't really want to do that, sir". Food shops and restaurants should be licensed and only allowed to open between the hours of 11.30 am and 11.00 pm, with Last Orders at 10.50 pm and a ten minute statutory Eating Up Time. Thereupon the Head Waiter should ring a bell and shout "Can you eat up, ladies and gentlemen, please. Empty you plates, please. Haven't you people got any homes to go to?"

If my idea were to be implemented, the obesity epidemic could be banished within 12 months.

Blow-Up

I wonder if people ever ask for their money back after buying a blow-up woman? If what's on offer in a Sarasota sex shop called Harmony Center (sic) is anything to go by, I certainly would. I just happened to be passing by this morning, and so took the opportunity to browse some of the wares.

The thing is, the picture on the front of the box generally bears little or no resemblance whatsoever to the contents. For example, a doll marketed as Sweet Experience Shari ($14.99 plus Florida sales tax) is illustrated with a photograph of a woman looking not unlike Demi Moore. However, if you take it out and inflate it, what you actually get is more akin to Betty Boop, albeit with "three realistic orifices" (which, according to ex, Bruce Willis, is three more than Demi ever had). Luscious Leona similarly disappoints. Depicted on the box as a stunning Bo Derek type, the resulting doll puts me in mind of a space hopper with tits.


I suppose, in their defence, the manufacturers of the dolls would argue that, if you go into, say, a McDonalds or Burger King, the illustrations of the food bear little resemblance to the reality of the eating experience, either, what with wilted lettuce, crushed buns, and permanently detumescent gherkins. So why should the depictions of their sex products be any more realistic? But I would counter this by pointing out that McDonalds and Burger King aren't claiming that their products will bring you to orgasm (which is just as well, really, as you wouldn't want people spontaneously ejaculating upon opening their Whopper or McNugget boxes), whereas, with Sweet Experience Shari and Luscious Leona, this actually appears to be the raison d'être behind the dolls' manufacture.

Or maybe it isn't.

When I interrogated the Harmony Center salesman, he claimed that most of these blow-up dolls are, in fact, bought as joke items for bachelor parties and the like and therefore aren't intended for serious use in penetrative sex. Which may or may not be true. But even if it is, it still means that some do get fucked. One wonders by whom. And one especially wonders what sort of sicko would want to shag the blow-up figure which I later encountered in the Venice area, depicted below. (And one also wonders what the fuck the picture on the front of the box was if that is the end-result following use of the foot-pump. Daniel Craig in Lycra trunks, I'd be willing to bet.)

I fear for the future of the world. I really do.

My Visit to Santa Claus

Today I went to visit Santa Claus in his Christmas grotto in Port Charlotte shopping mall and took the opportunity to present a lengthy list of demands. These included an i-Pod, a new food processor, and an Acer Netbook with integral webcam.

Santa asked me if I'd been good this year, basically implying that delivery of the items was contingent upon an answer in the affirmative. Unfortunately, I had to confess that there have been a few lapses. In particular, the fact that I lust after our local vicar, Cate, and that I recently shagged a PR woman, told her that I'd call her again the next day, but never did. I've therefore probably blown it (as regards receipt of the Netbook, anyway).

What I'd like to know is why Santa can't be more like Jesus, given that they're both representatives of the same holiday. If Jesus multi-tasked as an airborne present deliverer as well as a Son of Man, I could have confessed my peccadilloes to Him, said I was sorry, and then been granted absolution. Consequently, I'd have been guaranteed my Christmas presents (after the requisite number of Hail Marys, anyway). But, for whatever reason, Santa Claus doesn't function like this, so I'm fucked.

I suppose one very good reason why Santa doesn't is that, to qualify as a sin forgiver, he'd first have to be crucified. Then again, inconvenient though this is at the time, you only have to do it for the weekend and are thereafter guaranteed to rise again on the third day with all the advantages that this conveys. And as Santa always wears a thick, red jacket and big, red woolly hat with a bobble on the end, the associated scourging and crowing with thorns wouldn't be overly uncomfortable. So why doesn't he go for it?

Possibly because, if Santa did start absolving all sins, his workload would be vastly increased. This is because he'd now have to deliver presents to all those people (possibly an extra billion or so) who'd been bad from January through mid-December, but had suddenly repented at the last moment. His team of flying reindeer wouldn't be able to cope with the extra payload. And, of course, with Santa now preoccupied being a Light of the World, Jesus would no doubt start nipping into shopping malls and asking children what they wanted for Christmas.

I don't know about you, but I find the thought of a 30something bachelor cuddling little boys and girls on His knee highly suspicious, if not actually repugnant.

Raccoon Problem

I have a raccoon problem, as you can see from this photograph I took of one earlier today just outside my back yard. Many other residents of this area also have raccoon problems. Indeed, Charlotte County municipal authority has supplied me with a so called "animal proof" wheelie bin in an effort to stamp the problem out.

Normal bins are evidently easy prey for raccoons. What they do is knock them over and then help themselves to the contents. Of course, if you've chucked away particularly sensitive personal information, such as bank account records or credit card statements, then the raccoons can get hold of these and use them for identify theft. Apparently, it's not unheard of for raccoons to obtain driving licences and even extended credit in this way. In fact, it could well be a factor behind the present credit crunch.

Fortunately, however, my wheelie bin has a lockable lid, so even if the raccoons do knock it over, they won't get what's inside. I can therefore sleep easy at night, safe in the knowledge that I'm not unwittingly supporting a raccoon's recreational drug habit or crime spree, and nor am I allowing the global economy to sink further into the red.

Greetings from Venice, Florida

Inflight Entertainment

Yesterday the weather was a bit shit in England, so I decided to come to Florida. I therefore took a plane, as usual, as this has always seemed to be the most efficient way of getting here. On this occasion, however, I noted something quite unnerving about the aircraft. Something which I feel I should share with you.

The trip began as it normally does, with no major surprises. I was welcomed on board and directed to the left hand side, there to be assigned an extremely comfortable, fully-reclinable seat. Once I was seated, a voluptuous-looking stewardess began to ply me with Champagne. And once the aircraft was in the air, I received complimentary whisky, wine, and so forth, together with some rather delicious meals. It all helped to assuage the boredom of the nine hour flight.

Anyhow, after a few hours or so of being pampered, I started feeling a bit restless. Normally I'd just read a book or watch an inflight movie. On this occasion, though, for a bit of a change, I decided to stretch my legs and explore the rest of the aircraft. This is where I made my unnerving discovery. And this discovery?

Well, like most of you, I'm sure, I had always assumed that the passenger-carrying part of the plane was to the left, as that's where I always go. But you know what? If you go to the right, towards the section where I'd always assumed they stored cargo, fuel, and luggage, they actually have another passenger compartment. At least, this plane did. But what a truly horrible compartment it was.

As far as I could see, none of the passengers here were served complimentary Champagne. Nor did they receive the delicious food that I had received. Indeed, it looked to be inedible slop, which they had to eat using plastic knives and forks. And here's the worst part: instead of having a wide, reclinable seat each with plenty of space around, like mine, these people were all crammed, (if you will forgive the cliché) sardine-like, into narrow rows. I reckon they'd squeezed three rows into a space no wider than about six or seven feet. Furthermore, there were four of these rows across the width of the fuselage, a configuration which repeated itself all the way down to the back of the aircraft.

As you can imagine, the poor wretches who were forced to endure these disgusting conditions looked thoroughly miserable. I was, of course, outraged that such cruel treatment could be meted out to my fellow human beings. "Have you no compassion?" I raged at the cabin crew. "How dare you treat people like this! Would you do this to members of your own family? Have a heart, please! Reach into the depths of your soul and repent of your cruelty!"

But then my flight attendant told me that she was just about to serve up some rather splendid, vintage brandy, so I went back to my seat and paid these people no further heed. Shit happens, after all.

I'm Going Outside ....

... I may be some time.

Paint Drying Drama

The act of watching paint dry is often used as a benchmark against which to measure boredom. This is understandable, given that the drying performance of the average gloss or matt vinyl has little to recommend it as a spectator activity. Though physical changes do indeed take place in the appearance of the paint as it gradually goes from wet to tacky to dry, they are generally barely perceptible, occurring as they do over such a protracted period of time.

In my opinion, this is unacceptable. We live in a technological age, after all. It therefore ought to be within someone's capabilities to chemically engineer paint such that its drying cycle becomes more interesting to look at. As well as rendering home improvements less of a drag, this would also provide an alternative to the usual televised pap, such as "Eastenders" or "Strictly Come Dancing."

For a start, manufacturers get it all wrong by actually indicating on the can what colour the paint is. Where's the opportunity for suspense in this? It's like a bookshop selling a thriller called "Murder on the Orient Express - All the 12 Passengers on the Train did it". It's like a cinema showing a film called "Carrie - A bloodstained hand comes up out of the ground just before the end". Totally unacceptable.

No. Paint cans ought to be a uniform colour, such that you don't know what you've got until you open them up. Even then, the colour of the wet paint needn't necessarily be the same as that of the paint when dry. You could engineer things so that it looks, say, red when opened, but actually dries to a matt black. Better still, if it undergoes several radical colour changes over the cycle, so as to keep everyone on their toes. So just when you think you're going to end up with a lilac white, it turns shocking pink at the last moment. Or maybe phallic symbols appear in the middle of it. Naturally enough, people might not like having a pink wall or a door covered in images of penises. So they'd return to the shop and buy another can of paint. And if they didn't like the results from that, they'd return to buy yet another. And so on.

Not only would this help stimulate the currently nose-diving economy, it would also put a lot of excitement into otherwise dull lives.

Spineless

Generally speaking, when someone is described as being "spineless", it's taken to be a bad thing. It means he's weak and lacks courage. There are, however, certain circumstances in which being spineless could be a good thing. I refer, of course, to tinned sardines.

At the moment, whenever I eat sardine sandwiches, I'm obliged to manually remove the spine from each sardine beforehand, lest it be overly crunchy in my lunch. This is a time-consuming, messy procedure. Surely it would be far better if we could find sardines that didn't have a spine in them in the first place. Spineless sardines, in other words; sardines that lack those essential, courageous, manly virtues we all hold so dear.

One could, I suppose, hang around until there's another major fish war, like the Cod War of the 1970s, when our Valiant Boys took on the godless cod and whipped their fucking arses. Then we could seek out the sardine conscientious objectors. I'd imagine they'd be easily identifiable. They would be the sardines carrying the "Troops out" placards, and the ones claiming to be homosexuals when having their army medicals. You'd simply target these with your fishing nets.

On the other hand, there could be a few disadvantages in targeting homosexual sardines. If other fish saw that you only went after the gay variety, they might think that you were gay yourself and "up for it", as it were. Consequently, men who kept tropical fish might suddenly find their guppies popping up from the tank, offering to blow them. Worse, you might be swimming in the sea one day and get buggered by a gay whale shark. I don't wish to be buggered by a gay whale shark, so I think some other way of identifying spineless sardines should be found. Perhaps sealing them in the tins while they're still alive. Then, you just listen out for the cries of "Help! Mummy! It's dark in here!" and you know those are the ones without a backbone.

Class Action

Here in the UK we have two classifications for regular post: First Class and Second. The idea is that a First Class stamp gets your letter to its destination faster than one bearing a tawdry Second Class variety. When you think about it, though, this isn't strictly true. Not round here, anyway. What actually happens is that the First Class letters simply get into our postman's bag faster than their cheaper, nastier counterparts. Thereafter, unfortunately, the egalitarian cunt seems to go by his own rules.

Yesterday, for example, I had two letters delivered, both First Class. Today I again received two, but Second Class this time. In both instances, however, the postman took exactly the same time to cover the 60 feet or so from my front gate to my front door. This is clearly an iniquitous situation, which makes complete nonsense of the concepts of First and Second Class postage. Indeed, I feel I'm due some sort of refund.

In my opinion, if he's delivering a First Class letter, he should reflect the fact by sprinting. Only if he's delivering Second Class should he be allowed his usual leisurely amble. After all, if the people who sent them clearly couldn't give a fuck how slowly they reach me, I feel similarly justified in showing a commensurate lack of enthusiasm over exactly how quickly I get to read them.

Of course, someone is now going to ask what happens if, on the same day, I receive a combination of First and Second Class letters. No problem: the postman should examine the letters prior to opening my front gate and then base his walking speed on the aggregate of their Class. So, for instance, two First Class and one Second would probably merit 3mph, while one First Class and two Second would only justify 2mph. And so on.

The only problem here is the postman might subsequently take it upon himself to examine all the letters in his bag prior to setting off, and then base the speed of his entire postal round on the aggregate of their Class. This would be unjust in two ways. If the majority of the letters bear First Class stamps, then the cheapskates who bought Second would effectively be riding on the coat-tails of their postal superiors, akin to an Economy passenger being given a free upgrade to Business or First Class. Secondly, if the majority of letters are Second Class, those who paid for First Class would be unfairly slowed down.

I think that, until the Post Office sees sense and introduces dedicated First and Second Class postmen, I'll have to buy an Alsatian and have him chase the postman at a consistent speed throughout his entire delivery route. And I'll bill the Post Office for his cost and upkeep. That should jump-start them into taking some sort of action.

Shit Sex

I practice safe sex. The dangerous variety has never really appealed. To this end, I always keep two condoms in my wallet for whenever the occasion presents itself (any more could be misconstrued as a desire for commitment). How fortunate it is, then, that I live in the modern era and am not an Ancient Egyptian.

As you may be aware, Ancient Egyptians used crocodile shit as a contraceptive, given that it has natural spermicidal qualities. (Presumably, it was sufficiently pliable to be easily shaped into ribbed, "tickler", and ultra-sensitive varieties) Nevertheless, I'm sure that the substance per se imposed certain restrictions on the sex lives of the socially responsible citizens of Karnak and Heliopolis.

Suppose, for example, it was a Friday night in downtown Djedu and you were "feeling lucky". The first thing you'd have to do before hitting the clubs and bars would be to pick up some shit. I'd imagine, though, that to the uninitiated, crocodile shit is basically indistinguishable from any other variety. So, unless you were actually standing nearby while the animal itself took a dump (never a good idea with crocodiles), you probably wouldn't know, and might acquire some useless donkey or dog shit by mistake and, nine months later, find yourself being sued for paternity.

What men most likely did, therefore, was go to a dedicated shit shop where the quality and provenance of the material was guaranteed. Then again, how much allure and pulling-power can you exude if you're carrying a couple of pounds of shit in your wallet? Especially if it's a few days old. But what was the alternative? You couldn't really take a crocodile into the bar with you to produce the stuff fresh as and when required because: (1) It would then be perfectly obviously to the women in the place that you were only there seeking sex rather than anything long-term, which would put them off; and (2) It might eat her (or you) before you managed to get a shag. A baby crocodile would be safer, of course, tucked out of sight down your loin cloth. But there's always a risk that it could wriggle overly or give your dick a painful bite. Its mother might even come looking for it while you were in flagrante.

Thinking this through, the only logical way it could have worked was for a shit dispensing machine to be set up in the toilets. Once you deposited your coin, the mechanism would spin into action, causing a laxative to be fed to one of the crocodiles inside, making it spontaneously excrete. The only danger, of course, being that, if there were male and female crocodiles in the machine, they might breed and, eventually, escape. So the next time you went to the toilets in order to take a piss, you could find yourself being eaten. I imagine this explains the reason behind the decline of Ancient Egypt as a regional superpower. Similarly, I'm sure if Gordon Brown or Vladimir Putin got attacked by crocodiles every time they went for a piss or shit, their political and economic influence would eventually wane, too.

Spending a Little, Living a Lot

This morning I decided, for a change, to experience life from the perspective of a member of the Working Class. I therefore disguised myself as a prole and visited an Aldi supermarket in order that I might "spend a little, live a lot."

To be quite honest, the foods on offer in Aldi weren't that much cheaper than those in rival, socially superior supermarkets, so my plans to buy an entire week's shopping for less than £5 were unfortunately thwarted. However, there was one bargain which I couldn't pass up. At the entrance to the store were dozens of shopping trolleys. Admittedly, they seemed to be second hand, however, they were all on sale at the amazing, rock-bottom price of just £1 each, so I couldn't resist. You simply put your pound coin into a slot, which releases the trolley, and then walk away with the thing. (I'm unsure of the physical mechanism by which the £1 gets from the trolley slot to the retailer, but technology has never been my forté.)

Anyhow, I am now the proud possessor of a sturdy metal shopping trolley with four swivel-wheels and integral compartments for (should I wish to produce one) a baby and, presumably, some sort of shopping bag. Or perhaps it's a baguette storage area. Whatever, additionally, the handle-cum-steering device at the trolley's rear is fitted with a highly efficient brake mechanism which can be operated simply by squeezing one's fingers. I'm unclear, at the moment, how it will perform in the wet or in icy conditions, but that's for another day.

Of course, some people might ask what I want with a shopping trolley. Indeed, I'm asking myself that right now. But I suppose early adopters of any new technology must initially ask themselves much the same question. I could, I suppose, push it into a nearby canal or river. I'm not sure what the point is of this (then again, I'm similarly confused over the point to activities such as fishing and morris dancing, so what do I know?), but lots of people round here seem to do it, so there must be some degree of satisfaction to be derived. Or I could load the trolley up with plastic bags, cardboard, a sleeping bag, and cans of beer and push it around the streets while simultaneously shouting, "Are you fuckin' lookin' at me?" and "Fuck, you wanker!" at passers-by. Again, the appeal of doing this isn't immediately apparent, but sufficient numbers of people do do it, so it's yet another case of Don't knock it till you've tried it.

My only real concern is that the trolley is unbranded and therefore, as yet, confers no social cachet upon me. So before I take it out for its next spin, I will affix a Selfridges logo on to it. Then when I ram people in the back of the legs with the thing, they will instantly be aware of my up-market credentials.

Additives

The label of my lime juice cordial proclaims "No additives." This is written in large letters. In other words, all I'm getting is lime juice cordial, nothing more. Obviously, then, the manufacturer is basically saying to me, "Fuck you if you wanted anything extra, that's all we're prepared to give you. And fuck your sister, too, for that matter, you cunt."

Some would argue, of course, that what we are actually meant to infer from this is that additives are a bad thing, and that the manufacturer of the cordial is, in fact, claiming to be doing me a favour by not putting them in. Well fuck you, arsehole. If this were true, and they did indeed detract from the overall drinking experience, then, surely, they'd be called, not additives, but "subtractives." That makes perfect sense to me, anyway.

It's clear, therefore, that additives are actually like the composite element of a blended Scotch. In other words, the blend - be it Johnny Walker Red, Bell's, Teacher's, or whatever â - is, in reality, inferior to each of its constituent ingredients. Although there might be a hint of Oban here and touch of Laphroaig there, the overall thing will never be equal to the sum of its parts.

Now that this Truth has been revealed unto me, I shall seek out the "pure malts" of the additive world. I crave a full bottle of E332. My taste buds yearn for E447. In fact I shall lay down a whole crate of Phenylalanine Acesulfame K, in the certain knowledge that, in years to come, not only will it yield an unparalleled taste sensation, but it will be worth a fucking fortune.

Foretelling the Future

Ancient Romans were heavily into foretelling of the future, just as many people are today. But whereas in the 21st century we usually do it using horoscopes, the Romans made use of so-called "divination." In the early days, this involved having an augur kill a chicken and examine its innards. So, for example, a slightly enlarged liver might be interpreted as: "It could be a bad day for joint finances. But chin up. Discuss things with your partner before making any rash decisions concerning money." Similarly, a slightly elongated spleen could mean: "You may have suspected for a while that someone at work has the hots for you. You may well be right! So now is the time to act. Remember, a faint heart never won a fair maiden." And so on.

Politicians such as Cato and, later, Cicero, soon began to mock such practices, however. In one of many orations on the subject to the Senate, Cicero demanded to know how the internal organs of just one chicken could possibly apply to each and every citizen of the Roman Empire. It was, he said, as ludicrous a concept as trying to predict tidal activity simply by studying the phases of the moon. Chicken wholesalers and their attendant augurs were stung by such criticisms and decided to take measures. Accordingly, every Roman citizen was thereafter supplied with a personalized chicken, delivered glued into his daily newspaper. The recipient could then slaughter it himself over breakfast or en route to work and examine its entrails and their meanings in privacy. Historians don't tell us whether or not this method was any more or less accurate than the previous "one size fits all" chicken, but it is worth noting that, in 44BC, Julius Caesar recklessly threw away the Ides of March edition of his Ludus Cotidie, having studied only the back page gladiatorial results and the picture of Venus on page 3. How might things have turned out had he had more patience that morning and read on until he'd reached the section with the attached chicken?

Whatever, inconvenient though all this undeniably was, I nevertheless feel that chicken evisceration was a far better method of foretelling the future than today's rather feeble newspaper horoscopes. In fact, were the technique still in use, modern technology could aid matters dramatically. Newsagents would be able to X-ray the chickens beforehand, thus determining the exact, pre-evisceration configuration of their innards. Customers could therefore specify, "I'd like to shag my secretary today, together with that girl with the big tits from Marketing." Thus (for slightly more money, no doubt) you'd have the opportunity to buy a newspaper whose chicken predicted exactly this.

Even if you didn't pre-screen your newspaper/chicken combination, though, it needn't be the end of the world, bad news notwithstanding. For instance, the Ides of March edition might suggest: "Your giblets are in the Ascendant today, which hints at tension in the workplace. You could well find yourself stabbed to death by colleagues and close friends. If so, try to take this for the constructive criticism that it actually is rather than any sort of personal attack. Besides, it's not all doom and gloom. Later, there's a strong possibility of being proclaimed a god and of your lineage founding a dynasty lasting five hundred years."

But so what? If you didn't like the prediction, you could at least console yourself by making a tasty soup or stock out of what was left of the chicken.

Flabby Bastards

Today I went to Selfridges on Oxford Street and bought, amongst other things, a pair of Canali trousers. I noted something quite disturbing while selecting them. For any one specific brand and style, all the prices are identical, regardless of the size. So in other words, I pay the same for my 32 inch waist trousers as does some fat bastard with a 46 inch waist. Although his trousers obviously require more material, more stitching, and of course more work, he is in no way penalised. Such is the case, too, for jackets, shoes, coats, and indeed every other type of garment. Designers have obviously calculated the likely size of the fattest bastard imaginable and used him as their benchmark when pricing labour costs and material. Accordingly, even if someone weighing 40 stone buys a garment, the retailers will still turn a profit. However, because their costs are pitched to cope with the LAZY, FLABBY SHITE, they will make an even greater profit from anyone who buys a smaller garment. This means that I and others of a sensible weight and size are effectively subsidising obesity. We are legitimising flab.

But if our legislators are content with this situation, why let it end there? Why not apply those same principles to the sale of food and other items? In other words, if you can prove that you're physically capable of eating an entire 14lb chicken at a single sitting, it should be sold to you for the same price that someone else, of lesser appetite, pays for a chicken breast. Likewise in a pub. If you are obviously able to handle ten pints of beer without difficulty, you should pay the same for them as someone who buys only two and then collapses. Condoms, sweets, double-glazing - the list of possibilities is fucking endless.

Yes, ridiculous when you think about it, isn't it? In my opinion, therefore, the pricing benchline for clothes should be set to cope with a person whose waist is 32 inches, chest 43 inches, and shoe size 10. These sorts of people (who, co-incidentally, count me amongst their number) should pay just a nominal fee for their clothing. Anyone over those dimensions, however, should accrue proportionately higher charges until it eventually becomes uneconomic for them to go clothes shopping. After all, if you do have a 46 inch waist, what the fuck point is there in wearing stylish clothes in the first place? These people make me want to puke.

Bull

In order to win over meat-eaters to the vegetarian cause, many vegetarian meals are designed to look exactly like their bovine, porcine, and equine counterparts. For example, most veggieburgers have the appearance and texture of beefburgers. Similarly, veggie frankfurters are virtually indistinguishable from the genuine article. They even approximate the taste, unfortunately.

This is all very laudable and no doubt helps ease the transition towards a totally herbivorous lifestyle. Why, though, is all this effort directed solely at proselytising carnivores? Why is nothing done to help those vegetarians - possibly an equal number - who are trying to kick the habit and become meat-eaters?

In my opinion, scientists should direct their attentions towards breeding strains of cattle that look like cucumbers and carrots. Then, aspiring carnivores would feel less guilty and/or nauseous about consuming them. Indeed, as long as the cucumber didn't moo as it was sliced, people probably wouldn't notice the difference. Only when they bit into it would they realise it was meat, and not vegetable, but by then they'd have committed themselves. In time, they would be able to leave such pretence behind and tuck, guiltlessly, into a genuine fillet steak.

Of course, there is always the risk that a specially bred bull-cucumber might get loose, infiltrate the supermarket greengrocery section, and shag a genuine cucumber. If he came from a BSE infected strain, he could pass on the infection. Then people could catch Kreutzfeld-Jacob disease from their salads.

By the same token, however, the existence of bull-cucumbers would be a boon to farmers plagued by trespassers. To frighten off such people, they currently have to put "Beware of the Bull" posters in their fields. But, with the advent of the hybrids, they needn't need go to the expense of having a real bull in the field any more. They could just put a cucumber in there, and no-one would know the difference

Sock Catastrophe

One of my fucking socks has a got a hole in it. This means that, although its fellow sock remains in pristine condition, I'm nevertheless going to have to bin both of them. What a tragic waste - the exact equivalent of the Indian custom of suttee, where an otherwise perfectly serviceable widow is chucked on to the funeral pyre along with her husband's corpse. The only other alternative is to saw off one of my feet, which I'm not prepared to do, because it would then render all my left-shoes redundant.

If both socks were designed to wear out concurrently, this situation would never have arisen, of course. But the fact of the matter is, one of them always goes first. Perhaps, then, rather than selling socks in pairs, stores should sell them in threes, the extra acting as a backup sock, able to be turned inside out, as required, so as to fit either the right or left foot. An additional benefit is that three-legged people, of whom there are a few in the world (and who, because of their scarcity, aren't usually catered for by the international sock conglomerates) would be able to buy matching socks without embarrassment.

Then again, the three-legged people are probably going to start bitching even more than the rest of us when one of their socks develops a hole, because they're now going to have to throw away three socks instead of two. So perhaps a better solution would be to sell socks singly. In any case, when you think about it, the concept of a "pair" of socks is deeply flawed, discriminating as it does against people such as Heather Mills-McCartney, Long John Silver, and, for that matter, anyone who's trodden on a land mine.

All of which makes me wonder about the legitimacy of that chain of stores called "The Sock Shop." If you go into one and try to buy a single sock, they'll often tell you to fuck off. Well fuck them, too. Unless they're prepared to rename themselves "The Socks Shop", they should be forced by Trading Standards only to sell single socks. Otherwise give these arseholes an inch and they'll take a mile.

Blessed Eggs

There is a definite hierarchical structure to eggs. At the very bottom of the rung is the Economy or Value egg - the "trailer trash" of the egg world. At the top is the free-range variety, laid in straw. Indeed, unscrupulous egg counterfeiters will often take lesser eggs and mix straw in with them in an attempt to persuade gullible bunny-huggers that they're "the real thing." Being produced in a barn is therefore clearly seen as a mark of superiority.

I suppose this accounts for Jesus' status. Unlike other, inferior religious figures, He, too, was produced in a barn. Not only that, but He was laid in a straw-filled receptacle as well. Consequently Jesus has much in common with a free-range egg. Except, of course, no-one prays to free-range eggs very much or expects them to forgive many sins.

I imagine this must have really pissed off First Century hens who lived in the same barn as the Holy Family. Especially when they, themselves, could easily produce three or four in a single go (on a daily basis, too) whereas Mary only managed the one yield, and that took all of nine months to appear. Yet, ultimately, it was Mary's output that got adored by the Magi, ascended into Heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father, and so on.

The hens must have asked themselves, cluckingly, "What the fuck has Her's got that mine haven't?" (Particularly if they were those high-pedigree Colombian black fantail breed whose eggs, these days, sell for a fortune in Waitrose.) Perhaps this explains the Holy Ghost. Maybe members of the Council of Nicea kept getting attacked by chickens, angry at being excluded from the pantheon. So in order to keep from having their arses pecked every morning and boiled eggs exploding in their faces, these early Church elders invented the concept of the Holy Ghost, depicting Him as a dove. In this way, the hens' grievances were assuaged in that, thereafter, they could plausibly claim, "That lad's really one of ours - a fellow bird."

Cotton Socks

This morning, while walking the dogs, I observed a woman doing likewise with hers. Suddenly, and unknowingly, she dropped one of her leads. Being the gentleman that I am, I picked it up, hailed her, and returned it. At this point she smiled sweetly and said to me, "Bless your little cotton socks."

I, of course, have a number of problems with this. First, my socks, like all proper socks, are woollen. Secondly, they're not little. I have size 10 feet. Thirdly, how come she as (I assume) a layperson takes it upon herself to bless anything of mine, let alone socks? It was therefore the exact equivalent of me going, unbidden, into a Catholic Church and trying to get one of the priest's Custard Creams to transubstantiate.

Then again, maybe she isn't a layperson, and she actually does have the authority to give blessings. In which case, why only my socks and no other item of clothing? This is like the Pope appearing before the crowds in St Peter's Square on a Sunday and intoning, "The blessing of Almighty God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be upon you and remain with you always. Just you Franciscans in the corner over there, I mean. The rest of you can all go fuck yourselves."

Similarly, then, by saying "Bless your little cotton socks" to the exclusion of all else, the woman may as well have added, "But I hope your fucking trousers rip, your flies burst, and the sleeves drop off your ill-fitting polyester jacket, you cunt."

What can inspire such unwarranted animosity? Whatever it is, I won't tolerate it. The next time I see her, I'll order the dogs to attack and eat her.