To top up my measly work salary, and because I’ve already sold off one of my kidneys, I’ve been flogging some of my less than essential possessions on eBay. But whenever I do it’s guaranteed that some fuckwit from Italy will send me a bovine question about halfway through the listing period. I’ve got a pair of BNWT Reebok shorts on offer (that’s almost all of 2005’s Christmas presents gone now), and you’d think they’d sell themselves. Instead, I get Mr Rossi with the following triplet of questions:

How much is to send them in Italy? Are they good to do fitness? I mean they are not swim shorts, are they?

Well I suppose if your waist is around 34” then they’re pretty good to do fitness. Otherwise if you’re a bit broader round the middle they won’t be much good as they’ll curtail your breathing and restrict your thigh movement. And if you’re particularly slim then they’ll be crap for running as they’ll keep falling down every couple of metres. And if they were bloody swim shorts I’d have described them as such. I’m sure you could swim in them, but not having described them as ‘swim-shorts’ let’s go ahead and assume they’re not feckin' swim-shorts.

Next week: TKK sells a tank and some Italian idiot halfway through the listing period asks:

How much is to send them in Italy? Are they good to do war? I mean they are not airplane are they?

Today in my office is an occurrence I’ve christened the Day of Death. This results from my more socially-able colleagues bunking off work and leaving me alone for eight hours with the Scary Woman of the West who sits next to me in work. Now what I’m about to post might seem mean and petty, but being a mean and petty person I can’t myself.

Imagine somebody who is conversational kryptonite, possibly the eternal void where inner dialogue should be and a surfeit of generalised anxiety that can be triggered by the simple act of someone trying to send a fax into the office. That’s my day until 5pm.

It’s hard to describe the atmosphere in the office when it’s just the two of us. It’s a bit like those couples who’ve been married for sixty years and haven’t spoken for the past fifty. You see them in cafes just sitting next to each other, staring at the same sticky bun on the counter. At a previous stint I was here for six months before she actually spoke to me in my (then) last week saying something about ‘do I use Hotmail?’ No, but I would like the sticky bun we’re always staring at if it’s not gone stale by now.

Now on my second stint here I can see the OCD has cleared up remarkably well (a checker rather than a washer), although sending a fax does take thirty minutes as she’s rings around checking it’s gone through (the confirmation report from the fax machine not being enough for her).

Occasionally she’ll pipe up with the odd gem like last week when she wondered what Ariel Sharon was thinking about Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Funnily enough, I don’t think he has much of an opinion on it right now…

If she takes a message for me while I'm out the office she'll type it up and put my full name, job title, address, then her name, job title, telephone extension (she sits next to me), rather than just turning her head and saying ‘your mum wants you to call back'.

How I'm going to cope with the tension of just hearing the pipes hum and my own inner thought process for the day I'm not sure. I’ve already considered getting myself admitted to one of the wards for the day and then kicking off so they forcibly tranquilise me and stick me in solitary until 5pm. I’m not quite sure how I’ll make it through the day without gnawing off both of my fists, so if I don’t blog for a while after today then you’ll know the reason why…

Over the bank holiday I spent an evening in Lee Hurst’s backyard. And I can confirm it’s not just on top where he’s missing a few threads.

For those who had a smut bypass ten years ago, Lee Hurst’s Backyard is a comedy club. Oh, and Lee Hurst is a comedian. Allegedly. And he’s bald. Fact.

Now I’ve been to many comedy nights but something happened that I’ve never experienced before: the compere actually asked the audience not to heckle.

What was that all about? It’s almost like John Lydon in 1976-77 asking his audience not to gob at the band.

Admittedly, no one likes a group of boorish drunks shouting ‘fuck off!’ every couple of minutes, but telling an audience to politely sit and clap and laugh every now and again is missing the point of a comedy night. Listening to a comedian recite well-rehearsed material is not half as much fun as when they’re forced to think on their feet and improvise, and sometimes the wag in the audience is way funnier than the jokeblower who’s up on stage.

I recall in my LSE university days (they have a regular Saturday night comedy night which I recommend) Mark Thomas walking onstage and starting his set by asking the audience to heckle him.

Audience member #1: Fuck off!
MT: Is that what your girlfriend says to you in bed?
AM#2: Raise the dead!
MT: Obviously a third year.

One thing that most definitely wasn’t funny about the evening was the admission price (£15 on the door for a comedy evening minus a big name is, ahem, having a laugh) and its non-smoking policy. I think pretty much the only place you could smoke near the club was on the white lines on the road outside. Banning heckling and smoking in clubs: what is the world coming to?

I know you shouldn’t laugh at the mentally ill, but sometimes you just can’t help it.

I’m currently on a short-term contract doing admin stuff at a psychiatric inpatient unit which, surprisingly, is normally quite uneventful. But this morning I had an encounter with a regularly sectioned patient who I’ve been warned about and managed to avoid. Until today.

In order to maintain the patient confidentiality aspect of my contract I shall refer to her as Ms Sergeant. I’ll also refer to her in that way because she gets quite arsey if you address her by her first name. Then again, she also gets arsey if you call her ‘Ms Sergeant’, and is known for bawling at people “What you talkin’ to me for? I don’t talk to farkin' strangers!”

In terms of appearance she generally presents as a very colourfully dressed Afro-Caribbean lady with a knitting fetish. Every time she pitches up for her random visits she seems to have knitted herself an even bigger green hat. Which goes well with the yellow and pink knitted skirts and tops she normally wears. And did I mention it’s summer in London? This morning she turned up playing something on her radio that sound like 1960s Atlantic soul. ASBO kind of loud. But it still wasn’t louder than the clothes she was wearing.

I’ve seen her about the area from time-to-time (it’s pretty hard to miss her), but apparently she used to like hanging out on Tottenham Court Road, rather than any of the nice parks or squares in Fitzrovia. She’d lay out a knitted blanket on the pavement then proceed to start knitting. As mentioned above, she liked to wear clothes she’d knitted herself, which were generally held together by safety pins because she was crap at stitching. She also used to wear green wellington boots and was generally quite flexible about wearing underwear. But I did mention it was the summer.

She also has four kids, the quartet all having been adopted. In case you get all I am Sam on me, she used to wash one in litres of olive oil on a regular basis, slightly more than could be considered a practical topical dose. And if she ever needed money she’d just nip over to King’s Cross and turn a couple of tricks. A resourceful woman.

And this morning I came face-to-face with her when she turned up asking for her knitting. Which she thought someone had stolen. This on the morning when out of my three other office co-workers one was off sick, one was on annual leave and one had slept in. So no hiding behind the cabinet for me today.

So, take it from me, no matter how ‘mad’ and ‘crazy’ you might label yourself, you most definitely are not. At least not Ms Sergeant kind of crazy.

I had to snigger when I read this. Apparently Keane singer Tom Chaplin is being treated for drink and drug abuse, and in a statement was quoted as follows:

"I've been having to deal with an increasing problem with drink and drugs, and the time has come to get the professional help I need to sort myself out.”

I’m not surprised something like this was allowed to develop, based on the way the rest of the band neglected to take any action over Chaplin’s obvious eating disorder:

Did any of them not notice the tell tale signs, such as the missing pies on the band’s riders?

Keane were alleged to have utilised the services of an image consultant before releasing a record, something that Keane themselves have denied, and on this occasion I’m willing to take their side against the normally fantastic Alexis Petridis (see his amazing review of Jamie Foxx’s current album). Any image consultant worth his salt would have told you not to have a fat bastard as your frontman. Or maybe PR branding firms are parasites who know fuck all and talk complete bollocks.

They say it ain’t over until the fat lady sings. Or she goes into rehab.

So the time has come to send my faithful pair of running shoes to the great big shoe box in the sky. Despite years of service and devotion, they’d started to become a bit like an elderly incontinent relative who you love but no longer want to be seen out in public with. And they smelt really bad.

I knew they had to go when the soles came loose, and when something you love loses its sole then it’s time to part company. Whenever I ran on concrete, because of the loose soles, they’d make a slapping sound that sounded like I was being spanked while I was running (which wouldn’t be a bad idea to get me running quicker while I’m out there). They were also useless at protecting my ankles from small white dogs, and had no grip on turf whenever it rained (not a bad thing when you’re on a cross country run).

That’s no to say there weren’t any fond memories over the years. They did score some cracking goals and also, I must confess, foul a lot of people and shank a couple of penalties, but the time has come to hang up my boots or, more truthfully, chuck them in the bin:

Anthea Turner is the kind of person who divides the nation; the divide being between the rest of the country, who can’t stand her, and myself, who has a bit of a fetish for her. I became smitten with her after the first Celebrity Big Brother due to her on-air existential ephiphany when she realised the nation disliked Chris Eubank and Vanessa Feltz even more than her. She might also have gyrated sexually while wearing some very short shorts, but either way she won me over.

Not convinced? Consider the following mildly fetishistic photo:

Sex on a glove stick on what? Just looking at that photo makes me want to cancel the night’s plans. If I had any.

But lately, I’m almost tempted to step into the anti-Anthea camp due to her Perfect Housewife show. Take the following photo:

Is that the demented and psychotic grin of someone on the verge of full-blown obsessive-compulsive disorder, or what happens when you inhale too much Mr Sheen?

On the BBC website the lovely Anthea has kindly shared her Top Ten tips for keeping an ‘ideal home’. Sadly, reading these dampened the ardour I’ve felt for her these past few years. Take this as an example:

“There's no getting away from it: you have to clean. People who say "oh, my house is a bit of a mess, but I’m really clean" are talking rubbish because you can’t have a tidy house if it’s not clean."

“You can’t have a tidy house if it’s not clean”. And some people think this woman is a bit dense.

No. 5 is pretty good:

“Wicker baskets are marvellous for putting things in.”

No shit! I’ve heard cookers are good for cooking things on.

And then there’s this:

"By organizing your house efficiently you’ll spend less time being frustrated by the things you can’t find and more time enjoying the things you can".

I like being frustrated at not being able to find things. It gives me an excuse to be late for work every morning.

But as my flat is a permanent dump, I’m seriously tempted to give BBC3 a call and get her to come round to my gaff. She has a clean fetish. I have a dirty fetish. I see a meeting of minds on this one…

Couples suck. What with their snogging on the tube, getting in your way when you’re shopping and keeping Mil Millington in work, you’ve just gotta hate ‘em.

It’s even worse if you’re living somewhere in north London where the ceilings are gossamer thin, which means having to endure ever excruciating detail of your upstairs/downstairs neighbours’ shagging sessions or, as the relationship develops, every last shouting session.

Relationship #1 was between the amigo in the flat beneath me and his half Greek/half Italian girlfriend. My feeling is they just skipped the sex and moved straight to the argument stage of their relationship, because that’s all they ever seem to do.

I would occasionally earwig because (a) it wasn’t technically earwigging as amigo’s girlfriend was so loud that I didn’t need to leave my flat to hear it and (b) it was fuckin’ hilarious.

Towards the end of their relationship she came out with a line that I’m still trying to tease out the meaning to. In the middle of some relationship destroying saving argument she shouted at him:

“You and I have created a matrix together!”

Any ideas?

Although I’ve never myself satisfactorily unravelled the above riddle, one thing I did learn is that my constant haranguing of amigo because of the noise he made was probably not going to have much of an effect based on his girlfriend’s limited success.

Hence I adopted the new tactic of putting his mail through the office shredder. And before anyone gasps, I always made a point of filtering his post and taking out anything that looked important. And shredding those letters first.

Unfortunately, the end of this affair segued into one starting with the guy in the flat above, whose Olympian seeings-to he administered to his new beau I’ve documented in past blogs. But over the last few weeks things have been remarkably quiet. Until yesterday evening.

Showing that her caterwauling was not limited to sex, she proceeded to bawl him out for around two hours. One phrase that stuck in my mind was her screaming “why am I the one always apologising?!”

Really? Well I don’t remember her apologising to me when her 2am shag-sessions woke me up before two of my psychology finals exams or when her cat kept getting into my flat after midnight when I left the door ajar during the hot July nights.

But as they’ve reached this terminal stage in their relationship I can only assume it means I can now stop spending half my salary on earplugs. Peace in our time.

Now some of you might be thinking: TKK, with an attitude like that how can you sleep at night? And my answer:

Like a newborn. Once they’d finished arguing.

God bless Prince Harry. And it’s not often you’d hear those sentiments from such an ardent republican as myself. For those of you who haven’t seen the front page of the Sun this morning and pissed yourself laughing, here’s your opportunity:

The Sun’s front page headline, inevitably, is ‘Dirty Harry’ (how long has that been inked up on the whiteboard of future headlines?)

I, perhaps surprisingly, would like to defend Harry. He’s doing simply what all good-for-nothing idle parasitic princes have been doing for centuries: getting sloshed on the public purse and groping posh totty.

It makes me proud to be British.

Doubtless after the publication of the picture this morning Harry must be feeling a right tit. Evidently, this won't be a new experience for him.

Being healthy has its drawbacks. One of the secretaries where I work has just been signed off by her doctor for a fortnight, to add to the week she’d been signed off for before this 14 day bonanza. The reason for this three weeks of watching Trisha and getting out of bed at 2pm? A slight stiffness in her elbow from typing. Now if that isn’t a reason for adopting a hazardous posture, ergonomically fucking up your work station and contravening all health and safety regulations then I don’t know what is.

Apart from the three weeks extra summer holiday the doctor has given her, why I’m slightly irritated is it means I get denied the humour of the fuck-ups her speech recognition typing software makes.

To ease her return to work my colleague has this installed on her PC, so when the doctors give her audio tapes to type she then dictates them into the PC which transcribes the letters for her. I know some of you in the private sector might be shaking your heads at this, but that’s the anti-Darwinian NHS/public sector for you.

Now it takes a while to train up just for everyday language usage, so has no chance when it comes to accurately transcribing medical terminology, and my current favourite has to be substituting ‘awful kitchen’ for ‘vulval itching’. For all those women searching for a suitable euphuism for those embarrassing trips to the clap clinic, the search is over:

Sympathetic doctor: What appears to be the problem?
Embarrassed female patient: Well ever since the painters came round on Thursday I’ve had a terrible problem with my awful kitchen!
SD: That will happen if they don’t tip their paintbrushes in white spirit from the last job…

So I go out to lunch and Quintonpath disappears. Again. And I'd gone and brought him back a Snickers.

Before I start, do my newly madeover blogs kick ass or what! Anyhow…

An ex-girlfriend and I used to go constantly to the cinema, not because we were an especially horny couple (which, of course, we were) with no place to make out, but because we were avid film buffs who, thankfully, had similar tastes in films. We went to see Dark Water, which I thought was a mildly spooky film, but which sent the fear of God up her. Maybe because of her being Japanese the dialogue gave the extra edge to the film that the subtitles took away for me, but she was pretty, pretty scared.

I realised this because my fingers still have the scars to prove it.

My ex used to wear numerous heavy rings on most of her fingers, and as the film started getting a bit scary she held onto my hand. But whenever the film got particularly scary, she would start squeezing my hand.

Now when us chaps are either (a) lost, (b) required to offer up a fashion opinion on our Julia’s new top or (c) admit we’re in some pain then we tend to remain silent. But MY GOD did I want to howl with pain as metal made contact with bone. It got to the point where my ex could have been charged by the police for an index offence. I know, it’s the way I tell ‘em.

So partly to get my revenge and seeing how my ex had reacted to a mildly scary horror film, I thought it was time to take her to see the daddy of slasher flicks, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that was on at the Prince Charles Cinema.

On meeting up outside the cinema the first thing I did was insist she took her rings off both hands.

As the film started I could tell my ex was in for an eventful evening, and by the time of the first couple of victims she was screaming louder than Leatherface’s victims. I momentarily forgot the brutal onscreen murders that were unfolding before 100+ people in a public place and started laughing my ass off. This led to the incongruous sight of the entire cinema screaming, except for me, and the more everyone screamed the more I found myself laughing.

I’ve never denied the accusation of being a sick fuck at times.

Anyhow, if you’ve read this far you may well be thinking, ‘this was a date that went right???’

Well, if you think make up after breaking up sex is good, it’s nothing compared to post-horror flick scared to death sex.

As at the present time I’m between dealers, I’m having to settle for vicariously experiencing the narcotic life by reading Cocaine: an unauthorised biography by Dominic Streatfield.

Now one thing I couldn’t help but notice in the book was that shriekingly hysterical prohibitionist drug misinformation didn’t begin with the advent of tabloid newspapers.

If you want to put a date on it you can go back almost 500 years to the First Council of Lima of 1552 when the Catholic Church and the Spanish clergy decided to stick their noses (not literally, unfortunately) into South American coca production and consumption. Now the Incas had managed to build a pretty darn fine empire on the back of coca, which had been in societal circulation centuries before the Spanish started landing in South America, and was used for a variety of purposes besides its stimulant properties.

But who were these godless pagans to determine what was right for their societies in comparison with the omniscience of the Catholic Church? The First Council of Lima thundered of coca that ‘the plant is idolatry and the work of the Devil… a useless object liable to promote the practices and superstitions of the Indians… asserted by every competent judge to possess no true virtues.’

Now you’d never hear that kind of language in tabloid anti-drug editorials today.

The Second Council of Lima in 1567 kept up the anti-coca colonisation pressure by citing the dangers of ‘intoxication, demonic influences, paganism. It was said that women working in the cocales (coca plantations) either became barren or, when they gave birth, delivered deformed monsters’.

Now if the Catholic church wanted to be somewhat more scientific in reasons for the above they might have noted the massacres and rapes of the Indians by Spanish troops, not to mention the infectious diseases brought to the New World by Old World travellers (such as the Spanish) which contributed to a multi-million drop in Peru’s population between 1548 to 1561. Now that’s historical fact, and not another of my low blows aimed below the Spanish belt.

Travelling back to the future last weekend at my parents’ house in Wales it was good to see that the kind of hysterical language found at the Councils of Lima was absent from our progressive tabloid press. In the Sunday Mirror there was a story on one of Lily Allen’s ex-boyfriends and their ‘wild, sex-crazed nights’ on ecstasy. Apparently, the out of control lovers had ‘shared four mind-bending ecstasy pills’ which lead to them ‘writhing around on the dance floor for hours’ before having incredible e’d up sex.

All I can say is I hope my next dealer can get me the kind of good shit Lily Allen is getting.

But quite interesting choices of journalistic prose; the Council of Lima would have been proud. ‘Shared four pills’? How about just saying they took two each. But saying they took two pills sounds a bit hum-drum and not very rock n’ roll. Almost safe and moderate usage. Not exactly Brian Harvey consumption. And ecstasy is hardly ‘mind-bending’ stuff, either. LSD certainly can be, but a couple of pills is about as mind-bending as five pints of Stella. As for ‘writhing’ around the dancefloor… I’ve not seen them dancing so can’t comment on how they choose to bust their moves, but writhing sounds more like the language of a satanic ritual than a regular Saturday night bop on a dancefloor. Finger on the pulse of the youth of today or what?

But it's good to be able to say that no parallels can be drawn between the tabloid press of today and Spanish clergy from 500 years ago...

Disliking the French should be compulsory. And by that I don’t mean our cheese eating war allies over the Channel.

I am of course referring to the rotund ‘comedienne’ Dawn French.

The generously sized wife of ‘comedian’ Lenny Henry (jeez, the winter nights must just fly by in the French/Henry household…) has voiced concern about the apparent lack of younger female comediennes breaking through to topple herself and Victoria Wood.

Now leaving aside the mandatory quip that it would be tricky for a JCB to topple Dawn French (“Ladies and gentlemen: TKK!”), she should look in a mirror (in her case a particularly wide one) if she wants to see the reason why female comediennes are struggling to break through.

Frankly, if she buggered off from the BBC schedules and passed her days spending her fortune obtained from hawking chocolate products, younger comediennes may have a chance of a look-in and being to establish themselves. Do we need another series of the bleedin’ Vicar of Dibley? Fuck no. Did we ever need a series of the Vicar of Dibley? Fuck no. Do conservative TV executives need an excuse for hacking out safe TV programming? Always.

As for Victoria Wood… it was bad enough listening to her whine recently about how BBC production techniques stopped her from making Dinner Ladies the comedy she ‘wanted it to be’ (i.e. funny), let alone hearing her described as the gold standard for younger comediennes to aim at.

Did she watch any episodes of BBC comedy Nighty Night? Funny that Julia Davies didn’t seem to face the same obstacles she did in making a funny and innovative sitcom.

Now I’d like to put my theory to the test. I’d like to suggest that French and Wood keep themselves off the TV schedules for the next twenty years and we’ll see whether any younger and funnier comediennes are able to establish themselves. If not, then I’ll gladly accept I was wrong and welcome them back to hog the BBC’s comedy budget and primetime hours.

I’m sure by that point they’ll fit in nicely in Last of the Summer Wine. Old and unfunny. Might even be over-qualified.

Does anyone?

I know I should, but I don’t. I know I should see a halo whenever he speaks, but I don’t.

It says a lot that a man who can get other people to donate millions of pounds to help the starving in Africa and campaign for debt reduction can still be a thoroughly dislikeable shit.

Hence, it’s hard not to snigger at Bob’s current ‘selective appeal’ when it comes to music audiences. If you’re not aware, Bob recently had to pull a gig in Rome as only 45 people turned up. Normally at a Geldof gig the audience complains about a lame show, so it’s nice that Bob has finally been able to turn the tables and address the same remark to his fans.

Bob’s reported comment after the gig was cancelled was:

"There aren't the right conditions for a concert."

I guess not when you've been booked to play at a 12,000 capacity venue.

I don’t know who his promoter is, but if he ever organises an orgy for Bob then I hope he supplies him with plenty of Kleenex – Geldof’ll be needing them almost as much as he needs a new promoter.

However, what Bob doesn’t need is a new PR.

The excuse for the lame turnout was put down to ‘false internet gossip that the tickets were sold out’.

Fantastic.

I think it’s safe to say that should his new promoter ever see Geldof tickets being auctioned on eBay, on that particular occasion they won’t be contacting them to complain.

It’s great to be back.

Seriously.

Praise the fuckin’ Lord that the sun has called off its campaign of targeting me alone out of eight million other Londoners. It’s almost safe to wear all black again, and I reckon I’ll be wearing my cool jackets before the end of the month.

Wales was great, although on the train back I had to sit next to a complete tosser who smelt that way someone does when they’ve been up all night at a club. Added to this, for some bizarre reason he kept making train noises whenever a train passed in the opposite direction. From now on I’m definitely changing my policy whenever someone tries to sit by me on the train:

Fellow passenger: (motioning to empty seat) Is this seat taken?
TKK: Are you a complete tosser?
FP: I’m afraid I am. I smell a bit and will make train noises and talk to myself every 20 minutes.
TKK: Then fuck off and sit in another carriage.
FP: I’ll do just that. Have a nice day.

Getting back to London I found my flat had been completely ransacked with stuff all over the floor. I was in the middle of calling the police before I remembered that was exactly how I’d left it before I went away. I already miss my parents’ garden and definitely need to move to a new place, so if you’re daddy’s rich and your mother’s good lookin’, marry me and get your parents to buy us a big fuck off marital palace, although I have to point out I absolutely refuse to move south of the river.

As from this week I’ve also started two new blogs dedicated solely to football and TV. Now that my psychology degree is over I need to fill the void in my life, and as I can’t take drugs in work I thought this would fill the time between 9-5…