There comes a time in certain evenings when location, location, location is critical. It’s the point at which you consider that if it’s going to be your place whether you can discreetly kick several days of dirty underwear into the cupboard whilst distracting your beau with the information that the beer is in the fridge, next to the condoms cooker.

Now this may well be a bloke thing, but more often than not I find myself not really having much of a say in where the horizontal jogging is going to take place. Like in football, I guess we’d all sooner have home advantage, but being a guy it’s hard to insist too persistently on an all back to mine without it sounding like you have a bondage dungeon set up with webcams ready to roll (and there was me leaving me underwear on the floor when I’m going live on the internet. Tsk!).

Exactly why girls think there’ll be that much safer in their homes is beyond me. Maybe knowing the layout makes them think they’ll win the race to the drawer with the kitchen knives in it first, but if you can’t spot a serial killer after a few drinks with someone then where you shag him is not going to help much (clue: if he’s drinking a lot of Chianti then RUN AWAY!).

I’m slightly cannibalising an old post here but, appropriately enough, the Stoke Newington property I recently found myself going back to in the early hours of the morning was like the house in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, minus the animal bones. And this was before I’d reached the bedroom.

At the risk of sound at picky and just a tad gay, it was a bloody hovel. I appreciate the fact the lady was celebrating finishing her exams, but surely she can’t have been concentrating that hard that she failed to notice the brambles GROWING IN THROUGH THE WINDOW!

As I was bringing sexy back to Stoke Newington I slipped off my socks, and felt something frisking my bare ankles. It was a dusty tumbleweed, although considering my first guess was a daddy long legs then it could have been worse.

On my way to the bed I almost tripped over the myriad cables running across the floor (never a bad idea to have electrical appliances on the same side of the room as the sockets), although the plate with the congealing food on it probably would have broken my fall, assuming I’d managed to hit it head first.

Before we got under the covers the lady asked if I was one of those weirdos who insists on cleaning their teeth before bed. Not only am I that weird, but I’m also crazy enough to insist on duvet covers, pillow cases and an undersheet being on the fuckin’ bed. However, the reasons why the bed may have been left all white soon became uncomfortably clear.

One thing I became aware off when my lady friend slipped off her jeans was a patch of dry skin that started in the small of her back and traversed all the way down to… well, down to her the end of her hamstrings. And that was just the left hand side. She then had a bloody good scratch before curling up to me. Again, it might be that gay thing, but eeeuw!

I tells ya, it was like going to bed with a leper. I was terrified that I’d wake up in the middle of the night with her arm around me while the rest of her body was still on the other side of the bed.

And I have to say that noticing that a quarter of the ceiling was lower than the rest did nothing for my insomnia, although I’m sure all the cobwebs would have caught any falling debris.

The most amazing thing is that the girl was worried that the property was going to be condemned soon. Well in one sense, based on the past 300 words, it now has been.

And the motto of this story?

Never shag anyone who’s Welsh.

I’m starting to see why I’ve never become one of those people who go out clubbing every weekend, being faced as I am today with the realisation that life can seem a bit crap on the Monday back in work after a heady weekend.

Walking in this morning and seeing Doofus with her summer shirt and smug pigeon expression slapped across her face, sitting there as if she hadn’t left on Friday afternoon… well it was probably the worst comedown I’ve ever had.

But enough about the personification of Valium and onto the night out. While at the club I spent some time chatting to an Aussie bird who offered the following cultural observations on London nightlife:

1) Everyone’s off their face
2) The blokes are really into their dancing
3) Where are all the chiggers?

Taking these points one by one:

1) Probably explains why the queue for the toilets these days is longer than the one to get into the actual venue
2) We live in a post-Bez world. Every bloke must have checked out Bez’s moves and thought if he can get away with dancing like that then I’m up for some of that.
3) ‘Chiggers’ is apparently the colloquial and casually racist Aussie term for Chinese and Japanese people. I have no idea where they could have been that night, although a friend did once tell me that Ministry of Sound is like a paddyfield.

A ‘chigger’ did actually come up to me at one point and try and tap me up for some pills. Whenever someone does this I always wonder to myself whether:

1) I look completely off my face and obviously on something
2) I look like a dealer
3) I look incredibly approachable, friendly, generous and handsome; someone worth talking to and maybe getting some gear off at the same time

She didn’t get anything off me, but I’d have been surprised if she scored at all considering her technique. It was a bit like that Brasseye drugs episode where Chris Morris tries to buy fake drugs from a dealer (e.g. “clarky cat”). The lady recited a string of supposed ‘street’ terms for ecstasy, as if she’d been to a website to check for drug colloquialisms in the hope of looking cool, although it's probably more likely she spent the evening completely bewildering people instead.

Kids today, eh? They talk so hip, man, they’re twisting my melon. Call the copssssss.

Occasionally, a post can come back and bite one in the ass.

Right now, this one has got its teeth in my posterior.

Ok, slap on the cuffs; it’s a far cop, guvnor. After mocking amateur axe slingers I have, after a hiatus of a couple of years or so, re-enrolled in their ranks.

In a rash moment a couple of months ago I promised my friend I’d bring my guitar back to Wales this summer and, er, ‘jam’ with him. The relentless march of time has since reduced this clash between the irresistible force and the immovable object to two weeks, two days.

Now, in most things, I’ve never been the most methodical or disciplined person, preferring instead to fly by the seat of my pants and coast it. However, in the last two to three weeks I’ve been gripped by a rigid devotion to practicing my guitar every day. Not only that, but my practice times have increased from an average of 90 minutes to yesterday’s whopping three hours.

As a consequence, I’m actually starting to see a difference. Who would have thought practicing religiously would actually make a difference? If only I’d realised this when I was seventeen; I’d have about fifty platinum discs by now.

The only reason I can think of for this sudden onset of iron will is I’m scared shitless my friend is going to kick my ass and then showboat like he’s Hendrix at Woodstock. And why do I think this? Because he is a notorious showboater. This is a guy who will win a game of pool due to someone going in off and then proceed to do a touchdown shuffle around the length of the bar, before throwing in his Dennis Taylor celebration medley.

The only thing is that my guitar playing is starting to become compulsive. I spend most of the working day thinking about the damn guitar, and it’s not right: I hardly have any time these days to think about sex.

But, in the spirit of my original post, I will proceed to thoroughly mock TKK, amateur guitarist.

The axegod TKK likes to think he is when he practices:

The guitarists TKK and friend will most resemble in two weeks, two days:

Summertime is having an unseasonable effect on the delicate balance of power in my office, with all of us having booked extended annual leave in June, July and August.

Initially, things were pretty good. Doofus departed first, and in her infinite wisdom timed her leave to coincide with the first week of Wimbledon. Naturally, it rained incessantly, and I have it on good authority she was half-drowned when a couple of her rambling excursions were cut short by sudden monsoon-like downpours.

While she was away we partied liked it was 1999. Doofus contributes nothing to the collective atmosphere in the office, and her absence was barely noticed. Even when it rained it felt like a warm and sunny day inside our office.

However, for the second half of last week and this week colleague No. 1 is off. Next week colleague No 2 is off for two weeks (I don’t go on leave until July 27). Both of my colleagues function as valuable buffers between me and Doofus; with either of them on annual leave it means I’m in a precarious position:

Everyday I wake up knowing I could face an entire day alone in the office with Doofus.

Both colleague No. 1 and No. 2 are regularly off sick, with them probably being off for a combined total of five months last year (yes, in the NHS you can get away with taking that much sick leave). At least when they’re both here then if one is away then the chances are the other will be in (although this is not always a given). However, with the current annual leave situation it means I’m walking the high wire without a safety net.

On days when it’s just the two of us together, I feel like I’m Lister from Red Dwarf, the sole surviving human from Earth, and trapped in deep space with a computer hologram simulation of Arnold Rimmer. It may be the case that in the cosmos no one can hear you scream, but in a small office everyone can hear your frequent deep sighs.

We’re talking about being alone in a confined space with a person who has an expression on their face when filing which should be reserved for someone in the throes of cunnilingus.

It’s completely sick.

To try and cope I’ve constructed a mini Berlin wall in the middle of our table (which I’ve just been informed by the lead nurse is a health and safety violation) out of patient files, principally for symbolic reasons and practically because it means the nosey bitch can’t gawp at my PC screen anymore during the day.

However, inspired by one of my favourite Alfred Hitchcock films, Strangers on a Train, I’m prepared to make an offer. If anyone else has the co-worker from hell sat next to them, let’s bond and make a pact: I’ll bump off your co-worker and you mine. Criss-cross.

Granted, the plan cooked up in that particular film didn’t work out too well, but I’m sure if we keep away from fairgrounds then everything will work out just fine…

School days the best years of your life? Don’tcha believe it.

If ever there was a reason to grow old and take a step closer to death then it’s avoiding the fool’s errand that is selling raffle tickets.

I’m sure we all know the MO. The school needs to raise £500 to buy a comfortable chair for the headmaster, so the teachers organise a ruthless child exploitation racket and send out a horde of wee shiny tweenies to look pathetic and hawk raffle tickets.

It would be a good scam if the prizes weren’t so perennially unappealing.

Typical ‘prizes’ include something like a basket of corn beef (third prize!), a bottle of Baltic wine that looks suspiciously like Latvian vinegar (second prize!), or a weekend in a Tenby beach cottage (a shed) in November (first prize!).

I’m reminded of the raffle tickets of doom because, working within the NHS, you’re unendingly faced with all kinds of bizarre fundraisers, although a dialysis machine is somewhat more worthy than a leather swivel chair for the headmaster’s study.

To shift the raffle tickets of despair to uncharitable NHS staff takes a somewhat hard-boiled character, which probably explains why the female volunteer who performs this thankless task at my workplace is affectionately known as “poison dwarf”. However, I consider this sobriquet something of a generous appellation given her toxic personality, and have officially re-named her as “tumour on legs”.

To get a flavour of the woman’s disposition, take the following example. In the middle of one of the terminally bad tempered rants she goes into when unable to shift any tickets she had a go at the receptionist in my office. Calming down for a moment, this was her attempt at an apology: “I didn’t mean to shout at you, but you’re the closest person to me”. Well on that basis let’s hope she doesn’t start feeling homicidal any time soon. Close proximity could be bad for your health.

Hardened and grizzled NHS staff break down when they see her approach. Spotting her waddle up the driveway is like watching a septic jelly ascend an incredibly slow escalator.

But that’s not the worse thing about her. Oh no.

She has a sister.

A twin sister.

Her even more evil twin.

Fear the raffle tickets of doom, fear them! The toxic twins have got you in a pincer movement.

One thing I have never been able to understand is the mentality of those lucky bastards individuals who win the lottery but carry on their pre-jackpot lifestyle.

I’m sure you must have read several tales about how Joe Bloggs won £10,000,000 when he decided to buy a lottery ticket after finding a £1 in a gutter. However, despite being Seriously Fuckin’ Minted, Mr Bloggs will still be getting up at 5am to strangle chickens in the slaughterhouse, living in his poxy terraced house oop north and maybe having a week’s holiday in September to take Mrs Smith up to Blackpool, because he wouldn’t want anyone to think his millions are going to change him. Oh no.

Well fuck all that nonsense about the social dislocation caused (supposedly) by the sudden accumulation of wealth. I think it should be compulsory for lottery jackpot winners to blow their loot a la Brewster’s Millions. If they really want their lives to go on as before then send a truck with all the dosh over to my gaff and have them dump it in the garden so I ski down a mountain of £50 notes.

Personally, I would have no compunction whatsoever about ditching all my friends, disowning my family, hanging out in the Groucho and pissing on Keith Allen’s loafers in the bogs.

Yesterday, I thought I'd reached the promised land when the following email dropped into my inbox.

-----Original Message-----
From: The National Lottery [mailto:admin@national-lottery.co.uk]
Sent: 01 July 2007 15:10
To: Timekillingkid@TKKTowers.com
Subject: News about your ticket!

Kind Regards
Interactive Customer Care
www.national-lottery.co.uk

Now if I had become an overnight multi-millionaire then I’m sure Camelot would have done more then send me an automated email. However, the prospect of a six-figure sum loomed greedily before my eyes. I logged in to my account quicker than John Leslie can ‘change lanes without indicating’.

Of course, my winnings, along with 500,000 other ‘lucky’ players, amounted to a tenner. Fuck, Fuck, fuckity fuck. It explains why I’m typing this while bad temperedly chewing Polo mints and flashing the occasional glare in Doofus’ direction.

I really, really, was looking forward to coming in to work today bedecked in a dishevelled tuxedo, swigging champagne and burning £50 notes in front of my colleagues’ faces, then slapping Doofus across the forehead with a two-foot salmon (the latter might still happen before the end of the day).

Still, my ‘winnings’ allow another ten opportunities to bid adieu to my pauperish lifestyle, and hola! to the salmon slapping, the Sterling slalom and the shoe pissing. As I keep telling myself: it could (still) be you.