Conversations I Didn't Have With Shop Assistants vol n+1

Scene: At the desk at an electronics shop, waiting for the Chip and PIN machine to confirm my credit-worthiness.

Electronics Shop Assistant One: Well, I ain't being discriminatory or anything, but you won't know what it is...
Electronics Shop Assistant Two: I might.
ESA1: Alright then. It's like a cross between a lychee...
ESA2: Right...
ESA1: ...and an apple.
ESA2: An apple?
ESA1: An apple.
ESA2: Oh.
ESA1: See what I mean? Knew you wouldn't've heard of it.
ESA2: What does it taste like?
ESA1: Oh man...
ESA2: Hmm?
ESA1: It tastes like a cross between...
ESA2: Yes?
ESA1: ...a cross between an apple and a lychee.
ESA2: Oh.

There's probably a word out there for the feeling that you get when you wish you had asked someone what the name of the fruit they were describing was but didn't. However, I don't care what that word was. I just want to know what the name of the fruit was. What was it? WHAT?

Tony Blair and the Flight of Fancy

You know when you half pick up on something, and then don't want to know any more because it will inevitably spoil the magic as you learn more and find out that it's not actually as interesting as you first thought? Well, probably not, because that's quite a badly written sentence, but I am currently amusing myself with the news that there's a memo been leaked that supposedly planned for Tony Blair to make appearances on Blue Peter and Songs of Praise. Unfortunately, I already sort of know that this is to 'secure his legacy' and ease transition for the next leader of the party, but I'd love it if this were the contingency plan for all national emergencies. Say there were a chemical leak in the North Sea that threatened coastal communities and devastated fishing stocks? Get Tony on telly quick! He can be squeezed into the Blue Peter, between a segment on the Romans and the putting of the tortoise into the cardboard box of hibernation. Perhaps he could get into a centurion costume? Great. Were there to be mass rioting gutting Birmingham and spreading to other cities, perhaps he could pop into Songs of Praise, and, on acoustic guitar, belt out some rousing hymns to steel the reserve of the terrified populace?

Stupid truth. Always getting in the way of my whimsical fun.

On the Perils of Being a Stevenage Borough Fan; Dancing

Right, you work-shy fops, everyone have a good bank holiday weekend? I watched the increasingly infuriating Stevenage Boro valiantly fight their way from being 2-0 up after 12 minutes to draw 3-all for the second time in three days. It's these kind of things that make people go all crazy. If you hear of anyone embarking on a rampage through Stevenage town centre hurling heavy blunt objects from a vintage French bicyle, don't report me to the police. I've had a hard time of it, and I'm too beautiful for prison.

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Watch this, it's a good representation of how I think I dance:

Raisin Wheats, My New Breakfast Fear-eal

My breakfasts just got a whole lot more soul-curdlingly terrifying. I decided to switch from Special K (which features aspirational air-brush renderings of the womanly curves I could hope to achieve if I chomp my own weight in the stuff) to Kellog's Raisin Wheats. I didn't look closely enough when picking it off the shelf and now I have to look at this every morning. The anthropomorphic embodiment of the cereal is known as Mr Wheat ("May I call you Wheaty?" "NO! I AM MR WHEAT! ADDRESS ME AS SUCH!") and looks like the trunk of a particularly knarled ancient oak. He appears, sad mismatched eyes imploring, on the back of the box pleading with you to eat what can only be his children.

I think I'll have some toast.

Inexplicably Funny Cartoon and My Rendezvous in Birmingham

OK, this cartoon is the FUNNIEST THING EVER. Seriously. EVER. If anyone could actually explain it to me, I'd find it even funnier.

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Tomorrow I have arranged to meet a man that I do not know at Birmingham Moor Street station. I will only be able to work out if it is him or not because he will be in the possession of an antique French bicycle. He may even be riding the antique French bicycle, but that would be a bit rude of him, frankly, and I don't think we'd get on.

As you can probably guess, I've purchased a sexy old-fashioned racer on e-bay, and am going to pick it up tomorrow. I am even more excited about this than when the 256MB of laptop memory that I use even now to write these words arrived.

I will easily be able to recognise him because of his antique French bicycle, but how will he be able to recognise me? I was thinking about this, and have decided that the best thing to do will be to jump up and down like an exited child shouting "Bike! Bike! Bike!" until he comes over and hands over my antique French bicycle.

Zidanimation; The Day of the Flying Ants

I'm just being lazy here, as I could download the best ones and put them on this page, but instead, I'm going to direct you to SomethingAwful.com, which if you scroll through to look at the pretty pictures, you will see that lots of nerd hours have been spent creating the next AYBABTU with what I'm sure everyone's calling Zidanimations. Sadly, few of them focus on the nipple-tweak, but you can't have everything. There's a good one of a cat assassin and another good one embedding Zizou's victim in a Japanese Anime cartoon. [Edit: Actually, I've put some of the best ones up here, but still go to SomethingAwful.com because there's loads more]

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Yesterday, in my neck of the woods, was the Day of the Flying Ants. Have you had yours yet? They'll rise up against us one day, mark my words.

In Defence of Zidane

I'm sure in the fullness of time (i.e. tomorrow's back pages) the full story of what actually happened will come out, but in the absence of all the facts, I'm sticking firmly to a defence of Zizou and his rush of butt to the head. It was almost certainly in the face of extreme provocation (with at the very least a nipple-tweak, which I'd love to have seen a freekick given for, just because I've never seen a nipple-tweak free kick, and I'd love to hear John Motson say 'nipple-tweak' in a surprised voice and then do that self-satisfied 'huh' laugh of his), and at least it was a good honest bit of rage, that had no slight-of-hand, subterfuge or devious cheating skullduggery behind it, just plain simple violence, which is refreshing to see. Then again, I'm all for flogging divers, not just giving them a yellow card. Also, I'm trying to justify Wayne Rooney, and violent but honest football the world over.

If it was something racist that was said by Materazzi, I'd like to see him severely punished, because I hate Italians (note the layers of irony I work with there. Please only use such heavy handed irony under the instruction of a trained professional.).

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Radio Four lived up to all I love and hate it for this morning when a listener pointed out that technically, it wasn't a head-butt, as all butts are by definition with the head, and the 'head' of head-butt refers to the butt making contact with another head. Give the Director General another hundred grand!

Sun vs Football, the World Vs Voicemail, Me vs Meringue, the World vs Andy Murray

I now face the eternal dilemma: to watch the Germany vs Argentina game, or sit in the sun? I can't help but feel I've stretched the definition of eternal a little, but I'm still in a slight quandry.

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I'm not the only one who hates voicemail more than the Pope hates the devil. And also contraception. And Muslims. Put together. (Warning - people provide very geeky, very techy solutions here. My alternative (delete them) has the edge in the elegance stakes, I like to think.)

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Does anyone what a meringue? A student's just given me one, and I want to get it out of the way before I eat it and feel the emptiness inside that eating meringues brings. Help!

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I assume you've been following the Andy Murray Shitstorm of Scottishness controversy. English fans will presumably be supporting anybody but Andy Murray. I can see the love/hate thing continuing with this curly haired wee radge.