Why I Hate Nikki from Big Brother; Art Brut Appreciation Update; Why I Hate Voicemail More Than The Guy at the Guardian Who Hates Voicemail

I shouldn't be allowed to watch Big Brother. My hatred for Nikki turns me into a one-man angry mob, baying for blood and picking up rhetorical pitchforks and burning torches. Grr.

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It's Thursday. My infatuation with Art Brut (see below) is now over. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.

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Coincidentally, this Grauniad opinion piece about the evil of voicemails echoes a rant I made down the pub last night. I say coincidentally, but it's entirely possible that I was overheard by a feverishly short-hand writing journo and turned unwittingly into an Opinion Holder. However, his rant misses out on some of the key elements of Why I Hate Voicemail:

• Voicemail Takes Too Long. Firstly, you've got to listen to the jabber. You can't just phone them back because they don't leave their number until the end, and my sodding voicemail doesn't automatically record their number, and people always leave their number at the end of the message. I could dedicate an hour a day to going through and just noting my voicemails, without actually getting round to doing anything about them.


• Names and Numbers. People quite often don't leave these. What the blue blazing hell am I supposed to do with their message if I don't know who they are or how to contact them, I ask rhetorically, my arms milling around wildly to illustrate my oh-so-valid point.


• Clunkmail, More Like. Voicemails can't be printed out, filed, saved for posterity or anything remotely useful. They can be listened to, and then deleted. If someone gives me something useful by voicemail, I then have to write a note of it. It's like if instead of sending me emails, people wheeled their computer into my office, plugged it in and booted up, allowed me to read their message, then wheeled their computer away when I'd read it.


• Idiots Leave Voicemail. By and large, people who leave voicemails on my phone are stupid. I can attest to their stupidity primarily because my voicemail message asks them to send me an email and not leave a voicemail message. The onesimply expressed instruction I leave, and what do they do? Ignore it. Then leave a message where I can hear the drool of their stupidity drip down on to the mouthpiece as they leave messages of such monumental stupidity that I begin to question whether the human race has any kind of future without a serious cull taking place.

When will this madness end? When?

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Still, it's not all bad. I've got an official Panini World Cup sticker of Shaun Wright-Phillips in the pack I bought today. Actually, that's not true. I swapped it. Anyway, I assume this means he can play in the World Cup now, as I can't think of anything more legally binding than a sticker album, so Sven has got another attacking option. Could someone pass this information onto him? Probably the best way to reach him is to send it in a letter stapled to a leggy blonde.