Surprising TV, Warband and Boxer Shorts

Now, it comes as much as a surprise to me as it does to you that the best comedy series I've seen recently was a) on ITV and b) Mike Bassett: Manager.

However, it was. Great performance from Ricky Tomlinson and supporting cast, very well produced with great attention to detail (Wirral County are a very believable team, their main sponsor being Wirral Rubbish), and a very sharp script (the scary Serbian war-criminal who is the team's goalkeeper being one highlight). All that, and it proved to be the one ITV programme this century not featuring Ant and/or Dec.

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If you're in the general area of Brighton (that's the South East, you ignorant nerks) tonight, you may wish to go and see the peerless Warband who playing at the Pressure Point this eve, with a promised start time of 8.30pm. I, sadly, am double-booked to go to a drinks thing at the LSE, where I will cement my future in the upper firmament of Higher Education by sharing jokes and flirtatious banter with Sir Howard Davies, Director of the LSE . Why, Howard, you're looking particularly ravishing tonight...

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The other day, I was woken by the barking of my neighbour, followed quickly by a ring at the doorbell. Not having time to dress, I answered in my vest and boxers, to find a postwoman with a parcel for next door. She then had to go back next door to leave them a note, but was chased there by the menacing wheelchair-bound neighbour, angry that she had parked in the sacred zone between the tree and the lamp-post. So, were you down my road at 8.30 on Tuesday morning, you'd have been confronted by the sight of a postwoman being chased by a barking (in both senses) man in a wheelchair, followed closely by a barefooted me in boxers and vest attempting to calm him down and assure him that the van would be gone from the precious, precious realm of no parking. I actually had the Benny Hill chase music going through my head, and were you recording it on a camcorder, you could speed it up and overdub it. I tried to choreograph a segment where we'd all be chasing each other round a big tree, and emerge in the wrong order, but I couldn't get all parties to agree to this. Shame.

We Value Your Call and Will Answer As Soon As Possible

I write this entry while I am on hold. This in itself is bad enough. However, the song was some horribly icky bit of what we used to call swingbeat. Worse even than this, the song mocked me by having some tight-trousered man straining his vocal chords (and possibly his cords to, although he's more likely to be wearing a pair of leather trousers, isn't he) singing the main lyrical refrain of 'I'm waiting, I'm waiting, I'm wa-ai-ai-ting for YOU. FOR you. For yoo. I'm waiting. (Etc.)'

Oh, they've answered now. Hello? Hello? Oops, I should be speaking now, not writing. Sorry.

Chores of a Domestic God

Hello internet. My main preoccupation at the moment is the Wahsing Mountain which has recently formed following the moving in together of two people who don't do their washing often enough, but still have the dignity to insist on fresh underwear every single day. Going through the various strata, I have found socks I had thought gone forever, which was a teary and emotional moment.

May just have been the smell though, ho ho ho.

A Series of Poor Excuses for My Neglect of You, the Internet

This will come as no surprise to any of you who have ever taken any of the responsibilities thrust on you as an adult, but it really needs stating again: British Telecommunications PLC are exceedingly shit. They excel in the field of being crap. Their heavily paid directors are given bonuses based on the number of fuck-ups in the previous quarter. Bastards all, to a man. And I speak as the son of a (now-retired) BT worker of 30 years.

Attempting to pay the final bill from my previous flat, I was on the phone for half an hour, and my final words to the supervisor (who sounded no more in a position of power than a teeny kitten in a sack weighted with stones plummeting towards the canal-bed) were 'can you note that I will never, as long as I have breath left in my body, use BT again? And can you add swear-words to that as you see fit. I am very angry. Yes, thank you, goodbye.'

I think I'll punch my dad next time I see him.

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Woo. I've just moved house. This explains the lack of posts recently. I now live in Brownswood Park, which is an area that exists only in the quasi-reality of the A-Z. It's actually Finsbury Park. There have been many things over the last couple of weeks, involving, in no particular order of precedence:

• Estate agents. Hundreds of 'em. Each more cockroachesque than the last. There was one who was possibly redeemably human, but she had an unnerving ability to misnavigate any given route by heading, moth-to-a-flame, to the site of whatever traffic jam, roadworks, paperclip factory fire, serious road traffic accident, protest march of militant antidecimalisationalists or any other time-consuming road event happened to be in the vicinity.


• A landlord who could out-fussy the princess in the story of the princess and the pea, even if the mattress were a thousand feet of lead and the pea were an atom's weedy cousin who can't catch a ball and bleeds too easily. This wouldn't normally be a problem, but we had to clean the house to his exacting standards. I can imagine him dressed in formal eveningwear and a monocle, running his begloved hand along a skirting board and tutting to himself while horribly tiny dogs yap at his ankles.


• The tenants of the flat we were about to move into not - actually - moving - out. Argh.


• Getting boxes. This is far more difficult than it sounds, and even now when I catch sight of something even slightly cardboard-coloured, my heartrate quickens and I look round furtively to see if anyone will notice me sneak off with it so that I can fill it with books/clothes/issues 1-724 of 'Build Yourself a Matchstick Galleon in only 725 issues (Issue one comes at a special price and includes a FREE matchbox)'


• The ceiling in our new flat falling in shortly before we were about to move in.


• Me almost getting into a fist-fight with a mentally ill man in a wheelchair. Really. Less fun than it sounds. I have a feeling that this is the sort of thing that Ricky Gervais has in mind for every episode of 'Extras'. Or Larry David in 'Curb Your Enthusiasm'. It doesn't reflect well on me.


• God himself peeking out from between the clouds to mock me, in a deeply personal way.


• Reading a lot about Hitler. That puts you in a bad mood. Stupid Hitler.


• The futon smelling funny in the new house. Now we have nothing to sit on. Additionally, the whole house smelling a bit. Doesn't smell so bad now, I think.


• British Telecom somehow being responsible for everything bad that has ever happened to me

All this, and I have to worry about the fact that I can no longer really be the angriest man in Crouch End any more. Hence the shamefaced slight change of title. Ah well. Such is life.

Cameron Jogs to Victory

One of the papers this morning, I forget which, had the headline

Cameron Jogs to Victory

on the board outside. When I got inside the newsagents, there it was, a picture of David Cameron, jogging. Really, the headline should have been

Cameron Jogs

or at the very most

Cameron Jogs to to the Shops

I don't know the intimate regulations surrounding the election of the new Tory leader, but I can be fairly confident that it doesn't involve a running race between the two leading contenders. This would, however, be preferable to the current system of Who's Taken the Least Cocaine?

Virtual Naffness

[Warning: Sports follows. You may want to look away if this offends you]
Want to know what it would be like if you were Luke Young in last night's England v Poland match and the ball was sailing over your head for the Poland goal (would you specifically like to know what it would be like if you were also very badly sighted, and were surrounded by less than convincing pixellated representations of all concerned, and the laws of physics were suspended for the day)? Yes? Or did the sentence just confuse you, and you said 'yes' because you were confused, and didn't want to seem rude?

In any case, you should look at this where the BBC represent the exciting moments from last night in glorious Shockwave-o-vision. It isn't actually as bad as all that. It is supremely pointless though. I suppose if you had someone who was scared of football stadiums (a formerly top-flight linesman who witnessed Wayne Rooney getting changed, the trauma of which gave him a breakdown), but was going through counselling, and had to be slowly introduced back to them, but Match of the Day was too upsetting, then I suppose it's of some use. Unlikely though.

My Birthday

It's not long until my birthday. This doesn't give you much time to buy me one of these. Or much time to save up for one. But I'm sure you'll find a way. Thanks.

Busy at work, so not doing much buggering about on the internet, hence lack of posts here. Oh well. The only thing I can think of recently of any importance that has happened to me was the other morning when I woke up, the radio was playing Britney Spear's 'Toxic'. I turned off the radio, and snoozed on. When I eventually woke up, I had in my head a fully formed version of it with alternative lyrics entitled 'Toksvig', in which all the lyrics were changed to be about Sandy Toksvig (pictured here, as the caption suggests 'sharing a passion for Europe'). I have deliberately forgotten all of the lyrics, fortunately, but I was massively disturbed, and this feeling remained for most of the day.

Not the Angriest Man in Crouch End for Much Longer

OK, a slightly maudlin post here. Get those hankies ready, people.

I will no longer be the angriest man in Crouch End. Dammit, I will no longer even be the angriest man in Haringey. The reasons for this are twofold: I'm moving out and Alan B McMurray has just moved into a flat on the Broadway, and he's a mean sonuvabitch when you get on the wrong side of him. Why, just yesterday I saw him punch square in the face fellow Crouch End luminary Bernard Butler for no reason than he was looking older and shorter than he used to. To be honest, I can't compete with the likes of that.

So, I'm moving in with L and swapping Crouch End for either Finsbury Park (for the realists amongst you), Highbury (for the elitists amongst you) or Brownswood Park (for the esotericists amongst you). Whichever way you look at it, we make out our council tax cheques to London Borough of Hackney.

Since you ask, yes, the flat's very nice, thanks. Email me if you want me to send you crap photos that the letting agency vampires took that are rubbish and make the place look like it's underwater when you're drunk and wearing glasses with marmalade on them.

I belive the pressure group Crouch End for People have arranged for a tickertape parade to accompany the transit van down Tottenham Parade, so if you want to come and help me lug boxes, please let me know. My important collection of shingle, stones, pebbles, granite, various igneous and sedimentary rocks, concrete slate and hardback books are all coming with me, you'll be pleased to know. Cheers.