Introducing the Twee-shirt

Are you desperate for new Twitter followers? Do you know someone who is? Well, I have the answer!

Oh yes, I am going to sell thousands YES THOUSANDS of these. Fully customisable, the perfect party attire. Pre-orders welcome. Shall we say £10? Yes, that sounds like great value. YES.

YES!

Willing to consider carnivorous Christian chain smokers

After receiving some motivating encouragement I decided to bite the bullet this evening regarding online dating. I didn't exactly beat my reservations into submission, but was able to sit on them for long enough to sign up with the much vaunted eHarmony site. It's different from most dating sites in that you fill in an extensive questionnaire in order to give them a highly detailed character profile from which they carefully match you with other users.

The questionnaire consists mainly of statements that you have to rate on a seven point scale of 'not at all important' to 'very important' using radio buttons. There are also several lists from which you must choose the three or four things that are most important to you. Doing this for any length of time gets pretty irritating, and the whole thing took almost exactly an hour to complete, but I was quite interested to see how many ladies would have the dubious fortune of falling within my carefully tailored criteria.

Now, you're probably expecting me to say that there weren't any but no - it's not even as good as that. Instead, after all that effort, I got a short message informing me that my profile had been rejected because I didn't fall within their list of matchable character types. Huh! Even the most optimistic person would find it hard not to interpret that as 'fuck off mate, you've not no chance.' It wasn't a particularly polite message either, and there was no hint of an apology for wasting my time, but they did explain that their service was not appropriate for everyone. Quite what group of weirdos and sexual deviants I have inadvertently added my name to I don't know, but I suppose I'll have to cheerily assume that the site is geared towards 'normal' people who throw dinner parties and talk about wine as though it's important.

I wouldn't say I've been deterred, but it does suggest that honesty is less important than heavy compromise.

Things I haven't told you

Although I appear to be a rather neglectful blog custodian, this is not entirely true. I think about posting quite often. In the past week or two I have come close to writing about the following things:

Semi-transparent leggings
Perhaps I completely missed it, but nobody else seems to be talking about semi-transparent leggings. WHY IS NO ONE ELSE TALKING ABOUT SEMI-TRANSPARENT LEGGINGS? Am I really the only person who has noticed them? Does no one else wring their eyes in utter disbelief when they see women / PRE-TEEN GIRLS WITH THEIR MOTHERS wearing them in public? If you haven't seen them, they are exactly as described. Gone, it seems, are the days when women worried about visible panty lines. Now they're happy to go out with - behold! - visible panties:

This is not an exaggeration. This is exactly what they look like. The first time I witnessed this I just felt sorry for the poor girl who had had her skirt stolen. Well, it seemed like the only rational explanation. But then, a week later, another girl. And another. It dawned on me that this was no tragic story of hit-and-run clothing theft; it was intentional. Even Lady fucking Gaga would blush. As if normal leggings - the single most unflattering item of women's clothing ever created - weren't bad enough! Words fail me.

Internet dating
On a cold evening in late December I momentarily considered internet dating as a genuine prospective activity for the new year. This had happened before but usually only lasted long enough to allow my better judgement to clear its throat, await my attention and then bellow: DON'T BE SO BLOODY RIDICULOUS. This time, however, the thought persisted and still hasn't gone away. Why not? Has my mind finally twigged that a lifetime alone might not be much fun? If so, serious resistance is being offered by years of self-conditioning. It's like those cartoons where a devil and an angel stand on each shoulder and slog it out.

A: Well it won't hurt to join for a month or so, just to see what happens. You're not obliged to take it any further. What's the problem?

D: YOU CAN'T EVEN TALK TO CHECKOUT GIRLS YOU LOSER!

A: If you don't make the effort now, you'll only regret it later on.

D: EVEN SEE-THROUGH LEGGINGS WEARERS HAVE TOO MUCH CLASS TO GO OUT WITH YOU!

If there's a ceasefire any time soon, I'll let you know.

Project 2010
I have, I'm fairly sure, decided what my next project is going to be. Remember Doormat Picnic, my ill-fated webcomic? Yeah, it was rubbish. But I know I can do a lot better. So now I'm planning to make a long comic book story without the time pressure of posting it online at regular intervals. That's it really. It does mean, however, that you're unlikely to see any evidence of my creative output for a while. (Stop cheering. It's rude.) Sorry, then, if you were holding out for the resumption of Creative Year 'cause it ain't gonna happen.

So yeah, I thought about posting on all of those subjects. Then I thought better of it.

Play at home fun

I was once told by someone that I have good spatial awareness. It sounded good and so I believed it. I've never conclusively proved it to myself, but I'd like to think that my judgement of distance, volume and area is on a par with the greatest minds in the world. All based on this one isolated comment.

The reality, of course, is probably quite different but I'd be interested to know how you fare in the following test.

Using your judgement only, imagine that the four black dots in the corners of the following diagrams are joined to form an X. Your task is to identify which of the coloured dots in the middle represents the intersection of these imaginary lines.

Puzzle one:

Puzzle two:

Puzzle three:

Answers: (reveal by using your mouse to highlight the area below)

Puzzle one - red
Puzzle two - pink
Puzzle three - red

That was fun, wasn't it?

The Hangover: in-depth DVD review

Well I suppose it wasn't that bad, but after so many glowing reviews (and given that it's billed as a comedy) I expected to laugh at least once. I don't think I even smirked. A dearth of mirth.

In other news, Dean Green wishes to announce his retirement.

It is no joke

I went out this morning, risking life and limb and dry clothing, to panic buy some cornflakes. One of the perks of my job is having a four wheel drive company vehicle, which certainly comes in handy every twenty years or so, and this enabled me to negotiate the four inch shelf of fluffy snow that had built up around the tyres. Being of a practical bent, I took with me a shovel, a sleeping bag and a note to my loved ones in case the worst came to itself.

I saw the first casualty before reaching the end of my road. The postman lay stricken on the pathway, frozen solid in a semi-recumbent stoop. I removed myself from the relative safety of my Ranger’s cab, fighting the flakes and fearing it was too late, but fortunately it transpired that he was just tying his shoelace. To save him the hazardous trip up the steps to my flat, I relieved him of an envelope containing my Clubcard coupons. We embraced; it was a touching moment indicative of our community’s siege mentality.

The horrors that befell me on the remainder of my journey will stay with me well into next week. Abandoned vehicles cloaked in frost, screaming children buried up to their ankles. Their minds lost to the hopelessness of their predicament, primal instinct came to the fore as they threw frozen projectiles at each other’s heads. I had to shield my eyes as I passed them at 40 miles per hour.

I had taken a hell of a chance on the supermarket being open, but my bravery had been rewarded. This was stiff upper lipness at its very finest. It was clear, though, that my optimism wasn’t shared by everyone as a good half dozen of the thousand or so parking spaces remained vacant. There was still a chance that I would find the shelves empty of course; supply vehicles may not have been as fortunate in their journey as I had. Again, my luck was in as I claimed the last but twenty box of cereal. But this was no time for complacency: I rushed to the tills and paid for my goods, exchanging a minimum of pleasantries with the pay me girl who looked like she’d had enough of the beeps. My haste was such that I forgot to redeem the Clubcard voucher I had liberated from the postman.

On the journey home I didn’t want to risk seeing any more people in distress, so I kept my eyes closed all the way. It was just was well; judging by the number of stray cars I hit, conditions had really deteriorated.

The relief of being back in the warmth of my flat was even greater than I had expected. I still had my life, and had gained some cornflakes. It was a good ten minutes before I realised that I was out of milk.

The Man In The Bowler Hat

I found a poem in my inbox this morning, sent to me by a work colleague. The subject line read: 'I saw this and thought of you'.

The Man In The Bowler Hat

I am the unnoticed, the unnoticeable man:
The man who sat on your right in the morning train:
The man you looked through like a windowpane:
The man who was the colour of the carriage, the colour of the mounting
Morning pipe smoke.

I am the man too busy with a living to live,
Too hurried and worried to see and smell and touch:
The man who is patient too long and obeys too much
And wishes too often and seldom.

I am the man they call the nation’s backbone,
Who am boneless – playable catgut, pliable clay:
The Man they label Little lest one day
I dare to grow.

I am the rails on which the moment passes,
The megaphone for many words and voices:
I am graph, diagram,
Composite face.

I am the led, the easily-fed,
The tool, the not-quite-fool,
The would-be-safe-and-sound,
The uncomplaining bound,
The dust fine-ground,
Stone-for-a-statue waveworn pebble-round.

A.S.J. Tessimond

My colleague didn't say whether it was a warning or an observation. He didn't need to.