Monkey With A Typewjkl;

Happy New Year. I have been moderately indulging, not staying up past 3am, and failing to keep my single resolution of 500 words a day. These, I should point out, are non-blogging words, lest anyone think they now have the right to badger me for slowness and decrepitude.

Dude. I got a USB turntable for Christmas. So I've been doing that, as well. I have set about my 7" singles with a vengeance, rooting out the most obscure ones first. Naturally, these are also the worst and most unlistenable, but I still get the same thrill of childish delight I experienced at first listen when... a JJ Barrie (he of "No Charge" infamy) tune is faded out to maximise the effect of the homily about fairness and tolerance delivered by Brian Clough. And so on.

I also read The Damned United, a descent-into-hell telling of Cloughie's ill-fated 44 days as Leeds manager. I recommend it, like everyone else. Fuck all on the telly, wasn't it? Dreadful.

I'm still on holiday, so cannot be arsed much. Sorry. I just want to wish a big fat belated Happy birthday to newly sexagenarian blogger, Peter. There, with the grace of God, go we.

The man who has been killing those women has apparently been caught. His workplace colleagues expressed shock.

"I'm so surprised. It's hard to believe. I mean, I suspected him, of course, yeah, obviously. I mean, I followed him a few times, and saw him dumping the bodies and that, and I thought hmm, that's a bit odd, and so I asked him, 'are you killing all these women?', and he said 'yeah', but still... who'd have thought it?"

Weirdo Daily Mail readers were in a tizz yesterday about the victims, who were prostitutes. Prostitutes, obviously, deserve to be murdered, because they're "greedy" - like paedophiles, apparently. Well, not "deserve", but really, what do they expect? Fortunately, one points out that there is a solution at hand, and that is for the government to control prostitution. Quite what this would involve, apart from a 24-hour Prostitution Direct helpline, and a complex serious of private finance initiatives, I don't know.

I am very tired, after an exhausting week - particularly the journey back from Far Flung, which had been unpleasantly rerouted thanks to global warming. I had disputed this with the man in the high-visibility waistcoat at Far Flung railway station, but he was adamant that the flooding was unforeseen. We had an enjoyable discussion about the ability to see rising water one day, continued rain the next, and the extent to which these mysterious signs flummox idiot functionaries; but like the true professional that he was, he hid his enjoyment well.

At the time, there was concerted and focused disgruntlement on the part of several dozen other would-be passengers, which arose from misunderstanding the meaning of the phrase "Replacement Bus Service". No-one was aware of the alternative meaning of "Replacement", which I can reveal is "non-existent".

Anyway. It was all very wearing, and the last time I spent that long in transit, I managed to get to Toronto. Still tired a day later, I am enjoying sitting on the sofa flicking through the papers.

"What are you doing?" I ask, as something hard rubs my back.

"Yeah! How do you like it?" she replies, brandishing the remote control.

This, for the benefit of those of you who were not in bed with us the previous evening, is a tetchy reference to a noctural erection.

"No, don't stop; I rather like it," I say, hopefully imprinting the correct response for future dick-pressing events. I consider turning round and putting the remote control in my mouth to underline the point, but remember that it routinely slips down the side of the sofa, where there are probably germs.

"I think it's great that you want to have sex at 4 o'clock in the morning," she says. "Just don't expect me to do anything about it."

How galling, and how rude. It is time, I can see, for some low animal cunning. To be honest, all this talk of not having sex is slightly titillating. She is either grumpy from lack of sleep, or from a lack of sex, and I demand to know which. This is a trap! If she says lack of sleep, I will suggest we go to bed immediately; if she says lack of sex, I will suggest we go to bed immediately. Awaiting her response, I am pleased at the way the evening is shaping up.

With impeccable timing, the Former Mrs Curtis chooses this exact moment to call me, fooling me by calling from a number I do not recognise. I am only slightly annoyed when I realise it his her, because I have been pestering her for some time to actually talk to me about The Little Curtises' Christmas presents.

She is in the hospital. The Boy has been hit by a car.

I do not dither on the 'phone to hear the details, but make my way immediately to the hospital. The Boy is bruised, bloodied, and slightly broken, and missing most of his front teeth. He tries to tell me what happened, but cannot due to a combination of shock, pain, and toothlessness. I gather that he ran into the road without looking, and got clipped on the trailing leg by a car that did not stop afterwards.

"You can't say fairer than that," I point out.

No one laughs. It is a rubbish joke anyway, which I stole from Jimmy Carr. So really, I am still hilarious.

My girlfriend - and oh, I was once upbraided in the 1980s by someone accusing me of "sexist possessiveness" for using the word "my" in relation to "girlfriend", which still boggles me - and I both use Vodafone. She's away a fair bit, so Vodafone's lovely Friends And Family package lets us stay in touch for peanuts. (For a fiver a month total, a network of four Vodafone numbers can be established, and they can all talk to each other for free - or £1.25 each, if you want to be petty and split the difference. Brilliant.)

My brother is on Vodafone as well, so I thought to myself I will buy my aged mother a mobile 'phone so she can call her children whenever she wants for free.

I know: I'm just lovely.

I go into her local Phones4U store, overcoming my revulsion at their ghastly advertising campaign which is something like

EDUCATIONALLY CHALLENGED PEOPLE ARE HILARIOUS AND EDGY. BUY YOUR PHONE FROM PHONES4U.

I explain the following requirements

a cheap phone
service provided by Vodafone
no extras

I am pointed at a 'phone that costs £40. Fair enough. I am about to pay, when I spot a notice that promises not to affect any of my statutory rights, yet declares that 'phones cannot be returned unless they are faulty.

I query this, pointing out that

this is a gift
she is an old woman
she may not be physically able to use the phone

and that I will certainly want her to try it, and return it if it is unsuitable.

"If it's Vodafone, we can't take it back unless it's faulty," I am told.

"So I am expected to pay £40 for something that I cannot return if it's unsuitable?"

"Yes. But, really, £50, if you are paying in cash."

"Hmph. Good day, sir. Oh, one more thing though: this if you are paying by cash, you must buy an extra £10 of call time to prevent fraud clause I see here and there... what sort of fraud does that actually prevent?"

"I don't know. It is to prevent fraud."

Unfortunately, I cannot respond with my "if you are under 18, this bottle of cider will cost an extra 50p, to prevent underage drinking" comparison, because all my facial muscles are engaged in expressing disgust and contempt.

So. I go to the Vodafone shop, where I get the exact same 'phone for only £20, and proper customer service that is based on the smiling reassurance that of course I can return the 'phone if my mother can't or won't use it.

Selling things to people that want to buy them - still rocket science to the folks at Phones4U, apparently. You'd think it wasn't a competitive market place.

(My mother - or, for those of you reading this in the 1980s, "a relation whose gender is entirely irrelevant, and who exists as a person in their own right and therefore should never be shackled to fascistic possessive adjectives" - is delighted with the 'phone.)

Other Good News: Serenata Flowers have apologised. Thank you to anyone who made the tiny effort to bring this about. Does it warm your heart to make a positive difference for so little effort? It should.

Oh, thank you, Natasha Woods: like an extra in a zombie movie, my eyes are bleeding and I am hungering for brains. And, as Natasha herself might write, I am a zombie Mark Anthony, stabbed in the back by Hamlet, like in King Lear.

We shall deal with metaphor soup in a moment, but it is still rising in the oven, as you can smell from my words. First, lend me your ears: I come to praise the sports pages. Therein: wit, invention, and a love of writing. Egregious clunkers I can stand elsewhere in the paper, as I apparently must. Perhaps it is the tension of this prolonged and reluctant tolerance that causes such upset when, expecting succour, I instead have to struggle through the hideousness of
"...a Hibernian team whose bandwagon derailed spectacularly during a first half at Ibrox in which the visitors were hoisted by their own petard" I humbly submit that "...a Hibernian team which was comprehensively outplayed in the first half" would have done the job.

I know, I know. My alternative suggestion is too boring, too simple, and omits the magic imagery of bandwagons that are on rails and contain bombs which blow the terrorist footballing musicians into the sky. You can see why I am not a sportswriter. What I am, is a wanker.

Not just a self-appointed wanker, though: I am under doctor's orders to jizz into an insultingly-small beaker on my mother's seventieth birthday. It is, apparently, the only way to be sure that the vasectomy was more than just fun and shaving, although I'm uncertain of the optimum point in the birthday celebrations to perform this.

Speaking of shaving, it seems to have stimulated the grey hair population into what is presumably ironic breeding. Little wonder then, that my ears pricked up as Andie MacDowell alerted me to the stupendous properties of Loreal's HairPaint which colours all grey hairs, "even those short wiry ones." Until I see Andie's short wiry ones getting the treatment in an advert, I will abstain.

I may use that time to revisit my Steve Reich records, which I confess were bought in fits of pretentiousness, having too much money, and a vague appreciation of the hypnotic nature of the music. Having watched last night's South Bank Show I learned a lot more, and was struck by what an engaging, intelligent and pleasant man he is. Not everyone's cup of tea, but then neither is tea.

Oldest problem in history since ever 'easy'
Schoolchildren in Wimbleford have become the first in the country to learn about a new concept - 'bollocks' - which solves 'thing' problems neither Adam nor Eve could conquer.

Dr Theophilus T Crackpot, from the University of Rubbish's janitorial science department, says his new theorem solves an extremely important problem - the problem of everything.

"Imagine you're docking with the Tardis on a space rocket, with lasers and girls with big boobs in peril, and the automatic pilot's working," he suggests. "If it tries everything at once and the computer stops working - you're in big trouble. If your brain helmet does everything at once, you're dead."

Computers simply cannot do everything. Try it on your calculator and you'll get an error message - which, as Dr Crackpot points out, could kill your head right off. So maybe don't try that.

But Dr Crackpot has come up with a theory that proposes a new thing - 'bollocks' - which sits outside the conventional thing line (stretching from negative everything, through nothing, to positive everything).

The theory of bollocks is set to make all kinds of things possible that, previously, scientists and calculators couldn't work around.

"We've just solved a problem that hasn't been solved for three billion years - and it's a piece of piss," proclaims Dr Crackpot having demonstrated his solution on a boys' toilet wall at Lowup School, in Humma Haw.

"It was confusing at first, but I think I've got it. Calculators are dangerous, and I'm a genius? I think that's it" said one pupil.

"We're the first schoolkids to be able to do it - that's quite cool," added another, although he may have been talking about something else.

Despite being a problem tackled by the famous Bible people Adam and Eve without success, it seems the Year 10 children at Lowup now know their bollocks.

It's all true.

In a fit of complete laziness, I decide to have an opinion on something that is not worth having an opinion about. This, while lamentable, will at least save you from having to get in a taxi just to hear someone mouthing off about something you don't care about.

It is the story about the mother who had her son arrested for opening his Christmas present early. What, after all, is the point of such stories, if not to solicit opinions? It's not news, it's just a daft twat who both puts her Christmas tree up far too early, and has no idea how to parent. Whether a child has ADHD or is just a little bastard, you are a moron if you think leaving a present lying around is somehow a good idea.

Speaking of Christmas presents, and also feeling a bit apologetic for being so cheap as to comment on fluff stories, The Second-Littlest Curtis wrote again to Santa today. Again, that is, after the FMC had somehow managed to let the previous letter to Santa lie rotting in the rain. Don't ask. I am genuinely weary of dealing with the results of her slovenliness, and have - sincerely - no wish to detail it all. Trust me, it would just depress you.

The Littler Curtises are typically modest in their expectations, which comes of having accepted that they have to share Santa's munificence with their three siblings. The Boy and The Middle Curtis, meanwhile, are still in denial about the existence of Littler Curtises, which is reflected in their exorbitant demands. So it was with fond relief that I noted requests for "sweets, clothes, a jewellery making kit, High School Musical DVD, gymnastics lessons for me and The Littlest Curtis."

Aww.

"But what I really really really really really really REALLY want is a PSP and an iPod Nano and a computer with the Internet for my room. I love you Santa."

Huh? Wh'appen? I am especially confounded by the PSP. I ask The Boy if The Second-Littlest Curtis ever plays on the GBA that Santa stretched to last Christmas. No, he says. She only wants one, he says, so she can go back to school in January and say 'I got a PSP for Christmas.'

Well: fair enough, I suppose. Children's Christmas wishes have always been subject to a bit of bragability, and if I was stinking rich, I just might consider this a whim and a trifle. I strongly suspect that I will never know whether I actually would, and it remains a moot point. In any case, I am - as a result of one experience - very careful about what The Little Curtises wish for. (Remind me to tell you about that - I thought I had, but a search for the key words draws a blank.) So. Another Christmas of managing expectations roughly to the floor it is, then.

Unless.

Dear Other Little Curtises

In an exciting change to my usual habits, I am showering only The Second-Littlest Curtis with gifts this year. I have based this on my new league tables of Likeability, which means that I don't like any of you as much as I do her. Maybe next year, if you buck your ideas up a bit. In the meantime, I suggest you suck up to her, and she might let you have a go on her cool stuff.

Notwithstanding your horribleness, Happy Christmas to you all.

Santa

Coming soon, in the next few weeks: fewer posts! I will be busy visiting the far-flung Mother, and generally fretting about Christmas, as I'm sure you all will. I will do my best to squeeze out Opinions Not Worth Having or Stories That Nearly Really Happened, but the Haemorrhoids Of Real Life are likely to discourage me from straining too hard on a regular basis. There is, of course, plenty of Old Shit for you to have a sniff at.

The just-resigned abbot of Buckfast Abbey, not content with overseeing the production of noxious ned fuel, decided to branch out into raping children, it is alleged. What that means is that a number of boys say he abused them, and he denies it.

Well, you would, wouldn't you?

Not that I'm saying that clerics in a position of responsibility ought to be assumed to be child-abusers - wait, hang on... that's exactly what I'm saying. Why don't we just do that? Assume that any grown man who holds secret conversations with an imaginary friend of unlimited power is perhaps Wrong In The Head? Let's err on the side of caution, and say: it's a free country, you can believe what you want, knock yourself out. Just don't expect to have authority conferred on you, just because you have won first place in some mumbo-jumbo contest run by similiarly deluded fruit loops.

No. Let's not. Let's carry on according respect and power to wackjobs who practice celibacy when, and how, it suits them. Let's not even entertain the idea that if you really truly believe that you are "fated" to celibacy, maybe you ought to cut your balls off.