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I don't seem to be getting any referrals to my site from search engines, so I thought I'd try having a look myself to see if I come up anywhere. It seems not - though searching led me to an interesting story, an excerpt of which follows:

"...Uno robusto moro e ben fatto capelli ricci si masturbava a manetta, l’altro BIONDINO, magro era messo alla pecorina con la faccia rivolta a lui e si faceva sbattere dal ragazzotto di 18 anni che porca vacca aveva un gran fisico da maschio come il mio e si dimenava a più non posso sul quel culo bianco dando bordate di cazzo. Il BIONDINO si vedeva che ci prendeva gusto e si tirava delle gran seghe mentre gemeva e si contorceva su tutto il viso. Era bello vedere i loro corpi giovani e ben fatti contorcersi e godere..."

(or, as a slightly tweaked Babelfish would have it: "...A sturdy Moor and attractive curly hats he was masturbating to throttle, the other thin blond man, had put to the little pig with the turned face he and it was made to blink from the young boy of 18 years that pig cow had a great physicist from male as mine and was extending more I cannot on those white arsehole man giving broadsides of dick. The blond man looked at that he took taste to us and he pulled himself of the large one masturbates while shaking and contorting all over the face. It was beautiful to see their young bodies and very made to contort and to enjoy...")

Pretty appropriate, I think you'll agree.

Post 9/11, you may be interested to see the regulations governing handguns and related paraphernalia on US aeroplanes:

"Firearms and starter pistols may be transported in checked baggage so long as they are unloaded and declared to the airline at the ticket counter before you go to the screening checkpoint.

Small arms ammunition for personal use may be carried in checked baggage but only if securely packed in fiber, wood or metal boxes, or other packaging specifically designed to carry small amounts of ammunition.

One self-defense spray (pepper spray or mace) not exceeding 4 fl. oz. may be carried in a checked bag if it has a positive means to prevent accidental discharge."

The sole reason for this entry is to repeat the above quote from an episode of the Simpsons with possibly more classics than any other. Naturally, I didn't write down the rest of them, so this is the only one that remains in my mind.

I saw Minority Report last night, and while it was a fairly decently plotted, visually stunning (yawn) techno-movie, it was also a scary cheese-fest of the highest order. A few laughs, too, but more eye-rolling than, well, watch the film, and more tsks than Botswana's annual ivory output.

How long should I wait before seeing The Royal Tenebaums for the second time?

Well, isn't this peculiar? Although I don't have the ability to see which searches led people to my blog, I got an email yesterday from a Brazilian chap who had found my website in this way. He searched for "Military service in Italy", which is strange, as I have no recollection of writing about it. And searching Google doesn't come up with my blog at all! Most bizarre.

Of course, I can't comment on Italian military service as I wussed out of it. I was 16, after all. My brother also decided against the idea, but managed to get himself arrested at Venice airport thanks to not having filled in the correct forms! How we laughed!

Anyway, I am now officially too old to do military service. Woo hoo! Though that's a double edged sword, sigh. I wonder what else I'm too old for? Professional tennis? Youth hostelling? Seducing 18-year-olds? Hmm, I'll get back to you on the last one...

Outside the White Horse pub (or Sloaney Pony, as it's affectionately known), Parsons Green, south-west London, 10pm last night:

Polly: Where's your scooter?
Me: It's just over there.
Emma: Ooh, can I have a ride?
Me: I haven't got a spare helmet!
Emma: Doesn't matter, I only live 100 yards away, and it's all quiet streets...
Me: But that's so illegal!
Emma: oh go on...
Me: No!
Emma: It'll be my problem if I fall off...
Me: Hmm, well...
Emma: (smiles one of those infuriating feminine smiles, all fluttering eyelashes and pouts)
Me: Well, hold on tight and don't yelp or scream or try and put your feet down, okay?

So we head off down the road, round the corner, and stop outside her house. All in about 20 seconds. Only as she gets off the bike...(cont)

do I notice the police car that's been sitting there, watching us...

To cut a long story short, Emma (who is the one committing the crime, as it turns out) gets a ticking off, but no fine. I, on the other hand, get checked out on the radio (makes me feel like a proper criminal! Woo!), and get breathalysed! It's my first time (aaw), and the police are very nice about it. I, of course, am bricking myself, as I have just been in the pub. Fortunately, I know my limits (or at least my theoretical limits - this was the first time they were to be proven - or otherwise), and had only had a couple of pints, and weak ones at that.

And so it proved. I was given the green light (which, confusingly, means "I have had a drink, ossifer, but I'm well under the limit, hic"), and sent on my way with a cheery wave, as the coppers depart with the knowledge that by now, they're well into overtime.

So that was a wake-up call and a half! They left me with the white tube you blow into as a memento, which is now on what would be my mantlepiece if I had one as a reminder to never, ever risk getting close to the limit. And that goes for you too, kids out there everywhere.

This was a public service announcement. Now wash your hands.

As if life didn't have enough trials, I've found myself consumed with the tiny but ever-present worry that I am wasting stuff. Not to be confused with the huge and Damoclean awareness that I am wasting large chunks of LIFE in my unemployment limbo situation. Sigh.

No, what I'm talking about are... (cont)

...pissy little irrelevancies which whisper in my ear "shouldn't you be conserving water/electricity/diskspace etc.?" while I wash up, download, turn a light on et al. I have had agonies at the kitchen sink about how much hot water to use, whether to keep it running for rinsing (huge luxury and environmentally catastrophic, of course), whether to have it even switched on at the thermostat (in summer? Heaven forbid!).

Do I leave the computer on if I'm not at it? Worse still, do I leave it connected (even though I don't pay for phone time)? It's a dilemma and no mistake.

When I reply to an email, I delete any attached bits of text so that the modern interweb's vast servers won't have to deal with an extra 10k's worth of transport. And I get cross at others who don't (although, when reading various digests of mailing lists, I've been known to growl out loud at my monitor when people keep in irrelevant padding with increasingly large numbers of >>> before each line), which isn't good for muh blood pressure. Though it's still GOOD PRACTICE, okay? (/me huffs and puffs and has a calming valium)

So is it just me? I've always known I'm anal, but surely I'm not bordering on the obsessive. Am I? My theory is that it's all to do with having too much time on my hands. Either that or I've subconsciously become part of the Green militia. I don't think so.

Television may have too many repeats as it is, but it's a moot point whether this is such a big problem as certain elements of drama and comedy are repeated so often you could often guess the next ten minutes worth of dialogue after one little clue... (cont)

Last night's Coupling had the familiar "blindfolded striptease in front of surprise party guests" routine. Which was, admittedly, pretty funny, but it still made my heart sink. Quincy, which is lumbering away in the background as I type, just wasted 2 full minutes of screen time with the old chestnut "refusing to believe a young, attractive woman can hold a position of responsibility". I may be being a little harsh on a show that was made roughly around the time I was born, but it's a pretty recognisable scenario.

Farces in general seem to have a tighter formula than most, and Frasier seems to suffer undeservedly from the rigidity of its rules. Maybe creating a show stuffed with high-brow references, haute-bourgeois mise-en-scene (pompous? moi?) and wordy set-pieces, which lives or dies by how many knots the lead character gets his love life into, is doomed to thrash around impotently in a sea of crudeness, where a dog jumping on a chair gets a bigger laugh than David Hyde Pierce, role model for a generation.

The main reason I worry about this is because, in my capacity as a writer and editor (stop laughing at the back), it's so, so easy to create something that fulfils expectations precisely by refusing to stretch, undermine or challenge them. When I was writing my scripts for children (who, admittedly, require a good deal more fidelity to the static frontiers of familiarity and cause and effect) I freely borrowed from every relevant source when it came to constructing my plots and gags, hoping that the small amount of individuality and unpredictability I was able to inject myself would be enough.

But this was a hurried job, and there was little time or inclination to play with words and ideas as I would have liked to. And I know that professional writers, especially the most talented (and hence the most in demand), are constantly working, and often find themselves being drawn further from their own inspiration into churning out respectable but ultmately predictable tales that really aren't going to challenge anything.

Perhaps I'm also asking if this is a bad thing. You can certainly argue that the mundane is necessary to appreciate the gems that outshine the dross, but this sounds suspiciously like an excuse. A more justified defence may be that the public, on the whole, don't actually want to be surprised, unsettled, or made to think. TV represents lazy, passive leisure to 95% of its viewers; those who have the intelligence and desire to increase their intellectual experiences know that arthouse cinema, literature, performing arts and music all offer far more scope for experimentation than the idiot box in front of which they flop, exhuasted, at the end of a long day.

It still sounds like an excuse, however, and I'm wondering whether I feel uneasy about the concept of originality in my chosen medium because I feel society lacks it, or because it reflects my own concerns about my limited abilities. This little piece hasn't answered any questions, and it quite probably a pointless indulgence. So if anyone has got this far, feel free to comment on anything that may have come to mind.

Ben asked me to keep him updated on the rise and rise of AFC Wimbledon. Which he may come to regret. Anyway, as it 'appens, the second ever game of my sparkling new team, away at Dulwich Hamlet FC (the "Hamlet" gives a clue as to exactly how impressive an opponent we're talking here), resulted in a 1-0 defeat for our brave boys.

Nal's dad, a diehard fan, went to the match and reported that the Dons "played a lot better than against Sutton", which is nice. Hopeful they will continue to improve at the same rate, leading to scores of around 97-0 by the end of the seaons. Which, I think, starts on August 17th - anyone fancy coming with me?

Having a counter on muh weblog is a pretty good reason to keep updating it, I find. I shamelessly copied Brian, signing up for both the counters he uses (though I'm sure he pays for all the fancy accoutrements, whereas I'm mean and have gone for the free version). What it means, of course, is that I now know EVERYTHING about each and every visitor to my site...

Actually, I don't. Though I do know that 5.2% of you are using Unix as your OS - would that be a certain Embra-based reader?

Anyway, please don't take this as an encouragement to get counters of your own, especially Llew, who will probably make it explode with over-use. I'm feeling loved that 70-something visits have been made to muh site in the last 3 days, and I'd be heart-broken to realise I'm less loved than everybody else :(

Haha! I know! I shall post to Sinister and include my blog address! I shall regard it as a social experiment. You have been warned.

...is analemma.

Anal Emma is a young lady of dubious moral hygiene I once encountered... Ahem. Of course I'm just joshing. Hahaha! In fact, it is "a graduated scale in the shape of a figure eight, indicating the sun's declination and the equation of time for every day of the year and usually found on sundials and globes".

Good word, though, eh?

As I washed up after lunch today, I saw a GOTH outside my window, seemingly waiting for a bus. Nothing unusual about that, you may think (though comments on the little pallid sweeties, bless 'em, are always welcome, especially if we can laugh at them*, like Maddie does). However, when I return to my kitchen 4 hours later, she's still there! Quickly it becomes clear that SHE'S STALKING ME. My fame has obviously spread to the foulest corners of goth hell, which is all very nice, but gosh, I'm a modest kind of chap, and all this attention makes me blush!

And then I realise. I live next door to Simon le Bon. Duh.

*yes, yes, I used to be one. No, actually that's a lie. I used to WANT to be one. So crucify me (oh yes, please, mistress, etc.).

One pissy thing about unemployment and being home during the day is the telemarketing gimps who are constantly calling up (thereby giving me, if ever I needed it, an excuse to tie up the phone line all day by being on the interweb) and asking me how keen (on a scale of super-keen! to multiple-orgasmic!!!) I am to be entered in a draw for NEW! windows and doors.

Actually, these calls have a more sinister undertone. I have noticed that about three quarters of them are offering me cover against serious injury or accidental death (presumably from falling through my shoddy, crumbling old windows and doors).

Telesalesman: Hello, is that Mr Cass...casstro...rowtow...tow?
Me: Um, yes.
Telesalesman: Would you like accidental death cover?
Me, Um, no thanks...
Telesalesman: We know where you live, you know.

Light relief is occasionally provided when I am addressed as Mr Castrato. Oh my sides.

Email me, if you like. I'd like that.