Does anyone know

how to get rid of this fucking annoying gap?

Hot tub de nasty

My girl recommended a program to me called "Hot tub ranking", or something. It's on channel five late at night and has nothing to do with hot tubs, but involves a group of bikini clad women standing on a stage while a panel of men, annexed like caged apes, rate their various body parts. As the judging moves around the body, faces to bums to breasts etc, the males are driven into what can only be described as a rape frenzy, foaming at the mouth, beating their chests and making farmyard noises. This may sound hypocritical coming from a man with a self confessed love of video nasties and Japanese horror, but surely such overt misogyny should have been left behind with the black and white minstrels? I'm not one of those fools that is unable to appreciate irony, but I found absolutely no trace of it in this broadcast. I also failed to see how this codswallop could be described as anything other than degrading to both genders.

Round up

It's been so long since I've done one of these that I had to relearn how to post links. The fact that I'm a computer spoff doesn't help.

Anyhoo, Paul is being nice to me, which always makes me suspicious. Danny is as active as he is handsome. Greg provides a clear illustration of the genius of George Clinton, not that it needs illustrating by the likes of him. Simon puts his finger on one of the eternal truths of life, transport and dogs. The Nook is The Nook. Helen has some really good holiday snaps, but no topless ones so don't even try it. And I never thought it was possible to literally fall off your chair laughing, but Joe's Beach Boys DVD review has proven me wrong.

Football. Soz.

I wish Brian Clough was still alive. We need him to give a sense of perspective to Everton's recent dismal performances. "You want bloody shooting!"

Mr Moyes, I know you read this blog and far be from me to question your usually impeccable judgement, but I think it can be scientifically proved that you will never score goals with one man up front. Not when that man's James McFadden anyway.

Sticking with the sometimes beautiful game, there was an uproariously funny story in this week's sport Observer. Apparently the Gambian national under-17 side have been getting right in there of late, beating Brazil's youngsters in the recent World Youth Cup. This tournament was staged in Peru and a planeload of Gambia supporters (presumably the richest people in Gambia) were due to travel out there but missed the game due to an extremely delayed flight. So delayed was the plane that they were in danger of missing the next match as well, and would have done so had the pilot not, much to the chagrin of the Peruvian officials, faked an emergency landing. This leads us to the very interesting question- what is the biggest thing you've ever faked?

(I should point out that it was the emergency that was faked, not the actual landing).

Cysts and trysts

On a recent jolly to the south coast I experienced something that has fundamentally shaken my beliefs about medicine, the human body and life in general. My girlfriend's mother is a licensed homeopath- when I first learned this I thought "homoeopathy, natural remedies, herbs n' shit, cool". Like most people, I was fairly ignorant about the ways of homoeopathy, not scornful or cynical, I just had no knowledge of what it involved. Anyway, I had a cyst on my neck that had been there a few years, and had grown quite large. I had seen two doctors about it and they both said it was nothing to worry about, but should I wish to have it removed it would require minor surgery. They, and I, had squeezed the shit out of it but it was quite clear that it wasn't budging without the aid of a scalpel. So Basia (pronounced "Basher"- appropriate for a women who roars through life like hurricane Katrina with a bad hangover) tells me that she can remove it through homoeopathy. I was open to giving it a go but didn't believe for a second that something so obviously physical could be removed with a few nice smelling flower remedies. It also took me aback somewhat to discover how the homeopath selects the right potion. She informed me that homoeopathy worked on the vibrations of the body, and she had to select the right remedy for me by holding my hand and waving little pill bottles in front of me, noting how my vibrations changed in approval or disapproval of the potion being offered. Cue much stifled embarrassment from me and sheer mortification from my beloved, who was if anything more cynical than me about the whole practice. Eventually, Basia decided that my body was telling her to use a different remedy from the one she would have chosen herself, and that this one would push out the cyst, rather than dissipate it. This, she informed me, might lead to it growing larger at first, and might take up to a month to fully work. The remedy she gave me consisted of one little pill, with others to be taken twice a day for a few weeks. I took the first pill she offered and politely mentioned that I had my doubts about it working, but that if it did I would be completely sold on the whole homoeopathy caper. About an hour later I was brushing my teeth ready for bed, and decided to have a little look at the cyst. I noticed a spot of white on it that wasn't there before, so gave it a little squeeze, and the whole bloody thing shot straight out! In direct contrast to what the medical profession had told me, no scalpel, no anesthetic, just one little pill and Roberts your mum's brother. Something that had taken root in my neck over the course of a good few years, removed by what can only be described as witchcraft. Vibrations are not just something dreamed up by bearded Californians sitting in sandpits- they're real.