I just cried for the seventh time at this:

(Not an original C&H - linked to the author's site)

And I’ve just made myself get a little bit wet in a Google Chat about my first dog, who died after I told him to get off my bed because he was whimpering, and I wanted to sleep. “Oh, I’ll get off your bed,” he said with a glance. “And then, I’m going to die. Eff you.” The fact he self-censored, even in that angry glance, is perhaps the saddest thing of all.

So, hearing people talk about Toy Story 3 was thrilling. These are the Top 5 things people said to me about Toy Story 3, that made me think I was going to weep myself dry.

1. I don’t normally cry at films. But I cried at this.
2. I do normally cry at films, but this was different. It was like having your childhood ripped out, and stuck back in with the wide end first.
3. I’m an emotionless sociopath, but Toy Story 3 in many ways unlocked my soul. I’ve since been able to empathise and interact properly with my child, who no longer fears me.
4. I’m a very emotional person, and this drove me to such irrational extremes of wild sentiment, that I’m scared to open my mouth, for fear of screaming.
5. I didn’t cry at Toy Story 3, but it seems that stifling the emotion affected my semen. For a while, I thought I was infertile, but when my wife finally became pregnant we immediately became concerned by a small but constant vaginal discharge. It seemed like water, but on fabrics we didn’t immediately wash, it left behind a salty crust. After nine months of increasing flow, she eventually gave birth to a football sized eyeball. It couldn’t blink, having no eyelid. And it couldn’t cry in the conventional way, having no tear duct. It just span around wildly in its mothers arms, shooting a narrow jet of tear water from its pupil. Once we severed the umbilical cord, it immediately began to deflate. We’re not sure if it’s still alive – or if it ever was. But in future, I am never going to not cry at Toy Story 3 again.

Naturally, I thought something MASSIVE was going to happen. I thought we were going to confront innocence with death. I imagined a right-wing Family Concern storyline in which the toys were handed down across generations, until a childless gay relationship left them with nowhere to go. Then I imagined a series of coded jokes and eye-rolls about getting stuffed up a bumhole, culminating in Buzz ejecting his wings in ano, during the filming of a video that consequently goes viral.

I wasn’t expecting what I got, which was a pretty standard trickle down one cheek – not even a two-cheeker – and some uneven breathing when I realised that the tears were on my boyfriend’s side. The idea that he might see the trickle of tears, and gently touch my forearm nearly made me shudder a bit, but the moment was broken by the knowledge that his real reaction would have been “pfft”.

The same thing happened watching The Orphanage. I’d read a review, and knew that the child was going to go missing. So I spent the first fuck-knows minutes of the film thinking “I bet this is the bit where he goes missing! I bet an EAGLE does it and he’s in a NEST.” By the time he’d actually disappeared, after all that fannying about in a spooky cave, I was exhausted.

And getting old would be much more fun, if someone hadn’t spoiled it by telling me I was going to just die.

So, everyone. Stop talking about stuff. Stop writing about things. Stop having opinions and exposing them to people. Stop communicating ideas and thoughts unless they’re in perfect isolation from everything else. Stop all trailers and publicity campaigns. This kind of teaser campaign for psychological thrillers like Who Put The Bomp is OK:

As long as you don’t follow it up with anything that explains:

a) what BOMP is

b) who the prime suspects for putting it in the BOMP BOMP BOMP might be

c) how Barry Mann’s left hand exists in the yellow cartoon dimension, while his left thigh does not

Finally, never compare things to each other. Saying “you smell like a rose” might ruin the surprise for anyone who’s never smelt a rose, but is kind of meaning to get around to it someday.

The only exception to this is video games, because I quite like writing about those. And it’s not like I’ve ever said anything informative.

I reckon I should get paid £200 or something for this

When you or I first see one of these Leggera pizzas, we think one of these two things:

1) I wonder what they do with the bits in the middle? Like polos, and records! I wonder what they do with all the middles of all these things?

Stupid question. They’re made into little skull caps, and worn by a Jewish man. On hot days these “jew-dough” caps react with the natural oils and sweat of the beautiful Jewish scalp to create a delicious Bruschetta. The wearer can then eat it directly off his own head, or allow it to slide onto a chopping board and present it to someone he is intending to marry.

2) How does this affect my overall ratio of crust to topping?

This, on the other hand, is a good question, and requires the use of scientific words to properly answer. The Leggera pizza effectively creates a new CrustZone. This innovative inner crustmantle leads to a significant increase in crust:topping ratio. Say the diameter of the inner hoop (or “Neocrust”) is just one third of that of the entire pizza’s traditional, and backwards compatible Legacy Crust – that’s still a 33% crust increase, or “incrust”, in the crust circumference, or “circumfcrust”. I also did a few doodles about surface area but it just looked like a Pokéball and I’m not sure the numbers I wrote on it were right.

Anyway, the worry is that this is the first step towards a hypothetical fractal crust, which will have an infinitely long crust, eliminating not only pepperoni, but all toppings, both real and imaginary. And forever.

These are the concerns of us, the mundane. But other people are more spectacular and worthy than we (are). These people, after a good meal,  write a letter of enthusiastic congratulations to the holding group, or venture capital company who ultimately owns the franchised outlet they visited. And sometimes – just sometimes – that restaurant prints out their letters in a promotional pamphlet.

It’s been a while since I wrote for a publication with the circulation and demographic reach of Pizza Express’s in-house promotional pamphlets, so I’ve written them a few letters myself.

Dear Gondola Holdings,
My retarded son has great difficulty saying the phrase “let’s get a pizza”. I, however, believe in the value of clear communication, and will not respond to any demands that are not properly pronounced. So, thank you for your “Leggera” range of pizzas, which are phonetically similar enough to my son’s semi-coherent burbling that he has had his first meal in three months. Sadly, he was infuriated by the absence of a middle, and has since had to be put down.
Yours sincerely,
Judith Chivers

You're Robin Hall my love

Dear Cinven,
I’m a long-term fan of your leveraged buyouts and Italian cuisine. Until recently, I thought I was completely happy with your range of pizzas and international healthcare portfolio. However, it wasn’t until you “imagin-reated” the Leggera range of pizzas that I realised that I have NEVER been happy. In fact, last evening’s meal threw my entire life so far into shocking relief: 36 years consuming the “dead calories” of  pizza middles! I intend to live the rest of my life the Leggera way – in fact, doubly so, that my life might average out to be, on balance, Leggera. PS I never wrote to say at the time, but congratulations on your 2007 buyout of Gondola Holdings. Those guys were cunts.
Yours sincerely,
Alison Harper

Dear Pizza Express,
My friend and I have differing interpretations of the phrase “The Italians certainly know how to enjoy life“. My friend thinks that you’re trying to imply that they fill their spare hours with productive hobbies. However,  I’m convinced you’re saying “they’ll dry hump anything that’s concave”. Could you settle our argument?
Yours  puzzlingly,
Horus Patterson

Live Leggera, folks
Jon Blyth

It’s not always genuine Damien Hirsts – although you’d be surprised how often it is! – more often than not it’s just a scab that fell off onto a teaspoon, or a bit of soup that got flicked out of the pan when they did a sneeze.

Do you turn around when you’re cooking, and you have to sneeze? I don’t. It’s like I always say: the cooking process will kill the germs, and since I started my non-stop risotto diet, I don’t have the time to stop stirring. (Besides, the last time I turned around while sneezing, I whipped a trail of snot into a bridesmaid’s face, and she didn’t see the funny side for six years)

ANYWAY

I read this article in ladybible Cosmopolitan about a girl who went on 21 dates in 7 days. Talk about sisters are doing it (with 21 men) for themselves! So I’ve set myself a mission. I am going to go on 21 real dates with men and write about them, like a big slutty journalist with both tits out.

DATE 1: JULIAN SANDS

The first thing you need to know about Julian Sands is that he’s NOTHING TO DO with the pre-legalisation homosexuals, Julian and Sandy. This was my icebreaker, and it went down worse than a bra bomb in a synagogue. I’d even made up this story about the first time I masturbated, where I called my fingers Julian and Sandy, and I’d written  a sketch to make it seem more fun (fun is very important to me)

Well, I’d learned the story by heart, so I told it to him anyway, just to get it out of my head. I also had to get Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance out of my head, because I’d heard it on the radio that morning, so after I’d sang that I went into my Julian & Sandy masturbating fingers sketch:

“Hello, I’m Julian, and this is my friend Sandy”
“Bona to vada your dolly old eek”
“Do you want to join me inside this meaty old mess?”
“I don’t know, it’s pretty crispy in there”
“How many different coloured fluids do you think the human body can produce?”
“I don’t know, but that swirl of translucent pink-tinged lime mucus, looped around what I hope for her sake is a labia majora, is almost hypnotic”

I love telling a story, I really get into it. But, you know when you’re telling a story, and you do the mimes? Well… I’d only hopped onto my back and started fingering myself! Julian was nowhere to be seen. YOUR LOSS, JOR-EL. Or should I say BORE-SMELL

DATING RATING: SIX SNOOZES OUT OF TEDIUM

DATE 2: DANNY WALLACE

The most excellent thing about Danny Wallace is his ability to pretend to live his life according to a set of arbitrary rules, and write a bestselling book about it.

Before I started kicking him under the table to let him know I was in a sexy mood, we got talking about some of the rules he had pretended to live by, until it looked like he might not get a book out of it. It was such an exciting insight into the Dannysphere that I forgot to eat my bagel! I’ve still got it in my pocket as a memento of that night. I’m not sure where the salmon’s gone, but who wants salmon in their mementos? NOT ME

2004 – Danny communicated entirely through Post-It notes left on the fridge
2005 – Danny shat in a hot air balloon and encouraged millions of housewives to do the same
2007 – Danny promised to accept and fulfil every sexual offer made to him, in a legally dubious mutual contract which he insisted meant that no-one  could legitimately withhold consent from him, either
2008 – Danny speared one of his nuts with a fork, and tried to pitch it to a hen party as a brand new game show
2009 – Danny mentally embellished every mundane experience with shocked and disapproving  reactions from imagined onlookers, and wrote about it in Shortlist

So, what does 2010 hold for Danny Wallace, I asked, my big hands forcibly milking the tips of my tits. His face lit up when I mentioned his name! “I’m pretending to go on loads of dates with fat bitches, to show how deep I am and learn a lesson about inner beauty. Fat bitches like you will lap it up, I reckon”

I’m well ahead of you, Danny Wallace! LAP LAP LAP

DATING RATING: TEN DANNIES OUT OF WALLACE

DATE 3: JENNIFER ANISTON

This was more of a dinner date, because neither Jennifer Aniston nor Jennifer Tolstoy (me!) are gay. But as famous Jennifers, we both have terrible luck with men, so we met up to swap tips. Needless to say we both learned a lot, so this is a powerful personal journey as well as a bunch of purposeless lies (AM I DOING IT RIGHT DANNY? PVT ME)

So, here’s some tips you can live your life by if you want to be famous and totally sex

JENNIFER ANISTON’S TOP THREE LOVE TIPS

1) Have secret late night phone calls that only a close friend who talks to women’s magazines knows about

2) Refer to your womb as a “biological timebomb” and draw families standing in front of a house during sex

3) Learn how to use the walls of your vagina to remove a condom

JENNIFER TOLSTOY’S TOP THREE LOVE TIPS

1) Smile though your heart is aching

2) Smile even though it’s breaking

3) Slash his coats up and put posters around saying he touches kids

DATING RATING: You can’t rate girl friendships, they are priceless and can even endure death if you are vampires

So, that’s three dates down! Who’s next? Will it be Laurence Olivier? The Archbishop of Canterbury? Maybe it’ll be you. Look at the reflection in your monitor. I’m standing behind you. WE’RE ALREADY ON OUR DATE

1) We are undercover in a honey-trap sting operation, or something else to do with bees and paedophiles.

2) We are looking for our adopted son in a thrilling multi-part episode of Two And A Half Dads

3) We were trying to recapture a lost sense of youth (an experiment that failed, because our understanding of water has developed in thirty-plus years to the point where we no longer see it as thrilling per se)

4) Simple masturbation has long become a jaded and mechanical process, and I now require a sense of danger to feel anything at all

5) We were taking part in a treasure hunt, this photo was one of the treasures, and the kids all ran in after us. That’s actually how it happened, if you’d just stop chasing us and listen

answer: 4
no wait i mean 5

I ordered the Cheezy Bites, because I’m something of an explorer. There was something about the Mini-Angus Burger from the kids menu that stank of pedestrianism, and I fancied something a little more… recherché.

My hopes have rarely been higher, so you can imagine my disgust when I unfolded my greasy paper pouch to uncover these hopeless fingertips. “I can’t bite these,” I wailed internally. “I could pop them in my mouth, but that’s chewing, not biting”

“Oh, I’ll eat them,” I thought defiantly, popping the last two in at the same time, “but I’m not happy.”

I glared at the backlit poster of the Three Cheese Double Angus, while the young lady behind the counter looked at me like I was pretending to act out an internal monologue.

“Yes, I’m aware that bite can correctly be used to mean small amount of food,” I continued to think. “But I maintain that these would be better called Chew-Chooz, Cheesy Pop-ins, or Masticatory Curd Baubles.”

It was at that point that I saw, out of the corner of my eye, another fat man staring sadly at a tiny golden ball of fried cheese, and silently mouthing angry words at it. I woofed at him, and he woofed back at the same time, so I jumped onto his back (see, it wasn’t a mirror) and steered him home using his ears. We’ve now been married for six years. Which brings me onto:

THE ROMANTIC MANOEUVRES OF FAT MEN

From Maximum Awesome’s indispensible bear FAQ
Q: How does one bear greet another bear?
A: Easy! One just says “woof”, and/or growls.

This is true, but not terribly refined. You woof first, and if they woof back, you may growl. Growling without an answering woof could be seen as aggression, and if you are on the fat man’s home territory he might attempt to devour you. This operates on the same scoring system as conkers – if an eighteen stone man eats a superior 21-stone man, he becomes a truly awesome thirty-nine stone bear, and is entitled to some sweet disability benefits.

Once you are both growling, you should retire to the nearest pub’s toilets, and spoon in a cubicle until Spring. In an attempt to spread understanding of fat gay bears, I have written Wooftard Rendezvous. It is a short play about fat gay bears.

INT. NIGHT. A BEAR BAR.

JEFF
Woof

STEVE [looking around]
Woof?

Steve spins around on his stool really fast. When he stops he is facing Jeff.

STEVE
WOOF

JEFF
Grrrr

They rub their hands all over each others shirts, their heads tilted backwards and their mouths open.

INT. DAY. KITCHEN, THREE YEARS LATER

Jeff is looking pleased. He is holding a jar of mayonnaise and parading up and down the kitchen. Steve is rummaging in the bacon drawer.

JEFF
Woof. Woof woof. Woof. Woof…

There is a knock at the door.

STEVE
Wu! Wuwuwu!

Jeff rolls his eyes and answers the door. It is Damien.

DAMIEN
Woof! Woof!

JEFF
Wooof!

Steve looks down at the heart he has made from strips of crispy bacon, and slams a pawful of angry mayo onto it. Instantly regretting what he has done, he eats it all and goes to sleep, standing up.

INT. EVENING. BEDROOM.

Steve checks all the windows, locks the door.

STEVE
Why did you woof with three o’s at Damien?

JEFF
I… I didn’t. I… was doing a French woof. You know, like wurf. Stretches the vowel sound out.

STEVE
Oh. Well, why were you woofing in French?

JEFF
He’s just come back from a trip to Paris.

He holds up an official document with the word WOOF and a paw print at the bottom

STEVE
Oh, that’s interesting. Because it’s not what this sworn affidavit says.

JEFF
Have you been issuing subpoenas to my friends?

STEVE
You didn’t leave me any choice. I had to subpoena something

JEFF
Look Steve, what do you want me to say? That I’ve been spooning Damien in toilet cubicles until Spring? Because for the last three years it’s always been you. Just you, Steve.

STEVE
Well, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise I was such a chore.

JEFF
This is pointless. I’m opening this door and we’re going to go out there, and we’re going to woof at each other like this never happened.

Jeff opens the door

STEVE
I’m going to eat Damien. Perhaps then you’ll love me again.

PASSING JOURNALIST
I didn’t know fat gay men could talk. Or that they ate each other. What a scoop!

JEFF
Oh nice one, Steve. Way to give us away to the Muggles. We’re going to be in shit with Dumbledore now. And it’s double potions tomorrow.

END

That’s pretty much all I know about how fat men do it. If the gay bear lifestyle appeals to you, you can become fat simply by eating more food than your body needs, and you can simulate hair by asking a doctor to implant a powerful magnet in your guts, and rolling around in iron filings. This will have the side benefit of aligning your chakras, which should allow you to fly.

Steve: do you think cockatiels enjoy singing like we enjoy singing

Log: I wonder if they’re trying to impress us into having sex with them. I thought that’s what birdsong was all about. Or territory. Perhaps they’re telling us to get out

Steve: well, when we sing we are trying to impress people on to our cocks/into our vaginas

Log: I suppose. Singing in the shower, we might as well be saying “i am naked, i couldn’t be more ready for sex”

Steve: nobody sings during sex as it is redundant

Log: Unless the other person begins to look bored

Steve: then you might hum something

Log: Personally, I’d bring out the big guns. Belt out a couple of verses of nessun dorma, right up em

Out of interest, it is Steve‘s 23rd birthday today, and he’s having it at a karaoke bar. Girls – if his eyes land on you when he sings “and it’s as big as a whale!” from Love Shack, cross your legs immediately.

Happy Birthday, Steve!

People talk of the playground being divided by a huge tennis net, and long lunch hours spent with their faces pressed against the mesh, their snarling maws hungry for the flesh of the enemy. Geography lessons dominated by the constant slinging of sharpened 45 records, like saw-wheel shuriken. Midnight atrocities committed on the all-weather pitch, atrocities that still replay themselves in the dreams of the victims.

Well, here’s what you can do with your old pop rivalry. You can take it, and you can fold in into a paper aeroplane. Then you can hop onto your back, thrust your legs into the air, and stabilising yourself with your left elbow, launch  the paper aeroplane directly upwards. Then – quickly, you don’t have much time – put your hands on your hips, and manouevre your bumhole into the path of the plane, so it goes right in (hint! You can tear little rudders into the rear of the wings, and it’ll make it look like you have a superior understanding of aerodynamics).

Fuck ‘em. The real battle for the hearts and minds of British schoolchildren (by which I primarily mean me) was between Jennifer Lynch’s tale of amputation beyond the call of medical duty, Boxing Helena, and the moral comedy Eating Raoul, in which a pair of “straights” invite dogfucking dwarves into their home and kill them.

To say I’ve never seen the films until this week, they’ve had a lifelong disproportionate hold on me. It’s the titles. Even though Eating Raoul is a bit of a spoiler, what with the killing and eating of Raoul being the punchline of the entire fucking film, and even if Helena spends close to no time in a box (and even spends the first forty, long minutes of the film with all four arms and legs), that didn’t stop those two titles sitting in the spit on the tip of my tongue.

PAUL: What do you want to do tonight
ME: Well at 7 we’ll be Eating Raoul, but after that I’m free if you want to pop around Helena’s, she needs boxing.
PAUL: Dirtboxing?
ME: Don’t be childish.

ANYWAY RIGHT, I’ve just watched both films, and this is what I’ve learned:

1) I have rewritten my life to believe that Boxing Helena came out when I was in school. In fact, it came out in 1994. So that conversation wasn’t me being a charmingly precocious twelve year old, it was me being a subnormal twenty-something. Then again, I just did this in Tesco, and the most remarkable thing about this is the fact I’m 36.

Also, what the fuck is Tarragon? It sounds like a robot from the seventies. Who buys this shit?

2) Because I’d been told the shock summary about Boxing Helena – “it’s about a man who cuts off a woman’s arms and legs, and keeps her in a box,” I’d imagined a very different movie. The other line that people always said, to demonstrate a profounder understanding of human behaviour, was “but the thing is, she’s always in control“. Naturally, I imagined Helena riding her surgeon around the house, guiding him with the reins in her mouth, and being snippy with him.

3) Speaking of people pretending to have a deep insight into movies, my childhood friend John once told me that “Star Wars isn’t a story of good and evil – it’s cleverer than that. They let you make your own mind up”. I see on Facebook he’s joined the group “ENGLAND IS FULL – NO MORE IMMIGRANTS”. I guess I should have seen that coming. This doesn’t have much to do with Helena or Raoul, I’m a bit bored with the format though

4) It’s OK to keep a woman hostage as long as a) she eventually likes it, b) any sex scenes have the limbs momentarily restored, and c) it was all a dream anyway so like what the fuck.

5) It’s OK to kill and eat Hispanics as long as they’re taken with a decent wine

Now to put my life lessons into practice – if I’m not back in three hours, split my possessions amongst yourselves.

1. Choose the colour that represents the thing you like.

2. If you like doing it, but the hanky in your back left pocket. If you like having it done to you, put it in your back right pocket.

3. Go to a gay bar. Press your bum against the bum of a man you find superficially appealing. If two similarly-coloured hankies meet, a small klaxon will sound. Stay perfectly still and a pride march will begin to happen.

It was invented in the 1920s, when web design looked like this, and we’ve invented loads of sex since then: so here’s the July 2009 update, which you can print out and insert into your gay manuals immediately.

To best illustrate my changing relationship with Twitter, here is a conversation between 2009 me and 2008 me.

2008 Log: Twitter, I dont get it
2009 Log: Thats because youre a fucking dick

strongTwo weeks later/strong

2008 Log: No hang on, Ive thought of a reason now, its a symptom of the pervasive whittling of thinks, the stupidification of humanity, the unstable egotism of anyone who cant keep a fucking thought to themselves
2009 Log: Oh yeah, I noticed they werent making books any more, and every other communication channel has been legally limited to 140 characters, you fucking dick. And whos the cunt who thought it was worth telling the world that a he shit on his own dad?
2008 Log: That wasnt me, it was him
2007 Log: Dont bring me into this, Ive never even heard of Twitter

With Twitter, I have watched my friends casually interact with celebrities, with my mouth right-angle agape. Like a dog whos watching some cats being naughty and wants to join in – but is too nervous about the possibility of human disapproval – I looked from the cats (my friends) to the humans (celebrities), and waited for the rolled-up newspapers to come out.

Then, when I saw the humans reach out and stroke (reply to) the playful kittens, I lost control and thundered in, sending ropes of drool flying up the walls. “IS ARDAL O HANLON NICE, I BET HES A CUNT REALLY” I shrieked at Graham Linehan, in response to his link to a harrowing article about the Iranian Election. “WAS THAT MAN REALLY A PEEDO” I bellowed at Armando Iannuci, as he disclosed news of an arthritic toe.

So now, Im fully in with the hip bunch, and its all thanks to Twitter. And now, to my point.

Following back anyone who seems like theyre a human, its also introduced me to the poetry of a man called Mike. On Twitter, he’s mikeisbrill, and when he used the phrase Carry On Wearing My Anus Like A Balaclava, I had to take ten minutes out of the day to imagine how the eyeholes in an anal balaclava would work.

Gouging out holes in the tract of a man wouldnt, obviously, help you see. Instead, it would allow the mans guts to press more directly against your eyes. If, gods spare us all, your eyes were open, the constricting pressure would prevent you closing them – your pupils swivelling helplessly against the liver of your host.

And then, theres the mouth-slot. A full anal balaclava, Im fairly sure, would drive even a robust man to vomit. But that brought up its own set of logistical problems. Crafting a human anus into a gut balaclava, as desirable as that immediately sounds, is beginning to look like more trouble that its worth.

Sensing that there was unexplored beauty in this situation, I immediately demanded a poem – and thats exactly what I got. So, basically this is the longest link to a poem youll ever read.

THIS LINK WILL TAKE YOU TO A POEM YOU WILL LIKE

But when a force as powerful as Michael Jackson is suffering, it’s like a spear landing in my chakra, and my response is an unearthly spiritual howl, a reality-shearing scream that cuts directly into the higher dimensions. You might have missed it: it’s easy, when your mind is full of the nothing mush of the physical world, to not notice someone screaming in the sixth dimension.

This is why I stood outside, screaming. People need to know what is coming. I am the only one that knows Michael Jackson is going to die.

This is my vision: a shadow spreading over the Kingdom of Pop. A child’s face in the sun, her tears extinguishing the flames. A suddenly-visible moon, presiding over the baronies and feifdoms of pop’s subgenres, basked the peasants tending the paedofields in a ghastly unlight.

The world is coming apart, Pop is ending, and there’s nothing we can do. It’s already happened in my head, and you cannot change what has already happened (in my head).

I give him two days. And that Farah Fawcett looks like she’s got a dicky tit, too

Son: I hope this bus does a loop the loop
Mother: If it does, I’ll park a tit on your leg

Bouyed by this warm cross-generational interchange, I disembarked and entered my regular morning newsagent. It is here, that I always cast my eye over the Pork Farms pasties. I imagine them in my mouth, and try to work out whether that would be a thing I’d be happy paying £1.79 for.

This is my benchmark of acceptability: every day that I decide not to buy and eat a Pork Farms pasty at 8:30am, is another day I have passed the human test. Imagine my surprise when I overheard this!

Customer: My hand’s stuck in this bag of Monster Munch.
Shopkeeper: Have you tried taking it out?
Customer: Tried for a while, but now I quite like it. It’s like a crunchy mitten.
Shopkeeper: A mitten… of monsters!
Customer: Yes!

Cheered immeasurably by this stolen banter, I wandered out of the shop, where I overheard a homeless gentleman trading bon mots with his carrier bag.

Man: Did I tell you about my time at the Danish Embassy?
The carrier bag billows out an unearthly gasp, and paisley swirls envelop the man.
Man: It was the grooviest year of my life.
The bag catches a gust of wind, and rockets into the stratosphere, where it is struck by lightning
Man: And I haven’t stopped dancing yet!
The man snakes himself around a lamp-post, where he remains perfectly still, but for the wild muddling of a lazy, prehensile erection.

Even at work, the people around me have incredible conversations, which I overhear with overstated reaction shots. Cupping my hand to my ear, blinking six times and saying “whu-uuu?”, or simply hooting like a maniac: everyone knows when I’ve overheard something, because I’m standing up, and repeating it word for word. This is a conversation that I’m overhearing right now. I’m piping directly from my ears to my fingers. It’s coursing through me like cake batter, and you are my ovens.

Gelatinous Cube: Man, HR are being such dicks about this tribunal hearing.
Halfling: Dude, I heard about that. You shat out a skeleton soldier in the atrium lift?
Gelatinous Cube: Fuck, when you put it like that, of course it sounds bad. He came out as he went in. Undead.
Halfling: He says you shat the helmet into his face. He says you did it with such deft comic timing that it could only have been deliberate.
Gelatinous Cube: Haha! I totally did that. I thought “he’s just done a double take and collected his thoughts, long enough has passed for everyone to think it’s over, now’s the time for a strong visual punchline”. The Beholder cracked up, it was awesome.
Halfling: Don’t come out with this shit at the tribunal, man.
Gelatinous Cube: You worry too much.
Halfling: You know what, I’ve always wondered why skeleton soldiers carry gold around. Why do the undead need money?
Gelatinous Cube: You still working on that open mic set?
Halfling: Fuck you.

That’s all I’ve overheard today. If I hear anyone saying anything else, I promise you, you’ll be the joint second to know.

It’s been long enough since the burglary – and the tear-jerkingly generous response of friends and colleagues - for this post to not to seem like a begging message. So, here’s what I wrote the day after burglars nicked everything I own, and one of Stuart’s Dr Who DVDs that was in my XBox. I haven’t heard the last of that, I can tell you! ”Why don’t you put things back in their boxes; that was part of a box set; I’m not really saying any of this, you just love the idea of being henpecked”.

When you’re burgled, by people who you’ve come to suspect are French, there are six things that pass through your mind. I’ve distilled these six thoughts as the universal human stages of dealing with home invasion, possession theft, and a lack of sexual assault that’s bordering on remiss.

Thought 1. Oh hey, I’ve been burgled pretty hard
Thought 2. I’ve got so much more space to do handstands now
Thought 3. This has the familiar whiff of France about it
Thought 4. Look at all the awesome stuff they left behind
Thought 5. I wonder if they came into the bedroom and watched me sleeping before deciding against the sexual assault
Thought 6. This could be the opportunity I’ve been waiting for to use that Windsor font from The Good Life titles

Today, I’ll be focussing on point four. Here’s what they left behind. I was going to Twitter it, then I thought “hey Log, why don’t you write a fucking paragraph”

A glass of pink wine. It was like we’d laid the room out for Santa Claus. Whenever I’m stressed, my mouth becomes dry and uncomfortable. I’d hate for anyone burgling me to become irritable and lose focus because they’re involuntarily smacking their lips and wincing, so I left a glass of murky pink wine out. Clearly – not fucking good enough for them.

If I’d known we had dignitaries visiting, I’d have put out a tube of Prawn Primula and some Tia Maria. Next time, give us a bit of fucking notice, OK? I’ll leave a Tuc biscuit wedged into a little pink cushion shaped like Prince Philip’s bumcrack. I can be classy when I need to be.

A Carnival Of Monsters Dr Who Adventure. This means one of two things. Either they thought that it actually was a carnival of miniaturised monsters, that would expand to full size when the box was opened – or they’ve already watched it, and know what incoherent shit it is. Take that, Terance Dicks! In your well-respected face!

A pouffe. I can understand this one, actually. It’s perfectly rational to imagine that this is a sophisticated Al Murray-summoning burglar alarm. The first burglar to say “do we want that pouffe?” would trigger a seventeen minute sketch with Al Murray’s gay Nazi. And I think, it’d sound, something, like, this!

Al Murray: “DID SOMEVON SAY POOUUUUUFFFE”
Henri-Luc: “He honh he honh”
Jacques: “I could use a pouffe in my downstairs room”
Al Murray: “MEE TOO IF BY DOWNSTAIRS ROOM YOU MEAN ANUS”
Jacques: “Well, I probably did. The phrase ‘downstairs room’ isn’t really a common one, I was using it mainly to set you up for that exact response. I was being a dutiful straight man ”
Al Murray: “I’M A RIGHT COMMON ONE, I’LL DO ANYTHING FOR A CHOCO LIEBNIZ”
James Corden: “I just think it’s brave of me to make so many jokes about my weight, when it must be genuinely horrible looking like I do”
Al Murray: HANG ON I HAVEN’T DONE ANYTHING ABOUT STRAIGHT MAN YET
Henri-Paul: “Il y a onze oignons dans le poubelle, je veux les baiser”

[Al Murray re-enacts every conversation of the entire second World War in a hysterical gay voice, while Corden removes his top and starts pushing socks into his belly button]

Hot Naga Chilli. I’d like to think that the burglars were spice cowards, and my taste in nature’s thumpier condiments took them aback. However, I suspect the reality is one of them saw the bottle, got everyone to look at it, and said “Naga, Please!”

Everyone would have laughed for around twenty minutes, and then their stupid mate would have come through our window, and ruined the skirting-around-the-word fun for everyone by saying “Nigger, please” and expecting everyone to laugh in the same way.  Breaking the joke in this way just sped up the theft of my stuff, so you can imagine how annoyed at him I am. Even Al Murray would have to black up before saying the nigger word, and he’s very much the barometer of what is and isn’t brilliant.

Guitar Hero World Tour: Actually, I’m bored now. I’d just put the words on the image, and felt like I had to mention it in the body copy. Look at me, saying phrases like body copy, like it’s normal. I’ll be saying “page furniture” next. PRESS B TO STOP EVOLVING INTO A PRICK

Anyway, here’s a quick summary for you:

The girl opposite me has just suffered the death of a beloved goldfish. It was one of those stubborn fuckers that lasts a decade, so she really had a chance to become attached to it. The fish has seen her through her exams, her sexual awakening, and now it is dead.

Suddenly, the towers of photo albums – padded with snapshots of her and the goldfish in front of all the major global landmarks – have become too painful to acknowledge. So they’re left in the spare room: unseen, but for the glowing red dot on the wireframe tactical map of her soul.

She was so moved by the loss, that she couldn’t stomach the endless recitals and eulogising of a full Catholic funeral, and asked her boyfriend to flush the fish down the toilet. This he did, and she sank into an introspective slumber. The sound of urination roused her from internal soliloquy, and she felt stirred to comment.

“Are you pissing on my dead fish?”

Stripped of guile by the grieving process, the reply was stark.

“I needed a piss”

“So you pissed on my goldfish.”

What followed was a debate between conserving nature’s resources and not pissing on a fish. It’s a debate that can never be reconciled, but I know how that boyfriend felt. If he’d flushed, he would have had to wait for the cistern to refill – and staring into a toilet, unable to move, is when most humans have their darkest, most introspective thoughts about futility.

There’s also the fear that your next attempt will be premature – triggering an ineffective splash that cruelly resets your waiting time.

And the attempts to interpret the sounds coming from inside the cistern – did that change of tone mean that the water has stopped, or simply that there’s less room for reverberation inside the pot? Why are you trying to learn the secret language of toilets?

Finally, the desperate lifting of the cistern lid, for some kind of visual clue as to when you might be able to resume your life. You are standing over your own waste, probably with your trousers still around your ankles, and staring at mouldy ballcocks toilet water. You are scum. How you even dare to survive another moment is a fucking brazen liberty.

——–

Early 2008, in the disabled toilet of Future Publishing’s London offices, I perpetrated a stool so fruity in its bombast, that a single flush barely bruised the creature. I soon found that the reflush-refresh on the toilet was incredibly long: after some impatient and irrational pumping on the handle,  I removed the slightly diseased looking square of wood that concealed the cistern.  I gazed sadly into my immediate future. The flow of water was agonisingly slow.

For two minutes, I paced that oversized room, until the image of Future’s one disabled employee on the horizon, powering towards me with a turtle’s head, became too overpowering. I flushed again. A pint of water landed on my big poo.

Bear in mind I’m trying to flush this turd out of my life, not bring it to from a swoon.

I couldn’t wait another two minutes. Luckily, this toilet was a perfectly equipped puzzle room. I threw the toilet brush to one side, flecking my shins and the wall with sodden paper and old shit, and started using the container to ferry water from the tiny disabled sink to the cistern.

At this point, I began to feel workmanlike, and a kind of shitty can-do contentment settled over me. I used the toilet brush to physically break the turd, maintaining the everything-used-once purity of the puzzle, and went back to my desk to write about some fucking real-time strategy game or other.

I never told people this when it happened, because I was full-time, and didn’t want everyone to assume that the other bodily atrocities committed in the Future disabled toilets were mine. Now, at last, the story can be told.

If there is a moral, I suppose it’s “don’t worry about people pissing on your dead fish, because it could be being sluiced around with a mixture of fresh and diluted weeks-old shit by me”.

Does anyone have a job where I can just sit there, silently fuming into the internet at the cunts on the next desk? And it has to be in a company where no-one knows how to use the internet, or Google their own name.

In the meantime, I’m trying to develop a non-offensive Tumblr habit, so look at that if you like.

http://disappointment.tumblr.com