30th September:

Let me make a confession to you, gentle reader: I suffer from a mild form of schizophrenia.

For the last 20 years I have been waging a battle to decide which of the two men who live inside me I really am.

Stuart 1 is a short-haired, smartly dressed kind of guy. He likes nice ties and cuff links, good food and wine, travels a lot and is fiercely ambitious. He has a well paid job and is professional, organised and, if we're being honest here, faintly pretentious.

Stuart 2 has a penchant for flowery shirts, loves leather jackets and has long hair. He's musical, reads voraciously, smokes (but not excessively), has a small tattoo on his right shoulder and loves nothing better than a pint of ale and a good arthouse film. He's empathetic and slightly shambolic but thoroughly good fun.

These two men co-exist in a strange and often uneasy manner. Imagine those situations in life that cause you to dig deep inside yourself and question your views on a subject, only to have 2 conflicting opinions returned.

Allow me to illustrate the problem with an example:
Stuart 1 feels that whoever decided mobile phones should be fitted with hands-free loudspeakers should be taken out and shot at dawn. Along with whoever invented coleslaw, the crazy frog and Sunny Delight. Bluetooth headsets - fine. Hands-free kits for cars - perfect. Loudspeakers on phones - bloody nuisance. Sorry if that sounds a bit Daily Mail. The rationale behind this argument is simply that Britain's urban landscape is now littered with groups of yoot who wander around listening to Kanye West publicly and loudly on their tinny, lo-fi phones and scowling at anyone who dares to look at them in accusatory fashion. Presumably buying a pair of fucking headphones is just too much effort.

Stuart 2 , on the other hand, has no problem with the concept of showing off your rebellious streak and is, quite frankly, far too chilled to get worked up about this kind of thing anyway.

You see the dilemma?

Some might say that being able to see both sides of any argument is a virtue that leads to greater empathy and compassion. Others might say it's just fannying around and indecision. All I know is that at any given time, regardless of who I feel I am, the other fella is right there, bubbling away just under the surface and struggling to get out.

I'm hoping that anyone who has ever been torn between their heart and their head, between what they want to do and what they should do, will know exactly how I feel.

29th September:

My daily commute usually takes around 30 minutes each way, most of which is spent on the A14 - a 2-lane stretch of motorway that features several sets of average speed cameras. However, even when I'm sitting in the fast lane doing 72 mph and the inside lane is full, people really seem to enjoy tailgating me. I've noticed, somewhat strangely, that these people are mostly fat. And drive small cars.

Now before anyone gets on their high-horse and starts accusing me of snobbery here, let me state that I have nothing against fat folk, nor do I bear any grudge against drivers of compact cars. However, it is a bit odd that the larger boned individuals do seem to be attracted to the more modestly sized vehicles. It's even more strange that, having shoe-horned themselves into their Ford Fiesta 1.1, and found a place on the dashboard for the 2 litre Coke bottle and the family sized bag of Doritos, they then choose to drive like eejits and exhibit exactly the kind of behaviour that leads to the A14 enjoying almost 300 accidents every year.

Bad news, folks - all that extra fat really doesn't mean you'll just bounce of my boot unharmed when I slap the brakes on.

28th September:

Every so often Hollywood seems to go through a bit of a creative barren spell. Experience suggests that the answer to this malaise is “if in doubt, find another obscure children’s classic to butcher”.

To be fair, it’s not always that bad - some intelligent casting, sensitive directing and careful use of CGI can occasionally result in the sympathetic translation of an old-loved favourite into something that new generations can embrace and enjoy. 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' being one example that springs immediately to mind. However, it's more than likely that you're actually going to get a 'Thunderbirds' - Jonathan Frakes is probably still scratching his head somewhere trying to remember who had convinced him that this would be a winning idea.

Having given this some thought, I would like to offer some helpful suggestions for the next crop of live-action adaptations of my childhood favourites that may appeal to the yoot of today:

Rhubarb and Custard - The Priory Years.
Bod and the Fruit Salad Frenzy.
Button Moon: The Spaghetti Assassination
Nightmare on Pigeon Street
Mr. Benn, transgender time traveller.
Bagpuss: we will, we will, mend you.

Quick, somebody get me a phone. Hello, is that Mr. Frakes...?

27th September:

Regular readers of this site (hello again mum!) will be aware that your congenial host does enjoy casting a critical eye over other company's marketing campaigns. One recent example that caught my eye was the series of adverts for the new Nissan X-Trail 4x4.

I'm not sure who the bright spark was in Japan who came up with the advertising strapline "Extremely Capable" but it has certainly left me scratching my head. And not in a good way. I think I can see what the advertising agency was trying to get across, and the correct way of articulating the original concept in English is probably something like "Extremely Versatile" combined with "Assured Performance". What we've actually been given, though, is a more-than-likely direct translation of something Japanese into something English that doesn't really mean anything at all. Calling something 'capable' is hardly highlighting a virtue - it simply implies that the item is functional. Adding 'extremely' into the equation only adds a degree without in any way suggesting a quality. Extremely capable = very functional. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the car, now, is it? Talk about damning with faint praise...

Our Nipponic cousins have plenty of history with this kind of thing - I recall walking down a Tokyo street in 2003 and seeing a sign for a restaurant whose food would apparently help me to enjoy "peaceful gastric activity". You know precisely what they mean, but they've just not quite got it right. Lovers of this kind of thing will probably already be aware of the celebrated web site www.engrish.com.

In the meantime, please excuse me...I have to go and have joyful occasion that is my wishness. Feel enjoy!

18th September:

I have never had a huge interest in the game of rugby (for any of our North American cousins out there, it's just like American Football but without the 16 layers of padding, body armour or helmets) but there is clearly something to be said about a sport where the fans of the two opposing teams can happily mingle inside the stadium and then go to the pub and get pissed together afterwards.

Football (sorry, but I refuse to use the word soccer - who invented it first, eh?) has never quite managed to pull this same achievement off, the two sets fans seemingly preferring to taunt each other with insulting and occasionally bigoted chants before having a mass brawl either in the car park or on the way to the train station after the match. Surely it's not a class thing, though? Or is it?

Your congenial host has always been deeply suspicious of those people who declare a passionate interest in the fortunes of their preferred football team. Especially those who wear the strip on non-match days or buy any of the official licensed merchandise. A poster or two on the wall of a boyhood bedroom is all well and good, but branded leisurewear, luggage and crockery is clearly the wrong kind of fashion statement. I once saw a young gentleman with the crest of his preferred club tattooed on his left breast. This is lunacy of the highest order, and immediately marks out the man (or woman) in question as being someone of questionable parentage and intelligence. The infamous football manager Bill Shankly once offered an oft-repeated pithy quote to a journalist who commented "Football seems to be life and death to you" by replying "no, it's more important than that". So he was clearly certifiable.

Sport is obviously big business these days and needs a passionate fanbase to help it thrive, but I've seen people who take the whole thing far too seriously. Any violence or blood spilled in the name of a team or sport is simply unacceptable. At the end of the day, it really is only a game. No, really. Matches come and go, championships are retained or conceded, cups won or lost in the last minute due to a dubious penalty decision but it is never life or death, and anyone who claims so doesn't have the intelligence to make their opinion worth listening to.

And if you want to argue with me, I'll be down the pub with the rugby fans.

10th September:

Your congenial host has just spent the last week living in the land of the large. Denver, to be precise. An interesting city, it has to be said, where the de rigeur breakfast of choice appears to be several pints of orange juice and coffee so weak you can see the bottom of your cup when it is full, accompanied by a breakfast burrito the size of a duvet. All washed down with a couple of anti-statin tablets, of course. Because a bowl of Alpen would be too much hassle.

The thing that always strikes me every time I am in the US is the sheer wastage that goes on. Surely somebody somewhere must see the amount of leftover food that gets thrown away and think "Hang on, why don't we just give them less in the first place...?" It's almost as if restaurants and cafes are terrified that customers are going to feel short-changed in some way or another and so over compensate by giving their clientèle a free coronary with every meal.

Another odd facet of life over there is the sheer bloody-minded perkiness of the table staff. I know they live off their tips, but there are times when you're really just not in the mood for Kelly (19, aspiring actress) to take you through the specials and her personal favourites on the menu in a way that makes you think she's swallowed liquid sunshine. Keeping that act up all day can't be good for you, I wager.

Still, on the plus side, I'm going back over again soon and fully intend to charge people for speaking to them. Every "Oh my God, I just love your accent" will cost a buck. God bless Capitalist America!