Schoolboy humour at 34 - gotta love it. Second Opinion For Butt Injury

I don’t want to talk about footy. Gary Megson had better sort Forest out in a hurry, otherwise we’ll find ourselves where good old Cloughie found us.

Guess who asked my bank for ���1600 quid again today? Idiots. Now ���60 down in bank charges, and I am not a happy bunny. I can feel another irate phone call coming on tomorrow. Actually, not irate, that doesn’t do anyone much good. Shouting at the unfortunate call centre workers isn’t the best way to get what you want. Naturally at this stage what I want is to be reimbursed for the charges and then to try and find a power supplier that is capable of finding its own arse with both hands.

And a map.

I never thought I’d have a blog entry all about the dream I had last night, but this is just too weird. I have heard before that what’s happening around you as you sleep can influence your dreams, but this was so clear-cut it freaked me out a bit. I had the radio on as I drifted off, listening to 5 Live. Now, I’d still got the last of the divisional NFL playoff games to watch on The World’s Best Gadget, Sky Plus. Normally Radio 5 don’t bother reporting NFL/NBA/NHL/MLB results until the finals so I thought I’d be safe in avoiding hearing the results.

I fell asleep and was dreaming about myself and loads of people I know kicking various objects around an airfield over a sort of slalom course, in between cones marking out the course. The fact we were kicking things like teapots, kids toys and such instead of footballs was the only weirdness. But then a radio appeared in the middle of the runway and in the dream I heard the result of the Colts-Patriots game. I tried to la-la-la-not-listening it away while a friend (still in the dream, remember - steady!) tried to throw themselves on top of the radio, bad war film style, but to no avail.

And I woke up and it was all a dream…

A picture of Christopher Biggins and Gary Wilmott together in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang! Only one thing could make my joy complete - the girl in the middle, despite looking like her from a distance, is not, alas, Bonnie Langford.

For those in any doubt, BIG FAT F*ING SMILEY. Kill them. Kill them now. As a guide: Biggins is the kind of twonk who says things like “I get very angry when people poo-poo pantomime”.

Now here’s a thing I didn’t know. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was written by Ian Fleming, of James Bond 007 I’m Not Gay Or Owt fame. Rumbled, mate, rumbled.

The Cassini Huygens probe is super cool, don’t get me wrong. With my background, I can see the real achievement and spectacular engineering subtlety in not only surveying but landing on a body which is 60 or so light minutes away. Bloody incredible, frankly. As far as I can tell, only the Doppler Wind Radar experiment failed, and that can pretty easily be made up for with some quality terrestrial radio telescope time.

The thing is, the pictures are great and I’m sure there’s lots more to come, but there is a bit of giggle factor with the audio recordings. A probe drifting down through the atmosphere of a distant moon hears… well, a bunch of wafty hiss. What a surprise. Would have been nice if there was a gentle thud at the end, shortly followed by a little grey munchkin saying “Anyone for tennis?” but you can’t have everything, can you?

I thought I’d done with the tiling in the Bathroom Project from Hell, but no. I found myself yet again with the earplugs in, hacking tiles into shape with the Tile Saw from Hell. Still, this time it really is it. Did you know I coined that phrase, “The blank from Hell?” :->

Digable Planets are still touring. If ever there was a (minor, even) one hit wonder, it was them. One appearance on The Word as I recall and a little hit with “Rebirth of Slick” and that was that.

Ah, after a little Google, it appears that there has been a heck of a hiatus. Just listening to the hit now. Heck of a groove, but blimey - the lyrics! Pardon? Yerwot? There’s only one track with less understandable lyrics - Camp Lo “Luchini a.k.a. This is It”

It’s sure to make you choke on your muesli: to find that a direct debit for ���1589 has been taken from your account by PowerGen. Then to call them and find that they don’t know why, and that they don’t know where that demand for payment came from.

I mean, it’s a house I’m running here, not an aluminium smelting plant! 1600 quid!

Project Don’t-Be-Such-A-Biffer-In-Time-For-The-Holiday starts in earnest tomorrow. It’s an odd night tonight: I should have been in hospital by now, nil by mouth waiting for the big day tomorrow. As it is, I’ve had a nice warm chicken salad and a couple of glasses of port. Oh yes, my body is a temple.

Ow, me nadgers.

Was in goal for all of 30 seconds in the footy game this evening before taking a full-blooded drive right in the babymakers. Good grief it hurt. Still does. On the plus side, we won, and the honour of scoring the very first goal in 2005 falls to yours truly. It’s not all bad…