My lager sat on the windowsill.  Behind it traffic buzzed, pedestrians ambled and the ubiquitous riff-raff loitered outside MacDonald’s.  It was remarkably engaging.  Life is fascinating when viewed through a pint glass.  The bubbles danced in time to Radiohead, or perhaps Radiohead were playing in time to the bubbles, but what caught my attention was the chap at the bar.

Coat folded neatly on the bar, hat balanced expertly on top, his usual drinking routine I suspect.  Faded t-shirt stretched over his belly.  Horizontal stripes never flatter.  An unusually prominent bottom lip made him look like a man who is perpetually displeased.  A nose like a parrot’s beak,  jet black hair that – given his age – had to be dyed.  He had all the deportment of a gloomy cockatoo. On his left wrist was the tiniest watch I have ever seen. Anorexic black strap and a minuscule face.  Seriously, it was so tiny that I can only suppose he had stolen it from a doll.

He checked his watch repeatedly, his manner was that of a wanted man.  He lifted the beer slowly, peered in the top and then slowly rotated the glass as he scrutinised it from the side. Humph, his expression said, the beer clearly disappointed and he glared at it morosely.  He put down the glass with a melodramatic sigh, shot a few conspiratorial glances around the pub, grabbed his coat and hat and left in a hurry.  But what was behind the suspicious behaviour?

I suspect the infamous Doll Mafia are after him.

If a bad night’s sleep wasn’t bad enough, I then slept through my alarm because I was so tired. During one of those busy times at work when you just don’t oversleep.

All this made was made worse by the fact that I run the morning show, and therefore my wife was late for work too.

And if that hadn’t made me grumpy enough, I didn’t have time to eat breakfast or make lunch. I had to sprint for the station to ensure that I only got to work 90 minutes later than usual, which meant I spent the entire journey sweating like a badger.

The last thing I needed was one of those “laptop boys” sitting in front of me on the train. He gets on, and whips out the biggest “laptop” I have ever seen. A Mac of course. That’s not a laptop. It’s a tabletop. Or even a mountaintop. I don’t know if its a Macbook (don’t really know my Macs I’m afraid), but it shouldn’t be because its too damn big. No book is that size.

I’ve nothing against Macs. Honest. I like the hardware, but they’re too expensive. And OS X makes me feel like I’m being dragged through a playpen backwards, wearing a joker’s costume and a hat covered in bells, whistles and bouncing beach balls, chased by yappy dogs and…ok I’ll stop.

Ok, bit harsh on the OS, it probably allows you to customise the maddening stuff away, and I like the built in shell.

But then, I’m a Gnome man through and through, avoiding KDE, Windows and beach balls like the plague.

But this one was just too big. As he opened it I actually saw a shadow travel over my magazine. If I brought in a CRT and an oldskool tower case they would take up less space. Maybe I should – just to make a point.

If anyone objects I’ll just say “What? It’s just my laptop.”