It wasn’t just that I fancied a pint of lager, Spurs were losing 3-0 to some dubiously-sounding Swiss team that, for some reason that I could probably wikipediup, call themselves Young Boys, which doesn’t sound particularly Swiss (whatever language they choose to use) and I felt that, as your typically emotional Spurs fan, I ought to turn up at the local and support the mighty Spurs.

The two blokes were slouched in front of the TV, one Scandinavian and one about as English as a bacon butty. “Any of you Spurs fans?” I asked. The Scandinavian looked at me like I was some jerk who had stuffed a ton of junk mail through his door. I hadn’t, why would I pick a square-jawed Scandinavian at random and stuff some crap through his door? He said nothing so I said nothing, it was a mutual statement of zero, pointless in the grand scheme of  things but decisive in the social context.

“I am,” said the Englishman, and we entered into a lively discussion of the Spurs greats, Ossie Ardiles, Lineker, Gazza, why Lennon wasn’t playing and why Pav was, and before we knew it, the Scandinavian had gone, vanished into the night, and Pav had scored a cracking goal.

“Seen that bloke before?” I said.

“Nope,” he replied, “Scandinavian?”

Demise is probably a strong word, but I’m taking an extended blogging holiday. I’ll leave the site up for now, but I just need a break and besides, there’s football to watch, sun to soak and ice-cold beer to enjoy…

That’s all folks. Don’t know when or if I’ll be back, but you know where to find me.

Clad in a shabby blue mackintosh, the elderly rogue slurped his John Smith’s in a spectacularly irritating fashion. With sensibilities as delicate as mine I am indisputably in a position to judge.

He would take mind-numbingly long sips, lasting for ten seconds flat, i.e. well over the average one second “beer sip threshold” and then, in a manner which implied a lifetime habit and decades upon decades of soul-destroying practice, he finished each monster slug with a peace-shattering slurp, all the while crossing and re-crossing his legs.

Now when I say slurp, I don’t mean the way people (despicably and controversially) slurp their tea, which is bad enough as it is, violating unarticulated drinking protocol with astonishing acts of flagrant slurpage. It was far beyond this, he took it to the next level, sort of smacking his lips and kissing them with such extravagance that he could be invited to a rudeboy convention as a prize exhibit. He finished the procedure by chattering his teeth and sniffing, conspiring to produce the kind of sound that, I imagine, a wild boar would make after gorging on lemon meringue pie.

It was all too much to handle, so I let my eyes wander across the pub, searching desperately for something to focus on, something which would distract me sufficiently enough so that I could enjoy the rest of my pint.

My gaze settled on five coat hooks, amateurishly packed onto a bit of wood so rotten it must have been pulled out of a ditch. Hanging on one of the hooks was a solitary leather coat, well-worn and grubby. I focussed on it intently, counting and re-counting the hooks and wishing I was cool enough to go for the Matrix look.

Finally the slurper left, peace at last. The barman caught my relief.

“Nice chap,” he said, shaking his head in empathy, “but very, very irritating.”

Angry I was, and fuming like the most polluting chimney in the darkest, dirtiest, dingiest corner of Glasgow.

The heartburn was kicking in, scorching pain ran through my chest, the airways were disrupted; it was worse than an Icelandic ash cloud.

I’d had hiccups for a full hour and this had, for some reason or other, led onto heartburn, which I get occasionally, usually when I’m stressed or breaking another world record for prolonged hiccups.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know you’re blaming the beer, but you’re wrong. I had consumed nothing more than two glasses of champagne and a cup of leek and potato soup, so shut your collective cake-hole.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, hold your breath you say. Or drink water upside down. Or do something which will distract you, like juggling flaming Samurai swords whilst inching backwards across a wire strung haphazardly over a lake of irritable alligators. Or whatever else the old wives tell you in their tales that will cure hiccups.

Dammit, I thought, as I was settling down to enjoy a book despite the hiccups. The following day was bin-day and I had forgotten to take the trash out front.

In England the bin men are generally supposed come weekly, on a set day and, I assume, at roughly the same time. This is apparently quite tricky. It is not uncommon for the bin men to inexplicably miss out a week, or arbitrarily shift the collection day about, or do anything they can to thwart the rest of us. So it’s not unusual for refuse sacks full of potent nappies (diapers) to sit outside for an extra week, festering and polluting the atmosphere.

On the upside, at least it’ll stop the aliens from invading…

Blimey old chap. This Earth place doesn’t half stink, it’s more or less the Universe’s sink estate. Let’s leave them wallowing in their filth and invade somewhere nicer, where our kids can go to decent schools and we can sit out on the patio, drinking copious amounts of wine, without having to peg our noses.

I wretched, I stumbled, gagging and spluttering as I methodically extricated two weeks’ worth of stinking sacks from the refuse area and took them out front for the neighbours’ enjoyment and pleasure.

And then it dawned on me. The hiccups had stopped and the aliens hadn’t invaded. I’ve discovered a rudimentary but effective way to obtain uninterrupted terrestrial peace, prosperity and best of all, make readily available a sure-fire cure for hiccups.

All we have to do is reduce bin-collection frequency.

Today I’m writing all about The Perfect Male Mind at Jen’s place.

The tussle-headed beast staggers towards me. Huge and clumsy, rigid and graceless, as uncoordinated as a drunken robot, more terrifying than a delinquent child of Frankenstein.

Its arms hang loose, muscular yet conspicuously useless, as if they are more accessory than functional appendage, the end-effectors limp and floppy, a pointless existence if you ask me.

Still, it carries on towards me, determined and decidedly furious. Unfortunately its legs still function, albeit awkwardly. It rocks about unsteadily, like a seasick granny on a sloping deck.

Lost? Drunk? Not at this time, surely not, and this is his home, there is no way he is lost. He’s closer now, dangerously close, heaving those floppy arms in my direction, making huge gyroscopic swings as he grunts and mutters evil nothings. And then the inevitable happens. I’m crushed by a great clunking fist, the fight is over.

It’s a tough life being an alarm clock. Looks like Mo slept funny. When I woke him up he had two “dead” arms.

He stood there in solitude, uncertain and uncomfortable. Not actual solitude mind, the palace was packed, but it was as though, in his mind and awkward state of indecision, he was all alone.

Blue woollen jumper straight off the Marks & Spencer shelf, a checked shirt poking out the top and hanging out the bottom, the dishevelled look of chap who had reluctantly given in and allowed his wife to stock his wardrobe.

He had a paper with him, The Daily Mail, preciously hugged as though the world depended on its bold headlines and scaremongering drivel.

There were three comfort stations, porcelain thrones, wall-mounted in grimy glory. To the left, taken, to the right, taken, only the middle one was available, and when I say available, I mean at a squeeze.

Blue Jersey was haltering, he wanted to go, needed to go, but he knew the rules of male restroom etiquette. Always have at least one free urinal either side of you. But I had to go, City were playing Spurs, it was half-time and you know what beer is like. To take the middle urinal would violate protocol, you should always spread out.  Everyone knows that, well, every man knows it, I can’t vouch for the female kind, but at least they know it now.

Eons ago the porcelain gods decreed, letting the universe know what was to be, setting in stone the restroom rules that we have today. I defied them, I had to. Besides, they don’t really exist do they? The porcelain gods I mean, this is a rational age after all. So I squeezed into the middle slot and defied the gods. Blue Jersey wasn’t happy as he clutched his paper for dear life, not only had I broken the rules but I had queue-jumped to boot.

And the porcelain gods? There’s nothing like a bit of punitive revenge.

Mind the step, the sign said, mind the step I didn’t.

There I am, cross-legged on the sheepskin rug upon which my offspring – pretty, gorgeous, delightful – sprinkles her milk, raisins and nasal produce. Can of lager to my right, a couple of laptops in front of me, Blackberry to my left. The TV blares, Barcelona are playing Inter Milan. The game to watch, the game I’m not really watching.

Since we moved a few weeks ago the broadband has worked during the day with the stoic reliability of one of Hannibal’s elephants, but drops its connection during peak evening hours with such ineffable consistency that I could now find the restart button on the router on a dark night during a power cut, even if it was inexplicably sitting in a dark alley surrounded by dark alleycats drinking stout too dark for even Jimmy Bastard to imbibe.

“Listen,” I said, using my best “tearful customer” voice, “it is clear there is a contention issue. The connection is fast, reliable and perfect all the time except during peak evening periods. Then it drops. Until about 11PM, which it re-establishes itself.” But by then I’m too tired to update my Facebook status.

She, that lovely and hard-working “technical support” person, wasn’t too interested in my deduction. If I could try this, that, the other, try this socket and that socket, or experiment with the yellow Ethernet cable.

“But the problem HAS to be contention,” I butted in, fed up of the scripted yakking that was flooding down the phone line, all thirty-six pages of it, making my ears bleed and spoiling the game. “Either the exchange cannot handle the demand OR some of the locals are hogging the capacity.” Flaming students and teenagers.

“We need to monitor the line and do some diagnostics and…”

“Well the connection has dropped now,” I said, taking a swig and glancing forlornly at my seventeen wireless-enabled devices continue to search for a connection.

“It can’t be done in YOUR time,” she said, “it must be done in OUR time.”

“Well I’d suggest getting on with it right now,” I said curtly. Hey, a couple of weeks with no evening Internet is pretty much as bad as it gets.

…

When the “call-back” came I had the worst case of pins and needles since the great sewing-box accident of ’69. The rug may be soft and, even better, padded with raisins, snot and dried milk, but the floor underneath is hard and I hadn’t moved. Other than to take a leak and snatch another can of cheap Dutch lager from the fridge.

“There’s a problem at the exchange,” she said, “an engineer will be out to fix it and will call you in the next 48 hours.”

“Just curious,” I said politely, “what is the problem exactly?”

I listened to her vague and frankly incognisant spiel about switches being a bit like light switches and all that nonsense. Moments later the router re-established its connection and all seventy-four of my wireless-enabled gadgets sprang into life like a herd of mountain gazelle dancing in the joys of Spring.

Presumably there was an “allow customer broadband access during peak times” checkbox on her Customer Details screen.

And they wonder why us Brits are so cynical?

I suppose it could have been the cheap Dutch lager that fixed the problem.

It cruised into the car park with a cacophony of classless rumbling. Suspended low, spankingly shiny, it’s the sort of car Rubbish drives until he gets caught for road-tax evasion. Blue, tinted windows, mounted by a massive spoiler, the Mitsubishi farted like a petulant child on a baked-bean diet.

It circled the car park slowly and carefully, as if practicing for a souped-up “check out my car” curb crawl, eventually finding a spot in the far corner. We eagerly awaited the appearance of the driver, gleefully speculating…

“Spotty 17-yr-old?”

“Boy-racer?”

“Mid-life crisis?”

A mature gentleman clambered out of the car. Suited, tied, immaculately presented, his tiny round spectacles giving him a badger-like appearance.

Don’t ask me why, it’s not as if badgers wear spectacles, although to be fair, they may well do when driving. Come to think of it, he reminded me of Badger from Wind in the Willows and while I’m on the subject, I’ll bet Toad would have loved the Mitsubishi.

He wandered round the car for a half a minute or so, inspecting, scrutinising, gently wiping the glass. Then he ambled across the car park towards us, glancing over his shoulder every few metres to, I dunno, check that it hadn’t been crapped on by a pigeon. He looked a tad paranoid too, as if he sensed he was being watched.

Funny that. It’s not as if there were thirty of us crowded at the windows above.

What followed was sublime. As soon as he reached the far side of the car park the Mitsubishi’s alarm went off, shrill and piercing enough to make your ears bleed. He scampered back to the car fumbling for his keys.

I’ve never seen a badger move so fast.

Captain Dumbass, of Us and Them, is quite probably my hero. When he isn’t taking photos of Lego men, constructing intricate scenes using nothing but dodgy-looking food stuffs, or bribing his sons to hold hilarious signs, he has the ability to knock out stories like this one. The man is a genius. Over to you fella.

“And then she actually has the nerve to say to me… what? No, right in front of everyone! Everyone! I know, right? Wait. Hold on a second, Mary.” Evelyn Longstep took the phone from her ear and peered around her kitchen. She tilted her head to the left and right as she searched for what she hoped was just her imagination and not what she thought she had heard. The morning sunlight streamed in the kitchen’s east facing windows, brightening even the spaces under the counters and stove, something that regularly irked Mrs. Longstep as it only meant more for her to clean up whenever she had guests.

As she was about to continue her gossip with Mrs. Towers from down the lane she saw something move behind one of the stoves legs and shrieked. She dropped the phone on the counter and leapt onto her chair. “Derrick!” she screamed. Receiving no response she huffed and picked up the phone. “No, I’m fine, Mary. I’ve got another one in the house. I know! If we could just put down some poison we’d be done with them for good, but no, Derrick has to trap them and let them go every time. They’re pests! What does it matter if we kill them? You know there’s always a dozen more once you’ve seen the first one. What? Hold on,” she said. “Derrick!”

“I swear that man sleeps like the dead. No, he’s still working nights. Sorry, what were you asking before? Oh, the coins. No, it was a hen last time, coins before that. Those damn things will steal anything, if you’ll pardon my language. Come to think of it, this one looks a lot like those two… Gah! That man! I’ll bet you a dollar that it is the exact same one. Well, if he doesn’t kill it this time, I will, this is ridiculous. Ugh! They’re such wretched little things. Oh! There it goes, there it goes. Wait! It’s got his music player. That will get his sorry hide out of bed for a change. One moment, Mary,” she lowered the phone before hollering out to her husband. “Derrick! Derrick! Don’t you ‘what woman’ me! We’ve got another human in the house and this time he’s got your little harp. Yes, he’s already gone.”

“Lord, Mary. That definitely lit a fire under him. Wonder if he’d move that fast if they carried me out of here one day. Ha! I doubt it too. Maybe this time he’ll actually do something about it. Anyway, where were we? Right! So did she say anything to you? Well, that doesn’t surprise me one bit. That woman-“ Mrs. Longstep’s head jerked up at a cry from her husband. “Derrick? Derrick!? Oh, Mary, I think he’s fallen. I have to go now. Derrick!”