In the t-shirt shop

Shopper: Hello. I’m sorry, but I need to return this t-shirt that I bought here last week.

Assistant: I’m sorry to hear that sir. What seems to be the problem? Was it the wrong size?

Shopper: Oh no, not at all, it fitted perfectly. Like a glove. Not that it had five arm-holes, of course.

Assistant: Ha ha no sir, that would be silly. So why are you bringing it back?

Shopper: Breach of promise.

Assistant: I beg your pardon? Breach of....

Shopper: ..promise. That’s right. It was not as advertised.

Assistant: I don’t follow you sir. It’s a t-shirt. You put it on, you’re wearing a t-shirt. You have, in all senses, become a t-shirt wearer. That’s pretty much what our customers expect, vis-a-vis t-shirts and the wearing thereof. What promises are there to be broken?

Shopper: Well, look at it! Read the slogan on the front of it!

Assistant: “Surf party – Malibu Beach.” I’m really sorry sir, I don’t understand.

Shopper: I wanted to live the life. I wanted to hang ten. To be able to survey the roaring foam with a gimlet eye, and proclaim to those around me, “Surf’s up.” In short, I wanted what this t-shirt promised.

Assistant: I see.

Shopper: But it was all a tease. I took your t-shirt at face value. I bought it, I took it home. I wore it.

Assistant: You wore it?

Shopper: Oh yes, I wore it! And I hoped. Hoped against hope. But nothing happened.

Assistant: Nothing, erm, happened?

Shopper: Nothing. No . Nothing. I didn’t get invited to any parties, Malibu Beach or otherwise. I was ready to carve some radical tubes. I was amped. I was going to pop. I was ready to rip. But the t-shirt did nothing. Despite the t-shirt, it turns out I was still an insurance clerk from Basingstoke.

Assistant: I see. Well, there is perhaps something we can do for you.

Shopper: There is?

Assistant: Ye-ess. Clearly when you bought the t-shirt we hadn’t carried out a sufficiently robust lifestyle analysis. Had we known a little more about your background and expectations we could have offered you something a little more appropriate. Here, look at the slogans on these ones.

Shopper: “Born to file”. “Doug’s Double-Entry Book-keeping Shack.” “Spreadsheet Summer camp.” My, but these are just perfect!

Assistant: Oh, I am so pleased to hear that, sir.

Shopper: Now I can wear a t-shirt that actually says something about me!

Assistant: We aim to please, sir. I’m totally stoked we were able to help.

The Heritage Condiment

What will they say of Britain, those that come after us in some long-distant future? When the institutions we today hold sacred are no more than words upon a page, our history, architecture and culture no more than footnotes, what will there be that speaks of Britain?

There is something. There is something that represents this country better than any person, or any idea. It is bold and uncompromising, steadfast and sure. In an ever-changing world it is one true constant.

It is Magna Carta in a pot-bellied jar. It is Marmite.

It lurks in the nation’s kitchen cupboard psyche, starless and Bible black. And for a humble condiment it manages perfectly to express everything we know and love about Britain and the British.

In a world of beige it is a decidedly binary substance. You either love Marmite or you hate it; there is no in-between. There is a jar sitting not more than six yards from where I sit as I write. To me it is the purest ambrosia; my wife treats it as one would a vial of Polonium 210.

It is traditional yet relevant. Look at the jar, that comforting, maternal pot. No fancy 21st century re-branding exercises here, thank you very much. It is the trigger for memories. Grasp the top, twist it off and inhale. Take in a pungent lungful of childhood picnics, of rainy-day lay-by sandwiches, of morning hangover remedy toast.

Plunge a knife in and pull out the silken ooze. Watch as it dances on the bread, threads of black against the grain. And taste. Feel the bitterness subside into deep, meaty, yielding, fulfilment.

It has a final party trick to play; that most British of qualities – strength in depth. When you think there’s nothing more to come, when the jar’s apparent emptiness taunts you, do not fear. An angled finger reveals hidden reserves. You just need to know how to call upon them.

All that we know of Britain could be cruelly snatched from us in a heartbeat. Governments could tumble. The Ravens could leave the Tower. The seas may rise.

But with a pot of Marmite to hand we could face all odds. And, if the oceans do get a little restless, at least we’d have something with which to waterproof our dinghy.

I am not Stephen Fry

On a number of levels there are some similarities between me and National-Treasure-and-generally-good-egg, Mr Stephen Fry. It's a low number, but it certainly counts as a number.

We're both blessed with physiques that would, if we were being charitable, be described as being somewhat less than athletic. I'm a bear of a man. I loom. I can only loom. And blunder. Loom and blunder, that's me. I suspect Stephen would recognise the same characteristics.

I have this deep, booming, stentorian voice. I can't whisper to save my life. Blunder, loom and boom. That's pretty what I'm about. Mr Fry would, I fear, find this familiar.

Despite these seemingly antisocial characteristics I can turn my hand to the avuncular if I wish. Dispensing wisdom and charm, I'd make a damn good uncle. If I had glasses I'd perch them on the tip of my nose while gently explaining the best use of the terms 'rebut', 'reject' and 'repudiate'. Stephen personified.

I'm even on Twitter, too. But this is where things start to unravel. Stephen Fry is seen (wrongly) by some as the eminence gris behind Twitter. If he sees some injustice, a single tweet from his fingers will send his massed followers into overdrive, leaving him settling into a wingbacked chair, gently harrumphing. Yet if he wants to support something, a favourable 140 characters from the keyboard of his Apple is sufficient to guarantee its success.

I tried this last week. My mate Barry was running the New York marathon yesterday for a jolly good cause. I thought he could use all the help he could get, so I tweeted about it. I thought if I could mobilise the masses, Fry-style, we'd see Barry nosing the tape (or whatever it is they do at the end of races) with a couple of grand behind him.

Nothing. Nada. Rien. Sod all. Sweet Felicity Arkwright.

Maybe I need to work on my charm a little.

Boo!

It is a fairly well-known fact that Halloween, which we celebrated last night, has its background in older, pagan festivities.

Indeed, the word 'Halloween' originally comes from 'Haughlerwai'iaighn', which is, as you probably know, Gaelic for 'pretending you're not at home by hiding behind the sofa with the lights off when teenagers knock your door'.

As it happens, last night we actually were out, spending time at the pub surrounded by people with pale faces, scars, blood stains and bullet wounds. There was no make-up involved - it was just that sort of pub.

I thank you. Tell your friends. I'm here all month.

But every year Halloween gives the more Grinchy among us the chance to go on and on ad infinitum about trick-or-treat, this pesky new import from the colonies. How it's a Bad Thing. How it encourages kids to essentially go begging. How it terrorises the old folks. This is a new thing, they say, it's an unwanted import from that lot over the Atlantic, and therefore it must not stand.

But the thing is, I remember it as a kid. And I'm an old git, so it can't be that novel to us. I recall one time, when I was about seven, trying to get my own back on trick-or-treaters coming to the family home. I'd hide behind the dustbins at the side of the house and wait for them to approach. I'd emit a low, menacing moan. I'd make the bins judder. I'd then realise that I'd pretty much run out of things to do. They'd call me a pillock. It was a tradition, though.

And it has spawned a number of other traditions since then. The 'making sure you've bought a whole load of funpack chocolate and sweets' one. The 'putting them in a bowl by the door' one.

Or, if you're like us this year, the twin traditions of 'going out to the pub to drink Hobgoblin beer', then 'taking a whole load of uneaten chocolate and sweets into the office on Monday morning'.

(Image credit www.freeimages.co.uk)

More than skin deep

Last night Channel 4 broadcast the story of Katie Piper. Eighteen months ago she was a happy 23-year-old with a burgeoning career as a model and TV presenter.

All this changed in an instant when sulphuric acid was thrown in her face by an attacker. Last night's film documented the progress she has made since then, the incredible reconstructive surgery she's undergone and the steps she is taking to deal with life in the here and now.

I started off not really watching it - as usual there was something going on with the Internet that seemed more important at first - but then I started taking more and more attention. Here was a young woman that was beautiful - truly beautiful. And that beauty still shone out.

At the end of the show, as seems to be the norm with harrowing documentaries these days, Channel 4 invited viewers to call a number if they were affected by the content.

Bloody hell - you'd have to be in possession of a heart of stone to not be affected.

The madness continues

NaBloPoMo!

Bless you!

That's now three years running I've made the same gag. It's almost a Heritage Joke. I'm sorry.

For those of you who don't know, NaBloPoMo stands for National Blog Posting Month. The Nation in question is the US, I think, but Blogs, Posting and Months are concepts that transfer quite well across the Atlantic so I think we can safely proceed on that basis.

The idea of NaBloPoMo was originally that bloggers would commit to writing on their blogs once a day for the whole of the month of November. Sounds easy, doesn't it? But it's not. It really isn't.

This will be the third year that I've taken part. And I'm more than a little concerned about the whole thing.

You see, one of the beauties of having a blog is the freedom to not update it every now and then. Those nights when the laptop stays unopened. When, quite frankly, you've spent enough time at work with qwerty and his friends, and you're buggered if you're going to do it - unpaid - in the evening. But NaBloPoMo forces you to put that aside. The physical act of writing is one thing, but I do myself no favours because I do insist on having something tangible on the blog, so I can't really get away with putting any old tut on here in November. I have to think about it.

In my first year of NaBloPoMo I was fresh-faced and new to the idea. I blundered through the whole thing like Bambi on ice. Year two saw me doing some serious preparation. I had a whole bunch of things thought out beforehand.

Year three sees me seriously banjaxed. I have nothing. But. But. I've neglected this blog for much of 2009. It's the end of November and I've only done about two posts a week for the year to date. This will not stand.

So, good reader, would you like to sit back and see what November has to bring? I'm not making any promises. It could get messy. But hopefully both of us will get something out of it.

Here's one I made earlier

I've been writing on this blog for over two years now, on and off. I know, I'm surprised, too. I've had shorter relationships with real people than with this collection of ones and zeroes.

At last count there were 317 posts here. 317 times I've thought of something to write (although in quite a few cases 'thought' is stretching the point a little). 317 times I've sat huddled over the screen, wrangling the words, summoning the sentences and attempting something vaguely alliterative with paragraphs.

But it occurs to me that a lot of readers - especially the ones that are coming here via Facebook or Twitter - only get to see the latest missive. I was much better in 2007, honest.

That's why I've added a little widget to the bottom of each post. It goes hunting through the blog and picks out three old posts for your amusement, delectation and entertainment. Go have a look. See what this place was like before it jumped the shark.