Twelve Things I Discovered Last Week

Perhaps it’s the lack of sunlight but I’m wallowing in a murky puddle of my own despondency. It could just be Monday morning and the lack of action in my inbox. Whatever it is, I have retreated to my room, leaving Judy in the back garden where she is using her leaf blower to put the frighteners on hibernating hedgehogs. For me, it’s a day to consider my options and to plan the week ahead. And I can think of no way of moving forward other than to look back on my past seven days. Here are the twelve important discoveries I made last week outside the field of particle physics.

Blog readers can cost me a fortune.
Recommendations for books left me out of pocket by a considerable sum. On Friday, I stumbled across a reasonably priced collection of Nicolas Bentley cartoons. I will be billing Nige accordingly.

Don’t Try To Be Witty About Disney

I managed to offend a close friend when I described the decor of the local Disney store as ‘resembling a paedophile’s bedroom’. Not a thing to say when she's purchasing gifts. Put a downer on the whole 'innocence at Christmas' theme she was aiming for.

Humour Is BIG At Christmas

All the book and DVD shops are now devoted to bad comedians and satirists making a fortune peddling their crap. What I want to know is why can’t other bad comedians and satirists can't make a shilling selling their rubbish

Apples Are Nice

In fact, typing on the keyboard on the new Apple MacBook Pro made me feel like I was playing with Brigit Bardot’s nipples (circa 1960). If Apple want to quote me on that, they can for the price of a new Apple Powerbook or Bridgit Bardot's nipples (circa 1960). The new notebooks are cut from a single piece of aluminium, which, by a remarkable coincidence, is the very same selling point as Bardot's nipples... Shame about the price, which puts both notebooks and nipples well outside the price range for this TV superstar.

Dell Laptops Are Small

And around £400, they are quite reasonably priced. Shame that they are also out of the price range for this TV superstar. I will continue to carry my large megalithic Sony with me, contributing to my bad knees and inability to write when in public. When I once dared open it in a Costa Coffee, I blocked out the light and drained the power from the frothing machine.

Fog Can Be Fun

Architecture never looks as when viewed on a clear November morning or when it’s thick with fog. Manchester’s Hilton Tower looked stunning in its grey overcoat on Friday.

I Like The New Yorker

Actually, I blew a gift voucher on the complete cartoons of ‘The New Yorker’. You know about my current obsession with the inky line, so I needn’t explain. The book doesn’t actually contain the complete cartoons but the price you pay is well worth it for the DVD-Rom, which includes over 79,000 cartoons in PDF format and fully searchable.

The Taxman Can Be Kind

Due to a long convoluted calculation that has to do with my earning very little (except my TV contracts, of course, which are in Judy’s name), I got a tax rebate last week. Hence my dreams of owning a new laptop and being able to afford to buy a couple of books.

I Miss Writing

I’ve not fully devoted myself to my writing for a few weeks and it’s time I tried to structure my week to get something finished.

My Feet Are Possibly A Little Bit Rank

Well, it's not my feet as much as my aging boots. Do you know the pair: black leather slip ons with the buckle on the side, currently held together with superglue and bits of leather cut from an old spectacles case? I love them. Best boots I've ever owned. However, I managed to clear a Clarks shoestore on Friday when I was a little too impulsive and I took them off to try on a replacement pair. As it happened, they didn't have my size in store. I bought a new tube of superglue instead.

Stephen Fry Is The Cause of Many Heart Attacks

When you get an email stating that ‘Stephen Fry is following you’, one can feel rather blessed. The fact that he’s tail-coating 21,000 other Twitterers is something that he should mention in the same email.

Frothing About Froth

What should the froth/liquid ratio be in a good cappuccino? Is ‘a good cappuccino’ a oxymoron or does it only become so when we change it to ‘a good Starbucks cappuccino’?

These are the somewhat unexpected questions I find myself asking after a day on the front lines of the Christmas sales. We made it home, leaving the field of battle with only moderate lesions. Behind us there were a few isolated scenes of destruction wherever Judy did decide to tread. Some days I fear she’s more elbow than woman. Presents have been bought for our nearest and dearest. I tried my best for all you regular readers, though I fear that some of your comments didn’t get through in time. It was unfortunate that I couldn’t check my email on my iPhone due to an issue of incompatibility between my gloves and the touch screen.

The highlight of my day was an argument I managed to start at the local Starbucks where I refused to accept a cup of their milky java which contained 70% froth and 30% liquid. It amazes me when I do complain, being on the whole a rather placid man. I would say the Christmas spirit brought the best out of me but I like to think it’s because I’ve been reading A.A. Gill’s ‘The Angry Island’. It has encouraged me to become more overt in my displays of disappointment. Not for me, this hypothesis that we’re a nation of people who suppress their anger and then go and invent new and exciting types of lagging. There are no trips down the Nile because I couldn’t tell my wife that I don’t like the colour of her curtains.

Instead, mug in hand, I stormed the serving counter and demanded action.

‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t normally do this but I’ve been reading A.A. Gill’s “The Angry Isle” which has encouraged me to be more overt in my displays of disappointment. This cappuccino is more froth than milk.’

The serving assistants looked at me as though I’d asked them to run my cup through a battery of highly scientific tests to detect neutrinos. After one of those long moments in which the world seems to stand still, in silence, one of them gathered the general gist of what I was saying.

‘Cappachino is supposed to be half froth.’ she said, her eyes as empty of wits as the mug was devoid of dairy product. 'They all vary quite a bit.'

I looked at her and smiled. ‘The average human IQ is supposed to be 100 but I sure this fact didn't stop one's mother feeling a great sense of disappointment when it was recognised that we fell below that.’

She was surprisingly quick. ‘There’s no need to be rude,’ she said. ‘It’s not my fault that you don’t know your coffee.’

‘I don’t know it because I’ve yet to have been introduced to it.’

‘Well,’ she replied, picking up the jug of milk and topping up my cup. 'Nobody else seems to have a problem.'

‘I bet they don't,’ I said, darkly. ‘It’s this kind of shoddy treatment that makes me long for less professionalism in the catering service.’

And that, I think, is a truth of our consumer society. We have the perception that things improve because coffee shops have better decor and a more varied menu. Yet the identikit façades mask highly evolved organisms that put the customers’ needs a distant second to profit. Froth is the battleline where we stand nose to nose. They will know the exact froth to coffee ratio that ensures that 9 in 10 people don't complain. If they can sell half a cup of froth, that’s 9 half-cups of milk they save themselves. Transfer that to every Starbucks across the land and they must be saving millions. I fear for the milkmen. Starbucks must account for the majority of those notes left out in the morning that read, ‘No milk today, thank you’.

I think I made a difference today. Gill has clearly changed my attitude and my life. Though whether I was right to subsequently buy two collections of his essays is yet to be determined. There is only so much change that Judy will accept and what that cantankerous / placid ratio might be is much harder to judge.