A one armed dishwasher and a man in Crocs, theres only one way to settle this....FIGHT

Awright me chinas,

I was convinced the other evening that Richard O'Sullivan, in an attempt to recapture his fame and sitcom popularity of the late 70s had spent the last 24 years since his last acting job, closeted away behind the boarded up windows of his failed bistro, the crockery broken by Albert Riddle, scrunching underfoot, obsessively building a time machine out of old catering equipment and tarnished cutlery, and that it had worked, creating a tear in space and time, allowing the 70s to seep and spew into the 21st Century.

What could have convinced me of, well on the face of it, this quite unlikely occurrence. Well, 1) an encounter, not once but twice with a gentleman wearing an impressive Ron Burgundy moustache, longish, nape length hair in a side parting swept behind the ears like he's just nipped out for an hour from being in Spinal Tap and a safari suit, Lewisham can get a bit wild, but its not the heart of darkness , 2) a George and Mildred motorbike and sidecar, a right old one, with a fabric fairing, spluttering and popping noisily through the town centre, and lastly 3) when I went to get a new bottle of Irn Bru from my local Dick Turpins, sorry Tescos, its shelf space had been annexed by Barracloughs Old Cream Soda and Irn Bru, in some kind of carbonated beverage ethnic cleansing, had been "removed". Well, it was obvious to me anyway, though, it turned out to be a series of not at all related coincidences and seems to merely have been the meanderings of an idle mind barely ticking over.

I read last week, for the story must have slipped past the Tory bad news bears that are charged with painting a very grim picture of 2010s Great Britain, that it seems in the past 10 years, crime has fallen 43%.

Now I know that maybe their is room for error or a bit of inaccurate representation with the way figures are collected, but 43%? I don't think the fudge and spin champions of New Labour could even get away with that.

That was heartening but it went on to claim, and all this was in the BBC by the way, not the Socialist Worker or The Mirror, that Britain's elderly enjoy, along with Australian old folk, the best standards of care in the world, better than Americans, the Scandanivians and even the Cubans. That's quite good isn't it? I expect in 5 years time, crime will have risen 50% and there may well be no elderly given that all the ones that haven't froze to death will be back at work.

I saw a man in Crocs as well the other day, now that is a fashion faux pas if ever I saw one, shoes should be made out of recycled cows, not reclaimed baldy tyres and broken crayons.

Now, a man bag, that is certainly not a fashion faux pas, though man bag does make it sound like one. I prefer, like Alan in The Hangover, satchel. Satchel is much more masculine. Miners wear satchels, they carry their big sticks of dynamite in them, crack shot black ops snipers I dare say have them, to keep their bullets in, firemen, Alaskan crab fishermen even postmen have satchels, that's why I have been considering one, but before i go and buy a nice leathery one, I thought I'd try out a cheaper though I must say, ironically trendy model,, so for the next few weeks I shall be commuting with a stylish Eastpack Messenger , er, satchel, today I particularly enjoyed strolling about with both my hands in my pockets, and safe in the knowledge that my stuff is following, slung behind .

When was the last time you were stung by a nettle? Its been probably 20 years for me and I had totally forgotten how bloody sore it was, much sorer than nasty malevolent wasps, or standing barefoot on some Lego. Its the lions mane jellyfish of horticulture, and I'm sure I seen this one leaning into me and with not a doc leaf in site, I now know how Steve Irwin must have felt.

Travelling back to London at the weekend, I managed to grab a little bit of The Open on the TV at Prestwick Airport. Its great they have TV, because in every other way, it resembles one of those airports I've seen in Africa, that were built in 1970, with foreign money hoping to give whatever country paid for it, first bagsies on all the gold and diamonds.

That's a simple observation, and here is another one. What they do is turn the telly volume off, and rely on the supplied subtitles to provide the commentary, but there is something odd about that.

I used to think that it was someone back at BBC centre, listening to everything the commentators said, then busily typing it into an old teletext machine.

But now I think that may not be the case and they have given the job to a piece of software, written by a non-English speaking first year apprentice just off the coach from Poland. Here is an example of the commentary I got to enjoy, Paul Casey's second shot to the 1st, beautifully flighted over the burn and landing two feet from the pin, that's what I saw, what I heard, though really saw, through my sub-titled commentary was " Denise spend a little at the knees end - safely over the water". WTF was that???

Finally, fed up being to heavy and lazy, I have decided to join a gym, of course, the cheapest gym I could find which means it kind of resembles the exercise block on some brutal American prison drama. I feel even more intimidated in gyms than i do in bookies shops, its the fear of being noticed taking all the weights off the machines and not knowing how they work and not having DEFINITION, and we haven't even got into the showers yet??

Lang may yer lum reek.