How much paste can a cow make exactly?

Good evening my reeking friends,

Well, that the World Cup over for another four years, I'll be nearer 50 than 40 by the time the next one comes around, I don't find that a very comforting, so I'm going to try and forget I thought it.

A disappointing final it has to be said. The Dutch were brutal, the Spaniards patient and faithful to their way and worthy winners. Good for them. If I've learned anything from it, its to rake my studs down S's chest and bully the waiter the next time she wants me to go Dutch with the bill for dinner.

I get the DLR to work, which is good because I get to totally avoid the horrendous nightmarish reality of the tube in summertime. But the other day, DLR stood for Desperate Lunging Retardway. Signalling faults somewhere in the metropolis meant delays and delays mean trains that are so packed it looks like one of those Guinness world records Norris McWhirter used to adjudicate in the 70s to see how many students can get in a phone box.

People are, luckily enough, quite a convenient shape for squeezing into long thin tubes, but I think there may be room for a good few more if Transport for London adopted the top and tailing method favoured in pre-adolescent sleepovers.

There should be stirrups or something attached to the ceiling where people can hang upside down from like bats, thereby maximising more of the available surface area of the train.

That uncomfortable moment when you make fleeting eye contact with someone and then worry they think your a psycho rapist strangler will no longer be a concern and also, for those still standing upright, there is something else to hang on to when the carriage gets all shoogly.

Of course, there may be a one or twp yangy cons, to my yingy pros. You probably would not want to have much stuff in your pockets, and the problem of avoiding commuter eye contact will only be gone because you'll have your face buried in somebodies crotch. The ladies will all have to wear nice underwear, no old yellers, that would be a crime more heinous than fare dodging.

So, the carriage is packed to bursting point,its actually bulging out, like a big fatty leaky sausage as it trundles along at a speed James Watt would probably have scrapped the whole idea of steam travel as being to bloody ponderous.

Anyway, trundling and ponderous is better then stopped and still, which is what we got next followed by a series of jerky, 30metre lunges forward, the remaining mile to Canary Wharf, what a joy it was.

There was so many people getting rubbed up against one another I was afraid a fire would break out amongst the skinnier ones, they must have some kind of static discharge safety valve or something to get rid of all that charged nylon. Maybe that's how its all powered. Like one of those Bayliss radios, the train just shakes the contents about until enough static has been generated for its next shift, ingenious.

During one of the still moments, hanging onto the overhead hand rail and looking up the carriage at all the other lost and hopeless souls I thought of the carcasses in a meat processing plant, on big hooks getting mechanically hoisted through the factory one after the other, swaying this way and that with the silent inevitability of the mincer just around the corner.

The journey home was thankfully much more satisfactory, with only one real loony of note encountered. Dayglo yellow t-shirt, navy cargo shorts, black dress socks and of course, uncomfortably flip-flops. Talking to himself out the corner of his mouth at the bus stop, rocking back and forth in his flip-flops, eyes casting about looking to hook some unfortunate not quick enough to avoid eye-contact, this was a fairly stock London lunatic. I don't know what he was saying, I of course immediately moved away to a more easily defended position and stared at my shoes in case he took a fancy to hacking my head off or just sitting next to me on the bus and talking at me. There was no need to worry though, his particular asylum was somewhere between Lewisham and Brixton, either that, or he had spotted his next victim on that bus.

I have been eating poorly lately. I cant remember the last time I had a decent square meal, you know, meat and potatoes kind of thing. Everything has either come between two slice of bread or in a plastic pot. Meat paste, that's a lovely thought isn't it. The idea that a cow, or chicken or whatever can be reduced to a paste, mmm, yum, yum.

I wasn't to bothered at first, I thought if I'm eating stuff with no nutritional value, I'll probably lose some weight, it doesn't really work that way, as I'm sure you already know. Now I feel lethargic and lazy and just cant be bothered doing anything, so, big changes next week, going to eat a bit more conscientiously and get some exercise, not decided what yet, I'll try not to make it PS3 based.

Mum would not approve of my eating habits, she was always fussing around making sure no-one was ever hungry in her house.

Its almost a year since my Mum passed away, and as upsetting and sad as that was, when I look back now, I think more of the days before.

The remaining days we had with her, when she could listen to us and speak a little, comforting us more than we could ever comfort her, telling us not to worry and everything was going to be fine, I'll never forget that, even at that moment, she was more concerned about others than herself.

We said our goodbyes and she fell asleep a year ago today and she was allowed to finally draw the curtains on a life that gave and left more than I think she realised. As a family we've sometimes found it difficult to get over, but when I think of her now, my heart just fills with pride and not sorrow, gratitude at having had her, and not bitterness at having had her taken away. The qualities she had remain in my sisters and I, I hope, and our children, her kindness, her selflessness and her humility. So Mum, if you have access to the Internet in whatever comes after and if you find yourself browsing this particular blog, we miss you, but we cherish the memories and will be forever grateful for the things you left us.

Lang may yer lum reek.