Twats, Toy Story and Mojitos

Lums of the World, listen up.

The City of London. A living, breathing monument to Great Britain. When you see that enormous Union flag flying above the Palace of Westminster, you cant help but be impressed and even proud to be a part of this nation. In the City, and in Canary Wharf, the towering glass and steel monoliths to capitalist endeavour are also stand testament to our "greatness".

The shadows they cast probably have more rental value than anything I can even imagine.

In these lofty halls, deals are made, mountains of money are willed into existence just by the power of a compelling presentation and a colourful chart or graph, and the fate of everyone of us is held under the enter button of a leveraged hedge fund managers laptop.

Its a shame then that those glinting gables and heaven brushing ivory spires are populated by such a singular collection of twats and nobs. I can perhaps understand why they have to be wankers at work, after all, if they spend all day stealing pensions or making 50,000 people jobless, it must be hard to come over as a right decent bloke, but for the general betterment of mankind, and especially the mankind that is me, leave it in the office.

I had the dubious fortune to be placed on a table next to a knot of these toads earlier today.

I thought I would spend the early afternoon in the very agreeable Greenwich. I bought a book, ironically, its called How They Blew It its about the CEOs and entrepreneurs behind the worlds most catastrophic business failures.

I found a nice little beer garden, The Gypsy Moth, right beside the sooty, charred remains of The Cutty Sark, where I could enjoy a couple of pints of the black stuff and leisurely flick through the pages, chortling at the comedy that I would derive from former multi-billionaires losing all their money.

A busy little place on a sunny summer afternoon, I had no choice but to be placed next to a table of guffawing hoorays that were, at 2pm, already plastered and playing drinking games. Two of them looked like boss types, in that they were much fatter and louder than the rest and one of them kept mentioning that he was "the head of UK". Theses two had the stock weekend uniform on, jeans slung low under their hogshead sized belly's and the Ralph Lauren shirt on, tucked in, and sleeves rolled up. That's important, because it gives the rest of us a chance to admire their wrist watches.

I take a special interest in these things, some might say a consuming obsession fuelled by galloping jealousy, and of the eight crowing cider quaffing tools I noticed, one Rolex Daytona, a Bell & Ross, an Audemars Piguet and a U-Boat and what could have been a Rolex Submariner, or Omega Seamaster. That's about twenty-five grand there.

I shouldn't be jealous and bitter, I expect they have all worked hard for their shiny baubles, and I would certainly rather they wore a watch than went about with their nuts hanging out which is what they would have to do if we all were part of the Dibate tribe of Western Ethiopia. The rest of the party was made up by hangers on and ambitious younger types, in rugger shirts and laughing at all the bosses jokes, already condemned to a life of relentless corporate toadying and the politics of the brown nose.

On reflection perhaps I could have avoided sitting next to them. I could have picked up a chair and smashed it over the head of UKs head, then recovered the splintered legs and drove them into the breasts of the rest of them, aiming for their heart of course, but realise hitting something so tiny and flinty would probably be optimistic.

Mind you I was back in Glasgow last week. Arriving at Central station I always get a little thrill from knowing your entering a city that isn't pretentious, it is what it is, take it or leave it, love it or loathe it. The shiny buildings put up on Broomielaw do remind me of the new dental veneers that a toothy old tramp might buy with his lottery winnings, but behind that the buildings and streets stand testament to the wealth and ingenuity that made it the second richest city in the world at one time. It was probably full of steam age twats back then too.

Right, now that's my rant out of the way I can get on with telling you about the rest of my week.

Where I live, its very multi cultural. As lots of Britain is now, there are lots of Africans just arrived and lots of them haven't gotten into the way of dressing like the rest of us, in drab blues and greys. The women often look fantastic in rainbow coloured robes with gold braiding and impossible hats, but the men, that's another story. There was a man in the High Street the other day wearing a suit that looked like it was made from discarded sweety wrappers from a tin of Quality Street. Toffee pennies, chocolate toffee fingers and orange cremes to be particular. Gold and orange hoops, not only the jacket, the trousers too, fantastic. Sundays are especially noteworthy, as the numerous African churches around the place like to empty out into the street then go on a chanting, drum bashing, dancing parade through the town centre. It was like Rorke's Drift down there today.

I was desperate to see Toy Story 3, but down here I am in the premature predicament of not having any kids that I can legitimately take to the pictures as cover. Going alone seemed the slightly less awkward option, the other involved, duck tape, an unattended child and an abduction and there was noway I'd get duck tape in Canary Wharf. Toy Story 3 is perfection laid down on celluloid. It is quite simply the most entertaining, emotional and dazzling piece of cinema I have ever, ever seen.

Over the three films we as an audience have grown to love these characters, but not as much you feel as the people making the movie. The quality of the writing is another thing that sets it apart. Pixar in general have this down to a tee. They write to get a laugh or whatever, but know that the audience will be kids and grown-ups, but the jokes they give us are written in a way that we all get them and find them funny together.

You look at the other animated films that are meant to appeal to both kids and adults. They will be stuffed full of child friendly characters that the kids will love, but telling jokes that only adults will really get, they have segregated the audience. Shark Tale is the best example with all the Goodfellas and Godfather references. How is an eight year old meant to make sense of that.

I saw Wolfman this week too. The new one with Anthony Hopkins and Benicio del Torro. I liked it, it was an old fashioned werewolf movie like Hammer House of Horror used to make, not like these new ones full of anaemic looking teenagers all getting their shirts off in the woods and trying to look menacing with their moody glares.

Other events this week include meeting up with an old colleague and taking full advantage of Mojito happy hour in some bar. I cant of course say, type or even think Mojito without thinking of Brian in Family Guy....Mojiiiiitoooo!

Next night, off too a comedy club in Leicester Sq with workmates. Another good night out, though its strange how you can never remember the jokes. I do remember the compere being funny and two out of three comics being quite good, and a heckler who thought he was humour embodied in man, he even stood up and did a little bow when he delivered a couple of "killer" ripostes. Oh dear, another planet sized tool. I suppose that's the thing with living in a capital city the size of this, you are never more than a few feet from a trumpeting total twat, with a capital T.

Lang may yer lum reek.