Swans, Sherbet and Coathangers

"Oooooh, everything is average nowadays..." So sings the Kaiser Chiefs, and they're absolutely right, especially when it comes to reviving old TV shows.

I sat down to watch the 'Allo 'Allo special reunion show on Saturday with a great deal of enthusiasm, but 105 minutes later I was bitter and disappointed.

Firstly, I thought that I would be getting a brand new episode, but what we actually got was Rene Artois 'writing his memoirs' ('blatently reading the script in front of him'), while a small selection of characters came on to rattle off their catchphrases and indulge in a spot of feeble innuendo.

Secondly, they sped through a selection of classic clips with such alarming speed that most of the jokes got lost. In other words, for the whole programme nothing was funny. I must admit I couldn't help but smile when Officer Crabtree came on to unleash a string of nonsensical Franglais. It was also very funny to see that Mimi Labonq is now almost three times the width she was during the show's heyday.

My theory is that it is impossible to revive a show and make it funny when it's been off our screens for more than five years. I can't think of one which has worked successfully. Just look at 'Only Fools And Horses'!

On the way home from Fiona's house the other night, I was driving up to a roundabout when suddenly I noticed that there was a young man standing in the road. He was waving his arms around frantically like a windmill, and as each car slowed down as they approached the roundabout, he would lower his head and begin to yell something in their general direction.

Now, I don't know about you, but I absolutely hate confrontation of any kind, and this guy looked like he was spoiling for a fight. He was snarling and glaring, and I don't think he really minded who he picked on. The point was, he just wanted to have a go at somebody.

Having a girlfriend does mean that often you spend your time driving homewards late at night, and there is a whole other side to Cardiff you can witness at these times. A slightly seedy undebelly comes crawling out of the woodwork to play. 'Roundabout Man' brought to mind the countless times I had driven past a pub after 11pm and found people stepping out into the road to try and hail me like cab. Do I LOOK like a cab?? I drive a Renault Clio!

So, as I began to reduce my speed and draw closer to 'Roundabout Man', I hoped that there would be no traffic and I would be able to sail straight through. Sadly, there was plenty of traffic. R.M. flapped over to my car and started shouting. But now, from this angle, he looked scared. Did he in fact want my help? Did he just need some help from somebody? What did I do? I put my foot down and sped away into the night.

You know those scenes in 'The Vicar Of Dibley' where they all sit round a large table in the church hall? Well, that's going to be me now. I've been elected onto the St Mark's PCC (parochial church council). Unfortunately there won't be anyone there called Jim who starts each sentence with "No no no no no no no..." Nor will there be anyone called Owen chipping in with some completely inappropriate suggestions relating to farm animals. What a shame! I'll be there though, shouting and yelling and generally making a nuisance of myself. It's going to be fun.

As I was trying to rouse myself and get out of bed this morning, an item on the news about Stephen Hawking caught my ear. It seems that he wants to go into space one day, and he's going to begin by taking one of those zero-gravity flights (vomit comets I believe they're affectionately termed). There then followed a soundbite of him enthusiastically talking about it.

As the host pointed out, how can we tell that he is enthusiastic about it? Or for that matter, how do we know that the quote came from him? Anyone can go on the radio pretending to be Stephen Hawking, can't they! When I was much much younger, I had a 'speak and spell' machine that sounded just like him. It was an ultra-agressive model that used to shout at me if I made a mistake.
"NO!! I said spell 'pencil'. P-E-N-C-I-L. You dumb idiot. Go to your room."

There was one small thing missing from yesterday's theatre trip story. A couple of people noticed it had been left out, so now I am forced to confess.

After the show, I went to the toilet, but without thinking I barged straight into the ladies. However, I didn't leave straight away. Instead, I stood there for several moments wondering where all the urinals had gone. It was at this point I noticed a gaggle of four ladies standing and staring at me. But still I didn't leave, oh no. I took a bit more time to work out what these women were doing in my toilet. I even started to head for one of the cubicles...

"OH!!"

...and out I ran, to tumultuous applause from my friends.

Staying with the subject of all things effluent, the singer Sheryl Crow has decided that the best way to save the planet is to go on a crusade encouraging all of us to use less loo paper. On her website, she suggests using "only one square per restroom visit, except of course on those pesky occasions where two to three could be required". I'm sorry, but no! These decisions have to be made on a 'job by job' basis. And whatever happens, I think a two square minimum is quite sensible.

Quiz time now. What's this?

Biscuits!

A huge model city made of biscuits. Could there possibly be anything more heavenly?

Boo!

*jump*

And so it was that eight brave souls gingerly made their way to the theatre on Saturday night to see 'The Woman In Black'. We all had a lovely time, if by lovely you mean jumping out of your skin every five minutes. This was the second time I'd seen the play, but that almost made it worse. My stomach, for some reason, decided to knot itself just before every scary part.

It's an extremely well done play. They use a lot of lighting to conceal/reveal things at unexpected moments, and they also play lots of recorded sound in the form of screams and wails. Again, you never quite know when it's coming. The combined effect of sound, light, darkness, a ghostly woman (who is not actually acknowledged in the programme, and doesn't take a bow at the end) and a very disturbing rocking chair that rocks by itself results in a distinctly creepy two hours. I think we all slept with a light on that night...

I've been asked today if I would like to go on a project management course. It is a 2 day course with modules ranging from 'critical path networks' to 'force field analysis' (is this Project Management or Star Wars??). So on the one hand, this is a bit like asking if I would like to have my tongue staple-gunned to a block of salt. But on the other hand, I'm thinking "2 days away from the desk! Hurrah!" Plus of course it looks good on the CV.

Housing agencies. Landlords. What words spring to mind?

This morning, a friend of mine was convinced that she was going to be evicted from her house because she had been sent a legal notice outlining how the landlord 'required posession'. In reality, all the notice meant was that the current contract was coming to an end. Nothing to do with eviction at all, but the tone suggested otherwise.

And this is my problem with letting agencies in general. It's their tone. They are supplying a service to us, the tenants, and yet I've lost count of the number of times I've heard an agent raise their voice to a 'customer'. Nine times out of ten it's when you want something, be it a repair, or even something as significant as your bond back. I can remember one hapless young man screaming at me to go away because I'd had the nerve to walk into his establishment and demand what was rightly mine. I mean, the cheek of it!

It's the weekend, hurrah! I'm off to the theatre tomorrow to see 'The Woman In black', which I'm really looking forward to. I've seen it before - it's a quite terrifying piece of theatre, and when it works it makes the whole audience jump and scream. But I know what's coming, so hopefully I can just sit back and enjoy the audience reaction...

Who would ever want to work for Sir Alan Sugar? If you're talented and competent enough to be earning £100,000+ a year, then perhaps you should aiming to be in competition with Sir Alan, with a view to taking him down! Amstrad isn't really a name to conjour with these days anyway, is it? But this is largely beside the point. The Apprenitice is still a hugely entertaining show, even though I spend the entire time wondering why on earth the contestants are putting themselves through it. I particularly enjoyed the 'natural orange lolly' that one team manufactured last night, whhich contained nearly a dozen E-numbers!

Internet addiction - it's a dangerous thing, and I think we all struggle with it to a greater or lesser extent. And in my case, to a very LARGE extent, Facebook is sucking away all my lunch hours right now. It's a wonderous tool, what can I say!

In the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy, as with all other similar events, the media has exploded into a frenzy of noise. Who's to blame? What could have been done to avoid such horror? One of the strangest theories I've read so far is the quite staggering suggestion that all the students 'should have been armed'. It's not that the guns should be taken away, oh no. The guns aren't available enough! Is this pro-gun propaganda? I suppose it must be, but I don't quite follow the logic, myself.

Anyway, speaking of following, I managed to get myself into a bit of a paranoid sweat yesterday afternoon when, coming home from work, I spectacularly cut up a car (in my defence, this was at a point where the road splits into four lanes and things can get a little complicated), that gave me a symphony of honking and gesticulating as a result. Fair enough, I thought. But then, I mananged to convince myself that the car had started to follow me. At every turn it was there, right up my bumper. I imagined that if I were to stop at some traffic lights then the driver was going to get out and smack me in the face. For what must have been at least 20 minutes I was checking my rear view mirror almost constantly. 'Still there. Still there.' I was completely wrong though of course, and the car evetually turned down a side road and vanished.

It was just before 3pm in the afternoon. The sun was shining down, I had a beer in my hand, I was reclining in a deckchair on a restaurant terrace, and everything seemed peachy. The holiday was starting to wind down (I wouldn't strap on my skis again), and I couldn't think of a more pleasant way to pass the time.

Suddenly, there was a 'whoosh', followed by an almighty explosion. There were gasps, and people began to stand and point. I looked up and there across the valley was a large fireball, with smaller fireballs trailing their way down the mountain. A cloud of black smoke rose into the air, signalling to everyone for miles around that something was very much amiss.

There was only one thing it could be. Something had crashed, either a helicopter or a small plane. Looking at the firey inferno opposite me, the realisation slowly dawned that I could have just witnessed a death.

I still can't quite believe what I saw. It was totally unreal. Later, we learned that it had been a German military jet, flying on a (sanctioned) trip through the alps. There had been two people on board, one of whom managed to eject to safety. The other did not, and therefore died on impact.

It was quite an extrordinary event, and one that had definitely not been advertised in the the brochure.

Everything works.

I have no broken bones, no major bruises, all my joints flex in the right direction and no digits are missing. All in all, that makes for a very successful skiing trip!

Lauterbrunnen is an unbelievably beautiful place. You really have to be there and inhale large lungfuls of the incredibly fresh air whilst staring up at the snow-capped mountains to fully appreciate it. I doubt that words could ever do it justice.

However, before getting to Lauterbrunnen my friends and I had to endure the living hell that is the coach trip through France and Switzerland. Stumbling around at 6am with a sore neck, having had next to no sleep, and being told that you have to occupy yourself for 90 minutes in a godforsaken foreign service station in the middle of nowhere is about as enjoyable as root canal surgery. Never again will I put myself through it!

Skiing this time was great. I felt like I know what I'm doing now. At least, I had very few moments where my legs decided to set off in opposite directions, or my skis inexplicably aimed themselves towards a small toddler (both of these things have happened in the past).

I did however manage to fall off the end of a chairlift. The drop wasn't very big at all but I landed awqwardly and proceeded to try and 'commando crawl' my way out of trouble. This wasn't very easy considering my skiis were somewhere behind my head, and chairs were whizzing along above.

I also, I'm proud to say, skii'd the Schilthorn Run...

It's a black run, and does loom somewhat! It's very very steep, and was famously used in the James Bond film 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service'. My instructor literally had to talk me down it turn by turn, with the added incentive of a beer when I reached the bottom.

Apres-ski was disappointingly quiet this year. Perhaps it was because everyone was so tired after caning it on the slopes all day, or maybe it was simply because there wasn't a great choice of things to do after dark. Either way, I don't think I was ever still up after midnight. Consequently, most of the serious drinking was done around lunchtime.

The most memorable and shocking moment of the holiday came during a particularly relaxing afternoon. I'd had lunch, and was half asleep on a sun-terrace, beer in hand and feeling thoroughly content. Suddenly, there was a 'whoosh' followed by an almighty explosion...

Here comes the final post for quite a while. I'll return to these electronic shores on the 16th of April. Meanwhile, enjoy this clip from an episode of Family Guy I saw on DVD last night:

Caution, Strong Stomachs Required

I'm off on the piste! Bye for now.

Here is the late bulletin:

Last night, we said goodbye to another housemate. It feels as though Molly has barely moved in, but now she's off to London to start a new job. It's been a good 9 months as she was exactly what we were looking for in a housemate - rich and generous No, she's been very good for us.

And coming next we have Steve, who is something of an enigma. I've only met him very briefly, but he's moving in for three months. After that, we're having one of our good friends Anthony to stay. Hopefully he'll be in residence for the best part of a year. So, it's nice and simple on the home front then!

This morning I trailed round the shops with Feesey to get some last minute stuff for the skiing trip. We came to the important, life-changing conclusion that it is impossible to look cool in salopettes.

It's been a very happy, very successful weekend! But I am still a bit of a numpty.

First off, I was driving along the motorways of Great Britain in an attempt to reach Preston. However, I managed to head the wrong way down the M6 and ended up somewhere near Rugby. Secondly, coming down a stepladder from Fiona's mum's attic, I stood in her cat's litter tray and sent kitty litter flying across the entire landing. I'm still picking bits out of my shoes now.

But these mishaps aside, I had a brilliant time!

It's great news for Wales that the smoking ban has officially begun today. I was in a pub last week which had already implemented the ban, and it was a revelation. No haze. No smell. No customers! Never mind though, because at least I didn't have to jump straight in the shower when I got back.

Tomorrow, it's off to the shops to get all the last minute items I need for skiing. For some reason, I always buy far too many packets of wet wipes. I'm not really sure why this is. In my head, there's something about extra-long coach journeys that will require inordinate amounts of damp tissue in order to cope. No idea why! Mints, as well. Less than four tubes, and I simply won't make it to Switzerland.