What would you recommend?

When I was younger there was the 'local' video shop. Before the days of Blockbuster, these shops were little gems - they seemed to have one copy of every film you'd ever want to see. If the film was out, try again the next night. Nowadays Blockbuster has 20 copies of about 20 films, so your choice is somewhat limited.

One thing, however, has remained the same across all video/dvd rental establishments. You should NEVER ask the guy behind the counter what he thinks of a certain film. Why do I trust his opinion? He is nothing like me, and by virtue of his occupation if nothing else, he has completely different tastes to almost everyone on Planet Normal. What he thinks is great is almost always a bucket of shite. He is twenty years younger than me.

Nevertheless, if I am undecided about which of two titles I should rent, I will always defer to him for an opinion. He is always wrong and I am always disappointed, but I just can't help myself.

Although it was worth it once when I quizzed him about Deja Vu and he asked if I'd seen it already. Comedy gold - at least the first time you hear it anyway.

How Are You?

Ah, the period after Christmas/New Year. Many of us are back in the office/workplace now, and not looking forward to another year of drudgery. For me in particular, this time of year represents one of my least favourite formalities - smalltalk.

"Morning"
"Morning"
"How are you?"
"Good thanks. You?"
"Yeah, good. Good Christmas?"
"Yeah, good thanks. What about you?"
"Good....yeah.. good.
"Good"

To be honest, I don't really care. Whether you were round your parents or you parents-in-law is of zero importance to me, and what you ate in the way of Christmas dinner even less so.

Can we not just assume that we've all had a good weekend/Christmas/New Year/holiday/Easter etc unless we hear otherwise? I reckon I could claim back around half an hour of my life every day.

You get me?

I don't know about you, but if you ask me, to be perfectly honest with you, when all is said and done, with all things being equal, do you know what I mean? I mean, to be fair, at the end of the day, do you get what I'm saying? Innit? Yeah.

SATC

As far as I can make out, Sex And The City is a program about three prostitutes and their madam.

Blood from a Stone

The TV and Radio ads tell us to give blood, as there is a massive shortage of donors. Well, why not? Unless you don't don't particularly like needles, which is fine, then surely there's no reason not to give blood right? I'd generally disagree.

I have given blood several times, as I don't mind needles, and it makes me feel good about myself. The trouble is, they don't make it easy for you. I work in central London, so I'd love nothing more than to be able to pop out once a month at lunchtime and give a pint of blood. But it's near impossible to do that.

My nearest blood centre to work is only 10 mins walk away, but they are closed at lunchtime. Now call me daft, but aren't most people in central London there becasue they work there? And when do most people have the time to get out of the office? Exactly - lunchtime.

So,another time, I tried taking a late lunch, and popping in at around 3pm, only to be told that there was a one-and-a-half hour wait just to be seen. Plus at least half an hour to actually give blood. Sorry, but that's not how you process volunteers.

Finally, the exclusion list is outdated. You can't give blood if you are gay, or have ever had sex with a man. This is presumably because of the risk of HIV being present in the blood. But there are more heterosexuals with HIV than homosexuals - so where does the logic lie there?

Instead of spending millions on ad campaigns bemoaning the lack of of donors and how selfish we all are, I would propose that the National Blood Service take a long look at why people aren't donating. There is certainly no shortage of willing donors, just a shortage of their time.

Fun and Games

I have a very lively imagination - much like that of a 5 year old. I recently heard on the radio about a woman who used to play a game when she came out of the tube station on her way home. She'd pretend that there were zombies behind her, and she had to get home as quickly as possible before they caught up with her. My kind of game.

Not as crazy as it sounds. I was in Tesco the other day, and with a very small slip of the mind it's not hard to imagine all the shoppers as the living dead. They wander up and down the aisles bumping their trolleys into all and sundry, with no awareness of those around them, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, staring at the shelves presumably looking for a can of personality.

Try it next time you're in a shop full of utter morons - pretend you're the only sane one, and that you have to get out before the zombies realise that there are other people around them. Well, you've got to do something to make it bearable.

Apostrophe's

If you've noticed that the apostrophe in the title is incorrect, then you probably needn't read on.

I still can't stand it when people use apostrophes in plurals. Like the greengrocer who advertises "Strawberry's - 2 punnet's for a pound". Drives me mad. However, as anal as I am about grammar, I do accept that our language is dynamic, and I am therefore coming round to some of the blatantly wrong uses of the apostrophe becoming more acceptable.

The most common misuse for apostrophes is in abbreviations, such as "CD's". I am coming round to this, because although it looks awful, it's in such common use that it will become 'proper' English within the next 10 years certainly.

We forget that our language is not dictated or changed by books, but by how it is used in everyday life by the majority.

I will therefore also predict that the word 'espresso' will be superceded by 'expresso' within 10 years, simply because that is the more commonly used version (although completely incorrect).

Finally, I predict that the next generation will exclusively use 'pacific' instead of 'specific', as it's already commonplace among those under 25.

Sad, but change is unavoidable, so better to embrace it.

What Recession?

Again, my ignorance of economics will undoubtedly shine through here, but personally I can't much to whinge about with the recession.

- Mortgages are cheaper
- Fuel is cheaper
- Food is cheaper
- Cars (especially new ones) are being sold at massive discounts
- Woolies is practically giving everything away (ok, not much to get excited about there)

So if everything is cheaper, and as long as I keep my job and don't want to travel to Europe, then personally I think the recession is great!

Just one thing though. Does anyone really think the 2.5% VAT reduction will make me rush out and buy jumpers because they are 20p cheaper? Surely, this doesn't amount to economics - more common sense.

Ring the changes

How often do you use the phone? Three or four times a day? At least a few times a week. Definitely a few times a month.

Half the world's population have NEVER made or received a phone call. Fact.

Sleep tight

I'm always one to see the funny side of tragic situations. It's probably for my own protection, but it's a bit of a curse actually. In reality I fully appreciate that I have an easier life than most, and that I am very lucky indeed. However, I couldn't help but laugh out loud at one of those Horizon-type documentaries on telly the other day.

The program was about narcoleptics and dealing with narcolepsy (that's not the one where you cop off with dead people, but the one where you nod off without any warning). Now let me say this first - the program brought home to me that living with narcolepsy is a terrible thing in many ways. The sufferers fall asleep with no notice something like 30 or 40 times a day - this can be while eating, walking, shopping - anytime at all. They also suffer disturbed night-time sleep, so all in all it's pretty debilitating. For partners of sufferers, they often have difficultly believeing the true extent of the condition, and as their partner is asleep much of the time, they feel very much alone.

The program followed several sufferers with the condition, and culminated in them travelling to a conference in the US where they could meet other sufferers, which was great for them to learn more about how to live with the condition and how to treat it.

So - not very funny so far right? Right. Well, at this conference there were some very experienced doctors giving lectures on certain aspects of the condition. But I just couldn't stiffle a laugh when the camera panned from the doctor on stage giving the lecture, round to the audience who, of course, are all asleep. Oh the irony. Does that make me a bad person?