Croc Monsieur

I just thought I would share this with you.

Altogether now:

"That's not a tax bill...THAT'S a tax bill".

Sitting comfortably?

You will be pleased to know that everything went well with my move and I am happily installed in my dwelling, brimming with contentment now that I have my own little cave to shuffle about in. All that remains is the installation of a good size telly and a sofa to stare blankly at it from. Noone wants to visit me until I have a good size telly to drown out my blather, so priority-wise the sofa has taken a back seat.

Yes that pun was intentional. Don't judge me.

My brilliant brother has acquired a television for me from a website called 'freecycle', which I believe is much like ebay, only instead of bidding money you win things by typing 'mine' in the largest lettering. The only sticking point is that it is an old style cathode-tube set (the box type) which being that it's a 28inch screen is going to prove something of a 'feature' in the living room. I have a feeling that when I switch it on there is going to be a loud hum, the lights will go dim and my skin cells will quiver and burst like Sigourney Weaver's eggs in 'Ghostbusters'. On the plus side, I won't have to squint when I'm bashing zombies on the head with a cricket bat whilst playing 'Left 4 Dead 2'.

So now I need to get a sofa. I have been reminded that a sofa from the old family home is still locked up in a garage in darkest Cambridgeshire. The trouble is I remember it being a bit near to the end of its life when it last saw daylight so I am very tempted to get a nearly-new one from the nearly-new furniture place around the corner from my flat. My logic for this is simple: I don't want to have the palava of hiring a van to go and bail out the currently imprisoned sofa, break my back getting it into my flat only to have a spring make a break for freedom and impale my unmentionables after a week's use. The final revenge of the Couch of Monte Cristo. However, I know for a fact that noone has died on that one, wet themselves on it, or attempted to hide the body of a dead prostitute amidst its springs. Always a risk with second-hand furniture.

Or I could simply not have any visitors and live out my days in my pants on a beanbag, surrounded by empty cans of Stella Artois, eating crisps and bashing zombies on the head with a  cricket bat. As of last week, this has been working for 29 years.

The new one two

Due to an unfortunate turn of events I watched 'Alan Carr: Chatty Man' on Sunday. Clumsy I know, but it was a choice between that or an epsiode of the Jordan/Alex Reid tan-fest and the latter makes my eyeballs vomit. His guests this week were cheeky-but-harmless Jason Manford and Welsh sort Alex Jones. You won't have heard of her, apart from the tabloid revelations that she looks a bit like Christine Bleakley if you squint a bit. Manford was typically cheeky-but-harmless and Jones seems nice, but there was a problem with the two of them. Something wrong. Something inappropriate.

They appear to have...skill.

Part of the charm of 'The One Show' was that it would lurch clumsily from one item to the next, like a leaky ship in a storm being steered by a drunk Captain. The running order seemed to pride itself on its juxtapositon. We would have a report from a small shouty bald man about the importance of keeping our till receipts, then an interview with Tony Hadley about his upcoming appearance in 'Aladdin' at Eastbourne. This would be followed by a serious report about child abuse, which would end and Adrian Chiles would lean towards Tony Hadley to ask him what he thought about it. Once we are all happy that not only he but the rest of the reformed Spandau Ballet are quite against paedophiles too then we would be introduced to a dog that can bark some of the alphabet in no particular order. Next week Status Quo would be on to plug their latest 'best-of' and give their opinion about London's homeless.

Now Chiles and Bleakley have run away to the next channel-but-one The Good Ship One is being steered by Manford and Jones (Jones is the Welsh one), and they appear to have chemistry. They don't sit next to each other like a couple at a dinner party who are overdue a divorce. They don't speak to each other like they are humouring a tourist with learning difficulies. Not only that, but they seem to be able to appear in front of a camera without looking like they've hypnotised themselves with their own reflection. Adrian Chiles always seems fearful that the camera will steal his soul, which is why he tries to fool it by pretending he has no personality whilst Bleakley blinds it with lip-gloss and flashes of leg. We didn't have to put up with actual presenting talent before, so why now? Why didn't the producers just take the next logical step and follow their departure by having the show presented by a heavily sedated bulldog and a cardboard cut-out of Raquel Welch circa 1966? I suppose they'd only be poached by ITV to fill in the gap left by Bleakley and Chiles' inevitable wanderlust/sacking.

So what next? Mark Austin saying something positive on News at Ten? Jokes in 'My Family'? An episode of Dragons' Den where you don't have to leap around the living room in order to hold the presenter's gaze? Satan must be dusting off his ice-skates.



Of course I realise I am being ridiculous. There's never going to be any jokes in 'My Family'.