Things that have appeared on my doorstep - Part 2

It just gets weirder! At some point within the last few hours, the CD has been joined by a 'friend'.

The CD turns out to be by Catatonia, for all you record buffs out there, so i'm not too bothered about having the rest of it thanks.

Things that have appeared on my doorstep - Part 1

As I live on a fairly main road, many people walk past my flat every day, and every now and again one of these people decides to leave a present for me on my doorstep (don't worry - none of them have ever been brown).

This is a picture of today's present. I have to admit, i got very excited when i saw it as I genuinely thought that the CD was meant for me. Even though this is unlikely on so many levels (no envelope being one of the major ones). I was disappointent to find that, when i picked it up, it was only half of the CD case. And whoever had left it, had forgotten to include the CD! Silly person!

Does anyone recognise it?

This is by no means the best present that has been left there. In the past I've seen a china teapot and a plastic bag full of balloon animals. The last one seemed especially sinister - like a mother balloon animal had decided that she couldn't care for her new born balloon babies alone and, with a balloon tear in her eye, had left them outside the hospital.

But as i'm not a hospital for baby balloon animals (which I hope i have now made clear with the notice on my front door), i left them there.

They were gone the next day.

Square Souper

For anyone who has been on the edge of their seat since i posted this, here's a picture of the cubic soup i cooked.

Rather amazingly, it went from 'Cube' to 'Soup' shape within seconds of me turning the hob on. It's only a matter of time before I get a call to do the special effects for Terminator 4.

I have an interview with a job agency this afternoon, and have been asked to arrive in 'Business dress'. Does this mean what I wear when I'm 'doing business' (i.e. working at my computer)? In which case, will I get funny looks entering their office wearing a dressing gown? Should I travel to the interview wearing my normal clothes, and then whip out the dressing gown and put it on just before i meet them?

Maybe I won't bother going. Humiliating an innocent man who just wants a permanent job is mean.

Incidentally, the website where i found this image is quite amusing. Mark Wenzel deserves to be a star!

Perhaps when all three of you have looked at his site, the extra hits will be enough to propel him to superstardom!

Fearful follicles

A few months ago I read a 'fun' statistic in a newspaper (you know, the kind of thing that seems far less true than the whole of the horoscope page) that suggested that people who shave every day live longer than those who don't.

Now, I know that producing statistics is a serious art, however you can easily twist them to produce any result you desire (e.g. by interviewing one person). I also am fairly convinced that there is absolutely no link between having a beard and heading to an early grave (unless you're one of the Twits and the excessive amount of cornflake build-up sends you unexpectedly toppling over).

Even so, as stupid as it seems, I now feel like I'm going to die if I forget to shave on a given day (easily done if you work from home and no one is going to notice).

Anyway, women don't shave every day and they live longer. What's all that about?

When is a candle more than a candle?

When it's a Mandle Candle, apparently.

For anyone who hasn't seen the television advert for what is claimed to be 'the most significant enhancement to happen to the candle in many years' (Have there been any enhancements other than this?), it appears to be a candle stuck on top of some sort of colour-changing tube. You can watch the ad yourself on their website.

Which leads to the question, 'is it a candle, or a candle stuck on top of some sort of colour-changing tube'?

I'm sure this must be a hot topic in various craft magazines, but I don't want to be a part of this petty fighting. I just want to set the ball rolling and start the argument.

For anyone who has Christmas presents left to buy, why not consider a Mandle Candle?

I like the 'Helpful Hints' section on their website which suggests the advice 'Store candle in darkness (when not in use)'. Surely by the very definition of a candle, it's automatically in darkness when not in use?

A set of two 'Continuous Colour Changers' is only £21.75 (+ postage and packing) from the QVC website. And with such high-profile vendors selling them, you'd be stupid not to.

By the way, do you think Mr (or Mrs? But let's face it, it's probably a Mr) Mandle changed his name, or decided on his destiny just because his name rhymes with 'candle'?

Let me take you to, Lazy Town

I'm knackered. Not because I woke up early at 8.30 this morning, but because I'm recovering from a vicious workout. A workout on the eyes and brain that will last until the day I die. And even then, I'm not convinced my rotting corpse won't still be twitching from it.

I'm talking about a programme called Lazy Town (8.30-9 a.m. Mon-Fri BBC 2), which answers the question 'What exactly would happen if Hollyoaks' Tony Hutchinson fell in a vat of that magic potion from Asterix and dressed like Biggles from the future?'

Well, the answer is a man named Sporticus (image shown above), who makes a class full of 6 year olds high on Sunny Delight and Wham bars on the last day of school before christmas look like, well, me on an average day.

This man seems to be capable of super-human powers, and although I want to believe that computer graphics have been used, I have a terrible feeling that he actually is super-human.

The programme basically seems to be funded by someone, somewhere (Iceland possibly?) intent on showing us mere mortals that Homo Sapiens are no longer the top of the food chain. A new breed of human has evolved, and we're being warned by a programme disguised to look like it's there to help children get fit.

In this morning's episode a child sent a letter to Sporticus asking for tips on doing push-ups. Rather than offering tips on what to do to ensure you don't get a bad back, Super-Tony proceeded to do every kind of push-up variant you could possibly imagine, and then some. 'Push-up followed by a clap behind my back', 'Push-up where I kind of collapse my arm to the elbow and then go back up again', and most impressively 'Push up on one hand and one foot' are all in the Sportacus repertoire.

By the way, everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) Sportacus does is highlighted by either a cartoony 'Woosh!' noise, or (for fans of 80s synthesizers) the 'Orchestra Hit' sound, much loved by the Pet Shop Boys (if you care, it sounds like a whole orchestra playing a fast, punchy note simultaneously, as imagined by a geek at Yamaha HQ. who has never actually heard an orchestra). Anyway, it's bloody annoying and answers another question, 'Why does this man live on his own?'.

Anyway, I digress. Sporticus finally decides, after managing to do a few simple tasks in a totally over the top way that would leave even Mr Motivator wheezing like, well me after walking to the corner shop, to drink a bottle of water.

But no - he can't just open the fridge, remove said bottle, turn cap and drink. No, as with everything he does, he has to do it in a way that makes us feel bad. His house (which i neglected to mention is an airship hovering over the Earth) has various holes that just appear in the walls to hand him certain things (who's lazy now eh?) so the water appears from one of these holes. He then does about 3 triple-backflips, some star jumps (that include doing the spilts) and spins around in the air just to grab the water. Then he sings a song about how important water is after exercising. It all looks a bit like a cross between some of the aerial shots from Cliffhanger and a Pepsi Max advert, but he's just drinking some water for crying out loud.

Someone should slip some kryptonite in that man's 'H2O'