My Name Is Prince

Apparently Prince Harry gave himself the nickname "The Bullet Magnet" while serving in Afghanistan.

I think this is rather self-regarding. Proper nicknames are supposed to be insulting, but Harry's nickname makes him sound like some sort of super-hero, although a rubbish one.

I suspect he does not know his real nickname. I imagine it's Ginger, or James Hewitt's Lad, or Posh Spice, or Clive off Neighbours, or Knobhead. Something like that.

Busy

Goodness, I've been busy. Do you know how busy I've been? I'll tell you, I've been busier than the following COMBINED!!!!

• A sniffer dog at Creamfields;
• The man who picks up all the coins from the stage after a Jimmy Carr gig;
• The bloke who stands in front of Osama Bin Laden holding his coat and umbrella wide open to obscure him from American spy satellites when Osama's got the runs;
• The chap who Piers Morgan employs to tell him he's a cock every time he acts like a cock;
• A peanut collector at an all-you-can-eat peanut buffet.

So, as you can see, I've been quite busy. So busy that I've been completely unable to direct you to this website, which collects passive-aggressive notes like the one in my previous post. Thankfully, that's all over now.

Found On A Fridge In Work

Don't take people's chunks. That's what I was told, and that's how things should be.

Lovely Toasty Ears

I was surprised to see Kate O'Mara on my television last night. But not as surprised as she looked. My goodness, that's quite a facelift she's had.

It will have to stop soon lest she find herself in possession of a lustrous and curly beard. Or a little goatee if she's fastidious in the appropriate area.

Anyway, it was rather chilly when I ventured out this lunchtime and my hands soon developed a peculiar numbness, as if they had somehow grown to the proportions of those owned by the Kenny Everett character Brother Lee Love, making it impossible to grip small items like coins, thimbles or Tic Tacs. "Dang!" I thought, "If only I had remembered my gloves."

My ears, too, were cold as a Hitchcock blonde sitting in a freezer in the middle of the Antarctic. In the nip.

Of course, this was not a problem in my younger years, when my gloves were attached to each other by a long string which ran along one arm of my coat, across my shoulders and back down the other arm, and my ears were kept toasty warm by a balaclava. But I'm an adult now, I can't get away with that sort of fashion statement, no matter how sensible.

But maybe I can. Maybe we all can. All we need is one sacrifice. If Kate Moss or David Beckham would just pop a nice woolly balaclava and pair of elasticated mittens on, we'd all be able to wear them without fear of being picked on by bullies.

Perhaps if we all club together we could employ one of them to do the honours for a couple of minutes. Just long enough for them to be papped, and we'd all have nice warm ears.

And Kate O'Mara could pin her skin back with a bulldog clip, and mask it with her own balaclava, saving a fortune on plastic surgery and that.

Everyone's a winner. Send your money to me now.

Evil Mothercare

I had to buy a car seat for Bandage very minor, so Mrs Bandage and I sojourned to our local branch of Mothercare, which provides a wide range of such devices. That's why we went there.

Having chosen our preferred model, we asked the assistant who was serving us if we could see if it would fit in our car. A reasonable request, I think you'll agree.

Thankfully, you, the assistant and I are in full concord, and so she led us from the shop to the car park, carrying the seat herself. That was a relief as I had hurt my back playing Travel Twister (TM) (which I shall be marketing soon, it being a version I have invented of the popular game, designed to be played on long car journeys, like Travel Scrabble or Travel Cluedo).

But she didn't take us straightaway. Oh no. First she donned a high-visibility jacket and only then did she led us from the shop.

Why was she wearing a high-visibility jacket? Was it because she did not want the security guards to think she was stealing the car seat? But she was already wearing a Mothercare uniform. The jacket would only be of use if the security guards were visually impaired. But then, which company would take on blind security guards?

No, it was for her own protection in the car park.

Now I do not wish that assistant, nor any employee of Mothercare, harm. Far from it. But why should she get special protection from the vehicles using the car park? We weren't wearing high-visibility jackets. In a way, she was putting us in danger, while ensuring she alone was fully-protected.

In fact, she was putting us in more danger, as any cars which might have hit her would undoubtedly swerve to avoid her, alerted by her highly visible jacket, and hit me instead. A valued customer. Don't make me laugh. I mean, how dare she? How bloody dare she?

It wasn't her fault, of course. Company rules, she said, company rules that preserve a small clique of Mothercare employees and, effectively, kill their customers.

It's health and safety gone mad. And then evil. Mothercare? Mothermaim, more like.

PS It's all gone quiet on the Marathon front. Perhaps I should write Mars a letter and see if they will bring it back.

Phew

Only one bag today from Gregg's.

The powers-that-be obviously read this blog. Either that, or it was all a terrible error. And we all know how unlikely that is.

A Cornish pasty, since you ask.

Just Give Me My Money, Please. Thank You

I had occasion yesterday to draw money from a hole in the wall. I say a hole in the wall, but in fact it was nothing of the kind. In point of fact, it was an ATM in the lobby of an HSBC bank.

A great invention, by the way, but one which stopped my (borderline illegal) get-rich-quick scheme in its tracks. In the old days, before ATMs were so abundant, the quickest way to draw money from one's account was to write a cheque for the amount and make it payable to "Cash", before handing it over to counter staff for redemption.

So I was going to change my name to Clement Ash, enabling me to pay in any stray cheques which the wind might blow my way. No point now. I'd make a rubbish international super-criminal.

Oh yes, yesterday's ATM. I bashed in my PIN and waited for the magic screen to appear offering me my own money.

"But wait, what's this?" I thought. An advertisement giving me the chance to take on a credit card appeared instead. Now I don't want a credit card. I don't want to get into unnecessary debt, I don't buy books from Amazon, and I have never felt the need to subscribe to any pornographic websites, so why would I need one.

But at the bottom of the screen were two options. "Yes", and "Not at the moment, thank you." "How dare they?" I thought. "How bloody dare they?"

I'm keen to say please and thank you. I hold doors open for much longer than necessary (admittedly only to watch people do that special run they do when they realise someone is holding the door open for them). I don't duck under the ropes to get to the back of one of those curly queues they have in post offices. In short, I'm a polite chap.

But it really does get my goat when people are polite on my behalf. Especially as I was a smidgen annoyed to be offered credit when all I wanted was my own money. What on earth is wrong with 'no'?

I hate HSBC for doing this.