I was walking along Queen Victoria Street in the City. Where the road meets Cannon Street, outside the abandoned Burger King next to Mansion House underground station and over the road from Bow Lane, I heard a cacophony of police sirens. Numerous mounted police motorcyclists appeared and stopped all traffic.

A long sleek posh black car (don’t ask me what make) came speeding past, armed officers making sure no pedestrians fell under the wheels or threw a raw egg. I had a peak to see who was sat in the back seat as the automobile came shooting past. Looking out of the window directly at me was a glass eyed dowdy Scotsman. Others know him as the Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Then he was gone, followed by an entourage of SUVs containing guards, children and wives, probably on their way to Downing Street for a supper of beans on toast with an extra helping of corned beef.

Brown is now in Afghanistan, meeting British troops. Maybe he should have followed me home through Whitechapel, not unlike Afghanistan, probably.

With a hairbrush in place of a microphone, sticky play felt replacing facial side-burns, wide corduroy flares with a patch on the knee, a sponge on my head and wearing my mother’s high heels, I was, for a short while, in said gang.

Well, let me tell you Mr. Gadd, aka disgraced former pop star and convicted paedophile Gary Glitter, I emphatically do not want to join your gang. In fact, please can you take your sick, twisted self and your gang of perverts (which probably includes disgraced former DJ Jonathan King), into a locked concrete bunker and bury yourselves at the bottom of the ocean. Git – with your little whispy white beard, bald head and shifty evil eyes.

Glitter may be the Leader of the Gang, but it certainly ain’t any gang of mine. Come on Come on.

However, I did not notice that I had situated myself behind a very old and frail woman who was taking her long sweet time packing her jars of pickled onions and tins of spam and ravioli. I offered to help but she cowered and raised her arms in fearful protest, as though I was an evil predatory phantom reaper preparing to cart her bent soul off to hell.

She was so slow I slipped through the next two stages of evolution.

I noticed the checkout girl smiling at me sweetly. She was a stunning Asian beauty in her early twenties. Although dowdy in her uniform her face gave her away as being something special, huge long-lashed dark eyes and big red lips and a complexion so perfect I wanted to use it as butter. I goofily smiled back.

Her eyes sparkled as she nodded towards the old lady and amiably said, “‘Hell is other people,’ as Jean-Paul Sartre, the French existentialist philosopher, once said in his play ‘Huis Clos’. Or to quote the original: ‘l’enfer, c’est les autres.’”
“Huh . . . yeah, that’s exactly right, that’s what I always say. Wasn’t Sartre famously once a goalkeeper?” I ignorantly asked.
“No, that’s Peter Shilton. Do you have a Nectar card?”

I paid and left, contemplating the brilliant metaphysical and existential debates I was to have with my new beautiful friend. I bet that she looks good on the dance floor.

I try to avoid using the Tube system, it is just so unreliable, and opt to walk wherever I can. However, upon occasion I shall be required to carry items and therefore need to use public transport. So, there I was, on Friday afternoon, stood by the barrier at Stepney Green station, box in hand, hoping the nice uniformed gentleman would open the gate and I could exit.

It was not as easy as that. This member of staff had honed his patronising and sarcastic manner to levels of perfection. In a barely audible mumble he asked me what I was doing. I pleasantly explained that I needed the barrier opened so I could exit the station.

“I need to open this gate, ya know, not you and I may just leave you standing there. It’s my choice mate. Have you got a ticket? What’s in the box? I could call the police and have you arrested, ya know. I don’t have to open the gate pal. It’s my choice.” This jumped up little Hitler of a man felt he held sway over the tiny empire that was Stepney Green station foyer.

I stared at him in silence. He did not move. I carried on staring. He stared back but gradually become very uncomfortable and eventually unlocked the gate and I walked through. I still said, “Thank you.”

“Don’t look at me in that tone of voice,” I heard him say as I stepped over the drunk that was lying unconscious by the station door.

Here is his email:

Hey Nelson,

What’s banging off big boy? You been out on the town yet dressed-up? Stop mucking about and get on with it, or else you’ll regret it dude.

You’d love it in New York. It’s flipping bonkers. It isn’t filthy like London and the people are right friendly. Americans are strange though – have you seen their president? It’s easy to lose your heads in the clouds but one major problem – the pubs are rubbish.

Anyway, I have big news. I have found lady. Yeah – she’s dead special. Her name is Angel and she’s a gorgeous oriental lady. It’s not true what they say about their furry hoop being upside down. I think she’s the one Nel. I love her. I daren’t tell her that in case she runs away. Could you tell her I love her?

Gotta tell ya how we met. I was trying to cross Fifth Avenue, close to the Empire State Building. Stepping off the sidewalk I didn’t look at the crossing sign. I was looking the wrong way, you know how you do when you go abroad. (Remember that time you got hit by a tram in Helsinki?). Just as I was about to get mangled in the radiator of a yellow cab someone intercepted and rugby tackled me to the floor.

I was alive. Looking down I noticed the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She had her arms wrapped around my legs, pinning me to the concrete. As we both lay there she raised her head from my knees and I fell in love. Oh man. My heart was racing Nelson but I panicked – she might think me an idiot. People were stepping over us to get across the road and I said the only thing that came into my head, the thing I always say when I panic.

I said to her, “Do you want to smell my trousers?” You know what Nelson, she nodded and had a deep whiff up of my jeans. And that was that – I took her for a Bud to say thanks and we’ve been dating ever since.

Hey, she has a gorgeous friend Nelson, really stunning; I think she may be a model. Angel has shown her some pics of you and she’d love to get to know you and she thinks your music is the bee’s knees. So get your ass (not arse) over the pond – it could all happen for you here man, it did for me.

Gotta go – Angel wants to do the old in-out-in-out.

Best,
Busby

On the Nelson hi-fi today:
The Raveonettes - Pretty in Black

Today students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are receiving their A-level and AS-level exam grades. There has been an increase in the pass rate and the amount of top A grades. However, there is criticism that the rise in the number of A grades means that universities can no longer spot the brightest students. This has led the government to proclaim they are making A-levels more challenging in future.

Congratulations to all students that have achieved the grades they were looking for and commiserations for those that did not.

I clearly remember the day, just a couple of years ago, that I went to pick up my results. I was all alone and very worried as I slowly walked to Sherwood Hall School in Mansfield. I worked so hard for my A-levels but was still afraid that I would fail spectacularly. It was with a shaking hand that I opened my result envelope.

With joy and physical and psychological relief I read that I had three A grades and one B grade. I believed I had really achieved something and was on my way to a brilliant academic future at one of Britain’s most respected universities.

Mr Gamble, the head of sixth form, sidled up to me. He was a rather horrible bully of a man with a gigantic hair spewing nose. His area of expertise was religious education – a subject for which I held an open disdain. With a scowl he enquired about my results and I told him. Instead of congratulating me he said, “Hard lines Nelson,” and walked quickly away to pat the bottom of some pretty young girl.

During the next few days all of my applied choices for university began rejecting me. There was no apparent reason why, after all I had achieved higher grades than those required. The only acceptance I had was from Middlesex University in London, where I ended up attending – having a brilliant time and studying the perfect course.

This unacceptable turn of events led me to storm into school to see my English teacher and demand an explanation. He conspiratorially took me aside and explained that I had received a very unfavourable reference from Mr Gamble who had written that I was disreputable and a trouble maker and would not amount to anything. Gamble could not accept that one of his pupils was the front man of an incendiary punk-pop band that had incited a mosh-pit and near riot at a recent school concert.

Am I bitter? Would I like to stick a stiletto heel up Gamble’s enormous hooter? No, because unsuspected by Gamble everything worked out better than I could have hoped . . . sort of.

I am not going to name names but the companies involved have carried out their jobs so badly that I am tempted to make complaints. They should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Some people seem to be totally incapable of doing their jobs properly and deserve to be blasted out of existence, shot out into the vacuum of space with no oxygen.

I ordered my items on a Sunday and received a confirmation email saying delivery would occur on a Tuesday. I took a Tuesday off – and also Wednesday just in case it came the next day. I sat waiting all day and nobody came. I checked the courier tracking link I had been sent, which said delivery had been attempted and a card left. There was no card.

Wednesday. Sat at home all day and nobody came. The tracking link told me delivery had been attempted and a calling card left. There was no card. I could only assume that the courier was attempting to deliver to the wrong address and that my package was being held at their depot.

I ascertained where the depot was and the next day made the long journey to an industrial estate in the middle of nowhere. There were no nearby tube stations and busses avoided the area so I had to take a cab, costing me £25. In the depot I presented the fellow behind the counter with a print out of my tracking details. He firmly told me that I needed to have a calling card to prove the delivery was for me. I told him none were put through my letter box and he told me to contact the retailer because there was nothing he could do.

I contacted the retailer. They were very nice and guaranteed delivery would be made on a Monday to my work address. They read out this address to confirm. I said to myself that sometimes things do work out, why always be so pessimistic? I shall tell you why.

Monday came and no delivery was made. Late in the afternoon I checked the courier’s tracking details. They had taken the parcel to Oxford and it had been delivered and signed for by some random individual. Isn’t this amazing? Not only did they deliver to the wrong person at the wrong address they sent to the totally wrong city. How?

I contacted the courier and the retailer and left a message for both. They promised to contact me within one working day. Two days later and I am still waiting for a reply. I have paid for my parcel to be delivered to someone else in a different city. Cheers.

ANGRY ANGRY ANGRY!!!!!!

Time is a very precious thing and I believe there is not enough of the stuff; it falls through my fingers like fine yellow sand. I find that I just do not have the time to do everything that needs to be done - so the thought of ‘faffing’ feels like a none existent abhorrent thing.

One in three said they were annoyed at the amount of time they wasted and most wanted to make better use of their day. I considered this and realised that I do spend a lot of time not necessarily doing anything worthwhile.

This is never a fault of my own. I have to spend time waiting, especially for other people to get ready, catch up or do what they said they would. I spend so much time waiting for my flipping computer to work and for pedestrians to move out of my way as I do the long trek across London to the office or do my shopping in Sainsbury’s.

Then there is my whole working day. This always feels like a complete and utter waste of time - I could be doing something worthwhile like learning about quantum physics or how to cure cancer or how to shave my legs without getting a rash, you know the real important stuff.

So stop faffing wasting time you faffers and do something less boring instead. Faffing hell.

Walking over the Millennium Bridge this morning I noticed a gangly looking man, who had a major lopsided method of striding. He wore sandals and filthy ripped jeans and was carrying a ripped plastic Costcutter bag, which appeared to be filled with other plastic bags. Emblazoned in bright red bold type across the back of his t-shirt were the words:

“I am not mad, not mad. Oh sweet Jehovah, kill kill.”

I think there is a good chance that he was mad. I walked past him as quickly as possible before he had chance to throw me into the Thames.

We were stood around chatting, posing, bitching and getting drunk when George made his grand entrance. We burst out laughing when we realised that he had missed the point.

The Founders Arms is situated on the river very close to the world famous Globe theatre. George thought it would be the perfect idea to arrive at this “Fancy Dress” party dressed as Shakespeare, his favourite Warwickshire born playwright. He was resplendent in his Elizabethan/Jacobean garb, all frilly collars and cuffs and silly shiny buckle shoes. He had a little wispy goatee beard glued to his chin.

“It’s a ‘Wear a Fancy Dress’ party George, not ‘Historical Figure’ fancy dress, that’s next week. Are you some kind of Muppet?”
“I am not a Muppet, I am Shakey.”
“Stevens?”
“No, Shakespeare. You dumb ass.”

George stormed off towards the bar to order a large whiskey. This was quickly followed by another altercation. The landlord was shouting loudly at George and pointing towards the door. George walked past, shaking his head and staring at the beer-stained floor. Under his breath he mumbled, “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!”

“You’re barred,” screamed the landlord.