But sure, as it happens number 12 would have been: Put wooden chopping boards in the dishwasher.

 

1) Order the fish in a restaurant on a Monday. It'll be three days old. 

2) Base-jumping. He just doesn't see the appeal.

3) Cheat on his wife. Sandra is his world. 

4) Open a new battlefront without adequately securing supply lines first. This one probably won't come up. But still, he'd never do it. Look at Napoleon. 

5) That. He'll do anything for love. But. 

Edit: For some reason, a lot of people seem to be complaining that none of these have anything to do with dishwashers. Why should they? Our dishwasher expert knows a lot about dishwashers, sure, but they're not his whole life. Get some perspective, people.

Victor Hugo gets his author photo taken.

"Oh, yes, Victor, very nice! Very intense. Like it. Great. Ok, shall we try another pose?"

"...Yep. Yep, that's good too. Ok, I think we've got some terrific options for that look. Tell you what, let's try one without your hand on your face. How about that?"

"......Ok. Yep, ok, that was my fault. I left you a loophole there, didn't I Vic? Fair enough. So! Now let's try one without your hand on your head AT ALL."

"...I'm not an idiot, Victor. [...] YES, that counts as 'on'! [...] Of course it does, it... Look. We're both tired. Let's take a break, shall we, for a few days. Or years, or... decades, even, and then come at it fresh."

"...........Seriously?"

"Fine. Very nice, Victor. Very intense. We'll use that one."

"Yeah. And the same to you."

From the people who brought you FLOORS.

That's right, Ladies and Gentlemen! Roll up, roll up, to use STEPS here, the hot new craze in ascension that's sweeping the nation! Other houses in this street may make you clamber up muddy slopes to the door, or employ circus strongmen to lift you up to the porch... but not here! Here you can use STEPS! STEPS - eight levels of pure adrenaline!

Please keep your hands on the bannister at all times whilst using STEPS. STEPS not recommended for pregnant women or those with weak hearts. You must be as tall as this sign to use STEPS. STEPS may go down as well as up. 

Text message conversation I imagined on recent trip to my local mini supermarket.

- Just going to shops, can I get you anything?
- Thanks! Toothpaste; Earl Grey tea; and the I-Spy book of Oxford.
- …Ok. But I'm only going to the little Sainsbury's. What if they don't have it?
- Then normal tea's fine.
- No, I meant… what if they don't have the I-Spy book of Oxford?
- Huh? Of course they'll have it! This is the middle of London! What self-respecting mini supermarket would fail to stock the I-Spy book of Oxford?
- You're probably right. But, just in case?
- Well. If for some strange reason they HAVE run out, just get me the I-Spy book of Edinburgh.
- …Ok. Fine.

Grrr. Vrroom.

If Friday is dragging, here's a little game.  Pretend you're an eight year old boy who's just been told he can change his name to anything he likes. Think of the coolest, manliest, most ludicrously macho name you can possibly imagine. Got it? Well, whatever you've come up with, I believe I know of an Italian conductor from 1911 who can outdo you.

Interlude

Sometimes in life, I feel it's important, as we are borne along by a constant tide of events; as we are bombarded with information and opinion on all sides, and try hopelessly to synthesise from it some sort of reasonably coherent personal philosophy; as we wrestle with our worries, our hopes and our fears for ourselves, our families, for mankind itself... that we find a moment to pause amidst the hurley-burley, and say, simply:

'Wow. That's a really big leaf.'

I mean, just look at it. It's huge!

...and taller than her five feet and six inches would have you believe.

Character description in a script breakdown:


'Naomi is older than her 21 years suggest.' 


Is she really? That's a good trick. How much older? Eleven months? 

And everywhere that Cio-Cio went, the ship was sure to go.

'For goodness' sake, Madame Butterfly!' cried Madame Butterfly's mother 'That's the third time you've left the Titanic on the bus this month! Well I'm sorry, but from now on, I'm going to have to tie it to your wrist.'

If it turns out there's such a thing as a Trisketiger, I'll reconsider.

Today, I noticed that there is a village on the Isle of Man called Kirk Michael. The island's capital, of course, is Douglas.

Also, I learnt that the motto of the Isle of Man is 'Whithersoever you throw it, it will stand', referring to the emblem on their flag, the triskelion.

I have two things to say about this. Firstly, I'm pretty sure that a more accurate, if less rousing, motto would be 'Whithersoever you throw it, it will fall on its side'. Secondly, of the two new words I've learnt today, 'triskelion' is good, but 'whithersoever' is great. 

Min...nie, how I love ya, how I love ya, my dear ol' Minnie.

You don't hear so much these days about Mickey Mouse's stint in the Black and White Minstrel Show, do you?

...Not unless you ride the Bakerloo line on the London Underground. 

Next Week: What Happened in Kathmandu?

I turned on the radio today to hear this:

ANNOUNCER: 'What Happened in Copenhagen?'
GIGGLY AMERICAN WOMAN: Oh, I don't know what happened in Copenhagen!
ANNOUNCER: And now, the Archers.

I really hope this wasn't just the end of a trailer, but an entire programme.


While I'm here, some plugs: I guested in Miranda on BBC2 this week, as a tremendously punchable man named Chris, with the tremendous Margaret Cabourn-Smith as my less punchable, though no less irritating, wife. (Though having said that, she did, throughout rehearsals, enthusiastically punch herself in the prosthetic stomach.) It should be around on iPlayer for the next week.

And there are still some, though I believe not all that many, tickets left for the musical I have co-written, The Diary of a Nobody. It's from the 2nd to the 5th December, and tickets are available here www.drillhall.co.uk/pl389. I have bought myself a large ginger beard to wear in it. That, surely, is worth the entry fee alone?

Also, I'd like to build a giant village. On a 10/1 scale.

On a recent trip back to Dorset, I passed in the same day a board advertising the model village in Wimborne, with the slogan 'Not Just a Model Village!' and a banner advertising the model village in Corfe Castle, with the slogan 'More Than Just a Model Village!'

I have a strange compulsion to give up my job and go and set up a model village in, say, Wareham; roughly half way between the two, simply so that I can advertise it with the slogan 'Just a Model Village!'

One to remember for 'I Have Never...'

You know how sometimes when you're asked whether or not you've done something, it can be hard to be sure one way or the other?

'Have I ever been to Shropshire... Hmm, don't think so, but I might have been, maybe on a family holiday...' 

'Have I ever eaten sashimi... possibly... is that the sliced salmon one, or the one that's wrapped in seaweed?'

And then, other times, you can be fairly certain. 

Do you know what, I never have. 

I'm beginning to think they don't even have any good tidings for me. Or my kin.

Help! Am trapped in the house by a gang of strangers, demanding something called 'figgy pudding'. Have told them I have no pudding of any sort, 'figgy' or otherwise; but they are deaf to reason, and simply keep repeating that they won't leave until they get some. Did my best to improvise with what I could find in the kitchen, and offered them tinned rice pudding with dried prunes in it; but they threw it angrily back in my face, and went back to chanting 'bring some out here', despite the fact that they are inside with me. The siege is now in its third day. Please send help. Or figs.  

Times when apostrophe contractions, though normally so useful, are probably best avoided.

• I think, therefore I'm.
• Unforgettable, that's what you're.
• I'm what I'm, and what I'm needs no excuses.
• 'Will you love her, comfort her, honour and keep her, in sickness and in health; and forsaking all others keep thee only unto her so long as you both shall live?' 'I'll.'

It's that slim-line colour scanner in the office, isn't it?

Today, Marianne's computer told her it had 'experienced a minor lapse in fidelity'. Which sounds to me more like a senior civil servant trying to weasel his way out of trouble with his wife: 'Listen, darling, we were both drunk, it meant nothing... but to be perfectly blunt with you, I have experienced a minor lapse in fidelity'.

 Marianne has agreed to give her computer another chance, for the sake of the printer. 

They're not, for a start.

It is wrong of me, absolutely wrong of me, and I don't pretend it's anything other than wrong of me; that whenever I see the headline about teenage pregnancy on the front of the copy of 'The Week' that's lying around the flat at the moment- 'Children Who Have Children' - I find myself humming '...are the luckiest children in the world'.

Well, don't encourage her...

Headline of The Times' report on the Carol Thatcher affair:

"Carol Thatcher's golliwog remarks 'made eyes roll in the green room'."

Surely that only made things worse?

Watch out! Christ's About!

Sign outside a church in Chatham. 'Jesus is closer than you think'.

They were aiming, I suppose, for 'Thought-Provoking', but they seriously overshot and landed bang in the middle of 'Scary'.

Two announcements that surprised me today.

Woman on the radio: 'About one in five people with anorexia will ultimately die'.

I am agog to know what will happen to the other four.

Sign on hoarding outside building work on Oxford Street: 'Another exciting branch of HSBC opens here soon.'

I can hardly wait. What do you think the exciting part will be? Log flumes to the cheque cashing machines? Randomised hole in the wall that gives you anything from a penny to a million pounds? Bears as cashiers?