So if anyone needs a towel, just give me a shout.

I was getting myself some car insurance the other day, and had to select my job from a drop down menu. Only they didn't have 'writer'. Fair enough, I thought, I suppose it's a relatively niche profession, I can understand them leaving it out. Except that here are just a few of the jobs they were absolutely fine with.

Violin Maker
Clay Pigeon Instructor
Foam Converter
Pearl Stringer
Weighbridge Clerk
Tea Taster
Water Diviner
Falconer
Head Lad
Towel Supplier

And doubtless someone, somewhere, was once given it for Christmas... and was overjoyed.

You remember how I paranoidly take out books to have on my desk at the British Library, so it looks like I have a right to be there; but cannily choose ones that look really dull so I won't be distracted into reading them? No? Well I do.

Such as the excellent 'Early United States Barbed Wire Patents', by Jesse S James. Presumably he added the 'S' to avoid being confused with notorious outlaw and train robber Jesse James. Though I can't help thinking he did this job far more efficiently just by writing a book about barbed wire patents. Here is the first sentence:

'I started to realize the dire need of a book of this kind soon after I started to collect old types of barbed wire in 1957.' Hats off to Jesse the use of the word 'dire'.

Here are my other three favourite sentences:

'I believe it would be a safe bet, if anyone could ever get a caller, that there has been more of this ‘Hodge’s ten-point spur rowel’ wire found by barbed wire collectors than all the other ‘rotating’ type barbs combined.'

Look out for some terrific exclamation mark work in this next one:

'I believe this patent takes the cake for the largest number of barb types shown that can be used on its fence-wire. Seven!'

And the peerless:

'If you happen to be a barbed-wire collector who has been trying to locate the patent data on your ‘saw-toothed ribbed ribbon wire’, you need look no further!'


See, now it looks as if I'm sneering at someone for being enthusiastic about their hobby, and God knows I've bored on about comedy for too long to too many people to be allowed to do that, even if I wanted to. But, Jesse, I don't know... barbed wire? Really?

Rejected titles for the film 'Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium'.

• Mr. O'Moore's Fantastical Store
• Mr. McWopp's Bewildering Shop
• Mr. Moletail-Begalia's Odd Wholesale Retailer
• Mr. Bleeosk's Kooky Kiosk
• Mr. Roy Far-Bus's Weird Branch of Toys-R-Us.
• Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory (Memo to self - remember to change name of guy, and thing he owns.)
• Death Mask IV.

Next week: Will the Beatles ever reform? We ask them all.

An advert on my email sidebar has just encouraged me to subscribe to the Washington Post, with the following inducement:

'All the latest Pakistan news - Benazir Bhutto interview.'

The latest news? Really? I can't help thinking there's a story they may have missed...

No mention of their sworn enemy, the Sodding Fat-Faced Cat.

Good news, everybody! It has just come to my attention that there lives in Madagascar a species of rodent - in the Nesomyidae family, since you ask - known as the Bastard Big-Footed Mouse. See, don't you find that this bleak, cold, new year's world suddenly seems that much happier a place to be, knowing we share it with Bastard Big-Footed Mice?

There was no hesitation, either. Joe knows his friends, and he also knows those who are missing from that list.

Coo. Quiet round here, isn't it? Cobwebs and everything. Ah well, maybe I'll do better in the new year. I'll have a go, anyway. In the meantime, happy new year, and here is the latest in a very occasional series (by which I mean I've done it once before, and I'm doing it now): My Favourite Guess In The Game Of Articulate This Christmas Season:

Karl (describing 'stranger'): Someone you don't know!
Joe: Emily!

Also, I'm afraid I killed the French ambassador.

Every morning when I have my bath, my bleary eyes rest on my girlfriend's shampoo bottle, directly opposite me. And every morning, in that highly receptive and barely conscious state, I read, over and over again, the sentence they've chosen to emblazen on the back of it:

'Get A More Dazzling Blonde!'

Now, luckily, my current blonde is more than dazzling enough for me. But still, I can't help thinking Derren Brown would advise her she's playing with fire.

The public need to know.

‘Badger’ is a very overused comedy word, we can all agree on that. But that doesn’t stop it being funny when you switch on the TV, and are confronted by a stern-looking Jon Snow addressing a huge grim-faced man in suit and tie on his enormous news-screen, and asking him ‘How many badgers do you have to kill?’

Ho hum, it's that time of the year again. Here comes a commercial.

Well, it's probably time to direct the merciless glare of my self-publicity on the people who diligently and inexplicably check back here for what is fast becoming a bi-monthly update. Hello, you chaps. Would you like to come to a sketch night? The reason I ask is, I have a sketch night. Here is a book which confirms that.

There. Told you I did. So, if my drawing of Stalin next to a seahorse has intrigued and excited you, and made you receptive to an hour of sketches one of which is tangentally related to Stalin, and none of which have anything whatsoever to do with a seahorse, why not turn up at the Hen and Chickens in Islington on Thursday or Friday at 9:30? Eh? Why not? What possible reason could there be not to?

Deadly Skunk Floods London

...According to an Evening Standard billboard I passed this week.

Well, this clearly raises more questions then it answers.
1) How much of London has the Deadly Skunk flooded? I must live in a high-lying area of London, because it all seems fairly dry round here, but perhaps the flood waters are rising inexorable towards me.
2) What was the Deadly Skunk's motive? Does he despise London, perhaps due to a formative time in his youth when a tour-bus full of Londoners sneered at his stripe; or is it just that London is an easy city to flood, thanks to the Thames barrier?
3) Given that skunks are not indigenous to Britain, why was the Deadly Skunk allowed past customs and immigration? Given that he has earned the soubriquet 'Deadly', he clearly has past form, possibly from gassing Milan, or triggering a volcano under Sacrimento. Surely he should have been turned back at the airport? No, mark my words, there is more to this apparently simple story of a North American rodent bent on the destruction of a city than meets the eye.

Didn't make me buy a paper, though.

How to remove stains from carpets - a pocket guide.

Red wine - White wine.
White wine - Red wine.
Rose wine - More Rose wine. Strange but true.
Tea - Coffee
Coffee - Cocoa
Cocoa - Tippex
Blood - Ring the police, and ask what they use. Be careful of arousing suspicion, however.
Books - These can simply be picked up.
Magma - Leave to dry, then chip off with chisel.
Unicorn Urine - This is largely academic. Since you ask, though: vinegar.

Presumably not THE Penelope Wilton. Unless she has a greater interest in the exploits of Mickey Mouse's dog Pluto than you would think to look at her.

Hey, Honeys, I'm home. The battle royale between me and the French is over, and we've decided to call it a draw. Under the terms of our peace agreement, I am to return to England, and stop eating all their cheese; and they are to buy some proper pillows for their beds, and stop pretending those weird long tubular bolster things will do.

Anyway, this weekend I've been sorting through some old stuff of mine that's been cluttering up my Mum's attic. Amongst it was a book I had when I was a little boy, which was evidently second hand when I was given it, and had the original owner's name in the 'This book belongs to...' space. For some reason, rather than simply cross it out, I appear to have tackled the problem laterally. The inscription now reads:

This book belongs to... Penny Wilton. No. John Finemore.

Pretty strident, coming from someone who can't spell his own name.

And thirty quid's worth of crackers.

Well, I think we all knew the old 'maybe I'll occasionally update this from internet cafes' plan was a bit of a non-starter, didn't we? Never mind. I'm still in France, as it happens, but I'm no longer canoeing down any of it, walking across any bits of it, or lolling by the pools of any of its chateaus. Instead, I've found myself a nice dull hotel room in a nice cloudy bit of France, and I'm holing myself up trying to finish something I'm been trying to finish for about a year and a half, before Real Life starts up again.

Anyway, my anonymous correspondent below might wish to pour herself a glass of whisky and hang on tight, because here comes another story about how I'm not very good at French. Today, there was a market in the village, and as I wandered through it, the lady at one of the 47 enormous cheese stalls offered me, of all things, a bit of cheese. I tasted the bit of cheese. It was quite nice. I told her so, and wandered off again. Later, as I wandered back she caught my eye and said (I think) 'You tasted it... aren't you going to buy it?'. In a nice jokey way, but still. I panicked. Maybe in France you only accept a taste if you're going to buy, I thought, in spite of the fact that a) I know perfectly well that's not true, and b) if it was true, it would make the tasting ever so slightly redundant, wouldn't it? Nonetheless, although I didn't want any cheese, and if I had I wouldn't have picked that cheese, I caved, and asked for 'a little slice.' She cut me an amount which made me assume that I'd confused either the French words for 'little' and 'vast'; or 'slice' and 'mountain'. I asked for half of it. This was apparently very funny, and we both laughed about it for a while. Then she wrapped up the whole slice, and asked me for quinze Euros. At which point my brain, presumably incapable of imagining a slice of cheese worth fifteen Euros, blew a fuse, and allowed me to confuse 'quinze' with... 'quatre'. 'Phew' I thought 'Only four Euros. I was worried it might be expensive...' And so it is that I am now the proud possessor of fifteen euros worth of average cheese. For comparison, yesterday I spent fifteen Euros on a three course dinner. Including cheese.

I have my suspicions about 'Tripous', though.

I have invented a game to play at restaurants here called 'French Roulette'. To play, you require a menu, and a very hazy grasp of the French language. Then, rather than doing what I used to do, and having one of the four or five things I could identify, you pick the most impenetrable looking phrase, ask for it, and cross your fingers it isn't liver. Yesterday, for instance, I went for 'coquilles de Saint-Jacques', on the grounds that they sounded like they might well be holy relics. In fact, they were bits of fish on a stick. But very nice bits of fish. Then I ordered 'coupe de fraises', probably because the word 'coupe' had subconciously made me expect something rather special- as if the chef had turned to the sous-chef and said 'You know, Serge, I think I've pulled off something of a coup with these fraises!' Then they turned up. And I realised that if so, the rest of the conversation would have gone like this:

SERGE: Really, Jean-Claude? Why, what have you done with them?
JEAN-CLAUDE: Well, I've cut them in halves...
SERGE: Mon Dieu!
JEAN-CLAUDE: Let me finish, Serge! I've cut them into halves... and then I've put them in a bowl.
SERGE: You, mon ami, are a culinary genius. But aren't those the fraises we've had in the freezer for two years?
JEAN-CLAUDE: The very same. And what I've rather cleverly done is only let them three-quarters thaw, so there's still a little frozen bit in the middle of each one. Like a baked Alaska in fruit form.
SERGE: Maestro. You stand alone.

That ç, by the way, is the nearest thing I can find on this keyboard to a question mark.

I'm away at the moment, going down the Dordogne in a canoe, because that's how middle class I am. Though having said that, earlier this year I spent a week in a holiday complex in Lanzarote; and later some chums and I are going to spend a week in a chateau. So who knows what class I amç (Answer: I do. I'm middle class, and there's nothing I can do about it.)

Anyway, it's going well so far - the water level is very high, which is good for not having to carry my canoe over dried up bits, but bad for making the rapids very rapid indeed. I had no idea I could swear so hard at water.

I shall try to put something up here whenever I get on line. Got to go now, it's half past twelve, so naturally the shop-owner is impatient to shut up shop and embark on his five hour lunch.

Very well respected family, the Vincehires.

Another sign that you are, in fact, a grown-up now:

The example birth date on forms is now sometimes more recent than your own.

Another sign that you, despite your newly discovered 'grown-up' status, are nonetheless watching far too much 'Sopranos':

You see a van with VINCEHIRE written on the side, and read it as 'Vinch-e-hiray'.

And now a message on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Philistines

Also whilst in Amsterdam, I visited the city's major art gallery, the Rijksmuseum. Unfortunately, it was being refurbished, and almost all of the collection was closed off - only a small selection of 'masterworken' were available to view in one wing of the gallery. Fortunately... this was perfect! Come on, any grown ups inexplicably reading this, please avert your eyes, but the rest of us... isn't this precisely what we want? There were two floors of exhibits; it took me about an hour and half to get round it - I could have done it in an hour if I'd been in training- and when I left, I'd seen everything there was to see. No hang-dog feeling of guilt about those rooms full of medieval madonnas and childses guiltily scuttled past to get to the good stuff. No shifty memories of just looking at the first and last panels of the 24 canvas Hideous Martyrdom of St Antifreeze, and telling myself I'd probably got the gist. No, I spent half an hour downstairs warming up with pen and ink drawings of naval battles and silver ewers in the shape of bottoms, then upstairs, and Wam! - Vermeer!; Boom!- Franz Hals!; Kapow!- Rembrandt! and I'm on my way rejoicing.

I therefore hereby recommend the following two point plan to all the major art galleries of the world: 1) Go into "refurbishment" immediately, and permanently, and put your greatest hits into a modest bungalow next door. 2. More bottom-shaped ewers.

I mean, if it was a seasick dragon, I could understand...

I went to Amsterdam this weekend. I hadn't been before- what a lovely place it is. Whilst there, I read this:

'According to legend, Amsterdam was founded by two fishermen and a seasick dog, which ran ashore and threw up on the site of the city when their ship ran aground. The reality, sadly, is rather more mundane.'

More mundane than a vomiting dog? Crikey.

Frequently Questioned Answers.

• It wasn't me!
• Nothing's the matter.
• I had to work late at the office.
• It fell off the back of a lorry.
• I'm almost sure it's the red wire.
• Because I say so.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Are we nearly there yet?
• What time do you call this?
• Is anyone sitting there, mate?
• What do you call a man with a spade on his head?
• How do you do?
• Where have all the flowers gone?
• Can I help you?
• Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
• Where's the loo?