I will not eat plums as they disagree with my bowels.
I will not eat plums as they disagree with my bowels.
I will not eat plums as they disagree with my bowels.
I will not eat plums as they disagree with my bowels.
I will not eat plums as they disagree with my bowels.
I will not eat plums as they disagree with my bowels.
I will not eat plums as they disagree with my bowels.
I will not eat plums as they disagree with my bowels.
I will not eat plums as they disagree with my bowels.
I will not eat plums as they disagree with my bowels.

Now I have written it out ten times - that is my punishment done.
I have learnt my lesson and won't do it again.

The smell is difficult to describe; imagine if you cooked some fish and threw away the skins and bits of left over fish and then the next day had an egg white omelet and put the yolks in the same bin. And then left the bin for a week in a warm kitchen without taking it out. That kind of gets close.

It's a shame because I really like Plums - they're yummy, especially the firm, juicy, "Ripen at Home" type.

I think now I have now been castigated fully and my work colleagues will allow me back in the office now.

And I have to remember to take the bins out when I get home.

I am on strike!!!

I have never actually been on strike before and, since I am not part of Local Government, my strike today is unofficial. It is a Wildcat Strike!!! My aim is to cause maximum destruction disruption to your normal working day. In fact I have decided as an act of defiance against "The Man" and to show support to my Brothers and Sisters in Local Authorities, I will withhold all of the funny jokes that were going to be in today's post. I will also do as little work as possible - although how that differs from a normal day I have yet to find out.

There's nothing like a good old strike because if nothing else comes from it, strikes upset Daily Mail readers. "I can't believe that my Child's education is being put in jeapordy because of teachers' selfishness." they wail. I remember back when I was a child and how if a teacher was sick or missed a lesson so they could go shoe shopping, I forgot absolutely everything I had ever learned. My English teacher was the worstest for that, he'd be off once a week atleast. And my grammar and ability to right propar and correct English hasnot sufered muchly.

Although not everyone agrees that Strikes are good and it is only right, proper and fair that I represent both sides of the argument here as I want my Internet Weblog to be as politically neutral as The BBC, tea at my Aunt and Uncle's and The Guardian. "Bloody Strike! I wish I was at work." said one close friend and local authority employee. "The wife went to Ikea on the weekend because she knew I had today off. So I've got to stay home and build a Billy Bookcase. She doesn't understand that being on strike means I don't do anything. Do flat pack furniture assemblers have a union?"

Since my gym is run by the local authority, I am very worried about the ethical dillema of working out. I do want to work out so I can keep my "brad pitt in fight club" body but I will NOT cross a picket line if there is one. Doing this would be a kick in the teeth to me fellow union members as they try and make a stand. I intend to stand shoulder to shoulder with any protesters.

I enter the sports centre with little trouble. I use a fire door round the back that is always open so as to avoid any unsavourary scenes and any unnecessary moral soul searching.

As I am running on the treadmill, I notice that there are no Gym Instructors. They are either on strike or out the back having a fag. I look up. I realise that the TV in front of me is on ITV, which means I have to watch "The all new exactly like the old one Paul O'Grady show" and "Granada Tonight". If only there was someone here to change it to Channel 4 and "Richard and Judy" and "The Simpsons". Thanks to this I think I have missed "Lady Bouvier's Lover", which is one of my favourite episodes.

After watching two Essex boys clad in Spandex set the new world record for number of leap-frogs in a minute, I decide that strikes are only good until they affect you personally.

"Pinochet!" I say trying hard to recall a famous non footballing Argentinean.

"He's from Chile," my Canadian Girlfriend replies. "You could've had Eva Peron."

"But she was played by Madonna. And Madge is American." Thankfully for her, we reach the Argentinean Restaurant before I get another opportunity to show how much more intelligent I am.

We are greeted at the door by a perfectly manicured, tall, skinny blonde in a short black dress, she smiles at us revealing a full array of whiter than white teeth. I would very much like to know which part of Manchester she is from because, judging by her tanned legs, it is a lot hotter there than where I live. I conclude that she must've got the job because of her superior waitressing skills.

She takes our coats and puts them inside a small cage like feature-ette, which would be ideal for holding midget wrestling matches in.

At our table, my Canadian Girlfriend orders some posh Argentinean pastry delicacies, which look just like Gregg's Pasties. For the main course I have a Big Rare Steak with Very Thick Chips and she has a Small Burnt to a Crisp Steak with Intelligent Chips.

For pudding she has pancakes and I have Churros. They are like some sort of straight donut type thing and are quite tasty. I have always wanted to try them ever since a Churros vendor was killed in one episode of "The Shield" and since then I've always wondered what they are like.

And then the bill comes in a little red envelope. I should have realised that anything to do with money in a red envelope is never going to be good. However, being a new man, I whip out my Maestro card and slip it inside the bill. The colour drains from my face as I catch sight of just how much I am about to spend. I pretend I haven't seen it. It has to have been a mistake. I go to enter my PIN and notice that the amount of money is the same on the PIN machine. My hand is shaking on machine, causing me to enter the wrong PIN first time. We collect our coats after "Biggie Shorts" pins "The Beast from the East" after hitting The Equaliser from the top of the Cage.

As we walk home, I remark to my Canadian Girlfriend that I am feeling very calm for someone who has just spent more than an entire days wage on dinner. She thinks I am joking. I really wouldn't mind but I am still hungry.

The rest of the night passes off without incident however, one of these days this week I fully expect to sit straight up in bed when it suddenly dawns on me. "£75!!!!! We could've gone to the Pizza Hut "All you can eat" buffet for a month!"

I have some shiny new football boots!!!!

I bought the last pair back in 2001 when I was living in Wigan - although the local time was 1975 - and I thought it was about time I got a new pair. These are very smart. They are a nice silver colour with red flashes and reflective stripes. These are the same brand of boots that David Beckham wears! Although I'm not sure if he got his for tenner off the JJB sale stand and has to buy them one and a half sizes too big because the ones that fit properly cost £35.

I have spent the entire week walking around the house in my David Beckham Boots, breaking them in. On Monday I did the ironing in them, on Tuesday I did the vacuuming in them and on Wednesday I sat on the sofa and watched Match of the Day in them. (This probably didn't help break them in but I was tired.)

I get the email confirming we are playing:

"Dear All, We are on! We only have 11 so the only excuse for pulling out late is impending fatherhood. (Name and Address Withheld)"

After I've giggled about the irony of impending fatherhood being an excuse for "pulling out" late, blind panic takes over. I check with our organiser to see if he knows something about My Canadian Girlfriend that I don't. He assures me that he does not. Even so, I wait nervously for my Mobile Phone to play the William Tell Overture.

I cancel the afternoon team meeting for the third time in a row. I'm surprised that no one has noticed how often I seem to put off meetings scheduled on a Thursday afternoon. Getting away with this kind of makes up for the disappointment of not having my letter published in the Technology Guardian.

I brace myself for the abuse I will no doubt get for wearing silver boots.

I arrive in the changing rooms and am greeted by two pairs of white boots, one of grey, one blue and several pairs of black boots. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, I think. I unveil my new boots in a ceremony worthy of the opening of the Commonwealth Games. It was not quite up to Olympic Standards though.

"I got these last Saturday and I've really been looking forward to playing this week." I say.

"You need to get out more!" says Pete, our token special needs player, "Will they actually make you play any better?" he asks as he pulls his city shirt on.

He has found a flaw in my plan.

A tram which is 77.34% full pulls into the station. This is a shame because once it gets over 78%, it officially becomes snug. Snug trams are a god-send for the perverted as they can push their sweaty body against a young nubile sales assistant from River Island and get a chance to cop a feel without facing more prison time than Michael Shields.

Although I have no actual experience of this you'll understand.

There is something wrong about the tram today though. People are talking. There are two loud and distinct conversations going on! This is very unusual - normally even the conversations. The first is going on between a jovial looking fat man wearing a Metrolink fleece and a business man and the other is going on between two men, one of which is wearing one of those funny little hunter's hats with the big dog ear like things hanging down the side.

I pause my iPod so I can listen in. (I leave my headphones in as I don't want to look like a complete snoop) And then someone else joins the hunter's conversation and she does so with a wonderfully soft and delicate US accent. (Or it could be Canadian. Or maybe Australian. Or even South African. Or from Gorton. I'm not very good at accents) She reveals herself from behind one of the hunter's ear flaps and boy is she blonde. She is Blondey McBlonde of Blondesville, South Dakota.

Things I learn from listening in to the conversations:

• The Metrolink Guy laughs very loudly
  
• The guy who the Hunter is talking to is going out with Blondey (although I didn't get this from listening in, I got it from when he grabbed her ass)
  
• The Hunter owns or manages the Armenian Restaurant in Manchester
  
• Every time Blondey McBlonde opens her mouth everyone turns to look at her
  
• The business man claims to have seen the Metrolink guy several times "out and about" (I make a mental note of the business man's features so we can get a decent photo-fit on Crimewatch should it be necessary)
  

I wish I could join in because there are lots of questions I'd like answering. What does the little green button do on the right hand side of the driver's seat? Is there anything stopping me getting a season ticket which only covers "one zone" and then just lying to a ticket inspector about where I got on? Which area of the US does that accent come from? Can I get one of those orange Metrolink Hi-Vis jackets to wear down the pub? Do cuffs and collar match?

However, I am reminded of the old maxim of traveling on the Tram. When two strangers talk on the Metrolink the chances of one of them being a complete nut case is 1. And there's a 50% chance that it is you.

You can live somewhere for your entire life and yet you can always see new things. I do the "Tourist-y Thing" through Manchester with my Canadian Girlfriend. We visit some of the city's famous landmarks.

"Well this is the right building" she said.

"Are you sure because when it was on Property Chain, there was a Ladbrookes out of the window." I reply.

We walk around the Smithfield Building in Central Manchester looking for the penthouse which we had just seen on Discovery Real Time. It was on the market for £300,0000 and was being bought by a London Lawyer but we had left the house before finding out if the sale had gone through. I can't see any reason why it wouldn't have, after all property chains always work don't they? And watching everyone's dreams fall apart wouldn't make good TV.

"There it is!!! You can see the skylight. Maybe we should pop in and see him, he seemed a nice enough fella. I wonder if he's still got that Burberry cap? It'd be like meeting a celebrity and it'd be a coup the next time we play 'The Six Degrees of Kirsty Allsop' with my parents."

"You're still bitter losing that aren't you?" she said.

We walk on in silence. A man walks away from a woman and two children and approaches us. He looks somewhere between swarthy and unkempt. I check to see if he is holding his last copy of the Big Issue, which he would obviously want to keep. He is not. He asks for directions to the "Big Wheel" which I give him.

I give him the most logical and easy to follow directions. Both he and his family head towards the wheel.

"You know it'd be quicker if you'd sent them down here, take a right and left and then a right and a left again. I measured it the other day." my Canadian Girlfriend said.

"Yeah I considered that but then they'd have to go down that back alley and they looked likecountryy folk so they may get scared walking around the big city. So I stand by my directions." Although secretly I do wish I had sent them that way because it would've been much quicker. However I cannot let her know that she has 'won'.

I just hope they were not in a rush.

My mother some how got on a "Suckers" list. It was one of those "household trends national statistics what's the nation doing marketing" things. She would be sent a survey every year on or around the day of the World Snooker Championship final. She must've had them for about 5 years on the trot in the 80s and she carried on receiving them until one year she just stopped filling them in.

It was a hefty tome, about 40 pages of questions. It would ask a whole range of questions about the past fortnight. It would even go as far as asking what brand of toothpaste you use. They would be very intrusive and could in the wrong hands be used to steal our identity. But these were more innocent times. We would sit there filling it out together as some form of bonding exercise.

"What did you do after school last Wednesday?" she would say.
"Wednesday? I probably came home and watched TV until the snooker finished at 10." I'd reply.
"Hmmmm, I'll put that you went to scouts - I've got your Big Sister down as 'Violin Tuition' so I suppose your Father could've dropped you off on the way to that.... Do you remember what we had for tea on the 23rd? Was it egg and chips?"
"Thursday? Yeah it was. Don't you remember? I burst my 'Her' Egg Yolk with a pointy chip and she stormed out crying, shouting 'I hate you!' at the top of her voice."
"Well I don't want to put that, Egg and Chips sounds so common - I'll put Spag Bol. Yeah that'll work, because I've put your dad down as going to a conference on that day and he doesn't like Spag Bol so that would make sense if you were reading it..... But now I've got to find something to put for Sunday, because we *actually* had Spag Bol then didn't we? I'll put casserole... Chicken casserole, because we've had red meat twice that week."

This carried on until Dennis Taylor sank the final black and stood there holding his cue aloft in both hands. And that is why I never trust statistics.

I think it was this sort of food related lateral thinking which has influenced my current diet. I have become a creature of habit. The data collected on my Nectar card must make for boring reading. Someone, somewhere sits in their office watching their computer - "It's Saturday afternoon, MB's shopping. Braeburn Apples, Cous Cous, Mint Green and Blacks, 3 Pack of Mixed Peppers, Milk and Bran Flakes. Man this guy is boring." So when something comes along to upset this fine balance, I tend to blow it out of all proportion.

The other day was "Bread and Butter Pudding" day in the work canteen. It only comes around once every three weeks and my entire diet is structured around getting some B&B pudding on that day. I avoid all sugary treats the two days beforehand so I can fully appreciate it and I plan a light meal the evening after it because I know I'll be stuffed.

So when I get to the canteen and pay up front for Bread and Butter pudding only to go back after eating my sandwich and find that they have sold out - that really pisses me off.

It nearly pisses me off as much as these dead people I keep seeing, especially the ones who don't know they're dead.

Welcome to my heaven. I am in the men's locker room at the sports centre.

I should point out while the smell of deep heat, me cowering in the corner and the sight of sweaty old men with saggy boobs walking around half naked reminds me of my halcyon days at school, this in itself isn't heaven. You see, "The Secret Man Code" dictates that a hushed silence must fall over the changing rooms - or any place where other men are likely to have their tackle on display. That is unless you're changing to play football, in which case 'banter' is allowed. You should not engage in chitter-chatter or gossip, only banter.

Today, there are people bantering. This is my heaven. I get to listen other people's conversations. I enjoy doing it here because in the changing rooms I do not have to invest in any sophisticated listening devices, which are illegal in most of Europe. I can break through "The Fourth Wall". I suppose this is kind of like those sad people who read Internet Web Logs so that they can get confirmation that everyone else's life is better than theirs is.

"It should complete next week and then as soon as we've sold our house we'll be moving to Spain." says player #1. I often wonder where people get the money to do things like this. He cannot have won the lottery because he is still playing football in a local authority gymnasium.

"Well," said player #2 "you must be really looking forward to that. At least you no longer have to put up with Dave. You'll never believe what he did today...." and then he begins a long winded rant about how everyone at work is an incompetent idiot and how he is the only sane person there.

"Damn!" I think, I can't believe that he is wasting valuable bantering time on moaning about work. If I'd have wanted to know about this sort of thing, I'd read one of those moaning bastard anonymous work bloggers. "... but I think Jane's figured him out and now that Frank seems to be doing pretty much the same job as him, I reckon they're trying to force him out."

Another player enters. "Hi all," I assume he is including me in that "Jeff's gonna be late. Natalie was keeping him behind talking about their project. But it wasn't all bad, she had a short skirt and those knee high boots on!"

"Yeah, she could keep me behind any time!" says player #1.

All three of them smile, stare into the distance and drift off into a "happy place" while I scribble notes down studiously.

I am cycling like there's no tomorrow and yet I am going nowhere. I am like Lance Armstrong but with both testicles. However, like a washing machine that's shaking and making loads of noise, I am coming to the end of my cycle. I glance over my shoulder and notice that there is a treadmill free. There are only five treadmills at our Gym and invariably they are being used by Suzi and her friends, taking time out from looking after their vermin offspring, so they can have a read Bella's latest article about some woman who has cheated death a dozen times by eating nothing but leek soup. They also get a chance to show off their new "Tramp Stamp" tattoos.

I rush with urgency and throw my towel down onto the treadmill. Thankfully there are no Germans in our Gym so this is a legitimate way of reserving a treadmill. I bash in my speed and time and start going. I put one foot in front of the other and beginning running.

Oh Crap! (Not literally) The movement has made me realise that I could really do with a crap. I can feel something wiggling around inside my bottom. I have already started running but I could stop and go to the loo. That would mean cooling down and then warming up again and I could lose my treadmill. The other option is to hold this for 5 kilometers. I feel an empathy with Paula Ratcliffe.

Oh Crap! (Not literally) I wonder if it's just wind? I daren't fully release my sphincter - just in case anything else decides to pop out as I can feel it pushing at the doors. I slowly release and allow myself a small push. Some air seeps out silently and the smell of rancid eggs wafts through out the gym. I am quite proud of my effort, so I smile to myself.

Oh Crap! (Not literally) I've only done five minutes and now the other four treadmills are all free. I could've gone for a crap and got back on a treadmill. And I could even have got the treadmill near the TV showing the Simpsons.

Oh Crap! (Not literally) It's been 15 minutes since I last thought about needing the loo. Using a mixture of listening to my iPod and concentrating on the hypnotic jiggling of some of the people near me; I had nearly forgotten about it. Now I've remembered and it's back with a vengeance. I squeeze my internal muscles in a rhythmic pumping motion to see if I can push it back in.

Oh Crap! (Not literally) I've finished my run. I grab my towel and water bottle and head for the toilets. After having run 5 kilometers, traversing the 10 meters to the toilets shouldn't prove too much of a problem. I feel like I am treading water. The toilets are getting further away. I am in pain. It feels like a knitting needle has been shoved through my bottom and into my bladder.

Eventually, I cross the finish line and lock the door.

Oh Crap! Literally.

I cover my right eye. I cover my left eye. My vision seems blurred. I couldn't possibly have put both my contact lenses in the wrong way round, could I? I should really take them out and pinch them and see.

I cannot do this at this moment in time, as I am currently standing in line for the ATM. Don't ask me how it's taken me the 10 minute walk to the tram, the journey into Manchester and the walk to the ATM to realise that I can't see properly. There are two ATMs and one queue. We have formed the "mono-queue", which is an built in reaction in every human being, kind of like a lion's ability to track down and kill a small and annoying child. At least I think we are queuing for two ATMs, there could be one and I could be seeing double.

The blurred vision could also come from the headache I've had for the past four days. It feels like someone's driven a metal spike into my head just above my left eye. Don't worry, he says as he prepares to tell the third most told lie by a man, if it carries on for much longer I really will go to the Doctors.

As I am queuing, it is raining - which is unusual for Manchester as it is normally about 22 degrees centigrade this time of year. As the weather deteriorates, the queue gradually bends towards the partial shelter provided by the building. The line is now, by default, closer to one ATM than the other. I reach the front and as I do, someone appears from nowhere and begins another queue by the second machine!!!

Being British I do not complain directly to her but I do turn to the person standing behind me and roll my eyes. In my head, I begin to write a strongly worded letter to the Sunday Express about the declining moral standards in Britain today and how it can all be put down to the fact that mandatory Millitay Service has been stopped and that the Media is now run by a mixture of lefties and gays.

Not that I have a problem with them, some of my best friends are black.

Ha! This person has been punished for her queue jumping!!! There are two people at her ATM and they're both getting mini-statements and cash. God moves in mysterious ways. But for some unknown reason, the queue jumper still managed to get her cash and walk away just as I was approaching the other machine.

I pull my Maestro card from my wallet and try and put it in the wrong slot.
I cover my left eye, I cover my right eye and finally get to enter my PIN.

I need something to give up. Smoking was easy. I quit before I'd even started. It is five years in May since I last had an alcoholic drink. I gradually weaned myself off breast milk and it only took me ten years. I quit having sugar in my tea and coffee - this one was easy, mainly because I found some icky looking brown substance in my sugar at University and couldn't be bothered going out to get some more. And I am controlling the urges to club baby seals over the head.

I am gradually getting rid of every bit of fun and entertainment in my life.

I like a challenge, so what next? Caffeine?

I am down to two cups of coffee a day. And I know that that isn't a lot but I am worried - especially after having seen the number of recent blog posts in which I am drinking coffee or spilling coffee or talking about coffee. Like a Deal or No Deal contestant, I never know if the next one is going to be the one that drives me over the edge. And I give way too much of my "hard-earned" to Starbucks.

However, I am not sure what effect giving up caffeine will have on my limited blogging ability. There is a slim chance that caffeine is clouding my creative juices and limiting me to a relentless string of knob jokes and "then I got off the bus" comedy or, should I take the risk that the caffeine actually my inspiration and the only thing that is stopping my writing descending into naval-gazing Dawson's Creek style angst of a Live-Journaler or from bashing out posts about unfunny things just because I have a self-imposed publishing schedule to keep to.

To be honest though, I don't ever see me quitting coffee. The main reason is because if I quit coffee - then the only thing I have left to quit is chocolate. And let's not go there, eh?

Oooohhh! Kettle's boiled.

"Let's discuss strategy!" I say to my Canadian Girlfriend while we drink coffee and eat muffins. We are out shopping in the big shopping centre that may or may not be near my house. This requires some form of tactics. Everything needs to be planned out meticulously. "I suggest we get out of here and turn left."

"Yeah, that would make sense." she replies. "That way by the time we get to that drinks stand, we'll be thirsty. There are toilets after about an hour because I know how weak your bladder is. And then 2/3 of the way through we'll hit the other Starbucks."

"Yeah that'll be perfect because we'll be there by about 5 and I can forget to call my sister from there."

"And what exactly are you shopping for?"

"Well there's a headband I like in Topshop - and you?"

"Those headphones from the Apple store."

Hmmm, that should take us about 7 hours. I stand up and do some preparatory quad stretches and lunges.

Several hours later....

I tempt fate.

"We've not seen the normal quota of mutants we usually see, have we?". And just at that moment a grown teenager walks by with his face painted like a tiger, followed by a girl with wings. (Note: These were not Red Bull wings nor were they the panty kind - they were the little fairy kind and stuck on to her back with double sided sticky tape)

Freak spotting is one of my favourite past-times and apart from the shop assistant with the blouse that had the big poofy shoulders these are the first nut-jobs we have seen. Maybe the cold has stopped people wearing the usual sort of did-they-look-at-themselves-in-the-mirror-this-morning? clothes.

Or it could be that I have become immune to some of the more crazy things that people do - wearing a football shirt to make a fashion statement and tucking jeans into knee high boots.

"What do you think of this?" My Canadian Girlfriend holds up the 157th identical wrap dress in Debenhams. "This'd be perfect if any more of your friends were getting married. Can you not set Matt up with anyone? It'd have to be a shotgun one, unless we could find someone who would go in for a TV-style renewing of their vows, eh?"

"What about this one?" she saks as she lifts out number 158.

I roll over and look at the alarm clock. "I wonder what time it is?" I think. The loud beeping noise my alarm clock was making should've been a dead give-away. I punch the snooze button and snuggle in bed. I listen to the sound of urban foxes scratching around the metal bins trying to find some garlic bread to go with their left over pizza. After one snooze, I spring to my feet and fling back the curtains.

Good Morning Mr Cat!
Good Morning Mr Landscaped Communal Area looked after by the caretaker!
Good Morning Mr 16 foot tall Wayne Rooney!
Good Morning Mr Snow and Frost which are making driving conditions hazardous!

(I should point out that Mrs Rooney's little boy had not been feeding on some form of radioactive steroids and was attacking Manchester like Godzilla. It is simply a reference to the giant billboard he adorns which I can see from my bedroom.)

After a bowl of branflakes and a listen to the cricket, I wrap up warm and brave the cold. I walk out to see one of my neighbours scraping the ice off his car. I smile conceitedly to myself. This is one of the reasons I get the tram. When I used to drive every day, it would send me round the bend having already done a days work before I'd even put the key in the ignition. As he scrapes and scrapes and sprays his semi frozen defroster spray on to the windscreen, I walk off to the tram with a song in my heart and also my headphones.

As I reach the tram stop, the smugness disappears. There is an announcement - "Due to the wrong kind of tram on the track, the service has been suspended. Oh and by the way - sorry." I wait. I wait some more. The fragrant smell of the weed being smoked, by the builders on the platform, wafts across the crisp morning air. After twenty minutes, no tram had arrived. The platform is now crowded. I do not think I'll get on the first tram, even if it was empty. Which it won't be - it'll be crowded. In fact I'll be lucky to get on the fourth or fifth tram to arrive. And that won't be for nearly 45 minutes.

I retreat to flat, pull out my blockbuster video card - which doubles as an ice scraper - and begin taking the ice off my windscreen.

The irony is not lost on me.

I don't think the bank want my money. I receive my reasonable Visa bill. Since the introduction of Chip and Pin, I have introduced a new way to curb my outlandish spending. I do not know my Visa card's PIN number. This works very well.

So I go to fetch my cheque book to pay the bill. I can't find my cheque book. This does not come as a surprise as I normally pay my bills at work (It's not like I'm going to waste my own time writing cheques). After clearing my desk of useless strategy documents which have been there for 6 months and been superseded by at least 4 other "versions", I realise my cheque book is not there.

I go to get the bill so I can go and pay the bill with cash. I can't find it. I suspect that I tidied it off my desk with the "Vision Statements". I am now feeling that Cantona's dad is trying to test me. But since I don't want to incur the 3000% interest rates, I must find a way of paying the bill.

And so it comes to pass that I have to walk to the Bank on the coldest day ever recorded in the history of the world (Source: Daily Express). I get there and go to pay my bill. "While you're here, can I check your account details?" Sanjay the bank teller says. "Do you have a mortgage?" he asks. It is now when I realised that when he said "Can I check your account details?" he actually meant - "Can I try and sell you some more of our banking services?".

"Is that how much you pay per month?" he says as he takes a mechanic-like intake of breath. "I'm sure we can save you money on that he says." Little does he know that this is the third time we've had this conversation and

Surely there has to be another way?

And then it hit me! How about a version of Celebrity Fat Club where over-thin celebs are forced to gain weight. Sienna Miller tied down in a "Dentists Chair" position while Harvey squirts Cream down her throat. Jarvis Cocker being locked in a "Saw"-like room, forced to eat meat pies and fish and chips until he can find the key to get out. And a thin Anne Diamond being forced to eat the yo-yo biscuits by order of the Department of Ironic Punishment.