There are bodies strewn everywhere. People are wandering around aimlessly, taking in the horror of the situation. Those of us lucky enough to still have our wits about us are telephoning loved ones and letting them know the situation. It's at times like this when I start to doubt the existence of a "Big Plan" for the Universe and I question the existence of Wayne Rooney.

My tram has broken down one stop short of where I am going.

It didn't come as much of a surprise when we were thrown off the tram. The first clue that the tram was having problems was when it went straight through a red light on Lower Mosley Street, in the shadow of G-Mex. The driver sounded his horn as he nearly clipped an Audi A4 - I bet the car's sat nav didn't tell him that was coming.

But even though he knew that the brakes were dodgy, the driver continued on, determined to get me to work.

The second clue came when the Tram overshot a platform. The front doors opened about 10 meters past the "Passengers must not go past this sign" sign. A man wanted to get off but, like a cat with butter on it's back that's been thrown out of a first storey window, he has no idea what to do. Tentatively, he steps off the tram and scurries back to the correct side of the sign, safe in the knowledge that he does not have to hover above the ground and spin indefinitely.

But the plucky tram driver carries on. And only when he gets to the stop before mine does he decide that we should all get off and he should return to the depot. I smell something fishy. But after I decide to go and stand at the other end of the platform from the dodgy looking blonde, the smell disappears.

I look around the platform as we await the next tram. There sure are a lot of people in jeans. It must be "National Dress Down Friday" today. I must've missed the memo. Either that or I'm coming into work on a Saturday by mistake.

Again.

"Can you pass me a towel?" I ask my Canadian Girlfriend, in a bedraggled, soaked to the bone, getting out of the shower way.

"Sure can where are they, eh?"

"Did you not bring any?" I asked loadedly, knowing full well that I should've remembered them.

There's an awkward silence while the penny drops, along with several gallons of water from my body. We have no towels and will have to put up with this all weekend. The cottage we are in is one that my family have been visiting for many years and, although it doesn't come with towels, is actually well furnished. It wasn't until about 1990 that they started to provide bedding and the TV, although it is from the 30s, didn't appear until a few years into the 21st century. If I had a mobile signal, I'd text my parents, who are coming up to the cottage on Sunday to spend the week there, to remind them to bring towels.

"Well I guess we'll have to dry ourselves using the duvet covers." she replies showing her ingenuity.

"And that will give us the perfect excuse to explain to my Parents why we've had to wash the bedding despite only having been here two days."

Although I try to look on the bright side of everything, I am quite upset. I momentarily consider joining Morrissey, Paul McCartney and Heather Mills in boycotting all things Canadian. Not only because I am saddened at having to dry myself with a duvet cover but also because of the Seal clubbing. I mean Kiss from a Rose wasn't that bad, was it? However, in my current situation, it would be very difficult to give up Canada - I am half way through the first series of the excellent Canadian Comedy Corner Gas.

What I don't get is that these multi millionaires, who are obviously our moral and intellectual superiors because of their wealth, don't use some of that vast fortunes to pay the inhabitants of Newfoundland and Labrador to not kill seals. After all, the poor Inuits probably earn in a year what Morrissey made in royalties while he was eating breakfast. And when you put it like that, Paul McCartney and Heather Mills don't have a leg to stand on.

"Will there be a Starbucks?" asks my Canadian Girlfriend.

"You're lucky that there's electricity," I say as we are driving to Anglesey for a weekend away as part of the week long Blogday celebrations (apparently the Sunday Mirror had to cancel plans for a 32 page pull out guide because the Blogday clashed with some old bint's 80th Birthday) "they weren't even attached to the National Grid until 2002. Oh and we won't even be able to watch My Name is Earl. They have a strange welsh channel instead of Channel 4 - on the plus side though we can watch the omnibus of Pobol y Cwm."

We stand at the window of the cottage and look out over the bay. The sun glistens on the sea lighting up the spray as waves hit the cold, dark, jagged rocks. On the beach, an shaggy looking man throws a stick for his even shaggier looking dog and the dog trudges after the stick. An elderly couple in matching sweatshirts walks along the costal path taking turns to hold the gate open for each other.

The family in the neigbouring cottage play french cricket, the young kids run around energetically chasing the ball and their parents stoop to catch their throws while studiously trying not to spill their Stella Artois.

There are also some sheep in a field.

"This is amazing, look at all those sheep. We don't have farm animals in Canada. We do have 3% of the population employed in agriculture and we are one of the world's most important suppliers of agricultural products, with the Canadian Prairies supplying wheat and other grains." she says, almost as if she had copied and pasted it from Wikipedia. "Look there's a sheep, there's a sheep, there's some Horses. That's amazing!!!"

This theme would carry on throughout the weekend with her proclaiming "Look some sheeps!!!" every time we walked by one. It was a long weekend.

"Look at those cows on the other side of the bay. They're running really fast. Or are they Horses?"

"No they're cars. There's a road up there." I replied setting up a running joke that I am unlikely to allow her to forget in the very near future.

It's my Blogday!

Who'd have thought I could've kept doing this for an entire year, eh? Certainly not me. It's been a difficult year in many ways and I have a tendency to give things up when they're difficult. When I was a kid, I quit playing the cello after 13 weeks for three reasons:

• It was very big and I couldn't carry it to practise
• Practise was on a Friday evening and clashed with Fun House
• I was shit

So to stick to blogging for a year has been a success for me. In keeping with tradition, I have brought cakes into work - although to keep my secret identity, I am having to pretend that today is my "Official" birthday, like the Queen.

And now for the science bit. I have written 160 posts at an average of 13 posts per month. I have drawn some graphs. I like graphs. They're cool aren't they?

So what does the future hold? Well given that in the past year, my blog has contained stories on my Neighbours, Poo, Shopping, the Metrolink and an inordinate number about coffee - I would expect more of the same.

Being a meterosexual version of Reuters I feel I have a duty to my readers to keep them up to date with everything that is going on in my life. Although inevitably, I can't tell you everything that has happened for three reasons:

• Sometimes more interesting things happen on that day
• Sometimes I can't find the right words to do the story justice
• Sometimes the stories just plain suck

The last time I got half way through writing one of these stories, about a horse like creature that had kicked the bucket, I had a very interesting Bowel Movement so I stopped the presses and we ran with a different story. To coin a phrase, I dropped the dead donkey.

So with the official celebrations of my first anniversary about to kick off, I thought I would delve into my rainy day folder and tell you some of the stories that haven't made it into the blog. (It's not an actual folder - it's a text file on my desktop at work called "Not a secret file of ideas for blogging.txt")

• I have spent a huge amount of time trying to figure out how I can go from being on nodding terms with a cool guy at our gym to being best buddies. All I need is an "in".
There was the time I got locked in the basement of a warehouse with another guy and the only way I could escape was to cut off my foot with a nail file.
• When I did recycling once, I had some cardboard and some plastic bottles and the two places I know that recycle them are about 15 miles apart so I ended up with a 30 mile round trip in an attempt to do my bit for the Henvironment.
• The girl who feinted on the tram.
• I sent some clothes to Oxfam and thought I had left my glasses in the pocket of one of the pairs of jeans.
• I have resisted telling you anything about the "hot monkey love" me and My Canadian Girlfriend get up to - mainly because I do not think that Sex and the Internet mix (and also because my Parents may be reading this).
• How I watch every plane that flies across the sky because having watched "America's Wackiest Airplane Explosions" on Bravo +1, I know that being able to describe how the plane explodes is central to determining if it was a shoe-bomber or just some aircraft guy who forgot to put the widget in the dongle because he was too drunk or stupid - or both.

In fact ignore the last one. I may still use that one if I ever get really desperate.

I have a day off!!!

And this is an actual day off too with nothing to do. This is quite unusual for me. I normally like to fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds run. After all I want to be a man my son. But today I have nothing on.

I do have to polish my shoes. But apart from that I have nothing to do.

I am also planning on going to the gym, running 5k and doing some weights but for me that is doing nothing. And I have to go to the post office. And I'm watching Wolf Creek (Which scores peach on the MB Fruit-Movie-ometer - Get to the killing bit already!!!)

With all this emptiness I am starting to feel a bit bored and under appreciated. (This is not a plea for both of my loyal readers leave "You're great comments." But if you want to leave them I am not going to stop you.) I wish I had a birthday coming up or something. That is one problem with having my Birthday in November - once Christmas is out of the way, it's a whole 11 months before I can celebrate again.

I wish I could have something to enjoy and blow out of all proportion. I suppose I could celebrate the Queen's 80th Birthday but it would be better if I could find something that was actually worthwhile. I could then claim it as an "official" birthday.

Now if only next Tuesday was the 1 year anniversary of my blog starting.

Continued from Tuesday...

Previously on Me Me Me... My Dad buys a projector for a presentation after my recommendation. Projector doesn't do what I thought it did, we need a laptop. My Canadian Girlfriend has cracking fun bags. My dad's emergency laptop is crap but we have another one. Projector breaks after being used for about 20 minutes. I grab a hot cross bun and storm off to work to get a replacement.

POLICE!!!!! I slam my foot on the brake taking me down to 72 mph and sending my phone, wallet and water bottle sliding off the passenger seat.

I drive into the work car park approximately 13 minutes after I left my Parents. Work has an eerie feeling about it. It's like a ghost town. There's no one there. I haven't seen it this dead since I once left at five past four on a Friday. I pass the Deputy Director of HR who has obviously been in concocting evil schemes for the week ahead. I remember to ring Switchboard and tell them I am disarming the alarm. The last thing I need at this point of the day is to be dragged off by a too-thick-for-the-police Security Guard.

I grab the projector and head off towards the Church where my dad is doing his presentation. (Inside the Reader's Mind: Hmmm, he's mentioned Religion... I think I'll go and find another blog that concentrates totally on Fart Jokes. For those people, I feel I should take this chance to point out that I am not a Religious Nut-Job. I don't even believe in Vampires.)

I do the one hour round trip in 30 minutes. I slump in the chair and begin plugging in the plugs and wiring up the wires. Everything is hunky dory and then, with about 15 minutes before the start, I plug in the USB stick. You can see where this is going can't you? At some point in the day during the copying, deleting and other editing - the drive had become corrupt.

Another dash!!! This time the five minute journey to my Parent's. I load their computer up and begin re-copying the presentation. I can't find the movies. I will have to re-convert them from the DVD. I begin this process. And then on the busiest day in my life ever, everything goes serene. I am no longer in control of my own destiny. The little green bar is now my master. It begins to trickle across the screen "7 minutes remaining".

I wonder if eventually at the end of your life you're going to get back all the time that you've spent waiting for the green bar or the blue line or the little file to fly from left to right. It must add up to weeks.

And then it's done. I get in the car, get back in plenty of time and we're underway!

The presentation goes really well but we have a different laptop, projector and USB stick than we started out with four hours ago but as I said back at the very beginning - there's nothing that can go wrong.

"Who wants a curry?" says my Dad.

Continued from yesterday...

Previously on Me Me Me... My Dad buys a projector for a presentation after my recommendation. Projector doesn't do what I thought it did, we need a laptop. My Canadian Girlfriend has very nice norks.

I tell my dad the news and he takes it very well. The colour drains from his face and he starts to cry but apart from that he deals very well. He has an old laptop which runs on steam, has Office 1879 on it and a 133 MHz processor which is powered by a small hamster in wheel. I set it up next to the projector.

"Phew!" I say, "It's getting hot in here. I'm gonna have to take off my sweater." I remember that this was the line I was going to use if I required My Canadian Girlfriend's Breasts. From the other side of the house, I hear the dropping of the Saturday Supplement and the pitter patter of little tiny feet. She is running towards the dining room. However, I manage to intercept her before she reaches the door way and anyone gets embarrassed.

We all sit down and I wipe the sweat from my brow. We are sitting round the dining room table waiting for the ancient laptop to open PowerPoint up. With hindsight, I should've set it going last Tuesday. But on the upside, at least the projector is showing what's on the laptop screen. That is a move in the right direction. And we have sourced another laptop which was made this century!

I love it when a plan comes together.

The room hotter than a lingerie pillow fight between Jessica Simpson and Christina Aguillera. I touch the top of the projector and layers of my skin stay stuck to the top of it. It is very hot.

Twang! (Note to Self: When you finally get round to Pod-casting - Remember that this is the noise of a projector fan braking.)

Everyone sits there is shock.

It's like someone has told us that someone has died. No one speaks. I wonder how long I have to wait before I can legitimately grab the last toasted Hot Cross bun.

I look at the blinking orange light and count four blinks.

"Yep" I pronounce, "the manual says that four blinks means the fan is broken. Ok, so we have about an hour before the presentation, I have a plan! But I am going to need diplomatic immunity! I am going to go to work and borrow one of their projectors."

"You'll never make it, it's at least an hour away." I hear as the door swings closed behind me, I like a challenge. The door sticks on the latch and swings open again. I lose five vital seconds as I turn and pull the door shut properly.

I scurry down the drive, hot cross bun in mouth and jump in Harry the Yaris and set off. I weave in and out of cars. I go straight over the white painted circle of a mini-roundabout. I go through a light on Amber. And as I speed off up the slip road, the G-Force pins me to the car seat.

I wish I'd brought my dad's Volvo. That has a turbo and I'd be there by now.

Concluded Thursday...

"Relax, I'm in town at the moment having coffee with My Canadian Girlfriend - I'll be round about 3pm and that'll give us four hours to open the box and plug the projector in. I've done this a million times at work. There's not much that can go wrong." Of course with hindsight, I realised that saying that nothing could go wrong was probably the first thing that went wrong.

My dad is doing a presentation tonight and has bought a brand new projector for it. This is the culmination of weeks of emails.
"What about this projector?"
"Dad, all projectors are pretty much the same thing. If you're gonna get one in this financial year as a tax scam thing then just pick one and buy it."
"Ok, what about this one?"

The projector is very flash, it does not require a laptop - everything runs from a USB memory stick. I arrive at my Parent's house and unpack the box. My Canadian Girlfriend disappears to go and talk to my sister about shoes, celebs and other girly things. Within 5 minutes, I have the projector set up. I kick back and enjoy a cup of coffee and some Lindt Chocolate (on offer this week so I didn't buy any Green and Blacks) and plug in the USB Drive.

I love it when a plan comes together.

And then nothing happens.
The projector projects his Holiday Photos.
Time to read the manual.
I slowly slink off towards his computer.

The projector will not play proprietary PowerPoint presentations per se. Everything has to be converted to pictures so I begin the conversion. I convert his PowerPoint presentation to pictures. And then I hit the video he has embedded. Agh! We need a laptop. And there's only three hours until his presentation.

I calmly pull my Canadian Girlfriend into my Dad's Study and explain the situation. "And if he takes the news badly, I will need you to show him your tits to distract him."

"I can't do that." she says.

"Sure you can." I say, offering her the reassurance she is after, "They're very impressive."

Continued Tomorrow....