IF THEY HAVE WHEELIE-BIN RACING IN THE OLYMPICS WE'LL BE UNBEATABLE

Every house in the land has a wonderfully coloured array of plastic wheelie bins stuck around the side of the house. And the pile of lazy bastards who just leave them at the top of the drive for us all to walk past. Each different coloured bin has a different function. One, normally green carries garden waste(within strict council guidelines); The blue one for re-cycling(within strict council guidelines) And the grotty grey one for the usual shit and stuff that your not sure if it should go in the other pretty bins(within strict council guidelines) or not. So we have our range of pretty bins and all we have to do is pull them out to the road to be emptied, whenever!.... Various councils throughout our fair isles have deemed, in their usual efficiant way that various bins of various rubbish should be picked up at various times and at various frequencies. I still haven't a clue when and which binis to be emptied when. So, like most sturdy Brits, on hearing the wagons around the corner ,you go racing out to grab the grey bin. Only to find out its a blue bin day, so you run back with the grey and swap it, only to find out that next door who'd put their blue bin out was wrong. So your lovely wife shouts down "it's the green bin !" SO another swap takes place. Soon as you idly gaze out the window, you see it was actually the grey bin all along. Then you burst out of the front drive to grab the grey bin ,drag it up the road after the accelerating dustwagon, then drag the grey(thankfully empty), and the green(still f***'in full) back round the side of the house till the next bin-based adventure in days, weeks, months, god, who knows, but councillor shitinthegreybinforbrains.

But every grey bin has a silver lining. A few weeks ago we were at a village festival in Wales and they had a wheelie bin race. A variety of men and women of a broad age range, some in fancy dress dragged these wheelie bins around a thickly grassy field riddled with cow pats and with footwork akin to a ballroom dancer they sprinted, jumped ,turned and leapt over the obstacle course that was the farmers field.

I think, forget the running jumping, athletics ,swimming, gymnastics,etc,etc. The future of British sport lies in the wheelie bin.....I'm not sure which colour.

READING COMICS ON THE 'BOG', GOES HI-TECH !

One of the great joys and pleasures of life is locking yourself in the toilet, seating yourself comfortably on the 'bog' and reading a comic or tabloid newspaper. Cartoonists are the main offenders and are the only people i've seen with magazine racks and bookcases in the smallest room. But that is about to change. Hi-Technology is coming to the Lavvy!....

If you look to the list of links on the side of the blog page . One of the list is for a pair who call themselves DARREN & DISHI (darren.phillips7@ntlworld.com)......They produce computer discs of all the comic characters you could ever think of. For a couple of quid you get hundreds of issues, annuals and specials of 'whoever' from Superman and Batman to Spiderman and The X-men and millions more. I've spent months plowing through the collection of comics ,curled up on the couch with the lap top. And recently, much as i would never have believed it until recently. I have sat reading comics on the 'bog' from my laptop. The time spent is gradually getting longer and longer and the seat ring on my backside is taking longer and longer to disappear between 'visits'. There is now an extension lead constantly ready in case of emergency on the landing outside the 'Lavvy'. This is in case the lap-top battery goes flat and i need to connect the charger. I mean you cant be left locked in the 'Kharzi' with a flat battery and Magneto on the verge of destroying The X-Men; Doctor Doom annihalating the Fantastic Four; The Green Goblin murdering Spiderman; The Joker doing for Batman, etc,etc.....Jeez! it doesn't bear thinking about.

DARREN & DISHI are well worth getting in touch with ,they'll send you a list of all the titles available and its amazing ,tell 'em you read about it here. I still like comics with paper and staples and no one can replace the boxloads in the attic. But i'm now doing my bit for the planet . Reading about all these heroes saving the planet, by having hundreds of comics on a little cd disc, rather than a 40 foot pile of paper and staples.

THE PEACE AT THE END OF THE DAY ONLY DISTURBED BY THE WIFES TOENAILS RICOCHETTING AROUND THE BEDROOM WALL.

At the end of the day ,as today slides into tomorrow and in the quite and darkness we retire to the comfort and tranquility of our bed. This peace is only disturbed by the rustle of the quilt, the turning of book pages, the gurgling of stomachs and the passing of wind from those same stomachs, but, also the sound of toenail clippings ricochetting around the bedroom. The lovely Lynne is a (sob!)......Nail picker and a... (Sob!)....Nail biter (sniff, i'm ok now, thanks...she'll always be perfect to me.) . She has a highly stressful job and when shes concenterating will nibble away at the keratin based talons of her fingers .She keeps trying to stop, but with limited success. From time to time she'll let em grow , but she slips back to a good chew , she even chews false fingernails, i kid you not.

I remember my mother worrying about me, as i was biting my fingernails. She kept asking if anything was wrong/was i alright? after a while ,i exploded "yes i'm fine ,ok ,super ,dandy, tickety boo!, for christs sake why? "Well, your biting your finger nails."I had to explain there was nothing mysterious, just that my fingernails seem to grow quickly and i nibble them just so they stay below 4 inches or so. I must admit if i'm lying on the couch watching the telly i may start picking at a toenail and end up splitting my bloody fingernail and having the toe nail split down instead of across. So, 'effin' n' blinding ' i've got to go and find a pair of scissors to cut them as short as i can ,as the nail will catch in my sock over the next few days. This messing around may lead to another unwanted result. There will soon be a shout as my beloved Lovely Lynne finds the heap of toenail clippings i'd accidentally left on the arm of the setee, before becoming distracted in my suffering .Women don't understand that men feel pain too. We do, they just enjoy it more.

As the cartoon shows ,even our heroes and superheroes need to cut their toenails, i wonder how Superman, the man of steel cuts his. With kryptonite laced scissors brought in when he arrived as a baby from the planet Krypton. Batman and most costumed crusaders would have to be careful and have regular pedicural work done as the fate of the innocent and weak could be decided wether Batman n' Robin ,Spiderman, etc, etc had a ladder in their tights/stockings. The fate of the world could not only be in their hands but on their fingernails and toenails. I mean you can't go out battling the Joker or the Green Goblin worrying wether you've got ladders in your stockings/booties or even sleeves and gloves, this distraction from the fight to the death could be the clincher for the forces of evil.