Someone asked me earlier what feels like the longest time in the world. And I said, probably the time it takes the tank to re-fill when the toilet doesn't flush properly. In someone else's house.

It doesn't happen often but when it does, my God. They're all going to know what I've done.

Is Kuala Lumpur the best named place in the world?

I imagine it to be a glorious kingdom of quaint, little cottages and bawdy but friendly public houses, populated by a harmonious mixture of humans, talking bears, oversized ducks and centaurs.

I'd like to go but, to be honest, I don't want to be disappointed. Especially if the bears end up being rude and a centaur won't let me ride him around the marketplace -get over yourself, horse-boy.

I was on my way out of the house this morning and managed to hook my suit trousers on a hinge and rip the seam straight down the side. Now I normally would've been more upset but I was forced to chuck the top half away a couple of months ago because of a similarly unfortunate event.

That suit was doomed from the start.

Still, I am a bit perturbed that I was walking round in the preceding months in a depressed, suicidal garment. What if it took me with it? The more I think about it... I'm actually quite annoyed at it. It's pure selfishness. If it had a problem, it should have had a chat with my jeans or something. One of the hardier clothes. A pair of pants or something.




I'm not overly enamoured with Marks and Spencers either, selling me a mental patient.

I read today that Gary Glitter's still making £50k a year in royalties. And I thought, what? Who's still playing his records?

That guy lives in a world of criminal records.

Is there anything more galling than paying top dollar for good seats at the theatre only to be seated behind some big lump with a giant, fat head?

I went to the theatre at the weekend and, for the third time in recent months, was forced to watch a production through the back of someone's head. It was like trying to stare at the sun during a solar eclipse. Big fucking moon head, that it was.

Anyway, everyone else appeared to enjoy the show. I thought the edges of it were quite pretty, too.

[Rec] is a square-bracketed horror movie from Spain that follows in the hand-held footsteps of The Blair Witch Project.

The story follows a camera crew from a late-night tv show that takes a behind-the-scenes look at various nocturnal professions. On this occasion, it's firemen getting the vox pop treament and all appears well until they're called out on a routine call to free a woman trapped in a basement.

Once inside the building however, it quickly becomes apparent that things are far from routine and the situation isn't helped when the military arrive shortly thereafter to seal everyone in.

Although a tad too easy to second-guess, [Rec] is a very good movie. It's well-shot, comparatively plausible, and, with most movies now exceeding two hours, exceedingly short at only 71 minutes. It's like the editor went fucking mad with the scissors. I can only imagine they only actually filmed an hour and a half worth of footage. It's also perhaps notable that one of the characters keeps telling the cameraman, 'If it's rubbish, don't bother with it...' I guess that line had to come from somewhere.

All in all, it's a film that's certainly worth watching. But does it score the requisite 8/10 to warrant buying?

[Rec]: 7.75/10.

Felon is a prison melodrama with made-for-tv qualities that suggest it'll never see box-office action here.

It stars Ethan Hawke as a family man and blue-collar worker sent down for accidentally killing an intruder burgling his home. He receives a comparatively light sentence for the crime but, inexorably dragged into the prison politics and gangland disputes, can only watch as the light at the end of the tunnel begins to recede.

It's all pretty standard fodder with the various gangs rivalries, crooked wardens, and fractured families ticking all the boxes on the Prison Drama Checklist. It also feature an unrecognisable Val Kilmer as a big, fat old guy. Unless that's what he looks like these days?

On the plus side, it's a movie that doesn't do anything particularly badly. On the down side, it doesn't do anything particularly well either.

Felon: 5/10.

I was watching the Cycling Pursuit earlier.

It's an event where two competitors start on either side of a Velodrome then race against each other to record the quickest time over a set distance. However, on one occasion, one of the racers caught the other and overtook him... I just sat there thinking, how terribly embarrassing.

And I decided, if I ever became one of those guys, I'd go into every race with a packet of smokes up my sleeve. And if it ever looked like that over-competitive guy on the other side was catching me, I'd spark up a ciggie and pretend I didn't care about this shit, anyway.

Do you know what I often wonder when I'm typing a text message? What's the longest word I can type on one key.

Well, I think I've just found out. I think it's feeded.

So.

Well, that was an anti-climax.

I ran the tips of my fingers along the wood panelling on the wall. It was bijou alright. But it was mine, finally, all mine.

I had travelled a long way to reach this point.

It now seems a lifetime away but I recognise that my initial procrastination had cost me dear. When my peers were buying homes, I had stood cautiously by. There was no rush. However, even as prices had begun to rise, I consciously chose to hold firm. After all, prices would soon equalise and, maybe then, I would decide to buy my first property. But they never did. In fact, the rate of rise began to increase. The market began to rocket.

And, all of a sudden, I couldn’t catch it. I had left it too late and, dumbfounded at my critical error of judgement, had to watch it recede into the distance.

I began to sink into a deep depression. I had missed the boat that had taken all my peers into lives of relative prosperity and, indeed, multi-property ownership. And I couldn’t let it go.

My bitterness turned to ugly, outright resentment and, over time, I slowly drove all my friends away. I found myself wishing the gravest ill on the property market and all who had benefited from its unfair and arbitrary vagaries.

I deserved some of that luck. I deserved it.

One morning though, on a bright, fresh summer’s day, I woke up and realised that, sometimes, you have to get busy living or get busy dying. And, with a clear mind, I finally plucked up the courage to make that jump.

It was like a great weight had been lifted. Once I had decided to get on the ladder, all that anxiety, the resentment, the anger, suddenly disappeared. My mind was set. I’d start with the first rung and climb as high and quickly as I could, and dammit to everyone, I was going to reach the top.

And that is pretty much my story.

And the end? Well, wouldn’t you believe it, here we are now and I’ve finally got my own lovely, little place, decorated throughout in velvety blue cushions that pad the floor and embroider the ceiling, and situated on a gorgeous, secluded plot of land.

Sure, it’s a little cramped and let’s just say I won’t be swinging anything in here, least of all a cat, but it’s all mine. And, yes, it did cost me an arm and a leg, and, indeed, a spine, a neck and all of my teeth, but I can live with that, figuratively speaking.

Still, it’s a shame so much of me had to be hosed off the pavement where I landed. I just hope the rest of me, wherever it is, is happy.