Mr Malark

I got busted a few weeks ago for speeding.

When the camera flashed, I was going 6mph over the 30mph limit. Empty road. Middle of the night. No one on the road apart from me, and the dead hooker in the boot... I was furious.

Still, I was given a choice: take a £60 fine and 3 points on the licence, or pay £95, avoid the points and just pitch up to a Speed Awareness Workshop. One course and that's it.

It felt like a get-out so I pitched up to my Workshop this evening and walked straight into a surreal scene in the reception area. It was like a setpiece from a film. Twelve strangers in a waiting room, from all walks of life, but all guilty of the same crime. And all the stereotypes were there: an angry, young black man, a distinguished, silver-haired businessman, a timid-looking Sikh, a busty airhead, a biker, a student, and various other caricatures. A butler, a ballerina, a clown... I found a chair and sat there staring out of the window, smirking. I half-expected the lights to go out for a few seconds then, when they returned, a dead body on the floor. No one knows who did it... but we're going to find out.

My reverie was broken when the trainer, a cocksure little fellow who looked like he knew all about speed, having shovelled some up his nose a moment earlier, walked out and announced, in that horribly cocky manner that only policemen can affect, that training was about to begin. Boys and girls. The weird thing was, he wasn't a policeman at all. He had just spent so long in their presence, and was clearly so in thrall to their authority, that he had taken on their mannerisms. He had all the zeal of an Army Reservist, turned down for active service because he had blown off a few of his fingers making a bomb in his shed.

Anyway, when Mad Rambo wasn't talking at us, about the great job the Boys In Blue were doing, the modular-based session consisted of carrying out motoring exercises on a computer. We were told from the outset that we wouldn't be judged on our scores which is just as well because I was complete shit at them. One involved spotting potential hazards on the road and I managed to go through the entire test without seeing a single one. I think I was just expecting to see some explosions and falling trees or something. Not people crossing the road.

But I was never going to learn anything of note anyway. The tutor just wouldn't shut up long enough for questions.

Actually, I'll tell you what I learnt: I learnt that 80% of pedestrians survive a collision at 30mph and this drops to 10% at 40mph. This was borne out, apparently, by a video that showed a car braking at 40mph but still hitting a dummy pedestrain, some 10ft away, at 26mph. But what's that then? A collision at 40mph or a collision at 26mph? And if the latter, wouldn't it be okay to actually travel at a higher speed than the original starting point of 40mph if it would see a collision, after braking, at 30mph?

Unfortunately, I never got to ask Mad Rambo but it didn't matter, he didn't know the fucking answer anyway.

The lady with the Swine Flu came back to the office today and looked, for the most part, completely recovered. Apart from the trotters. I don't think she had a snout before either.

Anyway, in a game of viral Russian Roulette, I decided to confront my phobia and corner her for a chinwag to see how she was getting on.

And do you know what that felt like, as I stood there, with my rictus smile? It was like letting a tarantula crawl across my face.

Still, at least now I've conquered my fear of spiders. Swine Flu, meh, not so good...

A woman on the radio this morning was bemoaning the lack of women involved in the higher echelons of sports management and calling for greater gender equality in the field.

Now I don't know how many women actually want to go into sports management but if they have the ability, their applications should absolutely be given the same weight as men. I'm all about the meritocracy, and I suspect most people are these days.

However, it does remind me of my first exposure to an attempt to level the playing field.

In the mid-Nineties, while studying up in the North-West, I was pulled away on a three-month work placement at the Equal Opportunities Commission. Now this place was the closest thing you'd get to being buried alive. I mean, it was dead. Completely devoid of any vim and joie de vivre whatsoever.

However, about two months in, my manager threw me a bone. He said that some members of of the organisation got together once a week for a game of five-a-side and asked whether I'd be interested in joining them. I jumped at the opportunity and, pitching up at the collection point with my kit, I was pleased to see that we were going to have an audience. A number of women had come along to support the team and, in the mini-bus on the way down to the venue, I was excited at the prospect of finally burning off some energy.

Until I realised the women weren't coming down to support the team. They were coming down to play.

Now I'd like to say that they fought the good fight and were really rather good. And I went away comepletely transformed by the experience. But I can't. They sucked. And the men sucked too.

Good manners meant that I should've pretended to suck too but, with two months pent-up frustration about to be distilled into one hour, I didn't let up at all. I was skipping past players at will and, time and time again, smashing the ball into the net. When the chamber finally stopped whirling, I must have scored a hundred goals.

I never got invited back but fuck them, the reality is that we're not all equal. But at least the playing field was level, and that's the main thing.

I'm not working today so I've taken the opportunity to construct my son's new outdoor playhouse.

However, the hardest part wasn't clipping the plastic pieces together. Or securing it all with screws afterwards.

The hardest part was getting the JCB in to dig the foundations. But they don't mention that in the instructions, do they? No. A complete disregard for Building Regs.

My dad came round today to rebuild, wth an incredible level of proficiency, the window ledge I accidentally demolished two months ago. Because dads can do that. Not this dad. Those dads. Up in that generation.

Unfortunately, as this didn't involve any work on a computer, I was hanging about like a spare wheel so I figured I'd make myself useful and go round to the back of the house to strip and paint a flaking window ledge on the first floor.

However, I could see the concern in my dad's eyes and, as he followed me out to the back, he watched as I retrieved my extension ladder and tried to look purposeful. One question though proved to be enough to strip me of all credibility.

'Which way up does the ladder go?'

I got the answer right, just, on the third go. The third go man, how is that even possible? There are only two answers, surely? Well I found an extra one. Which was wrong too.

I just hope someone invents some home improvements that can be carried out by computer or DIY's going to die out with my generation. Cos electricity has now assumed the same importance as oxygen. We're the first generation that'd die out in an extended power-cut.

Bolt is an animated Disney movie about a diminutive German Shepherd who plays a superdog on a tv show. Unfortunately, he doesn't realise it's only make-believe and when he becomes separated from his owner and accidentally shipped to the other side of the country, the deluded canine teams up with a streetwise alleycat and a cokehead hamster and sets off on the long journey home.

John Travolta voices the eponymous Bolt and Miley Cyrus provides the voice for his owner. However, the show is stolen by Susan Essman, the voice behind the wise-cracking alleycat, and Mark Walton as the wildly enthusiastic hamster. 'Let it begin! Let it begin!' There's also a short but excellent performance from Lino DiSalvo, the lead animator on the project, who steps up to the mic to play an Italian-American pigeon with a thick Brooklynite accent.

It's high quality stuff and an entertaining hour and a half. The plot's also an interesting twist on an old theme because contrary to most journeys of self-discovery, the dog starts from a position of heroism and strives to find some normality.

But best of all, it's the film that's finally broken Toy Story's reign of dominance in our household. I've seen that film so often, I know the name of the Second Assistant Grip. It's Keith.

Bolt: 8/10.

I wonder if people with ginger hair who discover they're going grey celebrate?

I dunno, maybe there's a pecking order?

An American research centre have claimed they're close to cracking the origin of baby babble. However, I'm afraid it may be a little after the Lord Mayor's show because my 18month-old's starting to develop a coherent vocabulary.

So much so that I'm planning to have a laugh with him tonight about the times he used to poop his pants! In the hope that he'll take the hint, and stop bloody well doing it.

I went into work this morning and was greeted by the most gob-smacking news: one of my colleagues has contracted Swine Flu.

I honestly couldn't fucking believe it. That old Indian woman? I was speaking to on Friday? Without a toxic suit?

Anyway, as far as proximity goes, hopefully it'll start and end with her cos I'm not looking forward to being culled -hey, don't bullshit me. I've seen what you did to those cows.

I work in quite a nice building. It's a big corporate affair over in West London, with a six-storey atrium inside the entrance, a sunny receptionist on the desk, and a nice, spacious waiting area for visitors.

However, it's miles from where I live. So much so that I usually spend three hours a day commuting back and forth.

So when an opportunity came up recently to do the same gig locally and cut my daily commute by two and a half hours, I figured I'd jump at the chance. Until I visited the office this evening to get a feel for my potential new environs and realised I'd be crossing the tracks into the wrong side of town every day...

Cos the new office isn't a nice, corporate building with a giant atrium. It doesn't have a sunny receptionist. It doesn't even look to have a reception. It's just some dumpy looking office in the middle of a dumpy looking housing estate.

As the sun set behind the buildings and boy racers boomed by in souped up motors with cranked up stereos, I got out of the car and approached it apprehensively. The office looked like it had smoked forty fags a day for forty years. It looked like a place that couldn't recall a time when it didn't have stained fingers and rotten teeth. I paused to look at the placards in the window which, inexplicably, seemed to be advertising cheap places to live.

In the distance, a disembodied voice said, 'Nothing but shit there.' I only realised the voice was directed at me when I heard it again. 'Nothing but shit there.'

I turned to face my Dutch uncle. It was the King of the Chavs, a man in a baseball cap and an ill-fitting vest who had broken away from his scraggy missus to engage me.

I didn't know what to say. He thought I was like him. For want of offending him, I pulled a pained, regretful expression and said, 'Yeah... not a lot... here...'

He took this as a cue to delve further. 'What you got then? One-bedroom flat?'

'Yeah...' I said, 'Pretty much... something like that...' I couldn't believe it. I was getting drawn deeper into a conversation where I was pretending to be a bum.

'So whereabouts you living now?'
'Oh... a mile or two away...' I gestured vaguely. 'Down the way...'
'Yeah, whereabouts?'
I began to feel, for the first time in my life, exceedingly well-spoken.
'Off the main road, there...' Another vague gesture.

We stood facing each other, in silence.

'Okay then,' I finally broke, 'I'm going to get off...'

We bid each other farewell and he returned to his missus while I awkwardly walked across to my suddenly fancy-looking Mercedes. I considered walking straight past and catching a bus but thought better of it and quietly climbed in. I'm not sure whether he clocked me but he must've realised I'd been talking bullshit when I started the engine, Classic FM sprang noisily to life, and I set off for my bedsit.

Anyway, I'll be buying a portable DVD player for the commute.