)8@[ ]=+ (Bulb-Nosed Priest)

Mood: The problem is that on DeviantArt (where these categories originated) you can use emoticons to display your mood. There are a ridiculous array of them on there - so many that even one of my hilarious surreal lists would be too close to the truth.

But I don't think you can do emoticons on this blog. No fancy ones anyway, just the usual punctuation-based faces.

(=o\

According to Urban Dictionary, the one above is a shrug, or sign of apathy. I don't really see it myself. I suppose the bracket represents raised eyebrows. But the backslash is just confusing. Also, my nose doesn't look like that.

I think it should instead represent a clown who's just found out he's being audited by an attractive tax official.

It looks exactly like that.

Listening to: Morrissey - I've Changed My Plea to Guilty



Reading: The riot act. It's surprisingly dull.

Watching: That episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where Picard goes back home to pastoral France (which is inexplicably untouched by future technology) and fights with his brother in a muddy vineyard. It's just as good as it sounds.

Playing: A hilarious drinking game. Try it at home. The rules are simple:

1) Every time you feel thirsty, take a drink.
2) If you're really thirsty, down your drink.
3) If you have a cup/glass of a drink you like, and you feel like you'd like to, like, drink and stuff, take a drink.
4) If you're taking painkillers in pill, tablet or capsule form, take a drink.
5) If you've eaten something a bit too spicy, take a drink.
6) If you're in a competition where the first person to finish their drink wins a thousand pounds, down your drink
7) If you're in a play, playing the part of someone that's drinking, take a drink.
8) If you're in a play, playing the part of someone that's downing their drink, don't take a drink (to add a little mystique to your portrayal).
9) If you're a fish, take a drink.

It's pretty fun. Especially if you've got dropsy.

Eating: Salad bar salad. And a small orange.

I refuse to adhere to the tyranny of satsuma/clementine/mandarin ambiguity. They are all the same fruits.

There are too many different names for food. I just divide them into strips (bacon, cheese, sun dried tomatoes etc), chunks (bread, chunks of cheese, pick-up trucks etc), little oranges (satsumas, clementines, mandarins etc), and spheres (oranges, apples, planets, atoms etc).

Drinking: I had a strawberry and vanilla smoothie from M&S. I sometimes get one on a Monday morning as a treat. It is the only way I can convince myself to keep walking. Luckily, it's one of my five-a-day, so I can convince myself that I'm being healthy, even though it probably contains a horseload of sugar.

I feel unsure about calling Marks and Spencer 'M&S'. I mean, it's an abbreviation. A useful one too. It's much easier to say 'M&S' than to garble out that cumbersome thornbush that is 'Marks and Spencer'.

But I feel a bit like I've been brainwashed by the M&S marketing machine into using their terminology. Like using the phrase 'Pimm's o'clock'. Or doing an impression of that Churchill Insurance dog.

I want to be immune from advertising, but I can't help but be sucked in. And now there's that terrible M&S advert with Peter Kay in it, so every time I drink a strawberry and vanilla smoothie I feel like I'm suckling on Kay's corpulent Seventies teats.



So I should always call it 'Marks and Spencer' in full. That will show them that I'm an individual; that I'm not swayed by slogans and think tanks and focus group inanity.

I like to think that every time you say 'Marks and Spencer', a Peter Kay dies.

And sure, a lot of innocent people called Peter Kay are going to die. And they've already had it tough, what with people shouting "garlic bread" at them in the street for ten years. But I think it's a reasonable price to pay.

Because one day, we'll wipe that smile of that son of a bitch's face. Preferably whilst he's singing the theme tune to Bod.

Also, Twiggy might get Legionnaires' Disease as a lucky bonus.