I'm as happy as these four jumping shadows about leaving the dentist. Although it has to be said that the guy second-from-right looks like he's just been shot after walking on his knees -- not a happy pose. I remember doing the second-from-left pose a few times to scare my brother when we were younger. I'd hide in the dark behind the wall outside the bathroom and then scare him half to death when he stepped outside. Happy days!

It is now after, and amazingly, after doesn’t hurt any more than before! And no, I’m not writing this through the haze of an alcoholic stupor – they just didn’t do anything yet apart from have a look. You may be aware that in my first post, written just minutes before I left the house, I made a few predictions about how the experience was going to transpire, and more or less let slip my howling fear of dentists and all things dentists are into (something I prefer not to ponder very often, but if forced to guess what music most dentists are into I’d hazard a guess and say either Elton John or, just maybe, Meatloaf. And who knows, perhaps a bit of Prince?).

Well, the thing is, that makes me feel a bit stupid, because now I sit here and tell you that all my predictions were wrong. In a bizarre twist of logic, not only were they all wrong, but none were even remotely close. There was no awkward long walk up some very narrow stairs – it was on the ground floor of a bungalow located in a car-park where you’d expect to see a vets, perhaps – and there weren’t even any other people in the Waiting Room to annoy me. Not one person. This fact was made stranger still – disturbing, even – by the receptionist lady insisting to me that they were fully booked up and “really very busy”; even adding to the gravity of the illusion by having a simultaneous slightly hot flush. Inexplicably, she was also wearing one of those black V-neck shirts like the bad Karate guys wore in Karate Kid (the chief sensei, or leader of which, was an ex-Special Forces Vietnam veteran, no less!). I resisted the urge to make a passing comment about this, one of my favourite films growing up – I had in mind something along the lines of “me and Mr Miagi will fight you all the way! Nothing will break us!” an invented quote which would have addedyet more drama to the film I feel – and went along with her highly developed fantasy; I even looked around the room as she had, pretending to glance at my fellow waiters, and even standing back a bit to let an imaginary person pass. I’m sure that it must get boring being a receptionist in an empty dentist’s practice, so inventing a virtual reality has got to help. I know it helped me when I worked as a picture framer a few years ago in a remote location in the fields of Cambridgeshire. I often imagined that hoards of zombies roamed the countryside and the place where I worked was a fortress where no zombie could penetrate, thus I had no choice but to stay inside and work for what I now know to be a pittance. It really makes it easier to enjoy your job when, at the same time, you feel genuinely lucky to be alive and not one of them.

A lion celebrates his happiness in true original style

Then came the form – a flaccid good-for-nothing series of black lines on poor quality paper. I was a new patient and so, predictably, protocol designated that I must fill out a pointless low-quality form which nobody would ever bother to read (of course, in the true spirit of pointless things, I only found out it was truly pointless well after I’d filled it out and I was in the dentist’s chair where she told me this very thing. This meant that I filled it out in good-boy style, like my first day of school – even going as far as to cross out a couple of words and rewrite them above in very neat capital letters, so as to avoid a detention. A tragic sign of what I prefer to call maturity rather than age). It pleased me that although I had suffered from a serious illness just a few years before, not one of the questions invited me to discuss this further. I enjoyed saying how I wasn’t on any medication and was petrified of going to the dentist’s (Are you scared of going to the dentist’s? Yes I am petrified). Actually I didn’t enjoy it, not once I had written it. Seeing the word petrified on paper really rammed the point home.

I haven’t done a very good job of setting the scene, have I? How selfish. So far I have given the impression that I had entered a building which may have been a vets, only to enter into discourse with a delusional receptionist who doesn’t know the difference between high and low quality paper. Well, allow me to try again: you are standing in a room which is very sparse – a large white room divided by a flimsy MDF wall (covered in a cheap veneer that makes it look like mahogany, sadly; it would seem like the man or woman who designed the forms was let loose on the interior decorating as well…). On the left wall there’s a door which is open invitingly. Straight ahead, but also in the corner of the room, is a closed door with no sign on it, but the voices coming from it tell me that this is where it all happens. As you relax, seated on an actually quite comfy red padded chair — it reminded me of Antiques Roadshow actually, and I didn’t thank it for that because then I was thinking of Bargain Hunt and I have always hated that show — you begin to get more at ease. The lack of signage on the doors is a welcome treat in this hellish place, you now realise; it screams “we’re casual!” and although it’s probably a lie, you embrace it. Then the door opens suddenly and a woman walks out. You immediately think she’s a secretary or a patient – she couldn’t be a dentist. She doesn’t have that grim look on her face that you remember from the braces of your childhood, and besides that she is smiling and having fun with the delusional receptionist.

It happens quickly: by the time the short-but-sweet exchange between the two has ended – the woman walking back to the open door-way – you realise that actually, this is the dentist. It must be. She’s turning her head to you and saying “would you like to come in, Mr…(insert your name here)”.

I was going to continue with that style of writing: let you go and sit in her chair and live it out yourself, suffer the hideousness of it all – I’d have got mean with you, I can tell you – but then I changed my mind. How could I do put you in that situation? If you’re anything like me, sooner or later you’d have started to laugh and be amused at being involuntarily thrust into this scenario, and then you’d maybe have started imagining a different scenario than the one I had put you in (and I know that some of you readers have a very vivid imagination…it would have lost all seriousness if you’d have done something naughty with it, and besides that, this is the dentist’s – no naughty scenario’s allowed. Seriously, this isn’t the time or the place).

Upon entering the room, I found myself bewildered. As bewildered – if not more – as the time, in the last year of Primary School, when I walked into the assembly hall for the yearly School Disco and discovered that the girls and the boys were no longer on opposing sides of the hall but actually all eerily together. The dentist lady, a tall Indian woman who looked way too young to be a dentist – I’d temporarily completely forgotten I was 31 during my short walk to the room – asked me to take a seat and didn’t even look at me menacingly. In the corner of the room sat the up-until-now mystery assistant nurse girl, looking like she didn’t hate her job in that compulsory manner I pointed out in the first blog post, and before me sat a small arm-chair. This was perhaps the most surprising / shocking / unconvincing thing about the room. I’d been expecting this monstrous chair with all kinds of unwelcoming apparatus jutting from it, but this chair lacked all of that. It was small and grey and benevolent, and behind it was a stool for the dentist to perch on. Above it all was one of those special round light’s which didn’t even hurt my eyes as I sat in the chair and commented on how this was all very different to when I grew up as a boy. The nerves talking. And that wasn’t even a pun, I promise.

As the chair made its electronic groan and eased me back into a disarmed lying position, I was alarmed that I was not alarmed. This alarmed me just a bit, but not enough to make me concerned or think about stripping all my clothes off and storming out the room while throwing a £60 note over my shoulder (see previous blog post. For efficiency’s sake, a £60 note worked best in this imaginary invention. It was only afterwards that I realised they didn’t actually exist).

“So, is there anything you’re worried about?” said the dentist. She even smiled and I even found myself believing it to be real. “You’d better tell me, we don’t ever have time to look at the forms!”

Told you they were pointless.

“There is actually…there very much is…” I said, and laughed. It was a full and real laugh, much like the one I’d made months before when disaster struck and landed in the sink, causing instant panic. I quickly concocted an elaborate lie about how none of what I was about to say was really my fault, then remembered I was a grown man and there was nowhere to hide and who was I kidding? “…I’m a bit worried about the half a tooth that fell out a while ago.”

“Oh.” It looks like a serious Oh but it wasn’t. Not compared to when they fitted head-gear on me when I was fourteen and I told my then-dentist that everyone in the school had mocked me one by one. “So how long ago was that? Three months ago, would you say, or more?”

I sighed. “Um…I’d say more…something like eight months.” It was a lie of course, it was more like a year.

She said “let’s have a look and see what we find then.”

I said I knew what she’d find and it’d be awful and both the nurse and the dentist agreed that was likely the case – there was no getting away from the truth. I quite liked their honesty and braced myself for when it wore off and they realised I was ONE OF THOSE PATIENTS. Actually I wished I hadn’t thought of bracing myself at the time. It brought back some crude and callous memories from way down deep…

And it was awful, what she found — I’m not making that up. In my hope and optimism, every time I’d looked at my reflection in the months previous I’d convinced myself that some of the tooth was still there and so really it wasn’t that bad. At least half, so I was safe. I’d even managed to forget that just the week previous to my appointment a rather large chunk of tooth had fallen out. I have the best excuse ever for being terrible at Maths – I’ve got Dyscalculia, woo! – but even I knew that if one half fell out, then followed by another quarter falling out, what was left was no longer a half in any way. Don’t think about that sentence too much, it might well remind you of those horrible GCSE questions which were devised only to damage people who are sympathetic with my inability to do numbers.

Did I say I can be a bit of a chocolate and cake fiend? Well, I certainly can. It’s something I have under control, honest, but also something that is inevitable when you’re put on a very restricted diet by your doctor. For a whole year I wasn’t allowed to eat anything with refined sugar in – including some fruits and natural products – and so when I started eating chocolate again I really enjoyed it and really took advantage. The enjoyment came back to me in one big haunting wave, now, as the dentist said: “it’ll need to be removed of course, but you knew that I’m sure.”

I nodded. “It had crossed my mind. So what’s next?”

“Next we yank your tooth out, right here right now.”

My face did a spasm. “…Yank?”

She laughed, and it was no wonder she got on so well with the delusional receptionist. “That was an attempt at humour, sorry.”

“Awesome. Well done.”

This seemed to please her.

“No, next we do X-rays,” she said, and in a flash she was shoving strange square metal things in my mouth and pointing a big white gun thing at me, before leaving the room in a hurry. Too much of a hurry.

It was over soon after that. First I got to look at the X-rays on the screen and learn a little bit about black shadows – the only kind of proper shadows, and ones that mark the presence of plaque if you’re at all interested – and second I got to choose either to wait for months for an appointment to have the remains of my tooth out and have my teeth professionally cleaned, or to pay £15 more and have it done before pain exploded and ripped through my body. I chose the latter — to pay more, I mean — I left, and I felt like a new man. A seasoned dentist-visiting-pro who could hopefully help to put others at ease in the future. Next time I knew I’d be able to wait with the best of them, whether they were invisible waiters or terrified real waiters like the man I had once been.

Today it’s finally happening, again…the day has arrived and I am going to the dentist; there’s no way out of it (unless I bottle it at the last minute, which will incur a £60 fine. And you can be sure that I am still using this as a backup! Paying £60 to avoid a miserable thing is definitely worth it). It’s something each and every one of us has to deal with, and an experience which I absolutely despise — always have, always will. So, to chart this one, I’ve decided to do a before and after blog post about the experience. Yes, I’m going to drag you down with me — if you like. Do you really blame me?

See…I’ve had this very dull, barely noticeable, nagging tooth-ache for a while now. It’s not my fault, honest it isn’t. I really did register with a new surgery in July and it really has taken this long to get an appointment. I’ll hold my hands up and say that it took me about a year to actually pick up the phone and book that appointment — I am well aware I’m my own worst enemy — but at the same time, we’re all allowed a few rational fears, aren’t we? Because going to the dentist is never a nice experience. Especially when they start calling out the letters and numbers…

Here are my Predictions:

1) Someone in the Waiting Room is going to annoy me or frustrate me or irritate me. It probably won’t even be their fault, but at that moment I simply won’t care. The faces of the fellow waiters will probably annoy me to be honest; if they’re as worried as I am then they’re bound to get on my nerves even more, what with their expressions-of-woe. I can only hope that I am seated amongst waiters who are confident and unbothered by going to see the dentist. Although thinking about it, if that is the case that’s bound to annoy me mildly as well. Actually I may just have to wait outside. Failing that, I’ll crouch in the corner of the room and stare at the wall. Yes.

2) The dentist will act like he or she is pleased to see me, swiftly followed by them jokingly — or not — acting like actually they are not pleased to see me.

3) I will attempt small-talk as a poor and feeble attempt at distracting them from my teeth. Especially the one on the left — a molar? — which has half fallen out. I know this is not in my interest, but I can assure you right now that as this happens I won’t particularly care.

4) The nurse will be a trainee and, although it’s not his / her fault — though I am saying now that I think it’ll likely be a girlish woman — they will write something down wrong and this will mean the dentist has to stop looking in my mouth and help him / her sort it out. All the time I will be left there trying desperately to hold my mouth wide open.

5) The second I shut my mouth the dentist, who is not even looking at me at the time, will say “please open your mouth as wide as you can”.

6) The walk up to the room of terror will be long and drawn out. I anticipate obstacles in the way so as to increase the tension. I also fully expect to bump into a pregnant woman on her way down, and, as the stair-way is so narrow I will have to walk backwards down the stairs and wait for her to pass. Before going up, again.

7) I will be told off needlessly. I say needlessly because you know and I know that the dentist is not doing this for free. Yet, nonetheless, they will feel it is a good idea to bollock me for not having visited them when half my tooth fell out (6 months before I booked my appointment…I think).

8) I will call the dentist a bad name under my breath once going back down the narrow stairs. This time I will take full advantage of my right-of-way and make the life of the person coming the other way a right proper misery by being all slow and holding my face. I am not usually like this, honest.

Ways I’m going to deal with it:

1) I’m going to pretend that the dentist is just a really nice, really friendly hairdresser who, on this particular day, has decided — on a whim — to have the entire salon completely gutted and replaced with lots of stainless-steel equipment. A hairdresser who just likes to casually look in mouths every so often. Nothing to worry about then, nothing to fear.

2) When he or she starts calling out the letters and the names — I expect F to feature heavily, as usual — I’m going to cancel them out by saying, just in my head, the names of funny sounding pets. F8 might become Susan McSpoosan the Hamster, for example. Or maybe Bernard Nobanobazing the ferret. I anticipate this will make me at least smile and maybe even laugh. Obviously I don’t want to push this too far, because he or she might tell me to stop laughing and keep my mouth open. Worse, he or she might ask me what I am laughing at, which will only extend the period of time spent in that bloody chair. Yes, I definitely need to tread carefully here.

3) I’m going to tell myself that, at any moment in time, I can just say “Alright bollocks, that’s enough! I’m leaving! take my £60 or the clothes off my back and my arse if you like, just let me go right now.” Worse things do happen. This probably won’t have been the first time someone has stripped off and chucked their personal possessions at them and bolted out the door.

It is 13:42…it’s time for me to face my demons and go.

If you want to, cry on your Birthday. If you're completely confused, it means you are really very young and set to grow up with more debt than your parents. Good for you!

31 years ago today, and thanks to my Dad’s rather eager sperm, my poor Mother – one big haired, blonde, Shirley Rita Pink of Harston, Cambridgeshire – was enduring one of the five most painful experiences of her life (three of those other occasions were giving birth to my brother and sister and I, the fourth was learning to drive – something which I am brutally reminded of whenever I get in the car on a day when she has decided to wear shoes which she wouldn’t usually wear for driving, and ideally shouldn’t. Only joking Mum, you’re a great driver! As long as you wear the right shoes…). Mum has never talked much about giving birth and how it was for her, other than to say that everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Spectacularly. And my Mum is a woman who does not mince her words, I can assure you (she always says exactly what she thinks about run-away success Strictly Come Dancing, and she should know — she used to be a ballet dancer).

While a lot of people actually have annoyingly hassle-free pregnancies, where everything falls into place and the pain and the stress is minimal, Mum really suffered with all her births, especially my older sister Natalie – so much so that it’s remarkable this version of me even exists. Just imagine, or don’t, as I prefer…had I been born a few months earlier or later I might have never ended up as a freelance writer who is frequently able to choose his waking hour. I might have become a banker, I might have become anything else. And I’ve always despised early mornings, so I am grateful.

See, not only was Natalie the world’s most miniature premature baby, but with that came all kinds of terrible complications; Natalie had breathing difficulties and heart problems galore, and the stress of it all did its fair share to kick my my Mum in good and proper, too.

So one thing I have never quite understood about Birthdays, is why the Mums get so little recognition. OK, so I did my bit and somehow naturally got myself in the right position so that the delivery wasn’t too much of a nightmare — at least, compared to my sister’s exotic escape — but I had no idea I was doing that, did I? It was pure chance. I was probably just fed-up of being in that position for too long and fancied a change, as babies do. It was Mum who bore the strain. Mum who had to carry me for many months, and Mum who had to get through the agonising pain of having to look at my Dad who was getting off completely scott-free, not me. That’s why I often feel a bit weird about celebrating my birthday — the day when Mum had a horrendous C-section, and forever after her body was never quite the same. Although clearly I don’t feel that weird about it, nor have I ever protested along with many other like-minded individuals about how there ought to be a special day for Mum’s everywhere, something more personal than just a collective and commercially lurid Mother’s Day. Because this morning I gratefully accepted a number of gifts, and not once did I turn to dearest Mum and say, “Here, I feel bad accepting all these nice things, why don’t you have them all? Why don’t you take that £50 note? Would you like some 85% dark chocolate?” What I will say is that it’s probably good that I didn’t offer her the Alan Partridge book to be honest. I really don’t think she’d appreciate it as much as I will, and she’s never been much of a fan of dark chocolate (she says it’s too bitter).

Putting all the giving birth stuff to one side for a moment – watch where you put that hypothetical Placenta, please… – one of the things I really like about modern birthdays is the Facebook thing. So what if most of the people on your friends list probably wouldn’t remember your birthday were it not for the fact that Facebook automatically makes all your friends aware of it, whether they like it or not. Does it really matter that the Birthday is spoon-fed to them? Not to me. I’m bloody awful at remembering birthdays so I appreciate any help I can get. While it’s true that Facebook certainly does an excellent job of guilt-tripping all your mates into writing something on your Wall, even if some of them rarely speak to you – who, really, can resist writing on the wall when every time they log in they see that little reminder in the corner of the screen? – the act of writing on someone’s FB Wall is still something special. Sacred, in a certain kind of way that transcends the seemingly too-easy simplicity of it all. At least to me. What makes it even better, I think, is when people take it upon themselves to invent an ingenious way to say Happy Birthday. I don’t want to single any one particular person(s) out here, but it’s definitely something which helps to make the world go round. On Birthdays, you should always forgive bad grammar and spelling mistakes. You should always thank everyone for bothering: thank you all for bothering!

Lastly, Birthdays are, to some degree, all about the cards and the presents and the feeling that today is something to be remembered — for example, today will be remembered as the day I got a great jumper from my girlfriend, and the day that Nana Pink rang up to actually sing the entire long version of Happy Birthday to you… down the phone at me, without stopping once to feel besieged by embarrassment — a fine attribute which I fear only comes with age. I don’t care what anyone says about being materialistic, or how militant you are about giving and receiving gifts: it just feels good to know that someone has taken it upon themselves to give you something from the bottom of their heart. For me it’s never been about the size or cost of the item, and it’s certainly never been about asking for something specific. For me it’s just nice to know that someone cares you did exit the womb on this day.

Update: It’s been pointed out to me that this post could be perceived as inaccurate and unfair, and that it makes out that many women have easy pregnancies when this is in fact not the case at all. It’s difficult for me to say any more, without having a comprehensive understanding of it all. What I will say is that this post is based purely on my own limited experiences and I am in no way suggesting that these are the same as everyone elses.

This photo of a lonely leaf is testament to how brutal the war against leaves has become. I typed Leaf covered path into Google and couldn't find one suitable photo. There were many of half-covered paths, but none that portrayed the rare sight I'd seen this morning. Unless I imagined it, which right now is looking more likely.

Rejoice, for Autumn is here once again! A majestic time…a time of golden leaves tumbling in the wind, a time of magic, prosperity, and simple pleasures like walking over rustling leaves (and if you’re really daring, taking a proper run-up and kicking a carefully collected pile of said leaves all over the place just for the sheer hell of it – something which has to be timed properly if you live in a village like me, less a nosy old lady sees you and starts a rumour that there is a 30 year-old bearded hooligan on the prowl…).

Actually don’t rejoice. And don’t even ponder walking over rustling leaves, even less kicking them in a moment of childish pleasure. How can you when everywhere you go, the unfair victimization of leaves is taking place and there are no leaves to be found in any great number, like back in the good old days? At one time, for a period of many hundreds of thousands of years, leaves were allowed to fall wherever nature intended, bringing happiness and colour to the lives of people all over the place. But not so now — at least, apart from a few isolated and untouched path-ways, like the one I trod this morning on the way back from the Post Office. Now, leaves are seen by many bone-headed spoilsports as a natural enemy: a menacing force of nature that must be kept in check through whatever means are necessary.

And please don’t give me any of the following excuses for why leaves need to be kept in check, because they won’t wash with me or any of my pro-leaf posse.

1) Leaves become slippery when wet, causing a health & safety hazard to people with dodgy legs or dodgy eyes, or even people who don’t always look where they are going: ancient hepatitis-carrying 2 pence pieces are also very much a health & safety hazard, don’t you think? It goes without saying you can’t easily trip up on them, of course – unless you happen to be wading across an oil spill where a lorry transporting tons of lethal pennies has recently crashed – but hepatitis, which causes swelling and inflammation of the Liver, is still awful, just look at Mick Hucknall’s face, where his Liver is located. Actually I just made that up. There’s nothing medically wrong with Mick Hucknall’s face, and as far as I know it his Liver is ginger but fine. Aside from that, people with dodgy legs and dodgy eyes should avoid leaves or face the consequences. Or at the very least tell the people they are with to steer them away from them. As for people who don’t look where they are going, if I was a meaner person I might say something here about hepatitis and who deserves to get it, but I won’t, because I’m nicer than that.

2) I own a business and every single Autumn, the leaves fall on the pavement outside it and make it troublesome for customers to make it to the front door without falling over and breaking a leg or an arm and suing us: grow up! How old are you, five? Actually forget I said that — I know five-year-olds who would kick you in the shins if you even suggested that you were like them. The point, if you still need telling, is that the leaves were there long before you. Just go and find a premise’s where there are no trees around for miles, will you? It’s a good job trees don’t get the hump with people and say “I tell you what, we’re sick of all our leaves being stolen, we’re not going to be the lungs of the planet anymore!”

3) Leaves make driving difficult: so does the rising price of oil, suicidal squirrels and the Great British phenomenon of suspension-killing pot-holes.

4) Only dull-coloured leaves fall where I live. If they were a brighter and more Autumnal colour like in the movies I might smile and feel happy when Autumn arrives. I might never have become the leaf-averted person I am to this day. Things would have been different, I’m sure of it: I suggest you take this up with the people responsible for planting trees in your area many generations ago. Except they will be long dead, so you’re better off writing a letter to their descendants, who will no doubt be so used to receiving such letters that they already have a letter ready to send back to you. Failing that, a psychologist might come in handy. Or just a lot of LSD.

And now we’re on the subject of people who have an aversion to leaves and feel the need to blast them away with those ridiculous blowing-machine-things – or even worse, those who hire small armies of organized, like-minded buffoons who callously spend their days staring at the ground like it might at any moment rise up and spit on them – another thing has occurred to me: the name leaves, as in leaves us alone, or leaf me be! You’d have thought, really, that with this word and these messages now being embedded in the consciousness of society, the last thing anybody would want to do is remove our amazing autumnal gift.

For me, and maybe it is just me, if you take leaves away that’s like pretending that Autumn doesn’t really exist. Why not just stick with picking on Winter instead? We all know that’s the real culprit.

Ray Mears wearing a suit with bow-tie: a situation infinitely less probable than Ann Widdecombe being photographed displaying a sexy smile

Imagine you are flying through the air; it’s something you do more or less constantly, but despite that it never gets boring. You’re a small bird with big dreams, and today you might well be feeling ‘blissful’. The tragic fact about how you feel, of course, is that you don’t really know how you feel, because your brain is much too small to afford you the luxury of such knowledge. What a shame. But what does that matter when you’re flying through the—

Something stops you and pain rushes through your wings, your beak, those small things you use to grip onto twigs with. You sqwuark, and you try and escape but it’s hopeless, and the more you wriggle the more trapped you feel. Somehow the air has become a kind of trap, and now you’ve really done it…you’ve wriggled so much that your head has got strangled and there is pressure all around it! Your wings aren’t doing much better either. Basically you’re a mess! Your poor little feet are stuck and mangled with a kind of black stuff, too. If birds knew swear words, right now you’d be saying “I’m fucked! I’m done for!” Instead, you are just struck with the frustration of being still when you could be hurtling through the air. That in itself is more than a bit of a bummer.

This was the horrific scenario thrust upon me when I turned over to ITV yesterday and found myself watching Wild Britain with the infamous outdoors-man known as Ray Mears. “The netting is designed to hold the bird firmly in place and doesn’t harm them at all,” said the remarkably un-feminine looking woman who was the warden of this nature reserve where all these horrendous traps were placed. “Sort of like a hammock, then,” said Ray, actually believing this utter nonsense. Yes Ray, if a nice relaxing afternoon in a hammock is spent after being fired from a cannon into it, where for hours afterwards you are forced to spend your time wriggling and writhing, convinced that as this feels pretty awful, probably only much worse things are to come…(the only good thing about being completely ignorant about your fate, of course, is that you don’t know how bad it might get).

But enough about the allegedly painless bird traps which Ray and nature reserve wardens all over the UK thoroughly endorse – people do much worse things I suppose, and just one of John Barrowman’s 360 degree spins on Tonight The Night is much more sinister. Really, I’m just jealous, very jealous, of Ray’s highly developed ability to enjoy the simple things in life. So will you be by the end of this blog post.

For example, another part of the programme featured Ray wandering through English rivers. How much was he loving this? Words cannot describe, but for the sake of cutting this short right here, right now, what the hell, I’m going to try. Probably the best way to demonstrate just how much pleasure Ray got from marauding through the river – in his tall wellies, quietly destroying thousands of years worth of marine life while paradoxically explaining how the rivers were under threat from the terrible world we live in – is to say how he went about creeping up on fish for the sake of pure enjoyment. That’s right, creeping up on fish. Why would anyone creep up on a fish, I hear you cry? Well, apparently fish are very good at keeping a look out through the clear water, just in case a predator approaches. When that predator is a six-foot-tall, slightly overweight nature enthusiast, I’m fairly sure that even the dimmest brown trout can detect that, so what Ray does is get down on his front and wriggle his way to the water’s edge. Following that he lies there smiling like a goon for a very, very long time — probably while his wife sobs at home, wondering if she will ever be made love to with the same kind of passion that her husband shows for limpets and toads.

Let's not even go there, OK?

And that’s what I mean by jealous: most people need to spend money to enjoy themselves, or at least spend time in the company of like-minded, alcohol swilling humans. But not Ray — alcohol can go to hell as far as Ray is concerned! Give him a small river, some wellies and the potential lure of some cherished memories and that’s enough for him.

Thinking about Ray Mears, and how long he’s been doing his thing on TV, how old is Ray, actually? Seriously, I only ever seem to see him on all the second-rate channels, where he looks about 35 — and has done for the last ten years — so I suppose it’s fair to assume he could be in his 60s by now and instead spends his time drinking the nights away in some fish-themed Las Vegas strip bar. What a terrible thought. Think I’d much rather imagine him smiling like a goon by the river bank instead.

Well I hope she's proud of herself

I started jogging when I lived in Cologne, Germany. I don’t know the exact date, but I know it was sometime after my first major illness in 2006 – so probably mid 2007 or thereabouts; amongst all the visits to the doctors and the clinics were a few months when I somehow got strength from somewhere and decided to try and use it. Once I thought I could handle it I’d jog once a week just lightly, barely more than a walk. A kind of celebration, I suppose. I had never jogged or run before this point – as is preferable when the wounds of youth still rear their ugly heads frequently, telling you that if you do everyone will laugh at you, just like in P.E. at school – so I was anxious and actually quite scared about the idea of me running around a park when anyone else was in the same park, even if it was a really big park (we are all born with the innate ability to zone-in on a jogger who looks a bit weird, aren’t we?). Somehow though I managed to get through the trauma of starting — as with anything, with jogging, the hardest bit is the strangeness of actually getting off your arse and making it happen.

Although I don’t jog anymore, and most of the harsh memories of learning how to not be flat-footed have vanished – now there’s something I never thought I’d ever believe at the age of 14! – what I can say is this: jogging on its own can get pretty boring, however good it eventually feels (much stress on the word eventually). The concept is flawed from the outset and that’s all there is to it: 1) do it alone (you have to do it alone at first, as the shame of feeling deeply flawed at jogging outweighs any desire to do so with other people, even if they are equally as laughable as you). 2) run in a straight line. Has running in a straight line ever been interesting? Probably only if you’re Usain Bolt or a Greyhound knowing the second that it stops it will receive some of its favourite treats. 3) Do it in places where other people – thin and fat and with absolutely no right to cast any form of opinion – are and keep doing it until you don’t feel like an idiot. Not exactly a tempting offer. 4) pretend you are enjoying it. Nobody likes a grumpy jogger, and if you are going to get laughed or looked at, the least you can do is try and give the onlookers a taste of their own gloating medicine. 5) buy expensive shoes which hurt so much that you seriously wonder, just on the first attempt, if you will ever wear them again. You can’t wear them to do anything else either, unless you have a bedroom-related fetish involving Paula Radcliffe, a starting line and doing a poo where you’re not supposed to 6) run on pavement. All reputable joggers are made of the same stern stuff: they’d much rather suffer with crippling arthritis later on as a result of relentlessly battering their knees than run on grass or something soft. Goes without saying!

All this and jogging involves going outside, where, in the UK, it often pisses it down the moment you think Strange it’s not raining toda—

Then there is the pressure from other people. Both to stop and to carry on. I don’t know what’s worse. Is it worse to be surrounded by organic-orange-juice-drinking health fanatics at the pub who can’t shut up about the joys of jogging and how bad smoking is for pets as well as people? Or is it worse to sit amongst jogger-haters who have spent their whole lives forming a dread-ridden argument against anyone without shin-splints, in the hope that one day their depressing attitude will spread so widely that any kind of jogging or running might one day be banned? If Harry Hill was here he’d say “Fight!” and it would be a sight to behold, I’m sure. Yes, the joggers would be fitter and stronger, but don’t forget they’d also be much lighter. I imagine a beer-swilling, lycra-hating, mid-twenties pub-dwelling yob could easily go through a few of them just by swinging one arm.

But it isn’t all bad news with jogging! The thing jogging has on its side is Mp3 players and music. Just imagine, if we’d never had shell-suits and the 1980s, we would never have evolved to making Mp3 players either — a disturbing though for anyone who has ever got on a bus. Give that consideration the next time someone talks about hunting down Mick Hucknall and his family.

An ideal candidate for a future remake of Child's Play?

If you saw my brother and I standing together, you’d think that my brother might be like me, that he’d at least give jogging a go. But no. Despite looking like a parallel universe version of myself – similar beard, similar nose, very different hair but you can’t win them all, right? – he hates jogging with a passion. Which I wouldn’t mind…were it not for the fact that the git’s build is suited perfectly to any kind of running. Honestly, it’s a joke, and that’s one of the things which winds me up about some people the most. Maff can run for about 5 miles without hardly breaking a sweat, yet he chooses not to, because he finds it too dull to bear…

And let’s not even get started on those super-mums who can jog while also taking care of another life that sits there quietly perfect and not a bit of trouble.

Of course, before Mp3 players came about there were ways to make jogging more endurable. In the Mayan-themed 2006 film Apocalypto, director and general much-hated person Mel Gibson demonstrates with some degree of finesse just how interesting and exciting jogging/running can be if you really set your mind to it. Forced to run in sheer terror across a path of barren land where prisoners go to die horrible nasty deaths, the two main characters we’ve been following since the beginning of the film are shot at with bow and arrows by master marksmen who could do with a bit of fun to liven up their day; the name of the game being to cut the men down before they reach the crops on the other side, thus giving all the other evil Mayans something to talk about that night while they eat their raw goat colons and other such delicacies. By all accounts this shoot-the-runners thing is a fun and challenging game…when you’re the one doing the shooting. But what the two characters miss out on in fun, they more than make up for in exercise, and half way across the war-zone one of them decides to start running zig-zag to try and fool the marksmen, who, up until that point didn’t even know that anything other than straight lines existed (this is obvious from the looks on their faces). Not that exercise is much good when a razor-sharp arrow is about to go skewer one of your major organs – as proven by the several people who went before you who are still lying haphazardly about – but still, the game does at least give the mind the illusion that the body is getting fitter, and that’s got to count for something, right?

No, this isn’t a blog post about the woman’s long and tiresome battle with stubborn tarantula-like pubic hairs. Nor is it an Anne-Robinson-style expose on the shocking lives of lice which live in the nether regions. I should probably delete that sentence but I’m feeling daring, so I’m going to leave it in. Also, if the first paragraph of this blog post can help motivate just one sufferer of pubic lice to go and do something about it, then it was worth writing (not that I have any experience with that…it was a friend…OK, going to shut up now).

What this is, actually, is a blog post about something far less menacing but equally serious: the two greatest Australian soaps of all-time – Neighbours and Home & Away. A debate which I remember raging through our house-hold during all of the 1990s…which one is better? How do you even begin to decide?

There was no doubt about it, though, in the beginning Neighbours was always slightly ahead. I’m not sure if it was thanks to Mrs Mangle’s ruthless streak, Charlene’s frizzy hair or Paul Robinson’s ability to make an evil conclusion out of even the most innocent episode, but it just always had a little extra something. That was, until Home & Away attacked with a vengeance. And once that had happened Neighbours and Home & Away fans all over the world were locked in intense rivalry over what to watch between the hours of 5 and 6pm…

Originally I was going to write an essay about this subject – it was the only way I could see myself getting anywhere near the bottom of this: the truth. But then a better idea occurred to me, and the following match-off was born.

For the sake of consistency and fairness, I have made comparisons between cast members of roughly the same age and constitution. Otherwise it’d be ridiculously unfair, like pitching Mrs Mangle’s earthquake-shaken, testicularly-wrinkled face against the blissful, youthful exuberance of some large-chested Home & Away filly like Marilyn (And by the way, there will be no breast-only face-offs or ‘her bum’s better than her bum!’ talking here. I wouldn’t abuse my favourite characters in that way. Instead it will be an intellectually fuelled combination of the two, with as much info as I can remember).

Alf: moments away from going off

Harold Bishop (N) versus Adolf Hitler, sorry, Alf Stewart (H&A):

Believe it or not but it’s a known fact that there is a dark cult of people – shadow movers, those who do not speaketh in daylight – who are secretly plotting to somehow resurrect the power of soap main-stays Alf Stewart and Harold Bishop, and have them fight it to the death. Role-play geeks like the ones that hang out in Games Workshop and are obsessed with computer games, you know the sort, there’s probably one within ten feet of your house. And I have to agree, it’s awful that these two never got to cross paths in soap-land, like the bad guys so often do in horror movies (Jason Versus Freddy, etc). What would Harold have made of Alf Stewart’s incessant chant of “Stone the flamin’ crows!”? What would Alf Stewart have made of Harold resurfacing in the soap years later with several hot babes in tow? Probably he’d have said Stone the flamin’ crows! but you get the idea. The point is that both Harold and Alf inhabited roles which nobody else could have. Nobody could have been called Jelly Belly in the same way as Harold Bishop. And nobody, not nobody, could have thrown youngsters out of the Surf Club with the kind of forceful rugged excellence that always-angry Alf possessed. One of the longest serving soap stars ever, Alf – played by Ray Meagher – went ape-shit at least once an episode, and the best times were undoubtedly when he didn’t. If there was a run of two or three episodes before he went berserk, you knew it would be good, leading to a shocking climax, but if you were lucky enough to go five or six or seven episodes without one, well, then you really knew things were about to go off. When they did, it was usually in the Surf Club or about the Surf Club, and it was always a moment to behold – something you could cherish forever. No wonder Ailsa had so many problems…imagine waking up to Alf’s angry face every morning!

Winner: Alf Stewart.

Steph Scully (N) versus Sally Fletcher (H&A):

Battle of the babes! Hmm…Steph Scully was a hard one to work out all right, and kept viewers guessing right from the very beginning in 1999 until her unforgivable departure in 2010. Conforming to many of the popular She just has to be a masssssssive lesbian! stereotypes — was a mechanic, a tomboy, and drove a motorcyle — Steff had all the boys hot under the swimming shorts, while also simultaneously getting all the girls to hate her – a sure-fire sign that they all secretly loved her after all. And Steph was pretty, wasn’t she? Not that she could compete with Home & Away’s Sally Fletcher in the looks department. Or that may just be my eyes. After all, Kate Richie’s breasts are renowned worldwide for being so large that looking at them too much causes the lens of your eyes to warp and buckle. It’s a miracle any Home & Away viewer can still see. Think yourself lucky that I have had the good gentlemanly taste to not include them here.

Going back to Steph, one thing any fan will know is that Steph had all the bad luck. A grand-scale of bad luck. Seriously, you’ve never seen or heard anything like it. In fact, Steph Scully was to relationships what a kick in the bollocks is to any man alive – usually with the kicking foot wearing the sharpest pointy shoes imaginable.

To say that Steph purely had bad luck is not doing her frequent mishaps – or fantastically debauched script-writing – justice. The kind of ultimate crash-test dummy for sick TV producers to experiment their darkest most disturbing fantasises on, Steph was subjected to everything bad about the world – and that was before making the ominous mistake of marrying vile nut-job Max Hoyland. In her time, Steph bravely battled breast cancer, was the victim of multiple cheating bastard partners, and managed to cheat on a few people herself. All this and she got pregnant. Not that pregnancy is a bad thing of course, it’s wonderful, but making Steph Scully pregnant was bound to end in disaster at some point. The only surprise was that Freddy Krueger himself wasn’t the father.

No stranger to the mistress of debacle herself, Sally Fletcher saw her fair share of misfortune – growing up from the age of eight on the show, into a woman who would become more known for her sex-tapes than her acting.

Winner: Steph Scully.

Susan Kennedy (N) versus Irene Roberts (H&A):

Ah…now we’re really talking. These two female heavy-weights were – and are – nothing if not staples of the soap. Blessed with morals, dignity, and enough female pride to make a man seriously question what the point in ever arguing against a woman might be, Susan Kennedy – wife of doctor Karl – has long been known as the street’s golden girl and put-righter of all things uneven…shortly before things spiral wildly out of control, thanks to her meddling. Played by real life Jackie Woodburne, her soap CV is handed out to people at counselling sessions, who are then instructed to do exactly the opposite of everything she ever does – a process which is bound to lead to eternal happiness. See, sadly for Susan, she couldn’t seem to take one step forward or even blink without bringing political, family or just good-old general chaos tumbling down all around her. In 2009 a shocking storyline saw Susan boldly offer to be a surrogate mother for her daughter Libby, while earlier story-lines had her suffer from every ailment under the sun, have multiple flings with many men – including a priest, which rocked the boat a bit – and split from her husband Karl so many times that any future partner would vomit at the thought of getting together with her, for fear that the smallest decisions would cause a seismic rift to tear all the way through Lou’s Coffee Shop.

And what she lacked in misfortune – which was unsurprisingly little – Home & Away’s Irene Roberts made up for with terrible mentoring skills and an aggravating ability to say “Luv” about fourteen times a minute. Seriously, it was as if someone could see the future, could see exactly how to mess it up, and gave Irene the privilege of doing so to every single person in the whole of Summer Bay. Time after time, people went like lambs to the slaughter to Irene for “good advice”. At the beginning it was great – the advice worked a treat, a lot like when Susan Kennedy got on her high horse of moral riches. But before long grim circumstances would surround the person, before they would either be killed, horribly maimed or forced to leave Australia.

Winner: it has to be Irene Roberts.

Drew, as played by Dan Paris: the team behind Neighbours out to be ashamed of themselves, and I blame them for this pathetically small and insignificant photo. Only a few online photos exist of this clumsy legend!

Drew (N…Libby’s husband…can’t remember his second name and in the interests of being completely inconsistent I am not going to Google it) versus any of the flaccid hunks that Home & Away could possibly ever produce.

This post might seem a bit biased towards Neighbours, but take a look through the history books yourself and you will see for yourself that flaccid is the only way to describe any of the Home & Away genetically modified hunks. Yes they are muscle-bound and blonde and good-looking, but charisma and charm? Not something found in the waters of Summer Bay. The husband of Libby, Drew was a star and a much-loved character on the show until he made the mistake of falling off his horse and dying an instant soap-ruining death (if anyone could fall off a horse with lethal accuracy, though, it was Drew. No doubt about it).

While Drew – ah, Kirk was his name – wasn’t around for too long before his sudden demise, he left a lasting gap in the hunk market that I doubt has been filled since. His funeral will always be remember for being the shortest funeral ever conceived, and Libby will always remain the most loyal soap star. At least, until she started having sex with everyone else on the street (but not before she sang at Drew’s funeral, probably making everyone slightly suspicious as she had never ever sung before…hmm…).

Winner: Drew Kirk.

A photo crying out for a bit of obscene photoshopping if ever there was one. Paul Robinson, doing his best to double as an alien from Mars Attacks. I'm not going to post a picture of flaccid hunks here. mainly because you should never type 'flaccid' into a search engine...

Paul Robinson (N) versus…anything Home & Away could chuck at them:

See what I did there? Yep. I couldn’t think of one person who has ever appeared in Home & Away who was even on the same planet of dastardly maliciousness as Paul Robinson – the twisted financially-minded megalomaniac who has made the demon smile his calling card. Never one to miss an opportunity to accidentally-on-purpose push someone down a flight of stairs, or by chance wander past a cauldron of burning hot oil while a small puppy walks unknowingly beneath, for the endless time that Paul – played by Stefan Dennis – has been in Neighbours, ever since the beginning, he has been pure soft-core evil at its very best. Among his list of terrible deeds are the aforementioned opportunistic murders – OK, we never saw the puppy incident but I’m sure the producers at least considered it – as well as numerous scams and plenty of absurd bouts of bad luck, followed by a bouncing back that Alan Partridge couldn’t even begin to fathom. My theory is that the makers of Home & Away simply didn’t know where the hell to begin with constructing a monster of equal measure, and who can blame them? So instead they made a valiant attempt to mask their ineptitude by having as many as a dozen bikini-clad babes in the surf club in any one shot. And by all accounts, it worked.

Winner: a dozen bikini-clad babes in the Surf Club in any one shot. That versus Paul Robinson’s face really is no competition.

Mrs M: destroyer of good moods

Helen Daniels (N) versus Mrs Mangle (N):

The battle to end all battles…the legends of all legends. In soap-land, it’s a well-known fact that the mere mention of Helen Daniels and Mrs Mangle still makes countless children and adults alike instantly wet the bed. Both carved out of wood and hell-bent on taking complete control of the world in their own unique ways (Helen by pure niceness, Mrs Mangle by her very nature).

Of course, this comparison is completely unfair on Home & Away, seeing as both members featured in Neighbours. I don’t care about this. So be it if fans of Home & Away come after me.

While doing a quick Google search for this one – I know that’s unfair too, but I really wanted to find out if Mrs Mangle was born with a real name like other human beings – I ran into a number of difficulties. Firstly, the internet suddenly stopped working, and secondly, Google point-blank refused to search for Mrs Mangle’s full name. It was then, only by chance and while sweating with a feeling of doom descending all around me, that I discovered the truth was far less sinister. Rather than the ghost of Mrs Mangle looking over anyone who dared speak or type her name, like some Bloody Mary kind of character, I found she was actually called Mrs Nell Mangel. Although I still insist that just then as I typed her name again the lights flickered…as if to warn…

Superstition aside, Vivean Gray was the actress charged with commanding this villainous and highly iconic role – a role which saw her frequently threaten and harass Madge Bishop in that loveable way that family’s found really enthralling while eating their dinner.

Going back to Helen for a second, don’t think that just because she was mostly nice she was always nice. That is simply not true, and demonstrated by her slew of epic mistakes – the blue-print that Susan Kennedy lived by, perhaps. The best of these hideous foul-ups was a rampant sex-romp with her daughter’s fiancé – quite a feat considering her nun-like nature that was the complete and utter opposite visual manifestation of the words sex appeal.

Winner: Mrs Mangel.

Wear them with pride and be a maverick trailblazer! Source: Wild Wild Western Wear

A few key facts:

1) in my daily life, I have absolutely no need for cowboy boots of any description – especially the quality-stitched, calf-length Mexican leather beauties that I recently ordered from UK cowboy boot specialist Wild Wild Western Wear. I’m a freelance writer, so technically I could probably go a few days without even using shoes, or even needing to use my feet (I frequently spend afternoons sliding about my home office on my small-wheeled chair of frictionless excellence, oh yes). Slippers would probably do me, to be honest if and when I was forced to enter the outside world (for example, I could customise them if need be, and make them a bit more industrial for the odd outdoor expedition). And everyone knows that slippers are the comfiest things around.

2) Adding to the irony, I am scared of horses and not too fond of cows either – slightly less than I am terrified of spiders, but it’s still a very real fear which haunts me every time I walk round the village and pass the field with the two sinister-looking behemoths which are always, always staring at me. Not all horses and cows, though (I don’t want you to get the wrong idea: it’s not like I’m one of these irrational people who harbours a complete distrust of all horses and cows, no matter what kind of look they have in their eyes) but some, and in particular ones who stare just like those children from the Christopher Reeve film Village of the Damned. Personally, I feel that’s a natural fear. Horses and cows are far bigger and more powerful than me, than any human, and I once saw a day-time TV show where a horse kicked a woman and its hoof sliced straight through her leg and almost cut it in two. This is why I especially fear the sporadic wrath of horses. It’s not their demeanour that worries me or even the way they look – I’ve stroked two or three in my time, hand shaking…never again – it’s just the way you never know what in the world they are thinking. And they have a LOT of time to think out there in their fields…some might say too much…Also, now I think about it in-depth, they adore carrots and I absolutely bloody hate them. I’ve never been able to trust people or things which are able to eat a raw carrot, and I doubt that’ll ever change.

3) By now, with all this talk of unconventional things – if you’re reading this anywhere but Texas or South America, at least – you have formed a strong positive or negative opinion about me. Either you’re a bit of a maverick, and you’re coming around to the idea of cowboy boots for the sake of it — congratulations! — or the unease you felt at the start of this post has now manifested into something borderline underlying hostile and you’re laughing at the thought of me slipping those puppies on and clonking my way down the street. Either way, I don’t blame you. As much as I love my new Justin cowboy boots and think that anyone who doesn’t like them is foolish and sad and not worthy of this world, I can see how you’ve come to that conclusion.

And let me tell you: actually doing it — committing and buying the boots — didn’t happen overnight. It took me months to come to my decision. Months, and a great deal of pondering…

It started out as a bit of a joke. I told my brother Matthew — we call him Maff — I liked the idea of cowboy boots, and he didn’t take me seriously. I don’t particularly blame him for this. I often make sweeping statements, and am not immune to making bold claims about what I would and would not like to do (not because I am arrogant, I don’t think, but because things tend to come into my mind and he’s often at the receiving end as they work their way out). Except this time it was different: over the next few weeks the idea of the cowboy boots returned again and again…and I started to wonder: should I actually just do it? Buy some of those ones like what you see in the old black and white and colour films which really would have been better off staying black and white, as the colour was so crap? So I started looking. My first quest saw me head into Cambridge town to peruse the shops in the city centre. In at the deep end…

But the city centre was utterly hopeless. A total let-down. While Cambridge can hardly be considered the most cutting-edge of shopping districts, all the shops were the typical UK fashion-conscious kind that moved with the times, bringing in the latest trend as soon as it was hot and then dropping it the second the new season started. No offense to the people who shop in them either, but the price range of most of their shoes was too cheap to include quality leather cowboy boots. So it was a sad affair, that day — that day which should have been exciting and full of anticipation. Without even walking into more than two of these shops — mainly I just stood outside feeling full of woe at the sight of the dreaded futuristic male Ugg boot — I knew pursuing cowboy boots in real life would be a futile task. OK, so all hope was not lost, some shops did sell boots that, if you had really bad eye-sight and absolutely no nerves in your hands, could sort of look like they were a similar style. But none of the boots I saw had the look and feel (or what I imagined to be feel…I hadn’t yet actually seen or felt cowboy boots in real life) of the boots I had seen in pictures. And it was with that that I returned home, to continue my mission by way of everything online…

Arriving home, my hopes for finding cowboy boots online were not high, and in many ways I didn’t like the thought of buying boots I couldn’t see and try on first. Call me old-school, but I’ve always believed in the try-before-you-buy concept. But once I’d started, I was away and completely consumed with the search for greatness. Soon, I had stumbled across a site called Wild Wild Western Wear, and was excitedly clicking on the Men’s cowboy boots section with a growing feeling of having found my calling after all.

Where great cowboy boots come from!

My God it felt good!

My God, it felt amazing…

Down to business. My first obstacle was colour: black and shiny or brown and more traditional? Stitching or no stitching? Traditional or modern? Numerous styles were on offer, from just £70 to a more serious £200 — there were ankle boots, full-length boots, and boots with outrageous designs all up the side, straight out of the wild wild west! Except this turned out to be the least of my worries, compared to my next lesson in frustration: working out what flippin’ size I needed…

This was turning out to be more dastardly than I thought…

I won’t bore you with the details, as chances are you’ll be right there with me on this one. All I need to say is that I have a pair of trainers that are size 12 and fit me snugly, a pair of shoes that are size 10 and are a bit loose, and another pair of shoes which feel like flippers and are a size 11. Obviously there could be various explanations for this anomaly. The first could be that the shoe manufacturers all have their own irritating take on sizes — loving nothing more than to sit back and watch the world of shoes shuffle about in a big chaotic, painful mess, much like the way aliens are said to experiment on the anus’s of some unfortunate backwoods people — and the second could be that my feet are just plain freakish, changing shape from one day and hour to the next. My only choice to move beyond this point, therefore, was to take a serious gamble with my cowboy boot future. To order some on a whim and hope they fitted me right (although the gamble was slightly reduced by the site’s conversion chart, which helped you work out the correlation between US and UK sizes).

Which is exactly what I did. Then, using the website’s online order-form, I made my purchase of size 11 Justin Boot 1560′s — “Chesnut Marbled Deerlite leather upper with medium rounded toe”, no less — and hoped for the best. Then I waited for a few days, wondering if I had just wasted £175 — plus postage and packaging. But still, what a way to waste it if I had, right?

They arrived a few days later, as promised by an email. And they didn’t fit. They did not FIT! After the excitement of unwrapping the spectacularly made boots and taking out the flush cardboard inserts, I slipped my feet in to discover that they were a size too big…it was no good, it was just no sodding good! A cowboy couldn’t wander about with too big boots, otherwise they’d become “sloppy”. I had done my research and didn’t want to end up as one of those laughed-out-of-town cowboy’s with the sad sloppy boots (sloppy means loose fitting, if you didn’t know). My quest had taken a detour and it wasn’t over yet.

I won’t lie to you, sending them back hurt me. Financially, I mean — as well as the emotional turmoil of having to box them up again when they should have been on my feet. Thanks to them needing to be signed for at the other end, and the customary insurance in case a gang of cowboy boot thieves descended, it cost £13 to get them off my hands and safely back to the company. Still, it was one step closer to my ultimate goal, and it had to be done. Bye bye, baby.

Five days later, and after corresponding with the ever-helpful staff at Wild Wild Western Wear, it happened, and once again the dream was alive and well: a package arrived, again, and this time it was guaranteed success all round, yeeeeee-ha! Instead of being easily able to slide the boots on, much like a too-big pair of wellies, a slight push was needed to get my feet in, and the fit was more or less perfect. I was a very happy man. Wild Wild Western Wear had done me proud.

And now I shall give you my top list of Things I have learned from my first few days in cowboy boots:

1) Don’t buy cowboy boots and expect to be able to turn corners straight away, because you won’t be able to. Cowboy boots take a bit of wearing in, and while in this somewhat precarious straight-line-only phase you may wish to walk about holding someone’s hand — unless you live in New York or the desert of Milton Keynes, where corners don’t exist.

2) Walking in heels is very strange, it turns your world upside down for a brief moment in time — at least it was like that for me: with a one-inch heel, it’s hardly like wearing a pair of stilettos, but still, it’s enough of a change that it’ll take some getting used to.

3) If you’re worried about getting mugged, you don’t need to anymore: because if you happen to get mugged while cowboy boots are on your feet, you can be sure that putting those boots into (or up) the intruder — particularly where the Sun don’t shine — will make for a swift get-away and howls of pain like you have never heard. Not all cowboy boots are pointed, but many are pointed enough that crowds will feel compelled to part as you make your way across ground.

4) Cowboy boots make a satisfying clinking-clunking sound. There’s nothing quite like it, and it’s a lot more stylish to walk in cowboy boots than strap bricks to the back of your shoes, trust me.

5) You’re going to get blisters while that leather breaks in. No wonder John Wayne walked a bit bow-legged…

6) You will be mocked, and lauded, in equal measure, but take no notice. Just like Mummy used to say when you were 10, “they are just jealous”.

7) You should feel free to wear cowboy boots on the outside of your jeans if you so wish — why not show off the incredible stitching? — but bear in mind that traditionally, men cowboys wear their jeans over the top. Not to mention wearing your jeans tucked in will make whole groups of strangers yelp with amusement. Not that you should care: after all, you look cooler than they do, that much is certain!

Wild Wild Western Wear are open on Thursday’s and Friday’s between 10am and 5pm. Saturday opening is 9am to 5pm.

They can be contacted on 01252 545521.

Note: the fact my cowboy boots were the wrong size to begin with was my fault and not Wild Wild Western Wear’s! Or it was the fault of the global shoe conspiracy I mentioned before. Either way the staff at the company are very helpful and should be able to help you out if you give them a ring before you order your first pair — which is what I didn’t do…

AND…if you enjoyed this, you’ll probably enjoy my debut novel. The Number 3 Mystery Book has received great feedback so far and is available on paperback (from me direct through the official web-site) and from Amazon UK and Amazon US as a digital copy for Kindle, ipad and all them other devices.

Optimism at its finest

This is definitely one of those articles where the writer in question — me — has something to get off his chest; something potentially big and angry — the text equivalent of that evil Vigo the Carpathian demon in the oil painting from Ghostbusters. And that’s why I need to be careful. Because although I’ve experienced the negative side of Gumtree on more than one occasion — the side which honestly makes you wish the Internet and Nigeria had never been invented — I’ve also made valuable connections and had a fair bit of luck using the site; I’ve got writing gigs through it which I’d never have acquired any other way, and some of them have led to long-term regular gigs which, wait for it, actually turned into MONEY. The problem is, it’s impossible to predict the outcome of using Gumtree, especially when it comes to looking for a job. Not only are you competing with hundreds — or thousands — of desperate others, but Gumtree possesses no vetting protocol that I am aware of. Such is the case that when you reply to an ad you could be replying to someone with the best of intentions who’d love to give you a chance, or you could be writing into a void, a trap, or just a cleverly worded scam designed to waste your time and steal your money. Great!

Gumtree’s main problem, it seems to me, is something they can control: their image. Unlike the more official job sites, which are frequented almost entirely by straight-down-the-line, bona-fide marketing and PR companies seeking a reputable work-force, Gumtree — much like its stylistically-challenged and infinitely more dodgy cousin Craig’s List — offers a space for those with quirky or slightly different jobs to reach out into the World. With its fun and user-friendly identity, there’s no denying that Gumtree can be a great way to find a potential employer, and vice versa. If only there was some way to avoid wasting hours of your time…

It’s happened to me about fifty times: I find what looks like an interesting job offer — spelt properly, and seemingly written by someone who realises the importance of taking longer than two minutes writing their ad — spend half an hour or so tailoring my cover letter accordingly, and then spell-check it to make sure everything’s perfect and there’s no reason for me to be rejected at the first hurdle. Then I do what I always do, and what I really should have learnt to avoid by now: I traipse through my computer files, trying to locate the appropriate version of Writer’s CV.

Then I hit send and wait. In the early days, before the ludicrous replies directing me to send funds to the ancestors of the lost city of Atlantis — they presumably still need a lot of help pumping the place dry — and before the requests for me to work for 4 hours for nothing, with the promise that I would be ‘significantly high rewared’ I was full of optimism and hope. I was sure a reply was on its way, or at the very least my reply would actually be read. These days I’m not so sure if they even go anywhere. Writing a Gumtree reply is now in the same box, for me, as finding £500 on the street or my National Insurance Payment invoice getting lost in the post. Fat chance of that.

Call me stupid, call me silly, but even with it all the way it is, I’m going to keep on traipsing through the job boards anyway. The most important thing is to never expect anything to come of it. After all, it’s usually with that kind of positive-negative attitude in mind that Gumtree surprises me and gives something back.

Two of the kindest Hippos you could ever hope to meet. Do some research and you'll find that's really saying something: next to human beings who don't know how to control their umbrellas and bankers, Hippos are officially the most dangerous animals in the world. More dangerous, even, than an army full of machine-gun wielding Meerkats. Imagine that!

Think about it: when was the last time a total stranger did something kind for you for absolutely no reason? For me, it’s happened maybe three or four times. Each remains in some way special, and none will be forgotten.

One of those times sticks in my memory just because of the agonising pain. I was riding the ramp in the next village from me – you may or may not know by now that I rode a BMX for about fifteen years – when I fell awkwardly, put my left arm out and separated my shoulder. And now, I think it’s necessary to explain what, exactly, the difference between a regular dislocated shoulder and a total separation is, because with the former it’s not so bad; at least most of the time. Usually occurring from a sudden impact, the arm vulnerable to harm due to the sudden stunning force transferring directly through the rigid limb, a dislocated shoulder can usually be put back in fairly quickly and is acutely painful only for as long as it remains out of place. A separated shoulder, on the other hand, although occurring in the same way, is ten times worse by comparison. First the bone is wrenched, very abruptly, far out of the socket – so far it sticks out from under your skin like a dull knife trying to break the surface – and then the arm and everything surrounding the bone swells up instantly, preventing the bone from going back in. All the while the pain is exacerbated horrendously with the barest of movements. After ten minutes in this condition, you’re going to hospital, straight into the so-called Pulling Room (named by the nurses) where you will meet your maker. And lots of Gas & Air.

It’s true that nurses really do have some of the best senses of humour going.

The second I’d fallen I knew straight away, without even looking at my arm, what I’d done. Knew because this was probably the sixth time I’d done this very familiar thing, and although I’d only ended up in A & E three of those times, each one was awful in its own unique way. But this time…this was the worst by a long shot. The last time I’d done this same thing, the doctor had looked at my arm and told me that if I did this again, I’d need surgery.

So the last thing on my mind, sitting there mangled up with my bike, was anyone helping me. In that state of mind, I always instantly hated the world and everything in it. It just didn’t occur to me to try and get anyone’s help. I didn’t really know what I was doing, and I didn’t particularly care. The pain was taking over, and I suppose I was resigned to just sitting there and swearing until I passed out and there was at last some relief.

What made it worse – if there was a worse at that point – was not being able to stand up. With my left arm completely disabled and only feeling more painful with every passing second, there was no way I’d be able to move on my own out of a sitting position. More than anything I just wanted to stand up and vent my anger somehow, but that was impossible.

The family had clearly been watching me for sometime. A woman in her late thirties and man of similar age, standing there to the side of the ramp with their boy in front of them, looking at me. I couldn’t hear them but I guessed from their body language that they were discussing very quietly what they ought to do next. Absurdly, what I wanted more than anything was to tell them to piss off and leave me alone. But my anger soon vanished when the woman approached, bending down and reaching out towards my bad arm.

“Don’t,” I said, and she didn’t. Instead, the husband stepped forward, eased my bike away from me, and asked me what I thought I had done. I told them, they called for an ambulance, and I think I remember it alarming them all much more than it did me.

The ambulance men arrived fairly swiftly, although at the time I remember it felt like it took absolutely forever. Their professionalism was both a curse and a blessing. A curse because it meant they dealt with getting me onto my feet a little too efficiently, elevating the pain, and a blessing because nobody with a shoulder that separated is going to want to move anywhere fast.

When it came time to think about what to do with my beloved bike — a bike which although didn’t work as well as many, owing to my complete inability to be good at bicycle maintenance — I was mortified to discover that it wasn’t allowed to come with me. Ambulance policy dictated that all personal possessions too big to fit in the vehicle were simply left behind. I was in the process of mentally envisioning exactly how I was going to kick up one hell of a fuss – one handed, no less – when the family stepped in, offering to get my bike back home and take full responsibility of it, even though they were without a car.

After I arrived home some hours later, my arm firmly back where it belonged and a faint memory of four people wrestling it back in with a bone-crunching click…like a jagged pebble being dragged across glass…the bike was there, in the passage-way beside our house, just like they’d said. There was no note, no way for me to thank them, and I never did get to express how grateful I was for what they did that day.