So I’m sitting in my car, just chilling on my way to work this morning. Stuck in my usual 45 minute traffic jam, I was listening to the fat idiot Chris Moyles on the radio, I had my hot air blower on to de-steam my windows, school kids were walking past shouting/screaming/being kids, cars were beeping their horns, a workie was drilling in the road, and I was rapidly becoming the opposite of “chilled”…I was becoming, not-chilled…

I felt like William ‘D-Fens’ Foster, in Falling Down, I groaned to myself as I was surrounded by wave after wave of obnoxious noise. This noise was horrible, painful, if it was a person it would be Jeremy Kyle, and if it was a car it would be a Humvee. The oppressive nature of this racket was swiftly becoming agonising. I must have looked like a man possessed as I childishly stuck my fingers in my ears, in a vain attempt at drowning out this cacophonous din.

Once the traffic got moving the sense of relief I felt at getting to work was unbelievable. The silence was truly golden. It’s got me thinking though, gone are the days when I used to listen to music screaming out my car at a ridiculous volume. I used to look at people glaring at me and think, ‘what’s their problem?’, as I’m getting older, I’m realising that this was dumb. Now I’m the old git looking at daft chavs with intolerable dance music blasting from their windows, believe me, there is NOTHING cool about a repetitive drum beat that shakes you to the core.

When it comes to noise, the most infuriating thing is the washing machine. I can’t describe the noise my machine makes. It’s like having a dentist drill attached to a wall of Marshall Amps screaming its way around your flat. When it hits the spin cycle, I have to leave the room. Watching the television becomes instantly pointless, as you have to turn that up to hear it, and when the washing machine stops – suddenly and without warning – you get your face practically blown off by the idiot box.

I need to invent an anti-hearing aid. I don’t want ear plugs, because they make everything sound tiny, and I want to hear some stuff normally. So I need something that will allow me to adjust the volume – down the way – so I can handle the insane noise created by the world. I’m sure there is something already available, and a short Google search might prove fruitful, but the tapping of my keys as I type this is driving me daft.

Do you ever watch TV programs for a series, get all excited about it then it goes off for its end of season break and when season two comes round you watch three episodes then wonder why you even bothered with the first one.

It happened to me most recently with Heroes. Now everyone is getting excited about the new series, but I’m not even going to give it the time of day. Yes, yes the cheerleader is great to look at, but I really can’t be bothered with the repetitive storylines and dull characters. I’ve seen X-Men, so another program about mutants does not do the trick for me.

The best example of a TV programme losing the plot (almost literally in this case) was the unfathomable: Lost. This program enthralled me for about eight episodes, but then I started to get lazy, missed an episode and lost the plot entirely. By the time the second series started, I’d lost interest completely, and that was that. As far as I know, I’m not alone with that one. I often hear people complain about its storyline being confusing. Confusing? No not really, Stupid? Yes - entirely.

I think today’s culture has a lot to blame for our disposability. I’m happy to take or leave a TV program. Perhaps it the sheer amount of choice is to blame, the fact I could (if I wanted to) record/pause live TV, and watch it back.

The truth is I have no time. I can’t fully relax to dedicate an hour of my time to watch a programme that will not do anything to me, or make a difference to my life. I enjoy the football, because something is happening live, you don’t know what could happen, and it’s the same with the internet, I have the full control. I can view anything I like, when I like, and I don’t need to wait for 12 episodes to know what happens next.

Even the internet drives me mad at times. There is so much choice that you just wish someone could point you in the right direction. I do enjoy stumble upon, but have no time to even think about sitting for hours on end (which you could using that toolbar). Digg is full of rubbish, finding the time to sift through a few thousand badly written articles, by people with a poor grasp of English is hardly a good use of my time. But I digress.

The only programmes that have had lasting appeal for me have been cartoons like The Simpson’s, Family Guy, Futurama and other 20 minute long bursts of fun.

So to those awaiting the next season of Heroes, I’ll let you into some spoilers… all through the series there will be loads of close up, dark pensive shots of the cheerleader, some dark and pensive shots of that art guy, and some dark pensive shots of the police guy, looking pensive. Powers will be used, some for good some for bad. People will die, Heroes nerds will pass out with joy, and just when you can’t take the excitement, and it’ll break for the summer. Joy.

Writers block is one of my favourite things. I enjoy the fact that to find something interesting to say, you need to delve into the deepest recesses of your mind to try think of a memory, or a funny story you’ve read.

As I’m suffering from a bout of writers block today, I’ll tell you about an insane dream I had two nights ago, which is oddly fresher in my mind now that it was yesterday morning.

I was walking through what looked like a derelict city, bits of paper, and dust were flowing around me, but nothing was going in my eyes. The cloud got really thick round me, and I was struggling to see a foot in front of me. Then I saw my self from a third-person perspective. I watched myself grab at the cloud and tear in apart as if it was candy floss, as I tore through, a shot of bright yellow shone through and I stepped out into what I think was a fairground. Back in first person, I saw a clown who was juggling a cat, a dog and a mouse at the same time, and each animal was also juggling a cat, a dog and a mouse at the same time. One of the cats said jump back, so I did and then I was looking through a kaleidoscope at a broken mirror. Then I woke up.

I expect a psychologist would have a field day with that one.

Dreams are crazy, I’ve always had a vivid imagination, and my brain does overtime at night. I used to have a recurring dream when I was young that involved me sitting in the middle of a white cube, about ten foot square, with no visible way out, no windows but bright light. I noticed a small balloon in the corner of the room, and as I approached it started to inflate, the balloon gets bigger and bigger until I’m pressed against the wall and the balloon starts choking me, then I’d wake up, freaking out. I put that one down to being asthmatic from birth, I’m not sure if it was an asthma attack or whether I was just struggling to breathe, but when I woke up I genuinely thought I was choking.

Now these two examples may be a bit weird, but I think dreams can be an amazing form of escapism, sometimes you can wake up and feel brilliant because of a good dream about winning something, or meeting someone long forgotten. Your dreams are unique to you, and its nice to know no-one can take that away from you.

The best thing about dreams is, they are free, and in today’s world it’s about the only thing that you can’t put a price on.

I think Yeats said it best:

“But I, being poor, have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

Sleeptight.

If you’ve ever played in a band, then you will completely understand this. Do you remember your first show? I certainly do, and after speaking to a few of my mates who play in bands around the country, it all seems very familiar…

This seems to be how it happens if you are a guitar based rock band. A young band of mid-late teenagers are jamming in a garage or practice room for a couple of months, and decide we need to play some gigs. A friend tells them, “I know a guy who puts on gigs”, and they talk to him and arrange a headline show at ‘The Duck, Pond and Rifle’.

The band franticly promotes themselves, handing out scrappy fliers to their mates, (or these days) posting relentless Myspace bulletins with the title “Our first show!!11!!”, asking all of their relatives to come along and show some support, (although it’s usually to fill the venue, and they generally come through guilt).

The band turns up at 6pm (lets say the doors open at 8), apart from the singer who is never on time, and they start to find out hat amps they can borrow. Twenty frantic calls to mates of mates, and a lot of pleading with the other bands, they have a terrible sounding Squire Combo Amp with a broken distortion channel, a farty bass amp, a drum kit that is more tired than Elton Johns dress sense, and a microphone that smells of bacon.

At this point the singer strolls in with his butt-ugly girlfriend on his arm, doesn’t apologise, and then complains that his mic smells. Generally at this point a full blown argument takes place between the band’s sensible person (there’s always one) and the prima dona singer (again, there’s always one). At this point, always right in the middle of this power struggle, the ever helpful sound guy/bitter failed musician, shouts “right guys, do you want to run through a song please”.

At this point, the band unsheathe their instruments, that are generally fifth hand, and haven’t had their strings changed for six months, and take to the stage. The drummer brings out two sticks that don’t match, and the singer is still in a huff so refuses to sing, instead opting to say “1…2…1…2…3”, while looking at his feet.

The band runs through a sound check, twiddling knobs on amps all the way through and forgetting parts of songs. That’s if they get that far. I once saw a band fight each other literally on stage because they couldn’t decide which song to play in sound check. What experienced musicians in older bands have learned, is to do all this stuff before hand, choose your song at the practice studio. It stops you from looking like amateurs in front of a bunch of other bands, and venue managers.

If you make it through soundcheck then you have probably about half an hour to kill before show time, but you generally have had enough of everyone by that point so all hand around outside the venue, or in a dark corner, sulking and wishing you played in a big band. You’ll think to yourself, ‘I bet big bands don’t have these problems’, and ‘I wish we had a manager’, but you have to suck it up, and realise that is not the case.

When show time is about five minutes away, it dawns on you have no set list, or you’ve lost your plectrum or your bassist is AWOL. The trick is to ignore it all, it’s your first gig, and it’s just your relatives in the crowd. When the nerves kick in, the butterflies are going, and you strum your first out of tune chord, you know right there and then that you want to do it for the rest of your life.

The football at the weekend as great if you were a Hull City fan, pretty normal if you were a Chelsea fan, and an absolute joke if you were a Bolton fan.

Let’s start with Hull City’s wake-up call for a usually dominant Arsenal. Although technically more efficient, Arsenal were just a bit too lazy to pull this one off. Hull were considered underdogs right from the start, but as we often see in the FA cup 3rd round, underdogs can bite – really hard. Geovanni’s goal at 66 minutes was truly a contender for goal of the season, what an absolute scorcher! I still don’t know why Almunia even bothered to dive.

Chelsea breezed past Hulls promoted rivals Stoke City with a two-nil bore-fest. Anelka finally did something useful, and put the ball in the back of the net to secure the win and keep the blues at the top of the table. They play a very European style with Luiz Filipe Scolari starting to have his presence felt by the team. Sadly for neutral fans this ensures boring victory after victory. Must be great to be a Chelsea fan I guess.

The big talking point of the weekend is Rob styles ludicrous decision to award Manchester United a penalty after complete girl Ronaldo threw himself to the ground after a great clean tackle from Bolton’s defender. Styles cracked under the pressure of having to make the decision and pointed half heartedly at the spot. Bolton fans couldn’t believe it, I couldn’t believe it, and if you look at the Manchester United players, I don’t think they could even believe it. Ronaldo buried it, and Bolton lost their spirit and then subsequently the match.

Now if this isn’t a call for video evidence during matches, I don’t know what is. How many times have we seen stuff like this happen? Every week there is an offside decision, a handball moment, or a freekick that swings the balance of the game. The reason this has never been implemented is because the football big-wigs don’t want to ruin the beautiful game. What they may be forgetting is that when they allowed billionaire investors to buy over teams as little play things, the game was ruined instantly.

I honestly don’t see what the problem is. Technology is so far advanced that refs could wear watches with screens on them that allow them access to instant replays, our they could have radio’s in their ear that allows them to be told from a fourth official that something happened, failing that they should just show replays of any incident on the stadiums big screens and have the fans vote. Ok maybe not the last one, but the other two ideas would work just fine.

What do you think? Should we keep the game as it is, with its numerous bad decisions, and game changing moments? Or should we actually have a fair and balanced contest. I know what I’d choose.

The last couple of days have sucked so badly. As you can see from my last post, this is the first one in a couple of days since my valiant fight against man-flu. Unfortunately toward the end of Tuesday I succumbed to the evil virus (that was probably created in a lab by Germaine Greer to halt the rise of men) and I could barely open my eyes.

I went home on Tuesday afternoon and right to bed. I woke up on Wednesday with the worst feeling ever. I felt as though Vanessa Feltz was sitting on my chest, while Walt Disney blew smoke into my lungs. My nose streamed like a leaked Britney song, and in the last two days I’ve been through more tissues than teenage boy who just found his dads Playboys.

My missus went to her work and left me for dead in the flat. Wrapped in a duvet, I headed for the couch, which remained my place of healing for two days. In this time I began to notice weird things. Like when the Salon door across the roads door opens it screeches mildly, and it grinds when it shuts. It’s not quite loud enough to be annoying, but it’s loud enough to allow you to count how many people go in and out.

Another thing I noticed is that I have an extreme knee jerk reaction to seeing monsters. Yup. Huge monsters.

Ok well not exactly monsters, but I swear I was freaking out every few minutes at bits of fluff that looked like giant demons from the pits of hell but in reality were just big because they were close to my face. That wasn’t all, the flat was so quiet at one point that I got scared, so I switched the TV, the kettle, the oven and I opened the windows to make me feel better. I actually was driving myself mad.

The worst part of all was that I was bored, I felt like I was at a stamp collecting convention, or that I was being made to watch repeats of ‘Sunset Beach’. The problem with being sick is that you can’t do anything; I didn’t have the energy to sift through the ‘funny’ articles on Digg, nor did I have the energy to play my Wii or even my Xbox.

Out of all this only one good thing has come out of it. I didn’t have to go to the gym! As anyone who reads this knows, I’m a lazy git, and see the gym as a necessary evil.

Anyway, it’s Friday, and I am alive, I’m not quite 100%, but I survived the Greer man-stopping virus. Special thanks go to the missus for the relentless cups of tea, the duvet company for keeping me cosy, and the Salon across the road for keeping me sane…btw, they had 56 customers on Wednesday, and 31 on Thursday.

Well today I’m Joe fans, I feel ill as can be. Proper man-flu. There’s only one good thing about man-flu, and that is the fact that everything you achieve makes you feel heroic (in-between the bouts of vomiting).

I made a sandwich for work today, and I swear I could hear Enrique Inglasis singing “I could be your hero baby”, and I thought…’hell yeah I can’, then I thought ‘sandwich: I’ll be your hero, until I eat you’ – which rather impressively (as the thought of food currently repulses me) is still alive in the works fridge (along with some kind of mouldy bread, a fork and some cheese cunningly disguised as milk.

I then got driven by the misuses (heroically might I say) to work, where I heroically turned on my PC, heroically started my work, then heroically (and I mean that in every sense of the word) drank a cup of tea from the works kettle.

Do not take this post as a desperate hunt for sympathy (however, any cups of tea would be appreciated), as shall be heading what must certainly be my death bed…how do I know? That’s easy:

Runny nose – check
Sore throat – check
Dry Eyes – check
Heroic death from man-flu – check

The funny thing about feeling ill is this. When a girl feels unwell, guys fall over themselves to make sure that her pillow is puffed up, she has plenty of tissues, and that she gets cups of tea on demand. When an average Joe feels ill/is dying from a bout of severe man-flu, does he get support from girls? Does he hell! You see they only give you enough help for a moderate/girly cold, but only men understand the urgency of full blown man-flu, or to give its full medical term, ohmygodimgoingtodiefromthissniffle-itus.

So Joe fans, its been a tough summer, and I think its going to be a tough winter for us men, just remember these three tips for survival.

1. Do not EVER let your missus place her cold feet on yours in the middle of the night because you’re “cosy”. The effect could turn YOU in to the one who is cold.

2. Playing football the night before will NOT help you sweat a cold out. It’s a stupid myth, that as you may have guessed I tried and failed at last night.

3. If you think the end is coming. DON’T FOLLOW THE LIGHT. We all know how sensitive our eyesy-wyses are when we have the flu that is man.

Good luck men. We’ll need it.

When I was about fourteen I was at the stage of wanting to get involved in everything my dad did from washing the car to putting a shelf up, to emptying the garage, and putting it all back in again – a concept I never fully understood as a child, but one I grew to understand as I got older. Its difficult throwing stuff in the bin, because you convince yourself that it’ll “come in handy one day”.

One time when helping my dad empty junk from the garage, he decided that so it had to go to the rubbish tip/junk yard, so off we went with a trailer full of bits of wood, scrap metal and other random stuff. We got to the place, and we started chucking all this junk in to the giant skips, much fun was had – its odd how chucking stuff in a big bucket is fun, but I digress.

We were reaching the bottom of the trailer, so – in my fourteen year old wisdom – grabbed the side and jumped into the back of the trailer at full speed, I grabbed a couple of bits of wood and chucked them over, then went for the last bit, I grabbed it and it wouldn’t lift up. ‘That’s weird’ I remember thinking, then I noticed I was standing on it, ‘that explains it’, I said to myself…then as realisation kicked in, my brain started doing overtime, a shooting pain flew up my leg and blew my skull off, as I realised that I’d jumped full for on to a plank of wood with three inches of nail in it. Bugger.

It was probably the worst thing I’d ever felt. The blasted nail had pierced right through my trainers, and in to my heel, where I honestly thought it had embedded itself in my ankle bone. I tried to suck it up, as a weird mix of adrenaline and fear took over. It may sound stupid, but out of a million thoughts I was having, the first one was that I had ruined my trainers.

With the (about 2ft long) plank firmly attached to my foot, my dad had to lift me out of the trailer (thank god the cool girls from school didn’t hang about the rubbish tip – my stupid mind was now thinking), and bundled me into the car. Dad decided that the best thing to do was to just pull it out on the count of three… I remember it well…

Dad: “one, two, the…”
Me: “whoah, whoah, whoah…ok just do it”
Dad: “one,two, the…”
Me: “whoah, whoah, whoah…”
Dad: “one…”

And then he pulled it, apparently I went quite green, but otherwise I was ok. The nail was a beast, and I still have it kicking about as a memento of the worst thing of that year. On the way home, I was bought a plaster and a Caramac (hands up if you remember those) which I later learned was a bargaining chip to “NEVER tell mum that you stood on a nail, because she’ll kill me for letting you jump in the trailer”.

And remarkably, 14 years on, I never have. Unless she reads this. Sorry dad.

It dawned on me last night that I’ve not played my Xbox360 for about 2 months. It doesn’t seem that long, but I used to play it to death – I even killed one from overheating during a marathon game-fest on Xbox Live, and I’ve worked my way through every rank on Call of Duty 4, I’ve played Halo 3 for hours, and I mean hours on end, Gears of War was a particular favourite, but now my consoles gathering dust.

I know what the problem is though: I fell out with Xbox Live or more specifically, the people on it.

After you do something so much, it becomes a chore, and loses all sense of fun. I think there is only so much abuse you can take from the millions of people I’ve spoke too over a crappy plastic headset, and it brought me to the conclusion. Xbox live is full of #@$%’s.

I used to regularly play with this one guy from Texas, good guy (as far as you can tell over a headset anyway) but he always used to have these tag-a-longs, who did my head in. His little buddies used to argue amongst themselves, sing down the headsets, and worst of all scream down the microphone. That is not fun.

Another guy I used to play with from Colorado, again decent guy, but he always argued with his girlfriend/sister/whatever, every time he played. I could hear her say stuff like, “are you still playing?” and other dumb questions that were clearly rhetorical, if she’d just open here eyes and not her gob for a second.

So I guess I got bored of the Xbox, not just because of these two, but because of other annoying, whiny little kids that somehow think its ok to call you an “English so and so” (I’m not English), but then quit out if you retort.

It does my head in. Sometimes you could get a retort in so fast that you could make these kids quit out though embarrassment. Like the one kid who gave me so much crap in the lobby, then got put on my team, and had to keep asking for my help. I shot one of his assailants who dropped his weapon, only for this kid to yell “I’ll take the turret” to which the natural reply was “I’ll bet you do”…the silence was golden. The quitting out was instant. The glory was well and truly mines. Come to think of it, that was the last time I played.

I’ve moved on to the Nintendo Wii now, its no where near as cool/manly, but I don’t have to listen to little kids whining that I’m beating them, or hear stupid redneck girlfriends/sisters/both if their partner/brother/both has finished playing yet. When I go home, I may well put the Xbox on, but I’m not sure, looks like it could be an eBay job…

I’m finding it harder and harder to wake up. The dark mornings are creeping in, and my brain/body hasn’t quite adjusted. Every morning for the last week, my alarm has been told to “shut up”, and I pull the covers over my head.

People say that a morning shower wakes you up, and you’ll be bright and breezy till the end of the day. These people are commonly referred to as liars. Already this week I’ve tried various body wash things from various manufacturers that are supposed to “awaken the senses”, or “re-vitalise you for the rest of the day”.

This is surely some kind of breach of trading standards, no? This morning I felt that un-re-vitalised, and the only sensation I was feeling was tiredness. So how can these products be marketed legally? Maybe I’m just being grumpy because I’m sleepy now, and I still have half of my day to go, and to me that just reinforces the fact that these products do not work.

That’s got me thinking about other products that don’t do what they say they do. If I put linxs deodorant on, yes I may smell ok, but I do not have models launching themselves at me trying to tear my clothes off (gutted), maybe it’s because 90 percent of the UK’s men wear the same smelling stuff, the stunning models are confused, and just can’t decide who is the best mate.

Look at these supposed ‘active-digestro-bifidum-coleoraophome’ additives that they have in food, hair and make-up products, and don’t get me started on anti-aging creams, honestly, I won’t believe they work until I see an advert with a baby covered in the stuff saying “sh#t, I’ve used too much”.

The whole thing is a con, the immense amount of money made from these companies that peddle there products with they’re made up benefits, and formulas that their scientists named by spinning round for three minutes, then trying to spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, does my head in.

The sad thing is magazines, TV and the internet are rapidly turning this world in to something from a Flock of Seagulls video. Girls are caking on the make-up, and look pretty terrible for it. Ask yourself this: how many orange-skinned, bad-haired girls have you seen recently? Take it back ten years, and it was no where near as bad. It begs the question, what the hell are women going to look like ten years from now?