For God’s sake whatever you do, don’t question Einstein!

This week my blog is addressing those of you who managed to get slightly further into last week’s news than the ratings for X Factor USA. If this isn’t you, then A) you probably can’t read the last sentence without speaking out loud and asking an adult how to pronounce “addressing” – i.e. A Sun reader. And B) this week’s blog isn’t really for you, I’ll let you off reading, but just this week.

The rest of you, (one reader), may have seen that it was announced last week that Einstein’s theory, the one that states that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, may be incorrect. DON’T LOG OFF, THIS IS IMPORTANT – PAY ATTENTION!

The news story widely reported in the media was that Einstein’s theory was in “tatters” due to new research at Cern – you remember Cern the giant particle accelerator under Switzerland that the newspapers said was going to create a black hole and destroy the Earth in probably the worst example of media scaremongering ever recorded since The News of the World alleged that Margaret Thatcher was going to do a strip tease for Comic Relief (that didn’t happen by the way, except now in your mind where it will continue to happen all day, think of all those saggy wrinkles! Sorry!). Anyway the truth of the matter is slightly different; basically scientists at Cern discovered that neutrinos (tiny particles smaller than Piers Morgan’s charisma) managed to travel around the ring slightly faster than the speed of light. However said scientists have pretty much said they expect something has gone wrong, and they’ve probably made a mistake – they just haven’t a clue what, so they’re asking the scientific community to take a look. It’s a bit like when you get stuck on the last clue of the crossword when an earlier spelling error has almost certainly balls-ed it all up, and you’re now desperately passing it round the family for scrutiny. So there we go, I can exclusively reveal that there is probably no big news, probably no mistake and probably Einstein’s correct (albeit not on the appropriate use of hair styling products).

Incidentally those of you wondering why nothing can travel faster than the speed of the light, it’s because…, well…, errr… well actually it’s just like… put simply… well… it just is, ok?! Stop being inquisitive and questioning everything, you’ll drive us all mad.

The reason I talk of this topic is, as some of you may or may not know, that I have a physics background. Yes beneath this young, good looking, boyish exterior known throughout the children’s television sector (stop laughing), exists a university trained physicist. At this point most people ask “What went wrong?” in a tone that seems to imply the only way they can fathom that I could have gone from physics to children’s television must involve being thrown out of the scientific community after being caught performing some kind of indecent act whilst in charge of an electron microscope. That didn’t happen, no I entered the world of children’s television through choice. A choice that for the most part I don’t regret, admittedly the times when I’ve been staring at unemployment have made me wonder why I didn’t pursue a boring career that no one else wanted, but in fairness anyone whoever visits the Job Centre must surely be forced to question their entire reason for being. Whilst wondering if they’ve actually wandered into The Jeremy Kyle Show green room.

The problem however is that as time marches on my slender grip of understanding on the physics world is slowly crumbling. Assaulted on all sides, by the ever increasing passage of time, since this knowledge was last used properly, and by pure old age my scientific superpowers are slowly ebbing away. Retreating faster than a glacier in Jeremy Clarkson’s garden. Once upon a time I could derive all of Maxwell’s Equations of Electromagnetism now I walk into room and forget why I entered in the first place. Once I could express the sine function as a series of exponential terms now I look at the computer screen and have no idea how to open a Word document. At the rate my brainpower is decaying by the age of 42 I’ll struggle to be able to dress myself, capable only of operating the till at Morrison’s or working as a Capital FM disc jockey. Often it feels as if I’ve forgotten more than I’ve actually ever learnt, though that would imply I actually now have a negative amount of useful knowledge. Which is much like how regular Closer magazine readers must feel.

I’m not sure how much my current career choice can be blamed for this, in fairness it’s certainly inhibited my language skills as it turns out I need a much smaller vocabulary for conversational English than I do for scientific papers. I now use “cos” primarily as a contraction for “because” rather than to stand for the mathematical function cosine, and I am not sure this is a good development.

Given all this general degradation of my mental capacity you can imagine how I now feel about the thought that I all the physics I learnt in the first place was actually wrong. It may seem like an interesting page three story in the Metro, but the possibility that the fundamentals of Einstein’s theory of relativity might actually be wrong has very broad ramifications for my social standing (and what could be more important). For starters should I ever wish to return to the physics community the stigma that I was trained in the pre-“Einstein was a fraud” era isn’t going to help me one iota. A bit like taking a break from driving during the horse-drawn carriage era only to return to the motor car – you end up looking a bit like the village idiot / average Britain’s Got Talent auditionee. Secondly, and most importantly this knowledge bursts my smug superiority bubble no longer can I swan away around the office / flat / local branch of Sainsbury’s  with an air of self-righteousness based on the fact that I know more about physics than the average pleb, all I know now is a load of theories that turned out to be wrong. Like a conspiracy theorists only 175% less interesting. ( I should point out that obviously all my colleagues will be replying to this blog shortly to confirm that I am only joking about the being smug in the office bit, won’t you guys? Guys?... Guys!).

If it were up to me, we’d leave Einstein’s Theories alone, what does it matter if they don’t really work? The Bakerloo line doesn’t really work and people still use that, why are we picking on poor old Einstein. I mean blowing the myth that the world was flat didn’t really do anything for us, except make long haul flying and thus airline food a reality – and I don’t think that is progress. So what if Einstein made a mistake, we all do, look at Pat Sharp’s hair, and ITV’s documentaries – doesn’t mean we need to rewrite the laws of physics. Let’s just live in blissful ignorance, in a world where people happen to think I’m clever, what’s wrong with that? We’re never going to know everything, so let’s stick with this scenario. In fact stop teaching science to children at all, let’s keep this knowledge to ourselves, so that when I’m 84 and alone in a home I’ll be revered as an oracle rather than waiting for someone to come and change my urine-stained bed sheets.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to forget all about thermodynamics and write another poo joke – you’ve got to love career development.

Terror, available freely for NHS patients on the High Street

If you usually Facebook to find updates on my blog, well done on getting this far! Cinderella apparently couldn’t find it, and it all got too much…

…as I discovered on a walk near my house this week. Sorry children if you’re reading, it probably wasn’t a painful death!

What Cinderella clearly needed was a stay-cation, for those of you not wanky enough to know what a stay-cation is, it’s basically where you take a vacation but stay at home. Stay-cations are excellent for those people without any friends or loved ones to go on holiday with, step forward me. One advantage of the stay-cation is that you can get all manner of things done. You know all the things that you really should get done in the weekend, but can always far more frivolous things to do and thus put them off. Leaving tasks like sorting out your house, cleaning the bathroom and finding a purpose to your life all undone for weeks on end. A stay-cation can be perfect because it gives you an opportunity to get these done, primarily because you run out of things to put them off with after seven days. Obviously I didn’t get any of these things done, what with having the attention span of an attention-deficient child who has just been fed a skip filled entirely with sherbet dip.

Rather than doing any of those important tasks I decided instead to go and give my body a full MOT. I managed to go to the doctors, dentists and opticians all in the same day. A list of activities that can feel even the bravest man with fear. Often it depends what you are going in for, as to which of these is going to be the most scary. Obviously if you’ve got an entire volume of Encyclopaedia Britannica wedged firmly up your arse then I’m guessing that the doctors will top the fear list, that and you’ve probably recently been banned from the popular reference section of your local library.

However typically the dentist tops people’s list of terror, for some unknown reason the thought of someone boring into your mouth with Channel Tunnel drilling equipment whilst charging you an amount somewhere in the region of Greece’s national debt for the privilege, isn’t top on people’s to-do list. I have to say I never really had a big problem with the dentist; my top reason for not going is laziness. Despite this I finally made it in, during my stay-cation allowing someone to poke around in my mouth like a squirrel searching for where it buried it’s nuts made of plaque. Turned out I needed a filling, now don’t judge (I know I do when I hear someone’s had to have fifteen teeth removed, invariably telling you as the down a six-pack of Coca-Cola), but I didn’t need a new filling, an old one had broken. In fact my teeth are doing better than the fillings, I’ve got enough dental floss coming out my mouth to string up the Blackpool Illuminations. So there Mr or Mrs Judgmental.

I’ve never been that bothered by the drilling part of the dentist, largely because the provision of anaesthetic generally counters my primary objection to a fully operational dolls’ house scale set of power tools being operated in my mouth. Though I must admit the angle grinder attachment that comes out to sand down the finished teeth is a little disconcerting and if anything feels like a little too much craftsmanship. My main objection to the dentist is the vacuum cleaner like hose that is inserted into your mouth to presumably suck up flying bits of tooth, gum or tongue that occurs during the construction work. The sensation of a high powered suction pump pull air at force ten gale speeds through your teeth is probably one of the most unpleasant things I’ve ever experienced. It’s like having your tongue extracted by a Henry Hoover without the reassurance that at least it can offer you a dam good blow job when it’s finished.

Bit much? Sorry.

On this particular visit, the experience was not helped by the fact that the operator of said “Suction Tube of Death^TM” was a ruthlessly efficient German woman, who never once raised her surgical face mask and only ever replied to any statement with the word “Yah”. She showed approximately 5% more personality than the Cylons from Battlestar Galactica or about 150% more personality than Piers Morgan for those requiring a reference other than Battlestar Galactica.

However for me, it’s not the dentist that evokes the greatest sense of dread as I walk down the High Street, no it’s the opticians. Don’t agree? Well I ask you this, which of these sounds most like the goings on in an underground government torture facility, having your teeth drilled into whilst under anaesthetic, OR having metal frames strapped to your head whilst an array of powerful lights is shinned into the deepest recesses of your eyes and you’re ordered to recite a jumbled list of pointless letters off the wall. See. On the gates of Guantanamo Bay there’s a sign that reads “twinned with Dollond & Aitchison, Swansea Branch”.

My regular opticians is Boots the Opticians whose tagline, coincidentally, is Should Have Gone to Specsavers, this has been earned to the general haphazard nature of the service provided. It’s not that any, ok not that many, of the front line staff I’ve met haven’t been anything other than pleasant and competent. It’s just that they’re invariably always reporting on some calamitous disaster that has happened behind the scenes, like the inadvertent fitting of the lenses of the Hubble Space Telescope into my new glasses during the manufacture or accidentally placing of next month’s contact lenses in the eyes of a passing badger. It’s almost like the head office is being run by the Chuckle Brothers, ably assisted by Jedward as their PAs. In fairness they clearly employ clever mind-reading staff though, as every time they detect me wavering and considering moving to another optician, they offer me a discount and suddenly it all becomes right again. It turns out I am happy to trust my eye care to a bunch of cretins who couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery, even if the instructions were written in a chart of decreasing font size on the wall, so long as they offer me a hefty discount.

For those of you who, unlike me, weren’t blessed with the optical strength of a rusty teaspoon at birth, and therefore would have at least a decent chance of reproducing were the government to reintroduce survival of the fittest as a policy again, you might not be familiar with the journey to hell (on a rail replacement bus service) that a typical visit to the opticians represents. First up you’re seen by assistant, rather than an optician, it’s their job to operate on you with the shop’s latest torture devices. Previous examples include the device which blasts a jet of high pressure air directly into your eyeball to see what reaction this produces. Invariably it causes me to flail around uncontrollably until I punch the assistant in the face, at which point they usually stop. This time the latest device of mass destruction was a piece of equipment designed to provide an exceptionally detailed photograph of the back of the eye. Which it captures, apparently, by detonating a naval grade distress flare approximately two nanometres from the surface of your eyeball, the resulting flash of light being enough to stun a fully grown African Elephant. Still all these escapades pail in comparison to the time when I was given drops to open the pupils of my eyes for an in depth examination. I was told the drops took about thirty minutes to kick in, but it was an exceptionally hot day, and the air conditioning in the waiting room had broken so the helpful optometrist suggested I go for a browse down the High Street. Approximately twenty minutes later at the height of the midday sun, my pupils opened to their maximum aperture on a permanent basis. Thus causing me to have walk back to the opticians in absolute agony, shielding my face as best from the sun as possible, whilst forcing my eyelids to go against their every natural desire and stay open in the blinding sunlight. I had so many tears streaming down my face I looked like a pre-pubescent teenage girl who’d just heard that Take That had broken up.

Those who survive the first round of pain, which feels like it’s been closely modelled on the first round of Total Wipeout, are then allowed into the optician’s examination room, a Santa’s grotto of torture equipment decorated with cross-sections of the human eye. Although worryingly my opticians has now started doubling up doing hearing tests, so this time round I had to sit next to a fully annotated diagram of the ear. Which given the usual competence of Boots the Opticians lead me to worry that someone might try and fit a hearing aid under my right eyelid. However there’s no time to panic, as instead a giant metal arm swings round to pin you into the Mastermind style chair. The opticians then proceeds to shine a blinding light into your eyes whilst commanding you to look left, look up, look down and blink on command as they invade your personal space. After five minutes of this they ask if you ever experience sore eyes or see flashing lights, “YES” straight after you decided to blind me for a laugh. Next up they proceed to cover one of your eyes whilst showing you the traditional optometrist chart depicting the letters of various sizing. Unfortunately despite having the modern technology required to actually project the chart on the wall, most opticians appear to have only one set of letters, meaning the examination of the second eye simply becomes a memory puzzle to see how much you remember from the previous eye.

After all these you are presented with your prescription, which unlike an NHS prescription costs a dam sight more than £7.40 when they utter the immortal line “you need new glasses”. Yes, because if it wasn’t enough to be born blind enough to mistake a hat stand for your parents, over the next twenty years of your life your eyesight will deteriorate faster than the Liberal Democrats opinion poll.

Choosing glasses is always a horrid affair fraught with danger, even if you have contact lenses you’re probably going to need to spend a good proportion of the next few years of your life with these glasses proudly displayed on your nose for all to see. There aren’t many facial features you get to choose, and the process of choosing glasses proves that in most cases you’re better off sticking with nature’s lottery – unless of course you’re me and you look like you were constructed by a deprived child using the Halloween Edition of Mr Potato Head. Unlike a t-shirt which can be subtly placed at the bottom of a drawer after a few wears once the realisation sets in that you’ve made a bad choice, glasses that turn out to be a rash purchase remind you of their existence for a long time to come, unless you’re prepared to shell out a three figure sum for another set. This can be where it’s a good idea to take a friend with your for honest advice, though don’t take a wise guy joker as you’ll probably end up looking like Deidre from Coronation Street’s less fashionable cousin.

Of course if you don’t want to pay a fortune you can always ask for NHS glasses, provided of course you can convince them you’re a small child. At this point a secret drawer will be opened up beneath the lush display cabinets of glasses, the inside will be filthy and its contents will look like a lost property cupboard in a school populated by only those with no taste. I don’t see how it’s any cheaper to make glasses that look as bad as these glasses actually do; in fact I suspect extra money has been spent to make them look hideous. I think the deal is that if you want the rest of the tax paying community to pay for your eyesight that’s fine, so long as you’re prepared to go around with pieces of plastic strapped to your face that look like they would survive orbital re-entry to give everyone who has paid for them a good laugh.

Sadly at the young age when I first needed glasses, my parents had a different philosophy. They firmly believed that if you’re going to wear glasses you should be proud of this fact and wear the biggest and boldest rimmed spectacles you find, much like Dame Edna Everage, except without the comic irony. Effectively they paid to put me in NHS glasses, as at that age my only aesthetic requirement was that they be blue. And maybe this one fact explains my true terror at the thought of revisiting the opticians.

Still with glasses like that it gave people something to laugh at other than my face, in some ways it was a welcome relief.

I told you there was something cheesy about the Queen.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I lead a lonely and tedious life, with all the joy of a lifetime subscription to What Misery! magazine. Even Facebook e-mailed me this week to tell me it was giving up on our relationship and was going to stop e-mailing me in the future. Nice. So as I sit here in my bedroom relentless tapping at the keyboard like a woodpecker, only with 85% less purpose in their life, I’m alone. My flatmate’s down the gym, which is depressing, not just because I’m alone, but also because he’s put me to shame. All I’ve done today is waddle to the kitchen to get a cake. I didn’t even waddle back with the empty plate.

Anyway no longer, I’ve come up with a plan to turnaround my social fortunes and develop myself as an “internet celebrity”. It’s a plan so genius that even Professor Stephen Hawking would sit up and say “that’s genius” albeit in a robotic voice. Turns out the one of the most popular things on the internet at present are conspiracy theories, there’s a constant internet buzz around anything to do with conspiracy theories like flies swarming around a steaming turd or turds swarming around the News of the World phone hacking case. People are desperate to know any and all goings on to do with conspiracy, it’s like Heat Magazine but with all the pages covered with a scratch and sniff section made with crack cocaine. The plans is if I become the central authority on a conspiracy theory I’ll become an internet sensation and give my life some meaning.

Now I could simply join in with the existing conspiracy theories, but if I’m going to go with this plan, then I’m go for it 100%. And rather than competing to be a minor informant on an existing conspiracy theory I’m going to need to develop my own new exciting conspiracy theory, one which I can be the centre of all authority on. Sadly Delia Smith is yet to write her book on how to cook up a conspiracy theory, however having studied a number of the more popular theories I’ve worked out they all  follow a similar pattern which hopefully I can replicate. As they said on the Hindenburg “What could go wrong?”.

Up first we need our central conspiracy, it needs to be easily expressed as a concise sentence, because let’s face it we need to lure in the simple gullible people first. Generally these conspiracy theories consist of saying something that we all think did happen, actually didn’t or that someone who we thought didn’t do something actually did. They’re bite-size statements that on the face of first glance seem ludicrous, but represent such epoch-shattering consequences if they turn out to be true that even people who don’t care, can’t help but take notice. Much like if you saw a newspaper report that Bobby Davro had died in a tragic blancmange making accident, you don’t really care, but you’d have to look just in case it contained a picture of his nose squished in a food blender or such like. So we need a central conspiracy theory hmmm…, I know:

The entire Royal Family is actually made from Dairylea.

It fits our plan; it’s both ludicrous sounding but potentially has far reaching consequence if it’s true. I mean imagine if it were true, would the entire United Kingdom constituency collapse? Would we have to replace our coins with Ritz crackers? And would lactose intolerant people demand we become a republic?

Of course there will be people who claim our theory is wrong, people say who’ve met the Queen or know a little bit about the science of creating artificial live from Dairylea Triangles. The beauty of a conspiracy theory is that we can just claim that they’re in on it. It doesn’t matter if these people have no rhyme nor reason to be involved in our conspiracy theory, the simple fact that they claim we’re wrong gives the whole theory gravitas.

Now we don’t need to prove that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is actually constructed from processed cheese, no bizarrely the thing with conspiracy theories is that the onus of proof lies with the doubters to prove that our conspiracy theory is wrong. However it helps if we can find some statements to back up our original accusation. Generally these statements aren’t evidence; they simply represent gaps where the evidence supporting the counter opinion (to the conspiracy theory) doesn’t quite meet. Gaps which in the real world would be covered by common sense. But we all know just like Danni Minogue there’s no room for common sense in our world any more. So for example if your partner (ewww I said partner in a non bitter sense, I feel quite queasy) wanders in with a cup of tea for you, common sense dictates they’ve made you a cup of tea. But did you see them make the tea? No! For all you know they boiled the water poured it down the sink and then pissed in a mug. You can’t be sure, and that’s what conspiracy theories rely on that element of doubt in the obvious. So here are my supporting statements to the theory that the Royal Family is in fact made from Dairylea, I’ll think you’ll find it hard to disagree:

1. The Queen always wears gloves; this is so she doesn’t leave a cheesy residue on any person she shakes hands with.

2. The Royal Family never travel together on the same aircraft; this is because there’s not enough space to keep them all in the fridge and stop them going off.

3. Licking a stamp tastes disgusting; much like licking Dairylea tastes disgusting.

4. The Queen wears a lot of silver in her crowns and robes; this is to keep her foil fresh, so she doesn’t start to whiff at state occasions.

There. Irrefutable facts in the fight to prove the truth about the Royal family.

Next up we need someone with some scientific kudos to support our cause. It doesn’t matter if the vast majority of scientists agree on the counter argument; just one crack point scientists opinion can cause a storm of controversy. Take global warming, all scientists agree it’s happening except one deranged man in his garden shed who is currently growing potatoes in the shape of Jedward. This one man’s opinion leads to worldwide doubt on whether the destruction of mankind is happening or not. Fortunately I have a scientific background, the fact that it is in physics and not in biology or cheese studies is not important (no one will check), so I’ll release a paper claiming I have proof the Royal Family is made from Dairylea. It doesn’t matter that it’s not scientifically accurate, as no scientist worth their salt will bother reading it, let alone refuting my claims.

The final thing we need is a reason for this conspiracy, a perpetrator if you will. Like all good pantomimes we need a villain, Cinderella has the Ugly Sisters, the X Factor has Tulisa’s stylist. And this conspiracy needs a villain too, politicians are an easy choice as people find it completely believable that they’re actually the devil incarnate – well have you seen the way Peter Mandelson looks? So we’ll say that Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg stuffed the real Royal Family into an airing cupboard in Wolverhampton, and had them all replaced with Dairylea clones – except the Duke of Edinburgh who he had recreated in feta cheese. This way he could divert all the money spent on the Royal Family to buy a giant teddy bear so he could hug away the pain.

There a fully crafted conspiracy theory, that everyone will be contacting me about to find out the latest developments. It doesn’t matter that I’ve ruined the memories or the achievements of other people, or that I’ve distracted from the real and important issues that actually matter in our world. Because in the end all that’s important is creating a hubbub of activity about nothing to feel my and others boring and meaningless lives.

So go on spread the news, the Royal Family is made from Dairylea (or spread the Royal Family on your crackers). The authorities will of course deny it, but that’s what they would say.

30 Reasons to take Cyanide

The number thirty is currently rushing towards me like a judge asked to pin a rosette on the winner of the Ugliest Face competition (that childhood memory still hurts). Yeah sadly I am significantly closer to thirty than twenty, about nine years five months if I’m being honest. No matter what age you are, you always poor scorn on people younger than you moaning about their age. I truly understand that if you’re reading this on the cusp of turning forty, fifty or sixty plus, you’ll find my annoyances at turning thirty tiresome. But I think the point of what I am saying will strike a chord with whatever age you are, unless of course you’re not bothered about your age – in which case you must be young, and on behalf of everyone else reading this let me just say “We hate you, with a passion you can’t even imagine!”.

As a complete aside, what does one do to celebrate their 30^th birthday? A drink down the pub seems a bit under ambitious, but then a trip to Centre Parks seems like the kind of thing that would mean you end up spending your birthday alone. Perhaps I should go on my last (and coincidentally first) 18-30 holiday, or then again perhaps not?

What bothers me about turning thirty is not the number per se, but the fact that at thirty you are supposed to look back at your life and take stock at your wonderful accomplishments. Oh dear…, it’s a bit like looking at a mantelpiece covered in all of the music industry’s awards to Chico, it feels rather bare shall we say. So I’ve completely tried to avoid thinking about it. This plan would have worked until my flatmate decided to shove a copy of the Evening Standard under my nose, the Evening Standard is a good newspaper if you ignore the fact that it’s hideously overpriced and deeply depressing. This is without the fact that this particular edition contained an article entitled “30 things to do before you’re 30”. Suffice us to say my flatmate’s actions provoked the kind of response you’d expect to get if you repeatedly poke a lion in the eye with a stick.

For those of you who fancy a look, you must either be nowhere near thirty or have a death wish, here’s a link to the article:

30 Things To Do Before You're 30

In case you do look at the online version, I should point out that in the actual print version it’s laid out in such a way that on seeing the headline you go straight to the numbered list rather than reading the introductory paragraphs in which the author explains that your thirties are much better than your twenties and that you shouldn’t worry about completing the list or not. By the time I read this disclaimer it was too late, the damage was done.

So let’s have a look at this long list (I didn’t decide there should be 30 things in it, don’t blame me) and see what I’ve accomplished:

1. Buy a Property – If by “property” you mean packet of crisps and a 15 tog duvet (things that arguably are your “property”) then I have achieved this. Otherwise have you seen the prices of houses?! I’ve got more chance of owning a Nobel Peace Prize.

2. Have a Baby (if you’re a woman) & 3. Avoid having a Baby (if you’re a man) – First of all this is cheating, as by putting these as two separate things you cannot possibly achieve all thirty. Unless of course you’ve had a sex change from a woman after having a still birth, and to be honest that doesn’t feel like an achievement you should be celebrating. In fairness I have achieved number 3, but given last week’s blog this doesn’t really feel like an “achievement”, more an outcome of being hideous.

4. Live Abroad – No. Why would you want to live abroad? It’s hard enough making friends without going somewhere where you neither know anyone nor know the language. This is not for the social recluse that I am.

5. Build Your Brand – Essentially this is the new wankerish trend to be top of Google when you search for yourself, have over 1,000 Twitter followers and get regular comments on your blog. I think you’ll find by scouring these pages the later has not been achieved. You can also tell by reading this blog I have nothing worth tweeting. And also there’s an Irish folk singer with the name “Matt Cunningham” who rudely keeps topping Google over me.

6. Leave Home – Ok, so I’ve achieved this one. But beyond your early twenties you have to stop living with your parents, as it becomes too depressing. It’s like looking into a mirror that shows the future. It slowly dawns on you that your inescapable fate is to become your parents as you see their traits develop in you, but worse still (and this is the terrifying part) you realise you’re going to have all the annoying habits of both your mother and your father – yay for genetics. Leaving home and not thinking about this is the only way to stay sane.

7. Look After the Pennies – This one’s all about savings, but unfortunately there’s no criteria on how much you should have saved (how you can have any money saved if you’ve achieved item #1 on the list is another matter). I’m going to say tick, as I have at least £100 in the bank, and that’s a lot more than the UK Government.

8. Drop Out – Meaning leave your boring 9-5 job. Are you mad? It may be boring, but how can I have all these savings, leave home, move abroad, buy a house and support or not support a baby, if I’ve decided to give up my job and live of the profits of Bring & Buy sales like some tedious Blue Peter appeal?

9. Co-Habit – Yes I have managed to achieve this, but the person I’m co-habiting with gave me this damned article in the first place, so I don’t think that worked out!

10. Have a Threesome or Moresome – Some of us are still struggling with Twosomes thank you very much.

11. Own a Designer Handbag – This is random, I have no idea why this is in the article. The closest I come to this is that I own designer clothes, if by designer you include Burtons Menswear. Guess that’s a no then.

12. Grow a Pair – Balls not breasts here, and no we’re not talking about sex changes again, but sticking up for yourself. Given I spend most of my day, hiding in the corner trying to avoid making eye contact with anyone (regardless of whether I know them or not – especially if I know them), I suspect this is a no.

13. Always wear Sunscreen – Technically no, as I’m not wearing it now. But have you seen outside? It looks like deepest winter… on Pluto, when did summer happen? But having managed to achieve some rather unpleasant comedy sunburns over my life, I suspect this is still a no.

14. Dump the Debt – Pay off your student debt. Sadly I don’t happen to have a five-figure cash sum cluttering up my bedroom, so sadly this is impossible. Though maybe I’ll pop it on my credit card, no mention of clearing credit card debts in this article so clearly that’s a far more sensible thing to do. I don’t think so.

15. Build Up Your Black Book – Have a good list of contacts. “Networking” is one of the most disturbing terms in the English language, just behind “floating shelves” (which are not natural and should be burnt). The idea of meeting people and convincing them I’m worth knowing is making me feel quite, quite ill.

16. Drop Your Last E – Nothing to do with spelling your name this one, all to do with giving up drugs. Sadly I haven’t even got round to starting yet (I’m that much of a failure), so I can’t tick this one off. Instead I’m planning to work my way up from soft drugs to harder substances so I can then give up. I’m currently working on caffeine – I know call me crazy.

17. Be a Fashion Victim – Now I am the master of unfashionable, what’s wrong with slippers? But fashion victim is all about being too fashionable and that has never happened, and has no danger of happening now I’ve caught myself looking at clothes in shops and going “it’s nice, but it’s just not practical”. Depressing isn’t it.

18. Heal a Broken Heart – Have a fully functioning, sanity-restoring relationship. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! I’d take that as a “no”.

19. Get Married – Seriously? You’re even asking?

20. Take it to the Extreme – Take up some kind of extreme sport. Problem with being me is that I have an acute fear of everything (see last month’s blog about the London Riots), which makes crossing the road away from a designated crossing an extreme sport. The thought of bungee jumping off a mountain, is about as appealing as becoming Ann Widdicombe’s sexual partner, and no she is certainly not going to be involved in item #10.

21. Write A Book – Who on earth would publish what I’ve written? Few enough read what I’ve written. It’s only due to the true marvel of the internet than anyone can write any old tosh online, that I get away with any writing at all.

22. Know Who Your Friends Are – This is a hard one to tick off, it’s all about finding your true friends. But friendship is ever evolving, in my case my current acquaintances are gradually working out what I’m really like so I having to trick new people into liking me without realising what I’m really like at the same rate to maintain the status quo.

23. Learn to Cook – Ok so I can do this one. But it doesn’t really feel like the coolest thing on the list. When you’re weighing up whipping up a cottage pie against having a threesome, I can’t help but feel that I’ve fallen in the tragic group…, again.

24. Learn a Language – My bumbling attempts at French and Latin (yes I had to learn Latin at school), probably don’t count. I can ask “where is the cat?” in French, over the years I can’t honestly say this has proved that useful.

25. Make a Million Pounds – Wwhilst arguably more obtainable for me than item #19, I can safely say I have not achieved this. If I had, do you think my blog would be this miserable?

26. Find Yourself – I’m desperately trying not to find myself, all the evidence seems to suggest I’d hate myself if I did, so best keep to avoiding myself at all costs.

27. Have a Summer of Love – There’s an uncomfortable theme running through some of these entries, and one I’m not enjoying. The closest I’ve come is a Summer of Chicken Pox, on the plus side it’s less vomit worthy than a Summer of Love.

28. Get a Second Life – Basically find a hobby to occupy yourself with. You know for all the time you’ve got when you’re not making friends, whipping up a meringue, spending your millions, applying sunscreen, moving out of home and f**king two or more people at once, preferably during the summer. Funnily enough given all that, I have found time for a hobby, fortunately the Evening Standard hasn’t dictated any standards for “coolness” of this hobby else I’d lose out again.

29. Sleep When You’re Dead – All about partying through the night and not worrying about sleep because it’s cool. This is a lie, perpetrated by young people, sleeping is fun, and if starts at 10pm after a cup of Ovaltine all the better.

30. Start Your Own Business – No, just no. I’ve watching Dragon’s Den, all the people who’ve started their own businesses, come in begging for money looking like they last slept around the time Eldorado was on the telly.

So out of those 30 things I have to have achieved, by the end of the next seven months, to be considered a person worthy of the flesh I was born in, how many I have achieved? Six (items #3, #6, #7, #9, #23 & #28). Six!!! Just six! And one of those was not to have a baby. In other words I’m 80% failure. Terrific. Thanks Evening Standard, and they wonder why people throw themselves under trains on the way home.

Personally I think the list is flawed, because most of the things on it I don’t want to do. And any sane person wouldn’t want to do either. So instead I present my alternate 30 things to do before you turn 30, except there’s only 15 because 30’s a lot to get round to. Who has the time? So here are 15 exciting, wacky things that you’d actually want to do:

1. Tell all your younger friends, that like to buy you birthday cards joking about how old you are, to F**K OFF AND DIE! – Trust me you’ll be grateful they’re not your friends and no longer sending those cards on your 30^th.

2. Have a Onesome – Go to bed on your own, for a change (if you’re luckier than me). Less likely to need to change the sheets, and no one to steal the duvet off you. Bliss.

3. Go and buy a new bin for the bathroom – I only put this, because I did it yesterday. Easy to tick off.

4. Go to McDonalds and don’t order Fries – Sometimes you’ve got to let your hair down and do something crazy, like not ordering fries at McDonalds no one does that. Top tip go at breakfast, they don’t even serve them then.

5. Leave a party early to get the penultimate Tube – This way you can party and get to sleep in your own bed at a not unreasonable time. And the penultimate tube is a bit less drunk filled than the final one.

6. Eat an entire Double Chocolate Cheesecake on your own, because you have no one to share it with – meals for one, always represent worse value than shopping for two, so get your own back by eating the whole cheesecake. It may not work mathematically but you’ll feel better for it.

7. Stalk an ex/“never was” through social media (or even in real life) – Go on you know there’s someone who either dumped you, spurned you or was rude enough to already be in a couple when you wanted them. Stalk their every move, sift through all their photos (or their bins), and imagine your happy life together that will never happen ever. It’ll help you move on, honest.

8. Go into a toy shop, even though you have no kids to buy toys for – This doesn’t count if you’re under 12. Just go and look at all the toys you’d have bought as a kid, it’s fun!

9. Spend an entire day at home in your pyjamas – Sod what your flat mates/relatives think, relax a little and enjoy being casual, even if you really do start to smell at 3pm.

10. Attempt to get two Weetabix from the packet into the bowl, without dropping a single crumb – Harder to do than it sounds this one, but it’s a challenge and the rush of excitement when you do it is better than that provided by any hard core drug… probably.

11. Delete someone off Facebook you don’t really like – Sod friend numbers, it’s the quality that counts (though I’ve found if you have less than two friends people start to judge) get rid of the annoying tit. Oh that’s me you’ve deleted, didn’t think this one through.

12. Run up a flight of stairs on all fours – Surprisingly liberating this one, though best do it at home - might annoy people on the Piccadilly line otherwise.

13. Eat a chocolate from your Advent Calendar on the day before you’re supposed to – Bit of a naughty one here, but if you can’t break the rules before you’re thirty when can you?

14. Go Commando! – Just for fun, one day, when you’re at home, probably in your pyjamas because it would be weird if it was proper “going out” clothes.

15. Leave a comment on my blog – Only the coolest of the cool would do this before they hit thirty. So here’s your chance to be a trend setter, do it now.

There, and as luck would have it I’ve done all 15 - I’m a success. And don’t worry if you haven’t yet, because you’ll have a lot more fun doing it than the 30 listed in the Evening Standard.

Oh and before I go, for those of you wondering how the wedding I went to last week turned out. Well you’ll be pleased to know, as expected, I got on well with the pot plant:

In fact it was a great joke teller:

That was of course until it wandered off in shame leaving me all alone at the edge of the dance floor, still social interaction can’t all be fun now can it?

The Happiest Day of Someone Else’s Bloody Life

Love, l-o-v-e, pah! Even hearing the word out loud is enough to make me want to vomit so hard that my entire insides are sprayed out all over the floor like an elaborate Persian rug. Incidentally this is the reason why I’m banned from tennis matches, puts people off their strawberries and cream.

Being a terminally single man, who was last dating sometime around the fall of Hadrin’s wall, you can imagine how I feel about weddings. Weddings are the ultimate symbol of happiness, joy and togetherness and thus completely alien to me. Like deodorant is completely alien to twelve year old boys, only unlike Lynx I suspect I’ll never grow into them.

Unfortunately I am now at the age where weddings are inescapable, at the age of three you’re not expected to go because you’re too young, lucky sods. Approaching thirty and you find all your friends are popping off to get married, whilst you spend longer on the shelf than the average Korean language-edition Jeffery Archer novel. And being such a good friend you’re expected to go to each and every one of the love-based rituals to be joyous as the happy couple embark on their new wonderful life, whilst every step of the ceremony is designed to remind you that their life will be much better than yours. As tasteless acts of suffering go it is akin to inviting a group of starving Ethopian people to come and watch the opening of an All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet, without letting them tuck in. With all this said, you can imagine how excited I am by the fact that I am not only going to a wedding this weekend, but have also have had to toast another happy couple getting married on the same day!

Don’t get me wrong I am off course happy for both couples, as I was at the hundred odd other weddings I’ve been to in the last few years, in fact I’m overjoyed. Ok that’s taking it too far, we’ll stick at happy. In fairness all the weddings I’ve been to have been lovely affairs, all different but each one perfectly suited to the couple getting married. As I am sure this weekend’s wedding will also be. And whilst I’m not quite at the level of turning up with “It Should Have Been Me” placard, my hatred of weddings is firmly based in selfishness, the “always the page boy never the groom” bitterness is fully in charge here. It’s like university graduation, I’m happy to celebrate other people’s graduations knowing that I’m graduating too. But if you were forced to go to graduation after your 58^th resit of the first year, it would all start to feel a bit like a sick joke.

And this is weddingdom for me, currently I’m just an anomaly on a seating plan that makes the whole thing uneven “well if you could bring a plus one, table allocation would be easier”. A plus one! Thanks, who do you expect me to bring a bloody teddy bear, Norman Lamont or perhaps one of the Sugababes? With the option to bring a minus one sadly frowned upon, I resort to being the person standing awkwardly at the edge of the dance floor whilst the bride, groom and all the other couples in attendance go for a romantic dance. I’m there looking interested in a plant pot, until the plant pot gets ashamed by association and wanders off, then I’m just there alone in a sea of happiness, trying desperately to look cheerful but ending up looking about as natural as Gordon Brown’s smile.

It wouldn’t be so bad if I felt there was a decent chance of me being able to return the favour and invite everyone round for my wedding sometime, but even in an infinite universe with infinite time for all events to play out at multiple times, it still seems an extremely remote possibility. I’ve probably got more chance of winning Euromillions. Which would at least give me a vague chance of funding the wedding, yes as gratuitous displays of affection go; a wedding seems the most carefree way of pissing a load of cash up the wall. A wall which incidentally has been gold plated, and accessorised by the bride and her mother for approximately 400 working hours to ensure it doesn’t clash with the flowers and compliments the shade of the groom’s tongue perfectly, lest he open his mouth whilst walking past at some point during the ceremony.

If you’re the organisers of the ceremony, you’ll run up a debt as large as a medium-sized African nation as you spend money on a church or registry office, reception venue, suit hire, wedding dresses, transport, horses, more finger nibbles than have ever been eaten in the history of the world and enough wine so that everyone gets so pissed they can’t remember the event. For all anyone will be able to recall you could have hosted it in a burnt out garage in a back street of Wolverhampton. But wedding’s are also expensive if you’re a guest, an expense that leaves an extra stain on your debit sheet if you’re still single, as you have to pay for accommodation (which is more expensive per person if you’re single!) and transportation. It’s bad enough if it’s in the UK, but there seems to be a trend for getting married aboard. “Not only are we the happiest couple who have ever lived, but we’re going to celebrate it on a holiday” - a holiday that has all the disadvantages of being a holiday (e.g. expensive, long journeys, arguments, lost baggage, food poisoning) without any of the advantages, such as relaxing and having fun. I mean seriously how happy do you want me to think your life is, because there’s a danger you’ll become so happy I might punch you in the face - and blood is very tricky to get out of a wedding dress and tends to dampen down the happiness factor.

And of course there’s the gifts, this is the happiest day of our life, but we’d be even happier if you could bring us something of monetary value. Oh and we’ve seen your usual gift buying skills, you’re crap, please only buy us something form this pre-approved list, because asking for the receipt is always awkward. Of course the bride, groom and family have spent a lot of money on the event, so it seems only fair you should buy them a gift - except when you realise the whole event is to make them feel happy anyway, my happiness has certainly not been factored in. In this context the gift buying tradition just feels greedy. Still I intend to milk it for all it’s worth if I ever get married, an event pencilled for the year 2080 at the earliest. I should imagine by then the iPhone 73 will be out, so that’s going on my wedding list (I don’t want pots and bloody pans), and the ceremony - that’ll be held on the Moon. Sod Europe, now you’ve got to pay for interstellar return tickets, serves you right for inviting me to f**king Venice way back in 2009.

You’d think given my resolute bitterness towards marriage that I’d revel in break ups and misery, but no, even they are depressing. For starters it’s considered rude to point and laugh at the recently separated, you’re not even allowed a big piss-up based celebration, like with a wedding. Instead they expect a shoulder to cry on, they want to wallow to you about how shit it is that their life has become just like yours. Except unlike you, they recently had “happiness” and should be grateful for that. Someone once said “It’s better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all”, try telling that to someone who’s just broken up and they’ll slap you. And then people worry about inviting them to weddings, because they worry it will be “insensitive”, surely it’s insensitive to invite the long-term single, at least the recently single have the perspective that it could happen to them. Instead we just watch on, spectators at the initiation to an exclusive club to which we’ve been barred entry from for no discernable reason other than having a face like the rear end of a water buffalo and being about as socially aware as a bowl of salmonella. And worse of all you have to listen to reassuring people saying “don’t worry it’ll be your turn soon”, or “it will happen, you’ve just got to not worry about it” – can we please have a ban on these phrases, we’re not living in a f***ing Disney movie, it’s perfectly possible and extremely likely that I will be miserable for all my life. And refusing to accept this is plain stupid.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m now off to get a new shirt. It turns out that binge eating on chocolate not only fails to take the pain away but also causes your collar size to expand exponentially.