The rise of the machines.

My place, yesterday.

Yesterday I had to go out and buy a new mobile phone, as my previous phone had met with an unfortunate accident. We won't go into the whys and wherefores, and there's very little point in apportioning blame. In a world as cold and unfeeling as this injustices can and do occur and scapegoating individuals, while it may feel good at the time, provides scant comfort in the long term. These things happen. We need to learn acceptance, be more Zen.

All right, fine; I dropped it in the fish tank. While it was plugged into the charger, no less, so I just count myself lucky that Little Dan wasn't flash-fried into the bargain, poor misfortunate bastard that he is. That would have been unfortunate, although at least the little sod wouldn't be able to ruin another night's sleep with his barking. Barking and predicting the future.

Anyway. I went out and bought a new one, as the old one was irretrievably waterlogged and generally fucked. Here it is:

Satan's own handset.

And here's a review where it gets a handsome slagging at the hands of someone who knows what they're on about ; I, on the other hand, have not the faintest clue what I'm on about when it comes to mobile phones, a fact that I forgot in my lust for digital cameras and very small joysticks. My old phone was the telecommunications equivalent of a yoghurt pot on a bit of string. It was simple to use and easy to understand. It had Snake on it. I liked Snake, so what madness descended to make me choose this fiddly piece of shit?

I can't get it do anything. It's got the internet, but I'm never going to use it. It's got an mp3 player, but I can't find it. I tried sending a text message today and it took me the best part of half an hour. I've spent the last day staring at it like, well, like a chimpanzee that's been given an overly complicated mobile phone, scratching my arse and grunting in puzzled bewilderment. Whilst eating a banana.

It's especially pointless as nobody ever calls me, because I have (wait for it)... no social life! There are Buddhist hermits up Tibetan mountains who have more interesting Friday nights than me. It was the bloke in the shop, that's what it was. I was taken in by his sharp suit and matey patter. I got burned. I want out.

And, as if that wasn't enough, I now have this bastard to deal with:

You will not best me, doctor.

Yes folks, it's Dr Kawashima of Dr Kawashima's Brain Training, the DS phenomenon that can apparently improve your mental agility by a factor of whatever. The idea is that you perform his little mental exercises, jump through his hoops for ten minutes every day, and you will magically become smarter. Glyn came home with it yesterday and now I've been sucked in. When you start the game works out your 'brain age', which is basically a tool for the good doctor to tell you that you're stupid so you'll continue playing, lest your brain turn to mush in your skull. Last night my brain age was 46; today it's 64. If I carry on at this rate I'll have trouble retaining bladder control by Christmas.

So you do the exercises and fare really badly at them, feeling like a complete fucking idiot, and all the while the disembodied bastard offers words of patronising 'encouragement'. He let slip that he doesn't like coriander, and that if you say the word 'coriander' into the DS he'll pull a face. Which he does, so Glyn and I have taken to saying 'coriander' repeatedly and at length in an effort to gain some small measure of revenge as we watch his polygonal face screw up in distaste, over and over again. But it's a tiny victory, especially when you consider that the real Dr Kawashima is in his Japanese mansion, swimming about in his money like Scrooge McFuckingDuck and probably paying people to eat coriander for him. We, meanwhile, are spending our weekends arguing with a disembodied head on a hand-held games console, our brains becoming older and more decrepit with every minute that slips through our fingers. There's a real winner here, and I'm guessing it's not us.

Read your Sale of Goods Act, people. Learn that shit!

I started temping in a new office last week. I'll be keeping the company name secret because I don't want to get sacked, or sued, or sacked then sued then sacked again. They don't sell coffins, but let's just say that they do. So imagine you've bought a coffin from us; it arrives at your house and (bugger!) the varnish is chipped, or the satin lining is torn. Maybe there's a body already in there. Whatever the problem, you're not a happy consumer. You want reparations.

So you call the office and demand your money back, and we do everything within our power to stop you. Firstly, we'll try and convince you to get your coffin repaired, or maybe replaced with a new one. If that doesn't work (and it often doesn't; there are people out there who have had four or five coffins dispatched to them, each one more bickered than the last) we'll grudgingly allow you to swap it for another from our coffin emporium. But maybe that's not enough either. You're sick of our shit, you want a full refund, you are perfectly within your rights to have one and we know it just as well as you do - but the only refund you will receive will come in the form of one extended middle finger. Occasionally someone will call up spitting feathers, quoting chapter and verse from the Sale of Goods Act and invoking the wrath of the Citizen's Advice Bureau. That'll usually do the trick, but they really need to know what they're talking about. There are little old ladies out there who, having shelled out serious fucking cash, are being dicked more thoroughly than a teenage groupie on a Led Zeppelin charter flight.

When the agency was signing me up for this gig they made big noises about how it's 'a small, family owned company', like that somehow ensured that these people were going to be paragons of virtue. Unfortunately, being small and family owned isn't much good when the family is made up of gouging, Bentley-driving shitbirds. Know your right, kids, because no other bugger is going to tell them to you. Personally I can't wait to get back to the warm, comforting bosom of local government, where profit doesn't matter and all you need to worry about is good old fashioned incompetence.

Why I left Stourbridge in the first place, part 1.

Here's a typical night out on the town in Stourbridge. First, drink quickly and heavily in a near-deserted old man-style boozer. Eat your own body weight in pork scratchings whilst playing pool, badly. Do this until around 10:30, when your itchy feet will lead you out in search of some dancing. Pick one of the half dozen or so pubs that have a dance floor and a late licence; any one, doesn't matter which. Queue for a while and then have this conversation:

You: All right, mate?
Bouncer: Not tonight lads. You're too casual.
You: Oh, go on. We'll be no trouble. We only want a drink and a bit of a dance.
Bouncer: No, you're too casual. Now piss off.

Repeat until you've been turned away from everywhere, then go home. I wouldn't mind but it's not like we're talking about classy, urbane, sophisticated nightspots here; we're talking about horrific puke-reeking drinking pits that play shit music to pissed morons in a doomed midlands town. It's not like the sight of me dancing like a harmless twat in a 2000AD t shirt is going to spoil the carefully constructed ambiance. 'Sorry pal, you can't come in. We've heard a rumour that Brad and Angelina might be stopping by and if they see the likes of you in here they'll shit.' Not going to happen, is it? But just because they've pushed some of the chairs to the sides to make a dance floor and employed a sub-standard DJ they act like they're fucking Fabric or something.

So every thick-necked mouth breathing fucktard in town is inside, knocking back Stellas and surreptitiously fingering desperate 30-something divorcees in the beer garden, while nice guys like me and Phil are left out in the cold. Where's the justice?

Bastards!