Last weekend, through poor planning and a lack of foresight, I found myself at Asda in Shipley of a mid morning on a Saturday. It was horrendously busy and full of people ambling along with trolleys they periodically abandoned on the aisles as they browsed and couldn’t find what they wanted. “Never again” I said to myself, and promptly forgot about it. This morning I found myself in an identical situation some 10 minutes later than the week previous. I really have to keep the promises I make myself, or at least remember them.

Bradford Town Hall Clock has now been corrected. The morning it was telling the right time for the first time I sauntered, knowing I was very early and was in fact merely on time as a result. However, if I need that blast of incorrect time keeping in my life there is always the clock on Bradford Cathedral, which runs about five minutes fast and caused some concern having been around Forster Square.

It’s been a week of little sleep as well as incorrect clocks. One night I went to bed at about ten thirty only to get a call at ten to eleven. a text at half eleven and then three phone calls from a drunk with the wrong number at around two. The following night one of the neighbours decided to set off a whole battery of loud and bright fireworks between about one and one thirty. I spent the following morning with the idea of reporting them for child abuse, drugs offences and benefit fraud they almost certainly not commited keeping me warm and awake. I also toyed with the idea of using a window trembler alarm through their letterbox as a more directed way of letting them know how not fun being woken in the middle of the night is. They’re late risers, I could do it on my way to work.

One of the few TV shows I watch, and the only one I watch as it airs rather than using BBC iplayer (or other means) is The Apprentice. It was the first week I picked both the losing team and the person who would be fired. I don’t know if that means it was more obvious this week (it did seem singularly obvious, but I have been wrong on that before) or I am just getting better at working out what is fair representation and what is a swerve to make the boardroom scenes more dramatic at the end. It’s well orchestrated television, but I don’t think it represents anything like business reality, especially in the current climate.

I also saw the new The Inbetweeners, South Park and Stewart Lee. The Inbetweeners suffers only in that it came off the back of a truly excellent episode and doesn’t compare. By any normal standards it is brilliant. South Park is amusing but rarely laugh out loud funny and feels oddly slack, I expected more ferocity and a greater density of jokes. I don’t know if Stewart Lee suffers in the editing, but his timing seems off and he sometimes comes across as bitter without being venomous. He’s funny, but sometimes he’s too deconstructionist and he wants you to intellectually appreciate the artificiality of it all, the construction and craft, rather than the humour.

I am slowly reverting back to the sleep pattern I had when I worked at the bakery, short hours during the week and catching up at the weekend. Three and four hours a night Sunday to Thursday and Friday as a decadent excess, burrowing into my mattress and getting eight or more hours.

I have a new job which involves working in the largest office I have ever worked in. The office is so large that different areas have distinct temperatures. Fortunately I am located at the cool end, which I find to be merely too warm rather than stifling. I sit opposite a girl in a shirt. And jumper. And fleece. Who complains it is too cold.

The office is largely full of (mainly girls) teenagers and the middle aged, with me being one of the two in that odd middle ground of old enough to shave but too young to shop in Greenwoods. The other is a woman who is a year older than I am but looks like she is in her mid forties having had a largely disappointing life (remember this, it is important). Anyway, apparently people have been guessing how old I am. And, for the first time in my life, they have got the age wrong by guessing too young! Apart from the woman who looks to be in her forties, who thought I was about her age.

Going to work, of a morning, I pass Bradford Town Hall. On Bradford Town Hall is Bradford Town Hall Tower. And in Bradford Town Hall Tower is Bradford Town Hall Tower Clock. Which is eight minutes fast. And causes me to hurry to work only to find out that the clock is in fact fast. Every single morning.

Today I went shopping in Asda. Now, when I shop in the supermarket, I carry a large sports bag on my shoulder to put things in. This is not so much to reduce my carbon footprint by using fewer carrier bags but rather because I find it easier to carry things like that. Today, in Asda, there were some form of scouts packing bags at the checkout with large buckets in which they hoped to receive a donation for doing so. Having had a bad experience a decade hence with a boyscout deciding eggs were a suitable foundation on which to throw tins of vegetables I don’t let any of them near my goods. So I told the girl I wasn’t interested and she went and stood to one side to talk to her friend on the next line and I packed my bag. Now, when my bag is packed I sling it over my shoulder with an expansive swinging motion. This is normally safe to do at the end of a checkout because no one is stood next to you. You know, talking to their friend or anything. So not only did I not give any money to the scouts, I also hit one of their number. That is how much I don’t want any of you dib dib dabbers packing my bags.

The new episode of The Inbetweeners is uproariously funny. Funnier than anything I have seen on television since the best moments of Father Ted. Better than anything this decade. It is cring inducing, embarrassing, crass and hilarious.

The new South Park had a really funny South Park joke and some good moments, but couldn’t really compete.

I finally watched Death Proof and Planet Terror. Assuming you’re even further behind with films to watch than I am, may I just offer the following advice?
Watch Planet Terror but not Death Proof.

The Guardian is the most transparent, honest and fair purveyor of financial news and recommendations in Britain, if not the world. I know this because The Guardian tells me so. In an offensively smug manner. Do you know how you can tell how good it is?
Because it has the financial news before the comments and not after them. On this basis the Sun and Star are even better at reporting the death of Jade Goody because they had it on the left hand column on the cover rather than the right hand one. And the Independent and Telegraph are utterly useless at reporting her demise because they don’t have her death on the cover at all. How can they sleep with themselves?
As an aside, the Star costs less than half as much as my local paper. And has just as little you’d actually want to read in it.

On the topic of newspapers, did anyone catch David Baddiel’s piece in the Times at the weekend about starting off his career with the Mary Whitehouse Experience?
Crap, isn’t it?

The new South Park starts with a Watchmen parody and descends into a sub Batman rip off. It has a couple of good jokes but isn’t great. In fact, I only laughed out loud a couple of times.

My parents now have a Liberal Democrat councillor. He won by a landslide which I had initially attributed to the rather odd nature of the local electorate and the fact that corruption seems to be ripe in the borough. Later I found the Conservative party candidate’s leaflet and it became rather more clear. Among the accusations made against him:
He would promote monogamy!
He was in favour of contraception!
He didn’t believe in burning gays and bisexuals at the stake!
Unfortunately I forgot to bring the leaflet to scan it but it is spectacular. Right here, right now, I have a question: David Cameron, are you opposed to monogamy?

There is a huge pile of rubble that used to be a number of businesses. Some of which had occupied the buildings that have become a huge pile of rubble for my living memory. The pile of rubble has been there, seemingly unaltered, for two years. And it says “Bradford: the birth of a new city.”
a) Longest gestation period ever
b) How long between smacking the baby on the bottom and it crying before you decide it is still-born?

If you’re middle class leaving children alone and getting blindingly drunk a tenth of a mile from them while checking on them once an hour is responsible parenting. And no media outlet will take you to task on this.

The Bible, tome of truth greater than literal truth that it is, has survived many translations throughout history. I propose it be altered to text speak, as Jesus has clearly had “brb” on his status window for close to 2000 years now . . .

Chelsea will be home to the league champions being crowned tonight. Plastic fans will sing and cheer from the terraces, and a silent owner will watch as his expensively assembled team pick up their medals. However, it being Manchester United who have won, I shall be laughing and really hope they field a weakened side as the final insult.

Tony Blair will apparently announce his resignation tomorrow. 10 Years, and the dizzying crush that became another staid affair and soulless marriage careers to bitter divorce. I’ll let you have the car, I am sure you will find a new house and maybe even someone who can love what you have become, but can I have my sodding country back?

I just remembered I missed a Comet cut price thing on their webpage today. What sort of failure am I as a consumer?

My mother turned 60 today. As per her wishes the family has done little to mark the occasion. I did, however, buy her the entirety of Firefly. She may learn to love it even as I have never managed to. It’s not without merit, you just have to wade through some very clunky moments to get to them and the music on the earlier episodes is horrendous.

Wayne is apparently obsessed with seeing me in skintight red clothing. He assures me he is not gay, but then suggested painting me red and keeping me otherwise naked. If it were not for distance and the fact I can outrun him I would be worried.

The Pirates 3 Trailer is out. The Pirates 3 Trailer, not being one to hype films or get excited unnecessarily, but it looks like the best third film in a trilogy ever. Unless it is less good than Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Which is possible. But it looks fun, it looks exciting and it looks satisfying.

I think I have social tourette’s. It’s the overwhelming urge to say absolutely the most inappropriate thing at any given time. The most offensive, the most mortifying, the one destined to stop any conversation dead in its tracks. Its coupled with a sixth sense to know who around me is vegetarian or married to anyone of Irish descent. Or dates a ginger.

Barclays Bank, if you are a business user, is less awful than Halifax/Bank of Scotland and the Co Operative bank. I think I may make some adult decisions in months to come that include changing bank and throwing off the shackles of my Northern socialist heritage.

Sometimes the words come and they flow. You sit back and smile and wonder what a successful little ending will be to a series of paragraphs you like. Sometime they are staccato bites of venom that pop into the head and out onto the keyboard. And sometimes you sit there and glare, knowing you had something to say and wondering where the artistry and turn of phrase went from it. Tonight is the latter.

Points for getting the title quote, but not too many. It isn’t too hard . . .

I feel old and weary. It has been a long week. I look old as I accidentally melted parts of my beard, eyelashes and eyebrows. They are white on the tips and I look like I am trying to be a Father Christmas.

This is very, very funny indeed. Were it not for the fact I can’t get any of these toys easily I know what some children would be getting this year . . .

Ice Age 2 is very good indeed. I think I prefer it to the first, it is a series of sketches stuck together and has no clunking bits with humans in.

I have 3 days of work left this year. Hurrah!

Firstly, if you do nothing else today go here and check on page 3. It goes from hilarious to problems breathing due to laughing so hard.

I managed to rip my fingernail off in a more permenant manner in a freak accident involving a hair straightener. The appliance in question may be only mediocre for styling but, as a torture instrument, it is first class. I just hope the nail grows back tidily, I would hate to have ugly fingernails.

One of the local radio stations is now playing a selection of Christmas songs. I hear snatches through the day, unfortunately they all seem to have been penned and performed by Paul McCartney. On the plus side they play a lot of Shakira and regularly play Toni Braxton’s Unbreak My Heart.

The new series of South Park may be the finest yet. Returning to the seemingly rich vein of lampooning sports comedies and mixing in current affairs and lots of bad taste they have created a series which is certainly better than several that have preceeded it, and is a far cry from the diminishing returns The Simpsons had reached at a similar point in its life.