While I was in Hong Kong the other week, I noticed that Chinese construction workers used bamboo for scaffolding. Bamboo! YOU COULDN’T MAKE IT UP!

I’m now inspired to write the odd post in the style of Richard Littlejohn. I shall call my alter-ego John Littledick. Cos I’m clever an’ shit.

Ken Dodd

You know when something horrible is imminent and time seems to slow? The plate slips and hurtles towards the ground, Rob Green saves only to see the ball fall to Paul Stalteri who shoots into the unguarded net, you’ve left a child in front of a tank. Horrible isn’t it?

Another popular example happened to me yesterday, with a flick of a cat’s arse, my wine glass was sent spinning to the ground. It could have been worse, only the stem broke, but it made me wonder, what actually is the point of having drinking vessels made of glass?

A couple of years ago I went on a picnic, naturally I would want to get blind pissed, so I bought a shed load of wine. And some glasses. Of course they weren’t actual glasses, they were made of plastic, but I can’t say I bought some plastics, that just sounds silly. But not as silly as taking actual glasses, they would have smashed in my bag and thus cut my face off when I tried to use them. Of course the risk of domestic glass mishap is far less but it does happen. A woman was jailed on Friday for severing her husband’s artery with a tumbler. So why don’t we use plastic all the time?

After a brief bit of research, the rather obvious answer was presented to me. Plastic scratches too easily and can’t be cleaned as well, thus making it far less hygienic than glass. Bugger.

Unfortunately no one can actually reach a consensus on why glass breaks so easily. After 2,000 years of making and breaking glass, one might think there would be a definitive answer. But at the Third International Workshop on the Flow and Fracture of Advanced Glasses (oh yes), held in the US in October 2005, 50 or so of the world’s top glass scientists (never really thought about those before) scratched their heads as researchers presented sharply conflicting views on the topic.

According to www.physorg.com a major international incident was narrowly avoided after several hours of heated discussion. Closer international co-operation on the issue is advised to find a (un)breakthough.  Until such time, I shall continue to risk life, limb and lip in the pursuit of alcoholic oblivion. And be irritated by cats.

Here’s a new game for you all. Buy a remote control dalek, then position all your toys around your gaff and engage your thumbs for a bout of ‘Dalek’s a Knockout’, a future classic in which R2D2 sits hiding in the corner like an uncharacteristicly cowardly alarm clock, Emma Peel ends up stooped before Steed in an upsettingly inappropriate embrace and Magical Trevor holds his own until the keyring Kiwi attached to his hat allows him to be plungered down at the last minute.

So welcome to Charles Dalek, the new house baddie, joining Kev the Dalek and Trev the Dalek in the lounge of aren’t we geeks. Charles Dalek 10, house toys 0.

Submissions please for your best stupid game for hungover mornings.

A happy new year to all friends of Clements.

On a more serious note, we regret to inform you that the end of the world is, frankly, nigh – Terminator style. Man’s creations threaten us at every turn.

The voice in this clip translates as “Worship! Worship our robotic overlord!”

AT-AT walkers are in development, and they can even stand up when you hit them. No word yet on whether they can survive a flying rope attack round the legs.

and finally, man and machine will bonk and we shall be ruined forever.

Hey Jon! They’ve been in Doctor Who!

Who loves robots? I loves robots.

It’s a well known fact that I love Christmas, and it does tend to bring out the best and worst in people.  My mother would happliy invite various warring mutants to our house on Christmas Day, dertermined to give them a ‘normal Christmas experience’, completely forgetting that it was her family that usually had a new experince.  Many are the Christmases of yesteryear that I’ve watched presents being flung from first floor windows or games of Pictionary decend into bareknuckle boxing.

But one thing I dislike about Christmas is the waste, particularly in regard to cards. 

The average Brit sends 17 cards at Christmas, that’s over a billion across the country.  Or nearly 400,000 trees.

This is appalling and it’s a problem.  Happily there is a simple solution; stop sending cards you morons.  Or if you must send them, write them in pencil, then it can be erased and used again next year.  Of course you could always buy recycled ones I suppose.

Janet Ellis

They want our way of life
Well, they can take mine any time they like.

I’ve waited 11 years to see Jarvis Cocker. I know, I know, you liked Pulp in 1985, you’ve seen them 17 times in their native Sheffield, you still have your blow-up Jarvis from Select magazine and you once saw him buying a cookbook in Waterstones. But I haven’t, so please indulge my smug satisfaction at having relished the presence of one last teen idol.

Love is subjective so I shan’t be turning music critic any time soon, but let me just say that Jarvis still has it in abundance, working your heart with humour and darkness and recognition, and his band are great too. Most of the crowd were well rehearsed in songs that came out only a few days ago, and even if they weren’t full of the wide-eyed euphoria that I absorbed on Monday (David says that this is how cults get their groupies) they were mostly delightful, throwing their own balloons (‘Cyril’s 80th Birthday’) and bopping gently along.

The lyrics are outstanding, the tunes are engaging, the fringe and hips and elbows are jutting away as ever and Candida is waiting in the wings with her arms folded and a little smile on her lips. I am realising that I don’t know the words to the third verse of ‘Space Oddity’ and then I think Jarvis looks straight at me and I blush. Proper, proper heroes never let you down.

Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it’s anthropologically unjust,
Oh but the takings are up by a third.

C***s are still running the world.

It’s not often a girl can say she’s literally been bowled over by a fella, but tonight I was. It was quite embarrassing really, or would have been had the room not been filled with love, light and happiness (that could just have been me, but I doubt it). I was knocked down by a giant inflatable ball that was filled with naught but air and Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips. Fear not, I wasn’t hurt.

I have gushed about the Flaming Lips in another blog at another time but let me just assure you that they remain gushworthy. Highlights included a shitload of little and huge balloons that leapt towards my waiting punches like baddies in Space Invaders, yeah yeah yeahing with a load of happy people and having my faith in all things wonderful strengthened in bouncy bouncy laser-showing puppet-weilding Bush-bemoaning joy.

Towards the end Wayne tells us that when the song finishes we should tell people we love them. It ends and I hug and say nice things to Sarah. I then text a few people in accordance with Wayne’s instructions. Here is a selection of the responses that aren’t too lovely to share

eh?

Stop drinking, it’s frying your brain

Who is Wayne Coyne? And who are you?

I appear to be writing gig reviews that don’t mention the music much, but you can read a proper music blog for that, can’t you?