Dogs and Doubles (ED! #11)

No matter how hard life is, there will always be someone worse off than you.
There is a place on this earth where people are locked in confined spaces, with barely enough room to stand up. Where these people are exposed to extremes of heat and light, and shaken around, until they're ready to confess to almost anything.

This is called British Rail.

Mike Harding told that joke many years ago, but as this edition of Ed is coming to you live from a particularly bumpy train, it seemed kind of appropriate.

"What shall I write about in the next edition of Ed?" I asked myself yesterday. Then a flood of calls to mailbox reminded me - "Tell us the story of the dog who wanted your ice cream", you said. Aaah, I remember now. I always did have a lousy memory.

The incident with the dog is one of my earliest memories from when I was young - it's funny how some things stay with you. Life when you're young is a bit like the aforementioned example of British Rail. While spending life being driven from place to place by a chauffeur - albeit in a baby buggy - sounds nice, it's often not all it's cracked up to be.

When you're small, everything is so much bigger. And no things could possibly have been larger than the dog who wanted my ice cream. I must have been about three at the time, possibly younger. I'm not sure where I was - my mumsie had escorted me there in the usual manner so I didn't have any exact map co-ordinates in my mind. I think it was a park, or something. It certainly had a nice swimming pool nearby.

Anyway, before too long, my day out was interrupted by the opportunity to have some ice-cream. As any parent will tell you, kids of the age that I was at the time will *always* want an ice cream when they see one. And so it was with me. I indicated to my escort that I desired an ice cream. A big one.

It was a very good ice cream, actually. One of the proper ones with a cone and you get a scoop of your chosen flavour - in my case, mint choc chip. But this was one of those special double cones, which I haven't seen for ages, so I had two scoops. Truly, I was king for a day.

I was as happy as Larry, whoever he was, and about to take my first lick when in bounded some huge, ferocious, snarling dog. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a pit bull or anything dangerous like that, but when you're three, any reasonably sized dog is huge and ferocious when it's not licking your face or letting you pat it.

But this dog was in no mood for being cute. It saw my super deluxe ice cream, with two scoops. And it wanted it. What did it do? What could it do? It did the only thing a dog can do. It started barking at me. Loudly.

This troubled me, a three year old with a fine non-dairy milk double scooper ice cream. And you have to bear in mind that when you're that age, there's only so many ways you can handle a situation like that. I did the only thing I could do. I immediately started crying.

The fearsome dog didn't like the noise I was making too much, but it still wanted my ice cream. Well, I was having none of that. While manfully fighting off this dog by sobbing my eyes out, I ensured that my ice cream was safely out of harms way - I steadfastly held it above my head. It was not having my ice cream.

On and on the dog barked, louder and louder were my cries. Until, somehow, this impasse was cleared up by the reckless owners of the noisy dog and my mumsie. Before long everything was alright again, and the dog was gone. Funny how quickly things happen when you're young.

With the dog out of the way, I think I got two licks out of my super special ice cream before... I dropped it. And oh how I cried again. Well, so would you if you were three. Protecting your ice cream from a dog is one thing, but dropping it is quite another. The moment a food product hits the floor, it's officially out of play. No more ice cream for you, young man.

Mumsie took me home and I watched an episode of Paddington before I went to bed. After all, I'd had a big day.

Events like this are what dangerous criminals are made of. Many a law court is faced with the miscreant who has gone mad and smashed all the windows in a building, or plucked the feathers off all the budgies in a street in a serial kind of manner. What are events like this traced back to? "I dropped my special ice-cream!!", pleads the defendant. Scarred for life.

I'm slightly better mentally balanced than that, though. But before this unhappy incident does any more damage and turns me into a nutcase before I'm 26, I need to put this right. The next time I find an ice-cream stand that does those special double cones, a double mint choc chip will be mine.

I just hope there are no dogs around. It could destroy a lesser man.

Again! Again! (ED! #10)

Where would the world be without the Teletubbies?
It seems that just about everyone has been talking about this lot recently, and I have to admit that I missed out on the early stages of this craze by just never being around at the time of day it was on.
But the other day I rose from my bed in time to catch the cultural phenomenon that this show undoubtedly is, and resolved to try and work out why it was so popular.
Yes, 10am. It was time for Teletubbies. Teletubbies seems to be set on a golf course - I guess that explains why it appeals to people. After all, golf is a popular sport.

Although it'd probably be less popular if the process of birdieing and being teed off, or whatever it is that golfers actualy do, was interrupted by bits of broken old telephones erupting out of the 18th hole while four brightly coloured space aliens began running around the field of play.

I had a rough idea of the characters and what they were called.. I knew there was.. erm.. Po, and Dipsy, and Wee wee, or something like that, but wasn't quite sure.

I'm sure one of the characters introduced themselves as "Hanky Wanky" but I put that down to me not being fully awake.

Who knows, in 20 years time people might be claiming there was a Teletubby by that name in the same way that people think there were rude characters in Captain Pugwash.

Which, I would add, there weren't.

Still, I watched Teletubbies some more and still couldn't really figure out exactly what the deal was. Then the tubbies did their "who's going to show the movie on their tummies today" bit. Waiting to find out whether it would be Po, Dipsy, LaLa, or Tinky Winky certainly took me back to the dates of Play school and its excitingly shaped windows.

We never had windows like that in my house.

But then again in my day we didn't have the Teletubbies. Maybe that's part of the problem in society.

Kids these days have four, very expensive tubbie things running around a golf course - and golf courses aren't exactly cheap - and some kind of hostile alien command centre where tubby custard is produced.

In my day, we had Humpty. And Humpty didn't say a lot either. He could barely wave bye-bye without the help of the presenter.

Don't get me wrong here, Humpty was absolutely the man in my day, but these days I guess time goes on.

Anyway, the tubbies played this video and it was all about the number five. Exciting stuff it was too. They had five red buses, and .. well, just about five of everything.

Then a milkman appeared. "Five pints please," it said. "Aha", I thought to myself. "Now I understand why this is so popular with grown-ups, it must be some kind of drinking game."

But as quickly as it had started, the exciting video about the number five had finished.

And then.. the tubbies played it again! "Again, again!" they cried! And they did play it again! The whole thing!

I mean, it was like watching an episode of Entertainment Tonight or something.

Damn it, I wish I'd thought of that joke on mailbox. It could have been really funny at the time.

Babies, Buses and Bees (ED! #09)

I was thinking about things while I was on the bus this afternoon. It's funny how much of my thinking I do on the bus or at least being transported from A to B in some way.
As I swayed from side to side with my 300 fellow passengers in a somewhat overcrowded bus, I couldn't help but notice that I was sharing my "double seat" with a young girl with a happy looking baby.
It was looking all round, gurgling and smiling happily, and it looked at me. I smiled. It smiled.

You have to admire babies, really. The way they learn about the world so quickly is amazing - they're so inquisitive.

I saw the learning process continue today as the happy baby extended his tiny arm towards me, reached out his fingers, wanting to touch and feel and generally sample the whole wide world around it, to learn new things, new textures..

It grabbed my tie. And put it straight in its mouth. Yaaargh!

I'm looking at my tie now, still soggy from baby dribble stain, with a dark patch between Kermit the frog and Miss Piggy.

But then again you can't hold it against them - babies have to do that kind of thing. It's the law. And all part of the essential learning process.

Do you know those baby activity centres? Fun things. All sorts of mirrors and things to touch, and the good ones have a button which makes a bell go ding. Babies love that.

So no surprise that when the happy baby on the bus noticed a brightly coloured red button with 'stop' written on it, it was delighted to discover that pressing it made the bus go ding.

"No dear, you mustn't do that", said Miss Parent. "The bus driver will be angry". Baby was having none of it.

Ding! Ooh, this button makes a dinging noise, mum, just like my activity centre at home. Ding! Ding! Ding! Well you can picture it for yourself.

That was about as exciting as my journey to work got this morning. But coming home this afternoon was more interesting still.

Sitting up the back end of the bus, as you do, and with yet another stranger borrowing a bit of my double seat, I couldn't help but notice what a great day it was.

Nice day, sun shining, world turning - can't be bad. Happy bus passengers, no drunks or lunatics, things were going well..

And then the tranquillity was brutally shattered by some bee thing - actually I think it was a wasp - getting on the bus (I didn't see him show his ticket) and generally deciding to fly around a bit.

It got tired of this very quickly and came to rest on the window ledge about five inches away from me.

There was a six year old on the bus who didn't like bees at all, and ran right up the other end of the bus. And who can blame her?

I would have done the same thing.. were it not for the fact that some woman was sitting to my left, obstructing my exit.

Considering that shrieking, standing up and then attempting to leave my seat by climbing over this woman would be an extremely undignified manoeuvre, I decided to sit it out.

Well I didn't have much of a choice, really. As close as this wasp was to me, there wasn't much I could do. It's easy to be brave when you have no choice.

It wasn't helped by the running commentary from Little miss minor at the front of the bus, "Mummy, mummy, there's a wasp there and it's going to sting that man!". Oh THANKS!

I adopted the cool approach, and stared nonchalantly out of the window, reminding myself that I was only sweating because it was a hot day.

And after all, what's the worst that could happen? OK, if it stung me it would hurt, yes, but it wouldn't kill me. I could handle it.

Whatever doesn't kill me can only make me stronger, huh? No permanent damage, that's what Penn & Teller say.

Well it sounds great but all those brave words have only just come into my head, they certainly weren't in my consciousness at the time.

In fact, it reminded me of when I was very young. I was terrified of bees. My mum would always say to me when we were in the garden and an unwanted visitor arrived, she'd say "Mind that bee, dear"..

So one day while I was still very young and I came hammering into the house from outside, mum naturally asked me what was wrong. "I saw a beedear!" I said.

If only it were that simple. Now I'm 25, nowhere to run, and sharing my bus journey with a beedear just a few inches away.

The funny thing was, it actually stopped moving. This cheered up little miss commentary, who offered "It's dead, mummy!". And then it started moving again!

Victor Lewis-Smith once said that the great British public is terrified of anything which stays still for a long time and then suddenly moves very very quickly.

Victor is god.
Anyway, by now this was all just too much - now there were several people leaving the seats around me, and even the lady previously blocking my exit to the left was not putting up with this, and moved up the bus a bit.

At this point I thought perhaps I could offer some useful advice to these worried passengers. Like "don't worry, wasps won't sting you unless you annoy them", or something.

I thought better of it. Mainly because I'm not used to public speaking, and secondly because this would have made me look extremely silly if this wasp had subsequently stung me and I'd shattered all the glass in the windows of the bus with my high-pitched cowardly screaming.

But I was going to be fine - of course I was. Wasps don't sting you unless you annoy them. And the chances of this wasp being brassed off at not having had their message printed on mailbox, or something, were fairly minimal.

So I still didn't move, and rode all the way home on the bus with Mr wasp now less than one inch away from me. I was at one with nature. And when my stop came, I got off, and walked up the garden path feeling very pleased with myself, like some kind of Doctor Doolittle.

Ed Versus The Homeless (ED! #08)

As I write this, it's 9:28pm on a Sunday night. I'm sitting alone in a train carriage, typing on a laptop. About half an hour ago I passed a homeless young girl in the street.

She must have been about my age, mid-twenties. Sitting on the floor outside the Abbey National, with nothing but a duvet to call her home.

I picked up all this from the briefest of glimpses of her.

There was no eye contact, but I knew she was there. And she said to me: "Do you have any spare change?".

Did I reply? No. Did I look at her? No.

Did I palm her off with some bogus excuse like "sorry, haven't got any"? No.

Cut to the chase - did I give her any money? No. I walked straight on by, and I don't think I'm EVER going to stop regretting it.

You see homeless people all the time in London. It's a fact of life. And on a certain mercenary level, they're kind of easy to ignore. You hear them ask for money, you walk on by, you forget them. You forget them as quickly as you were even aware that they were there.

You may even walk on the inch-wide bit of pavement on the side of the road, dodging the litter bins and lamp posts, just so you can put the maximum possible distance between yourselves and the shop fronts and doorways where they are.

So that they won't ask you for money. Or so you can pretend that you were just too far away to hear them.

You're not mean.. Hey, I'm not mean.. I gave to Comic Relief with the rest of them. But somehow, inherently, you just don't want to be in that position where you're near someone who so desperately needs some help, any help.. YOUR help.. that you would have to feel bad about not giving up your cash when asked.

Asked by someone on the front line - someone right there who needs that money right now. Someone you could give a quid to right at the point of sale, instead of ringing up from the comfort of your own home on a Friday night, in your warm home, in front of a colour TV, and giving someone your credit card number so you can do your bit and give a fiver or something.

Or maybe making a donation on the internet, so you don't even have to speak to a real person at all.

I've got a defence, sure I have. I was in a hurry. I would have given her something if I hadn't been in a hurry. Homeless people ask for money all the time, surely they won't take it personally when they don't get something from everyone they ask.

This girl must have asked hundreds of people for cash and got sod all. She won't remember me. I'm just another face. Not even that. Just another body, another pair of legs and a briefcase walking past her eyeline.

Or maybe it was her first night on the streets. Maybe I was the first person she'd asked. No, couldn't be. What are the odds. Stupid to even consider it.

Excuses like that are so bogus it surprises me I can even write them. That kind of thinking is a guilt reaction. A notion that people invent in their own minds to make them feel better about being so cruel. A way that normally decent people can rationalise being so indecent.

I regretted what I did within a second of having done it. Did I stop and go back? I thought of it, I honestly did. But I didn't, so it doesn't count. Good intentions count for nothing.

What does what I did tonight say to that homeless girl? That I'm a decent guy really and would love to stop and help but I was just too busy? That I have money but I really do need it all much more than she could ever do? No, I don't think it does. I don't think that's true at all.

What does it say? It says "I'm mean", "I'm heartless", "I couldn't give a damn", "I can't do anything for you". I need to add another one. I'm sorry.

I hope I never forget what I did tonight. I hope I remember it just before I walk past another homeless person. To give me time to get my hand in my pocket and grab some coins so I can at least hand them over while walking by, so I don't have to slow down or stop or in any way waste the precious seconds of the selfish lifestyle I'm living.

At least I could do something.

But good intentions count for nothing. Right now that girl is probably still there. She'll still be sleeping in the illuminated doorway of the Abbey National, cold, lonely, and probably, quite rightly, thinking what a terrible world we live in when one member of the human race can treat another so badly.

While tonight I'll be in a warm bed, fed and watered and without a care in the world except my own guilty conscience.

It's easy to say it's "not my problem", but it IS my problem. It's everybody's problem. As someone who has a reasonably good life in comparison to a homeless person, it's my duty and everyone else's duty to remember that we're better than that. We're better than that selfish attitude.. but only if we put things right.

Money is like a food chain. Almost all money that anyone has has usually come from other people - in many cases people who needed it more than you did anyway.

Now and again, does it hurt to give it back?

I'll never see this girl again, that much I'm sure of, but it doesn't make what I did any less excusable.

This girl could be anybody - you might walk past her, or someone like her tomorrow.

If you do, give them something for me. And tell them Ed says sorry.

Ed's Note: Since this was written, the Abbey National has installed sloping ramps in front of its windows so that the homeless cannot sleep there any more.

Extremely Dangerous (ED! #07)

Why yes I am having a nice holiday, thankyou very much for asking.

Not often I get some time to myself, so taking a break this week is really quite refreshing. Nothing to do, and all day to do it in..

Well, OK, that's not strictly true - there are still things that would fall apart if I didn't do them, and I'm still doing those, but I am definitely in a holiday kind of relaxation groove right about now.

By way of testament to my relaxation, I was laying on my bed last night at about a quarter to one (in the morning) and it occured to me that I really really really needed a shave.

I'm not a particularly hairy guy, but shaving is so awkward and complicated - and after the best part of six years of doing it I still can't get it right - so it's not something I do unless I have to. When I'm bumming around at home, I let things slip a bit.

Anyway, last night I became so infuriated with this itchy foliage growing on my lower face area that I decided a shave was in order.

Nothing really unusual in that, I admit, but it serves as a link into what struck me as interesting, specifically my tin of shaving foam.

I can hear what's going through your mind right now.. "He's going to talk about shaving foam, this is going to be even less interesting than the one about the poo.." - but no!

What struck me as interesting about the shaving foam was not its foamy nature but the printing on the can.

Always read the label, as they say.

Anyway, my eye suddenly noticed a symbol I had not noticed before. A picture of a happy little blazing inferno - printed in red no less - together with the inspiring legend "EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE".

Extremely!

Shaving foam? Extremely Flammable? No, not to worry, thought I, it's because it's an aerosol.

To test my hypothesis I reached for a nearby can of deodorant. No pictures of fire, but some bold printing: FLAMMABLE.

Oh, just flammable. Not 'Extremely' flammable like that dangerous shaving foam stuff. Well, obvious really, I mean I should have seen that coming.

Should I be worried about this? Well of course I shouldn't but it still made me wonder.

I associate words like 'flammable' with things which are liable to get spontaneously hot - petrol, chip pans, our old teletext transmission system, that kind of thing.

'Extremely Flammable' conjures up images of more exteme dangerousness in my mind - this is a "step away from the vehicle" fence-it-off-with -yellow-tape kind of deal.

However, after much observation, I saw no evidence that my 'extremely' dangerous tin of shaving foam was going to injure me in any way, and I got on with it and had a shave.

And just think, had I not noticed that, I wouldn't have written the last seven pages.

Perhaps they'll take all the warning labels off anything I'm likely to come in contact with now. An inspired artist is a dangerous thing.

Ladies Love Cool Ed (ED! #06)

One of my favourite cartoon strips aside from Dilbert is Calvin & Hobbes. Here's one that caught my eye recently.

Calvin (a young kid) approaches his father. "Here's the latest poll on your performance as Dad. Your approval rating is pretty low, I'm afraid."

Dad says: "That's because there's not necessarily any connection between what's good and what's popular."

Dad goes on. "I do what's right, not what gets approval".

Calvin is unimpressed. "You'll never keep the job with THAT attitude."

Dad has the last word. "If someone else offers to do it, let me know".

It loses a certain something without the pictures, but it makes a nice point.

I could read comic books all day.

Sadly I don't get the chance, I'm too busy thinking about my ego. I like to think I'm a pretty modest guy but now and again I get an attack of the bigheads.

In my more extreme moments I've even considered changing my name. After all, plain 'Ed' is nice but is pretty ordinary.

What I need is a name like a pop star - perhaps one of those nice rap artists - to get me noticed.

Scanning through the charts I noticed Mr LL Cool J in the top spot. Apparently that's short for 'Ladies Love Cool James'.

Hmm. 'Ladies Love Cool Ed'. That has a ring to it, but it is, of course, not true. 'Everyone Loves Cool Ed' ? Mm, no, that's not true either.

'Everyone Who Counts Loves Cool Ed'. No. It'd take me ages just signing the receipts in the supermarket every week.

Perhaps I'll shelve the idea of a name change for the moment.

Other projects which crossed my mind in the bath have included the formation of the 'Mailbox New Ruling Class'. An organisation devoted to furthering the causes of mailbox and mailboxers, and employing everyone else, especially those without satellite or cable, as our slaves and personal servants.

But then the soap disappeared and I put the idea out of my mind.

I recall mentioning in the last annual update of Ed! that I was waffling on about diaries. In the end I did buy that page-a-day A4 job for 1997.

And now that we're about 40 days into the year, how many pages have I written on?

Three.

I always was rubbish at keeping diaries..

The One With The Poo (ED! #05)

As I sit in front of this computer, tissues to left of me, vapo-rub to right of me, I note with some horror that my very own page has laid neglected for exactly 21 days!

A grevious error, and one which I must immediately put right. But first I must apply this stinky greasy stuff to my body, so please look away for a moment...

Ah, that's better. Now I know how Odo felt in DS9 tonight. Did you see it? Nah, doesn't matter.

The thing with vaporub is that you never know just how much to apply. Having just rubbed myself silly with a liberal quantity of the mixture I'm currently getting a kind of "one sinex up each nostril" kind of scent, which I'm sure is what is required here.

This will certainly make me popular in the office tomorrow. I wonder if anyone will ask me out. Hm, on an unrelated note, I assume the fumes this stuff gives off aren't a fire hazard? Naah, they wouldn't sell this stuff if it wasn't safe.

Well, anyway, having spent the best part of 3 and a half days in bed, I find myself well stocked with thoughts and musings for this page. Why, this could keep me going up to Christmas!

One thing happened this morning which hit me in the face and made me say YES, this is what I'll be writing about today.

It was a schools programme on BBC2. Starring a woman and that famous acting doggie, Pippin.

It was a very odd show - I only happened to crash into it after having surfed through the best part of 34 cable channels and tried the terrestrials.

I should have known what I was in for when the screen filled with a picture of a pristine porcelain toilet, and the word 'sewage' was spelled out in those learn-to-read big curvy back-to-school type letters. It was a programme all about sewage, yes.

Now forgive me if I throw a CJ here, but when I went to school, we weren't told about sewage, and we certainly didn't have schools programmes telling us what was what!

Anyway, the makers of this bizarre schools programme decided that the best way to illustrate exactly how sewage works was for the amazing acting dog Pippin to .. erm.. do his doggie doo in the garden. Then we'd follow its progress through the sewage system.

How does doggy doo become sewage? Well, sit back and be as informed as I became this morning.

Pippin's business was discovered by his bouncy lady minder (I didn't catch her name) who squealed "Oh Pippin! You've done a poo!" upon sighting the doggy's contribution to the education process in the garden.

Now I'm 24 and I thought that line was hilarious. Had I been between 6 and 12 and watching this in school I would lay money that I would still be laughing at it, even now!

Anyway, Mrs Bouncy ran indoors, came back out decked out in full yellow marigolds and with a little plastic bag, in which she carefully picked up the doggy doo and ran indoors with it.

For the briefest flash of a second it crossed my mind that it looked as if she was collecting these items, but no.

Into the bathroom we go, and Mrs B unwraps the doo from the plastic bag, and flushes it.

You'll note that she didn't do what everyone else would have done and flushed the bag as well. (Presumably the water board would have been most upset, had she done so.)

Anyway, this exercise in doggy hygiene set the premise for us tracking exactly where sewage goes once it has left the toilet.

And it was fascinating stuff. I can tell you're interested. Oh go on, admit it!

Mrs B then went a-walking Pippin in the park where she came across two gentlemen tending to a manhole.

"Can I have a look down your sewer?" she says. "Well you're not allowed down there but I suppose if you really want to we can let you have a look around", says Mr Drainage.

I swear I'm not making this up.

So down the sewer she goes (leaving Pippin above ground), and more education was delivered..

And very nice the sewers were too. But the learning didn't stop there, because there was still the sewage processing plant to visit! This was all done above ground, and Mrs B took Pippin with her.

He probably wasn't very interested, but Pippin's a professional dog and this was a job, which is more than most doggies his age have.

Anyway, this led to the second classic line of the morning: "Can you see your poo yet, Pippin?"

Pippin, naturally, shook his head.

If dogs could talk, (and I understand from watching 'Wishbone' that there are more advanced models of dog which do this) he would probably have said something like "Don't be so silly you daft old woman. And why are you so interested in my poo anyway?"

I just cannot imagine what the reaction to lines like this would have been in a real life classroom, where this programme was meant for!

Please accept my apologies if I've just put you off your kebabs or other evening meal, by the way. It's occured to me that this isn't the most savoury subject in the world.

Had I brought this up at the dinner table in front of my mother I don't think she'd have been at all impressed. But that's the younger generation for you.

So, that's how I spent my morning in bed. Bet you're glad you asked now!

Burgers For Less (ED! #04)

Wow, has it really been a week since I last wrote this? Amazing how time flies.. It's clearly a memory thing. I've been at the beef again, you see.

Actually it was last Thursday, an event I would ordinarily have forgotten, but I know this to be so because I took my own advice as featured in last week's Ed and started carrying around a notebook with me. And I made notes of the event, so interesting it was.

It's kind of like the famous Monopoly Community Chest card Bank Makes Error In Your Favour.

In this case, Burger shop makes error in your favour. Or to be precise, two errors.

Picture the scene: A man walks into a burger shop, asks for a BigBurger meal. There is method to his beef-induced madness, for the BigBurger is on special this week, a saving of about 65p.

However, the burger emporium has a problem - it cannot vend the requisite soft drink with the BigBurger meal as "the machine is bust".

Hence, customer is offered non-soft drink of his choice from the menu, and in this instance he selects a milkshake.

Another saving! Everyone knows that milkshakes are more expensive because they're not almost 99.99% water. This therefore costs extra.

Having secured two savings in one purchase, the customer is happy, but he is in for a surprise when he actually comes to eat his BigBurger, because he's actually been given a BigBigBurger by mistake.

Considering that the regular BigBurger is on special but its larger brother is not, this constitutes a very large saving - almost £1.30, before you even think about the difference between a soft drink and a hard drink. (i.e. a milkshake)

Ben Elton was absolutely right when he said that you need an industrial vacuum pump to actually get burger milkshakes (not literally) up the straw..

Still, last Thursday I was most definitely in the money, having paid about £3.15 for something worth at least 50% more.

And I was so excited that I wrote it down.. Is that sad? No, what's sad is that I feel the need to tell you all about this!

I really must stop eating burgers quite so much, though. Even if there is no risk of catching Mad MooCow Disease, it can't be good for you.

Luckily my local burger emporium is actually helping me to stay away - because every time I go in they're playing Olivia Newton John songs. They obviously only have one tape.

It's funny though, I never really even considered touching burgers while I was a kid.. it all changed one Christmas.

One lunchtime, after a particularly heavy session of playing Santa to lots of small children (Did I ever mention I'd done that?) I took the easy way out and tentatively bought my first cheeseburger as lunch.

Well, I had just turned 16, so I felt duty bound to start not eating properly.

And it was all downhill from there. I suppose in a few years time I'll be sampling these "kebabs" that everyone goes on about.. I wonder what animal that meat IS?

Ed, Forgetful Member Of The Press (ED! #03)

An interesting thing happened to me on the bus the other morning..

A lady got on, sat down, spotted her friend and started chatting. It wasn't exactly chatting, it was more shouting, really. A fascinating discussion about a new job this lady had got in some bakery, and how unhygenic the working practices were.

"Don't tell anyone I said this," she boomed to her friend (and everyone else on the bus), "or I'll get in trouble."

Admittedly I did miss some of the finer points of the conversation, but I managed to catch most of it, even over the Simon Mayo show which I was trying to listen to at the time on my walkman.

Being the suspicious type that I am, for some reason I just thought that the whole thing wasn't on the level. If it was really that secret why were they both shouting at each other about it? Perhaps a plan to smear the local bakery in the minds of the bus-riding public?

I see conspiracies wherever I go, I'm just too cynical.

It did actually cross my mind that it would have been rather stylish to whip a reporter's notebook out of my pocket and approach the parties pretending to be a journalist from the daily megaphone, or something.

Saying "Hello, I'm from Paramount Text" would be even more cool, but I suspect would usually result in a response like "Eh? What?"

I always thought it'd be rather cool to keep a trilby hat and a card with the word "PRESS" in big letters on it about my person for such occasions, but sadly it wouldn't fit in my pocket..

I do need to carry a notebook or something around with me though - I keep telling myself I must put one in my pocket. I think of so many things on the bus and while out and about, and just forget them again. The number of times I've thought "Must write about that in Ed!"..

I do seriously wonder if I'm losing my mind sometimes, though.. The amount of things that I just completely forget is incredible.

Perhaps it's the fast-moving high-flying media type lifestyle which I lead.. No, it won't be that. Chance would be a fine thing.

Thinking of things I've forgotten reminds me of an amusing thing which happened to me a few years ago. Perhaps I'll recite it in a future edition.. If I don't forget!

Authentic Hot Water Noodles (ED! #02)

You know something? I think we may have been a bit unkind to The Spice Girls.
Okay, Wannabe was rubbish (and that's an easy thing to say about the best-selling single this year), but their new single Say You'll Be There is really quite good.

Money down on the table - number one by no later than the end of October, easily. How's that?

You'll recall back from the time we were going on about Chage & Aska on mailbox how their video was being played on The Box, which for those not on cable is a video jukebox channel.

It was almost entirely the fault of this channel that Wannabe did so well - people were ringing up asking for it almost all the time. And from some casual viewing this evening, the new video is getting a fair few requests!

It's quite a good video, actually. Although I can't quite grasp why the girls are going around smashing a load of goldfish bowls in the desert (clearly a heavy metaphor way above the heads of a mortal such as myself) but who cares? What a video. I wish I knew why I liked it so much..

But back to the ongoing saga of what I have been mostly eating, and today I am being exotic!

Yes, I'm fortunate enough to have with me this evening some genuine authentic add-hot-water cup noodles from the Nissin company of Japan. And rather nice they are too.

Admittedly my clumsy western fork spent a good five minutes trying to pick up a small amount of noodles to eat before I eventually gave up and resorted to grabbing a clump and sucking them up from the pot, rather like spaghetti, in a very noisy and undignified manner.

Worth it in the end though - and certainly knocks spots off the nasty microwave noodles I had the other day - in fact I was convinced I had found the lowest form of food known to man. Some kind of stripped gelatinous unknown, possibly below the level of even sea amoeba. Bet you that sea amoeba don't make as much noise eating noodles right out of the pot, though..

Speaking of the lowest form of food I uncovered a usage of the word last week which concerned me somewhat.

In the supermarket (yes, the same one I bought the yogurt from) buying some super cheap cheese slices. On the label, these slices are described as "10 Cheese Food Slices"

Cheese FOOD Slices? Why is that word there? That word definitely isn't usual. What is it distinguishing? These cheese slices are only for eating and not, perhaps, for public display? Not for exhibiting in the tate gallery? Why is that word there? Oh, these things worry me...

My Diet Is Not What It Should Be (ED! #01)

You know, I've been thinking.. It wasn't so long ago that every so often we'd get a call on mailbox from 'Jesse', who told us what he was mostly eating that day. I think it was some kind of 'Fast Show' reference..

Anyway, his menu didn't seem to have a lot of variety in it - usually it was mostly things like pickled eggs or stuff like that. Hm, actually I must try those one day to see if they're as awful as they sound..

Still, it made me think that I should take a bit of notice of what I was mostly eating, so today I made a careful mental note.

Ed's eating for today goes something like this: One can of Lucozade, one Lion bar, A Whopper Jr. and fries. One bag of apparently buttered toffee popcorn. Some toast with marmite. Chocolate ice cream. (Two bowls). And all this talk of food is giving me a hankering for some ready salted crisps...

It has become apparent that my diet is not what it should be.

Still, that reminds me of that exciting yoghurt I came across in the supermarket the other day. It caught my eye because it was in a brown pot.

Brown is not a colour I associate with yoghurt. Blue, perhaps, or a nice strawberry pink.. Even green or yellow. Any colour but brown, which would be the last on the list.

Still, this brown-potted yoghurt (I'm sure Alexei Sayle could do quite a routine about it) was a flavour I hadn't come across before. "Melon & Ginger".

Now I obviously don't get out enough, because Melon is not something I've ever sampled before. In search of new experiences, I purchased the yoghurt and some days later gave it a field test in the comfort of my own home.

And it was horrible! The Melon taste was really quite pleasant for the few fractions of a second that it lasted until Captain Ginger and his cavalry of brown horses kicked in. Eww!

One spoon was enough, and it was all over. I won't be adventurous like that again, certainly not with yoghurts anyway. Can I interest anyone in a second hand opened yoghurt, only one previous owner?