bananas bottles balloons

On Eastenders Billy got landed with a truckload of dodgy bananas when he only asked Mo for a 'sample'. Obviously she was unrepentant. And what was her advice to Billy? 'Get selling!' For a moment, it was as though I was glimpsing the true hideous face of Waterstones, the phrase 'bulldog chewing a wasp' having been practically coined for Mo. I wonder if I should bring this up at the Forum.

I glanced through the 'toolkit' they sent through. There was some kind of personality test but when I did it it turned out that I was some great unifier of people, like Gandhi or something. I checked through the other 'answers' and nowhere did I see the phrase 'miserable sarcastic bastard'. Hmm, there's definitely something fishy about this.

I went to my cousin Linda's fortieth (she's not technically my cousin, but never mind). She was wearing a red dress and a blonde wig, an outfit also sported by her brother Dave in a homemade DVD they were showing - no wait, it isn't what you think. Dave was playing Linda, and engaged in pushing over a row of women dressed as giant bottles of wine while everybody sang a customised version of Ten Green Bottles. Oh, that is what you thought? Clever you.

While we sat there, Linda's young daughter busied herself hitting us over the head (only the men) with a balloon until, eventually, it burst. 'I've burst the first balloon!', she cried, as though it were a tradition, or a competition. Sadly, the only prize was another balloon, and the assault resumed in all its horrifying relentlessness. We carried on chatting as though it wasn't happening, obscurely humiliated.

The other day I passed a sign on a travel agent's window advising people to hurry, because 'last-minute deals are going fast'. Which hardly seemed worth pointing out.

There was a big hairy spider in those bananas, by the way. A new character, who will later turn out to be yet another long-lost member of the Slater family.