shitake attack

I had a few days off and I saw some films. For example: King Kong Versus Godzilla. I saw this as a kid and particularly remember the giant octopus. The octopus is still quite impressive, possibly because it's real. Not really giant, of course, just not a man in a rubber suit. As an adult, I can now appreciate other aspects of the film too, such as the curious sight of a small Japanese boy in blackface (one of the natives of Kong's island) being plied with cigarettes. Or the splendidly stilted linking scenes added for American audiences - a TV newscaster interviewing a world-renowned scientist who pontificates on the nature of Godzilla while brandishing a children's book about dinosaurs.

This was followed in the very same cinema (Prince Charles) by Matango: Fungus Of Terror, in which some shipwrecked Japanese holidaymakers turn into mushrooms. Not just any old mushrooms, obviously: these are 'laughing mushrooms'. And they have to eat them first before turning into them. So you see it's all perfectly logical, and treated with commendable seriousness.

Some people think that this film is about drugs. Well, who knows? The boat's passengers (including a playboy, a singer, and a novelist) are dismissed as 'parasites' by the skipper, so perhaps their transformation is a natural consequence of their sybaritic lifestyles. 'They're half-mushroom', the as-yet-untainted hero remarks, witheringly, when his girlfriend decides she wants to join the fungus-munching brigade, who are always happy to recruit new members. 'You're half-mushroom!', I felt like saying to passers-by, as I left the cinema on a high. Obviously I restrained myself, but sometimes it worries me that one day I will simply disappear into a world of offbeat cultural references, and they'll need a team of experts to, if they can be bothered, deprogram me.

But for the moment I am still - just about - part of society. The other night as I was walking up Queens Road, a drunk guy high-fived me. As did I, him. The prelude to this on my i-pod was some sinister ambient music which I identified afterwards as by Starving Weirdos: Pagan Unity Ritual. Pagan Unity Ritual! Like a dry little comment on what had just happened. Can it be that my i-pod is controlling events? And I haven't even 'turned on Genius', as I-Tunes always seems to want me to do. I wonder what would happen if I did?

dark nights of the soul

Perhaps the most amusing thing in The Dark Knight Rises is 'the Pit'. This is meant to be the most hellish prison on Earth, but looks like a strict health farm. A pretty effective one too, since Batman goes in with a broken back and, shortly after his arrival, is doing press-ups. They even have a TV, until Batman smashes it in one of his notorious fits of pique. The selfish bastard.

When he finally (spoiler alert) escapes, all the prisoners cheer rather half-heartedly, like he's just won bronze in the long jump. Yayyy! Go Batman! Don't worry about us, stuck here in Hell.

If they wanted a real vision of Hell, they could have done worse than model it on Alan Carr's Summer Spectacular 2. This used the same format as his New Year show: shove a load of celebrities and members of the public into a hot, nondescript studio, pump them full of alcohol and Christ-knows-what-else, sit back and let the 'fun' develop.

The result was curiously sinister, like a kid's birthday party presided over by a sadistic four-year old. Everyone but Carr looked - or was it my imagination? - frightened, as though at any time and completely on a whim, Carr might have them dunked in an acid bath. And Carr had new glasses - not all that different from his trademark ones, just different enough to make you uneasy.

When Jonathan Ross was forced to climb on a table and endure a brutal massage, and it seemed that the air of clammy dread was about to blossom into full-blown nightmare, I had to turn off. 

I can't take too much of this horror now that I'm - more often than not - alone in the house. Dave returns occasionally, stays a day or two, and then departs. After each visit, it usually transpires that an item of furniture or kitchen utensil has disappeared. This is no coincidence. He is slowly moving out.

As to where he actually is, in theory he is in Malvern with Claire. In actual fact, it isn't that simple. Clues as to his whereabouts occasionally pop up on Facebook, but they are not readily decoded. Recently there was a photo of some ducks followed a bit later by the statement 'RAMMSTEIN BEACH PARTY'. Beneath this last, Claire had written: 'ARE YOU LOST?' Perhaps he is on some drug-assisted journey into the depths of his own soul, where not even Claire can reach him.

Meanwhile I am left to cut the lawn. I never did this before; now, I have become obsessed with it. I stare at the grass for hours, waiting for it to grow, almost daring it to. People may think that it was wrong of me to rely on a one-legged man to cut the grass for so long, but they don't get it. Why should so-called 'able-bodied' people do everything? Just because I don't qualify as 'disabled', does that automatically make me competent? I refuse to be discriminated against in this way.

in which I (eventually) demonstrate my superiority to Clive Owen

Amanda's ex was getting married in the field next to where she and Mat now live; not only that, it was going to be a 'gypsy wedding' like on the TV. Mat was threatening to 'rent a long lens'. I went round to have a look, and was welcomed by Sam burning me alive and Christopher chopping me up into pieces. Not literally, of course - these feats were accomplished with a plastic sword (Christopher) and some kind of elaborate gun-like weapon (Sam) - and, as the cloying voiceover on some American TV show might put it, 'a whole lot of imagination'. In Sam's case the imagination extended to fitting his weapon with a hose, so that he could put the flames out before I was dismembered by Christopher. These are well-brought up children.

The wedding - 'big fat greasy wedding' as Mat put it - proved less lively. For a start it wasn't right next door, but in a nearby marquee, and there didn't seem to be much action going on in the car park. In fact, so little was happening that at one point we were going to ring the police because it was 'too quiet'. Had Amanda been there, and sufficiently drunk, perhaps she might have been persuaded to don her bridal gown (possibly dyed black) and make an entrance. That would have livened things up. Unfortunately, she was at Christine's hen night, and I sat down with Mat and the kids to watch Gnomeo And Juliet.

This was one of those films where you just know they came up with the title first. It reminded me of The Dark Knight Rises in that it features Michael Caine, contains a small thermonuclear explosion that does no significant damage - and also in that it's, well, you know, OK. Three stars. TDKR is probably funnier. There's something about gnomes that compels people (I'm thinking of David Bowie here) to indulge in bad puns. Hence, when someone requires glue in this film, it comes from a bottle marked 'taming of the glue'. Ouch. You might imagine that Shakespeare would be turning in his grave (a task easily within the capability of the animators, I'm sure)  - except here he is, in the form of a statue with Patrick Stewart's voice, tacitly giving his blessing to this latest version of his creation.

Although the main presiding genius here is not Shakespeare at all - it's Elton John. Elton is all over Gnomeo in the way that Hans Zimmer is all over TDKR. But whereas Zimmer's thunderous score is an attempt to remind us at every moment how incredibly earth-shakingly IMPORTANT Christopher Nolan's film is, Elton is just reminding how important he is - he put up the money for this, after all. I'm not sure whether Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting is the ideal accompaniment for a lawnmower chase that takes place in daylight, but it's probably better than Tiny Dancer or Daniel. Still, couldn't he at least have changed the lyrics? He did it for Diana, why not some computer-generated garden gnomes?

The next day presented me with Clive Owen on the front of one of the Mail On Sunday's supplements proclaiming: 'I never wanted to be a movie star'. Well, funnily enough Clive, neither did I - but in my case, I have managed to avoid doing so. Loser!

health and efficiency

At work a brown paper sack arrived. Inside it was a giant training shoe. It was just as well that the admin department had had advance warning of this, because otherwise who knows what we might have thought? However, we knew that it belonged to NHS Blood and Transplant's 'mascot', Billy Blood Drop. Had the lovable red blob been kidnapped, and were we receiving the first bit in the post? No! It was only that someone had received a costume with three shoes instead of two. This was the spare.

Had we not known to expect this, we might have imagined that it was something to do with the Olympics, since everything else is. This has come along at just the right time to fill that hole in the schedules caused by what they used to call 'the silly season'. Just as well it did, since a few weeks ago Jeremy Vine was reduced to tackling the 'topic' of people who stand still on moving walkways. Are they contributing to Britain's 'massive obesity problems'? Or are they taking justifiable advantage of modern technology? A man was dredged up who actually held a passionate view on the subject – either that or he was being paid to feign hysteria. This very annoying man all but advocated the use of cattle prods, and crowed that due to his habit of walking, or even running, on escalators and travelators he would 'probably live another ten years'. I doubt it. Someone's bound to intervene.

Luckily we can now all talk about how 'inspired' we are by Great Britain's Olympic successes. Although I have to say that watching all those people doing things I could never do in a million years doesn't exactly 'inspire' me. 'Deflate' is more the word. I was watching this guy training by turning a massive tyre, end over end, across a field. The fact that he might get a medal at the end of it all didn't stop this from seeming like the very emblem of futility. And then I heard Mo Farah say that winning his race was 'the best moment of my life'. So is it all downhill from here then?

I am far more inspired by those people who are so obese that they can't get out of bed and finally have to be airlifted out of their homes. Not only do they make me feel happy that I can still leave the house unaided, they prove that you can create a newsworthy spectacle without doing anything at all, except overeat.

In fact I hear that Danny Boyle is planning something along these lines for the closing ceremony – the Queen in a fat suit being hoisted out of a mock-up of Buckingham Palace by helicopter. Remember, you heard it here first.