I have forgotten somebody’s birthday.

No. That is not quite right. It’s not as simple as that.

Remembering birthdays is all to do with genetics and gender. I do not think it sexist to say that it is females who are programmed to remember to buy and to post birthday cards. It is something to do with evolution.

Presumably men were out killing mammoths and things so never developed this side of their brain, whilst women were tending the fire, tanning animal skins and generally developing their organisational sense.

Now we have moved on, and women can get secretarial jobs and listen to Dido, but their birthday card gender superiority remains. I truly do have respect for them.

So anyway, I did not forget as such. I knew it was his birthday, and have done for a while, but it sort of crept up on me and by the time it arrived it was too late to do the Ranulph Feinnes-like trek to a shop that sold anything that he might like. In the end, I was rubbish and did an emergency Amazon order. Did you know that 82% of Amazon’s sales go to blokes who are rubbish at remembering birthdays?

The thing is that I think I might have gone a bit over the top. After all, I have just dedicated a whole written entry to him.

I doubt Beethoven’s friends would have been pissed off, had he written them special piano sonatas on their birthdays.

“That’s great! Thanks very much, Beethoven!” they would have exclaimed.

“You what?” he would have replied.

Likewise, there could have been nothing more flattering for people like Mona Lisa and The Laughing Cavalier to have their mates, the great artists, immortalise them on canvas.

So happy birthday, Unluckyman. I did not forget after all. I have given you the greatest gift in my possession.

I have given you the gift of blog.

Saturday. The LTLP suggested that we go to see ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’.

I was shocked. I had understood this film to be about America’s first special needs president, and to feature neither a Harrison Ford/Sean Bean/Arnie type action hero, nor any form of kooky love interest.

I checked the listings for the local independent cinema, the Fakenham Hollywood. But hard as I scanned, I could not find it anywhere. It was just not being shown.

This was puzzling. I thought about it for a while. And then felt sick to the stomach as I the truth dawned.

The cinema depends on the town council for licensing etc. And this is the town council that is funded by the County Council, that is in turn funded by the Treasury, run by Mr Blair and his powerful coterie of friends, including Mr Bush!!!

Truly this is one film that they do not want you to see.

This meant going much further afield to find a renegade outfit willing to make a stand for the little guy. Thus we found ourselves at the UCI multiplex for the matinee performance.

Even Halliburton’s tentacles do not stretch as far as Norwich.

I don’t go to the cinema much. The last two films I saw were ‘Shaun of the Dead’, which was good, and ‘School of Rock’, which was desperate. I don’t find the cinema experience awesome enough to warrant sitting through average movies.

I enjoyed ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’. Everybody likes having their prejudices confirmed, and it was nice of Mr Moore to make a whole film entirely for my benefit. It had big peaks and big troughs and was perhaps a better story than it was a movie.

I’d go along with Inspector Sands’s mini-review at Casino Avenue. And I’d add that the two most powerful scenes top and tail the film.

At the start, after being reminded of the bitter controversy and division of the US election result, we see again the angry demonstrations as the inaugural presidential motorcade is pelted with eggs.

And you guess that it would only be a fool and a bully who would go on to lead a government that wasn’t based on consensus and healing.

And right at the end, a passer-by confronts Michael Moore, as he films a bereaved mother in front of the White House. “This is a set up!” she screams. “It’s a set up scene!” She clearly thinks that the mother is an actress, demanding to know where exactly in Iraq her son was lost.

The passer-by was brave to interfere. And she was totally, utterly, completely sure that she was right.

I have a DIY crisis.

A year or so ago, I made a shelf for herbs and spices.

‘Made’ here is used in its most basic sense insofar as I cut a bit of wood to the rightish length and attempted to screw it on to the larder wall.

Unfortunately, the bricks forming the larder wall are as ancient and as crumbly as could be, so the drill took massive chunks out, melting it like cheese. By that point it was getting on a bit and I was getting bored, so I just belted the wood straight into the bricks with six inch nails.

They sort of held it. It was at a bit of an angle, but the jars balanced on there OK and it was out of sight behind a corner.

I felt very manly. I had made a shelf. Now I could easily get to my oregano.

Now I find that the shelf is sagging to what looks like thirty degrees. For the life of me, I can’t work out the physics that keeps the jars perched on there. Something to do with surface tension.

I think my next step will be ‘No More Nails’. If superglue’s good enough for Frank Spencer, it’s good enough for me.

If I’m honest, I’ve never been particularly practical. At our last place I had to take an inch or so off the bottom of a door, as it was sticking on a shaggy new carpet.

So I carefully removed the door and took two inches or so off. Just to be sure, like.

I then replaced the door, but it was still sticking. However, there was a two-inch gap at the top. It was kind of funny in a ‘throw oneself off Beachy Head’ sort of way.

 

But it provided a conversation piece when the estate agent and prospective buyers came round.

Yesterday afternoon, on my way back from the village shop.

A car has drawn in by the side of the road, engine idling, the driver in the process of getting out. He spots me.

“Excuse me,” he asks, very politely. “Do you speak English?”

His accent is broad West Midlands. I am nonplussed. “Yes,” I reply.

“Great. Could you tell me the way to the windmill?”

“Just down here and turn left.”

“Thanks.” And he was in his car and away.

?!

The LTLP has been away for almost a week now.

Yes, I know she came to the village fete. But due to holiday reports, that post was a week late. Bear with me.

She is at an Important Scientific Conference. It is very exciting, but I am here all alone whilst she gads around talking to men with beards.

I have taken advantage of her absence to reassert my masculinity. I have rearranged the order of the cutlery draw into a more logical sequence, and yesterday I bought a brand of toilet roll that we do not usually purchase.

As anybody who has lived under an oppressive regime will know, small acts of rebellion like this can sometimes be just as telling as the big ones. I only hope she does not execute ten villagers per fork as a reprisal.

The toilet roll is ‘embossed’ and was dead cheap. Hopefully she will not notice until she wipes her bum, and then it will be too late to take it back.

We spoke on the phone again this evening. She demanded to know if I was looking after myself, and I was able to reassure her, having just enjoyed a tin of delicious Heinz tomato soup for dinner. But although I’m used to being all alone during the day, evenings and nights are more gloomy, even though Kirstie was on telly earlier.

This insomnia is getting to me. When she goes away again you might all have to take it in turns to come to Norfolk and sleep with me.

It’s dark outside and totally, totally silent.

It’s only a small house. But it feels so empty without her.

Time was, Wimbledon would be on the telly and you’d look out of your window to see inspired children with improvised racquets playing in the street.

And this is why we have no world class players now.

All our promising youngsters have been run over.

Except Tim, of course. Now, I have nothing against Tim.

Granted, he is the Stereophonics of professional sport – terribly professional but unlikely to ever trouble the emotional half of the brain. Oh yes, and you want to punch his fans.

Tennis is odd, isn’t it? Millions of people tune in to Wimbledon, whereas in the whole of the United Kingdom there are precisely five people who follow tennis for the rest of the year.

I guess Wimbledon is both the big positive and negative. Positive because it raises a lot of money. Negative because you take one look at it and want to crawl into a big hole and hide underneath some tennis balls.

I have a plan for next year. That is, I am going to sneak past security and balance a big bucket of horse semen above Tim Henman’s dressing room door.

Then, as he staggers onto the court, dripping and blinded, and the crowd gasp in appalled shock and disgust, I’m going to stand up and shout at the top of my voice:

“Come on, Tim!”

(note to self – may not be practical. Will need to find somebody with a horse (male) close to the complex. Check logistics before committing).

Without even mentioning the Cliff situation, there are two reasons why Wimbledon makes my skin crawl.

Firstly, it is attended by people who STILL THINK THE MEXICAN WAVE IS AN AMUSING AND SLIGHTLY REBELLIOUS THING TO DO. Such people should be gassed. DEATH IS TOO GOOD FOR THEM.

And secondly, there is this whole concept of ‘People’s Sunday’. I was gobsmacked when I read about it and absorbed the sheer SMUGNESS and SELF-SATISFACTION of this. Let me get this straight. For one day, weather permitting, you sell tickets on the door to people who want to buy one. What? That’s it? This is what you’re so pleased about?

Which brings us back to the LTA and their hopeless and doomed quest to spend the Wimbledon cash cow on creating conditions for a new British champion.

Well most kids I know are better adjusted than that, and know very well that spending five hours a day practising topspin won’t bring them happiness and fulfilment – whereas an hour a week followed by a can of fizzy pop might be quite fun.

British kids lack a ruthless ambition and will to win.

And we should be proud of that.

We attend the village fete.

‘We’ being I, JonnyB, the LTLP, Big A and Big A’s brother, Little A.

We also take a small child, as insurance against people thinking that we’re a bit sad turning up in order to take part in Heath Robinson-style sideshow games.

It was all very enjoyable. Far more real than the too-good-to-be-true events they have on Midsomer Murders, and with a lower body count, the horizontal driving rain served to generate a good old-fashioned British stiff-upper-lip stoicism amongst the faithful.

And, I’ll have you know, you are now reading the village champion of the knocking the skittles down with a cricket ball game! (Adults division).

And the raffle…

You will recall that many of you purchased raffle tickets, donating money to a charity box local to you in lieu of payment. I told you that I’d know if you hadn’t contributed, using my Derren Brown-like powers. So before I get on to the results, I have a small confession to make:

I do not have Derren Brown-like powers at all!

I was making that bit up! See – you could have got away with it all the time! I’m afraid my Derren Brown-like powers only extended to making you totally and utterly believe that I did have Derren Brown-like powers, and thus forcing you to pay up in fear of exposure.

You are like putty in my hands.

Anyway. The raffle went a bit like this:

Village Dignitary: (drawing ticket from big drum) And prize number one goes to… Fred!

Crowd Hubbub: Oh, Fred! Good old Fred! He got a prize two years ago as well! (etc, applause, nods of appreciation)

VD: And prize number two… Mabel, care of Doris!

CH: Mabel! Doris! (more nods, delighted laughter, ‘well deserved’s etc)

And the longer it went on like this (and there were a LOT of prizes), the more I really, really didn’t want to get to the following:

VD: And the next prize goes to…

(Pause, frown, peer over glasses incredulously)

…a Mr. ‘Cheeky Squirrel’, care of the ‘I don’t believe it’ blog.

(Embarrassed coughs).

(Angry murmurs).

Villager 1: What sort of a name’s that?!

Villager 2: Never heard of him.

Villager 3: What’s this blarg thing? (grabs pitchfork).

I exaggerate, of course. But I think it fair and just that none of you won. I’m sorry. But your charities have benefited and the village fete funds were boosted.

It leaves me with a problem, however. Because the deal was that I’d pay for your tickets at this end and then deduct the total sum from the first prize, before sending it on.

And since eleven of you entered at 20p a head, I’ve ended up quite substantially out of pocket.

It is often a mistake getting involved in financial transactions with friends, and I have lost out through basically subsidising your greed. We need to sort this out.

What do we do?