Pub reviewing was abandoned on Saturday evening due to every watering-hole
being rammed solid with people screaming. They weren't screaming in pain, so
I can only assume they were screaming with joy, but I wasn't able to share
in their joy. I think all pubs should be reviewed at about 11.30am on a
Monday morning, to ensure they get the best possible write-up, and also to
preserve my sanity. It's not the pub's fault, but if I'm standing at the bar
and get manhandled by someone who drunkenly harangues me as to the location
of the toilet, and then when I say I don't know asks me what my f*cking
problem is, well, it's not going to prompt me to award 5 stars. Not that I
have stars to award. I have jaycloths and earplugs to award.

Yesterday I went to Walton-on-Thames to visit Matt, the guitarist in The
Free French. Teaching him 2 songs took approximately the length of those 2
songs, which either marks him out as a supremely quick learner, or myself as
a simplistic, repetetive and uninspired composer. We retired to the lounge
area where his two daughters were transfixed on a video called “Young
Einstein” which consists of footage of other small children and geometric
shapes to a gentle soundtrack of classical music played on a toy keyboard.
The implication of the title “Young Einstein” is presumably that, by
watching this video, ones kids will become extremely knowledgable and
inevitably end up working in the sciences. I also understand that the other
videos in the series, “Tiny Idiot” and “Toddling Moron” have not dented the
national video charts.

I'm not feeling particularly well, to tell you the truth. Slight dizziness
and vague nausea pummel my body ferociously, well, not that ferociously, but
enough for me to moan about it. I looked forward to a restful night's sleep,
which was forthcoming until about 6.26am when my mobile phone went off. My
ringtone is the opening bars of “Udu Wudu” by Magma; suffice to say that
it's not the kind of thing you want blasting in your ear in the middle of
the night. Whoever it was rang off within 5 seconds, leaving me wide awake,
79 minutes too early. If your phone number begins 07944 01815_ then I

curse you.