Navel de-fluffing and beach combing around this part of the Western Highlands is my plan for a week. This beach is not very far from the cottage......

And the cottage is not very far from a pub/hotel.

I can just see Burt Lancaster striding along the sands

And I can hear the waves breaking and Mark Knoffler's poignant guitar.

The zopiclone's kicked in at last..............now I can go to bed

Black Monday (doom-laden grey)

Global warnings (not warming) of recession

Winter waterland (not wonderland) of more flooding

Janus is the Roman god of gates and doors (ianua), beginnings and endings, and hence represented with a double-faced head, each looking in opposite directions. One looking forward, the other backwards.

Quite frankly, Janus, you can go! Don't dither boy!!

Just omit the "J"

Bring on the dancing buds of spring

Just watching Film 2008 and the announcement broke...........

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7203797.stm

So Jezzer (Paxman not Clarkson) met Sir Marks and Spencerus (Stuart Rose) for a Y-summit regarding the width of a y-front gusset. Apparently as we age we require more substance to our gussets laments Jezzer. And Markus and Spandex have been slack, not just with elasticated waistbands it would appear but also in the sock drawer. Socks do not have enough ribbing, jibed Paxus.

That would account for the nightly squirming on Newsnight then. All those narrow gussets swallowed up the back passages!

Primal Scream first did "Get Duffy"

Then this came along...........

Creeping Jesus I can't wait for her album........."a bag of songs and a heavy heart"

The other Amy should be ashamed of herself!

Andy Warhol might have once famously suggested we will all have our 15 minutes of fame but for some of us.................

Reincarnation might only take 15 minutes

Or ten minutes if you comeback as a s'elebrity-numbskuller and/or a clapping seal in the Question Time audience

5 or less if you watch GMTV

Tom Baxter's song "Half a man" is sung as an epic greek tragedy of blood-dark, broken, twisted love.

A siren's song that pierces, the heart like a platinum stilleto and then when you think it's over, drives down to the gut like a diamond drill bit

Jeff Buckley with bucket-whole more pain?
Willie Shakespeare with a latter-day lute?

Can I push the boundaries a little further?

A folk-up Massive Attack?
A stripped down Portishead?
A manly Edith Piaf?

Great leaders of our time:

Gordon Brown - ponders the merits of nuclear power

Churchill - nods off in the House of Commons

Which one would you leave in the back of your car on a stiflingly hot day with the windows tightly closed?

Louis the octopus loves Mr Potato Head.

Louis was given Mr Potato Head as a Christmas present. Mr PH looks ecstatic with his new found friendship/romance.

Pus and Chips anyone?

I know it's Friday but it's still friggin' January.

Alistair Darling will find the missing Child Benefit cds in a Kinder surprise egg at Easter

Madonna will adopt a pet rock leaving no stone unturned in her bid to captivate yet another unorphaned, third-world child.

Paris Hilton will hopefully just "go away".

George Bush will definitely hang around for another year even though he has to "go away" at the end of this one.

Amy Winehouse will donate her bee-hive to the apiary at Regents Park zoo

The further adventures of the London Olympics will become the biggest tax-payers waste of money since...........the Dome.

Tessa Jowell will audition for "Strictly More Taxing"!

Lord Sebastard Coe is a turd! (Never really had to predict that one).

Led Zeppelin will NOT reband. (Because if they do and I don't get a fucking ticket this year I shall cut Jimmy Page's guitar strings and poke a knitting needle through their Fisher Price drum kitt).

Robert Plant may ask for my hand in marriage. AGAIN!

Alan Carr will be considered for the role of the next (gay) James Bond. Instead of: "the name's Bond, James Bond",
Will be the-scratching-teeth-on-glass tones of:"It's me - Alan!"

Oasis will fuck off! (Thought they had already)

Frank Gallagher will be given the keys to the city of Manchester for services rendered to the drink and drugs industries - Hurrah!

Marks and Spencers will become bigger than Jesus AND John Lennon, despite the fact that they lost a little in their sales profit margin and their tuna fishcakes are slightly disappointing.

Is it really newsworthy?

Today the news heralds, trumpets or just plain bores us to death with a couple of mindblowing statistics. Apparently University-Challenge-Type scientists worked on this research for 10-kin-YEARS whilst being force-fed daring-lea cheese triangles.

We can all live longer by eating 5-a-day!!!!!!! Top Tip: eating a traffic light will cover 3 portions. And no, a ginster's pasty will not cover the fourth or fifth.

And some other stuff - exercise I think it's known by.........

Oh yes and we must not smoke!

I omittted the drinking because nobody would be foolish enough to binge drink in these frantic, modern times.

I wanted to smoke today - in Tesco actually. I don't mean inhale nicotine. That's just plain silly. I wanted to fume and smoke and quite literally spontaneously combust.

It was standing behind two Cocoon type humans who took seven light-years to pay for 16 individually priced birthday cards at the the check-out.

They both wore cagoules whilst one considered pouring himself a cup of soup from a thermos!!!

IT TOOK THAT LONG...............................TO PAY!

Is it winter?

My hands are so cold they have all the dexterity of a pair of Eskimo's mittens.

After he's just gutted a fish

I wonder how many of the presents we received over Christmas are destined for the bin?

I wonder how many gifts have broken or don't work properly or have been consigned to the crap cupboard: the one that harbours all the shite that should actually be in the bin in the first place. The sort of cupboard that when opened is so full of elastic bands, balloons, half-burnt birthday candles and pickled onion forks that you can't actually find anything you are searching for. Incidentally you forget what you are looking for, as you are distracted by the purple, flaccid, caterpillar balloon with ears!

And now thinking: "who put that condom in here?"

It's the thought that counts.

And we all know what "thought" did.

I know it's only rock and roll and I should like it but I couldn't help thinking "Casino Royale" was just Top Gear with guns!

Now I like Top Gear and I am partial to a firearm. I light my Jo Malone scented candles with a lighter that looks like a Welrod assassin's pistol, and if I get my hands on the person/persons that spent over £700 on my credit card over Xmas I will burn their eyeballs out with the novelty blow torch mechanism.

Ah well that's the spirit!

Is it 2009 yet?