Just lurking, at the moment, really. I'm getting quite good at it. I can even lurk at my desk. I lurk around other people's blogs, with a lurky expression on my face, and make low, lurking noises in the back of my throat (it sounds a bit like "lurk, lurk"). I'm practically a professional-standard lurker, now. If I'd chosen a musical career, I could call myself "Lurky Lurk" and sing low, lurky rap. If Status Quo had ever recorded "The Lurkerer", I would have been on the album cover.

[slouches in chair in a lurky fashion]

Have a Lurky Easter, everyone.

New phone!!!

So pretty...

...it's got a 1Mpx camera, an MP3 player, various PDA-type functions, email, MS Office/PDF viewers, a full web browser, a 512Mb memory card (for storing a truly stupid number of photos of Sarah and odd MP3s), and best of all it's about half the size of my existing smartphone.

Oooh, I'm so smug. ;)

I have long believed that the common duck is EVIL. I don't know why; call it a feeling, a supernatural perception, an itching in the back of my mind whenever they stare at me with their pitch black unblinking eyes.

Now I have proof.

Click here to learn, if you dare, of the depths of depravity to which the EVIL Brotherhood of the Fornicating Anatidae are willing to sink.

Have you ever tried Jamaica Ginger Cake? If you haven't, you really, really should. It's one of Britain's finest edible products (I don't think it actually has anything to do with Jamaica, although I could be wrong), and deserves to rank proudly amongst such culinary giants as Yorkshire Pudding and The Chip. For the uninitiated, Jamaica Ginger Cake is a moist, dark sponge cake with a buttery-gingery flavour to die for, and is traditionally eaten with a glass of milk, although no-one knows why. It's a nutritionally complete food as well, successfully combining the three most highly-prized British food groups (Stodge, Sugar and Lard). Those of you who have partaken of this paragon of the baker's art will know whereof I speak, as you'll undoubtedly still recall the sensation of having eight ounces of sponge cake slowly turning to lead in your guts and still wanting more. It's fairly addictive.

So anyway, The Missus and I are having a conversation about martial-arts films. Well, I'm having a conversation about them; she's whining about them being childish, predictable, and only suitable for weirdos with too much testosterone and no girlfriends. (She loves me sooooo much.) In order to prevent our polite chat from escalating into a full-blown kung pao chicken fight using the leftovers from our takeaway, I saunter into the kitchen and produce with a magician's flourish (by way of a peace offering) a packet of the abovementioned flavoursome cake, which I'd bought earlier as I know she loves the stuff. Whereupon The Missus exclaims, loudly and with an expression of childish delight, "Hey, Jamaica Ninja Cake!" A finer or more timely Freudian slip I've never heard. Exit Pastamasta, cackling unstoppably.

As I've probably mentioned before elsewhere, there are few concepts in life which you can't improve by sticking in a couple of ninjas.

I've finally - after months of soul searching, involving a remote Tibetan monastery and a diet of beans and yak butter tea - given in to the inevitable and purchased a 'family car'. Yes, I am officially an Old Git, entitling me to all the usual perks which go therewith, such as cackling to myself on buses, stealing children's footballs, and writing letters of complaint to The Times.

My reasons for buying are many and complex, but essentially boil down to the fact that Sarah may be little, but the amount of junk which she needs carted about when we go on any kind of lengthy trip most certainly isn't. Hence my need of a vehicle with a boot large enough to accommodate a small elephant.

Anyway, here it is, in all its big-arsed glory:


So very shiny, and so very, very large. If I make it through a week's worth of parallel-parking without putting a scratch on it, I'll eat my pants.