Or so I thought. As I rounded the corner on the final leg of my walk home, I glanced at my car parked outside the flat. There was a dirty mark on it that wasn’t there last time I looked, but as I approached it seemed to be exactly that. Dirt on the car. Not surprising when you consider it’s parked on the main road and there’s all sorts of buses and lorries going past each day. Still, everything seemed fine, until I got to the passenger side.

There, in shining glory, was a foot long scratch, made by a key, gouged deep into the paintwork. I only finished making my repayments on the car on Saturday and now, on Thursday, some fucking wanker has decided to amuse himself by scratching the fuck out of my car door. Less than a week after the damned thing actually became mine outright. What’s the bloody point of keying cars? Still, I take comfort in the fact that he’s probably got an IQ lower than my shoe size, no prospects and is destined for a lifetime claiming benefits. Cock.

So that was how the evening started. I then picked up a hefty electricity bill off the front door mat, dropped a plate on my foot when cooking, then, when I’d managed to get my cajun chicken curry actually onto the plate, I walked into the lounge and the spoon fell off, spraying rice all over the nice clean lounge floor that I vacuumed yesterday evening.

So the evening has been a disaster and I wish I’d stayed at work. I have one thing to say on the matter:

FUCK THIS. I’m going to bed.

And here’s another one for you.

The pasta I was cooking was on the verge of being done. I’d added in the tomato and herb sauce and was seconds away from serving when I noticed a tiny fly/aphid on the counter next to the hob. I don’t like killing things like that, so I just let it be, thinking that it would disappear of its own accord sooner or later. And disappear it did. But not into the vacuousness of the ether, as expected, no. It flew straight into the saucepan and disguised itself amongst the variety of herbs so that there was no way I could pick it out.

Thinking that I probably swallow little flies like that when running around the football pitch, I figured that the fly wouldn’t do me any harm and ate the meal anyway. Extra protein anyone?

The lights flickered and as I mashed the potatoes, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. ‘Bloody moth must have got in through the bathroom window’ I thought to myself as I turned to see what the mysterious flying thing was in the kitchen. I was very wrong.

There, buzzing around angrily, flying into the kitchen ceiling spotlights and then divebombing straight afterwards was a massive wasp. I’m not talking your standard sized wasp, oh no. This was a giant wasp, a genetically-modified wasp, a SUPER wasp that was well over an inch long. And it was pissed off.

It flew directly at me as I turned and in that split second I knew what it was. Ducking, I grabbed for anything I could defend myself with. The nearest thing was a large plate, so I wafted it at the intruder as I contemplated what to do. I bitterly considered the timing of the attack. The bloody timing! It couldn’t make its appearance when I was cutting the vegetables or peeling the potatoes, no. It had to be seconds before I served up the meal and headed into the other room for the football. How long was this going to take? Was my meal going to get ruined? Poxy wasp.

And then I hatched a plan. I turned off the gas and ducked out the room, closing the door behind me. Swapping the plate for my electric Bug Zapper, I returned to the kitchen, powered up the voltage through the zapper and slowly pushed open the door.

The wasp was really not happy. It was still flying into the hot light, forgetting that it was hot, getting singed and then dive-bombing anything that came close to it. I watched its routine and took baby steps forward. I absolutely had to get this right - bad aim or poor timing would send the wasp over the edge and make it mad. It came for me but was too high, I half closed the door in some sort of shield-like defence and the wasp re-rallied for another attack.

Concerned that my vegetables would turn soggy, I knew that I had to be bold and take action. ‘Attack is the best form of defence’ I thought to myself, certain that that sort of cliché would undoubtedly be repeated in the football commentary, which was kicking off any second now.

I ventured forward, racket poised in front of me like I was about to return Federer’s first serve. I was relying on the speed of my reactions and a suitable height to hit the wasp. It dropped from the light once more and I temporarily lost sight of it, I hesitated, unsure of where it was or what it was about to do. But then I caught sight of it, hovering at chest height after another fall from the light. I pounced, striking the wasp in the centre of the racket and sending it spiralling across to the other side of the kitchen where it struck the fridge and rebounded onto the floor. Fifteen love.

Was it dead? I wasn’t sure. I jumped over to where the stripey insect was lying, powered up the zapper once more and offloaded another load of voltage through its venomous body. In fact there was so much voltage that the wasp stuck to the grill of the zapper, allowing me to open the back door with my other hand, and in one movement, I released the power to unstick the wasp, flicked it up into the air and volleyed it as hard as I could into the neighbour’s garden.

And I even managed to catch kick-off. Wasp 0-1 Jonola.

The train stopped. I looked out the window and realised that I had been concentrating so hard on my air guitaring that I missed my stop. So I got off the train, crossed the platform and got on the train going in the other direction. Only, this train was a different line, so didn’t actually go the way I needed to. I’m sure there’s a lesson to be learned here.

Right on time, I got to the pub to find Price-o hunched over his pint and moments later Payno turned up to complete the trio and off we went in search of somewhere that we could get food quite quickly. But we struggled to find anywhere. In fact, we got all the way to the venue and still hadn’t found a decent place for some food, but as luck would have it, there was a Chinese restaurant next door called Buffet V.

Thinking £6.50 was a bargain for all-you-can-eat Chinese food, we piled in, grabbed a table and scurried off to the tables of dishes where we each filled our plates to the brim. I am always wary of these places and am never convinced that what we are eating is actually what the sticker says it is.

This occasion was no exception.

My first mouthful proved that what I thought was chicken was anything but. In fact, any of the meats I had piled onto my plate were dubious in both their texture and taste. Picking at the rice, beans and roast potatoes, I made do with what I knew was safe.

Payno and Price-o, however, went up for more and returned with full plates. “This isn’t meat” Payno announced, “I asked the assistant if this was spicy beef and she said no. It’s a vegetarian restaurant. What we’ve been eating is Soya. That there is Soya Chicken, that’s Soya Beef and this one here is Soya Duck”.

SOYA DUCK! Ridiculous! I actually felt quite unwell and battled to keep it down. Bloody vegetarians.

Moments later the band arrived in the same restaurant and tucked in, taking their meals outside to reduce the cost by a pound! When we saw them outside a little while later, two plates were left almost untouched and the bassist was round the corner throwing up. It turns out that the ‘V’ in Buffet V is for ‘vegan’.

Boriswatch.com has all the details and even sells Boris merchandise, but what Boriswatch also has is the song that I wrote and that Wibbler put the video to. Here it is again, in all its glory. Clearly it was the defining moment for many voters!

http://www.jonola14.co.uk/?p=578 David Ford is a genius.  See www.davidfordfans.com for Ford in all his glory but for heaven’s sake, watch the new Go To Hell video. 

See what I did there?  Heaven … hell …

http://www.jonola14.co.uk/?p=575 The Grand National is the one time of year when I go to the bookies and place some money on a horse I know nothing about in the hope that it will jump all the fences, not unseat its rider and come first in the race, all spurred on by a lot of shouting at the tele and ultimately earning me a few quid.

Anyway, this year I decided to place my bet online. Using cashback referral site Quidco, I took advantage of their special offer and joined Betfair.com, earning myself £50 just for doing so. Result, I was already up and the race hadn’t even started yet. I went onto Betfair and made my choice. Next stop, race day.

Comply Or Die was my horse, it was being well backed but Cloudy Lane was the early favourite. I also plumped for Kelami, a French horse that the BBC website tipped for a good finish. At 85-1 it was hard to resist.

The usual phonecalls from Shaun, Simon and Wibbler all ensued, asking me for my top tip. Strange, given that I know nothing about horse racing, but for the Grand National I do tend to have some luck.

“And they’re off” the commentator announced, the horses all bouncing off each other as the mayhem of the Grand National got underway. For some reason I was quite subdued in the early stages, my horses hadn’t been mentioned but some of the other front runners had fallen so my horses had a better chance of winning. This was good.

Kelami fell. I was gutted, but not surprised. My £500 win wasn’t going to happen this year, so it was Comply Or Die, or nothing. The leading horses broke from the pack and Comply Or Die was amongst them. I changed from slouch position, to edge of the seat. The last couple of jumps beckoned. “GO COMPLY!” I yelled, thinking at the time that that might have been a line from Flight Of The Navigator.

“RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNN!” I yelled, hoping the neighbours would forgive the loud outbursts. Comply Or Die was out front, it was a sprint for the finish but there was a late challenge and it was touch and go for a while, but with a bit more yelling Comply Or Die got over the line and Betfair soon credited me with my winnings.

Come back next year for your winning tip, I’m back on a roll.

I’d just arrived home and was walking around the car, checking that the tyre pressure seemed to have been maintained, having pumped them up again that morning. I took a step back, everything looked fine, but I didn’t expect what happened next.

Suddenly, the car became covered in white and brown spots, some large, some small. Many of them were more splats than spots and they weren’t concentrated in one area like the bonnet, they were all over the damned car, including the difficult-to-clean soft top and between the engine air-grill that covers the engine. “What the f..” I exclaimed, my voice trailing off as it dawned that it can’t have been one bird that dropped all that crap on my car, it must have been a whole flock.

I checked my clothes. They say that being crapped on by a bird flying overhead is good luck. Personally I would consider it extremely bad luck, but my check proved clean. The birds had missed, I thanked my lucky stars for that one step backwards.

So I grabbed a cloth and wiped away all the bird lime from my car. It had really got everywhere and it wasn’t a pleasant job. However, I did take great joy in informing my sister that there was a whole load of bird lime on her car too and that she should really clean it off.