1. Jacket
2. Tie
3. Shoes
4. Sweater
5. Socks
6. Shirt
7. Trousers
8. Underpants
9. Monocle
10. Driving gloves

This order ensures you aren’t left with any of the following that make the already strange-looking male form look even more ridiculous:

• Shirt, underpants and socks - no
• Underpants and socks - hell no
• Shirt and socks - oh God

I suppose that’s the reason that I first started to eat handfuls of dirt - to feel more at one with nature. It was only one or two a week to start with. After a long day, I’d nip out to the back garden, before my wife got home, and help myself to a lovely mound of moist soil.

At first you think it’s not all that nice, but, let me tell you, it grows and grows and grows on you. Soon you’re appreciating the nutty, bitter nuances of it’s flavour, and comparing different sections of your garden, to find which has the best bite to it. And the way it makes you feel - wow. I can’t really get it across here. It’s as if, your whole life, you’ve been living in orange packaging, but now the packaging is green, and it’s good for the environment. It as no artificial colours or flavours.

It didn’t take long for me to work up to a good two handfuls a day - one first thing in the morning with my coffee, and then another after my working day was done. Those were some of the best days of my life, really they were.

Of course, I couldn’t stop at two handfuls a day. Not with soil so good. I got so I would sneak it to work worth me, in my coat pocket so that I could chew on it as I typed. It attracted many stares. My colleagues started to ask questions, and were never satisfied with my answers.

Eventually my wife caught me hunched over her pansies, stuffing fistful after fistful of rich earthy goodness into my gaping, salivating mouth. For a long time, she said nothing at all. We just sort of stared at each other. Me, with the brown wrong of soil all down my chin and shirt, looking up like a child caught in the clandestine act of onanism, and her, with her woman’s face and ways, looking back on me like a disgusted, disappointed parent.

After what seemed like forever, it was me who broke the silence. “Oh Daddy,” I said through teeth caked in mud and worm-halves, “Oh I’m so sorry”. As I started to sob, and reach up to those hands, those hands that had caressed me in happier times, she moved away from me, her face sour and twisted beyond recognition. “You fucker…” she said “…you fucker”. And she walked away.

More fool her, I say. Now I have my pick of the soil, and I can eat it whenever I like. I don’t even go to work any more - who needs work when you have all the food and love you need in the fields and in the grass verges of any town in England?

And that’s where you’ll find me - the grass verges - digging up handfuls of wonderful, wonderful soil and scoffing it away, pausing only to vomit or sing a little song now and then. That’s where you’ll find me - the fields - pressing my body against the earth, licking at the bounty it has laid before me and sobbing great big, blissful sobs. Living as nature intended. That’s where you’ll find me. Yeah…

Sameurism (plural Sameurisms)

1. (gaming) The inevitable result of too much rage whilst playing on-line games.
   If Dan keeps getting so angry he’ll have a Sameurism.

Etymology: A portmanteau of Sam and aneurism.

See also: Ragequit

She paused for a second. “And why do you love me?” She asked.

“I don’t.” I replied.

Next the Scotsman goes up to the barman. “I’d like a pint of your finest beer please,” he says. “I’m sorry,” says the barman, “we’re only serving shit beer tonight. Can I interest you in something that tastes like it sputtered out the back end of a sick horse?” “No thanks,” replies the Scotsman, “I’m good.” And off he goes to a different bar.

Finally, up goes the Irishman. “I’d like a pint of your finest beer,” he says to be barman. “I’m sorry,” replies the barman, “we’re only serving shit beer tonight. Can I interest you in something that tastes like raw egg that’s been sitting in the sun for seventy two hours?”

And the Irishman says…

…something really stupid.

Gates joins Dancing on Ice stars
Gates hails age of digital senses

This is the internal contact switch for the strum bar of the guitar for the video game Rock Band. Dan was looking forward to whiling away all of New Year playing the game, strumming away like a big bastard. Then the strummer stopped working. Like a wily robot trapped alone in a house he shunned any official line of replace or repair, and headed straight for the screwdrivers and soldering iron. One of the two contact switches had snapped; probably due to them being made of very spindly metal. Dan couldn’t fix it. The result is that now the guitar doesn’t work, and is also in pieces. So is a Guitar Hero guitar, as a casualty of Dan’s attempt to salvage parts from it. This is really, really great for people who like things to be in tiny pieces, but not great for people who like Rock Band. Now we can’t play Rock Band, except for the drums and the singing.

Does this bit of metally plastic look familiar to anyone? Is it a standard thing, or a crazy invention from Harmonix? It would be great if Maplin sold bags of them, but I suspect they don’t.

Oh well.

UPDATE: I totally fixed it with scrap metal, superglue and solder. Alliteration equals success!

The only way to stop these feelings is a Pasta Laser. Made entirely of pasta, but definitely a laser; the Pasta Laser is the answer to all your dreams and more! Focus its energies on the most awkward of social moments and transform the gathering to a festival of lusty hippies! Aim its dark powers to distant lands and cure hydrophobia with lemon juice! Big money now! No payments necessary! No salesmen will call! No win, No fee! Calls will be charged at 50p/minute!

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