13.04.2004 - 2:14 p.m.

lets all have a round of applause for oxygen....

thankyou

thankyou

you're so kind.

my continuity editor has just handed me a note...............ah yes, Antitrust. I'm now chock full of Antitrust knowledge, the company is safe in my hands ( and they made me sign a bit of paper to prove it ) so full steam ahead into the murky waters of pricing agreements while avoiding the giant octopi of cartel profits seduction. The training was being led by no less than six hard-ass lawyers from germany and inglan, and featured our newly arrived UK company weasel, a top notch litigation type lawyer who still managed to mention his 'reasonable rates' within the first sentence, wanker. I've never been in the presence of that many lawyers at once and I've never felt so safe in all my life, a bit like being wrapped up in a fuzzy security blanket. No matter what happened that day, if it all went pear-shaped there'd be people there, company people, who'd deliver me safe from harm and prison sentences. Nice.

The upshot of all their waffle and powerpoint slides was a) never talk to competitors, and b) if in doubt call your lawyer c) that is, if in doubt about anything at all talk to your lawyer d) in fact just hand over power of appointment to him right now and save any trouble in the future. I'm not anti-semitic or anything ( jews are people too you know ) but both the english lawyers were jewish, coincidence ?

Newsflash : Worst smell ever discovered, more on that story after this.......

The drive back in the aforementioned 'fat audi' was also fairly pleasant, but the actions of road-morons still made us laugh. According to the Highway Code, a british motorway has three lanes, the inside lane being the 'road' and then two further lanes for overtaking. Where possible I try to keep to inside lane unless overtaking, as undertaking on the left is not allowed, but the actions of too many morons sat in the middle or outside lane forced me to break the law ( oh where are my lawyers now ? ) repeatedly. You'd think that as they're sat in the middle lane, pootling along, acres of space all around them they'd get the message when cars are flashing past them left and right, but no.

Even worse is the giant queue of cars in the right hand lane all because there's a single truck about two miles ahead on the inside lane. I was bombing down the outside lane ( overtaking naturally ) and suddenly the traffic in that lane is full of red lights and descending velocities, I ducked into the center lane and it's clear for over a half mile ahead and yes, there's a single truck on the inside lane, naturally I put myself into the correct position on the road and hoofed it. No doubt the morons now travelling at 40mph in the outside lane were cursing me but none of them followed suit so fuck 'em. Just to re-cap, if you were passed on the inside on the M1 last tuesday evening by a light blue audi ( amongst others ) -

If you obey the highway code no-one will pass you on the inside

The outside lane is not the 'fast lane', sitting in that lane will not propel you to unimaginable speeds just by being there, just as trucks do not go slowly because they are in the 'slow' lane, they go slowly because they weigh forty tonnes

If you persist in sitting in the outer lanes when there is no need, do not complain when normal people whip past you on the inner lanes

If I were armed ( and had a licence to do so ) I would have taken pot shots at you as I passed

I got home about 2.5 hours after leaving which wasn't bad given the weather and other road users, once home I spent a further few hours in M-time ( M-Time. noun. 'em-tiyme' : The period of time immeadiately following a long journey on a motorway spent mostly at high speeds, characterised by unblinking eyes and the need to stand up and pace, also notable is the complete inability to understand even simple written or verbal questions and also to engage in any mental action not associated with tracking moving objects or calculating speeds and relative velocities. ) until I managed to roll a small spliff, after that I made dinner, had a shower and went to bed.

I've just been out to lunch and it's loverly outside, so three cheers for the earth's periodic axis-type wobble and bring on the summer.

J has three cats. They are in descending order of age / weight - jasper, the fat, chilled out old bloke, cobweb the neurotic but underlyingly lovely female black moggie and piglet the baby also black also female moggie. Cobweb is the subject in this case, she's youngish and completely insecure and even more so since J got a smaller version of herself we call piglet, Cobweb tries to compensate by marking the house in strange places, we did have a vial of cat pheremones on a heater thingy you plug into a socket and it gives off calming scents for scaredy cats but that ran out, so cobweb's back to marking again until we get more. She also seems to have a thing about toasters, the thing is - she don't like them, not one bit ( we think ) and demonstrates this by hosing them down in piss when we're not looking....

...which brings me back to the worst smell in the world. This arrives when she's stressed again and has communicated this to you by filling off the toaster - except you don't know this - until you use the toaster ( which is infrequently ) - which works fine - but once the toaster heats up it vapourises the crystallised piss in the bottom - which is my candidate for the absolutely worst, house evacuating, gag suppressing, incense waving, god awful smell in the world. This includes ( but is not limited to ) backed up septic tanks - rotting carcasses - wandering about in the calderas of volcanoes - the evil arse of a friend who lets 'em go when we're crammed into a car - pure hydrogen sulphide. It truly is awful, and means a new toaster fairly regularly as well.

Still short of cutesy pictures at the mo', they're on the way but my artist stork is late delivering so we'll all have to wait.

Went to Camden market on saturday which was nice, got myself a t-shirt from cyberdog featuring an lcd panel in the chest with a matwix-like cascade of green character symbols, which when switched on cascades from top to bottom just like the filim, I know it's hackneyed and they'll sell lots but I like it and look forward to messing with minds next time I wear it out, hurray for timely product placement and fools with money to spend.