Not On Your Nellyvision

I banished television from my life six years ago. I don't want one ever again. My girlfriend does. The compromise is that we watch BBC iPlayer, ITVre:repeater, 4OMG, tubetube and Filmlove through the computer. However, I imagine one day I may want to banish computers from my life. I imagine that will cause some row.

Café Envy In The 21st Century

A mid-morning coffee near Warwick Castle - home of Dionne. I always become irrationally envious of people in cafés. For one, though I do like coffee and tea, I envy those that really relish it. It's only a hot drink. Many humans seem to derive so much pleasure from it. I don't quite get it.

Secondly, I always imagine the other café customers to lead amazing lives – intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. They're in here taking a bit of time-out before resuming something amazing, whereas I'm sitting here writing about these feelings to eventually get home and put them up on a website in the rare event that somebody may find them entertaining.

Flyfishing For Secret Santa Buyers

Secret Santa time. I had the task of buying a mystery gift for a client. I have attained knowledge of said client being a keen fisherman so decided to go for a safe bet and get something fishy. I looked in the Yellow Pages and located an angling shop. The shop was near a church but disappointingly the owners had missed the trick and hadn't called their shop 'In Rod We Trust'.

To me, the place was a bizarre emporium of puzzling gadgets, day-glo packaging and sinister foodstuffs. I hadn't a clue what to do so I approached the cash desk and three cod-faced shop assistants. As I waited in a two-man queue I formulated what I was going to say. I was going to make them laugh. Bring some welcome cheer to their day.

"Yes Sir, how can I help?"

"Well, I'm buying someone a Christmas present but I've never been in an angling shop before and have no idea what I'm looking for. SLIGHT PAUSE. I'm like a fish out of water!"

No laughter. Not even a smile. All I got was an earnest reply that I should buy some things called fishing flies, that looked like weird mosquito voodoo dolls.

At times I feel my comedic talents are so wasted.

What Came First - The Sheep or The Standing Stone?

If visiting a popular megalithic site I would always advice going 'off-peak'. I recall in my youth (five years ago) racing up the B40115041141 to the Rollright Stones, for sunset on summer solstice, when the following happened:

My right hand received a signal from the partingua manoosh cortex of my brain to abruptly spin the steering wheel of my Punto off the B40115041141 and down a lane, with no number, towards the village of Dean. A further signal instructed me to park up in a makeshift layby halfway down and stride confidently across a field, like a pagan John Wayne, towards the granite joy that is the Hawkstone.

There was not a soul around as I slumbered by the stone to see out the solstice in blissful solitude, aided by an orange crush sky.

The point I'm making is that if I had gone to the Rollrights I would have encountered a plethora of human beings and most probably wouldn't have had such a personal and engaging experience. You don't really want human beings around when reconnecting with nature and the past. A girlfriend or possibly a mute grandfather at most.

Today at ancient Avebury I've never known it so quiet. You could here a piece of flint drop. A Friday in December sounds quite 'off-peak' but I still expected to see the odd bespectacled, back-packed and bearded homo sapien meandering around. Instead there are sheep.

I ponder whether sheep were around when these colossal stones were erected 5000 odd years ago. Is that an idiotic thought? Have sheep always been around on these isles? Farming was only invented around that time so perhaps they were ferried over from Belgium after these stone circles were built? 

I'm at a loss. If only there were some human beings around I could ask.