Yes man

One of Carolyn's more endearing habits is that, every couple of months or so, quite out of the blue, she'll come up with some totally bonkers scheme which she doesn't think is bonkers at all. In fact, she'll invariably describe it as a good idea, then appear genuinely disappointed when I decline her invitation to get involved.

"Why don't you take up bell-ringing?" she asked me earlier this year.
"What? You're kidding, right? What am I talking about? Of course you're not."
"I think you'd like it."
"Carolyn, I'm an atheist. Why on earth would I want to go bell-ringing?"
"I don't know. I just thought it was a good idea, that's all. You should think about going."
…and so on.

A couple of years back, Carolyn suggested I dress up as Father Christmas and entertain at children's parties—and at her children's party in particular. I declined.

But, when I rejected her latest scheme last month—it was so bonkers, I can't even remember what it was—I began to feel guilty: Carolyn is very good at the hurt-and-disappointed look. So I decided there and then that, whatever her next bonkers scheme might be, I would agree to it immediately.

Which is why, in a couple of weeks' time, Carolyn and I are going to a tap dancing lesson 'with a touch of Salsa' thrown in for good measure.

Carolyn has very supple joints, and I have natural rhythm. We could be the next Ginger Rogers and Freddie Starr.

I'm just so relieved she didn't suggest I become a goth.

The long-ball game

I was collared by a soccer fan in the kitchen at work this afternoon. He asked me if I'd seen the England v Trinidad and Tobago match last night. I said I'd caught the last 20 minutes. We agreed that our lads played like a bunch of girls. We then proceeded to have an entire conversation about football.

I must have acquitted myself rather well, as my colleague clearly didn't twig that I hadn't the faintest idea what I was talking about. Hell, I even managed to slip in a reference to the Republic of Ireland's adoption of the long-ball game in a previous tournament. I heard Jackie Charlton mention it on Desert Island Discs.

I'm not entirely sure what the long-ball game is (I suspect the clue's in the name), but I reckon it's time our bunch of girls adopted it. If it's good enough for Big Jack, then it's good enough for England.

See also: My photos from Tobago on Flickr

In a flap

So what have I been up to over the last week? In a word, recovering.

The thing is, I have this weird phobia. As far as I know, my phobia doesn't have a name, so why don't I give it one? I'll call it flapophobia: I can't stand animals flapping around in a blind panic near me. I'm talking about moths and birds basically. I don't like it at all. It scares the shit out of me.

Not that I'm scared of moths and birds, you understand. Far from it, I think moths and birds are really cool. It's just the flapping I can't abide. I'm afraid that, in their panic, they might crash into me and get hurt. I think it's the thought of hurting them that's really behind my phobia. Well, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Which is why I had such a terrible shock last Sunday. I got out of bed at the usual time, opened the bedroom door, and heard a crow cawing loudly nearby. Hearing crows cawing is not unusual—we have a pair nesting in one of our chimneys at the moment—but this caw had a very definite echo to it, as if the bird was in a confined space, like our hallway, say.

So I decided to deal with the situation in the best way I knew how: I went and woke Jen and told her that we had a crow in the hallway, explaining that it must have fallen down the chimney. Jen knows all about my phobia, so she sighed and got out of bed, and the two of us tip-toed down the stairs, with me, rather surprisingly, at the front. When I got near the bottom of the stairs, I looked very carefully up and down the hallway. There was no sign of any crow, so I took another step forward, and all hell broke loose:

The crow had been hiding in a dark corner near the bottom of the stairs, and hadn't heard us coming. Suddenly, there was a terrified, cawing mass of feathers flapping about my head. Well, there was for one second at least, after which I doubled up into a tiny ball, let out a low howl, and barged past poor Jen back up the stairs. I'm not kidding, I'd never had such a fright in my life. My heart was literally pounding in my chest, and my upper body was shaking uncontrollably.

Happy KettleWhile I was giving it the Tippi Hedren's upstairs, Jen, with great efficiency, grabbed my fleece jacket from the banister, threw it over the crow, picked the bird up, released it though the patio door, and put the kettle on.

My heart rate returned to normal about two hours later. The shaking stopped about five minutes ago.

Poseidon

There are lots of billboards advertising the remake of The Posidon Adventure at the moment. "From the Director of Troy and The Perfect Storm," they proudly proclaim.

As far as I'm concerned, these are hardly ringing endorsements: Troy was perfectly competent, but rather naff, whereas I mentally rebranded The Perfect Storm as The Perfect Yawn. Having said that, the original Poseidon Adventure was hardly the greatest film ever made, was it?

If they really want to cite Wolfgang Petersen's directorial credentials to advertise his latest film, why on earth don't they mention his rather fun (if implausible) Air Force One? Better still, they should boast in ridiculously MASSIVE letters, "From the Director of Das Boot"—which, quite frankly, actually is one of the greatest films ever made.

If you've never seen Das Boot, do yourself a favour: go and buy yourself the Director's Cut on DVD right now. And make sure you watch it in its original German (with subtitles, if, like me, you don't speak the lingo), rather than the dubbed version. I guarantee you'll end up rooting for the Germans. The original book is highly recommended too.

I always think it's funny that I have to watch Das Boot with sub-titles. Sub titles—geddit? It's a film about a U-Boat, you see.

Suit youself.

See also:

Gazumped

BBC: Geller loses out on Elvis house

Celebrity spoon-bender Uri Geller has discovered a house he bought on eBay, formerly owned by Elvis Presley, has been sold to someone else…

"We are absolutely, mind-blown angry. Of course we're going to sue," he said.

You'd have thought a self-proclaimed psychic would have seen that coming.

Geller seems to make a habit out of suing people.

Yorkshire cricket

Hebden Bridge Times: Albert's 'Ten-For' Were Club-Mates

… Old Town [Cricket Club], playing in the second division of the Hebden Bridge League, were the visitors when Birchcliffe played their first match at Nell Carr on Saturday, April 11 1896.

"It was altogether too cold for the game, and at that altitude the breeze was something shocking… under the circumstances, the match hardly lends itself to criticism," commented the Hebden Bridge Times.

Yes, that's the famous Victorian Yorkshire cricketing venue of Nell Carr that they're writing about. Nell Carr was a hill-farm at the time. Today, it's a rather lovely (although, unfortunately, fieldless) residential house. A very fine Yorkshire lass lives there these days, with some fat, bearded joker—an incomedun from out Liverpool way.

The breeze up there is still something shocking most days.

Comeuppance/Falldownance

BBC: Tree fall man had been egg thief

A 63-year-old man who fell to his death after climbing a 40ft tree to examine a bird's nest was a convicted egg thief, it has emerged.

Colin Watson from Selby had at one time been one of the most notorious thieves of rare bird eggs in the country, the RSPB said.

I think my heart might be bleeding.