I gave Kirsten, one of my work colleagues, one of those electric static-ball lamps that look like they're from a science fiction film. When you touch it, pink beams of light emit from the middle up to your fingers. She took it home and gave it to her 8 year son, who had wanted one for ages.

The day after, she came into work and told everyone how much he loved the lamp. He kept touching it, pretending he was a wizard. He even got his Harry Potter wand out, and really got into character.

She said "He loved it! He got his wand out, and pretended to be that wizard the Harry Potter DVD cover, with a long white beard and white clothes! I can't remember what his name was, but he's the one with the white beard and white clothes. What was his name?" she pondered...

Personally, I'm not a Harry Potter fan. I had no idea who the white wizard character was, but I thought it would be funny to shout random magical names out.

"Oooohh, er..... white beard..... Do you mean Merlin?" I asked.

"Noooo," she replied, "...the one in Harry Potter. He had a white beard and a white wand."

"Oooohhh, white wand...... Gandalf?" I suggested.

"Noooo," she said, "In HARRY POTTER. He was a wizard. He could change how he looked."

"OH! That wizard who changed........ David Copperfield!"

"No, an old mysterious looking wizard, looking really old....." she continued.

"Paul Daniels?" I volunteered.

"NO!" she shouted abruptly, "You're just being stupid now. He was old and had a white beard..."

"Oooooh.....white beard.... ZEUS!" I offered.

"NO!" she shouted, as she became angry. "IN HARRY POTTER."

"OH, I KNOW!" I exclaimed. "That Dragon from The Neverending Story!"

"THATS NOT EVEN THE RIGHT FILM!" she shouted in frustration. "YOU KNOW IT'S WRONG!"

"Oh...... do you mean......"

I was about to continue, but she mouthed a swear at me. I knew it was time to stop.

So, I was chatting to Roland Rat, (no, really,) and he said that there are now 4.2 million CCTV cameras in the UK.

4.2 MILLION.

4,200,000 cameras, all around the UK, all filming everything that we do in public.

That was all he said about it, but my mind has been playing with the figures quite a lot during today...

According to the internet, there are only 60 million people in the UK.

Now I work in payroll, so am quite good with numbers, and that equates to 1 CCTV camera for every 15 people, or roughly 1 CCTV camera for every 10 adults in the UK.

What a downright immense stat!

According to wikipedia, the total area of the UK is 243,820 km²

So if you divide 243,820 (the area of the UK) by 4,200,000 (the number of CCTV cams) you get 0.05 km²

That means there are 20 CCTV cams in every square kilometer.

Or one CCTV cam (on average) every 50m²

When an adult walks, their average stride is a meter, so 50 paces would be 50 meters.

It is for bringing this stat to the masses, that I now wholeheartedly support his bid to become the next House of Commons Speaker - http://twitition.com/hnzea

Please sign his petition too.

Never really understood non-alcoholic beer. If you're in a position to drink beer, and you want beer, drink real beer. If not, drink something else. Is it not that simple?

And caffeine-free coffee - whats that all about? If you want and you are able to drink coffee, then drink it. If you can't then don't.

Whats next? Fire resistant cigarettes? Transparent tip-ex? Re-oderant?

When I was about 9, I used to go and play out with my friend David. We used to go up to the "lego" estate near his house, and wander around. Occasionally, we'd accidentally taunt old people.

On one occasion, we threw stones at a house that we thought was empty. We stood on one side of the street and threw stones over the road at the door of the empty house.

We threw a few stones, hit the door a few times, then suddenly a man burst out! It wasn't empty at all, but inhabited by an old man.

When this man burst out, it made us jump so we ran off. As we were running, the old man shouted at us, "I'LL TEACH YOU TO THROW STONES AT MY HOUSE!"

Always wondered.... Why would I need to be taught how to do it? We seemed to be doing it with relative precision without a tutorial.

On twitter, reading Robert Llewelyns tweets a few weeks back, I noticed that a fellow twitter user had invited him to join their network site. I'm a member of a few networking sites, mainly as part of my day job but a couple in relation to my website.

Their @ message to Robert was something along the lines of "Would you like free membership to our site?" and a link to it. Something that simple. You can't use more than 140 characters in one post on twitter, so it can be quite limiting.

I went to have a look at the network site that had invited Robert, to see if it would be of interest.

One thing that I noticed was that there was no sign-up screen.

Back on twitter, I sent an @ message to the network site, asking how I would go about joining. They replied, informing me that their site was invitation only. They only accept "great minds". However, if someone invited me, I would be sent a link to use to join.

Very intriguing! In fact I sent a message to them, saying that I thought they had an intriguing site which, to be fair, they do!

A week or so passed. I wanted to ask the networking site peoplea couple of questions, and twitter is incredibly limiting. You can only use 140 characters and replies to conversations, except direct messages, are very public. I went onto their site and filled in their "Contact Us" section.

Hi.

How do you select the people that you invite to join?

Although I'm not "famous", (as the majority of people I see you invite via Twitter,) I run one of the worlds most popular 80s sites, with hundreds of thousands of hits every year. I would be interested in joining or hearing more of the selection process, so as to chat with more like-minded people. Thanks in advance.

After I clicked "send enquiry", my browser was forwarded by the site to a "thank you" screen, that had a button on it saying "Sign up here."

I assumed that completing the "Contact Us" form, and correctly imputting the anti-spam text, had demonstrated that I was a real human. They must have had a few spambots visiting, removed the option to sign up from public view, and only allow it to be accessible after you have proved yourself to be human. So I clicked "Sign Up" and completed the details necessary on screen.

After signing up, and logging in, I got into the main networky part of the site.

I'm not going to describe it's contents indepth, suffice to say that it was very well set out and did most things that the other sites I'm a member of do. It allows you to build up your list of contacts and network.

I did get a reply from my "contact us" enquiry shortly after, explaining that the site was invite only. I didn't reply to it, as I was already allowed in.

But then, a day or so later, I got a message from them on the very public twitter. (When a person replies to you, they put an @ symbol then your username. Doing this puts the message on public display on the senders wall and it shows up as a message on the recipients wall.)

how did you get on my site without an invite? was the first message, followed a minute later with

im afraid we have detection software that removes people doing that by the way

It seemed like they were publically telling me off for hacking into their site!

I replied, again publically, After filling in the contact us page I was forwarded to your sign up page. Assumed I was allowed to after submitting enquiry.

I did take offence that they implied I had purposely done naughty things, so I added

If you don't want people accessing your sign up page, don't auto forward people to it and imply THEY'RE in the wrong!

Remember, all these brief conversations had appeared quite publically.

Then, I got a Direct Message (a private one that others cannot see) saying thanks...that link inst meant to be there, it will be removed asap...thanks for leting us know

PHEW! They seem to understand that the error was theirs, and I've spotted a potential problem with their site. It did bother me that the accusation had been public, but the thanks had been done in private, but at the end of the day they HAD said thanks.

But then, a new public message appeared - thats link is not meant to be there and will be removed asap which I read as a lot less friendly. Privately they say thanks to me for spotting a problem for them, but in public they are trying to keep up the accusatory tone.

Now I wanted people to know that I HAD had a thanks so, in reference to them removing the link AND saying thanks, I publically replied - Good idea - it'll prevent us common folk inadvertently joining! And as for the thanks in your DM, you're very welcome.

No malice intended, just agreeing that the invite-only site does prevent people like me joining without invitation.

But then I got another public message - angry person aren't you craig?

erm...... no? I'm agreeing with your principle of an invite only site does prevent people joining, and I'm saying thanks for your "thanks"

So I publically replied in all honesty, no. Removing your link does stop people finding it and joining, and you ARE welcome for saying thanks by DM. (DM = Direct Message)

What is frustrating is how limiting Twitter is at these things. I do like the compulsary shortness of the posts that you can make, but 140 characters is far too short to allow for getting points across in a discussion, and I think this is part of the problem I had.

If I thought someone had hacked into my sites, I would probably have handled it in a similar way. However one thing that I would definately not have done is to handle some of it in private and some in public.

Bad etiquette always annoys me.

But then, another public message appeared - seriously,get over it

You know that feeling that you get when you realise that everything you do in a situation is futile? When nothing that you can say, even when you're really not trying to upset someone, will ever be right?

I'd like to think that this will be the final message that they send me. I really would. But it feels as though I'd being dealt with by a young child who hasn't quite mastered even the most basic concept of rational thinking. They can't see and they don't understand that the problem has already gone away. Taunting it, even though it is no longer there, is the sort of thing children do.

If they message me publically again, with ANY form of taunt or insult, I'll put the url for the sign up page on here so we can all join, spambots and all.

If they don't message me, I won't.

The best food on earth, has got to be Co-op Onion Rings. They're just so crispy, tasty and nice.

I've been sat here trying to think of other food that I can do a compare-test on, but no other foor comes close.

Even chippy chips on a barm with a sausage pales in comparison.

So, that's it really. Co-op Onion Rings. They're aces!

Last Saturday, I got an email from a Mark Carter which, at first, concerned me.

(For regular readers, you may remember me mentioning Mark Carter here in my conker story. I said he was "the fat kid", and I made the point that "absolutely ANYTHING on earth that could take Mark Carters weight was worthy of note.")

So I opened the email, half expecting a massive fist to lunge out of the screen and lamp me.

It was from a different Mark Carter, (phew!) who presented the breakfast show on BBC Radio Surrey. His email said...

From: Mark Carter
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2009 11:17:50 +0100
To: webmaster@80snostalgia.com, Jack.*****@bbc.co.uk
Subject: Hello

Hi there (Craig - I think!)

We are doing a piece on my Breakfast Show on Monday morning at about 0910 about 80s nostalgia.

Do you think we could have a chat with you please on the phone?

Best regards

Mark.


Mark Carter
News Programmes Editor and Presenter:
The Mark Carter Breakfast Show on 104 and 104.6FM BBC Surrey

It was about 11:00am Saturday morning when I got it, and as it's payroll year end (and I do payroll) I was in work. I printed off the email to show my boss. I didn't have any intentions of doing the radio chat, as at 9:10 on Monday I'd be in work, working. My boss read it, and asked me if I was going to do it.

"I can't," I replied, "I'm in work, working at 9:10."

"Craig! It's the RADIO!" he stressed. At this point, I could tell that he didn't mind me doing it. However the way he said "It's the RADIO!" made me believe he thought the wireless was some form of new technology, and that I shouldn't miss out on this 20th Century innovation.

He told me I could have time off to do it, and that I should do it because I'll get more hits.

So I emailed Mark back, saying...

Hi Mark.

It'd be a pleasure to chat about the 80s. My number is 07894 ******. I'll be at my normal day-job from 8am, but can relocate to a quiet, chatty area whenever needs be.

What area of the 80s would you need me to chat about?

Thanks for getting in touch.

Craig A.
www.80sNostalgia.com

I spent the rest of Saturday and all day Sunday worrying about it.

I heard nothing back until Monday morning, when I received this email...

Hi Craig

Brill, we'll speak to you later - just a general chat about why you love
the eighties and your best memories please!

Mark.

WHO on EARTH uses the word "brill"?!? (Yes, apart from me?) Mark Carter does! That's who!

I had got into work really early that Monday, and after getting my reply decided to swot up on some 80s things. What sort of things will he ask me?!? How long will I be on air?!? How many listeners does he have?!?

So I made a list of my favourite 80s things, that I could use as reference if a certain topic arose. I had a heading for toys, kids TV, normal TV and adverts, and I put a few key words under each heading to trigger memories. Under TOYS, for example, I had Big Trak and Stretch Armstrong. Under Kids TV I had He-Man and The Adventure Game.

It also occured to me that they test the fire alarm at work every Monday. If I were to take part in a radio thing, chances are they would test the alarm at the exact same time I was on air, so I made the decision to go and sit in my car to chat to the radio people.

So, 5 mins before I was due to get "the call" I decided to go to the loo. I stood up and started to walk away from my desk. My boss wished me good luck as I walked past, which I found disturbing. In his mind I was obviously going to chat on live radio, whereas to my mind I was going for a wee. I thought it odd that he had wished me a lucky wee. I thanked him all the same.

Wee over, and at 9:08, my phone rang. It was BBC Surrey. The nice lady who I answered to told me her name and asked if she could put me on hold in preparation for going "on." I pegged it downstairs, over the car park, and into my car.

For the next five mins, I listened into Mark Carters breakfast show on my phone. It seemed really good! They had asked members of the public their favourite 80s memories, they played clips of 80s news items including the one where a man broke into the Queens bedroom, and played snippets of 10 80s songs and people in the studio had to guess the artist. It was a very well presented show.

But then they announced that they had "Craig from the 80s Nostalgia website, 80sNostalgia.com, on the line to discuss his favourite 80s memories."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

Breathing, speech, even blinking went out of the window. I was temporarily reduced to a panting, drooling fool for about 3 long, long seconds.

I have no idea what he asked me, or what my answer was for the first minute of the chat. Complete mindblank. I think it was about toys, but I could be wrong.

But then it occured to me that this "chatting on the phone" malarchy is pretty much all I do every day of my working life. In work I take phonecalls, and I witter endless conversation back to the people who phone in from all around the country. I do it daily. As soon as this occured to me, I instantly relaxed.

Mark asked me about what me favourite aspect of the 80s was, and the conversation went something along the lines of....

Me : "Everyone remembers the music of the 80s, or the fashion or the toys, but my honest favourite 80s things were the TV adverts."

Mark : ".....erm....right," came the reply. It was obviously not a topic he'd researched.

Me : "Well," I jumped in "how much was a finger of fudge?"

Mark : "just enough! To give your kids a treat!"

Me : "Exactly, and I can't have been the only person who ate Ready Brek because I thought it made me have an orange glow?"

At this point, Marks co-presenter joined in, in agreement, and the fact that people knew what I was wittering on about really pleased me. I felt a LOT more relaxed.

After the ad-chat, they asked me about my favourite 80s fashion. "To be honest, I have no idea about 80s fashion. I was a 6 year old boy at the start of the 80s. Even now, I'm still incredibly unfashionable." I felt being honest rather than try to waffle on about a subject I didn't know much about was the better option. This raised a small laugh.

Then, sitcoms. They asked about sitcoms! That was something I hadn't made a note of on my list! Completely by luck, as I was making my list earlier, I noticed that Allo Allo was first aired in 1982 which happened to be the year they were mainly focussing on, so I brought that up. Phew again! They volunteered Only Fools And Horses into the conversation, and we had a chat about that too.

Then, all too soon, they thanked me for taking part, plugged my site again, and faded me out. The nice lady I had initially received the phonecall from came back onto the line and thanked me again.

I slumped back in my chair, and did a huge sigh.

Absolutely petrifying, but well worth it.

On Thursday, I spent half of the day at a Ferrari garage in Manchester. I went there to take part in a networking event, where businesses mingle and see whether they can help other attending businesses with their services.

I proper enjoyed it!

While at the event, I got chatting to a man who was just like a fat version of Matthew Kelly. His advice was brilliant, and one of the things he said to me was "Always do lots of little things." (He said it during our chat, in relation to something I said about being overwhelmed with big tasks. If you're faced with 10 jobs, 9 of which are small and 1 that is big, always do the little ones first - it's best to have finished 90% of your work rather than get stuck at the first 10%.)

Then on the way home, I had one of the best laughs I've ever had in a car journey, partly chatting and partly listening to a radio feature with a man answering questions while being waxed.

While in the car, I also managed to take a photo of me that I actually like, for once!

It made me laugh so much, that it's now my profile pic on most sites I visit.

Then, Thursday night, I bought a .tel domain name, which again made me really giddy.

Friday I did loads of work at work, and caught up on loads of things.

Finally, today is Grand National day. Normally I don't make an effort to bet unless someone arranges a sweepstake, but looking at the horses earlier I thought I'd give it a go.

I have little idea about form, odds, etc.... but I did notice that there were 10 horses that were all very high odds. Even if I put £1.00 on one of these high odd horses, if just one won I'd make loads.

Then, Matthew-Kellys-doppelgangers advice came back to me... "Always do lots of little things." So I bet 50p each way on all 10 of the 100/1 horses. Cost me a tenner, but....

Huzzah indeed!

I've had a fab Thursday to Saturday! It's been a 13 on the Flavia scale of happiness!

When I was at primary school years ago, we used to play conkers. It was one of those games that all school kids played.

The "unwritten" rules were very simple:-

You had to steal conkers from any nearby conker-bearing tree.

You could "prepare" your conker in any way you wanted to (soak in vinegar, bake in an oven, keep in an airtight box, etc..)

Your conker could only be suspended by a single piece of string, or wire, by drilling a hole through the conker, threading the string or wire through it, and tying a knot into one end.

You kept your knuckles away while you dangled a conker at arms length in front of you, while you and your mate took it in turns to swipe a conker at the other persons suspended conker.

Optional rules included "stomps" where if your conker was knocked out of your hand, the other person could stomp on it if they got to it first.

Me and Russ, my best mate at the time, played conkers a lot during my childhood.

One day, my Dad came home from work. I was sat on the front door step in the sun, with Russ. We were probably trying to burn ants with a magnifying glass, or some other activity. My Dad handed me a brand new conker suspended on blue wire. It looked like THE perfect conker. It was nice and round, very heavy, and completely secured by a huge knot. I assumed he'd been out at dinnertime and found it under a tree. But it turns out he hadn't.

He'd MADE it.

It wasn't actually a conker.

Over the previous few days at work, my Dad had made a conker out of epoxy resin. For the 98% of people who don't know what epoxy resin is, it is a thermosetting epoxide polymer that cures (polymerizes and crosslinks) when mixed with a catalyzing agent or "hardener". (Basically, there are two tubes of gooey paste. If you mix equal parts of tube 1 and tube 2, and squeeze and rub them together in your fingers, the result it one of the hardest substances on earth.)

You mix them together in your fingers, mould them into a shape, and the combination of both pastes causes a reaction that makes them set in whatever shape you make.

My Dad had happened to make a conker shape, put a hole through it while it was still malluable, painted it so it was conker-coloured, and varnished it many, many times.

He told me what he'd done, and that it should last "quite a while!"

Me and Russ went straight to the front of our house, next to the step just under the big front window, and I swiped the pretend conker at the wall. As it hit, shards of brickwork shot off. It was like swinging a small wrecking ball.

It was brill!

The next day I took it to school. Another mate, David Reynolds, challenged me to a conker battle. He didn't know I had a pretend conker. I held my conker out for him to strike. He swung, hit, and it was my turn. He held his conker up, I swung, and accidentally smacked his knuckles. He bled just slightly, but it was "game over" for his conker hand for that day.

I used my conker as frequently as possible and it remained undefeated for weeks, through many battles.

Mark Carter, the "fat kid" from the other class, was the last battle I ever had with the conker. He insisted that the "stomp" rule was allowed, and we commences play.

He swung and hit, I swung and hit, he swung and hit, I swung and hit... Then he swung and knocked my conker wire out of my hand. NOOOOO! It was a well known fact that if Mark Carter got to stomp on your conker, it was all over. He was, after all, the fat kid.

He ran across to where it had landed, blocked me with his arm, and did a series of massive stomps. Then he stood back, laughing, to inspect the damage.

It was still there, on the ground, still looking very much like a conker. He couldn't believe it! I couldn't believe it! I picked it up to inspect it. The ONLY damage that had been inflicted was a small chip on one side where the varnish and the paint had been chipped away on a shard of gravel, and had exposed a small dot of white epoxy.

But even in damaged state, it just looked like a normal slightly damaged conker.

Mark then refused to continue play, and I was deemed the winner. I think he realised that any conker that could survive his mighty weight landing on it was capable of wreaking severe damage.

(Come to think of it, I probably wouldn't limit the rule to just conkers - absolutely ANYTHING on earth that could take Mark Carters weight was worthy of note.)

Not sure where my conker went to after that, but I can guarantee that it still does exist somewhere on earth. If it can survive Mark Carters weight, it can survive anything.

My supervisor, at work obviously, had a quick meeting with our manager. I don't know what happened in the meeting, what was discussed or anything, but it was quite a brief meeting and it lasted no more than a minute.

She came out, sat at her desk, and grimmaced.

I asked her what was the matter, and she replied...

"Apparently, I have to be nice."

REALLY made me laugh!

I was at someones house a few weeks ago, and I was offered a drink. I said I'd like a black coffee. They asked how many spoons of coffee I'd like in my drink, and I said I'd just like one.

This sparked the following conversation, about a man called Bill who often visits the same person I was visiting.

This is transcribed word for word, repetition and all, and is best read back in that self satisfying, I-know-best way in which all stupid people speak.

Them : Bill always has two heaped spoons of coffee! And I mean HEAPED! (*mimes spooning coffee)

Me : What, all the time?

Them : ALL the time!

Me : Every time he has coffee?

Them : Every time he has a coffee, always two HEAPED spoonfuls! (*mimes spooning coffee again)

Me : Is it not just when he's here, to impress people?

Them : No, even at home he has two heaped spoons!

Me : Even when he's in his own house, on his own?

Them : Yep! Even when he's on his own!

Me : How do you know he does it when he's on his own?

Them : He always does!

Me : Have you ever seen him do it when he's on his own?

Them : Yep, two heaped spoons! (*mimes spooning coffee)

(sigh.....)

So she's been there with him, when he's been on his own. Brilliant!

Also, I loved the way that miming moving coffee from a pretend jar to a pretend cup obviously demonstrates how big the heaps are.

A classic stupid menu from Angelos!

They spell Angelos correctly four times, before getting finally it wrong on the essential "how to contact us" section.

Brilliant!

Where I used to work, in Manchester centre, there was a tall, camp-sounding man. After working with him for 6 months, I found out that he was straight. 6 months down the line, this came as a bit of a shock. I'd assumed he was gay for the previous 6 months, based purely on a conversation I'd overheard the week he started.

He was in the queue in front of me as the local cafe. At his turn, he asked the lady for "A cappucino aaaaand a cherry muffin please."

From that moment on, I assumed he was gay.

Is it just me, or are muffins classed as a gay food?

I like eating cakes. I eat them as often as I can, and I especially like muffins. But every time I go to the shop and ask for a "chocolate chip muffin" I feel like I'm asking for gay food.

Continuing on from my previous post, of compulsary spelling mistakes in takeout menus, this one was hand deliviered today. When I say hand delivered, I actually mean hand crumpled into an unwilling letterbox, unwilling to receive such badlyspelled (sic) leaflets.

This time, the food was all spelt correctly. It was the explanation of the offer that read a bit wonky.

Exluding.

They've excluded the C from excluding.

It's SO almost onomatopoeic, but..... not quite.

So well done to the almost onomatopoeic, almost oxymoronic Lancashire-based Miami Pizza.

I get 2 or 3 takeout menus pushed through my door every week. They're usually pizza ones, which I don't mind because I love pizza.

But here is an interesting fact.......

On EVERY menu that I receive, there is ALWAYS one spelling mistake. ALWAYS. One item, or one offer, or one description containing an error. Something is spelt incorrectly on every single menu. But it's never the same thing. It isn't as if there is a common misconception, and everyone always spells the same word wrong. They all get one different word wrong each time.

Captain Cook, for example, cannot consistently spell "Kebab"

Yeeeeah, lets just slip another B in there. I wouldn't mind, but they've spelt it correctly twice directly above the mistake.

So next time you get a menu pop through your door, read it, find the mistake, then ring them up to tell them they're stupid.