"400 pints of Stella, Bartender please."

So I went to the cashpoint today and what was I greeted with? A security warning, actually. "If you notice anything suspicious about this machine, please report it immediately at xxx xxx xxxx."

So I did. I rang up.

There's money in my account. SOMETHING AIN'T RIGHT.

About a grand's worth actually. Crikey, that's nigh on 400 pints of Stella. And I get paid tomorrow!

I can't be the only one who's sick to black death of Madeline McCann news. It's a shame and all, but have a break please. That's one well and truly milked cow that the press have celotaped themselves to the bollocks of. The news isn't even that significant anymore. But what really made me laugh was walking past the newspaper stand this morning - on the day after Gordon Brown's party defining annual speech - only to find one of the tabloids running with the McCann investigation as its headline cover story.

Don't worry about the rest of the nation, y'know. EU Referendums? Snap elections? What do you take me for?!?

...Here's what Kate said ten minutes after her daughter went missing!

A reality check for the Daily Star please. Not that I don't appreciate a good smutty read. I'm the kind of guy who snaps up a copy of The Sun and flicks straight to Dear Deidre just to make himself feel better. And let's face it, who wouldn't feel better after reading a column of that tripe? I don't know whether to feel more sorry for the husbands and wives who've been cheated on, or the lost soul who felt desperate enough to write to The Sun for some moral direction.

Alas, I'm pretty sure that I've done something to my achilles, both of them unfortunately. Paintball nailed me for six - I'm black, blue and purple too - but the long walk to work has been causing me discomfort for the last couple of weeks, so it can't have been that.

I have a "battle wound" inside my thigh which apparently looks like a nipple. Yes, I'm using the term "battle wound" to look hard.

Sunday was pretty amusing actually. Hanging around the paintball base camp with the rest of the team, kitted out in camo overalls, sipping cups of tea and trying to take pictures around scenery where it'd be possible to convince friends that yes, we'd spent the weekend in Iraq.

As it happens, I don't think traditional English woodland makes for the best Iraq faux-set.

I've been a miserable sod recently, but there are a few bright sparks to keep me smiling. I don't know what it is about relationships, but I always seem to be drawn to the forbidden fruits (and by that, I mean girls that would be better without my influence - not banished gays). I can't help myself.

I suppose it's a little bit weird coming out of a three year relationship and rediscovering how to deal with the signs, hints and self-fabricated madness. Trying to work out what's real, and not quite grasping where friendship ends and attraction begins. It's a knackering business, but there are times where I feel genuine pings of...something.

Maybe this is just a shambolic excuse for my man-brooding in search of some intimacy.

I feel like the weirdo who goes to the gallery every day to have a gander at some stunning painting. But just because he spends more time ogling it, that doesn't mean the painting's going to ogle him back.

Jesus Lucifer Christ.

I must need a pint.

Here she goes. Here she goes again.

Every eight months or so, I make the radical decision to document my life via the form of a prying voyeur's best friend - an overdone and often cringe-inducing blog.

I normally last about two weeks, until I land on my own writings in a sober state and swear behold le Christ that I'll never lower myself to such mortifying standards ever again.

Well here I am. I figure my life has reached the crossroads where for once in a while, it may actually be worth its while to scribble some of this down. Let's face it, I ain't gonna remember it any other way. I've forgotten why I'm here already.

I woke up this morning after a pretty saucy dream - oh yes, starting how I plan to continue - scooped my head off the pillow and was absolutely convinced that I could see two figures making out in my desk chair. Only then did I realise, having vaguely mouthed to "get a room" and squinted through the darkness - that it was actually a pile of clothes and my cat, Muffin, licking his booty*.

Not quite the explicit* wake-up call that it might have been, but when you can dream my dreams, you'll be damned if you need them.

Why do London commuters insist on legging it for the door as soon as a train turns the bend and catches sight of the next station? I really don't understand. It's not like you're gonna make it to Harrow on the Hill; Platform 5 before me, mate. We're all on the same carriage.

But even more so, what the hell is this lunatic doing trying to unfold his Independant during the sweltering heat of rush hour on a jam packed Northern Line to Kings Cross?

If my face is this close to getting wedged between the automatic doors and Yuppy Headset Man's armpit, you can bugger off with your arm's width broadsheet newspaper. Give me some room to stand without getting Yesterday's stock market details tattooed across my face, and I might actually stop hissing at you whenever you turn the page. You never know.

My kidneys have been aching and my stomach feels like its reached its capacity as far as alcohol consumption is concerned. I feel quite bad, yet when I'm out poisoning my veins, I've never felt happier in a shallow kind of way. It's a deadly combination and one that's messing* me up, slowly but surely. The weekends are short and the mornings are painful.

I'm caught up in the seduction of the chase, so to speak. It's quite weird. As much as I've embraced the single life and being free to enjoy freedom, nail the town, wake up in a different bed - it's not really what I want. I know what I want, and even though I've tried to initiate it, I just don't feel comfortable that it's possible when feelings are made so abstract. I'm convinced that there's a spark there, but I sometimes wonder whether friendship - cop out as it feels - is ultimately the safest bet. I don't want it to be. Yet I'm not used to being the aggressor, and the further my feet sink in to the woo'ing pit, the more I feel like I'm going to end up portraying myself as something that I'm not. Frightening.

My career has taken a turn for the worse. How can it not when you become known as the office tramp*? My boss caught sight of the lovebite which a female friend tattoed me with in Sheffield - and he's since been calling me by the affectionate name of Hickey.

Worse yet, I had to install a Small Business Server for the company today, and he decided to name the Intranet "hickey" as an eternal reminder of my chomped neck.

http://hickey/...

Whenever we recruit new staff and the question of why our Intranet is named after a filthy stain crops up... Indeed.


* Amended to conquer nunhouse censorship.