Am I a twat?*

To Twitter or not to Twitter?

I was talking with some friends last night, some Twitterers, some not, and they were all urging me to Twitter.

So far I've managed to resist, a) because I fear I'll get obsessed and it will take up all my time, and b) what I read and see of Twitter and its followers I don't really like. That world is full of showboats or people who want to be friends with Stephen Fry, it seems.

But then again it might be fun. I know some regular readers here Twitter, so what do you think? Would you be interested in F-C tweets? Would you care for example, if I suddenly tweeted that after listening to Quo's Burning Bridges I realise how much I like pop songs that incorporate jigs and reels in a rock style? Or that Andrew Castle looks dreadfully ill? Or that I once bought a beautiful handmade coffee table off Mary Tamm?

I mean really, who cares? I know everyone's rushed to do it for fear of being left behind by the Next Big Thing, and you know it's a fad that will fade into normal usage, but I don't know. My finger's hovered over the 'join us' button several times, but I've never gone all the way...

Should I?

How To Live Your Life

I finally got around to watching that fascinating Nicky Haslam programme on BBC4.

If I'm honest I always thought he was a bit of a figure of fun, a cross between Danny La Rue and Tony Curtis, an ancient society fop who was in denial about getting old, hanging louchely round the bars of London and wearing ridiculous clothes that are way too young for him.

This doc changed my mind - kind of. He's vaguely absurd in an English eccentric way, and has a silly job that clearly makes him a fortune doing up the houses of Russians with hideous taste. And he wears some clothes that are far to young for him that he buys from Top Man, because he's not ready to slip into the Dunn & Co. just yet. So good for him, really. What was so fascinating about him though is the amazing life he's led.

If you could live a life to full, his is how it should be. He knew everyone, and I mean everyone, from Warhol to Burton and Taylor to Mick and Bianca to John Lennon and beyond. He travelled the world, living this Zelig-like existence being in the right place at the right time throughout the most exciting of decades.

Despite all this, however, he strikes me as being a bit lonely. There was a moment at the end of the film where he broke down over a former lover. This ex was interviewed earlier and said they didn't work out because Nicky had to be out every night. He didn't want to be out, he HAD to be out, whereas the lover would rather have stayed in and watched EastEnders. Nicky would never do that. I doubt he knows what it is.

So how does one become this sort of person? I think it's all in the breeding. You often hear old money types saying things like 'my mother told me all joints on the table will be carved' or 'never run after a bus or a man'. They seem to remember all these nursery level tips and use them to lead a charmed life. You don't get these words of wisdom out of the mouths of dustmen or fish gutters do you? (Correct me if I'm wrong).

There's also a need to be the centre of attention, largely due to being seen and not heard or packed off to boarding school, and of course the number one social attribute, confidence.

But people are rather wary of the over-confident. It's a bit brash or American or, as NIcky himself would say, common. There are lots of things Nicky thinks common: scented candles, and above all, loving your parents (?!).

Anyway, where there's a star, there's Nicky. The doc showed him getting into the middle of the action at a Russian oligarch's party. He simply glided past the security guards right to the main attraction and inveigled himself right in the middle of the action. How clever is that? And when Paris Hilton - the world's most photographed woman turned up at a party, there was Nicky right by her side.

Most days I drive by a shop in Pimlico called "Nicholas Haslam". I thought it might be someone else, seeing as he's only known as Nicky, but then it struck me that of course there can be only one.

Here's Enya, with the one of the best number one hits ever, Orinoco Flow.

Let's play house

Would you like to live here? Do you want this type of life? Do you have this type of life?



Or what about here:



Would you like to live among these people in the woods?



Perhaps Sandy'll make you something nice in her cosy country cottage:



Or how about feeling groovy with this lot?



So which album cover world would you live in?

3-Don't

It's Channel 4's 3D week, and we're all supposed to rush out and get our glasses from Sainsbury's and enjoy seeing the coronation as we've never seen it before.

Whereas over the years the whole 3D thing has reared it's head and then shuffled back off to its pit, it seems to be gathering pace at the moment, with talk of it eventually becoming the norm.

But is it really such a good thing?

For me as a spectacles wearer, this is no good at all. I either have to tuck the stiff cardboard - or worse, plastic - pair behind my real glasses at a funny angle, or try and balance them on the top of my nose outside of them. Neither is comfortable or really works. Has anyone given this any thought?

And does it mean that if TVs go 3D we'll all have to have a pair of special glasses at hand? Can you get prescription 3D glasses?

I'm hoping it's just a fad and will pass, like it's done countless times before.

Johnny Come Lately...Maybe Not

I'd never even heard of them until now, but who are Smyths and where are their toy superstores?

I'm always amazed when something you've never heard of is suddenly everywhere, and when you ask around everyone's heard of them but you, and then subsequently you discover they've been around since about 1972 and have 400 branches.

Smyths are TV and press advertising like crazy, doing competitions on GMTV and are everywhere. And what a very old-fashioned brand they appear to be. Nasty yellow and red = cheap (and cheerful) and perhaps that's just the ticket for these credit crunch times.

Anyway, I suppose it's the passage of time that's most surprising in all this. No doubt Smyths probably were established in 1904 and it's just me who's never notice. A bit like how the Noughties have flown by, Midsomer Murders has been going for 12 years and Mrs F-C and I met when we were 23.

It's all going way too fast.

57 channels...

Me and a colleague went to Harry Hill's TV Burp last night at the BBC TV Centre.

We got the green room treatment which is far preferable to sitting in the audience with the hoi polloi. You don't have to put up with being bullied by the warm-up man - the one at The X Factor is particularly horrible - and you don't have sit there dying for the loo while they go back and make everyone chuckle again over bits they didn't chuckle loud enough at before, and you can have a drink. You also get to mingle with the great man himself.

I know him pretty well having met and worked with a few times over the years, and he's a really nice guy. Very slight, quiet and unassuming but actually funny and interesting, which for a comedian is quite rare. And he really genuinely loves TV too.

So while I was having a fag out by that bit where Roy Castle used to tap dance round - the donut I believe they call it - I got to thinking about all the rubbish TV there is on and how Harry Hill has such rich pickings to choose from. No wonder the show's such a hit.

I'm dismayed to see I'm A Celebrity is back this week. I can't bear it, and this year the cast are worse than ever. Last year I watched the first one and considered sticking with it, but I didn't. Are we perhaps tiring of it?

And as for those awful things like Dating In The Dark and the forthcoming Pants Off Dance Off - words fail me.

There are way too many channels all clamouring for a successful formula. Consequently they're filled with endless crap, dull repeats, clone shows, absolute Z-list celeb bollocks and little of note. There really only need be about 12, including movies and sport, the demolition channel and the one where flowers bud and bloom really quickly.

Let's make it so.

Barking

Are you a cats or dogs person? Perhaps you're both. That's allowed. I own a cat but I love dogs.

We had a lovely dog when I was growing up. We lived in the middle east where stray dogs were ten a penny. One day my brother turned up at the house telling my mum that if we didn't take this cute grey and white bundle of fluff with beseeching eyes then it would be killed that night.

Eighteen years later and we're burying the poor old thing. Dogs are so loyal and trusting. How can anyone be cruel? When you read about dogs bred for fighting or dogs being mistreated it's so hard to understand. It's like being cruel to children. They can't fight back.

When I'm doing my fitness thing in Regents Park of a morning we always see the same dogs. There's a group of walkers who have a wide selection of pooches, from St Bernards to setters to cocker spaniels and some American has a beautiful black Newfoundland. There's an awful lot of Americans walking dogs in that park in the morning. It's so lovely with the sun dappling through the trees you forget you're in the middle of London.

There are also some pugs, which I've generally found rather tiresome, but I stroked one that ran up to us and it was really soft. I was amazed. I thought they'd be all wiry and greasy. So now they're officially cute. I still wouldn't own one though, they're too small.

But you can't like them all. Here's a short list of horrible dogs:

1. Rupert Next door's ghastly apricot poodle when I was a child, that yapped all day long and was over-indulged by its owner Mrs Jones. She'd cook it fresh liver every day and then she'd fan him as he lay on his back. I think they were unnaturally close. He'd snarl if you went near her.

2. Prince Uncle Bob's golden retriever that was really greasy to the touch, and one in a long line of retrievers that were all called Prince. Uncle Bob was an elderly cove who was gay but it was never talked about. My grandma would occasionally mention his 'friend' Steve, who was long dead but whose picture remained above uncle Bob's bed. On being shown round his new house my brother asked loudly if that was Uncle Bob's boyfriend. We were briskly moved to the next room and talked about a lovely bunch of daffs. He had a housekeeper called Barbara who had a moustache and was banished to her room except when they watched Crossroads and latterly Neighbours. Anyway Prince was hugely fat, smelled and we always had to take him for really long walks in the New Forest and just because he was a dog and we were children we were meant to like him. But we didn't.

3. Tammy A teacher's nasty little terrier that looked just like him and if you put it in a blazer and army tie then they'd be dead ringers for each other. Silly name, horried little yappy thing that shouldn't have been around children.

4. Skipper This monster was Auntie Mary's pride and joy. It was a silky Yorkshire terrier with a bow in it's hair. But when she died the responsibility went to Uncle Gilbert. But he didn't really care for Skipper very much, favouring deaf white cat Bella, so Skipper used to we up the walls. The house was one to avoid. So when he took up with Irene and moved to a bungalow in Torquay Skipper vanished. I don't think I even asked what happened to him.

5. Osky The horrid little Jack Russell was the subject of a bitter custody battle between my friend Jim and his girlfriend. He bought Osky for her, then they split up but she wanted to keep him. But so did Jim. No one else cared as Osky was a miniature irritant and not cute in the least. She barked constantly but they loved her dearly. She got to keep him, leaving him devastated. That was far more upsetting for him than splitting up with the girlfriend. He can't hear Milli Vanilli's Girl I'm Gonna Miss You to this day.

And now for something groovy

Say what you like about Cliff, he's had some cracking singles - Big Ship, Blue Turns To Grey, In The Country, Carrie, Devil Woman, Wired For Sound, Little Town. The list is endless. One day I might do a Cliff-only Five from Five, but for today, let's just settle for The Day I Met Marie. It's Cliff in imperial not quite psychedelic phase. Loving the Austin Powers frills.

The name Marie was popular in Sixties song. No one would write a song about a Marie today. Or an Ann, Pamela, Shirley or Julie. More likely to be Daisy or Posy or Lily or something else ending in Y that's popular with today's crop of young parents. Are there any songs about Eliza?

Anyway, here we are then:

Mulling it over

Last night I was at an awards ceremony which can only be described as the most hateful night of the year.

It's a back-slapping industry do in which various flavours of the month or tiny little contract magazines you've never heard of win award after award. It's always the same old faces and very often those on the panel are nominated. What a coincidence. Far be it from me to say it's who you know. But hey, I'm not bitter. Even Dylan Jones left early.

Anyway, the host was Michael McIntyre, who I mistook for a portly little Chinese fella before I realised who it was. He was good, one of the better hosts. Last year's Ronnie Corbett was a disaster (see blogs passim), and in the past we've had Piers Morgan (twice - same stories both years: 'Of course I knew Diana...etc.,' until he was booed off), and Dara O'Brian who was unmemorable.

But the real surprise, apart from the incongruous London Scottish pipers who were very stirring, was Snow Patrol muppet Gary Lightbody, who came on and did run acoustically, and though I'm not a fan of this kind of thing I thought it was rather good.

So I hardly saw a soul I knew all evening and went home early. It's all very disappointing.

This morning on the way to work I had to have a bit of bagpipe action so we got Scotch On The Rocks, Amazing Grace and Mull of Kintyre in swift succession.

Basket case

The M&S Christmas hamper catalogue has landed on my desk.

Yes, it's that time of year.

Thumbing through, I see it's gourmet this and gourmet that, a word that's horribly overused, especially in the US where it just means 'not a burger'. It's all induglent, sickly, rich and heavy. There's the usual rogues gallery of figs in port, bramble conserves (what's the difference between a conserve and a preserve, anyway), 'speciality' teas, Dundee cakes, sweet wine, chocolate coverered stem ginger and other delights that get put to the back of the cupboard and forgotten about.

A hamper seems a terrible waste of money. I'd wager that if you had 25 items in it you'd probably only eat - or want to eat - about five. I see there are some that have things like ham or beef, for every one of those there's juniper smoked venison and wild boar pate.

A couple of Christmases ago I bought a River Cottage hamper, which included lots of lovely things, like a side of ham and great pates. We ate just about all of it, though I think the blackberry jelly sat in the fridge unloved and untouched (I don't eat jam) and we were brave with the brawn but I found a pig's hair in it and couldn't go on. But on the whole it was great. Now that's the sort of thing you want.

So why do all hampers have to be filled with ridiculous things? I assume it's because it's seen as a luxury gift and therefore should include luxury foods. But if you're trying to help a pensioner on a budget out at Christmas, what do they want with giant-sized truckle of Stilton or a hundredweight of salted caramel truffles dusted with fair trade cocoa powder? They'd rather have a box of Black Magic and some cherry brandy. None of these things makes a meal. It's a light lunch at an absolute push, but it's mainly snacking. I feel bilious at the thought of even more rich food.

Each year in the building where I work there's a food collection for the homeless. It's all very noble but it basically means people clear out the larder of any old junk that's been knocking around for ages. I laughed when I noticed a panatone, and of course there were jars and jars of rhubarb in cider and plums in cognac among the more prosaic things like Ambrosia custard (Devon knows how they make it so creamy!). Some showboat even put a widescreen TV in there. Mmm, tasty.

I don't know what those Park hampers contain, you know the ones people sell to make a a bit of extra cash for Christmas, but judging by their advertising it's more likely to be a turkey and stuffing Pot Noodle and some Marie biscuits, i.e., stuff you don't want to eat.

I'm off to check out the Fortnum's hampers. There's got to be something worth eating in there.

Slice of connoissseur hand-decorated holly and ivy cake, anyone?