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Maybe I have a subconscious desire to watch it, but I always end up doing the ironing when Richard and Judy is on television. If it is my subconscious desire to watch this programme then it’s a frighteningly illogical desire, and one that is opposed to every sense in my waking, thinking mind. My subconscious usually wins, though, thanks to a freak of television scheduling which means that, impossibly, Richard and Judy is the most attractive viewing option whenever it is on. I always look for something else – oh, believe me, I have worn through several television remote controls desperately searching, but I inevitably end up turning back to Richard and Judy.

Last Friday I had three shirts and one T-shirt to iron, and as usual my subconscious cunningly engineered events so that I was just in time for another edition of the show. Alas, the television I was forced to experience as a result has been preying on my mind ever since. I don’t know what bothers me more – the question of what on earth the programme is doing on TV at all, or the question of what on earth these people are doing on TV.

When they presented daytime television classic This Morning, Richard and Judy would take viewers through what was going to happen over the course of the next interminably long three hours, and accompanied by some synthesised musak a schedule would appear on the screen for about two minutes. There was a kind of logic to this, it meant that if you were taking a day off school you could ensure you didn’t miss the interview with Peter Davison at 10.47, or Donny Osmond singing Puppy Love at 12.13. To the addled mind of a feverish teenager it all made a kind of absurd sense (though last time I saw This Morning absurd had clearly got the better of sense, because John Virgo was teaching a 90-year-old woman how to do a trick snooker shot with her walking stick. I suppose housewives and elderly people need that sort of thing to help them through the day).

This is all very well in the morning. But it is simply ludicrous to use the same format at 5pm. It’s as if Richard and Judy still think that their cheerfully amateur set-up is acceptable at a time when they are exposed to more than just housewives and ill schoolkids.

I don’t hesitate to blame the presenters themselves for the sheer wrongness of their programme. I am sure that ten years on daytime television has allowed them to pull all the strings they want; that any young director saying “perhaps we should update this format a bit” would get a stony-faced pout from Judy Finnegan and would be taken aside later by Richard to be politely told “now look, we don’t want to lose the charm of our programme by making it all professional, okay?” Any director not playing ball would be siphoned off to The Salon before they knew it, where they would have every chance to be trendy and modern without risking actually having a career.

Yes, the fault is with the presenters. Because there is actually no excuse for them to be on TV at all. Who decided that Judy Finnegan was cut out for television work? The woman can’t even finish a sentence, and what she does manage to get out is not spoken so much as hesitated. No doubt in her head it all makes sense, she simply has trouble communicating it. It’s like listening to your Grandmother. (Since she looks increasingly like a Grandmother, the comparison seems apt.)

On Friday, she began the programme with a warm “hi everyone, and happy Friday.” What sort of woman wishes you a happy Friday? Possibly quite a lovely one, but not somebody you would give a television show to.

Even if she was capable of making sense, everything she stutters is inevitably interrupted and contradicted by her erstwhile husband. Richard Madeley would probably do a fine job presenting a shopping channel, where the only requirement is to keep talking with bubbly enthusiasm. As a youth I made tapes of a pretend radio station, playing music and talking continuously in between. The results, a seven-year-old’s nonsensical verbal diarrhoea, are more than equalled by Richard Madeley’s professional work. If he was a seven-year-old talking into a tape recorder, his inane style would be forgivable, if still rather annoying. But he is not. This seven-year-old is a grinning man in his 50s and the tape recorder is the entire British nation.

It still beggars belief quite how staggeringly misjudged every word to escape his lips is. After Judy’s “happy Friday” greeting, he turned to her and said “I should begin by wishing you a happy anniversary.” This comment was directed entirely at Judy – I suppose appropriately enough, given its personal nature, but it was as if he’d forgotten 2 million people were watching him deliver it. I’m sure I wasn’t the only person who felt I had accidentally overheard something private; Judy blushed and giggled, and there followed one of the programme’s many moments of marital small talk during which, if it was a dinner party, other conversations would rise a little to avoid embarrassment. But it’s not a dinner party, there are no conversations to hide these exchanges, and it is broadcast across the whole nation with excruciating clarity.

Did Richard wait all day to wish his wife a happy anniversary? Did he really think to himself, “now, it’s our anniversary, but I won’t say anything until we’re on live television”? Or did he think we’d all be thrilled at the news that it was their anniversary, in which case why didn’t he just fricking tell us, instead of embarrassing his wife and every single poor soul watching the whole sorry affair?

Why isn’t there a television standards agency that will recognise when programmes have no right to be allowed to continue? Richard and Judy is the televisial equivalent of a one-legged albino runt in a litter of piglets. No doubt many people would feel deep compassion for the poor thing – but that isn’t a reason to keep it alive. Not only does it offend my sensibilities as a television viewer, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to get the cringe marks out of my shirts.

That’s all I have to say. A happy Monday to you all.

I was trying to improvise some beat poetry as I was out walking, but all I managed to come up with (beyond an idea that Tony Blair, Dorian Gray-like, has Cherie age in his place) was the following:

“A girl with a star in her eye;
Her ninja boyfriend clearly doesn’t like her very much at all.”

Yesterday was, of course, anti-Bush day. For weeks us British people have been happily united in talking about how we shall stand up and shout loudly at George W. Bush so that he is made aware of just how much we hate him. Oh, how shocked the American nation will be! we have gleefully been chortling over our sherry.

Being British, of course, when push comes to shove we don’t really like shouting. We don’t really like doing anything at all. Most would-be protesters probably realised yesterday morning that they had a very important quiche to put on instead. Or something.

The BBC have very helpfully put a detailed diary here highlighting precisely how nothing at all of significance happened yesterday. Some people went to London, one of them was George W. Bush; the protesters were generally outside, George W. Bush generally inside, so there was little chance for friction; a man sang some songs through a megaphone and a policeman told him to stop – he stopped.

So meagre were the actual events of the protest that a whole section addresses the fact that “One man has just been arrested outside Buckingham Palace after he apparently stole a policeman’s hat.”

Whilst I applaud the Wodehousian spirit of the man in question, I must ask whether this is really the height of what we as a nation can achieve when we decide we want to protest about something. Stealing a policeman’s hat is surely the kind of thing we expect after the boat race, not when we’re standing up to challenge a lying, cheating, hypocritical, clueless maniac with no more regard for human life and rights than a wet wipe.

Oh, but wait – spare a thought for the real victims here: “The main casualty appears to be the Queen’s flower beds which have now been thoroughly trampled.”

That the actions of one well-meaning but ineffective protester could cause such horticultural damage upsets me deeply. George W. Bush, having seen not a single protester because

1. they were mainly in a different place to him
2. they were mainly at home and
3. he is the most blinkered individual on the face of the earth

will go away thinking “what nice folk.” The American nation will think “what a welcoming country,” because that is all their TV networks will show. Our own beloved Queen, on the other hand, is probably inside her living room, peeping out of her net curtains at yesterday’s devastation, and weeping at what has been done to her flowers.

In short: we’re crap. The irony of the phrase “couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery” is far exceeded by the simple improbability of “couldn’t organise a protest during a state visit by George W. Bush.” Much as I hold to the assertion that George W. is one of the most useless twats in the history of the world, I am sorry to say that I have come to similar conclusions about the British people. At least George gets himself noticed.

Apparently, this sort of thing would never have happened at the White House.

So said a senior figure in the Bush security cabal, quoted on the front page of one of the newspapers this morning – but damn me if I can’t figure out which one now I come to write it up. Anyway, the point is that they are wrong, wrong, wrong. And someone who is so stunningly arrogant they think they can get away with a lie like that – or is so stunningly stupid they don’t think to check their facts before opening their mouth – seriously thought they’d be allowed to deploy miniguns in London? As in the things you stick on tanks to kill people? Oh, I see, it’s the nice miniguns, which merely protect presidents from the dangers of people who don’t agree with them. I feel much better.

Given the current political climate, what with George W. strutting around our little country and terrorists eagerly looking for targets, one can not be too careful. Especially when one works in a Government Office, as I do. Sure, this isn’t Whitehall, we’re dealing with development in the East of England rather than major national policies. Even so, we’re a target.

I was therefore shocked that when, about fifteen minutes ago, I detected a suspicious package in the office, my warnings were treated with jovial levity.

Yes, it looked like it may well be the business cards we were expecting to arrive. But bombs and business cards share many superficial similarities when wrapped up – characteristics of suspicious packages taken from advisories issued by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and the United States Postal Service give the following examples:

– Letter bombs may feel rigid, or appear uneven or lopsided (this particular parcel was all of those).

– Mail bombs may bear restricted endorsements such as “Personal” or “Private” (it said “documents enclosed”, which is a fairly restricted endorsement).

– The addressee’s name/title may be inaccurate (or, more suspiciously as in this case, entirely accurate; clearly we weren’t dealing with amateurs).

– Mail bombs may reflect distorted handwriting (not having a mirror on hand, I was unable to check this).

– The return address may be fictitious or absent (there was NO return address).

– Mail bombs may have excessive postage (this one had insufficient postage, surely even more suspicious – not only were these terrorists professionals, they were mean, penny-pinching professionals).

– Package bombs may have an irregular shape, soft spots, or bulges (it was all of these things. “Oh, but it’s two piles of business cards,” my colleagues argued. Yes, or two bombs, you silly people.)

– Package bombs may make a buzzing or ticking noise or a sloshing sound (it made a crackly, popping sound, like bubble wrap).

Well, I issued my warnings, I declared to the office that we were in mortal danger, I did my absolute best to create a genuine bomb scare (and certainly on a personal level achieved an ostentatious, if slightly camped-up, aura of panic). But at the end of the day the parcel was not addressed to me and I was forced to hand it over.

Naturally I was relieved that it turned out to be business cards after all, but I can’t help feeling that if it had been a bomb my colleagues would at least have taken this brush with death a bit more seriously.

Did I read this morning that on Thursday, George W Bush will be sitting down to a nosh-up ‘overseen’ by Nigella Lawson? I’m not sure what disturbs me more, that a TV chef gets to meet the executive leader of the United States of America … or that Nigel Lawson’s daughter has to decide whether to poison him or not.

On a related note, were I one of the fourteen thousand police officers who are being used to guard against grandmothers during Bush’s visit, I’d be sorely tempted to roll into work, look over my assignment, and then walk out again with the words “let the fuckers get him”. Perhaps they could all transfer to Cambridgeshire Constabulary and help find out who keeps nicking our bikes.

Film makers have long been out of good ideas for films. Generally unable to come up with their own plots, and having ravaged British history, mythology and – worst of all – being in the process of ravaging British films, big Hollywood companies have, for the last ten years, methodically plundered what must surely be the bottom of the barrel where film inspiration is concerned. Computer games.

This would have seemed a ridiculous idea back in 1986 when computers were invented. If anybody had told me and my playmates as we grappled with Chucky Egg on a BBC micro that it was going to be turned into a blockbusting film, we would have laughed in their face.

We’d have gone to see it, of course. That’s the point, isn’t it? They sell. It hardly matters that the films are, without exception, irredeemably rubbish. (Though I would say that this summer I went to see a film based on a theme park ride and I thoroughly enjoyed it.)

Looking back to the games I played when I still thought that kind of thing was worth doing, I wonder what film masterpieces we might have got if Hollywood had got its act together a little sooner. What would a film version of Pacman have been like? Probably very surreal, possibly racist. How about Dizzy and its magnificent sequels (the computer game equivalent to Lord of the Rings), or my personal favourite, Rainbow Islands (with that title it could have been the first computer-inspired gay movie). Young folk today will have no idea what I’m going on about, and if I had a bigger house I would invite them all round and show them just what they’re missing out on.

Although I have a feeling my parents have moved my computer into the loft. Oh, the shame, the ignominy, my poor little Amstrad CPC464. You had to wait in those days for games to load, you would watch the tape go round and listen to the noise of a game loading – “duur diiiiiiiir, durrrrr, diiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”. There’s none of that these days, and I warn you all, we are breeding impatient children.

Anyway, it seems to me there is one vital and universal game that has not yet been exploited by the film industry: minesweeper.

Why has this beautifully constructed, tense and dramatic game been ignored? A film version could take full advantage of the vagueries of its actual background as far as plot is concerned, building up a fascinating scenario within which to interweave every ounce of the excitement of the game itself.

What the film should play on more than anything else is the unfairness of it all. It is a very very unfair game. Okay, to a large extent it is a game of skill, but there is an element of chance. There’s the first square you click on, for a start – there is no way of knowing, you just can’t tell, and what a tragedy it is when your very first choice of square reveals a mine, and the little yellow smiling face (who I see as being played by Danny DeVito) crosses his eyes and weeps.

It is also possible to get yourself into a position where, having almost finished a game in an unbelievably short time, you are left with two little grey squares, under just one of which lies a mine – and there is no way of telling which.

Oh, the heartrending moment of choice. You have to guess! Time, and your potentially highest score ever, are ticking away…but which square is it? Will you choose right, or will you choose wrong?

I chose wrong. So my film is jolly well going to end in tragedy.

I’m currently listening to Beethoven symphonies, and I keep on being distracted by very small melodic phrases which I’m sure are the main themes of various blockbuster films. Unless I’m very mistaken, Herr Beethoven didn’t actually work for Warner during his lifetime, which means that either people are going around blatently ripping them off, or I’m mistaken.

The latter I’d be prepared to accept – the phrases that trigger my memory flash past pretty quickly, to be replaced by more recognisable Beethovian fare.

Am I perhaps just now coming to realise a huge fraud of which everyone else is already aware? Is perhaps all film music ripped off Beethoven? Can I hear the strains of a well-known quartet in Lord Of The Rings? His late piano sonatas in Schindler’s List? Because that last riffle at the end of symphony number five is sure as bloody hell in Star Wars …

I’ve had a couple of dreams recently featuring Stewart Lee. But not the real Stewart Lee – instead some paragon, with giant blond hair, a huge imposing air about him, and an idea for a TV series he’s going to write with Matt Holness. Depending on the dream, I am invited either to go round sometime (which my short-term memory immediately records as ‘tomorrow’, but is actually ‘tonight’) to hash out some ideas with them, or to a party to celebrate what he’s currently doing, which comes across as another TV show while actually being a group of people in a pub. I never make it to either.

Strangely, although it’s definitely Stewart Lee and Matt Holness in the dream, neither looks anything like they do in real life, making me wonder if it’s actually all an extended experiment by the government, or possibly a very strange joke by unscrupulous friends.

I wake confused, and unrefreshed. There must be a way of ridding my head of unwanted comedians.

Apparently we were featured last night on (of all things) ‘Airport’, ITV’s reality TV show. It seems that some footage of us from the Royal Mile this summer was used in the ‘this is Edinburgh‘ section at the beginning. Presumably there weren’t people wandering round airports subjecting innocent members of the public to bizarre psychoanalysis in the hope that something interesting might pop out. Although we live in an age of authoritarian security, so maybe there were.

If anyone happens to have the clip on tape – or, better yet, if anyone knows if we can get the raw footage from ITV somehow – then obviously we’d be vastly grateful, before descending into a fug of self-admiration. Can we perhaps just pay our ten pounds and get the footage under the Data Protection Act?