2002-01-18 - 8:03 p.m.

My new favourite phrase is �sniff all�. As in �nothing�. As in, �Mr Pablo, what do you feel you could bring to this position?� �Er�sniff all.�

This afternoon I almost suffered the ignominious fate of being felled by a scooter driven by someone in advertising. Can you imagine? I�d rather be hacked to pieces by frenzied, marauding Cossacks. I know the pootering little gimp�s career because there�s an ad agency next door to the office where I�m temping and the identical scooters are lined up outside like so many chronic lapses of imagination.

I saw him coming. I was a metre into the road, and I saw him pull around the corner, head full of branding possibilities and vertical marketing strategies. As he approached, I stepped back half a metre. After you, Mr Crudrophenia. And then, I swear, he looked at me, let his handlebars slide a little, and fucking headed right for me at speed, forcing me to jump backwards onto the kerb, almost fatally dousing myself with the steaming fish soup that I distinctly hadn�t planned on wearing back to the office.

Sadly the gods of instant karma didn�t see him swerve into any passing runaway trucks filled with high explosives or, um, frenzied marauding Cossacks. What was he on�besides a poxy, trumped-up rollerskate? A one-man mission to wipe out anyone who didn�t fit his latest demographic?

Or (ahem) maybe it was just an accident. But I feel less special that way.