2003-10-21 - 4:26 p.m.

I like those adverts on the back of newspapers that say things like �You could make a living as a freelance writer!� Quite often I mistake them for personal messages placed there by my mum in the hope it might kickstart me doing some work for a change, but they turn out to be just for correspondence courses. They continue on the persuasive tip, turning the bullshit meter up to eleven: �You could make thousands of pounds extra a month being published in newspapers in magazines!� Yes. That�s right. Of course, you already need to be a world famous novelist or TV star that is happy to rattle off a couple of hundred word son the banalities of the day and are anyway so arse-kickingly rich that you no more need an extra few thousand pounds a month then you need a brutal cranial reworking. Then you can make a living as a freelance writer, for sure. For us poor saps sitting around at home all day who can�t even place a piece on elephant polo on the special elephant polo pages of �Utter novices write complete shite about elephant polo monthly� it�s a whole different kick in the tangerines, isn�t it?

I can�t sell my elephant polo stories, and I�m a bit peeved. To be frank, it sucks a big elephant�s front bottom.