2004-02-13 - 1:09 p.m.

For ages when I was growing up I had a friend, Andrew, who lived in my street and who always had a really flash bike and said his dad made the tiles that were used on the space shuttle. He also had freakish identical twin sisters who used to flip in the air and land on their backs on hard, unforgiving concrete, but that�s none of your beeswax. We accepted this space shuttle malarkey unquestioningly as seven year olds, even though his dad more likely made the crusts in the local pie factory. Of course, he pretty much shut up when the shuttle went up in a huge exploding death-mongering fireball, which was, I think put down to faults with the tiles. What were the chances, huh? He should have said that his dad made the windscreen wipers or the wheels � anything but the tiles and he would have been able to hold his head up as he cycled by on his frankly vulgar bicycle. ANYWAY, it was only telling this story in the pub last night that I realised that Andrew HAD BEEN LYING TO US and there was no way his Dad made space shuttle tiles, defective or not. Another childhood myth disintegrates like a, well, badly tiled spaceship.

Luckily, there was A-list Diaryland company to diffuse the obvious embarrassment and drink unhealthily strong German booze piss with, including feisty-haired Livejournal dilettante Jenny J, suavely-poised laminator queen Girls Don�t Cry, blurry-limbed retro monkey Pollymagoo and my blond, multi-fingered cyber and actual chum (and please welcome him back to the stage) Unhappyboy. I forget the ins, the outs and the what-have-you�s, but suffice to say the conversation was so stimulating that I had to down six pints of the liquid widowmaker known as Dortmunder very fast indeed just to stay the pace of the heady atmosphere. It made for an incredibly hazy journey home, much the best way to experience late night public transport, I find.

Good job my boss is away so that the finer whims of my hangover (i.e. having to go out to the shop for fizzy pop every three minutes) can be indulged with nary a forethought for the productive process at hand. In the latest instalment of an occasional appeal, I ask readers to submit suggestions for things to be included in the publication over the next week � song lyrics, film quotes, the random gibberish that you find dribbling out of your uncontrollable cakeholes on a daily basis, that kind of thing. Copies can be sent out to the most inventive.

OK, I�m going for a lie down and a further analysis of how, despite the inclusion of prolonged nudity, French pop and bisexual Siamese twins, the film The Dreamers still manages to be about as enjoyable as a garlic enema.