Apologies for the long overdue (and rather cheekily backdated) update from Man Writes Blog. The primary reason (excuse) for the woeful lack of activity over the last few weeks was the Edinburgh Festival, or more specifically, my attendance and participation in said festival.

Although I visited Scotland's proud capital for a few days during the festival last year, this was the first time I'd had an active role in the proceedings in over ten years, which was a pretty scary thought (age rather than performance anxiety).

This year I was involved with a couple of different improvised comedy shows and both went pretty well and thankfully due to some very smart manoeuvring we managed to avoid the rave reviews and television offers which have plagued some other shows.

Anyway, in the absence of a more original angle, I thought I'd present the highlights and lowlights of my two weeks up at the World's Biggest Open Arts Festival^(TM).

Highlight #1: Charlie Victor Bravo

This was a weirdly brilliant piece of theatre which recreated the final minutes of doomed aircraft based on transcripts taken from the recovered black box flight recorders. While one could certainly make an argument that this should never have been staged at all, it was very well done and certainly compelling to watch.

A simple projected slide would introduce each catastrophic episode, such as "October 2, 1996. Aeroperu Flight 603 out of Lima, 11 crew, 462 passengers" and then the lights would come up on a cockpit set with the flight crew facing out into the audience. Then five to ten gruelling minutes of controlled airborne panic, ending in a loud bang, a blackout and a few seconds of considered silence until the original slide reappeared updated with the actual outcome (usually "No survivors").

I must confess it was all a little traumatic but by the time the hour was up, I was hooked and eager for more. However, my slow foot-stamping and chant of "One more crash! One more crash!" fell on deaf ears, accusing eyes and tutting mouths.

Lowlight #1: The Weather

The weather was proper rubbish. I spent the first three days with soaking wet feet and on one day it rained from morning until night without any respite. I heard about one unfortunate young woman with a particularly tough flyering regimen who had actually been diagnosed with trench foot.

Like the normally well-behaved friend from Essex who chooses your birthday barbecue to suddenly conform to the worst possible stereotype of a chav, Edinburgh chose the three weeks of the festival to deliver the kind of appalling weather that people who've never been to Edinburgh imagine the locals suffer every day.

Highlight #2: Curry In A Hurry

Surviving for the first few days on tuna and sweetcorn paninis and lager, the discovery of this temporary takeaway curry house in the middle of the Pleasance Dome was a minor revelation.

Like many worthwhile relationships, things started out a little rocky. After sampling the slightly dodgy-looking chicken option — immediately after which I started to worry that "...In A Hurry" referred to the curry's attitude once inside you, rather than an allusion to its speedy preparation — I switched to the vegetable version and never looked back.

Just writing about it makes me want another one. In a hurry. But not with chicken.

Lowlight #2: The Weather (Again)

Sorry, but it really was that miserable. I'd brought a tatty umbrella up from London with me and although it was at least a week before I lost it, I obviously did lose it eventually. I couldn't bring myself to buy another one because I strongly believe that the newer and nicer an umbrella is, the quicker I will lose it.

So I got rather damp on a number of different occasions and very wet indeed at least twice.

Highlight #3: No Bread In Subway

I popped into a conspicuously empty branch of Subway on the Royal Mile only to be told that they didn't have any bread. "What, none at all?" I asked. "No, none at all." they replied.

After several days on my (pre-curry) junk diet I decided that something vaguely healthy wasn't at all a bad idea and so opted for a Subway Salad, otherwise known as a Foot Long Sub No Bread.

As I sat on a stool by the window, eating a plastic bowl full of sandwich filling, I was able to watch the steady flow of people venture inside, consider the menu for a few moments, then go up to the counter to order, only to be told there was no bread, then look sceptical and ask: "What, none at all?".

Every single person entering that Subway asked exactly the same follow-up question. As though, regardless of sex, age, race or nationality the one thing we truly all have in common, the single thing that binds all humanity together, is a deep-set suspicion that someone, somewhere is withholding bread from us.

Since anyone stepping through the door had to walk past me to get to the counter, I started saying: "They haven't got any bread.", hoping to save them time and disappointment. To which they usually replied (yes, you've guessed it): "What, none at all?" and I was then forced to respond "No, none at all".

Far from simplifying matters, the whole process just became more drawn out, because most people, perhaps suspecting me of trying to keep all the Subway rolls for myself (see above), went up to the counter anyway to be told: "Sorry, we don't have any bread". To which they responded: "What, none at all?", only to inevitably be told "No, none at all".

It was very tempting to ask, as they left empty-handed, "Did they have any bread?", just so that when they replied no, I could follow up with "What, none at all?"

Instead I had to be content with waiting until they had stepped just outside the door, turning towards the counter and yelling: "It's okay. They've gone. You can get the bread out again."

Lowlight #3: Flyering

However much I try to find a way to enjoy it, or at least to make the best of it, like most rational people I simply hate flyering. The constant rejection and sense of participation out of pure necessity, make the whole thing feel like being the world's most unappealing prostitute; wearily touting your wares to a long stream of people who either don't have to pay for sex, or if they do, certainly wouldn't pay to have it with you.

The Royal Mile is particularly tough to flyer because of the sheer number and variety of acts vying for people's attention. This year there were unicyclists, jugglers, people lying "dead" in chalk outlines on the pavement, scantily-clad groups of drama school jailbait, various grotesques jumping out of doorways and clowns on stilts all trying to get you to come to their show.

It's very difficult to compete. You could ride naked down the Royal Mile on a giant unicorn, pulling live peacocks out of your arse with your teeth, before stopping to levitate, spontaneously combust, then spin round and round like a huge human Catharine wheel, all the while shedding a cascade of sparks spelling out the name, time and venue of your show, while the unicorn and the peacocks stood by singing "Life Is A Cabaret", and you'd still be hard-pushed to get more than a ripple of attention.

The branch of Woolworths on St John's Road near Clapham Junction station is closing down and I confess I have mixed emotions.

On the one hand it's such a familiar sight on the high street that its sudden absence will take a bit of getting used to. But on the other hand, during these difficult times for retail business and the economy in general, is there really a place for any shop that makes it so abundantly clear that it simply can't be arsed?

For instance, the window display often seems to be a work in progress, all boxes and no products. I have also wandered in to find the aisles in disarray and random items of stock scattered all over the floor and thought for a moment that I'd been accidentally permitted access during some annual stock taking, only to realise that it was a perfectly normal trading day.

And one of the last great puzzles left for mankind to solve following the successful mapping of the human genome must surely be to unravel the secret code behind Woolworths' stock selection.

Where else on the high street (or indeed anywhere) would you be able to buy a DVD player, some Pick 'n' Mix, a rubber plant, a multi-function vegetable slicer, a child's coat and a box of nails all under the same roof?

If there is some kind of consistent rationale to guide the decision to either stock or not stock a particular item then I would be very grateful if someone would share it with me. Because as far as I can tell you'd get a more internally consistent product catalogue if you asked a pigeon to choose the inventory by pecking at a long list of options.

Now you may see this 'creative' selection of stock as charming or even useful but I'm afraid I do not. Since Woolworths stocks such a random collection of products you can never be completely sure that the item you're currently seeking is not hidden away somewhere on the shelves. So I've wasted an awful lot of time looking for something which isn't there.

And that's the central problem with Woolies — the unwritten promise is that they could stock almost anything, but the reality is that they probably don't.

For instance, I can say with absolute certainty that The Carphone Warehouse won't sell candles, Boots won't sell Hulk action figures and Dixons won't sell lawn sprinklers. But Woolworths could very easily have all of these for sale in the same aisle. There may even be a special promotion offering a discount if you buy all three together.

If you're wasting so much time looking for products that Woolworths may or may not stock, I hear you say, why not just ask a member of staff to help?

Well, I might just as well ask a dog the best way to cook an artichoke or a newly-born baby for his view on the housing market. Because if there's one thing that Woolworths seems to do well it's to instil a consistent model of customer service in all of its staff, apparently based on the 3Is of ignorance, insolence and indifference.

Only PC World manages to create a more reliably appalling customer experience. Throw a stone into any crowd of people anywhere in the world and you've a better chance of hitting someone who knows about computers than you have in PC World. It is true to say that PC World has managed to raise the general level of computer literacy in this country, but only by removing from the pool people who know absolutely nothing about computers and giving them jobs in its superstores, thus slightly boosting the average ability of those remaining.

One of the keys to a successful retail business is to be able to reliably recreate the same shopping experience from store to store. Franchises like Subway and McDonald's do this particularly well. If I were advising someone setting up a new branch of Woolworths on how to recreate the instantly recognisable Woolworths experience I would say if you can make your customer service feel more like community service and your shop floor look like an inner city boot sale then you're 90% there.

For the last few Christmasses, Woolworths has run a fairly successful television campaign featuring two cheeky characters called Wool and Worth - a sheep and a sheepdog.

I have to confess that Wool and Worth consistently bring a smile to my face (who doesn't like a cheeky puppet) but there's a basic problem with them. They make far too much sense. A sheep paired with a sheepdog? That kind of logic can be found nowhere else in the Woolworths empire.

If the Christmas campaign truly reflected the incongruous spirit of Woolworths, Wool would be a dolphin, Worth would be a cactus, and they'd live in a hot air balloon.

But times move on and I will have to get used to the idea of there being no branch of Woolworths on my local high street. Rumour has it that a Waitrose will be built in its place. If true, this means I will have an ASDA, a Somerfield, a Sainsburys, a Tesco, two (!) M&S and now a Waitrose within five minutes walk of my flat.

I certainly won't be short of choice when it comes to restocking my fridge, but next time I'm in a hurry and I need a cheap toaster, picture hooks, an onion slicer, Buckaroo, cola bottles, A4 dividers, trellis, the new Coldplay album and a mini trampoline, I might find myself a little nostalgic for the big, red-fronted building that used to exist between SuperDrug and McDonalds.

Okay. I'm going to share a couple of fairly random and seemingly unrelated facts about myself, and I need you to keep them both in your head at the same time, otherwise the end won't make much sense.

I know it's a big ask, so if you're reading this first thing in the morning, maybe get a strong coffee down you and then come back to it. It needs to be done in one session.

Okay, here goes...

Fact #1: I Have Four Genuine Airline Seats Stored In My Loft

Fact #2: I Have A Ridiculously Expensive Juicer In My Kitchen

Got them? Airline seats, posh juicer. Airline seats, posh juicer. Okay.

I'll start with the seats...

Since having an idea a couple of years ago for shooting a series of comedy shorts set on a "no frills" airline, I have become mildly obsessed with the challenge of building a small section of an aircraft interior in my spare room.

Realising fairly early on that realistic-looking airline seats were going to be pretty tricky to build from scratch, I lucked out and found a company that was selling a load of them on eBay — a small airline had sent an entire plane's worth of seating to a specialist upholsterer to be reconditioned and had then gone promptly bankrupt.

It cost me £300 for four seats (complete with meal trays) including delivery. I've no idea if this was a rip off or a bargain. The second-hand airline seat market is pretty small and so it's nigh-on impossible to establish a fair price for air-worthy arse furniture.

Just in case you don't believe me, here's a picture of two of the seats before I took them apart and put them in my loft:

Now the basic logic with the aeroplane set idea is that if everything is shot with a sufficiently tight frame then not much of the actual plane interior would need to be visible since the focus would be on the two main characters — adjacent passengers sitting in two of the four seats. Video shot for the web (as this idea would be) tends to use more close-ups anyway because it's likely to be viewed in a small window on a computer screen or on an iPod rather than a 42" plasma TV.

So I decided that if I could make a couple of simple cabin panels, complete with vaguely convincing windows, and then filmed everything using a combination of tight two-shots (with both characters together) and close-ups, then that might well be sufficient to create a convincing (if claustrophobic) illusion of a real plane.

I wasn't too worried about the panel itself as I figured that a big piece of hardboard or MDF bent into a shallow arc would do the job but I frankly had no idea how to make an authentic looking window. In fact the window wasn't so much the problem, it was more the window enclosure, which even on the most basic of planes (yes, I've started taking pictures) is a pleasingly-bevelled affair:

I couldn't help thinking there was some perfect and readily-available substitute out there somewhere if only I could find it. The most promising idea I had was to use the rim of a plastic washing up bowl, but the ones I could find weren't quite the right size or shape.

So for several weeks I became more than usually interested in washing up bowls and it turns out that there's far less variety than you might imagine.

I was getting close to giving up on the whole idea, when I had a Eureka! moment in the most inauspicious of places...

(Okay, taking my lead from literary giant Dan Brown, I will attempt to artificially create tension by alternating between two narrative threads. So now to the juicer...)

A few years ago whilst on a health kick I bought myself a juicer. It wasn't super cheap but then it wasn't super expensive either. It had a picture of Anthony Worrell Thomson on the box, but I bought it anyway.

Now this juicer stood apart from the dozens of other shiny gadgets I've bought in my life in that I actually carried on using it after the first week or so. Now I'm not saying the novelty didn't wear off a little tiny bit but even months later I was still using it on a fairly regular basis.

This particular juicer was what is known as a centrifugal juicer, which basically means it has a high velocity spinning grater/mesh combination that grinds the fruit (or vegetable) up and then forces the juice out of the pulp through the tiny holes in the mesh using centrifugal force (which I recall my physics teacher telling me doesn't actually exist, it's the opposite force — centripetal — which is real...)

Anyway, this type of juicer has two major drawbacks.

Firstly, at full pelt, the noise level is roughly equivalent to one of those rotary sanders that middle class people use to trash the pine floors in their first property.

And secondly, it's a complete bastard to clean. I mean a real pain in the arse. In fact, by the time you've cleaned the mesh with the (miniscule) supplied brush and rinsed the 87 other parts you're thirsty all over again and have to juice some more fruit to stop yourself from dehydrating.

Despite these problems, I got a couple of years of happy juicing out of it, although I did have to spend around £1200 on a floating floor to help soundproof my kitchen, thus protecting my downstairs neighbour from the onslaught of juice-related decibels.

I'd been meaning to replace the juicer for ages and a few months ago I finally got around to doing some research and discovered that the accepted wisdom on the topic of juicers was that masticating juicers are much better than centrifugal ones.

As you might expect, a masticating juicer gently 'chews' the fruit and vegetables to extract the juice rather than shredding the crap out of it and then squeezing the resulting pulp like its centrifugal cousin. Think of the former as a gently co-operative camel or some such ruminant, while the latter is more like throwing carrots at a lawnmower and hoping to catch some of the generated spray in your mouth.

Masticating juicers are supposed to produce more juice, be quieter in operation and be easier to clean. They're also about three times the price of the centrifugal ones.

In the end I went for the Oscar Vitalmax in all of its chrome-plated splendour:

I want to believe that this glorious machine was invented by someone actually called Oscar Vitalmax, but I fear that the truth will only disappoint me.

Now the key component of the Vitalmax juicer, is its three-stage auger, of which more in a minute.

But for the moment, let's return to the homemade aircraft cabin...

You might recall that I'd been scouring my world for some objet trouvé to play the part of a cabin window in my aircraft set, having been disappointed by the selection of washing up bowls available.

The answer wasn't so much under my nose, as under my arse. On one particularly inspired visit to the smallest room, I realised that the internal rim of a toilet seat is really rather close to the desired contours of an aircraft window, and being wooden (well, my toilet seat is wooden) it could be cut to a more convenient shape and even sanded if necessary.

Now it is true that the hole in your average toilet seat is somewhat egg-shaped, rather than a true ellipse, but that's not a big deal. If one felt like being really anal (for once, no pun intended) about the whole thing one could cut two seats in half, and glue opposite halves together (i.e. bottom of 'egg' to other bottom of egg) and create something more symmetrical.

So I bought a cheap pine toilet seat from B&Q and 'trimmed' off the excess wood with a hand saw, leaving the sought-after contoured internal rim with a minimum of wood surround:

Having satisfied myself that the basic toilet seat theory was sound, and being somewhat of a butterfly in the concentration department, I left this work-in-progress in my spare room and moved on to other things.

That's all very well, you're thinking, but what about the juicer, and what the hell is an auger?

I'm glad you asked. According to Wikipedia, the answer to the second question is:

An auger is a device for moving material or liquid by means of a rotating helical flighting.

(Which does rather beg the follow-up question "What's on earth's a flighting?", but we'll ignore that one for the moment...)

In the case of the Oscar Vitalmax, the auger is about six inches long and looks like this:

That's fine. Have a good snigger. I know I did when I got it out of the box for the first time. No, no, you carry on. Fill your boots.

Fully composed now? Good. Now I'm not going to pretend that this isn't an inherently amusing-looking object. But after several months of using the juicer and removing this part to clean pulp off it with the supplied brush, not only did it cease to become funny, but I basically forgot that it had ever been funny. It became in my mind a perfectly normal, everyday object to have kicking around in the kitchen, or more specifically, lying in the kitchen sink.

If you're sensing an end to this story, then your instincts would be right, because finally this is where my two facts come together in the form of a life lesson learned the hard way. I concede that it's highly unlikely that anyone is going to find themselves in the same situation as me, but at the risk of total irrelevance please let me offer you the following advice...

Should you ever decide to invite a member of the opposite sex back to your flat for the first time, please remember to remove the recently-washed Oscar Vitalmax masticating auger from the kitchen sink, and close the door to your makeshift toilet seat workshop. Otherwise, based on my own experience, you might find that they very quickly make an excuse to leave before you have an opportunity to explain the presence of either.

Because however much I would like to believe that an open-minded, modern woman could set eyes on these obviously unconnected items, smile knowingly to herself, and think:

"Here's a guy who's health conscious, is practical around the house, and is actively engaged in interesting (if slightly quirky) creative projects...",

it's unfortunately also possible that she might instead look upon the same items with significant horror and think:

"Here's a freak who so brutally and frequently violates himself with a custom-made Bakerlite dildo that he can no longer use the toilet without a specially-adapted seat."

If just one person is spared the same fate as me, then this entry will have been worthwhile...

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I had two wisdom teeth out just over a week ago and my face is finally back to a normal size following several days looking a lot like Don Corleone.

As it turned out, the swelling made it much easier to do a passable Brando impression but since I was in self-enforced solitary confinement until I could leave the house without causing children to hide behind their mothers, I was only able to put this temporary ability to good use with the handful of random callers to my landline:

"You call my home on the day my daughter's to be married, and you ask me to switch broadband provider? What have I ever done to make you to treat me so disrespectfully?"

Anyway, here is a short list of things I have learned during my period as a dentally-challenged hermit:

• If you eat and drink nothing but smoothies¹ and soups² you won't have to wait very long before your bowels go on strike. In my case, after a three day siege with no sign of a resolution or even a list of demands, I was forced to send in an All Bran SWAT team to rescue the hostages. Like the dental procedure itself, the extraction was quick but brutal.
• If you're hungry, but have run out of proper soup, you can just about convince yourself that a bowl of plain baked beans is in fact a "simple but authentically rustic cassoulet".
• during the four seconds between waking up with blood on your pillow and subsequently remembering you've just had your wisdom teeth out, your mind is literally "reeling with possibilities", including: If I look under the duvet will I find I'm sharing the bed with the smaller half of a decapitated equine? Why would someone order an (apparently unsuccessful) assassination attempt? And if I pan my head slowly up to the ceiling will I discover the gory remains of a freshly-mutilated friend or colleague inexplicably suspended there?
• It is safe to eat bioactive yoghurt whilst on antibiotics, although it's possible that Bifidobacterium lactis would disagree.
• The West Wing Season 5 is really rather poor compared to everything that precedes it. Okay, John Goodman as a presidential stand-in with a yappy dog is entertaining, but unfortunately it simply does not make up for 22 largely dull epsiodes (by West Wing standards anyway). It is a testament to just how disinclined I felt to doing anything else that I soldiered nobly through the entire series rather than just getting the main plot points from Wikipedia and skipping straight to Season 6.
• Soluble stitches just don't dissolve in my mouth. I just seem to lack the chemical that breaks them down. Maybe my genetic line has yet to evolve that particular enzyme. On the plus side, I did finally get to use the tiny scissors on my Swiss Army Knife.

¹ Somerfield, 2 litres for £2.50 — a fruit-packed bargain
² New Covent Garden Soup Company — as far as I can tell just a flavoured delivery mechanism for toxic levels of salt

On the way home from the station today I noticed a large poster proudly announcing that Barry Norman has just launched his own range of pickled onions, called (rather provocatively I thought) Barry Norman Pickled Onions.

Finally! How many times during an idle moment has my mind has returned to the perennial question: "When, when, when will that late twentieth century broadcasting giant Barry Norman release his own brand of speciality pickles?"

In fact, since he bowed off our screens at the end of Film 98, I've often thought to myself: "What are you up to now that you're not reviewing films Barry Norman? I know you did a stint on BSkyB after handing Film 99 over to Jonathan Ross, but since 2002 you've been awfully quiet. I do hope you're spending all that extra time developing and perfecting the recipe for some kind of pickled snack."

It's certainly comforting to learn that this is exactly what he was doing, but although five years of solid pickle-related R&D may well have resulted in a superior product, it does mean he's a rather late entry to the film reviewer-endorsed pickled snack market.

After all The Observer's Philip French has had his Philip French's Pickled Gherkins on the shelves since 2003 and Mark Kermode's piccalilli, The Piccalilli of Mark Kermode, has been a supermarket best-seller for the last three years.

One can't help but wonder if the lucrative market that exists at the delicate intersection of film reviewing and vegetable preservation is already too crowded. Interestingly, the newest kid on the pickling block, Jason Solomons, had a complete flop with his Jason Solomon's Kickass Spicy Beet Box — pickled beetroot packaged rather controversially in a cardboard Tetrapak rather than the traditional glass jar.

Only time will tell if Barry's onions are a success but I do hope he's already back in the kitchen, working on another vinegary innovation. Because there's an old saying in the industry: if your pickles aren't moving forwards, they're moving backwards.

It seems that no amount of vinegar can slow the march of progress...

At the start of the second working week with Boris as mayor, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at his first week in office having successfully ousted the incumbent from London's top role.

Despite a rather magnanimous acceptance speech late on Friday, Boris got down to business on Monday morning by announcing that his first action in office would be to have Ken Livingstone burned in huge wicker pigeon being constructed in Trafalgar Square.

In a press statement he said "the immolation of my esteemed predecessor will not only demonstrate to the people of London that I am a man of action, but will also provide a world-class spectacle and a hugely enjoyable evening out for the family".

Following his election commitment to implement serious strategies on knife and gun crimes Boris announced that areas of London would be set aside for gang-related violence without police interference.

He explained "Currently London has insufficient open space where young people can let off steam by shooting and stabbing each other. By providing designated areas, very much in the spirit the very successful initiative to reduce grafitti, we hope to save police time and reduce the number of incidents of normal people caught up in gang-related killings."

Delivering on his pledge to make transport safer, Boris issued bus drivers on high-crime routes with MAC-10 automatic pistols, saying "Antisocial behaviour on our buses is making life a misery for law-abiding Londoners. I think arming drivers will make people think twice about making a nuisance of themselves and the small size of the MAC-10 makes it ideal for use inside the limited space of a driver's cab."

Following criticism that the drivers have been issued weapons without the proper training Boris said: "Nonsense. The MAC-10 is a fully-automatic, point-and-shoot firearm — a child could use one. It's 100% effective even in the hands of a complete novice. In fact, if anything, you'd need training in how to not kill someone with it."

For the last few months it has been very difficult to close the door to my flat without giving it an almighty slam, or indeed to open it from the inside without a hefty barge of the shoulder. I'm not exactly sure of the cause, but something has been done in the name of the basement conversion happening in the flat below that has twisted the door frame slightly and means that the door no longer really fits the hole allocated to it.

Opening the door from the outside is even more of a challenge, because one has to put the key in the Yale lock, turn it, and then execute a very specific pulling manoeuvre which requires just the right combination of force and consistency. Too gentle or too jerky and the door sticks halfway open; too hard and you risk snapping the key off in the lock.

I've mentioned this to The Baron a number of times, but despite multiple promises to resolve the matter, for many weeks my entrances have resembled a scene from Ocean's 11 and my exits like something out of an old episode of The Sweeney.

However, this afternoon The Baron arrived with a rather scared looking carpenter introduced to me as 'Josef'.

"Hello Josef" I said.

"Don't bother," said The Baron, "he doesn't speak English".

(Okay, so he doesn't understand a two-word sentence, half of which is his own name, the other half of which is the most basic greeting in the country in which he finds himself...?)

Various gestures were made towards the door and within seconds Josef's power tools were out. The Baron assured me the job would be finished within the hour and it looked like the carpenter had been told (or at least thought) he'd never see his wife and kids again if the job took any longer than that.

I left them to it and within 45 minutes I was being called down to inspect the handiwork. Now, to Josef's credit, the door did now close with great ease. However, the price for this improvement was a new gap underneath the door big enough for a small burglar to crawl under. Not that such a burglar would have to resort to crawling because the gap between the side of the door and the frame was now big enough to make the lock mechanism vulnerable to the most primitive of tools — a coat-hanger would definitely be overkill.

I explained to The Baron that while the jamming door was certainly annoying, it did at least still function as a door from a security perspective. Following the efforts of the terrified Josef, important aspects of its very doorness had now been eroded. Granted, it still operated from an aesthetic perspective perfectly happily as a door, but from the perspective of a barrier to unwanted visitors it left quite a lot to be desired.

The Baron reluctantly agreed but said that it would have to be fixed another time because Josef had to leave for another job. That job presumably being the task of digging up his wife and young family before their oxygen ran out.

After they left, I stood in the hallway, closed the flat door and took a few steps back to assess just how obvious the two new gaps were from a distance. It turns out they were really rather obvious.

Just as I'd resigned myself to a door that now only offered protection from burglary as long as the burglars were overweight and had no tools to hand, a sudden draught came under the front door and my flat door popped open of its own accord.

Okay, so I'm safe from chubby, tool-deficient burglars as long as they are also very impatient...

I wandered past Clapham Junction today to find blonde bombshell Boris Johnson doing some last minute campaigning outside the station. He was on boisterous form and was trying to swing undecided voters by offering short piggy back rides (just to Woolworths and back) in exchange for a vote for him as London Mayor.

Most of the takers seemed pleased with their ride and Boris's stamina was certainly impressive but a couple of times he got caught out by people more interested in a Boris rodeo — they would promise their vote, jump on his back, and then openly admit they were actually staunch Ken supporters and see how long they could stay on.

No-one managed to last more than 30 seconds and at one point things looked like they could get rather nasty when one young man was thrown clean off and into the flower stall and Conservative party supporters were forced to distract a wild-eyed Boris by striking him with rolled up copies of the London Paper to stop him goring his would-be jockey.

Boris seemed to calm down after a stern talk and a Frappucino in Costa Coffee with his campaign manager and, sensing the fun was over, I left them all to it.

Over the last week or so I've been watching the televised debate between the three main candidates for London Mayor — firstly the one hosted by Andrew Neill for the BBC and then ITV's version with the rather brilliant Alastair Stewart at the helm.

Interesting though these were, I couldn't really see them appealing to the average Londoner and so it's reassuring to see that in the final few days before the election on May 1st, the candidates are appearing on some more mainstream programmes, presumably to engage a wider range of people with the election and its main issues.

On Saturday night on BBC One, there's I'd Do Anything... to be London Mayor where the candidates will attempt to impress Andrew Lloyd Webber and a panel including Denise van Outen and John Barrowman with their singing abilities and policies for London.

Each candidate will have to sing If I Were The Mayor (to the tune of If I Were A Rich Man) outlining key points from their respective manifestos, and the most promising performers will be told "You could still be Mayor".

On Monday night on Channel 4, Gok Wan gives the candidates a style makeover in How To Look Good Elected, which could make for very interesting viewing, but I'm frankly not looking forward to the sight of Ken, Boris and Brian standing in front of a big mirror wearing just their pants.

On Wednesday BBC One is showing Campaigning On Ice, which will pair the three main candidates with professional skaters and invite them to perform a short routine which both illustrates their leadership style and maps out, in dance, the major milestones of the next four years, should they be elected.

Each candidate is obligated to incorporate a special move of their own devising. Ken is expected to execute a tight, outward-facing loop designed to represent the fact that he will make no change to the size of the congestion charge zone, while Boris will attempt an ambitious reverse lift, symbolic of his plans to put police officers on high-crime bus routes.

Late on Thursday, as the results start coming in, all of the candidates will be invited into Alan Sugar's boardroom and one-by-one told "You're fired!" by the frog-faced troll king of Brentwood, until only one of them remains.

The successful candidate will then be confirmed as mayor and simultaneously announced as the new Doctor Who.

There's everything to play for so the next few days should be very exciting indeed.

I applied to renew my passport a couple of weeks ago and the replacement arrived by courier on Friday afternoon.

Although the new passport looks very similar to the old one, it's got a chip inside it that holds some basic personal information together with biometric data that will apparently allow automated immigration checks at some point in the future.

A leaflet enclosed with the passport explains that the chip does not contain any information that is not already printed on the passport, but obviously this is rather difficult to check.

However, yesterday while I was sorting out the mound of paperwork that has been building up at home and I happened to put the passport, together with various bills and letters, on top of my computer and was very surprised when a dialog box popped up asking:

Would you like to add Bluetooth Device "GBR/Passport/38033" to this computer?

Out of curiosity I clicked "Okay" and sure enough a new icon appeared on the desktop; it seems that the chip in the passport uses the same Bluetooth technology as mobile phones and PDAs.

When I tried to browse the device, everything seemed to be encrypted, but I soon found a program on the internet called PassportHacker, which was able to read the full contents.

In addition to duplicating the basic data printed on the passport, it turns out that there is actually a whole raft of other information that must have been gathered over the years by tracking the usage of my previous passport. I can only imagine it was previously held on some central immigration computer but can now be stored on the passport itself.

Here's an extract from the "Travel Statistics" section of a report generated from PassportHacker:

TOTAL FLIGHTS MADE: 37
TOTAL DUTY FREE SPEND: £1347.82
AVG BAGGAGE WEIGHT: 12.7kg
UPGRADE REQUESTS MADE: 28
UPGRADE REQUESTS DENIED: 28

There's also a slightly more sinister "Security Information" section:

% PROBABILITY [TERRORIST]: 3%
% PROBABILITY [SEX TOURIST]: 27%
% PROBABILITY [DRUG MULE]: 16%

I'm assuming that my surprisingly high score for sex tourist is simply based on the fact that I took a couple of flights within SE Asia last year. Certainly, I've never had any problem at immigration so I guess my score is safely under any danger threshold.

(NOTE: It would be interesting to find out how this new rating maps to the old Glitter rating, whereby suspects were assigned a fraction between 0 and 1, where 0 is no threat, and 1 — a full Glitter — is a absolute, guaranteed threat to minors.)

There also an interesting "Immigration Official Comments" section, which presumably allows for notes to be added each time you pass through an immigration desk.

Here's an extract from mine:

LHR 30/11/03 11:23 THE CAP'S FOOLING NO-ONE YOU SLAPHEAD
LAX 15/03/05 15:33 EVER HEARD OF SUNSCREEN BUDDY?
LGW 22/04/07 17:02 WORST ATTEMPT AT SMALL TALK I'VE HEARD TODAY

As well as all of the textual and numeric data, there were also numerous modified versions of my passport photo, presumably making it easier for immigration staff to recognise me if my appearance were to change over the ten year lifetime of the passport.

So there are versions of my photo with various different (and I assume computer-generated) configurations of facial hair — moustache, goatee, full beard, etc. Also there are versions of me with various styles of glasses and sunglasses, degrees of tan and even a selection of headgear.

For completeness there are also versions with every conceivable combination of these various new features. The version where I'm sporting mirrored shades, a fat face, a handlebar moustache, a very dark tan and a turban is truly something to behold.

Although PassportHacker is free, there's also a paid version called PassportHacker Pro which lets you change as well as just view the data stored on the chip.

So as a fun practical joke you can get hold of your friend or partner's passport and bump their drug mule rating up to 99% for a guaranteed cavity search, or even change their stored picture to any of a selection of provided alternatives, including: Marilyn Monroe, George Clooney, Yoda, Homer Simpson or Osama Bin Laden.

Well worth the asking price of $29.99 I would have thought.