The much-hyped Cloverfield is out on Friday. Like everyone else I've seen the grainy, disorientating trailers on the internet and I confess, they've done the trick because I'm really looking forward to seeing the film.

It's fairly well known I think that the film is shot entirely on a handheld camera in a POV-style, but of course the primary reason for going to see it is to find out exactly what it is (a monster?) that's wrecking New York.

I don't want to spoil anything but I've read some internet reports that suggest it's causing huge controversy at preview screenings in the US because the rampaging monster actually turns out to be a 200 foot tall Amish child.

Apparently little attempt is made to explain the child's origins save for a fleeting news report referring to a secret nuclear testing bunker that is rumoured to have been discovered near a Mennonite community in Montgomery County, New York.

Part three in what can now quite justifiably be referred to as a series on the curious cast of characters who distract me while I try to write in the local reference library.

No. 3: Rancid Santa

Rancid Santa is an old, very possibly homeless, guy with a big white beard who looks like the Father Christmas from Raymond Brigg's The Snowman, but unfortunately smells like something from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

There is always a five-metre voluntary exclusion zone around Rancid Santa. He comes in every morning to read the Morning Star, so it's not just the contents of his wardrobe that's red.

If you lifted your young child off this fellow's knee to discover a big, wet patch on Santa's britches, it was probably Santa.

I headed to ActionAid's head office near Archway today for my meeting about my sponsor child Delifa's deteriorating performance and poor attendance at her school in Malawi.

It turned out that Delifa and her family were not going to be able to participate remotely in the meeting via the Red Cross-provided webcam, which was somewhat of a relief. Apparently usage of the village's broadband modem was on a strict rotation and another family was using it to upload a video diary for a BBC3 documentary.

Jeremy the case officer pulled out a large file and filled me in with some of the background details. Apparently Delifa had been an exemplary student since the start of my sponsorship in 2002, but had recently been falling behind in her studies and very recently she had been skipping lessons altogether. He said, rather accusingly I thought, that sponsored students needed encouragement not only from their parents and teachers, but also their sponsors and it was his understanding that I had not once written to Delifa or made any enquiries as to her progress since the start of my sponsorship.

I immediately said that I thought 15 quid a month should be encouragement enough, which wasn't met with a tremendously positive response. I immediately back-pedalled and said I hadn't been aware that direct contact with the child was encouraged or even possible due to language barriers.

Apparently, Delifa had sent me a letter and card and had become increasingly despondent on receiving no reply from me.

I said I remembered receiving the letter but had thought that the enclosed card was a mass-produced mailing rather than personal communication because it had clearly been professionally printed rather than hand-drawn.

Jeremy said it was a little patronising of me to assume that just because Malawi was a Third World country that there weren't basic desktop publishing facilities. In fact Delifa had produced the card for me using Microsoft Paint and a second-hand inkjet printer.

Feeling suitably humbled I left after promising I would immediately write to Delifa and encourage her to throw herself fully into her studies.

Another morning spent in the library and an otherwise uneventful day so it seems like a good opportunity for the second part of my occasional series on the characters I encounter there:

No. 2: The Laughing Stockbroker

The Laughing Stockbroker is an old American guy who comes in for about 20 minutes every morning to laugh raucously at the Financial Times.

Now I can understand that if you are very familiar with the world of finance that a particularly witty editorial might raise a smile, or perhaps the sudden change in fortune of a once-owned stock might have a delicate irony, but The Laughing Stockbroker seems to find everything absolutely hilarious. Sometimes he's laughing loudly even before he's sat back down in his chair with today's copy.

In my mind, he's either just about to pull of the biggest fraud in history and takes daily pleasure in the knowledge that the financial world remains blissfully ignorant, or he's a complete nutter who just finds the colour pink irresistibly hilarious.

Went to the cinema today and saw No Country For Old Men, the new film by the Coen Brothers. Adapted from a Cormac McCarthy novel it's the all-too-prescient story of a radical new Texas governor, who declares the state an independent country and decrees overnight that no-one over the age of 50 can live there.

Josh Brolin plays a world-weary Vietnam vet who travels around in a pick-up truck rescuing old men in a deadly game of cat and mouse with a psychopathic, state-sponsored assassin played by Javier Bardem.

Much has been made of Bardem's unusual haircut in the film - a huge beehive à la Amy Winehouse - and his unusual method of killing - a sharp blast of air from a portable bicycle pump.

It's definitely worth seeing but some may not like its intentionally open ending: a long tracking shot of Josh Brolin pushing a wheelbarrow stacked high with old giffers towards the state line, unaware that he's being pursued by a mortally-wounded Bardem on a stolen skateboard.

I saw a massive fight between rival chuggers on St John's Road this morning. Apparently it all started when a guy from Shelter accused the bloke from Amnesty International of copying details from one his completed direct debit mandates. A few harsh words were exchanged and then the clipboards started flying. After a couple of minutes a guy from Scope and a couple of people from The Children's Society piled in and it turned into a full-on ruck.

I managed to break it up with the help of a homeless guy who had been selling The Big Issue nearby. Unfortunately for him in the last moments of the scuffle the man from Shelter took a final swing at Mr Amnesty, missed and hit the homeless guy instead. The irony was lost on no-one. It was properly ironic. Not like in that song.

Today saw the year's first visit to my local swimming pool at the Latchmere Centre. If I've not been out late on Saturday night I always try to go for a swim on Sunday morning.

I usually aim to be there by about 9am, before it gets too packed with young children and their parents. Certainly it's good to be done by 10am because they turn the wave machine on, which makes proper swimming in straight lines a bit of a chore.

Of course, I never get there quite as early as planned and am usually in the pool when the waves start, and sometimes turn up just as they start, making it look like I plan my day around the waves, which is what happened today.

There was a new pool attendant, who obviously had a strong sense of showmanship because when I got in, he was standing at the side of the pool, leading all the children and a few adults in a loud chant of "Tsunami! Tsunami! Tsunami!"

Then, when the chanting had reached a peak, he shouted "Let's party like it's Boxing Day 2004!" and switched on the wave machine.

He continued to work the pool, introducing each big wave with a comment like "Just like Sumatra, waves coming at ya" and "Make like Sri Lanka, this one's gonna spank ya".

I'll be back next week for the advertised Hurricane Katrina-themed wavathon.

My Dyson vacuum cleaner blew up this morning. I plugged it in, switched it on, and the motor made a distressing straining noise and then stopped. I pressed the 'on' button again and there was a big pop and a spark from the main plug followed by a little plume of smoke.

I phoned around a few places and found a little electrical shop on Lavender Hill that would repair it, so I removed all of the attachments and ventured out of the flat with the sickly, naked Dyson in one hand.

Once on the high street it was obvious I should have made some attempt to conceal the Dyson rather than carry it down the road in plain view. People were stopping and pointing at me, children were asking their parents what I was doing, one man followed me for a while and kept pointing at bits of litter and saying "Oi mate, you've missed some".

At one point, I walked past a group of school children and as soon as I was in front of them they started shouting names at me, like "suck muppet", "dust bandit" and "hoover boy". My half-hearted retort that I couldn't be a hoover boy because Hoover was a brand, like Xerox, rather than a generic noun and I was carrying a Dyson was completely ineffective and simply elicited further abuse "Shut your dusty mouth hoover boy!"

Further up the road, a man passed me on the other side of the street, pulling a smiling Henry vacuum cleaner. I gave him a friendly nod in acknowledgement of our shared predicament but he just gave me the finger and called me a "bagless bastard".

When I finally got to the repair shop they told me it would cost me £15 for them to look at it, but £25 for them to look at it with a view to repairing it. When I asked about the difference in price they said in the first case the person looking at it didn't know anything about vacuum cleaners so it was cheaper.

I went for the second option and left it with them, thankful for the anonymity that not carrying a vacuum cleaner afforded me.

I've had a letter from ActionAid today saying that Delifa, the child I sponsor in Malawi, has recently become very disruptive in school and would I attend a meeting to discuss her behaviour. It seems that her parents are completely failing to control her and under the terms of my sponsorship I am her joint guardian (a lesson here for me - read the small print!). I'm obviously concerned that her studies are suffering but don't really see what I can do to help.

I spoke to ActionAid and reluctantly agreed to attend a meeting next week to discuss the issue. Delifa and her family obviously can't be present but will apparently be conferenced in via a small, hand-powered webcam provided by the Red Cross.

I'm spending most mornings in the local library on Lavender Hill, working on various writing projects, so it's probably time for the first of an occasional series of entries about the interesting cast of characters I encounter in the Battersea Reference Library.

No. 1: The Gangsta Unwrappa

The Gangsta Unwrappa is a young black guy, dressed like a poor man's 50 Cent, who swaggers into the library every morning with a selection of noisy foods that he proceeds to eat in as disruptive a fashion as possible. His favourite foods are those which are both noisy to open and to eat, a mainstay being a large packet of Butterkist popcorn.

He wanders noisily around the room, talking to himself and shoving great fistfuls of popcorn in his mouth, much of which misses and ends up on the floor. On his travels he makes a point of sitting in various chairs, as if looking for the perfect one, but rarely settles for more than five minutes.

The Gangsta Unwrappa is a genius at treading the delicate line between "inconsiderate bastard" and "genuine nutter" so despite numerous imagined scenarios where I force-feed him the remaining popcorn then throw him out onto the street through the satisfyingly saloon-like double doors of the library, I'm always stopped by the sudden image of the front page of the local newspaper with the headline "vulnerable local man in unprovoked library attack".

On the spur of the moment, I went to the Russian Winter Festival in Trafalgar Square after hearing it mentioned on the radio.

It was actually pretty good fun, with authentic Russian food, drink and dancing, but without a doubt the highlight was a performance by Sankt Peterburg, Russia's somewhat belated answer to big-haired, tight-trousered, 1980s stadium rock.

Most of the songs were pretty derivative but the delivery was nothing if not exuberant and I couldn't help but enjoy their unashamed tribute to Bon Jovi, given a distinctly Russian twist:

Livin' in Ukraine

Tommy used to work down the mines
Salt supplies running low
The mine closes down
It's tough, so tough

Gina works in the cement factory all day
Avoiding the advances of her Party-connected boss
She works long hours for little pay in potentially injurious conditions
For love, for love

She says: We gotta hold on to what we got
'Cause it doesn't make a difference if we endure our lot
Or perish under the might of an oppressive, all-powerful state
We've got each other, at least until one of us is taken in the middle of the night by the secret police
For love, we'll give it a shot!

We're halfway insane
Livin' in Ukraine
Take my hand, suppress the pain
Livin' in Ukraine

The supermarket wars are really hotting up in SW11. For some time there's been a Tesco Metro on Battersea Rise that I pass on my way to the library but I noticed today that two doors down they've just started building a new Waitrose Rapido. On the other side of the road there's a sign saying we should expect an ASDA Nippy in April 2008.

So I will soon be rather spoilt for choice in terms of smaller stock, bigger price versions of the major supermarkets. Once building works have been completed on Battersea Rise I'll have four within a few minutes walking distance, once you include the ALDI Shit-off-a-Shovel already on Lavender Hill.

I went to the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Natural History Museum this afternoon. The standard, as usual, was exceptionally high, but the overall winner, a beautiful, moment-frozen-in-time photograph taken from a hide on the Mississippi river of a giant crocodile dragging a surprised fisherman into the water was absolutely stunning.

Highly Commended in the Animals In Their Environment category was a tongue-in-cheek shot of a freezer cabinet full of frozen turkeys, which apparently impressed the judges with its "wit and sensitivity".

The winner of the Young Wildlife Photographer was a beautifully composed shot of two stray dogs copulating in an overturned wheelie bin. The photographer, just nine years old, had apparently spent an entire weekend waiting for the perfect moment.

Tomorrow is the first bin day since twelfth night so today the streets were littered with discarded Christmas trees waiting for collection. If War Of The Worlds were about an invasion by spruce trees rather than Martians, this is what it would look like at the end of the film, once they've all caught the common cold and died. But probably without the tinsel.

I've also noticed an unusually high number of squirrels on the streets, acting rather erratically and seemingly completely unfazed by people. I phoned the RSPCA and they told me they'd had dozens of calls and apparently almost simultaneously across the entire country (much like the blue tits and milk bottle tops in the Seventies) urban squirrels have been seeking out discarded bottles of Baileys and getting drunk on the dregs.

On the way to the station I passed two gangs of inebriated squirrels fighting, and then later the sorry sight of one passed out in the gutter in a tiny puddle of vomit.

Today on a trip to Sainbury's I bought a large piece of ginger which looks just like the scary rabbit that haunts Jake Gyllenhaal's character in Donnie Darko. I don't really know why I bought it. I needed some ginger but certainly didn't venture out with the intention of recreating characters from cult movie in root form.

I guess I was just worried that someone might buy it without realising the likeness and that seemed to me to be a terrible waste. Better it be bought by someone with a keen interest in cinema.

I had a brief dig around in the loose vegetable section and found a sweet potato that looked a bit like Napolean Dynamite but I wasn't sure whether it was technically a root or a tuber so put it back.

Later, while conducting some internet research to find out what other plants in the ginger family might also have a tendency to assume the form of film characters, I found the strangest article on Wikipedia I have ever seen.

Later still I remember a Thai variant of ginger I once tried to track down when making a red curry from scratch and type 'gallanghal' into Google and get freaked out by the following results:

And so it goes full circle.

It turns out that 'galangal' is the correct spelling, but even so I feel I've tapped into something a little disturbing and decide to curtail my research.

My doorbell rang late this morning and when I opened the door a rather tall man introduces himself and says he's been sent by The Baron to help resolve the outstanding issues between him and myself regarding the construction work at the flat. My initial reaction is that "resolve" would shortly reveal itself to be a euphemism for "hit with a baseball bat" but it did seem that he just wanted to talk.

I decided it would be best to conduct our discussions on neutral territory and so I grabbed my coat and we headed to the local Starbucks. Quite quickly it became clear that what was, on the surface, a very calm, civil conversation was actually a mighty battle for supremacy played out against the backdrop of the globally exploitative retail of gourmet coffee and associated snacks.

I offer to buy him a latte and he graciously accepts but as soon as he hears me ordering an extra shot for myself he asks for three extra shots and a large banana and pecan muffin. Not to be outdone, I order two large granola bars as well and make a point of eating one before even sitting back down.

As a preamble to talking business we make small talk and then out of nowhere he manages to drop in an anecdote about once eating four hot paninis in a single sitting and I so feel compelled to tell him about the time I downed a Frappuccino in one - ice and all - but he seems strangely unimpressed.

Back on business, I agree to draw up a list of items that need to be resolved (repair cracks to my flat, replace the hallway carpet, etc.) before I am willing to consider giving official if retrospective consent for the basement. He promises to do his best to make sure The Baron agrees to these items in writing.

I shake his hand and get up leave, ordering a "quadruple espresso to go" in a very loud voice as I pass the till. When I look over in his direction to make sure he's heard my order I can see that he's already planning his next move and is eyeing up a large jar of biscotti on the counter. For a moment we're caught together in a frozen stare but then my espresso arrives and I'm out the door before he can even get the lid off the jar.

My first visit to the gym since Pantsgate and I'm mortified to see my boxer shorts pinned to the main noticeboard with a handwritten note:

Are these your pants?

If so, you may have my pants. My own pants disappeared on Tuesday afternoon (2nd January). Perhaps you accidentally picked up my pants instead of yours (although I can't imagine how as the two pairs of pants are not at all similar in appearance)?

I am very keen for my pants to be returned since they have significant sentimental value as they are the pants I was wearing when I met my wife.

If you think you may be wearing my pants, please contact reception to arrange a time for me to come and check your pants to see if they are in fact my pants.

I'm sure I'm being paranoid but I can't help wondering whether a usable DNA sample can be obtained from a pair of worn pants. I start to wish I'd watched more episodes of CSI and consider renting one of the box sets from Blockbuster.

I suppose even if it were possible to get a sample they would still have to match it to me.

Today I bumped into the owner of the flat downstairs for the first time since before Christmas. The story of my various experiences with him since he bought the flat in June last year is long and largely dull, but suffice to say that things took a turn for the worse when he started excavating a large basement without consent from myself, the Wandsworth planning department or local building control. As I said to him in one of our first meetings, I don't know much about construction, but I know a little about gravity, and frankly as the owner of the upper flat, I was concerned.

I've learned the hard way to trust nothing that comes out of this man's mouth and this makes him a rather curious character to deal with. I don't know whether he's a compulsive liar or a hopeless fantasist but for the purposes of this blog I will refer to him as The Baron, in honour of his Munchhausian tendencies and frequent boasts of a small property empire.

Since first meeting The Baron, he has told me a variety of different accounts about his intentions for the flat once development is complete:

1. He will live there himself
2. He will sell it
3. He will rent it out
4. He will leave it empty
5. He will let his relatives stay in it
6. He will give it to his young son, whose life's purpose will then be to make sure I'm never able to sell my own flat, even if that's 15 years in the future

Now that I was face to face with The Baron I took the opportunity to air my various grievances: the overflowing skip, his total unreachability on his mobile over the last two weeks and the fact that due to his building materials taking up over three parking spaces in front of the house some overzealous neighbours had piled rubbish up against my front door.

He said the skip was the fault of the skip rental company, that his phone had been switched off because the government were monitoring his calls, and that the rubbish outside the house was "probably foxes".

I tell him I'm tired of talking with him directly and that all future communications will be through a solicitor. He tells me that if I don't retrospectively consent to the basement he has now more or less completed (which is my single point of leverage) that he will rent the basement to North Korea as a European base for medium-range missiles.

I say I don't believe him, if only because he's lied to me so many times in the past. He's says he not lying and offers to show me the house he owns on Lavender Hill that he's currently allowing the Pakistan government to use as a base for their nuclear testing programme.

Today was my first day back in the gym after the Christmas and New Year break and almost immediately I got myself into trouble. I had a good workout but it left me fairly knackered and I don't think I was fully concentrating because while I was getting dressed after my shower I accidentally put on someone else's pants. Damn the ubiquity of Calvin Kleins.

I realised my mistake pretty quickly when I didn't recognise the other clothes in the pile but I was completely lost for what to do. In terms of gym etiquette, it's completely uncharted territory.

My mind raced and came up with various options but they all had associated risks:

1. Quickly take the pants off and put them back on the pile, hoping that I'm not caught by the pant owner and/or any other gym members. Potential risk: if caught, it looks like I've got a fetish for secretly trying on other people's pants, which is definitely worse than an accidental underwear mix-up
2. Wait patiently for someone to betray themselves as the owner of the pile of clothes and thus also the pants, and say as plainly as possible: "Excuse me, I think I'm wearing your pants" and see what happens. Potential risk: He reacts badly, something along the lines of "Why the fuck are you wearing my pants?"
3. Subtly shift my own pants onto his pile, hoping that he won't notice, and exit as swiftly as possible remembering to give the pants a very thorough wash when I get home. Potential risk: someone spots the 'switch' and I'm publicly accused of pant tampering, which is a serious offence indeed

I opt for the third option and manage, with some sleight of hand, to complete the underwear manoeuvre undetected, but realise almost immediately that our respective pants look nothing alike. His are a lot like a pair I own, but nothing like the pair I am actually wearing. Mine are grey - his are black. There's no way he's going to think my pants are his pants.

If this had been a heist movie, we would now be at the point where the priceless painting/big diamond/treasure map is conspicuously missing, the guards are coming round the corner, and it's a matter of mere seconds before they spot the crime and sound the alarm.

So I pull the rest of my clothes on as quickly as possible and dash out of the gym.

Wearing someone else's pants.

I got a lift back down to London after spending New Year up in Manchester.

The building work in the flat downstairs has not progressed since before Christmas. There is still a huge, overflowing skip directly outside the house but in addition to the bona fide construction-related waste it contained when I left just before New Year, there is now a selection of seasonal domestic rubbish presumably deposited by opportunistic neighbours: three copies of Russell Brand's My Booky Wook, a George Foreman grill with half a charred Turkey sticking out of it, a brand new, boxed HD-DVD player with "I said Blu-ray arsehole!" scrawled angrily on the front and at least 500 loose Ferrero Rocher chocolates.

On the journey down from Manchester I had plenty of time to think about my New Year's Resolutions and the final list is as follows:

1. Stop writing to Natalie Portman. Either she's not getting any of my letters or she just doesn't fancy going out for a Nando's, regardless of whether or not I pick up the tab
2. Stop wasting money on the bananas I buy just in case I get an unexpected visitor with a monkey; I don't know anyone with a monkey and if I find a stray one I can always lock it in the bathroom while I go out and buy some bananas
3. Stop wasting time and energy developing ideas for pun-based local businesses. If I'm brutally honest I have neither the knowledge nor the enthusiasm to set-up and run Speakers' Corner, the hi-fi chain sited on the junctions of busy roads, the fast food home delivery service catering specifically for Muslims, You Can Call Me Halal, or the Japanese noodle bar that shows US sitcom reruns while you eat, Everyone Loves Ramen.
4. Write a blog

This is the blog.