Most mornings the library plays host to a number of different recreational clubs for the elderly. On Thursdays it's the Battersea chapter of the Nazi Hunters' League of Great Britain.

It's widely recognised I think that most if not all of the prominent Nazis active during the war are now dead, so the League now chiefly concerns itself with small scale re-enactments of the capture of key Nazi figures.

Each week a different person is selected to play the prized role of celebrated Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal (or Simone if one of the elderly ladies takes on the part) and a number of enthusiastic volunteers change into costume and are given a 15 minute headstart to go and hide themselves somewhere in the local neighbourhood. As soon as the time has elapsed, that week's Wiesenthal leads the remaining members in a hunt to find the elderly, costumed fugitives in as short a time as possible.

Over the years the definition of Nazi has become a little blurred and the selection of hiding places inevitably driven more by comfort and availability of tea and hot snacks than ability to conceal. Last week I saw two Adolf Eichmann's, a Pablo Escobar and (rather perplexingly) a Darth Vader all hiding in the same branch of Costa Coffee.

The league is very popular amongst its members but is no stranger to controversy.

In the run up to Christmas last year an old man dressed as Peter Sutcliffe was cautioned for creeping up behind young women in Woolworths and shouting: "Ow do, 'appen I'm the Yorkshire Ripper and I'm going to cut you up you whore".

And only last month an octogenarian dressed as a suicide bomber was caught in Threshers tucking several bottles of Bombay Sapphire under his home-made bomb belt and hit the local papers the next day with the headline "Osama Gin Laden".

Incredibly, it's become traditional for some of the younger, fitter members to enter the London marathon and the image last year of an exhausted but triumphant Josef Mengele in full SS uniform crossing the finish line hand in hand with Mr Blobby will stay with me for years to come.

Late last night I was still fuming about the Oscar results and so I ate a large block of cheese before going to bed in an attempt to summon the Donnie Darko Ginger Rabbit in a dream.

It did the trick, because shortly after I fell asleep, he appeared, looking very sheepish.

"What on earth were you playing at with those Oscar predictions?" I demanded. "You didn't get a single one right and I've just lost a hundred quid at Ladbrokes!"

He quickly became defensive and retorted "Well what the fuck were you doing, placing a bet like that on the basis of something an anthropomorphised piece of root ginger told you in cheese dream? What are you, a fucking idiot? If a potato with a bit of a face appeared while you were sleeping and told you to put your head in an oven, would you do that too?"

Even within the hazy logic of a dream world, I could see that he had a point.

The Oscar results are out this morning and I'm furious — not one of the Donnie Darko Ginger Rabbit's predictions has come true.

Not only have I lost a hundred quid but I'm going to look like a complete idiot to all the people I told I had insider information.

Last night the Donnie Darko Ginger Rabbit appeared to me in a dream and told me that he already knew the winners in the four main Oscar categories.

I had eaten a cheese on toast snack shortly before going to bed but even taking this into account the dream was very vivid and this was too bold a claim to go unchallenged, so I asked the Donnie Darko Ginger Rabbit how he could possibly know the results a day ahead of the ceremony.

He said he knew one of the Academy members because he was once an ingredient in a gourmet Chinese cooking course they had taken in West Hollywood. In the dream this seemed entirely plausible; of course now, it feels a little tenuous. But then dreams distort reality — for instance, in the dream the Donnie Darko Ginger Rabbit was over six feet tall but in real life he's less than five inches.

"Best Picture will go to There Will Be Blood," he said, "Best Actor to Johnny Depp, Best Actress to Ellen Page and Best Director to Paul Thomas Anderson."

"Are you sure?" I asked him. "I thought Daniel Day Lewis was a shoe-in for Best Actor, Ellen Page's performance in Juno was great but I can't see her being recognised by the Academy until she's built up a larger body of work, and I find it hard to believe that the Coens will get absolutely nothing..."

"I've never been more sure about anything in my life" said the Donnie Darko Ginger Rabbit, and disappeared in a cloud of absolute certainty.

As soon as I woke up I made a note of his predictions and after breakfast went straight to Ladbrokes to put a £100 accumulator bet on the result.

Last night I had my first taste of the latest dating phenomenon that's recently arrived over here from the US — nanodating.

Nanodating is aimed at busy singles for whom even speed dating is too time consuming, and is based on the idea that, in love, first impressions aren't just important, they're all that matters.

Here's how it works. Up to 30 men and 30 women can sign up for each nanodating event via the company's website and on arrival the women are arranged along the edge of a large circular carousel, facing outwards, while the men form a larger circle around them, facing in. A loud klaxon then sounds and the carousel starts to rotate.

Each couple is face-to-face for around three seconds and in that time they have to kiss, slap, or try to shake hands with their opposite number, depending on whether they think they love them, hate them, or just want to be friends. The result of each 'nanodate' is recorded by the Nanodater.com staff and entered into their main computer after the event.

The whole thing lasted for less than three minutes and in that time I got to meet over two dozen women, so it's certainly a lot faster than speed dating. However, it did take a bit of getting used to because everything happens so quickly.

For instance, I learned pretty quickly to reinstate my winning smile after a slap in the face otherwise risk a long run of slaps; I guess the normal expression on a recently-slapped face is not the best one for making a good first impression.

After one particularly brutal slap, I was trying to compose myself, the carousel moved round and I found myself in front of a girl that I really fancied. Unfortunately I froze, and then as she started to rotate out of reach I panicked and headbutted her.

But I wasn't the only one. Another girl — who I later learned had taken a fairly intensive self-defence course while at university — fell back on old instincts when her first would-be Romeo leaned in for a kiss and punched him in the throat.

The entire event lasted less than ten minutes including the briefing, so it's no longer a valid excuse to say you're too busy to find love. For those hell-bent on finding a partner as soon as possible, next month will see the first Nanodating Max event — 500 men and 500 women on a massive outdoor carousel. Despite these numbers, the organisers promise that the whole event will be finished in under an hour.

I logged into the Nanodater.com website this morning to check my results and was pleasantly surprised — 9 'loves', 7 'hates', and 14 'just friends'. Among the 'loves' was the girl I really took a shine to, so I've dropped her an email to see if she wants to go out for a drink as soon as her face has healed up.

I bumped into The Baron on the way out of the house this morning and he wanted to talk gas. Currently the main supply for both flats enters the building via his downstairs flat, and he wants to move the pipes so that the two supplies are completely separate.

Since the appearance of his altogether more rational right-hand man, I have not been required to deal with The Baron directly, and so on the odd occasion that we do pass each other I have fallen back on a kind of false bonhomie, mainly because it takes too much energy to maintain the appropriate level of animosity. However, after any such encounter, I can't avoid the rather sickly feeling that he thinks he's finally managed to win me over.

Unfortunately we could not agree on a new route for the gas supply. He wanted to run the main pipe up to a meter in the communal hallway and then take a smaller copper pipe along the wall into my flat, whereas I wanted to run the main pipe up his arse, take a match to his mouth and watch him go up like a Kuwaiti oil well.

Outside my native tongue, my language skills are pretty risible apart from a smattering of French that has been gradually decaying from GCSE level since 1988.

I've made a couple of half-arsed attempts to learn Spanish over the last few years but these always faltered immediately upon returning from whichever Spanish-speaking holiday destination had inspired me to take it up in the first place.

Now that I've a little more time I my hands I decided to give it one more go, and have been downloading beginners' lessons from the Cigarette Break Spanish podcast.

Cigarette Break Spanish is the only free language learning podcast that is fully endorsed by the tobacco industry. The lessons are delivered in easily digestible 5-minute chunks designed to be listened to during a cigarette break at work. Non-smokers either have the option of taking up smoking in order to improve their language skills or can choose to listen to the lessons outside of normal work hours.

The first few lessons are pretty basic, covering simple topics such as introducing yourself, saying where you live, asking someone for a light, recommending brands, etc., but later lessons cover much more complicated scenarios and I'm looking forward to reaching those.

Here's a short transcript from Lesson 2:

Man: Hola! Me llamo José.

Woman: Encantada José. Me llamo Maria.

Man: Encantado Maria. De donde eres?

Woman: Soy de Malaga. Y tu?

Man: Soy de Madrid.

Woman: Bueno. Qué tipo de cigarrillos qué le gusta?

Man: Me gustan los Lucky Strikes. Y tu?

Woman: Me gustan los Lucky Strikes también!

Man: Fenomenal! Porqué tienes gusto de los Lucky Strikes?

Woman: Porque son lisos y satisfacción.

Man: También me!

I'll continue studying with Cigarette Break Spanish and let you know how I get on.

While I was searching the internet for Spanish learning resources, I also came across a few interesting-looking podcasts for other languages.

I've always wanted to go to Istanbul and so Toilet Break Turkish caught my eye. Toilet Break Turkish is divided into four daily lessons - one lasting around ten minutes to be studied first thing in the morning and another three of around two minutes each to be studied at convenient intervals during the day.

I don't think I've got time to study that one as well, but if you do try it out please let me know how you get on.

Welcome to part four of the surprisingly fruitful series of entries centred upon the curious individuals I find myself watching in the local library when I really should be writing.

No. 4: Dr Jekyll (and Missing Hyde)

Dr Jekyll is a middle-aged guy who comes in almost every day to read the newspapers and use the internet, who suffers from an intermittent but pronounced upper body tic.

Some days are noticeably worse than others, but on a typical day every few minutes he will suddenly and involuntarily arch his spine, throw his head back and twist his face into a rather alarming rictus, giving the distinct impression that he is about to transform into his evil alter ego. Fortunately Mr Hyde never fully emerges but the almost-transformation is very arresting indeed.

Most regular patrons of the library are well used to this sporadic display of corporeal fireworks but there's a guilty pleasure to be had in watching the reaction of an uninitiated newcomer who happens to sit next to Mr Jekyll at one of the computer terminals. Last week someone actually let out an involuntary scream.

I checked an old email account today and it's just rammed with emails containing bold claims for physical enhancement:

Add inches to your l.i.v.e.r. in just a few weeks.

Your girlfriend will love your new huge colossal kid neys!

Do you really think your partner doesn't mind your small pancrea$???

Get a bigger, harder spleen today - click here

Emails like this must ultimately yield some kind of response otherwise the spammers wouldn't go to all the trouble of sending them, but I just don't understand who in their right mind would be persuaded by them.

Today in the library The Gangsta Unwrappa took things to a new level. Of late I've learned to block out the sound of his popcorn munching and thus relegate him to a source of only very mild annoyance. Intuitively I think he detected this and decided it was time to raise his game.

This morning he strode into the library like a world champion boxer stepping into the ring to defend his title against a rank outsider. He walked purposefully over to a desk across from me, looked around to make sure he'd got everyone's attention, and then pulled his secret weapon out from inside his jacket - a giant multipack of Monster Munch.

Immediately I recognised the genius of this latest move. Not only is Monster Munch a significantly louder snack food than popcorn, but by choosing a multipack over a single large bag, he had created - in one master stroke - the need to open an additional six bags.

He munched steadily through the morning, until around 1pm by which time he had finished the sixth bag and noisily crumpled all seven bags (including the large outer bag) into the bin. He left shortly afterwards and I was just starting to settle down to some writing in peace when he reappeared, triumphant, holding a sizzling chicken fajita on an iron skillet.

At this point, I realised that I was completely outclassed, and packed my bag up and left.