I have realised that in my cupboard I have a large number of pieces of Tupperware. The thing is, I did not buy a single piece of it. It has all been hoarded from ex-girlfriends. So: some people take money from their partners and rip them off; some keep underwear as trophies; I, however, keep stuff that stops my bread from going stale. I don’t see this as thievery but merely practical and environmentally friendly, because Tupperware’s never something a man sets out to buy – not when he’s single anyway. That’s because lunch normally consists of a chicken and mushroom Pot Noodle and two packets of pickled onion Monster Munch.

So how does a guy come to be in possession of, and keep Tupperware? You know how it is: she does a nice thing and makes you lunch and then you go off with the box it came in, saying you’ll clean it and bring it back but you never do. But that also means that’ll be the one and only time that she makes you lunch, as the next time she offers to do it she’ll say that she didn’t have the last bit of Tupperware back, so until then she’s not lending you anymore… But already the deed is done and you have the Tupperware in your cupboard for keeps. And on the whole, I would say that I have come out of the deal quite well.

Because when is there an appropriate time to give the Tupperware back? You don’t just turn up with it if you’ve used it that day and you’re staying at hers, because you will have never, ever, washed it up at work. Who would do such a thing? It’s not even proper Tupperware until at some point in its life it has supported its own ecosystem for at least a week, then you can marvel at the smell you’ve created and then impress her with it.

There is great intellectual profit to be had from comparing the lover to the calibre of Tupperware I managed to snaffle. One particularly good piece comes to mind: made of sturdy thick plastic that is unlikely to buckle under any severe pressure, and can be locked reliably, which meant that it stayed clean on the outside and dirty on the inside – a bit like the girl I got it from.

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To cut a long story short: I was left with a rather personal and expensive present this new year that was no longer wanted or needed (the receiver has told me that she is not going to want any presents from me in future). The intimate nature of the present and the risk it posed (that is, in me buying it) meant that, although the present had been initially accepted, I had still held on to the reciept. So when the new year came and the inevitable happened, I had to make the sad and lonely walk of shame to take back very expensive lingerie to a very expensive lingerie shop.

What happened next was an absolute masterclass in humiliation.

Not least because the type of store I was returning goods to, already makes the exercise embarrassing. That the returning goods were the entire matching set screams that your purchase either was some kind of futile gesture and you’re a loser, or it’s obvious that Christmas and new year did not go too well, and you’re still a loser.

Owing to the nature of the goods in question — that of ‘intimate apparel’ — the sales girl tells me:

‘Sorry, refunds are not available. What would you like to do?’

Erm, wear it myself? Wait until the next young lady comes along, and see if she is the same size and has the same taste as my previous girlfriend, and won’t mind wearing an erotic ensemble intended for someone else? Or do I sell it on ebay — saucy underwear for sale with the description ‘lingerie for sale, never worn but much leered at’?

All the while this is going on, the shop’s stereo is blasting out a song by Roy Orbison called, unbelievably, ‘It’s Over’.

‘I can offer you a credit note,’ she says.

Erm, ok. That’s gonna be the best bet. At least I can properly sell it with minimum grief.

‘It is good for six months,’ she continues.

Now the bit when she rips the heart right out of my chest, and then skewers it with her six-inch stiletto heel. She takes a good look at me and adds:

‘… but for you, I think that we could extend that time.’

Nice.

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For months and months I have been paying for hosting this and email services, while being totally fucking lazy when it comes to making any sort of contribution to my blog. Apparently if I am going to get anyone to read this I have to make regular posts so that people get to read them. This is often particularly difficult when nothing really of consequence happens in your day and the most exciting thing was that you had managed to fill your Cafe Nero loyalty card and got a free cappuccino .

I have in fact been up to something really rather jolly exciting and that’s that I did my first stand-up comedy spot. This was all thanks to an old friend of mine making me do it and the X-Foundation who gave me the opportunity, all the name of charity I hasten to add. Although this was a side issue as the point of this was totally self-serving and I was completely out for myself.

After several weeks of tutoring by Chris Head, myself and nine others were ready, willing and armed mostly with wank gags. We did not learn of the line up until an hour before the show and true to my prediction I was up first. Just as well cos it meant that I could spend the rest of the evening tucking into the rider and getting shitfaced. Unbelievably, it went better than expected. They laughed in all the right places, a couple of lines got applause (I have given knob-cheese a brand name) and I even got some ad libs in.

This all left me with rather an odd feeling. Apparently this is called pride. Ms Rant introduced me to it, as she is one those mouthy Australian people they are apparently quite used to it. All that is required now is to prove myself to a room of complete strangers who are pissed up and ready to shout at me for no apparent reason. Provisionally that’s February 11, 2010 at the King’s Head, Crouch End. Let’s hope they are smegma friendly.

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Yes it does, doesn’t it, but do I have chickpeas, cucumber, chili and pine nuts to make it? Do I fuck. No, all those ingredients are back at the supermarket where I could have bought them not half an hour ago. I have lost count the number of times I have walked into Waitrose of an evening not knowing what I wanted for dinner, but knowing that I wanted to cook something. Surely if you had these serving suggestions on the outside of meat packaging I would be urged to spend more money on expensive and high margin ingredients that you want to shift and I want to eat. See, everyone’s a winner with that strategy, so why don’t you fucking implement it? This post has been sent to Waitrose customer services. I will keep you posted on their response.

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Some people should not, under any circumstances, be allowed anywhere near the internet. I yet to come up with the definitive list of who these people are, but those of us that have been working the interweb for a period of time remember the days of trying to watch the Phantom Menace trailer on dial-up, the frustration of the time it took to look at pictures of er, specialist websites, and remember the emails that we first got touting urban myths or scams that we had been hearing round the playground/workplace/pub for years. But this was in nineteen-fucking-ninety-eight! And now the blessed internet has also managed to largely debunk such bollocks and those of us living in the 21st Century commonly know most of them to be bullshit.

Unfortunately there is still the uninitiated out there for people wishing separate people from their cash and their common sense. Do people seriously still believe it happens that people wake up in a bath of ice and your kidneys have been removed, that some bloke from Nigeria has got billions of dollars that he wishes to rest in your account, or that you have won a lottery that you never entered? Well obviously they do and can you please stop sending emails to my Mum, or I will be forced to ask Yahoo to disable her account. Ta.

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Do you know how long I spent down the pub talking bollocks before coming up with this website? Well it was at least twenty minutes and most of that was thanks to a Stella and After Shock chaser (just wait until my online detective show ‘Sausage and Chips’ hits the web). Then after much hard graft getting the donkey work done and spending my meagre wages getting stuff set up, these fuckers come along and start following me on Twitter with their flash site. Now I’m not totally clear about who came first, them, or me, but I do know that it all looks suspiciously similar. All, apart from their smiley demeanour. Come on guys, get angry; that’s what ranting is about. How on earth are you going to get someone to change things for your benefit with that wholesome grin? You need to get in peoples faces and f*ck up their shit!

So, faced with some healthy competition, and they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I’m off to find someone angry, even if does end up being some tramp that I’ve been flicking with a wet tea towel. In the mean time if Project: Rant and I ever go mano a mano, then this is how it’s going to go down:

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You got this big chance, the world is your stage and everybody, and I mean fucking everybody, is watching. So what are you going to do? It’s got to be something different, something that will surprise everyone and raise the bar in your given field. The sort of thing that changes the way people think about how things can be done. Now all the groundwork has been done and the publicity has built the expectancy to fever pitch. They’re all waiting and watching twitching in their seats.

And what is your grand gesture to your global audience? The same old shit you always do. Make for the nearest central square or monuments, put up some badly made banners, drink cider, smoke weed and generally stink up the place. I mean ffs! You have this absolutely amazing opportunity to create a mass gathering of people all over the world, who are pissed with this lot for basically fucking everything up for everyone and you make sure that you marginalise any newcomers to the cause by selling it as a riot…and a not very good one at that.

Planning and tactics people, that’s what it’s about and shit that causes disruption to people making money. Look at what Plane Stupid did, they stopped planes taking off, people going on holiday and the airport and airlines delivering their service. They got maximum publicity, they were all over the papers and some the demonstrators became minor celebrities out of it. They only name you lot managed to get in the papers, was the bloke who cashed in his chips.

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We’re all for a bit of quirkiness round here, so here we have something a bit different by Joseph Morpurgo. At this point I should start talking enthusiastically about how this video has been directly influenced by revered filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker, going on to talk about how his work changed documentary filmmaking by shooting with a hand-held camera, eschewing voice-over narration and interviews in favor of the portrayal of actual events. But I like Michael Bay films with cars, beautiful women and explosions and beautiful women who like cars and explosions. So what the fuck do I know?

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Occasional writer and comedian Christina Martin has problem with people, who have problem with something that should be easy. I personally hate it when people start to veer towards a wall or sign in the street blocking your path, meaning that you must adjust speed and direction. Or, the fuckers that walk out of a coffee shop into the pavement thoroughfare without looking. Would you do that if you were walking into the road, well would you? These people are all that is wrong with modern British society.

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