Jeremy Irons' Quote of the Week

"Let's get naked and smoke"

(Hairspray )

I often find myself searching for cut-price rubber tipped pencils for hormonal pressure cookers. This week I found myself in Poundstrechers. The Poundstrecher experience is rather bleak and stepping through the doors is like stepping back in time seven years. Not quite a decade behind but almost.

Anyhow, whilst manoeuvring my way around geriatrics my ears twitched. The Poundstrecher music play list has all the pop hits but without the pop stars. The Zutons' 'Valerie' would normally have irked my sensitive ears but on hearing some imposter snarling and wheezing over the top, sounding like he was shouting across a factory floor, I was hooked. I am certain that copies of these crude covers would go down a treat in student unions. What gives these songs their unpleasant edge is that the singers are incredibly earnest and do their very best to mimic the likes of Sean Paul even if they do sound like a senile old dear from Cardiff.

Did I ask for a copy? Nah. The sight of the assistant awkwardly slumped behind the till with a look in his eyes like he wants to smoother himself to death with the excessive amount of storage boxes available tells me this is perhaps not so amusing after all. This is someone's daily dose of hell.

Jeremy Irons' Quote of The Week

"I just wanna get up to my shack and get drunk..."

The Thing

"Life is no way to treat an animal."

That's Kilgore Trout's supposed eptitaph on his imagined gravestone. Does have more kick to it than "Gone but not forgotten." I might put in a request for that one now. My driving instructor lorded up Enoch Powell today.