It's nearly nine o'clock on Friday evening. My idiot brother is singing out of tune while playing incoherently on his guitar downstairs. My father is playing a piece of music called "Le Onde" very badly on the piano because he doesn't have lessons anymore and doesn't get chance to practice. The central heating pipes are banging and tapping away because they are old and have needed to be replaced for years. Incredibly, fireworks are STILL being set off almost a week after the firework night about which I complained so much a few posts ago.

Oh, and some jerk is rattling away on a laptop keyboard so that he can moan about it all to the rest of the world...

Amazingly "white noise of the central UK region" was not the chosen topic of today's post. I thought you'd all love to hear about the book that I have been reading devotedly these last few days, the one that is going to change my life totally (or something). There was an episode of Friends where Ross got hold of a well known confidence book called How To Win Friends And Influence People, and all hillarity ensues. Well I've now got my own, slightly more modern version of that, to make an idiot of myself for. Entitled How To Talk To Anyone, it is perhaps rather obviously a self-help book about being more comfortable talking with people and so forth, something that your loyal correspondent has never been even slightly comfortable doing (except when it's in an international setting with anyone in the world being able to see what I say, of course... then it's dead easy...)

I know what you're thinking. Aren't these self help books the sort of thing rushed out by publishers to pump money out of sad loners who prefer to read about life rather than actually living it? Well I normally think so too, but this is actually a really useful guide to human social behaviour and how to interact when things don't come naturally. Even if you are naturally an extrovert, you may be surprised how much stuff you should or shouldn't do whether you want to make serious business moves or just make friends: there are so many subtlties and nuancies to our interaction that its scary for anyone like me who doesn't know exactly what he's doing. So in that context, a book like this is actually a marvellous relief. I haven't really had chance to try it all out yet (suggestions cover everything from what to do at parties to how to set an answering machine message that is to your best advantage) but it clearly all makes sense. You can look forward to a full update when I have chance to try it out. By golly I'll bet you can't wait.

Anyway The West Wing is now on so I'll have to leave it there (the dialogue moves so fast on this that unless it gets my full attention I have no chance...), except to alert you to the other thrilling purchase made by yours truly the other day. I finally got the fifth season of The Simpsons on DVD, which I've been wanting to get for months. Its full of episodes that I've seen hundreds of time, but they are all classics so its just great to have them there whenever I fancy watching them. Quote of the day is from "Homer Goes To College": 'The bee bit my bottom and now my bottom's big!'

If you don't know what that's about then perhaps its best not to ask...

Seeya

SIMARK