A Twitter dream diary

Where in the world can you jump on a bus being driven by a green-haired lesbian, hang out of the window as it speeds round corners without risking serious injury or death, and set off an on-board smoke machine without having even paid for a ticket?

The answer, sadly, is nowhere, unless you happen to live in my head. Yes, I lived through the above scenario, albeit through the medium of dreamland. The lesbian was great fun, as it happens - she was on her final ever shift so we had an impromptu bus rave before calming down and marvelling at the redder-than-usual lunar eclipse. Luckily the other passengers didn't mind because there weren't any.

Brilliant dreams such as these don't come around too often, so it's important to revel in their memory when they do. A flaw of the human mind, though, is that dreams tend to be forgotten in minutes - unless it involves Ann Widdecombe sitting on your face, the image of which is inescapable and will accompany the victim to the grave. Fortunately, I've never had that dream. Nope. Not even close. Definitely not, no siree. Please stop talking about Ann Widdecombe now. You're making me feel queasy.

Rather than let the good dreams escape into the memory bin, I've decided to use Twitter as a means of recording them. After all, I work in media - so like other media wankers, I've done away with the humble pen and paper in favour of 'social'. That way, I can share my thoughts and 'witticisms' with 'the world', presuming people want to read them (my last three followers are a Kent-based Labradoodle breeder, a guest house I've never stayed at in Torquay and my brother's girlfriend - the last of whom is undoubtedly a sympathy follow - so I'm guessing perhaps not).

Anyway, my Twitter dream diary isn't designed to entertain others. It's for me to remember how warped my mind is when it would rather I forget - it's sneaky like that. While this is normally highly amusing - if not occasionally borderline worrying - some dreams are just too open-ended. Take the following example from 28th May: "My dream ended with someone nondescript telling me I'll have something from Gary's kitchen."

I have since Googled (which is a bona fide verb, by the way, Microsoft Word) 'Gary's kitchen'. The first entry details a takeaway in Edinburgh; the second, rather coincidentally, refers to 'Gary's kitchen nightmares'. Whether either of these has any relevance is unlikely, so I'm still waiting with bated breath to taste Gary's culinary delights.

Until then, the only thing I have to worry about is whether to tell a friend about 'that' dream involving his mum.

A new addition

Here's a thought to brighten your day: I sleep naked. And when I wake from my slumber on Sunday mornings, I tend to stumble rather precariously down the stairs, minus clothes, to fetch a glass of water from the kitchen. During this rather laborious, energy-sapping process, I usually stub my toe four of five times, mumble an obscenity or two and have a testicular near-miss with the bottom banister.

In my naked stair-descending career thus far, I'm yet to be caught by another person/mammal. However, our house dynamic shifted during the weekend. A creature now lives in my kitchen. She is called Vera and is 12 weeks old. She is an impressionable, slightly timid kitten. When I woke last Sunday, I had forgotten about her existence - I was still dreaming of sharing a pina coloada with Brendan Sheerin (who is following me on Twitter, by the way, so have some of that) in San Sebastian, just before boarding the coach to embark on our latest adventure (with those other bastard Coach Trippers, unfortunately).

When I opened the door, little Vera's expression was somewhat anthropomorphised - think the fat bloke from Jurassic Park after getting spat at in the eyes by the peacock dinosaur thing. Actually, you don't have to, and that's probably stretching your memory a bit anyway - so I suggest looking at the photograph above. Ahhh, isn't she cute?

Viva Barca

The weekend before last saw thousands of Mancunians and Barcelones descend on London for the Champions League Final, and very exciting it was too if you like football, which approximately 75 per cent of my friends do not - friends who have social lives and see each other on Saturday evenings rather than sit down in front of the TV with a solitary tin of beer and a container overflowing with sweet and sour pork (Hong Kong style, obviously). So, thanks a bundle UEFA for scheduling the game when my presence was required at a dinner party, you mercenary, self-centred FIFA-esque bastards.

As a lover of the beautiful game (I've been watching lower league football for 15 years, don't ya know, gracing such footballing meccas as Welling United, Boreham Wood and, shudder, Hereford United), I was naturally very excited, providing I could keep tabs on the game from a TV in the corner of the room (permission granted. I thank you, Merlot, for your existence). Trouble was, being a neutral isn't very exciting. I therefore had to choose which team to support; a decision I arrived at after walking around central London for the day and observing the respective groups of fans.

Both the Mancs and the Catalans seemed a cheery bunch. Despite the drizzle and unseasonably cold weather, there was much merriment and anticipation. Let's take one example. Myself and my companion for the day, who happens to be a devilishly pretty girl, walked out of Hyde Park Corner tube station towards the UEFA Champions Festival, which is essentially a washed-out, over-priced beer tent and hot dog stand with a five-a-side pitch featuring an overweight Jay-Jay Okocha. We were approached by a group of enthusiastic, grinning young gentlemen with United shirts on and Lancashire accents. "Look at them," we thought to ourselves, "They look so happy they could cry."

"Alright love," one of them abruptly shouted at my companion, a shower of his spittle landing on my horrified, moister-than-usual lips. "I'd definitely fock you, I'd fock you any way you like." "Yeah, I'd fock her n'all," his feral, pot-bellied, vegetable-avoiding scrotal sack of a mate added, before the rest of the group shouted "Wheeeeeeeeey, United! United! Carlos Tevez is gay!" in unison.

Thanks to these untamed, crude little fuckwits - sexist and homophobic fuckwits, no less - I was able to decide which team to support approximately half a millisecond after their words resonated in my ear canals. Thanks lads, you made it easy. Tenim un nom, el sap tothom, Barca! Barca! Baaarca!

Pic credit: Sven Loach on a break