Rudy: 'Worms! I just 8-1! Hahaha!'

Eagle-eyed readers may notice there's no picture credit this week - which means I must have dusted down the long-neglected camera, exercised the shutter and experimented with aperture openings. That's what spring does to us - the excitement sends us ker-razy. Just ask the Robin, nicknamed Rudy by my housemate, who does not shut up when the sun shines upon his teeny weeny worm-accommodating beak.

But this blog ain't about Rudy. He is a metaphor, you see, albeit a slightly tenuous one. Allow me to explain. Rudy is a Robin, right? So far, so good. And he's singing, yeah? Like football fans do, normally when they're having fun and not at the windswept Kassam Stadium in January chewing on an icy conglomeration of beefy entrails. The Robins, it just so happens, is the nickname of the football team I love - Cheltenham Town (which, if you're one of my longer-term followers, you know already). Only the Saturday before last, us Cheltenham fans weren't singing. We had lost 8-1 to Crewe Alexandra.

A blissful naivety shattered

Cast your mind back a few thousand moons to when you were a kid - some family event (celebrating a sibling getting their 100-metre swimming badge, the arrival of a puppy, the laying of a new patio etc) was coming to an end, and it was time to kiss Great Aunty Ethel goodbye. This was about as enthralling as jaundice - but compelled by politeness (and pity), that peck on the aged cheek would always be delivered, albeit with stuttering hesitancy and an unwavering but just-about-conquerable reluctance.

When you're that young, old age and its inescapable physical reminders seem as far away as a £150 two-week package deal to Proxima Centauri. This blissful naivety continues for approximately 15 years until, as I discovered last weekend, it ends as suddenly and unexpectedly as the movement of a bowel tasked with removing days-old seafood.

Fruitical behaviour

Would you eat a mature, over-sized ovary? Well, that's essentially what a piece of fruit is (which isn't quite as off-putting as considering an egg a chicken's period - which, to all intents and purposes, it is).

On that saliva-inducing note, here's some more fruity food for thought:

The trouble with Boris Bikes

A couple of weekends ago I was out in Shoreditch - the night had run its course, my body had been stuffed full of salmon and cream cheese bagels and it was time to go home. Autopilot kicked in and our little group tottered off to the bus stop. In a rather pleasant development, we noticed that none of us were shivering uncontrollably as our cerebrospinal fluid began to freeze solid. 

Let's put these bagels to use, we thought. Screw you number 35, we're getting Boris Bikes home! We felt like mavericks; drunken, bloated and slightly unstable, but mavericks nonetheless.

Rastamouse is coming to get you and your children

"This is bloody awful! I would never let my kid watch this lol. id make them watch them old school classics, instead of this shit where they cant even teach decent english to young children."

The aforementioned is a stumbled-upon comment of a friend of a friend on Facebook concerning the recently-launched kids' TV show Rastamouse - a charming, upbeat programme that neither terrifies nor patronises children and is based on the premise of "makin' a bad ting good".

A tragic neighbour-induced nightmare: Steps are back

"It's a tragedy that Steps split up. They were too good not to get back together."

"Yeah, but Lisa was shit."

Happy Valentine's Day, darlings

So, Lorraine Pascale hasn't responded to my card, her agent won't let me speak to her on the phone to invite her on a date, and that cake I baked (which wasn't easy, you liar) for her will have to be eaten by me and me alone as I spend Valentine's Day evening watching the new series of Coach Trip, sobbing uncontrollably with a face covered in strawberries and cream.

Valentine's Day is as about as much fun as being locked up in a cold, dark cell waiting to have your head removed from your body by an axe-wielding maniac - which, incidentally, is what happened to Bishop Valentine, who got in a spot of bother for marrying 12-year-olds (as in conducting the ceremonies, not actually… you sickos).

Pavement joggers and why I don't understand them

With the fear of showing off a gaunt face in photographs and getting ever closer to being able to smash melons with a paunch, I decided to join the joggers' brigade. 

Don't get me wrong - I don't take any pleasure in this. There's something unnatural about shifting my weight from one narrow, creaking ankle to the next while temporarily leaving the ground; the piercing, freezing air hitting the back of my throat as I plod along to an irrelevant destination - but apparently it's necessary for a gym-shy 25-year-old who sits in front of a computer all day to prevent him from dying at the hands of a chronic self-inflicted illness.

Driver #12850

Saturday, January 29th and a trip to Oxford United's soulless, three-sided Ikea-esque excuse for a ground; the Kassam Stadium. It really is awful - windswept, exposed and utterly devoid of character. Still, us Cheltonians forgot all that - and the Arctic conditions - when super Wesley Thomas scored from a sublime lob to give us the lead.

Incidentally - super, I'm pretty sure, is the only adjective that's solely the preserve of football fans (possibly commentators, too) and uber camp males.

Bovril at the Hamlet

Having been devoid of inspiration for four months and eight days, I have returned to the blogosphere in emphatic style; influenced by 158 people at Dulwich Hamlet FC on an uncomfortably chilly November evening.

Without an in-person football fix since Cheltenham Town's cagey 1-0 win over Liverpool-conquerors Northampton in October, I opted for a trip to my new local team - albeit after much consideration; Dulwich play in pink and purple, for crying out loud. It's just not a good look. Oh, and they play in the Ryman League Division One South.