My mate Brendan is going with his girlfriend Gemma, to a wedding next week. His girlfriend is a bridesmaid and has taken allot of trouble to look good i.e. has lost allot of weight. The other day Brendan discovered that part of his boyfriend duties involved having his face covered in fake tan. The reason, he is told, is to test the tan so that Gemma can use it without fear of looking a prat at the wedding; the logic being that Brendan will look like a prat either way, her logic not mine. Anyway Brendan has fake tan smeared all over his bearded face. The next day Brendan is driving round London with his new little brown bearded face and low and behold he is stopped by the police, luckily this time he is not shot just asked to replace a taillight. I just wonder what Gemma's plan really is. Its Brendan's birthday this weekend and if Gemma buys him a new rucksack, a bus pass and a copy of the Koran I'm gonna be having words.

On my way to work everyday I pass the statue of Arthur "Bomber" Harris (very near to the Royal Courts of Justice, at the end of Fleet Street) Head of Allied Bomber Command WW2. During the war, his campaign of carpet bombing major conurbations killed 500,000 civilians and injured at least 1,000,000. His attitude is the same as the fanatics that terrorise London today but we glorify him; cast him in bronze and put him on a plinth. Can I start a campaign, or join one that is already going, to have this statue disappeared with as little fan fare as possible and any mentioned of Arthur "butcher" Harris drowned out with the sounds of grumbling in a very British stiff upper lip style.

I hope and trust we will never carpet bomb cities again, but surely we cannot have a hero who did, or is it a case of different times?

I thought I would write a quick blog about my significant others, my tomato plants. I currently have 12, I have been growing some of these since before Christmas and so far I have harvested zero tomatoes. I have hundreds of green tomatoes on the plants, I am expecting all of these to turn red within a couple of days of one another resulting in me and my faltmates eating tomatoes until we fart our pants red and ending up with some kind of Spanish style rotten tomato fight in the kitchen.

Last night I spent nearly four hours tending to them, repotting, propping and tying up their over laden bows; kissing them, wispering sweet nothings etc. My flatmate pointed out that with the amount of money I can earn in four hours I could probably buy several hundred tomatoes and cut out the seven month waiting period.

Of course he is correct. I would also cut out the heart ache every time one of them breaks a leaf, or goes slightly yellow/brown/purple, the strange smell, (the smell given off by the plants is not the same as the fruit) the fact that I can't leave the house for more than a day without leaving complicated watering instructions; and having to call several times to remind my faltmates to do it.

So why; I needed a hobby I think. I got old enough to need something more trivial to worry about. Its a fallacy to say that gardening is a stress reliever, it provides other stresses and problems, its just these are surmountable and once you have risen to the challenge you are rewarded with your very own tomato fiesta to celebrate your achievements and other people say; I wish I could grow my own veg and admire you.

You even provide yourself with problems lots of gardeners are organic! I have very limited tools or equipment, last night I whittled a stake out of a solid beach pole with my axe. (well I split it in half and hammered it into the ground anyway, a very sturdy and inovative alternative to the traditiona bamboo cane)

P.S. One other benefit; it gets you out the house and away from your significant other/domestic strife(you've seen the number of old men that hang out at allotments right, that’s what 40 years of marriage does to you) well my significant other managed one better and went to Greece, well I still have my Toms.

I have been to Greece, its a very nice place, beautiful blue sky's and clear seas, great food and relatively cheap beer combined with lots of love making adds up to a great holiday.

My girlfriends job is a rep for a holiday company; a position coincidently that provides generous kickbacks from numerous restaurant and bar owners in the form of free food and drink. It doesn't require much work, just an obligation to sit in hotel foyer for several hours a day listening to Brits, with a wide variety of regional accents, make complaints. These range from the wholly unreasonable such as its to hot to sleep, to rather more pressing concerns about the islands antiquated stinking plumbing. These are all collated on official forms and faxed to a mystery location were I suspect they rapidly meet the official shredder. The chain of communication within the company is so poor, something I think some management positively encourage, that my girlfriends job is primarily a complaints sponge, a disgruntled guest mollycoddler (a role that anyone who has ever worked in a call centre will be familiar with). Luckily she gets four hours off in the hottest part of the day for a siesta; possibly the worlds single greatest ever idea and something I have been known to indulge in even though its not in my benefits package.

To expand our horizons beyond sex and eating I decided to hire a speed boat on my girlfriends day off. This was a fantastic idea, the sea was pretty calm, I was behind the wheel skipping the boat over the waves, my girlfriend sat on the bow, top off, working on getting her chest as dark brown as the rest of her tight body. It felt like a cross between the A. Team (action) and that Duran Duran video on the yacht in the Caribbean (glamour). I felt really cool, I had even got a new hat for the occasion. We bummed around for a bit went for a bit of a swim with my goggles on. I didn't like the water too much because it became extremely deep very fast and I couldn't see the bottom; something that doesn't usually bother me in the U.K. where you can't usually see the bottom in six inches of water.

I wish I could end this story here, you will probably start to notice a theme in my stories they don't usually make me look cool (see axe wound). Certainly not cool like skipping across the Mediterranean on a speedboat with a topless blonde beauty cool. The only explanation I have for my stories making me look like an arse is that these are the only ones anyone wants to hear.

The troubles began when we decide to stop at a beach, the boat guy later claimed he told us not to stop at this beach but go further round the headland. I told him that it was too rough to go round the headland. This was the case but at this stage we hadn't tried. In my defence the boat came with minimal instructions; personally I would provide at least an instruction leaflet and map, at least a life jacket and flare gun would be sensible.

Later that evening in a bar I had the finer points of anchoring up and un-anchoring safely on a beach explained in great detail by a group of people surprisingly expert in all things nautical, considering their experiences of seamanship were as limited as mine. One girl even confessed to having lost their anchor; to her credit she must have learned from the experience as she knew exactly were I went wrong, her mistake was not tying the anchor to the boat.

Were I went wrong was anchoring the boat on a shallow, rocky beach and pulling the anchor up without anyone at the wheel and the engine not even running. I feel my greatest failing was being a bad captain, my girlfriend sat around watching this debacle and at no point did she offer to help, no sorry, I meant receive any orders. As soon as the anchor came up the boat started drifting in towards the shore and turned sideways on directly facing a rather fat middle aged Greek swimmer, unable to start the engine for fear of running him down we ended up beached. At this point I got wet, pushing the boat out proved to be very hard because as fast as I could push it out it would be blown back in. Eventually I got it out to what I deemed a sufficiently safe distance and started the engine, I moved slowly at first, then thinking I had got away with it I revved the throttle hoping to speed away from the scene of my most un Duran Duran/A. Team like behaviour. this resulted in an ominous bang, the prop hit a rock.

My heart sank, it was only slightly bent but I knew it would need replacing and I knew who would have to pay for it because I had read the dubious contract I had signed earlier that day. We got plenty of groovy action diving in etc on the way back but the edge was taken off it by the bent prop. I only had to pay sixty pounds in the end and thanks to getting a discount for only using the boat for a half day this amounted to almost the same as a days rental.

The rest of the holiday went great, so I won't tell you about it. Except the experience of having to leave the G.F. at yet another departures lounge, that was rubbish. I left well fed, slightly brown, and with a slight rash. (it was hot and sweaty) But most of all happy, me and the G.F. had one argument but the break had reduced the intensity that we had before. This allowed me to see myself more objectively and perhaps this will help improve my attitude in the future. We will see. Our relationship has always benefited from breaks, I'm not sure if this is a good or bad sign. Spending time apart is definitely healthy I guess you just have to do whatever works.