Tortoise 76

I dreamt a joke last night. Well, it was more of an "amusing" statement than a joke with a punchline. It isn't funny at all, but I'm intrigued that my subconscious was attempting to be funny. And failed.
In the dream, I was in a swimming pool with a few people that I know. For some reason I said the following…
'I feel really sorry for female spiders, imagine how much they'd have to spend on mascara.'
Nobody laughed in the dream either, though I was the one laughing as I found I could do lengths of the swimming pool in approximately five seconds. The reason for this was that nobody had noticed that my lane was about a tenth the length of theirs, so I used this to clock up some amazing times.
I am the best!
Swimming has turned up in my dreams as the gym we have joined has a 25m pool. I am possibly the worst swimmer in the world, and it's kind of embarrassing when being overtaken by six year old kids. There are people in the pool who can effortlessly swim length after length. I put way too much effort in and end up almost collapsing at the end of a length. One day I shall join Jeremy from Grange Hill in fictional heaven.
Running seems to be more of my piano-forte. I'm running 4K in 20 minutes, which isn't bad for somebody who hasn't done any serious exercise in years. I think there is a good chance that I could be winning the London marathon within two years. I wouldn't stop halfway through to do a big poo either.
One thing that is slightly freaking me out is the way in which people get changed at the gym. Well, I say people, but my only experience is of men getting changed. I have not been spying on the ladies changing room, and it was merely coincidence that I chose the machine next to the ladies changing room to do my exercises. And anyway, I'm sure the court will agree that ALL parts of the body need to be exercised thoroughly, and I was acting in a proper way.
Anyway, I digress.
People are way too comfortable with their nakedness. It's okay to be naked at a gym when you're getting changed and/or showering, but some people wander around aimlessly with everything on show. Look, get fucking changed, and stop standing around drying your knackers for five minutes. I'm sure they weren't that fucking wet, so stop fondling yourself whilst chatting to your muscle-buddy about the excellent bench presses you've done.
Actually, far more alarming is when parents bring their kids into the changing rooms with them. I'm not objecting to young lads in the changing rooms, but dads will happily bring their young daughters into the gents and let them wander around and mingle with the chronic nad-dryers. Is this wrong or am I being a prude? At what age does it become wrong for a boy or girl to be in the wrong changing room? Does anybody else feel uncomfortable with young girls waiting for their naked father outside a shower cubicle filled with naked men?
Is this going on in the ladies changing room? Are young lads who are too young to go into the men's changing room on their own, subjected to the sight of loads of wobblies, and roughly half as many lady-mittens? Are they going to grow up okay?
It bothers me.

Town was a bit odd today. I went to town as today sees the release of several quality albums; The White Stripes, The Tears and Joy Zipper have new CDs out. Hmm, the inlays smell so nice. Early favourite is The Tears which sounds aces. Tonight we're going to party like it's 1993!
On my way back to the car, I saw a man running up the street towards me. He was a man in his forties, wearing a salmon-pink shirt, comfortable trousers and sensible shoes. He had a fairly big beard and a carrier bag under one arm. He was running in the oddest way possible, an uncoordinated movement of arms, legs and swinging plastic bag. He looked like he'd never run before, and had only now just discovered the joys of it. At full pelt, he tore around the corner and headed towards Ladywell Street. I turned from watching him to see that a woman in full running gear (shorts, crappy sports shirt and big clunky stopwatch) running behind him. She had big bottle-top glasses on and seemed to be about 4ft tall. Following the man, she ran around the corner and continued after him.
What was going on there? Were they friends who had gone running together? If so, did he think that it was a great idea to be running the streets of Preston dressed as a Geography teacher?
Or, had he just stolen a jumper from Burtons, and was now trying to escape the worlds smallest and least appropriate security guard?
Or had Zola Budd murdered somebody, been sent to prison, fallen in love with fellow convict Peter Sutcliffe and then planned a daring and quite brilliant escape whilst on day-release in Preston? You know, I hear that multi-murderers get shopping trips in Preston nowadays.
Anyway, it was a bizarre sight. Then, just to finish it off, Gaz Liter walked past me obviously pissed-up. He didn't look well.
Maybe my Subway sandwich had been spiked.

Over the weekend, we were in the middle-lands. We got drunk on Saturday night. It was fun, though I guess that sometimes it's a bad thing that booze is a mood-enhancer. I had a nice time though, even allowing for the utter charmer of a taxi-driver that took us back to Julia's house.
We also saw The League Of Gentlemen Apocalypse, which I thought was pretty good. It certainly made me laugh at several scenes, mainly due the fact that it was so utterly silly. Silly things make me smile. Some critics have called if self-indulgent, but seem to have missed the point. The cast know they've made something daft and random, and openly seem keen to laugh at themselves. It's not a big ego-trip, if it was then they wouldn't be so keen to make themselves look bad.

Joy Zipper are turning my ears on at the moment…and that's the thought I'm leaving you with.
Ciao!