President Bush was supposed to be in Pakistan on a visit. Instead he has appeared in Afghanistan, saying it’s a surprise visit.

Come on.

Tell us the truth.

He got lost, didn’t he.

He thinks he’s in Kansas…

Okay,

So I said I don't want to mention the Second World War and the Germans.

It's done with. God only knows I've made enough mistakes in my own life not to point the finger at anyone else.

But I did notice, when I passed Reception in the hotel, all the mints that had been on the desk for guests were gone, and the German were all sucking something. I didn't complain naturally. I wasn't bothered. They could have eaten the Night Porter for all I cared. And besides, I didn't want to make a fuss.

Mind you, the last person who said that in connection with the Germans was Neville Chamberlain and the next thing you know, they were in Poland.

Our room in the hotel was tiny. At one point my partner bent over to pick up her shoe, and she nudged me out the window. The door knob took up an eighth of the room. I think, if we had have been in the Hilton, this would have been the Danny Devito Suite; but of course we weren't in the Hilton. Far from it. We were in some dump, surrounded by Germans, in a room slightly bigger than a fridge but a little cooler than an oven. Possibly if we had paid a little more for the room we would have gotten a free midget and some mineral water.

In the corner was a desk, which had a hair-dryer on the wall. It reminded me of those old films where the officer and gentlemen has disgraced himself, and a pistol is left on the desk so he can do the decent thing. By this, I don't mean blow drying, of course, I mean shooting himself. Blow-drying usually isn't as fatal as shooting yourself. Well, not unless the wiring in the room was as bad as the plumbing. My partner had gone for a shower earlier. She turned on the taps attached to the shower unit. It gurgled for a minute, hissed like an asthmatic python and then shot up into the air like a V2 rocket and headed for the centre of London.

And speaking of Germans...

I noticed, on the door, was a little sign saying THIS DOOR ONLY LOCKS FROM THE OUTSIDE. It was getting to feel more like Colditz by the hour.

Where was I...

Yes; the hair-dryer; we never used it. For one thing, I had gotten a little electric shock from trying to turn of the light beside the bed. Trying to use the hair-dryer was probably just asking for trouble. Beside, it had North Mace on it, as the Model type. The way things were going so far, it probably was some kind of Mace dispenser. So, we left it. I decided it might be useful to use on any rats if they turned up during the night, asking for their room back, and if we could spare some cheese.

At one point, over the weekend, I held a door open for one of the elderly German ladies staying in Stalag... I mean the hotel. She smiled... well, lessened the severity of her grimace and called me a 'wanker.' I was shocked for a moment and then remembered the German for 'thanks' is 'danke'.

Silly me

Now I just need to figure out what that strange movement she made with her hand meant.

I've got nothing against the Germans. Germany has invested a lot of money in giving British people jobs throughout the years. Alright they did indirectly by conquering most of Europe, requiring us to mobilise the largest army we've ever had, but lets not split hairs. They did, after all is said and done, give Europe back when they'd finished with it; reluctantly, I admit but it's the thought that counts.

As Basil Fawlty said, 'don't mention the war.' It was a long time ago. That's why I didn't call out the Home Guard when I discovered the hotel we were staying in this weekend was full of Germans. The fact that all the women were rather large and looked like Hermann Goring in drag never crossed my mind. And some of the elderly gentlemen had squints in one eye, as if they had been on one firing squad too many, but hey... last time they were here people were running for the air raid shelters so I mustn't go on about it.

Though, I did have a dream that night, surrounded as I was by German voices, that the only way we could leave the hotel was to dig our way out and try to reach Switzerland.

I had insomnia on Friday night.

I asked a medical freind of mine about it and she said, ' it's quite common nowadays. It'll sort itself out. If I were you I wouldn't  lose any sleep over it.'

.......eh.....okay

It’s a soft day in Manchester; rain falls with a whisper.

Black umbrellas pass like harbingers of doom; a funeral procession for the hope of a cold but clear blue sky. Collars are turned up, and fat necks huddle into the little warmth of hunched shoulders. Black cabs prowl and glassy windows glisten. The grey sky looks up at itself from the puddles in the gutter and I shiver.

My hands are buried so deep in my coat pocket, it would take an archaeologist to find them. They at least are warm, down in the  dark with my loose change, and dinosaur bones.

Everything is grey; everything. The sins of the world may have been washed away, but the sins of my hometown are being slowly dissolved, drop-by-drop, day by rainy day.

Discarded newspapers blow past, paper wings a flutter, a dying flicker of news.

How I hate the cold.

Up ahead, through the drizzle a hooded figure comes toward me. A young man, more of a child, with the coldness of the day sparking the cold flint of his malevolent gaze stares at me as he passes.  With his hood up, there is none of the human intimacy of revealing the skin of your face, the curve of your bone structure. Just the cold look in his eyes.

I turn and watch his saggy arsed swagger. He wears the kind of trousers  that are fashionable these days. The crotch hangs by his knees.

In my day, that meant your incontinent relative had just shat himself.

Perhaps that is why he is so unhappy with life...

How disturbing is this?

I just found out my fly has been open for most of the day; and nobody told me. Apart from the obvious, crotch equivalent, of speaking to somebody with a piece of spinach in your teeth, the disturbing thing about this, is the fact that nobody was disturbed.

This seems obvious; otherwise somebody would have pointed it out to me.

Maybe it’s my age.

I seem to remember a few years back, if my fly was open, it was treated like the cage of the lion enclosure suddenly swinging open. The authorities had to be notified immediately, as if my…eh…lion… okay…cub, was going to escape from the enclosure of my trousers and start chasing virgins down the road until they turned around and slapped it with a shoe.

Now it’s ignored.

I’m appalled. I seem to have become the sexual equivalent of a lady Panda with a migraine.