Charles Nevin: Things to worry about after your rest

Start The Week: Some believe that Life is being written by an inspired but malevolent scriptwriter combining the talents of William Brown, Jonathan Swift, Lady Gaga, Stuey from Family Guy, Max Clifford and Edgar Allan Po

Monday 10 January 2011 01:00 GMT
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Happy Monday. A lot about how to cheer up, presently. But what you need after a relaxing weekend is an alarm call from Reality Central, not elusive comfort. So here are some more things to worry about as well as all these birds and fish struck suddenly dead in America as a result of a UFO strike, a military death ray, or the beginning of the End. 1. What was that scratching/dripping/cackling noise in the middle of the night? 2. Has that poor man who played Nigel Pargetter got any work? 3. What's for supper? 4. Alan Titchmarsh is being lined up for Strictly. 5. Your immediate superior was definitely a bit odd on Friday, I thought, very quiet. 6. Is George Osborne getting enough time off? 7. Foxes are growingly steadily bigger, and at current rates will be the size of Denman by Easter. 8. What is the transfer window? 9. Are you "on a journey", or haven't you started yet? 10. What was in that cake you ate yesterday?

Some believe that Life is being written by an inspired but malevolent scriptwriter combining the talents of William Brown, Jonathan Swift, Lady Gaga, Stuey from Family Guy, Max Clifford and Edgar Allan Poe. Take the case of Tony Alleyne, 57, of Hinckley, Leics, for example. Tony has converted his flat into a replica of the Starship Voyager from Star Trek, as you boldly do. Lately, it has been underattack from a mysterious fungus. Now he has discovered that this has been caused by the humidity from the flat converted to a cannabis farm below. All it requires is the flat above to be occupied by a disgraced former MP manufacturing lethal injections. Meanwhile, what a quote, re the fungus, from Tony: "It was in the bathroom and the transporter. It was a nightmare."

Vegetables: part of an occasional series to keep you up to speed on various sectors. First, tomatoes contain an antioxidant that can cut the risk of sunburn. Which is odd, given what one resembles, when sunburnt. Second, did you know that vegetables do not attract VAT unless they are grown for ornamental reasons? Third, if you threaded every frozen pea produced each year in the UK on to a piece of string you would need 3.9 million kms of string, which would stretch from the Earth to the Moon and back more than five times. Happy Monday.

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