Yes you've guessed it - the title is a line from that incredibly cheesy Eighties song ('Tears for Fears' have a lot to answer for)!, and if you are anything like me, now it's been remembered, you probably won't be able to get the irritating tune out of your head for at least a week!

It does very, very loosely sum up what I am up to this weekend though. My mate and I are off to see the girl who was the harbinger of the red lollipop I blogged about a couple of posts ago. I want to try and work out if she was just in a flirty mood at the time, or was the implied affection genuine. As birds are notoriously difficult to read at the best of times, this will not be as straight forward as it sounds, so the idea is just to play it by ear.

Anyway that's the plan. The most likely result will probably be just another red lolly pop! Wish me luck.

The signs were not good. One wrong move in a squash game had caused severe pains at the base of my back, which were showing little signs of abating. This was the unwelcome scenario that faced me at the start of this year, and to cut a long storey fairly short, I went to see a chiropractor in my home town of New Malden. She turned out to be pretty good, and the diagnosis was that my problems resulted from compacted discs in the lower spine. The muscles surrounding these vertebrae were tense and not very supple, making them more prone to damage.

So the past few months have been spent trying to correct this and re-balance my back bones, and one of the things I have been advised to do is to change my posture. To this end I have been trying to stand up straighter, whilst keeping my neck lengthened. Simple though it may sound, it is much easier said than done, as it is very easy to lapse back into my bad slumping habits.

One bright spark (not the Chiropractor) told me to place a broom down the back of my shirt, which would effectively force me to stand up straight. Unsurprisingly, this is one peace of advice I will ignore, as it crosses that fine line between sensible, healthy activity and looking like a complete twat!

I know it sounds like a bad seventies song title (if it isn't, it probably should be), but the title of this is all about the significance of the following event:

The other day I was the lucky recipient of a red lollipop! I got this via a mate who said he was told to pass it on to me by a girl who we both know, but not know that well. What I want to know is what does this all mean? As the girl is very attractive I know what I would like it to mean, but from past experience, I also know that I'm a very bad interpreter of human behaviour, especially when it comes to the ladies! What her gift symbolises, if it means anything at all, is completely beyond me. Is it just that she has a surplus of red lollipops that she wanted to get rid of, or is there a deeper meaning in there some where?

What do you think?

Well...I made it there and back!

To be honest, I wasn't really anticipating any problems for my Stockholm trip - the only real concern I had was whether I would ever see my luggage again after trustingly handing it over to the airport staff at Heathrow Terminal 5. As it turned out, the only irritation was the two hour delay on the outbound flight to Arlanda Airport, caused by too much air traffic - Sweden was proving to be a very popular destination! Apart from obtaining the autograph of Tennis legend Bjorn Borg at the Arlanda Luggage Reclaim, the rest of the trip down was without incident, and I was at my hotel at approximately 10:30pm Stockholm time.

I was based in a place called Gamla Stan, an island roughly at the centre of Stockholm. Forming the 'Old Town' of the city, it truly was a lovely place with cobbled roads and medieval looking streets. It also had some great pubs. One I frequented regularly was called 'Stampen’, which had live music every night. Even though it billed itself as a Jazz Pub, a lot of the music played was of the R & B styli played by the likes of Eric Clapton. All of it was good stuff though. The barmaid was also very attractive - she was part of the unusually high proportion of stunning blonde girls that the Swedes have in an endless supply. There seemed to be at least one of them in every cafe or restaurant I was in. At times it seemed unreal!

I didn't spend the whole time eating and drinking though. Getting around was made very easy by something called a Stockholm Card. This was a pass that could be picked up from the Tourist Office for about £40.00, that allowed you free public transport and admission for Museums and events over a period of forty eight hours after the card was first activated. I used it on the tubes and the trams, and I used it to go to a Midsummer’s Festival in a place called Skansen, which is where the picture above was taken. In my travels I quickly recovered the cost of the pass.

The only minor gripe I had was the living costs - with beer and food prices being a little above the level here in London, I found my money went fast - a round of drinks would not get much change from SEK200, or just under twenty pounds. It was the same storey for coffees and meals.

Despite the above whinge - I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. I would love to go again...though I will have to quite a bit of saving first!

If you want to pick up a DVD, CD, or even the odd bit of foodstuff, this place is really hard to beat in terms of venue, especially if you're from my part of SW London:

I find myself making the short drive from New Malden to Kingston-Upon-Thames most Saturday afternoons, and after a whistle stop tour of the stores (I am not a huge fan of shopping), I usually treat myself to a cup of coffee.

Being very much a creature of habit, I tend to stick to the same coffee shop, and for ages frequented a well known coffee vendor in the Bentals Centre. Over time, I got used to the taste and strength of the coffee, but after they employed a barista with a particularly disgusting and repellent manner, decided that it was time for a change.

Switching my custom to a cafe in the Eden Walk Parade turned out to be a good move - the Eastern European ladies that work there are a very pleasant contrast to the Neanderthal twat in the other place, though the coffee turned out to be a bit of a revelation. It's not that it tasted particularly unpleasant, but I found it to be incredibly strong - I was only half way through my Latte when I needed to get a cup of water to help me to finish it! It was only when I enquired at the counter afterwards that I found out that they use two shots of espresso in all of the coffee drinks, but, luckily for me, you can specify for only one to be used.

I am sure there's a moral in there somewhere.

You know it is truly the summer season when this returns:

 BB9 

The mother of all reality shows, Big Brother has been back on our screens for nearly a week. Although in its ninth incarnation, the premise of the show is pretty much the same - a group of contestants compete to stay in the Big brother house for as long as possible. Each week, they battle against the whims of their fellow house mates and the general public to survive being voted off, and the last person left in gets a cash prize of about £50,000.

From what I have heard so far, the prognosis for this series is not good - if the papers and radio talk shows are to be believed, some of the competitors are reputed to be the most obnoxious and irritating to date. The mix this year includes a man with a severe visual disability. Whilst the shows producers will undoubtedly claim that they are raising public awareness of this condition, my uneasy feeling is that his disablement is being exploited for entertainment value.

The above situation highlights why the Big Brother brand is in decline. To survive a reality show this tough you have to be a pretty extreme personality - the contestants picked tend to be a rag bag of misfits and egomaniacs, who when pushed together for twenty four hours will produce some video footage that can be usefully cobbled together into an hours show. This approach has had its successes. In Big Brother 1, the moment when 'Nasty' Nick was exposed as a liar and a cheat by his fellow house mates was riveting telly. The tension and hostility in the house that resulted in the infamous 'fight night' in Big Brother 5 was equally compelling viewing. The problem now is that that the contestants on the show are just too savvy about how the show works, and their over riding ambition is just to be seen on telly to get fame. When you get a collection of such individuals in a room, the end result tends to be more vacuous than entertaining.

If anyone can think of a good reason to tune into Big Brother 9 just let me know...

The count down has begun! In a few weeks time I will be heading north to this place for a few days holiday:

As breaks go, my trip to Stockholm is one that I am particularly looking forward to. I have always been curious about this part of the world, as a land that can boast the genesis of ABBA, Europe (the eighties pop group) and Ikea promises to be completely ecclectic. My knowledge of the place is not extensive though - apart from being able to name it as Swedens capital, that it is comprised of a number of islands, the only other things I can tell you about Stockholm is that it's population is just under 800,000 people, and that loads of blonde women live there. For me it is a place of mystery.

My main concern is the living costs. I remember someone at work saying that Stockholm was on a par with London in terms of things such as the price of eating out, but other rumours suggest that it is close to the £6.00 pounds a pint mark that is apparently typical in Scandanavia. I guess the truth will soon be revealed. Another thing I am trying to find out is what sort of things you can do in Stockholm - if anyone out there knows of interesting places in the town worth seeing, or beer festival type events worth going to, just drop me a line!