That was the state of Leatherhead, the town of my workplace, yesterday afternoon.

 River Mole, Leatherhead

The rain had been going strong all day, and as it was showing no signs of abating, I decided to bite the bullet at around two pm - it was time make the twenty minute or so walk into Leatherhead town centre and brave the rain. For me this is a vital part of my day. As well as its constitutional value, the daily trek to the town centre ends at a cafe, where I have been enjoying a welcome coffee for quite a while.

Torrential rain is a bit of a leveller when it comes to the status of umbrella ownership, and as I left the confines of the office building I remembered that I had just lost mine the previous Saturday. As I hurried across the business parks and down the railway cutting, it was small comfort to see I was not the only thing getting a soaking - surface water was building up very quickly on the roads and paths. As I passed under the railway bridge I had to take a few strategic detours to avoid the jet streams of water that were being churned out of flooded drains, turning a large part of a nearby park into a swamp.

The warmth of the cafe was a vast improvement to the aquatic conditions outside, and the very pleasant lady who is the owner informed me that other parts of the town were much worse affected - a friend of hers had parked near a bridge over the River Mole, which passes right through Leatherhead. The Mole tends to break its banks at any sign of heavy rain, and the water had spilled into the car park she was using - apparently she could see ducks and swans passing by her car window!

I was sort of hoping that this flooding would extend up to the A3 motorway, as it would make my journey home a lot more entertaining!

This post is a departure from the stuff I usually ramble on about, as it represents my first foray into the murky world of political analysis.

 Which one?

Watching the progress of the American US election as it unfolded on the TV, it occurred to me that John McCain's campaign has an inbuilt advantage over Barack Obama's. This has absolutely nothing to do with policies, race, political party, even his choice of running mate - it is even simpler than that, and it works on a more subliminal level with the electorate.

It basically is all in the name. When you think of the word McCain, what are the first ideas that come into your mind? I would hazard a guess that the thought associations conjured up are to do with that legendry Italian dish that can have all manner of delicious toppings such as Four Seasons, Pepperoni, and Sloppy Giuseppe, that takes the Republican nominees name for its brand.

Let’s face it, people can have very different views when it comes to their opinion on the economy and foreign policy, but everybody loves Pizza!

It doesn't take Carol Vorderman to find the answer to the question that will be winging it's way very shortly towards you.

 Not bovvered!

In fact, I don't think this scenario would ever make it onto 'Countdown'! It certainly is an interesting philosophical proposition though, which is as follows:

What do you call an unstoppable natural force that, once started, leaves a trail of ruin and devastation in its wake?

The answer is simple - it is my reaction to drinking a much loved liquor that we will call 'Baileys'. I had better say now that this stems from a very  unfortunate teenage experience where I ended up drinking way to much of the stuff, and without going into too much detail, the end result involved puking that makes those legendry scenes on 'The Exorcist' look like a walk in the park! To cut a long storey short I found this youthful misadventure highly traumatic, and to this day I have never been able to drink it again for fear of provoking that powerful, involuntary gut reflex that wrecked such havoc so many years ago.

These memories were once more bought into sharp focus when a friend of a friend suggested going to see a band at a bar in Surbiton, which takes place towards the latter part of next week. She had some free tickets, so I agreed to go along, but there are a couple of things that I am not altogether too enamoured about. The first is something that has always been a bug bear of mine - this bar is apparently a bit 'upmarket', and experience has shown that the type of clientele that this image panders to tend to fall under the generic term of 'Dick Head'. The second is a much more real and present danger - this place specialises in cocktails, and many cocktails use as a base....yes you've guessed it...Baileys!

Now since there is a good chance of some of the cocktails being given for free, and since precious little else may be on offer to drink, the statistical probability of me consuming some Bailys is quite high, which means in turn that the potential for projectile vomit type disaster is definitely on the cards! 

From what I can see, my options are as follows:

1) Refuse to drink anything offered, which looks stupid, childish and churlish.

2) Wear some vomit coloured cloths to try and blend in.

Since the bar has already been newly refurbished, I don't think the owners would really appreciate some personal pebble dashing either. If you hear about a tsunami in the Surbiton area you'll know what happened!

The soreness in my arms and legs, the twinges in my lower back were all telling me one thing - it was time to go home.

The Squash Round Robin had indeed taken it's toll - the evening (which I helped to organise) had gone well as over ten people had turned up, but the double edge to this was that I spent loads of time on the squash courts, so I guess the resultant aches and pains meant that I was a victim of my own success.

A simple, but cunning plan for the rest of the evening had formed in my mind as I walked back to my car. The idea was just to crash out in front of the TV - to watch 'News Night' with a couple of beers, so with renewed purpose, I fired up the Rovers engine into life, and made a bee line towards New Malden. I was just approaching the Fountain Roundabout when I discovered a slight flaw in my master plan - I was completely out of beer! An emergency code red situation if there ever was one. It was time for plan B - I took the second exit on the roundabout and headed up Burlington Road. It was a case of destination Tescos.

One handy thing about Tescos, New Malden is that it literally stays open all night Monday to Friday. I have heard a few tales about late night shopping. According to legend, it is the retail equivalent of the night buses - all of the worlds nutters get an urge to suddenly unite in one great loony convention. There was no evidence of anything unusual afoot that night as I walked the aisles, basket in hand. At 9.25 pm, it was probably just a bit too early for them.

 food of the gods

I followed my pre-programmed path to the aisle in the beer section, and just as I loaded my basket with two four packs of beer, a flash of colour on a display at the far end of the store caught my eye. It turned out to be...crisps. Suddenly feeling hungry, I investigated some other nearby aisles. Two tubes of Pringles were added to my basket. As I walked back down the store back towards the checkout I saw a palette holding Pot Noodles. It had been months since I last had one of those....three more additions were made to my shopping basket, which was now feeling heavy as I continued to scour the shelves on a brand new quest for Mini Rolls. I looked at my watch - it was 10pm! Common sense finally kicked in - I abandoned the search and went straight over to the tills.

By the time I got home I really needed one of those pints!

This weekend, my social plans for Saturday were dealt a near fatal blow. The traditional crawl of the pubs on the Broadway in Wimbledon was cruelly put paid to by a plague of flu - all my mates went down with it, leaving me left with nothing to do and no where to go. As is usually the case when this scenario occurs, a last minute cinema trip was rapidly improvised, so once more I found myself bound for the Rotunda in Kingston upon Thames, though this time it was to see this film:

On purchasing my ticket, I found I had a few minutes to spare before the start of the film, so I decided to have a swift pint in one of the bars in the Rotunda complex. Not really being an aficionado of solo drinking, I was sort of banking on no one being around who would recognise me, as from an image point of view, being on your own on a Saturday night does look kind of sad. Needless to say, on entering the pub, I immediately saw a girl who I know by sight from a pub in Surbiton, who happened to be with several friends. She smiled, and we exchanged greetings as I passed her on my way to the bar, feeling like a bit of a loser.

After a much needed pint, I headed off to the Odeon lobby to find the screen showing 'Tropic Thunder'. I was in the queue for the obligatory ticket check when I heard my name being called. I turned to see a guy I know from a pub where I play pool. He was there with his girlfriend seeing a film called 'Death Race', which struck me as not the most romantic of films to see on a date.

'On your own then?'

His question was obviously meant kindly, but I felt that old paranoid feeling of all eyes upon me as I nodded in agreement.

The rest of the evening went without incident, and the film turned out to be really funny and entertaining, which made up in part for the slight discomfort earlier. I didn't realise before that my life was so compartmentalised!

I can't really claim that my most recent obsession is particularly new - in fact I am pretty late on the scene compared to everyone else, as this has been around for a few years now:

When YouTube originally burst onto the scene I tended to give it a wide birth, as I thought that the need to spend hour upon hour trawling through other peoples cobbled together video footage demonstrated a very severe need to get out more, but one night I eventually succumbed to it's charms. I am sure you all know the scenario - late one Saturday night I returned from the pub where lot's of K T Tunstall's stuff was played on the duke box. At the time she had just bought out the 'Drastic Fantastic' album, and being a bit of a fan, I googled one of its tracks, called 'Hold On’ on the PC. One of the links returned led to the YouTube site where the video was featured, which in turn led to other YouTube sites...and so on. I was firmly caught in the virtual video loop.

Having an enquiring mind, there is always the potential to spend hours on the site. The bulk of the time is spent looking into shamelessly retro stuff. Music videos featuring the red headed 1980's temptress Carol Decker (of Tau'Pau fame), the opening credits of the 'Banana Splits' show, the rather cheesy sounding theme to the childrens TV series 'The Flashing Blade' - all are out there on YouTube somewhere in the ether. Going off at tangents is very easy - one song reminds you of others, which in turn causes more memories to unravel. I remember one site showing a video of Terry Wogan doing a very tongue in cheek rendition of 'The Floral Dance', so the end result can be pretty questionable!

 Carol decker...out there

As well as old pulp TV shows and ancient pop songs, places are also featured on YouTube. I was surprised that there were so many entries for New Malden, which lets face it, is not the most happening of places. Items covered are shots of the flooding under the railway bridge, footage of the high street, and there are many little vignettes from the proud residents, including a video of three New Maldenites whistling. This bought home how much people want their fifteen minutes of fame, and if you think about it, with all the videos published on YouTube, literally anyone could be on there with out their knowledge or consent. The ultimate YouTube experience would be to unexpectedly discover a site which includes footage of yourself! So far it hasn't happened to me yet but I think it is only a matter of time...

On a recent weekend evening I was walking back to my car after a trip to that shop in New Malden formerly known as Threshers (I know it has changed hands but I can never remember the new name), and as I gripped my recently purchased bottle of wine, it has to be said I was feeling more than a bit of trepidation. A friend of mine had invited me to her birthday/house warming party, and since I only knew her and another mate who was going along, the potential was there for a fairly awkward evening.

As it turned out my fears proved to be totally unfounded. The people who turned up proved to be really nice, and after a couple of drinks against the background of some scarily 80's music from the stereo, I began to feel more relaxed.

One of the other guests seemed to have a pretty interesting job - her role involved practising hypno-therapy, or in other words, she hypnotised people. This reminded me of an event that happened many years ago at university, when I went to see a Hypnotist do a stage show in the Student Union bar. The hypnotist lined up some willing victims on the stage, and he seemed to use his hypnotic powers to great effect - one person seemed convinced that his legs had disappeared, another one was under the impression that he was a chicken and was waddling around the stage clucking loudly - what would have happened if he had been instructed to lay eggs was anyone’s guess! Other people were suddenly unable to say certain words...and so on. Whilst finding this all pretty funny, I wasn't too sure about how genuine the hypnotic powers of the compare were.

 You are feeling sleepy...

From what this lady told me, it looks as if the hypnotist from my college days may have been genuine. It is apparently very easy to hypnotise people, and you can forget all the guff about having to look into the hypnotist's eyes, or focusing on the movements of a swinging antique watch, it can be done in literally seconds! To be successful, the receiver must be willing to accept the instructions of the hypnotist,otherwise it won’t take affect at all. Certain personality types are more susceptible to it than others.

I was hoping that she could use her powers to help improve my Squash playing, but she said that quite a bit of background knowledge of my case would be needed before she could try the hypno-therapy. It was a bit of the shame, but the rest of the evening went quickly enough. Perhaps she is better at her job than she thinks.