Occasionally I wonder if my obsession with the Dark Knight is unhealthy.  And then I remember how good it is and my concern just goes away…

I try to rationalise the situation: why would anyone want my valueless items?, I ask myself.  “These people are opportunists, Caz”, my neurosis responds. “They just take anything they can.  Then they rifle through it in the toilets and if it’s no good to them they just throw it out of the window onto the track.”  Then I imagine my favourite orange woolly hat landing on the rails, on one of those distressing piles of toilet roll and other unpleasant matter that are made when the toilets are flushed (which railway workers call “rat’s banquets” apparently).

And so I have to either sit with my luggage on the floor by my feet so that I can remain in continual physical contact with it or else spend the whole journey periodically leaning into the aisle to make sure that no one is tampering with my rucksack.

So when I read today that of a man who has been convicted of stealing items from the overhead racks of trains in the South East I was very distressed.  Though, reading the details of the case, one of his victims had left over six hundred pounds in cash in their coat and put it on the overhead rack.  This is surely the behaviour of someone with either absolute faith in the honesty of other people or very little common sense.

Also when the thief was finally caught he had £280 pounds in cash between his buttocks.  Clearly his criminal activity had demonstrated to him how easy it is to be robbed and he decided to take the ultimate step to protect his ill-gotten gains – namely shoving it up his bum.  Compared to this man I am the very model of a relaxed train passenger.  At no point have I ever tried to hide my backpack in my pants.

It’s called Kumala Zenith Merlot Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz and it’s currently £3.99 in Somerfield, reduced from £7.99.  There does seem to be an awful lot of grape varieties in there – which, knowing nothing about wine, I would imagine might be a bad sign. But it’s really rather tasty – especially with mature cheeses – and it’s less that a fiver. As my Dad would say “it’s a bloody bargain – get down there!”.

Can that many grape varieties be wrong when it tastes so good?  And is that statement the kind of thing that would cause a wine expert to put their head in their hands is despair.  Not that I care – I’m drinking my wine…

But as a ‘villian in her twilight years’, as Nolan is reported to have described the new Catwoman we can expect a totally different kettle of fish. Presumably Batman won’t fancy her, which will allow a whole new dynamic between male hero and female villain. Or perhaps Batman will have the hots for her – Cher’s sexual magnetism, as evidenced by her music videos, is undeniable. Either way Christopher Nolan is bound to come up with something supernaturally clever once again.

I wonder if he has plans for bringing back Robin…

First up one of the most disappointing wine experiences of my life to date – the experience that inspired the campaign. The culprit: Organic Rosso wine. It cost about seven pounds (I didn’t buy it in person – in fact I acutally gave the person who did buy it (my brother) a tenner and I didn’t get any change back so it actually cost me a ten pounds, which only makes it worse. Though he did get me a King Size Twix and it was drizzling slightly so I feel only slightly screwed over by the deal). Anyway – back to the wine. The wine was brought from Londis. I knew not to trust Londis – something deep in my bones told me that no good would come of its wine. Yet it was late and we were weak and so off to Londis went my brother.

‘Organic’ he said as he came back in, like a hunter from the hunt. ‘Organic’ I said as I opened the first bottle, ‘bound to be good. Organic is good.’ ‘Organic’ we said as we took out first sips. ‘It’s a bit earthy’ said my brother as the strong taste of mud hit us. ‘Definitely quite earthy’ I replied as I took another hopeful sip, getting the flavour of the ground once again. It took a whole two glasses each for us to get up the courage to admit to each other that it was in fact rank. Glumly we looked at the second bottle. ‘Perhaps there’s a defect in this bottle’ ventured my brother. ‘Perhaps we should just take the second bottle back and get a refund.’ I suggested. But we bravely opened up Number Two and found that it, too, was rank.

Conclusion: bad wine.

NB: A quick Google search informs me that there are various kinds of Organic Rosso wine available, including one from Waitrose. To ensure I don’t defame an innocent wine I have included an image of the bottle we tasted.

Cavity Sam from the game Operation, ready for me to stick my tweezers into his cavities

Like pretty much everyone else in the Western world I played the game Operation as a child.  I never played it for very long because it immediately induced an almost psychotic level of rage in me as I pinched at the edges of the tiny plastic shapes with my inadequate electrified tweezers.  I could never see what the point of it was, either.  ‘To have fun’ people would say – but I never found it fun.  Yet today I saw the point of it. As I attempted to pick first an egg cup and then a pen out of my sisters ‘Insinkerator’ waste disposal unit using a breadknife and an up-ended spatula as a makeshift tweezing device suddenly it all made sense.  And just like the old days it put me into a rage so powerful that I had to warn the other people in the kitchen to keep away from me for fear I might turn and stab them in the heart with the handle of a spatula.  It was as if one circle of my life had completed.  I now await the situation in which being able to remove straws from a plastic column without dislodging a pile of plastic monkeys is of any use.

Then I put on a lot of eyeliner and hit the pubs of Brighton.  I ended up in the Funky Fish, which people had warned me was ‘like a wedding reception’ and indeed it was.  There was a man in suit who flapped open the front of his jacket to reveal the silky lining each time the DJ dropped the chorous of ‘Jungle Boogie’.  And in a weird way it was oddly alluring.