A few years ago, a friend of mine showed me how all traffic lights have a tiny revolving cone under the control panel to aid people who have a hearing and sight impairment. Did you know this? It’s certainly a golden moment when we chance upon something that has existed for years just beyond the boundaries of our knowledge. Did you know that all biro pens have an air hole in the tube and in the pen top in case a child swallows it?

Until recently, I didn’t know that you can record your voice on a mobile phone. Well, how about this one then – a zipper that locks. I mean actually locks like a key so that if you’re fat and bend over (ahm… like a friend of mine) your gut doesn’t hang through the fly like a donut in a ripped bag. When trying on a pair of jeans, I demonstrated to the sales assistant how when I bend over the zipper comes undone all on its own. Err …I mean my friend did and I was with him. She was a big fat bird herself and could obviously relate to my situation, so she stretched out a chubby paw, yanked the zip up to the top teeth and pressed the zip down – whereby it locked into place.

DT

Toilet paper illustrators should have more fun. For one, they have a niche little corner of the market to play around with yet spend their time working on Christmas trees or cute little animal designs to print on toilet paper. Get an image of a puppy dog, and then cover it in shit. Not so cute after all, eh? I propose printing little tongues or noses, indented and poised to lick and sniff. Why not have a sense of humour about it? Ask anyone what illustrations they have on their toilet roll and you’d likely score a blank – which is a good thing, coz if you’re shopping specifically for toilet paper illustrations then your life is over.

DT

If this isn’t illegal it probably should be, yet we all do it. You get in the car with your duffel coat on and the six layers underneath to keep out the winter cold. You blast the heater and then overheat by the time you’ve made it to the first set of traffic lights. Now, here’s the dilemma plain and simple. You gotta get that damn coat off but you don’t have  time to take the seatbelt off, remove the coat and put the seatbelt back on again before the line of cars behind you start sounding their horn. What do you do? You do it whilst your driving AND whilst you’re wearing the seatbelt! And do we think of pulling over to take it off safely – never crossed my mind officer!

DT

Every once in a while I adopt a completely different laugh for a day, and then when I wake up the following morning it’s gone never to be seen again. It’s as much of a shock to me as anyone who I happen to be with: ‘dude, what’s with that laugh?’

It only happens about once a year and there are no warning signs either. The last time it happened was in a bar earlier in the week when one of my friends was recounting a very funny anecdote. Out came this little girlie chuckle from my mouth to the amazement of everyone including me. Even my body starting moving around in odd jerks to the chorus of this high-pitched pig-tailed version of my once baritone road digger of a laugh. It felt like someone else is laughing inside of me. If I’ve got someone else’s laugh then that person is undoubtedly being stared at by friends in a bar somewhere as my guffaw makes it debut. It’s like wife swap.

DT

There’s a book called ‘Highlights in the History of Concrete,’ that has sold enough copies for it to still be in print. Who on earth is buying this book?

I like the idea of writing a serious factual book on a subject so utterly disinteresting to everyone that it actually becomes interesting for this very reason. It’s reverse psychology, like people who wear clothes that are so out of fashion they are actually in fashion. I am currently undertaking research for three books which I hope to enter into a new bookshelf category at Waterstones bookstore called - Disinterested Awareness:

Large Candles – The Facts.

How to Comb Blond Hair with Your Fingers.

The North Atlantic Manual of Paper Cuts 2009.

DT

The Hard Rock café I was eating in today had a pink Cadillac suspended from the roof directly above me. There’s surely no way it could fall, but I still couldn’t enjoy my curly fries for fear of it landing on my head. I then made myself laugh at the thought of my own obituary – ‘hit by a pink Cadillac whilst eating curly fries.”

When you think of all the freak accidents that happen every day, there’s an administration clerk at the registry of births, deaths and marriages that has to record them onto death certificates. The term ‘death by misadventure’ is very appropriate to me being squashed by a Cadillac with curly fries poking out of my broken skull.  

DT

The emphasis is on “look” gay as opposed to being gay, or even acting gay.

I am an espresso-drinking straight man who happened to catch a reflected glimpse of myself today in a café. My entire frame is wrapped around a tiny little cup, and unless I tape in the little finger to a bigger one it involuntarily sticks out and makes me look gay. My clothes are too crap to be an aristocrat or a gay man, so at best I can pass myself off as metro sexual.

The general rule is the bigger the bloke, and the further away from Paris he happens to be sipping an expression – the gayer he looks. Gay men and theatre directors should be the only men drinking espresso in the UK.

DT