Olga, Where are you when we need you?

You may remember that yesterday I suggested a new sport for the 2012 Olympics - on/off road dog boarding. Its got a lot of potential but it got me thinking as I perambulated round the lanes this evening.

How hard can modern rhythmic gymnastics really be?

You've seen them. The girl with the ribbon on the end of the stick, the one with the ball. As Tyson and Marauder charged about on their extending leads dashing from one side to the other enticed by a variety of rural scents and equine presents I was performing a merry dance to make sure that they did not get tangled.

And that's when it hit me. Modern Rhythmic Gymnastics is all about years of dedication, intense training, performance enhancing drugs, synthetic hormones to defer sexual maturity and a lot of shouting from a Communist "Woman" who is harder than your Dad.

There's no reaction or spontaneity and there is only one sticky ribbon thingy - give 'em a couple of Staffies on extending leads with a load of rural odours permeating the mats and lets see how bloody artistic they are then.

Anyway, where was I going to?

Yesterday I wittered on about stuff including the Prius and the Vespa so today I thought I'd continue mining that vein.

Before I do that though I need to mention a (or possibly "the") reader who has contacted me directly about members of the Arachnid Special Forces. Apparently she claims to have given several members of this Secret Service blow jobs. Now before you start conjuring up images of Sean Connery reclining with a foxy vixen who is about to switch political allegiances - THINK AGAIN! This heinous individual uses the hoover to eliminate Agents of ASF. I think my stand point on Spy ders is pretty clear - embrace them, name them, encourage them in to your family for, and I'm guessing here, all they do is study us in the way we tend to study other species on planet Earth. Imagine the Spy der Discovery Channel - you could be the subject of "How Other Species Reproduce"

Right - sorry - back to the Prius......

Many, many years ago I used to work for an enlightened employer. Enlightened in the way that an 18 year old with Daddy's Gold Card is enlightened. So when they decided to give me a company car I looked at my month allowance and said "Your Kidding" and logged straight on to the BMW web site. I now work down at Dante's Nine Circles of Hell and, funnily enough, when I looked at my company car allowance I said exactly the same thing and then Googled the performance stats of a Kia Cee'd.

To cut a long story short I eventually decided to take the cash and invest in the Prius. Now the Prius may not be the most economical vehicle on the planet but I justify it to my Green Ideals by pointing out that a new 3 Series is going to have one hell of a carbon footprint when it rolls off the line plus the fact that I frequently work from home thereby avoiding a 40+ mile round trip. At this rate, if I save any more carbon, we'll be in to another Ice Age.

Also, buying a second hand car is recycling. The more I think about this the more the huge amount of snow in January starts to make sense. I'm starting to think that if my personal impact on reducing global warming increases further I will have to have a chat with the Guys in the Lab about recreating the Mammoth as well as the Shetland Giraffe.

So I went and bought myself a used Prius and I love it. Now I'm guessing that these words have never been assembled in that order in a single sentence before. Yep a first in the bad man's journal.

Remember that I have a penchant for aliases and mild irony. It isn't a Prius. After all who would want to drive a car that may accelerate wildly without warning. That's one hell of a User Notice to have engraved across the steering wheel and makes the "objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear" seem a perfectly understandable piece of advice.

My choice of vehicle - I'll leave you to guess. It is immensely practical, it is not conventionally beautiful but it has a certain presence. It could be described as utilitarian and the kids seem to love it...

..... its a Mr Whippy Ice Cream Van.