The North East doesn't equal Newcastle, Squeaking Pigs, Ridicule and Rubbish...

Every so often a moment occurs in your life which reduces you to a traumatised wreck who speaks in tongues and makes you demand that the earth should swallow you up so you don't have to live in such pure pain or misery...

That happened to me yesterday.

I don't like to exaggerate (well maybe...) but I played a game yesterday at a themed 'kids' party for Sarah Walton's (2nd mention in the past week, she's doing well) 21st birthday. The game was called 'Squeak Piggy Squeak' and my general indifference towards the game was only increased by the fact that out of the 12 people attending the shindig, only one person had heard of it before.

The gist of the game is as follows:

• Someone sits blindfolded on an office chair and is turned around several times.
• The other players stand around the chair in a circle and if the chair stops facing one player, they must sit on the blindfolded person's knee and make a noise that resembles a farmyard animal.
• From that noise and the person sitting on them alone, the blindfolded player must guess who the person is sat on their knee.

Yes...I know what you're thinking. You're thinking 'what a pile of shit'. However, if you're good at guessing people from just the farmyard animal noise they're making, this is the game for you. For me though, it was almost the equal of being tied up by my genitals in Abu Ghraib.

I couldn't guess anyone or anything. I had absolutely no idea who was straddling me shouting 'brrr brrr' like a horse or anything. A part of my soul died a death last night due to this game and thus it has taught me one simple rule I will remember for the rest of my life: I will never wear a blindfold ever again...ever.

Apart from that, though the party was great.

In other news, I defended my place of birth twice at the weekend. At work, a couple of customers I served noticed my accent and that I wasn't 'from around here'. They then asked where I did come from and I answered, because its true, 'Darlington in the North East'.

On both occasions the customers replied 'oh Newcastle then'. No no no no no no no. Today I've checked an AA routeplanner and found that Darlington is about 35 miles away from Newcastle.

This means I'm not from Newcastle in the slightest. As I knew this yesterday, I replied 'well I wouldn't say I was from Newcastle because I support Middlesbrough'. To which people laughed and obviously thought the thick Northerner was being funny.

I wasn't being funny, I was being pedantic. I was being pedantic because I was right and they were wrong. How offensive! I hope they both never darken my checkout aisle again.

Also, I got a note stapled to my clock-in card at work yesterday. Apparently everyone in the store is being 'retrained' in 'waste disposal' as our work in this area is not to the high standard it should be.

Two things arise here which bother me somewhat. First of all, a high standard? It's putting the fucking bins out! How hard can it be? Surely the process is simply pick up bin bag, carry bin bag to bin and put it in the bin. Have I missed some government legislation which means we have stroke the bag for twenty minutes before we put it in the bin or something?

Secondly, the use in the letter of the term 'retrained' suggests that we have all been trained how to carry out this duty in our store. Since I've been with my lovely employers, no one's told me how my supervisor expects me to put the rubbish out. I just presumed you put it in the bin but then again, maybe I'm being naive of the paramount importance of correct waste disposal in the running of a supermarket. Damn me.

One last note, the Boro continued their climb up the Premiership table with a much-needed win against West Brom. Jimmy continues to be shit-hot while the defence is still being water-tight. Glasses of homemade lemonade all round then! Huzzah!

Adieu.