Just a really great website

POLICE were last night investigating the murder of a British spy whose decomposing body lay for two weeks stuffed inside a large sports holdall in the bath of a smart London flat

This has me gripped, unsure if we'll ever 'know' what happened though.

Bit morbid.

Most sites would do '10 things to do on holiday' or '10 best places to dine out in London'. Maverick.

Movies make smoking look cool - I think that's fair to say.

I've often wondered how cool I'd look if I smoked, but then again I can safely conclude that I don't look like Sean Connery in a tuxedo, and never have the essential accompanying music or script to bolster my presence in a room. Also, you rarely see James Bond having to step outside of a Monte Carlo casino when sparking up, just to adhere to a smoking ban.

Smoking has never really bothered me, although the last few days have really caused problems for me. Last night I not only got a nasty piece of wayward ash in my eye in Borough's Brewer's Wharf, but after a birthday party in Battersea I had to break up a night bus queue fight when an overenthusiastic gentleman kept jokingly asking me for a cigarette, and an irritable bystander told him to stop annoying me. Although mildly annoying having to fake a laugh every 2-3 minutes, it wasn't really causing me any problems. If anything, from my experiences of night buses it's best to keep things as jovial and light-hearted as possible as relations can briskly take a turn for the worse. This instance was no different. I've never, sadly, had to break up a fight over me though - as in, a fight between two parties looking out for my best interests. I can confirm that at 2.31am on Clapham High Street, this was a life first.

So that, combined with having to run through everyone lighting up outside Victoria station before work, standing on enclosed terraces that sail close to the legal wind making sure my clothes absorb absolutely all of the 2nd hand smoke floating around and the majority of girls who smoke also have tattoos and zero life prospects, means I don't think I'd miss it at all.

Perhaps we should confine smoking to the old movies that capture its cool, and don't let it be ruined by the reality in its ever polluting role of what you want your life to be like.

Tomorrow is the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. I know this because in a surge of jingoism they've put a Spitfire outside my office (I'm not joking). Anyway, worth noting with a stirring Churchill speech...

@itsbadtaste

Esquire have launched a new twitter account called It's Bad Taste. People tweet in suggestions. You get the idea...some favourites below:

Using the word 'ciao' if you are not Italian. Mings

The word 'flex', when used instead of 'wire' or 'lead'

Slip-on trainers by Lonsdale

Cut and shut girls' names - like Charlisa or Leandra

Having your own tankard in the pub

Speaking into your mobile phone as though you are blowing onto a spoonful of hot soup. Put it to your ear, fool

Holding your cutlery like a pen. Seriously? Eat in private, or learn to eat with a pen. You choose.

Shoes from Base. Have a word with yourself

Kipling luggage. Save face and leave it on the carousel at the airport.

A box of tissues on the parcel shelf of your car. I want a lift, not a wank

Men wearing watches inset into extra wide leather straps. Cocks.

Toby Young may not be to everyone's taste, but this project is pretty interesting (if you're at all interested in education).

If I was to be mad enough to raise a grizzly bear from birth, I'd start to keep my distance when it got bigger than me, which would probably be a few years after my friends would start keeping their distance from the both of us.

So, considering these animals have a track record of a wild five minutes of betrayal resulting in their master's deaths, what would you want to call him? Well, this guy's gone with Brutus, because obviously that name hasn't got a track record...

Have I caught the running bug?

People always say there's a running bug, once you've started out you won't want to stop. I'm wondering whether I've caught the bug or not considering some of the ludicrous effort and pain I'm going through, most of the time just to get to work.

I've never been a natural runner, I have stumpish short legs and broad shoulders. Never been wirey and never had the discipline to train for the sake of training. Does that mean I'm immune to this bug that people talk about? It's true that when I started 'running' (the snobbish definition of which aggrandizes as my distances increase), I seriously struggled to push myself further than 2 miles or so. Now I can run at least four times that length - I would say comfortably, but in truth any run over 5 miles is uncomfortable. It makes me think the sense of achievement is what fuels people. Essentially, there is nowhere to hide when running, nobody to beat but yourself. You quit, and you quit on yourself, you complete and you're left breathless at the finish with only yourself to thank - fulfillments desolate attic.

This is no sport for those in search of celebrity or admiration, there is no crowd, no applause.

I'd never been a believer in those who say that post-gym feeling is better than any artificial drug. I always used to find going to the gym so dull, and those who are obsessed with working out, a bit odd. I still do to be honest. However, the feeling of being totally exhausted and recovering is amazing. The sensation of my legs aching all day is bitter sweet (chaffed nipples are just bitter). I love it.

The ultimate test will be whether I continue my running after the Great North Run in September, which will be my first half marathon. I'm already eyeing the Bath Half in March as my next, which answers that question. Perhaps it's a sense of losing something gained, as in health and fitness. I just have to weigh up if the stinging nipples, blistered feet and aching knees are worth it, although I think they probably are.

Awkward Family photos

I'm having a slightly unhealthy obsession the Awkward Family Photos website at the moment, I've been reduced to tears by a few;

"Too many tweets makes a twat" - David Cameron

I've started using Twitter again. I'm not going to go into detail as to why I stopped, but it's the same reason one evening virtually my whole blog had to be deleted until it was 'clean'.

I'm not really sure about the true merits of Twitter and how powerful it can be, but it's quite fun and more often than not is good for comic one-lines (something Keith '@thekeithchegwin' Chegwin knows a fair bit about).

Something I've not got the hang of, is the tagging/hashing that occurs and can develop a 'trend', although one of my favoured pastimes is to create the most comic ones...purely for my own entertainment. Sad I know.

Anyway, just to make this post of some use to the already pitied reader, if you're on a Mac you can get the hash key by holding Alt and tapping 3. I didn't know that and had to google it. #Happyhashing