THE BUFFY

Vampires aren’t very excitable, are they? They breeze through unlife, generally trying to avoid the shocks. So many things can hurt vampires - your garlic, your stake through the heart, your beheading and sunlight - but they overcompensate by not having fun with anything much.

I think the problem isn't the vampires, I think it's the phraseology of fun. It kind of excludes vampires.

When advertisers talk about a new rollercoaster they call it "a white knuckle ride". What's white knuckles to a vampire? He's already pale, he's not going to notice the white knuckles, really, he's not.

"This'll get your blood pumping!" we're told when something is guaranteed, shoo-in excitement. Vampires don't get so much of the blood pumping. The only blood pumping they're interested in is the blood of their victims.

This is why it's so tough being friends with a vampire. I mean, how would you get your pal excited about stuff? That's why Count Dracula's only friend was Zoltan, his faithful dog. He must be cross about that.

No, wait... Note to self: vampires also not so good with the crosses...

THE HANDLEBAR

Just between you and me, do you think the gears on a bicycle actually do anything?

Nobody really knows what they're there for, I'm thinking. You're going up a steep hill - sure, change gear. You're going down a steep hill - what the hell, change gear. You're carrying a heavy load - are you a crazy mixed up fool? - you obviously need a lower gear.

No, seriously. No one knows.

Thirty years ago I don't think bikes even had gears. When you see those old bicycles in museums, they don't have gears, do they? There's no gears on the penny farthing or the old bone shaker. (Okay, in context, there's also no suspension and no rubber tyres on those old bikes, but even so, my point still stands.)

And there's no uniformity to the gear change on a bicycle like there is with a car. On one you might get to twist the left or right handlebar, click it round until you reach the gear of choice. On another bike, it's a little lever off to the side, next to the bell. Sometimes it's been inconveniently placed somewhere along the crossbar, so you end up having to reach down somewhere around your groin while travelling at high speed - that's never a comfortable operation, is it?

But, honestly - do you think the gears are doing anything? Maybe if you're riding in the Tour de France there might be some relevance to the various gears on offer, but for the vast majority of people, well... we're really just using the bike to get to the station or bus stop so we can start to use a vehicle that has a clearly defined purpose for the use of gears. Two wheels, two pedals and a bit of control of direction - that's bike enough for everyone. If we want to go faster while expending less energy we'll just choose a road that's going downhill.

THE WORLD CUP

A frequent jibe levelled at the Americans is that, when it comes to naming their domestic sports they bandy around the term "World" with gay abandon. They call their baseball the "World Series", wrestling is the "World Wrestling Federation", that kind of thing.

Can I just point out that the World Cup, that bastion of international mingling through sport, does not technically feature the world? As far as I can tell, they just have the eleven men from each country, maybe a couple of substitutes and a coach. Are there very many nations with only the eleven men in them? How many countries have proportionately no women whatsoever? Is this really a genuine World Cup or is it just an "Eleven-a-side Cup"? There's a miniscule amount of each nation playing, you could put the teams into a fairly tiny space - what we have here is the World Cup-a-Soup.

So, let's all just lay off the belittling of the American naming traditions, lest the abyss stares at us, shall we?

Now, if they painted the football to look like the globe, then you'd be onto something....

THE UNOBVIOUS DIFFERENCE

Are chalk and cheese actually so very different? I mean, where did that phrase originate? They're as different as chalk and cheese.

Chalk is a pasty-looking solid which crumbles under a little pressure. Cheese, similarly, is a pasty-looking solid which crumbles under a little pressure. It's really the writing on blackboards angle that chalk has to differentiate itself from brer cheese. Cheese, by contrast, is nothing without some toast or dry biscuits.

If you put chalk on a pizza instead of mozzarella you'd notice the difference, that I grant you.

If you tried to mark out a hopscotch grid with a piece of edam you'd wonder where you were going wrong until you realised it wasn't a piece of yellow chalk in a handy red plastic wrapper that you were using there.

But, for the most part, they're pretty similar objects. If you get some pale cheese, or some yellow-coloured chalk, you'd have a tough time discerning them from a distance. So, who came up with the chalk and cheese differential? Was that one of those things you say without really thinking?

"So, what do you think of our chances against a Martian invasion, Mr Wells?"

"It's hard to tell. Why, we're as different as... chalk and... cheese."

"As different as...? What was that?"

"Chalk. Cheese. It's a phrase. Everyone uses it. Really, they do."

"Naaaahhh. You just made that up."

"Did not."

"Did, too."

Now, happy as a gypsy. That's a phrase, my friends.

THE SIGNAGE

"Not drinking water" is one of the most terrifying signs to see on a bathroom wall. It's one of those odd signs they put up in workplace toilets over the sink, sometimes you see it in places like airports or train stations.

It's not a sign that fills me with confidence, I have to tell you. I mean, here we have water that is unfit for human consumption, but it's still considered clean enough to wash my hands with it?! You know, these are my hands! They're attached to my body. I pick up stuff with these things, all day long. I handle my food with these paws, for goodness sake. But it's okay to put this sick, disease-ridden water that shouldn't go anywhere near my mouth all over them to clean them? That counts as clean, does it?

There has to be something off in that deal.

However, you never see the reverse sign on Evian bottles and water cooler labels, do you? It never reads "Not washing water" on your bottle of Perrier.

Are they trying to tell me that water doesn't run both ways?

THE TEACH TV

Educational television has the best titles. No matter how dull the subject, they give it a really snappy title.

Zig Zag - You're zigging, you're zagging, it's very extreme sports because it's physical geography.

English Express - it's an express train ride through the rules of grammar. All aboard!

Why don't they name school classes like this?

Forget that lesson in History - let's call it Time Layering.

Physical Education? Climb Time.

Religious Studies? God Box.

I tell you, you give these classes names like that and the kids will come running. The truancy figures will fall right down, sub zero.

THE PROCESS

I always feel safe in the hands of processed cheese. It's tough not to. Processed cheese is, by definition, cheese that has gone through the process.

Now, I don't know what that process is, but I've got to tell you it makes me feel safe knowing that this cheese has encountered that process, negotiated it and passed with flying colours. Don't fool yourself into thinking that all cheese is capable of that. It's only the really good cheese that can survive that process. What you have, when you have processed cheese, is a survivor. A master strategist among cheeses. Top of his cheese class. Ruthless? Perhaps. Effective? Always. Processed cheese is the James Bond of cheese.

That little cellophane wrapper they put the slice of processed cheese in - that there is my guarantee it went through the process, beginning to end. It's like the graduation certificate for the cheese degree. It's a doctorate in dairy. It comes through the process - pop - they vacuum seal it to make sure no one can tamper with the modifications they've provided in the process.

But, sometimes, late at night when I'm all alone, I shed a tear, my friend, for all the cheese that didn't survive the process.

THE LAUGHING GOAT

Stop with the crazy smileys now, please.

It made some vague sense when people were adding a colon and bracket :) to their e-mails. That was cute. Kind of irritating and pointless, but - okay - cute.

But somebody came along and started making it official. When someone types :) they can actually draw a smiley icon in its place now. It's some automatic, "Microsoft attacks" thing. You see it all the time on message boards and instant messenger.

But they couldn't leave it at that, could they? No, then they decided to go a little further.

Let's have the red faced angry guy. Grrr! I'm angry. I'm so angry all the blood has rushed to my head. Can you see? Can you see how angry this has made me? Look - red! Very. Angry. Angry as Elmo from Sesame Street, that's how freakin' red my face has become.

And what is with the animated smileys? The thumbs up. The rolling eyes. Here's some chap holding his breath for a while before he starts laughing at you. He knew it would be funny, so he prepared the animation for when he got the joke.

Look, this guy's spinning his head. His head is literally rolling back and forth at the bottom of the paragraph. I don't even think that is an emotion. If your head starts rolling back and forth across the floor, you don't need a message board - what you need is Accident and Emergency.

What say we all back away now. Let's just leave the smiling to the trained, professional harlequins, okay?

THE HYBRID FREAK

There is almost too much lip-smacking appeal to the word "banoffee". It's irresistible. When someone says "banoffee" in any context you can immediately taste what that's going to be like.

Banoffee is, of course, the combination of banana and toffee. Hence, banoffee pie, banoffee chewy sweets, banoffee milk drink (which I heartily endorse, incidentally).

When they melded banana and toffee together in that strange alchemical process, it's almost like they got the two words trapped as well.

"Banana-toffee. Banoffee!"

It's like some weird, Siamese twin, hybrid of a word, the two things still complete enough to have their distinct personalities despite the melding of their facets. Implicit in "banoffee" is the idea that these two ingredients could still live separately. We can make them out, they're almost complete. "Nurse, get me an 'Ana' transplant and an artificial 'T' - I'll get these kids living a normal life like the other ingredients."

I think you could add "-offee" to any word or phrase and it would become endearing.

Racism and toffee - Racoffee!

Death Row and toffee - Deaoffee!

Dog food and toffee - Dogoffee!

Suddenly all those things sound appetising, don't they?

THE WORLD'S DEADLIEST PREDATOR

People keep talking about how such and such has "jumped the shark". Do sharks even have television?

I mean, they're swimming around, they're constantly on the move - do they care whether a TV show is a success or a failure? I don't think they're making phone votes for American Idol or X-Factor, really, I don't. How would they get their little flippers to work the keypad on the phone? What tariff do they use underwater? It just doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't hold water.

When a show turns sour in shark world how do they describe it? You've got your hammerhead and your great white discussing that difficult second season of NYPD Blue.

"You know that show's never been as good since they lost David Caruso. It really ducked the human."

THE TEASE

What's with those three dots - the ellipses - in television titles these days? You know: Imagine..., Kew Palace... Revealed, Neighbours... From Hell. Am I meant to be building up some sense of anticipation over these things when I see that title come up?

Neighbours... (wow, where could they be from, what kind of neighbours are they, will somebody please just tell me, please let me know, put me out of my misery, why do you do this to a poor old klown, I think I'm having another heart attack, Eurgh!) From Hell. (Phew. Hell, huh? Tough neighbourhood.)

We really don't need that sense of build up for these things. It's, like, a three word title, people.

Documentary strand "Imagine...". You get to the end of those dots and it's an analysis of the writings of Roald Dahl, or something about urban graffiti. Can't we just call this "Imagine" and leave it at that? Are the three dots adding something I'm not aware of? Is it some clever use of Morse Code for North Sea fishermen who might be viewing?

Nobody's titling their movies like this, as far as I'm aware. There's no Star... Wars. It's not The... Omen. He's not Austin Powers, International Man... Of Mystery.

Whenever I see those dots I find myself wanting to finish the statement for the show's ponderous producer. Imagine... If a Computer really could tell us What is Love? Neighbours... and bleach don't mix? Kew Palace... Mortgaged?

It's like having a conversation with someone with a stutter. You keep having to resist that urge to help out.

THE AIR DOG

In today's news is the story of a couple, Terry and Sarah Smith, whose dog, Poppy, escaped from its cage in the cargo hold of their plane as it was taking off. A spokesperson for Animal Airlines, which transported the pet, said "If an animal wants to get out it will. There was nothing we could have done."

Does this dog have opposable thumbs? Because, unless she does, you could try putting a halfway decent lock on that cage and it should be pretty easy to prevent any animal from escaping. Animal Airlines have transported dogs for 40 years, and they say this is the first time a dog has escaped. What, were they just trusting the dogs to sit and stay up until this incident? Was Poppy the dog that special, she nudged the door?

Spokesperson from Animal Airlines - listen up... Use a lock. Put in a catch. Try wedging the cage door shut. Anything. If a dog wants to escape, you can outthink its dastardly plan. You're people. It's a dog. What's the problem?

THE LAW OF CELEBRITY

What is Celebrity Stars in their Eyes? Celebrities dressing up as other celebrities to perform songs? In any other situation, that's known as fraud.

It's one rule for them and another for everyone else, isn't it?

If you're a normal guy and you dress yourself up as, say, a policeman and start walking purposefully up and down the street they come and arrest you for impersonating an officer of the law. But if you're a celebrity? Well, then they make a TV show all about you, my friend. It's quite simply unfair.

Trust me, I'm on the side of the average, normal guy like you. I'm not getting my kicks taking off my make-up and pretending to be Danny Baker presenting the afternoon show on the radio, you know? Eurgh.

Time for the travel report...

THE CHANGE PLATE

Have you been to these bars where you hand over your money and they give you your change on a little silver plate? What is that meant to be about? They act like they've not had to provide change before so they think it needs some kind of presentation. We're both aware that money exists in this transaction - I've handed them a note, they've accepted it without question - it's no use pretending that money is something new, alien or somehow immoral now. You're already in the transaction up to your neck, my bartending friend.

I never found the receiving of change for a purchase an awkward situation until I went to one of these "change plate" places. Up to that point, I would pay the price as advertised for my chosen product, and I would expect, quite reasonably, I felt, to receive change as and when appropriate. But these guys, they've got a special little plate just for the job. That plate is not used for anything else but change. You couldn't serve a meal from it, it's too small. Maybe you could get a small roll on there, or possibly a couple of biscuits. Basically, without the change that plate would be redundant.

Do these places buy big sets of crockery when they set up shop - you know, there's the dinner plates, the soup bowls, the side order dishes - and they find all these little plates and don't know what to do with them? Is that why they're being used to serve us our change? Could they not find anything small enough to serve on that plate so they figure the transportation of four coins across the bar is a good use for it?

No matter how many times I get the change plate, I've never once been offered the payment plate. You know, they pass you a plate on which to give them the money for the drinks that you are purchasing. Maybe I need to hold out for that plate before I pay these people. Maybe that would be even more artificial and downright weird for everyone involved.