THE ESCALATING SITUATION

There is a war going on, my friends, all around us, and every day, we see another salvo fired. This war is going on right under our very noses. It is the war between recycled paper towels and hot air hand-dryers.

You go into any public bathroom - at a restaurant, a bar, the station - and it's the same old story. There's Mr. Paper Towel fighting it out. There's a little sticker on the front of the dispenser - "These paper towels are made from recycled paper. They're just great for the environment. The ultimate goodwill gesture to a planet that's suffering. Your conscience, like your hands, is clean."

But you pop into another restroom - at the airport maybe, or even your place of work - and there's the Hot Air Hand-dryer Gang, waiting in the corner, just looking for an excuse to blow up. The sign on these ne'er-do-wells reads along the lines of "The hot air dryer is more hygienic and creates less waste than paper towels. It's just super to the environment. The best, my friend, the best."

Both of these guys can't be right, can they? They can't both be the best thing for the environment, surely. I've heard their arguments, I'm all over the basic logic. But I can’t decide.

Whose side am I on? Tell me.

THE VERY BOREDOM

Do you realise how much of a chore having superspeed would be?

I mean, imagine that you're Superman - you're out there, you have the big S on your chest, you're saving lives. That all makes sense. An engine blows out on the space shuttle while Jimmy Olsen's on board, the thing is plummeting towards the Daily Planet building, you have to evacuate the whole street because of falling, flaming debris. And, you know, it's really no big deal. You can handle it all in the blink of an eye because of your super-swiftness.

Three minutes later, you're in the shirt and tie, you're at the weekly editorial meeting in the Daily Planet as Clark Kent. How dull is this life? Those monthly meetings are bad enough when you don't have superspeed. Add the ability to track the complete life cycle of a single spark from a bonfire in minuscule detail, you're spending a lot of your life waiting for stuff to happen.

This, for me, is the reason Clark Kent shouldn't have married Lois Lane. That's a great relationship when she's falling out of helicopters, getting attacked by giant apes with kryptonite vision and drowning in a submarine at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean while Brainiac changes the orbit of the Moon. There's some fun to be had in those situations. But when she's chatting to her best friend on the phone for twenty minutes and you've paused the DVD in the middle of the film you were watching together... my friend, that's a long twenty minutes when your natural inclination is to see and do everything at superspeed.

Many's the time Clark has left that fateful note "Just popped out for gum" for Lois with no intention of ever coming back. Usually in that situation the husband returns eight years later, with two new kids and a trailer trash wife. In Clark's case, he's fled the stifling old relationship for approximately 16 seconds, comes back, Lois hasn't even read the note. To him, that 16 seconds is an eternity. He's super-refreshed. "Let's go, Lois! I'm ready for another 50 years of marriage, right now!"

THE COPYCOPYCAT

Do you ever wonder how annoyed Korea is with Ikea? Because, they almost have the same name there. It's not like you wouldn't notice. The patent office would at least hear your case if you presented them with that argument.

One is a country that has been split by political turmoil for over 50 years. The other is a furniture store. If you're the country, you've got to take some offence that a sofa shop is ripping you off. I mean, Korea was there first. I'm pretty sure they named the country before they named the shop.

North Korea is often in the news with frightening reference to an increasing military build-up. I think they plan to wipe out Ikea for stealing the name. Koreans versus Ikeans, mano-e-mano.

I think the last straw would be if Ikea split into North and South Ikea. That would be the ultimate provocation. If that day ever comes, you'll see the flat packed imitation pine furniture fly, my friend.

THE DOUBLE-O SEVEN

Man, which boy didn't want to grow up to be James Bond? I mean, Bond is the epitome of male cool. He has the coolest cars, he gets the coolest women, and he has the licence to kill.

Not much of a licence to drink, though, have you noticed? Everyone else is ordering spirits or pints of beer, and Bond will leap in and proudly ask for a martini. Shaken, always; stirred, not so much.

It's not the most masculine choice of beverage, is it? Martini's great, but it's the kind of drink you get an umbrella in the glass with these days.

The rule here is: any drink that you actually have to mix, that's something you order for the attractive female assistant, Mister Bond.

Next thing you know he'll be ordering a Casino Royale with cheese (because, over there they don't know what a quarter pounder is).

THE SHOO FLY

Do you want to know why flies are so dumb? Because, really, they are. They fly in your house from an open window, then they spend hours and hours walking up and down the same window unable to figure out how to get back out. I mean, why did they even bother to come in if that was all they planned to do? They're fascinated with walking up and down glass, seeing what the outside world looks like. They don't want to explore indoors, oh no. They just want to walk up that pane of glass getting a prisoner's eye view of the outside world.

I think it's mostly down to the name. When they were naming all the critters they got to the fly and they had two big attributes to choose from. It was either "fly" (a lot) or "walk" (now and then). Until you really got those microscopes invented there wasn't much chance of calling it "gross eater" but I can accept that as a name too ("Hi, I'm a fly - I'll just be vomiting on my food before I eat it...").

So they went with fly as the name of the thing and man figured he'd done a pretty good job there. It seemed descriptive, it got to the essence of the insect. Dictionary Guy gave it the seal of approval, "fly" it was.

But it's a fait accompli. The fly must fly. Otherwise it doesn't really have much purpose. If it doesn’t fly, it doesn't have a whole lot else to do with its day.

Now, just imagine if ancient man had called that little bug "the smart". Suddenly, no more bumping into the window pane, angrily buzzing his way up and down the glass. Now the fly's doing Boolean algebra and working out the flaws in Einstein's theory of relativity.

Of course, if flies were smart they'd actually invent machines to do the flying for them. You'd be wondering what that buzzing was in your bedroom in the middle of the night - switch the light on and it's a "smart" in a miniature bi-plane. Yeah, he's saving his wings.

THE RETURN OF THE KING

Do you ever wonder why Superman doesn't drive? Because, really, you never see him at the wheel of a car. He would sooner pick up a ten ton truck than drive one.

There's really no reason for him not to drive. Sure, he can fly but does that mean he'd always choose to fly? I can walk, I still catch the train to the Klown College. I'm not walking everywhere, effendi.

Do you want to know my theory on this? Kryptonite. That's the problem. That's why Superman doesn't drive. It's got to be in the traffic lights. Your green for go traffic signal - that’s kryptonite, right there, cub reporters. And, when he's exposed to the green glow of kryptonite, as any super-fan knows, Superman is significantly weakened and could potentially die. No one should be behind the wheel in that state. You don't need to be Superman to work that out. Pull over, get out of the car, take some deep breaths.

Of course there's also the red kryptonite there at the top of the traffic light. Red K (as it's known) has an unpredictable, random effect on Kryptonians like Superman. One minute he's at the traffic lights in an SUV, next thing you know it's become a formula one racing car and he's sitting in a giant bear costume.

And then there's the amber light, which I figure must be gold kryptonite. Gold Kryptonite is the one that takes away all of Superman's powers permanently. Yes, all. Yeah, that's a bad, bad day to be stuck in a traffic jam, isn't it? "And I was only going out for Nick O'Teen brand (tm) cigarettes..."

THE SMALL PRINT

Boy, it's always fun getting e-mail from your friend's work address isn't it? You get that marvellous disclaimer after their message written in pseudo-legalese by someone from the accounts department. There's a lot of "nothing in this e-mail should be construed as binding" in that complimentary disclaimer, and that can sure confuse things when your pal's e-mail is "Let's meet up at 8 at the pub". I mean, can that message be construed as binding or should I start to doubt the word of my best friend for the last 20 years? He's never let me down before - now he's working for this new company has he been indoctrinated into unreliability? Is that what the company has done to him?

Sometimes that disclaimer can go on and on, can't it? Your friend sends you the cinema times for the new Superman movie, the whole message is over in two sentences. Following that, there's two paragraphs stating how this is not a cast iron guarantee that the company has any interest in you.

And it's usually a tough read, too. It's very dry, there's just no pep to the e-mail disclaimer. Whoever writes these things isn't really writing to keep their audience's attention. It's almost like they don't want you to read it at all.

And maybe that's the point. You get past that third sentence and that disclaimer is telling you all sorts of stuff you really ought to know about, my friend. "If you reply to this e-mail we will officially own your first born child, seriously", "Reply now to get more junk mail through your letterbox", "We put poison in all our products but because you've received this warning you now know about it and can’t sue, buddy", and so on.

I think the worst one I saw was from a friend who worked for one of those QUANGO advisory firms to the government. Her message to me would be "I'm moving house, here's my new phone number..." then I'd get - literally - a page and a half justifying the purpose of the company she was working at and advising me of my various rights (i.e. none) in refuting anything the company now did with me. It pretty much boiled down to this company having very much my worst interests at heart. But most people would just breeze past it, ignore the legalese spiel and completely miss what it was telling them. In short, it wasn't a disclaimer at all - it was a misclaimer.