Dare to be a Daniel

LONGTIME Toasty-watchers (easily recognised by their burnt noses and continual nervous tremor) will recall that my Futon was originally unrolled at http://toastyboy.blogspot.com but had to be deleted in November 2005 due to snow on the points at Volvograd or some such piffle. (Wasn't there a menacing email typed in human blood by Mad Frankie Fraser's sister or something? Everything's a blur after so many years of skull/breezeblock interaction therapy.)

My first plan after the fuss died down was to reinstate the blog at the same address, but pesky old Blogger wouldn't let me, which I assumed meant the URL was out of bounds to the entire human race until the end of time, like Kenneth Williams's bathroom. So I lugged my futon across to this dump and started again with only the barrel I stood up in.

But what do I find now, after a mere eighteen months' absence in Papua New Guinea or wherever the hell I've been?

My quondam bijou pied-à-terre at http://toastyboy.blogspot.com has been wrenched open and infested by a slouching, unwashed answer-to-an-iron-maiden's prayer that chooses to call itself DANIEL.

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So what do we know of this creature?

• It purports to be aged 14. Then again, so do most of us, at least when threatened with action for breach of promise or auditioning for Wanna Be A Celebrity? Then Lick This Vat Of Electrified Treacle! on BBC3, so we can't knock it for that.

• It claims to like sports. And who would be so cynical as to accuse it of being insufficiently specific? I bet it enjoys nothing better than a hearty afternoon of lacrosse, netball, hare-coursing or extreme nude bobsleigh. It's just the sort.

• It says it likes cooking. So did Typhoid Mary.

• It likes hanging with friends. So did Mussolini.

• It’s not actually very good at getting round to writing its goddam blog. In fact it's utterly useless at it. It doesn't even try. It's a complete waste of space and natural resources. It should be POKED VERY HARD WITH A POISONED STICK until it GOES AWAY and STOPS JAYWALKING ON MY BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS.

Orright?

Honestly. Can't turn my back for a moment.

Pour encourager les autres

YIPPEE!

Today's Edinburgh Evening News says there's to be "a worldwide campaign…to encourage dozens of new hotels to be built in Edinburgh."

About time too.

All too often lately I've met as-yet-unbuilt new hotels that seem to me to be doing damn all except sit on their enormous bottoms drinking cheap lager and claiming double invalidity credit and disabled ex-coastguard's plastic truss allowance - paid for, don't forget, by the likes of you and me, or do I have to be a taxpayer to say that?

When you suggest they should jolly well go and get themselves built somewhere, they just chortle and make unpleasant noises with their service entrances.

But they'll be laughing on the other side of their optional (mandatory) 85% staff gratuities now, won’t they?

When these campaigning johnnies hit the streets, with all their electric prods, gas bazookas and other "encouragement" equipment, why, those idle, greedy, lead-swinging as-yet-unbuilt hotels won't know what's hit 'em.

Just think what fun it'll be to watch the brutes being built - in Edinburgh - AGAINST THEIR WILL!!

Mind you, Middlesbrough might have been even better…

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So, am I back now, you ask? Too early to say, really. Let's see how it goes, eh? Thanks for dropping by (Betty)…