Highway Chiles

Did anyone else see this and immediately think it was about time Shaky settled down? God I'm getting old.

The piece refers to celebrity dancer and failed pop star Rachel Stevens, of course, who when This Ole House was soaring high in the charts was still in gamete form; a member of S-club 5 billion, if you like. Anyway.


I've been on holiday. I badly needed some time off, and a flying Eurostar-borne visit to Brussels was the order of the day. Regular readers will know that my trips to mainland Europe have been mixed, to say the least, but this one turned out just fine; sunny weather, some excellent 17th-century architecture, beer of stupefying strength, a handful of woodpeckers and a healthy smattering of pleasingly stupid local names, exemplified by the quarter of town I was staying in, the barely believable Kunst-Wet. Try saying that after a few bottles of trappist Chimay.

Among a number of things I learned, it turns out that I actually look Belgian. This is disconcerting - all the Belgians I know are either fat detectives or serial killers. On several occasions I was asked by francophone fellow travellers for directions to various railway stations, tourist traps and market squares, and I was also asked by an old lady (in Flemish) if I could tell her the time of the next train to Aarschot. On no occasion was I able to oblige.

The spoken foreign word has never been a particular strength of mine. J'ai douze ans is about as much as I can remember from 'O' level French, though I used to kid myself I had a certain mastery of Spanish. But no amount of flamboyant conjugation in the classroom can prepare you for an entanglement with genuine Spaniards. I well remember the mess I got in the last time I was in Spain, when I was confronted by a group of local youths - several of whom were on crappy 50cc mopeds, naturally - demanding to know what I was up to; try explaining 'I am using a bat detector to figure out which species of pipistrelle is fluttering merrily around that lamp post' when you don't know the Spanish word for 'bat'.

So anyway, I left the Battlefield of Europe and returned to the nightmare of London life, where its been pissing down for what feels like months - caught in today's monsoon-like downpour, I found a good use for a copy of pointless free paper London Lite as a makeshift brolly-cum-hat - and back to the office. Where we grab any opportunity for a bit of light relief from the drudgery. So, if you've been wondering why Ant and Dec have been unusually quiet on the sad death of Bobby Robson - and I'm sure you were - I have the answer. We had an answerphone message when we got into the office on Tuesday morning that had been left the night before; some idiot researcher at the BBC, who actually had the cheek to preface his call with the words "this is an urgent message", insisting that we get back to him immediately to let him know whether the ubiquitous geordies would go on The One Show that evening, to talk about Robson with Adrian Chiles and his grinning, vacuous sidekick.

Unfortunately we're a publishing company, not Ant and Dec's agents. This made us laugh, a lot.



Chiles: looks like he's only recently prised his head from a bottle.



This week's celebrity spots
Its been a dry few weeks, celeb-wise. Ian Hislop paying cheques in at Natwest on Dean Street last Thursday provides only the barest flicker of light amidst the rain-sodden August gloom.

Unnacceptable I know. Fortunately I've received some excellent reader correspondence to make up for my shortcomings. Dave from Chadwell Heath kicks things out of bed with a powerful sighting of the Archbishop of Canterbury striding along outside the Houses of Parliament a few weeks back, accompanied by a coterie of lesser stars of the ecclesiastical firmament, while last night Jo from Soho found herself in the same restaurant as both James Corden and Max Beesley. Controversially, Jo adds that of the two she'd 'rather have Corden'. However, the plum in this week's pudding is provided by regular contributor Yakbone, who last week found himself enjoying a bite to eat next to Sir David Frost. A stickler for dining-room convention, Yakbone complains that Frost used the wrong forks and spoons, and was constantly answering his phone - at the dinner table. Irritated, he glared at Frost and 'was met by the same stare that Nixon got'. Superb.


Frost: Hello, good evening, and turn your fucking phone off.


Recommendations
I do hope you joined me in backing England to win The Ashes at 2/1. Its all going to plan thus far; as exclusively revealed by the World of Spim, this Australian team is cursed with a feeble attack - Hilfenhaus, Johnson, Siddle and Hauritz aren't even close to McGrath, Lee, Gillespie and Warne, and I'd back myself to carve runs off the woeful Shane Watson. In the world of real sport, a glance at the Premiership table as things stand shows West Ham down in 18th, and I must admit I won't be overly surprised if we've failed to improve on this come May (14/1, various); Manchester City - a club with an even poorer silverware pedigree than the happy Hammers - have shelled out £100 million on players such as Carlos Tevez, Emmanuel Adebayor and Gareth Barry; we've brought in Chilean journeyman Luis Jimenez on loan. Anyway, enough despondency; in my annual football yankee (Paddy Power) I'm recommending Chelsea (2/1), Ipswich (10/1), Dirty Leeds (3/1) and Rotherham United (15/2), which pays a tasty 243/1. If this one comes in, see you in Barbados.

Unusually, this month I am moved to recommend a book - Animal Freaks: The Strange History of Amazing Animals by Jan Bondeson. Now I know my animal onions, but I was gobsmacked to find a raft of new and bizarre facts on literally every page, featuring a diverse cast of sapient dogs, learned pigs and orchestral cats. Fun for all the family.

Fans of Euro-techno with a poppy, danceable edge will enjoy the work of Vitalic; one of their songs is called 'Terminateur Benelux', which simply has to appeal.