I don't want much. I shun the latest mobile phones, fashionable nic nacs, widescreen tvs, Ipods, games consules, computers etc, I see them for the Devil's trinkets that they are. I lust after nothing, my happiness does not hang on material things......except.....The Nissan Figaro. I WANT ONE. I don't mind which colour or shade, I just want one. When one drives by I stare slack jawed, I feel like Mr Toad when he sees the motor car which has upset his lovely yellow cart, "poop poop."
Modern cars are usually the designs of the retarded but the Figaro, it's something amazing. Now, who knows who reads Lola? Perhaps a rich old lady who lives alone, childless in a mansion is reading this. Perhaps she tunes in every day and her only source of joy is my modest little life. If this is you, get in touch, buy me a figaro and I'll take you for a spin when you like. I can drive you down to the coast of a Sunday. Perhaps we could dip in and out of London town, you could revisit the places you went to during the Blitz. You can tick the box for no publicity!

I've picked my bush. On my way to work I like to track the seasonal shift. I watched over the weeks as a tree blazed with fire during the autumn months and then let go of its leaves like a pensioner's shopping. Tins of carnation milk rolling into the gutter and a copy of the News of the World whisking away on a stiff breaze.

Anyway, this morning I saw a bush, just hard naked sticks with tight buds at the end of the sharp points. "That's it" I thought to myself, "I'm having that". Each day as I pass by I shall look at it and watch as nature works its miracle. In a few months time it will be lush and lovely, home to insects and the occasional empty coke can.

I ask you all to pick your bushes, trees or shrub and lets all have a gawp as mother nature dons her beret and smock and sets to with her paint brush and palette.

I've been having rather a lot of peculiar flash backs. I've just glanced at the contents of Lofty's bag which contain clothes and I have remembered taking my costume in for the Christmas school play in the 1970's. What's that all about? One day I am sure they will be able to link brain waves to a machine which will then be able to play out your memories on a tv. That would be nice....I suppose, as long as your childhood was as happy and carefree as mine.
One technological leap I can not wait for (and I don't mind if someone pinches the idea) is a web cam/hologram thing where you can sit at home and at the click of a button you can be sitting at home with friends who are far flung around the globe. You can have a perfectly nice dinner party with your friends, chatting to them etc but really they are just holograms, a bit like Princes Leia in Star Wars when she leaps out of R2D2 ("help me Obi Wan") only better. Imagine, it will be a boon to the agorophobic.

Waking up in the morning to the sound of birdsong, we are over the hump of winter. Although it is still dark and gloomy and Vitamin D is a precious commodity I know that it wont be long before the bulbs will be poking up through the cat poo in the garden, costumes will be made for Jack in the greening (I'm planning Mr Tumnus this year), winter clothes will be packed up and lop sided Victoria Sponge Cakes will sit on trestle tables once again.
Winter isn't the winter you get on calendars with crisp snow and frosted branches, it's dull and turgid and dirty. There are no snow bunnies lollopping around my way. Bring on spring, I've had enough of cinammon scented candles to last me a lifetime.

I've been engrossed in this http://ditchmonkey.blogspot.com It's the diary of a nice man living in the woods in Oxford. I'm getting myself ready for my outdoorsy holiday in the Yurt in Cornwall. Two weeks living rufty tufty, fabulous. I am going to take my map of the stars and hopefully find some proper darkness in which to observe the heavens. We do live such pampered lives these days, ignoring the wilderness at our peril. As Morrissey once said "nature is a language can't you read?".

Went to Basingstoke last night to see Eddi Reader - cor it was good. I won't harp on because I always do but I can safely say it was blinding. Anyway, Basingstoke....

The Ladyfriend and I thought we might catch a bite to eat before the show. We walked out of the car park into the shopping mall from hell. It was like a huge maze of high street chain stores. We went in one direction after another and all we could find were shops, all we could hear were the squeak of our shoes on the floor tiles and all we could smell was air conditioned Basingstoke air.

We found an exit which spewed us out into a back alley, two hooded skateboarding happy slappers eyed us with enthusiasm so we nipped back into the Mall of terror. We decided to try and find our way back to the Anvil theatre in the hope of sniffing out some kind of food. The lights were low, infact off. They were having trouble with their electric. We could make out shapes of puzzled staff standing by the tea urn not quite knowing what to do as a crowd of fans began to form in the foyer. We foamed at the mouth as we saw the biscuits and maltesers. We were eventually let in and scoffed down a rather nice sandwhich and a packet of glacier mints but it wasn't the kind of theatreland the ladyfriend and I have grown used to.

I think someone has died. I have been walking by an office block since the summer and always have a butchers through the window. The way the blinds are set allow me to cast an eye into their tea room. Above the sink there has been a picture of the Queen. It shows her in a formal pose and some several years younger. It has been bleached by the sun and quite old. I used to imagine the workers saluting her majesty as they dunked their hob knobs. But now it's gone.

Quite sad really. I reckon the owner of the picture has passed over or retired. The rest of the office have probably been waiting for years for the old bugger to go so they could chuck Elizabeth in a bin bag. I bet as I write this they are mincing around IKEA for a replacement, something modern and garish. Bolsheviks.

Lofty and I have started a turf war. We feed the ducks at lunchtime and today we noticed that there were only a few when normally there are around forty of the little quackers. We like our ducks and the ducks like us.

I was a bit concerned that a Pied Piper had tricked them into the back of his van and they were half way across Eastern Europe to appear in a circus dressed as ballerinas smoking cigars.

We walked along the river a bit more and thought we might see them at the bridge. We did. We also saw an old man with a huge bag of bread. He looked at us and we looked at him. We all knew what we were all thinking. He won today's showdown but there will be other days and other loaves of bread AND we've got time on our side.

A bit put out this morning on my walk to work. What with it being January and thoughts turning to weight loss and all, I found my route peppered with other people. There was a woman infront of me which meant that I had to alter my speed inline with her. I didn't want to dawdle, but I also didn't want to mount a takeover bid, I could have got into a right pickle and ended up raspy. Also, a youngster was walking the whole route on the other side of the road. Now, this wouldn't be a problem to others but it was to me. I usually sing on the way to work, quite loudly. It cheers me up and puts me in a positive frame of mind for the day. I don't always know the words....infact I sometimes make them up....and I don't always know the tune....I very often make that up. So how could I carry on with an audience? I'm afraid my singing is very much from the same school as Elizabeth Fraser from the Cocteau Twins - very effective when I go under the underpass. I was snuffed out today, like a wet Swan Vesta.

I've had it pointed out to me that by mentioning the smell of care homes yesterday readers may jump to the conclusion that Lola has had a flirtation with mental illness. I have NOT been in care, let me state that now. I was referring to the many evenings in the nursing quarters of one of these establishments.

By the way Shelley, if you are reading this, do you know what's happened to Michael? And guess what? The ladyfriend and I are booking two weeks in a Yurt down your neck of the woods. Put something fizzy in the fridge for July!

Woke at five this morning and tossed and turned etc but could not return to sleep. I tried to count from 100 backwards which is supposed to induce sleep. It didn't but oddly I did start to recall moments in my life which I had long sinced not entirely forgotten about but had left behind. Thinking about it now it was probably because I was counting in the early nineties. So simplistic is my mind it obviously played word association. Events from the 90/91 period featured heavily. It was quite a busy time for me, people came in and out of my life like fluttering moths to a flame, burning their wings on my bombastic nature.

Smells of rented accommodation in Slough, Care homes, a flat above a fish and chip shop and the Fridge night club in Brixton came to me this morning. It all sounds very Andy Warhol but it wasn't quite that bad although there were a fair few peculiar individuals. I wonder where they all are now? Some have slipped along the conveyor belt and out of my sordid little life unnoticed and some have been ejected from my airspace by force. I may google some names to see what pops up. It makes me wonder, wouldn't it be nice to know that when we say goodbye to someone that it will be the last time we will see them? You can make sure that you've got that book back.