ITV2 is the channel of the year? (*)

To Ilford, then, in an attempt to buy socks which not only stand up for longer than a couple of months to the battering that comes from being ground against my sturdy boots, but also are not grey. This aspect of the trip was, it has to be admitted, entirely unsuccessful, but on the plus side the driver of the bus that I caught to go down there did looked quite a lot like Mark E. Smith.

Obviously there were some differences - he wasn't nearly as gnarled as Mark E. Smith (such a thing being quite a difficult task), and he was rather tubbier than Mark E. Smith is (I think - I would imagine being in The Fall is probably more conducive to avoiding the onset of a middle-aged spread than driving a bus), but, facially anyway, he did look quite a lot like Mark E. Smith. I found myself wondering if the driver was aware of Mark E. Smith, and if he'd applied to Stars In Their Eyes telling that he looked quite a bit like Mark E. Smith and that, hell, it probably wasn't that difficult to impersonate Mark E. Smith and could he be on their programme please?, and if they'd been a bit more forward-thinking he could be the toast of the tribute band circuit with his take on The Fall, barking out Totally Wired and then pretending to have a punch-up with the rest of the band, rather than ploughing backwards and forwards between King George's Hospital and the Ilford Sainsbury's.

He probably didn't know anything about Mark E. Smith though. He didn't look the type.

(*) So what does that make ITV2+1, then?

I'm not sure why there are so many adverts for car insurance during breaks in ITV4's coverage of the Tour De France. I don't watch enough of ITV Freeview channels during the day, or indeed at all, to know whether this is a usual state of affairs or if the car insurance people specifically decided that people watching a bicycle race would be just the sort of people who'd be interested in cheaper car insurance.

(Or it could be because of the Tour coverage's proximity in the schedules to Used Car Roadshow. I wasn't aware of Used Car Roadshow until the start of the Tour De France. I saw a bit of Used Car Roadshow the other day. It featured a man on a mobile phone trying to negotiate a price for a car. You couldn't hear the person on the other end of the line, so what you had was a man saying "I'm trying to help you sell a car... yeah... yeah... and how about delivery?... yeah... and how long's it guaranteed for?... six months?... yeah...". Never mind some BBC Production assistants pretending to win competitions and Gordon Ramsey pretending to catch a fish, this is the real broadcasting scandal of our times; clearly, everyone involved in this programme needs to be fired without references, prevented from getting new jobs by rumours and disinformation, and then rescued from a life living out of dustbins on the condition that they never do anything so useless ever, ever again.)

I am completely bewildered by adverts for car insurance. For a start, the acting is breathtakingly bad. Really, really bad. You know how people who watch lots of soap operas insist that the acting in soap operas is just as good as proper acting in costume dramas that win BAFTAs and that? Well, compared to acting in car insurance, it nearly is. You wouldn't think it was difficult to pretend to be impressed that you can get a great deal when you insure two cars without sounding like a four year old who's just been offered some more sherbet, but apparently is it.

And then there's the chap in the sailor's uniform who's offering them the deal's insistence that "the savings start straight away". Eh? Surely thats the whole point? And yet he seems very keen to emphasise this point, as if it's a revolutionary feature. Maybe it is, and that in my ignorance of the crazy world of car insurance I'm missing some terribly important point that meant that car insurers have only just recognised that having the savings starting straight away might be a good thing.

It's probably just as well that I still have no desire to learn how to drive, really.

Mind you, today's coverage also included an advert for an event in which an American chap is going to rock up at Earl's Court and try and convince people that miracles can happen, and just after the in-no-way suspicious leader of the race rode the best time trial of his life. Which all goes to show something, but... well, you know.

Wrestle poodles, and win!

To Euston, then, in my search for that comedy standby, the photo booth. Except the photo booth isn't a comedy standby these days; I visited one last year for, um, some reason - I think that I may have needed photos when I was moving house, although quite why this should have been I can't recall - and so I knew that these days they give you time to adjust your seat and strike a pose before having your picture taken, and that you can have another go if needed. As such, when I inserted my (blimey) four quid, I had no qualms.

The first attempt reflected the fact that it was a humid day, as there were clear signs of perspiration about my forehead. Having dabbed my brow, I decided that it was time for another go. As I stared into the screen during the agonisingly and inexplicable slow countdown, I attempted to maintain my slightly vacant look about the eyes and grim expression. Unfortunately, at the very moment the snap was taken I must have flinched or something. as the result was that I looked like an utter bumpkin.

I pressed the button for another attempt, only for the booth to tell me that I was running out of time. This seemed most unfair; I had, after all, stumped up four quid for the privilege of sitting in this booth, and the least it could do is give me the time to get my picture right. I hurriedly had a final shap taken and took my leave. The results make me look slightly swarthy, but I suppose they'll do. Next time I'm planning on appearing in any photos I'll make sure to shave in the morning.

On the way out of the station I saw an advertisement for the No Messin' Tour 2007. I've seen the posters for this campaign before, in deeply unpleasant colours and with baseball-capped boys and a message along the lines of "we used to hang around on the tracks... now we've got better things to do". (You can see more of this stuff here, if you're really that interested, but don't say that I didn't warn you. Although the bit where the stick figure gets hit by the train is quite good.) That the No Messin' tour 2007 exists answers one of my questions, which is "well, what exactly?". The other questions, "(a) Isn't that a bit of a long sentence for the teenagers to understand?, and (b) Wouldn't something along the lines of 'OMG m8 ur ded kld buy a trn :( lol' be more appropriate", remains unanswered.

I realise that by sharing the concerns generated by watching The Thick Of It this evening I'm revealing that I spent the evening at home when I really ought to be out there experiencing all that the city has to offer, particularly now that there are now trains for me to get home on. But, well, it's a bit late for that now, and so I've decided to plough on, even though this opening paragraph bodes poorly for what is likely to follow.

But anyway.

1. Why did the continuity announcer introduce it as if it was an exciting televisual event, rather than the second or third repeat of a programme that was shown earlier in the week? Now, granted, I was watching it for the first time, but this is because I'm so unused to watching the television in the evenings that I tend to forget when the things that I actually want to watch are on. If there was anyone else watching it for the first time, chances are that this was because they were as dim (and socially inadequate) as I am or because they were desperate for anything to watch; there was no need to pretend that it was new and exciting, rather than slightly soiled by various showings over the last week.

2. They still haven't managed to work out how to construct a convincing newspaper page. And I realise that I shouldn't find it distracting, and I suspect that if I really liked the programme rather than quite enjoying it but having the sneaking suspicion that if I was cleverer I'd like it a lot more than I do then it wouldn't really matter, but, well, I'm a hopeless spod for these things.

I probably should get out more, really. Or just not watch television at all. I don't think it's meant for the like of me.

I left the Central Line at Stratford at 8:58. I know that I left the Central Line at Stratford at 8:58 because I'd just missed a train on the adjacent platform, and I'd checked the clock to make sure that it hadn't left early (it hadn't, and so I had no reason to feel grumpy about it, and so I didn't). This meant that not only did I not get caught up in another derailment, but couldn't even claim to have been close to getting caught up in another derailment, as I'm fairly sure the train that I'd left at Stratford wouldn't have been either the train that derailed or the one that got stuck behind it. Which is probably just as well for the internet, which had to put up with me banging on about it the last time that it happened, and for the two men sat opposite me who'd I'd been able to hear talking despite the general noise of the Central Line and the very specific noise of The Lapse in my ears.

(I do like the way that the BBC's graphic of the incident shows you a little map of the country and a box indicating where London is, in case you're the sort of person who's interested in the story but might not know where this mysterious city with the trains that travel under the ground might be located.)

On the tube back to Liverpool Street and the madding crowds trying to find a way home (I wimped out of approaching a girl I've spotted on the platform at Newbury Park before now who was staring bemusedly at the indicator board and trying to help her find her way home, on the grounds that I wasn't sure if she'd think that I was a splendid helpful gentleman or creepy and slightly frightening) I found myself stood near a chap who was jigging about to whatever was playing in his headphones. If you ever find yourself considering doing this while you're sober, or at a time where everyone else on the train is likely to be sober, here's a tip; don't do it. Sooner or later someone is going to be having a bad day and isn't going to think that you're a crazy zany character, and is going to thump you with an umbrella or something. And, y'know, they'd have a point.

Sunday morning, and, because I know how to spend an unexpectedly sunny morn, I was doing the ironing while watching last night's Dr Who (*), when I was surprised by the sound of the buzzer. Most of the people who would usually buzz were in Southend, you see, and it seemed far too early in the day for an unexpected visitor.

"Hello?"

"It's the police, could you let me in?"

It occurred to me that it's all well and good letting someone in because they're claiming to be the police but that you really ought to verify the fact just in case; fortunately I ran into her on the stairs. "It's all right, you're not in trouble" she reassured me, although I'd already guessed that; the worry was that someone of my acquaintance might be. This fear dissipated when she handed me a letter asking for assistance with solving a particularly unpleasant crime that had happened down the road earlier in the week. I hadn't heard anything about it, although I had spotted the tape sealing off an alleyway when I'd walked to the station; possibly I need to take more of an interest in local affairs.

The general feeling of disquiet that this caused, on top of several generally disquieting things occurring of late, wasn't helped when I went out for a walk and discovered lots of plastic forks strewn about the roadway. I supposed that they were a remnant of whatever it was that had caused someone to be playing Amy Winehouse quite loudly at about 1.30 last night (I don't mind people having a party once in a while, and I can't remember anything similar since I moved here, but, really, Amy Winehouse? Couldn't they have found something marginally more interesting to play?), but it seemed odd that there were only forks and no other forms of plastic cutlery. Did they find an alternative use for the knives and spoons, or did they buy them from a particularly disreputable retailer who only had plastic forks for sale?

I really do need to get a camera so that I'm fully prepared for the next that that any plastic cutlery-related shenanigans occur.

(*) It should be pointed out that, while I quite like Dr Who, it remains one of a few prgrammes that I absolutely and categorically refuse to discuss or even read about on the internet, on the grounds that the chances are that I'll end up feeling at least slightly depressed. I only mention it here for local colour, and because if I hadn't you might have thought that I was watching the Hollyoaks omnibus or Gloria Hunniford's Religion Hour or something.