Knight Rider: A Quick Review

I just managed to get some time to myself to sit and watch the remake of Knight Rider.

Excited as I was, I couldn't help feel slightly disappointed that the producers of the new version had managed to stick so rigidly to the kitschness of the old version:

While the special effects are undoubtedly twenty-first century, and the car's power system is now eco-friendly and solar-powered, KITT - voiced by Val Kilmer - still managed to sound ridiculously camp.

David Hasselhoff, cameoing as the original Michael Knight, still managed to act so offensibly bad I might have switched it off if he'd appeared at the start.

And the car chases were unfeasibly improbable: a supercar Mustang, powered by the world's fastest hybrid engine, is completely incapable of outrunning a lumbering Ford SUV on a twisty mountain road?

Despite this, the program still managed to make feel twelve years old.  And that was cool.

The Husband Store...

I received this via e-mail this morning. It made me laugh...

A store that sells new husbands has opened on Oxford Street, where a woman may go to choose a husband. Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates:

You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are six floors and the value of the products increase as the shopper ascends the flights. The shopper may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building!

So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband. On the first floor the sign on the door reads:

Floor 1 - These men Have Jobs

She is intrigued, but continues to the second floor, where the sign reads:

Floor 2 - These men Have Jobs and Love Kids.

'That's nice,' she thinks, 'but I want more.'

So she continues upward. The third floor sign reads:

Floor 3 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, and are Extremely Good Looking.

'Wow,' she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going..

She goes to the fourth floor and the sign reads:

Floor 4 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and help With Housework.

'Oh, mercy me!' she exclaims, 'I can hardly stand it!'

Still, she goes to the fifth floor and the sign reads:

Floor 5 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, help with Housework, and Have a Strong Romantic Streak..

She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor, where the sign reads:

Floor 6 - You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.

To avoid gender bias charges, the store's owner has opened a New Wives store just across the street.

The first floor has wives that love sex.

The second floor has wives that love sex and have money and like beer.

The third, fourth, fifth and sixth floors have never been visited...

Making Breakfast...

My wife is a keen photographer (no, not that sort; girls taking their clothes off don't do it for her, unfortunately) and so today she is off to the deepest darkest jungle that is Woburn Abbey to undoubtedly get the Jeep scratched and herself eaten by a lion.

Unfortunately, this means that I've got to fend for myself today. It's already been a struggle trying to work out whether to spend the free time this morning before work doing paperwork, reading a magazine, having a bath, doing the housework or just generally being lazy, but then I had to figure out how to feed myself.

This is something I just don't do. There has always been a food fairy that miraculously puts meals in front of me at certain times of the day, usually just before I start killing customers through frustration. Today, there won't be.

But we have children, so when I decided I ought to have some breakfast this morning I thought it would be easy. With a six-year-old and a nine-year-old in the house, I must be able to find some cereal to start the day with, and indeed I could. But unfortunately it was all gobbledegook to me - there was so much choice it was almost painful.

Quite aside from good old-fashioned children's cereals such as Frosties or that Snap, Crackle and Pop stuff, we seem to have a surfeit of other breakfast offerings, including muesli, Special K, Honey Waffles, Chocco Hoops and something worryingly called Golden Balls, from Asda.

The mere choice gave me a headache, so I decided to make myself a sandwich instead. Except, as we live in a pub, there doesn't appear to be a supply of Tesco Value Thick Slice for me to smear some butter on. Instead, we have posh bread that the customers apparently love but, unfortunately, seemed to require nothing weaker than a chainsaw in order to slice it.

I could have screamed. All I wanted was some breakfast. So I made some tea, grabbed a packet of Pickled Onion Monster Munch, and headed back upstairs.

By the time the wife gets home, the boys and I will look so forlorn she'll be forced to serve up a great big plate of supper and never go away again. Even for six hours.