I am now a manly man of a million skills. (Many of which involve licking jelly from famous nudey celebrities). I needed more room in my house and so I had a plan. I'd refurnish the boxroom into a library since books have taken over every aspect and surface of the house. So I empty the room into the loft. Which needed boarding. After it got electric lighting. And after the wiring gto re-arranged. And then I find out some shoddy bastard builder put one of the internal walls up a smidge too high, so then I had to carve off a half inch of cinderblock wall from between two beams before I could lay the new floorboards. So the loft got lit and boarded. And the household rejoiced.

And then the loft got filled. And filled some more. And filled some more. And then I took the last of the crap from the boxroom and pushed it into other cupboards around the house. And I still had an armchair and a shelving unit in there. But never mind. I painted around the walls. In two colours. With clean borders. And the household once again rejoiced.

And then, lo, was the longest wall measured and checked and drilled and bracketed and sworn at and beaten and drilled and measured and levelled and bracketed and measured and drawn and sworn at and punched (that hurt) and begged and sworn at some more. And lo, the wall sprouted brackets. And so wood was gained and measured and sawn and sanded and chopped and planed and sanded and measured and sawn some more. And the cigarette was smoken. And the brackets from the wall met the wood from the yard with a marvellous joining of screws and the house rejoiced some more. For there was over 60 feet of shelving in the new library and Jon looked and Jon was proud. In a manly man way.

And so the house raised arms and paraded through the rooms gathering books and delivering unto the new library a great wealth of books (big papery things tied up with string) which were carefully sorted for those with the backs of paper to be risen up high and the backs of hardness to be lower down, and the novels of graphic were at the height of the hip, and the extra large books were near unto the ground, as was their place. And the household was proud.

And lo, the lodger did point out that the new library did hold nary a half of the books in the house, and there were still books on every surface… and there was a great wailing and gnashing of teeth. And the lodger was eaten with a mustard glaze. And the household was at peace. And the pride of having a solid two feet of Batman alone was enough to quell any restless spirits.

So with that job done I've still got to get my shit together for the Battle of Hastings this weekend. And it came to me last weekend that I still had my costume to finish. Especially my winningas. (or leg-bindings to you and me). They're long strips of cloth that wrap around your legs a little like puttees that the Saxons wore. I usually play a Danish trader so I don't have much Saxon kit to speak of. So I've got to finish the winningas…. Which means that these very long strips of cloth need hemming. So I start sewing on Saturday and make a good start but I'm not finished so I leave the rest for Sunday.

Sunday rolls around and I get up, put on a film and start stitching. I watched Justice League 'Secret Origins', Evil Woman, Loser, The Terminal, Not Another Teen Movie, The Last Supper, Jane Eyre and Spiderman 2. I'm secure in my manliness to be ok with sewing. But over the course of the weekend (and finishing last night) I sewed 60 foot of them. (which is remarkably co-incidental). I'm now half blind and completely insane after doing that much sewing and in dire need of some ice for my hand, head, eyeballs and drink.

I've now decided that I'm not picking up another needle for another year and a half. But at least my legs will be all sexy and bound now. In true authentic 10th century style. So if you've nothing better to do this weekend, why not join the other 20,000 people visiting Battle Abbey this weekend all in search of seeing the greatness of my stitching. I'll be the one looking devilishly handsome with a beer in my hand.

I shan't be joining in the actual battle this time, for various reasons. Firstly, I'm curious as to what the Battle of Hastings looked like, so I'll probably watch for a while. Secondly, while all those big burly men are away from the village, their wives and possessions will need a good looking after and I can't think of anyone better to give that a seeing to. And Thirdly, if I wanted to spend two hours running about a field full of lunatics with deadly weapons getting mangled and sweaty I would have put more effort into joining the women's hockey league.

Ciao bambinos. I'm off to do some damn manly sleeping.

I feel as if I'm being haunted by a pie, worse, a fictional pie. Everytime I think I might have got away with it, something new jumps in my way to drag me back to that thing. For those of you that don't know I'm talking about The Denby Dale Pie from 2000. The worlds biggest pie that never existed. And it has been and occasionally still is my mission to prove to the unwitting populace that it never existed. And how do you prove the non-existence of something that never existed?

Now I occasionally get hate-mail about it and the even more occasional e-mail of support on such a touchy subject, some people are even now watching for signs of the conspiracy awakening it's hydra-like head again and trying to fool us again. But last night as I'm trawling through the internet, my hyperactive hypercondriac hyperbrain intellibox 'V2053' computer pings me to tell me my e-mail scan is through and spam has been shifted and I have new mail…. One of which has the intriguing subject line of 'PIE'.

I'm pondering the contents for a moment wondering who wants to impugn my brain, heritage and visual acuity this time until I give in and open the message. Which is from a man. Which is from a man approving of my sacred quest. Which is from a man who approves of my sacred quest and wonders if I would be interested in re-telling the story of the quest for pie in the form of a documentary. To let the world know of this heinous conspiracy and the hunters that are out to shed the light.

This needs careful thinking about. Do I reveal this out loud to the world? Will anyone understand? Will Batman and Robin escape the Penguin's feindish trap? What does a Denby Dale pie taste like? Will my monumentally large ego be able to deal with a larger canvas and the exponential leap of hatemail it's sure to arouse? Fuck it, spaghetti trees it is.

More information as it comes, chaps.