So this is Christmas...

... and in the words of a good friend to his dog, now what have you done? Another year over. A new one just begun. Can I just say right off the bat that Lennon was a dickhead if he thought the new year started on Christmas Day. I'm not sure what the Japanese band-wrecking calendar told him but in the good old U of K (that doesn't work for the UK) we tend to celebrate the new year at the start of the new year. We're such traditionalists. Maybe he got the date wrong on the peace rally and turned up to Guntober Fest? Either way, he probably didn't deserve to die for making such a basic error.

Anyway, my rant, or point, is that Christmas doesn't make me happy any more. And I know most people will say that the magic disappears as you grow up. And to those people I say, "then don't grow up". I have modelled myself on someone that refuses to grow up and the only scientifically accurate thing in this rant is that I was as excited about Christmas three years ago as I ever was as a kid. FACT (I have a friend who hates it when people do that so this is for you George).

So clearly me "growing up" isn't the problem. What's happened is that everyone else has. And I'm stuck wearing a Christmas jumper, wrapping presents and watching Scrooged on my own. And something crossed my mind. Maybe it's time I grew up? Maybe it's time I finally stopped finding miniscule flaws in every single girl I date? Maybe I should stop dating girls that aren't single? Maybe I should stop drinking? Maybe I should stop smoking in bed? Maybe I should stop smoking? Maybe I should have a kid?

And there we have the solution. If I have a kid then I can be excited about Christmas. So, all I need is a girl that will be happy to go through 9 months of hearing "you are glowing" and be willing to not only sleep with me (not difficult) and fall in love with me (proving more and more difficult) but also sire a healthy baby boy. I'm not being too specific but it has to be male. How the hell do I get excited about My Little Pony or My First Tampon or whatever the latest female craze is? I want a son that I can buy loads of awesome toys for Christmas and play with them as a father while secretly playing with them as the child I am. Plus I get to be the dad that falls asleep in front of Octopussy on Christmas day. It's all I've ever wanted.

So, I can't think of any better reason to have a child with someone you loved for a couple of minutes than to rediscover the love of Christmas. And now starts the appeal. To all women of child-baring age, I am young at heart, I have a GSOH, plenty of LOLs and a fair few WTFs and I am begging that one of you will see the father in waiting stood in front of you. I love it that loads of people say I'd make a great dad. Haven't once heard that I'd make a great husband. And I think they are spot on. So, women of the East Midlands (I'm not willing to travel), if your biological clock is ticking and your only purpose on this earth is to procreate then I'm your man. Give me a male child and I will love you forever (forever = until splitting up won't wreck him mentally).

Merry Christmas everyone. I'm hoping that, wrapped up in glittering paper and a neat bow is an awesome baby boy. But, I fear that, as I've asked for a food blender, it will actually be a food blender. Read between the lines mum.

I'm not having a fit...

... I'm just trying to dance to drum & bass. That's the sad state of affairs I find myself in when it comes to 'moving my dancing feet'. Looking like I have epilepsy. That was almost the complete opposite of what I was going for.

But it does interest me immensely why women like men that can dance. I heard of the obvious, untrue cliche of rhythm on the dance floor means rhythm in the bedroom. Firstly, I don't have rhythm on the dance floor. I have had sex quite a few times (more than 10, less than a trillion) and not once have I had to use a metronome, or, dare I say it, had a fit half way through.

I also understand that dancing like Justin Timberlake suggests you have a certain cocky arrogance that can only lead to being good in bed. However, that cocky arrogance would also suggest that the same person is nailing anything that is attempting to 'bring sexy back'. In looking for a confident, rhythmic dancing queen, the lady will have in fact just become another cum-receptacle in the lotharo's already full calendar of easily fooled women.

I know the media hasn't helped by saying that people like Usher (I can't say or write his name without wondering why no one has run him over yet) are cool because they can move their feet. Personally, I think it's cooler to not wear a hat indoors and to write your own songs but hey, call me old fashioned.

All this means is that men are immediately judged on a barrel of female requirements just by the way they dance. If they can do the cha cha, does this mean he'll be able to provide for your offspring? If they embrace you in pasodoble would this suggest he isn't a carrier of sickle cell anaemia? None of it makes sense. For women it's easy. Wear next to nothing, don't be fat and dance like a whore. Job done. Men who want to sleep with whores will be attracted to you.

Personally, I prefer to look around a dance floor and see the girls that aren't taking it all so seriously, aren't rubbing themselves against speakers (unless ironically) and, are more often than not, taking the piss out of each other. This is the form of dance I much prefer. It isn't about peacocking, merely enjoying the music and having a laugh with friends. Perhaps having a dance off, or maybe moshing around a handbag. These are the type of girls I have time for. And I'd hope that they'd take someone doing the sprinkler, dressed as Jimmy Saville, over someone looking like, dancing like, or even just being, Usher.

So, thank you plastic, vacant and altogether too judgemental girl on the dance floor last week. I wasn't having a fit. I was dancing to drum & bass. This is how I do it. And the next time you are in Primark, face contorted as you try to work out the total cost of one £1 pair of shoes and one £1 bra and knickers set, I will be sure to point out that you look like seven shades of flowery twat.

This isn't a rugby vs football rant but...

... as professional sportsmen, personal pride should really be a huge part of the game. And there are elements in football that just boil my piss and make me ashamed to be of the same sex as the 'men' that play football.

The most embarrassing thing in a game of rugby is to be tackled by your opposite number and to stay down, either winded or genuinely injured. In a game that hinges on personal battles against your opposite number, just like football, showing a sign of weakness is as good as saying you've lost that personal battle.

So, how come footballers don't seem to grasp the fundamental human emotion of embarrassment? I know the size of the knot on their ties shows they have a laisez  faire attitude to self awareness, and, personally, if I found myself married to a woman who couldn't spell her favourite wine (despite it also being her name), I'd be mortified and keep her locked away in the attic, but there are limits.

Imagine that the footballer were in their favourite R&B bar listening to music that can only be likened to yodelling and sizing up the vacuous whore that will later be made air tight by half the team (all married). Then imagine that someone takes a dislike to one of their massive tie knots and pushes the footballer very gently in the chest. Do you think the professional sportsmen would fall to the floor, crying, holding their face and rolling on the floor more times than a dog in fox muck. No. They'd probably head butt them and put a cigar out in their face.

So why, on a football field, surrounded by thousands of people and watched by millions, do they feel happy to emasculate themselves by feigning injury? Now I know there are the likes of Terry Butcher or Paul Ince who get a gash on the head, get it wrapped up and then get back on the pitch but they are few and far between. The majority of footballers seem to have a pain threshold similar to a toddler falling off a slide - including the same vacant and confused look.

Anyone that has seen Living With The Lions would have witnessed Martin Johnston playing against South Africa, cutting his eyebrow open, having circa 15 stitches (without anaesthetic) then getting back on the pitch about 10 minutes later. Fellow player Scott Quinnell said the following: "People ask me what sort of leader Martin Johnson was – if he asked me to run through a wall now, I'd just go and do it. He'd have made it easy, really, there'd be a big hole where he'd already gone through."

How many footballers could say the same of their captain? The only hole he'd been through would have been that attached to his team mate's wife.

But, the inevitable seems to have happened. If someone had said to you that players had been at a World Cup, drinking, cheating on their wives, insulting hotel staff as though they could buy or sell them, losing petulantly then topping it off with being arrested for jumping off a ferry in their pants - you'd think football. But alas, as has come to light recently, money seems to have turned a game played by gentlemen into a game played by, what can only be described as 'cunts'.

I never thought I'd say it but I genuinely wish the rugby world cup hadn't happened. It's destroyed all my arguments for rugby vs football and all elements of pride seem to be equally absent for both games. It wouldn't surprise me if we start seeing rugby players rushing up to referees and instead of calling them sir, brandishing imaginary yellow cards and calling them cheating twats.

What is great is when you see grass roots rugby where players will destroy each other for 80 mins, then walk off the pitch shaking hands and having a laugh. OK, so it won't have been played at the same pace or anywhere near the skill levels as internationals but the commitment, passion and pride is never in question.

It's a shame that with most sports there seems to be a graph that you can chart showing wage and ability going up as pride and respect drop at the same speed. Sort it out rugby players. Give me ammo to argue the football vs rugby debate in a pub without having to make up statistics and changes of subject.

Picture the scene...

... In the dead of night, a balding, frustrated late 20s (early 30s) man creeps out of his back gate. He skulks over to a neighbour's house and uses their wall to shimmy into a garden of green grass and luxurious vegetables nestled in a perfectly preserved patch.

He slowly and deliberately drops his trousers and shits onto the neighbour's courgettes. Then, without any recourse, he sneaks back to his home and thinks nothing of it only for the owner of said veg patch to discover faeces all over his/her organic farming.

Now, doesn't that sound utterly unnecessary and avoidable? You'd want to lock the person up. You'd want to move house. You'd want to put cat poison down and kill the shitting little thing.

OK, so I've ruined the M Night Shyamalan ending but hopefully you see the massive annoyance other people's pets cause me. It's bad enough we have to clear up the shit of thousands of people that couldn't work out how to use a credit card (or get a 105% mortgage on a footballer's house while working as a waiter) without having to clear up the shit of their pets.

I would love my own dog. I think it would make me happy, healthier and give me that buzz of knowing someone that loves you is waiting for you at home. But I work all day and I don't think it's fair on man's best friend to be locked in a house all day. So, because I couldn't look after it properly, I have put my dog desires on hold (ignore how wrong that looks and please don't copy/paste this out of context). So why do people, that blatantly can't look after pets insist on getting cats?

"They're really independent", "They come and go as they please", "They don't take much looking after". The same characteristics of the HIV virus I think you'll find and look how that worked out. At least HIV doesn't shit on my courgettes.

Now I'm not getting into the whole 'cats are worse than AIDS' argument again. I have met four lovely cats in my life. And I can name them. Corky, Belly, Whippet (all owned by one person) and Fat Man. They all have personalities, are loyal, and are undoubtedly beautiful. And, do not shit on other people's property. The first three had a country estate to go at and Fatman is a house cat.

My point being that if you must own a cat, do it responsibly. If you must own a cat, try and train it to shit in your own house or garden. Just like I have held back from having a dog because it's not fair on the dog itself, don't have an untrained cat near my garden. Because, if I have to clear one more piece of shit from my already diseased and withered courgette plants, your cat will almost certainly die. Just like you would whoop seven shades of shit out of a bald man shitting in your garden, I too will seek the same vengeance on the feline equivalent. But with poison and a catapult filled with gravel.