Microsoft is making me fat

In the papers yesterday there was an article expounding a theory that fatness is caused by a virus.Of course,I poo-poohed this idea (although secretly I thought the idea was fab and would like nothing better than to tell people the reason I've battled with my weight all my life is not because I like food and hate exercise but because I have a 'virus').

But I can now announce that, due to an experience I had today, I am able to endorse this theory with cold, hard, factual EVIDENCE! Oh yes! This is what happened...

Every morning I listen to the Dominic King Show on Radio Kent. He chunters away in the background as I write, keeping me company with his banter and the occasional bit of proper music. Sometimes, the show makes me laugh, sometimes it makes me think, but most of all it provides me with the sense of being in a cheerful office environment, thereby making me feel as if I am decently employed in proper work and not just faffing around pretending to be a writer.

So, at the end of today's show Dom asks for people to send him information about their blogs. 'Great!' I think. 'I'll do that then the BBC can see what a fantastically entertaining and original wit I am and commission me to write for them. Or something.'

So I crank up the Internet and start to compose an eye-catching e-mail listing all the incredible entries on this blog like the adventures with the chickens and the cats and my rantings and musings about every day occurences such as making sausages and getting mown down by toddlers pushing dollies in miniature push chairs. I even mentioned the making of the hens' perfume advert, 'Poulet by Pumphrey', even though I could get into contractual doo-dah with Mrs Pumphrey's corporate lawyers for doing so.

Devoted readers, I did this FOUR TIMES. FOUR TIMES!!!!!! And three quarters of the way through every attempt, Microsoft froze, then said it had to shut down for some reason and then it shut down without so much as a bye your leave, meaning I had to start all over again.

As you can imagine, this caused me much distress. So much distress in fact, that I had to eat many Brazil nuts and a couple of bits of shortbread in order to re-stabilise my temper, I mean, blood sugar. I also took quite a chunk out of the polo neck jumper I was wearing and because it's a bit fluffy I'm going to spend the evening coughing up fur balls.

In the end, on the fifth or possibly sixth attempt (I'd given up the will to count by then), I had to rattle off an e-mail in double quick time that said words to the effect of 'This is my blog. I am told it is funny but a bit weird. Microsoft are being stupid,' before it shut down again.

So it's all your fault I'm on the plumptious side, Microsoft. It's nothing to do with emotional issues, or the rigours of daily living. Oh no! It's all the result of a techno-virus.

I rest my case, m'lud!