So my friend and I were in the pub a couple of days ago. His empty pint glass was on the table between us. As we chatted, the empty glass exploded with a loud boom. Surprisingly few tiny squarish fragments were left on the table, the rest presumably being blown all over the surrounding area. Neither of us was touching the glass, and although it had contained Worthington bitter minutes before, it was empty.

We had been talking about ghosts, too. Woooh. The exploding glass was impressive, but also impressive was the loud and clear swearing my chum embarked upon in the area-wide silence after the bang. He clearly said the F-word and much more.

You can put a man on the moon, but you can’t explain the exploding pint glass, eh, scientists? Unless you suggest it was caused by temperature changes acting on an already faulted/wekened structure within the glass. That I might believe. Or it might have been ghosts. Woooh.

Richard Herring is a writer and comedian. Check him out at www.richardherring.com.
I’ve admired his stuff for ages, and he writes a marvellous weblog on his site. The section is called Warming Up.

Reading it on Tuesday, I noted that, in a piece about someone marrying and thus saving a prostitute in Finland, he committee a typo and ran the words 'who rescued' together, making whorescured. Such was my delight at this accidental new and incredibly apt word, I emailed him, telling him, amongst other fawning platitudes, that the word whorescued perfectly describes the entire plot of the film Pretty Woman.

Richard, bless him, mailed back and bless him further, even mentioned the word and the Pretty Woman thing on his blog for today, Tuesday 17th September 2003

This made me happier than I could ever have expected. It’s one thing to see or even meet famous people, but to get a laugh out of a comedian I hold in great esteem gave me great pleasure.

Oh God, I hope he laughed. He shoe-horned it into the blog, where it didn’t quite fit, so he must have liked it.

PS I once went to see Newman and Baddiel, and they invited comment from the audience. A woman shouted, cleverly, “I love you David!” I instantly responded in a deep voice, “So do I”. He laughed. But I’m prouder of the Pretty Woman thing.

Things fall apart - it’s scientific.

- Talking Heads. Wild Wild Life.