A fear like no other

Office toilets are usually assigned one for a dozen people anyway, so it's no suprise if you walk into the gents and find that all are currently occupied.

Easy methods of spotting occupation are:

• If the door is closed
  
• Checking for the "Occupied" sign on the lock of the door.
• Looking at the lock-side of the door and seeing if the bolt of the lock has been pulled across.

Not that difficult to spot. If the door is closed and one of its following conditions are met, you can just go ahead and come back in five minutes.

This strategy isn't for everyone however.

Our office toilets are quite cramped, and with each cubicle, when seated your knees are no farther than six inches from the door. It's very up-close and personal.

You and that door become firm friends. A bond is formed when you realise that there's only your woody friend between you and utter humiliation.

This forged bond was to be put to the test just yesterday.

When sat on the toilet minding my own business, somebody opens the main toilet door with such force and brutality, it fills my heart with an instant sense of dread.

The ape then storms through to the first cubicle clearly in a rush, and attempts to open the first door to my left. No dice. There are only two doors. I'm next.

The suspense is killing me as Allan the ape then nearly rips the door handle off trying to get into my cubicle.

My face is no more than ten inches away from the handle itself.

Woody is holding steady, but still Allan tries harder. Woody starts to creak. Allan assumes that even though the occupied sign is clearly in place, it's not occupied and that the lock must be stuck.

I am frozen with terror as Woody holds his ground, and eventually Allan retreats back into whatever tree he came from.

Check the lock first, you spoon-fed.

Dave the dog

Pets need strong names too.

I'm adamant about this blog, and cannot be disuaded.

I would like to regress you back to when you were at school. You were floating around in your youth, climbing trees or playing kiss-chase, blissfully unaware of the realities of life. Every person who went through this stage in their life remembers the kid with the bad name.

I remember when I was at school there was a girl called Nancy. It's a disgraceful name for a girl under the age of 75, and this poor 8-year old (and incredibly unfortunate-looking) girl had to press through life with an awful name.

Let's now swap the playing fields of school for dogs in the park.

We all know that dogs like doing things we'll never understand. Sniffing eachothers' bums is a favourite past-time, and who are we to judge? Nonetheless, dogs themselves are perfectly able to judge one-another. You can take some control of this judging process however, and disuade your pet from being bullied.

Give it a strong name.

You can't go wrong with a stereotypical dog name like Rover, but why not try on a new one? Why not Geoff? It's a strong name. Imagine this: Steve the labrador.

Screams authority, doesn't it?

Allan the Bull-terrier.

Granted, nobody's going to be bullying Allan anyway, but they may have a pop at Geoff if his name was something more along the lines of "Tiddles" or "Sweetie-pie".

Don't let your pet suffer.

If you get a cat, call it Frank. Or Brian.

Let your pet live.