(I was planning to write some sort of post linking to favourite bits of the page, only it seemed like a lot of effort; my inner narcissist allowed me to put a load of old blog entries back up on the internet but it doesn't go quite as far as allowing me to go through it all again to pick out the bits that I actually liked. And then I found this, which I'd written to mark the page's 600th entry and never got round to putting up. I'm not sure what the final tally of posts was, although it wouldn't have been much more than 600. In this version there are 513 posts, plus this one. Most of the others were either a) addressing such a particular point that to re-post them would have been meaningless (as it the rest of it is deeply important and significant) or b) rubbish.)

The Adventures of Flossie Sketchbook

with Rob Curling!


Hello, I'm Rob Curling. You know, when I became the host of The Adventures of Flossie archive page, people thought it was a terrible comedown for the respected host of daytime quiz shows and the South-East news sport slot. But now, with this being the undoubted success story of the internet age, it's safe to say that this has been every bit as fulfilling and lucrative as taking over from Michael Wale.

And now, to celebrate the full and complete apart from the missing bits of the "page-o-thing" being in the internet, it's time for me, Rob Curling, to present my very own pick of the very best bits!

2002

Apart from a bit where Matt had a bit of a strop for reasons too dull to go into, 2002 was undoubtedly a triumph for The Adventures of Flossie. Beginning as it meant to go on with a story about acting feebly around a woman and stories about Tesco, the page went from strength to strength, with the first of the page's in-depth looks at the human condition, the first slagging off of the Evening Standard and the search engine-confusing story of the Hollyoaks Babes calendar. And who could forget the epic ruminations on toilet attendants, vitamins, 33 packets of hot dogs and the mighty combination of political satire and fireworks?

We caught up with Matt as he was trying to clean his bedroom in the unlikely event that a woman should ever drop by, and asked him what he thought, looking back at the first nine months of the page.

MATT: Goodness, but it was dull.

2003

2003 started with a bang - quite literally! - as a train Matt was riding smacked into a wall. This led to an awful lot of tedious rambling about trains for the rest of the year. 2003 was also a year in which TAoF reflected the nation's obsessions with religion and high-jumping, the never-referred-to-again Excuse-o-meter was invented, the epic tale of the Plasterer enthralled the nation and some it's-ironic-honestly French stereotypes, and the year culminated in the attack of the lucky heather snatch squad. But what do you think of it now, Mr Writer?

MATT: Was that a reference to the Stereofuckingphonics?
ROB: Er, no. No it wasn't.
MATT: Good. Anyway, I'd always thought that the page had been really good in the past. It turns out that this was just a lot of tedious nostalgia, and the page really has never been that good after all.
ROB: Have you ever actually kissed a girl? I mean, properly, with tongues and all?
MATT: Yes.

2004

Beginning with the inexplicable phrase "this is ball quite frankly" ("it was a reference to Zoe Ball's failing career, or maybe Alan Ball was in the news or something") and topical comment on the now-forgotten Shattered ("I thought it was going to be a new Big Brother-type sensation, and my thoughts on it should be recorded for posterity"), The Adventures of Flossie's third year was one of consolidation after the excitement of 2003. The page's educational remit was fulfilled with the explanation of what an ellipsis might be, the blame for Dagenham losing 9-0 was shifted in a manner that even the spinniest of spin doctors would approve of, the phrase "pram tantrum" was introduced into everyday life and there was much tedious obsessing about red boots.

It was a year of mighty subject-combination, with entries somehow incorporating Phil Collins and women's bottoms and Joss Stone and a man shaving his tits. It was a year in which popular conceptions about people on tube trains, Britney Spears and Romford were dismissed with a flourish. Excellent phrases in otherwise dull posts included: "what can you do with a mouse in a bucket"; "nectarine of evil"; and "not 'Dustbun'", and the nation was enthralled as Matt decided whether or not to jack his job in. (He did.)

ROB: And you found someone else who was willing to give you a job?
MATT: Yes.
ROB: Blimey.

2005

If there was one event that people still talk about in hushed tones, it was the Battle Of The Ikea Car Park. But it wasn't all doom and gloom in Essex's murder capital; The Adventures of Flossie showed that old Dunkirk spirit, making jokes about rancid milk to keep people's spirits up. This was also the year in which Matt spent much of his time "working from home". But surely, if you're "working from home", you aren't actually doing any work at all?

MATT: Yes I was, I was doing heaps of work.
ROB: Ha ha ha ha! But presumably being at home all day would have given you more time to write amusing entries to entertain people with?
MATT: No.

2005 also featured another epic rumination on the human condition, one that seemed oddly similar to the one in 2002.

MATT: Well, y'see, the idea was that in 2008 there'd be one that says "No, really; girls, eh". If I'd remembered I would have kept the page going.

Oops!

2006

And so, after nearly four years and 600 posts, the page came to a glorious climax, leaving a trail of disappointed readers weeping into their cornflakes with the horror that such an important part of their lives would be missing.

ROB: So, Matt, why on earth would you put all of this stuff back up on the internet?
MATT: Well, Rob, I-
ROB: You lying bastard, you did it because you seem to think that one day hundreds of people are going to read it and someone's going to give you money to write amusing tales about looking at girls on trains for them, and in the meantime maintain an air of smug superiority over blogs that have more readers because they're far better than yours. (Hits MATT firmly on the nose.)
MATT: It's a fair cop.
ROB: I'm a journalist, you know.

I have now wasted one day's holiday and inconvenienced myself hugely by spending a day working from home in the name of getting my washing machine fixed.

My washing machine still doesn't work.

Moral: Indesit? In-the-shit, more like. Actually, that's not really a moral, is it? It doesn't even make sense. It's just an excuse to incorporate the name of a manufacturer of washing machines and a swearword to indicate how annoyed I am. The saga has now claimed my ability to use words. Thank goodness I don't work for a publishi... oh, drat.

This, combined with the prospect of having to haul 300 sheets of A3 paper through the rush hour tomorrow morning, has left me in such a mood that the entry I've been planning for myself, which I'm pleased with already and haven't even started on yet (which almost certainly means it's going to be an anti-climax and remain unposted forever, like that Airhead one I occasionally mentioned in the early days of the page-o-thing and was reminded of when I was compiling Rob Curling's Best of The Adventures of Flossie, and Rob Curling's Best of The Adventures of Flossie) will have to remain unwritten for a few days yet. At least.

My first day off since returning to the world of Proper Employment. I should like to tell you that there is an exciting reason for this, but there isn't; it's because, after spending Wednesday evening splashing around the kitchen, this was the only day that anyone would come to fix my washing machine this side of April (approx.). Or, rather, look at my washing machine and work out how many parts would be needed to make it work again.

In the meantime, my mum has volunteered use of her washing machine to save me from having to visit a launderette for the first time since, oooh, about 1995 or so. And while this is a good thing - I could have got away with a week without a washing machine if I was still working from home, but hygiene is much more of an issue in a badly air-conditioned office with people you still don't know particularly well - there is one problem in having my mum handle my dirty laundry. I am, after all, a single gentleman who lives on his own. And - how do I put this? - there are certain things that single gentlemen who live on their own do, particularly in the springtime when the single gentleman's thoughts turn to... well, you know.

(Fans of the mid-90s and irony will be delighted to learn that one of the discs in the pile of CD singles I've been entertaining myself with is Tiny Meat by Ruby, which I haven't heard for ages and which I'm alarmed to note came out in 1995. I probably listened to it while I was sat around in the launderette. I knew how to live when I was a student.)

So I've had to carefully sift the washing to ensure that anything too embarrassingly sullied doesn't make it into the bag that I'll be sending over to her. The sheets I took off the bed last weekend certainly aren't going in. Most of the pairs of sturdy boxer shorts that I wear are in dark colours, which is potentially bad, but the good thing about going to work is that you're otherwise occupied all day and too busy being tired and having things to do when you get home, so the situation isn't nearly as bad as it could have been; the sift-and-sniff I've just undertaken reveals only two pairs that I wouldn't want someone else handling, and even then that's more of a precautionary measure than because of certain humiliation. Phew.

Today, readers, is a red letter day. For today is the day when the number of people who found the page looking for "Flossie" finally outstripped the number of people who found it looking for ("Johnny Noakes" - Ed). It seems unlikely that they were actually looking for me, as the page's readership remains stubbornly at "maybe 12", but I feel quite gratified anyway. Even if it has taken about two years.

By coincidence, this is also the page-o-thing's 600th post. I was going to mark this with some extended self-indulgent nonsense, but having spent ages working on it and then reading it back I'm not sure that the tone of mockery that I'd intended has really come out, and that it might have become the page that celebrates only itself. I shall pause and rethink the matter, and see if I can come up with some jokes, and you can insert your own punchline to that one.

My train into work ground to a halt midway between stations. The driver told us that he didn't know why the train was being held up, and as he did you could hear his radio ringing in the background. I wasn't bothered; I've spent so much time this week either sitting on trains or standing on trains or sitting on trains and then standing up to let someone have my seat or standing on platforms waiting for trains to turn up that I've become quite relaxed about the whole business. At least this time the driver was telling us what was going on; usually they're only too keen to tell us where the train is stopping, where the safety notices are, thanking us for traveling with them (as if we had much of an option), only to clam up when something goes wrong.

Besides, it was going to allow me to get through all of McIntyre, Treadmore and Davitt. I even began to plan which bits of the HMHB catalogue I was going to follow it up with.

It transpired that a train in front had failed, and that we were to be diverted around it. The train in question was parked a matter of yards away from the platform at Maryland, and it looked busy. I suspected that left any longer it would turn into that The Day Today sketch, and fully expected it to still be there when I returned in the evening. Unfortunately I'd completely forgotten about it by then, and besides was on the opposite side of the train and so wouldn't have been able to see it, and anyway a woman who smelt fantastic had sat next to me and I was too busy being preoccupied about that to notice. I reckon they probably moved it though. It would have been on the news and that.

As we've discussed before (and, let's be honest, after 597 entries there are very few topics that we haven't discussed before, the maybe 12 of you and I, whether they were worth discussing or not), I find the leaving card to be a particularly novel form of torture. How to condense your relationship with someone you've worked with for however long into a pithy aside? Particularly if you actually like them? It's a nightmare in tacky cardboard-y paper form.

However, trying to write a message on a leaving card for someone who has given you a job only to announce that they're leaving within less than a month of you starting that job is a new form of awkwardness beyond anything I have previously experienced. Ordinarily writing a leaving card for someone you've only worked with for a few weeks would be, comparatively speaking, a doddle - just a quick "best wishes for the future"-type message that you can tailor according to the circumstances of their departure. But when they've actually given you the job, it feels like you're supposed to write more. Are you still supposed to be grateful for them employing you in the first place? Will a wry aside about how long you've been working for them be taken the wrong way? Particularly when you're one of the first to sign, and you know practically everyone else within the department will get to read it, and that it's bad enough that they're going to see your awful handwriting as well.

(It should be pointed out that since I've joined the company, two of the three people who interviewed me have announced their departures. I've tried not to take this personally - the key word is tried - but I can't help feeling like a rat boarding a sinking ship. Moral: don't ever get a job.)

My nephew asked me what I want to be when I grow up. (He wants to be a racing driver. Unfortunately his version of what driving racing cars involves has been affected by computer games, and involves the use of brightly coloured shells, speed-up mushrooms and your opponents being a toadstool, an ape and a giant fire-breathing monster. Note to Bernie Ecclestone: this would improve things no end.) I decided that when I grow up I'm going to be a failure. Aim high, that's my motto.

Apparently, the downside to being a racing driver is that "the girls all wiggle their butts at you". Publishing is very similar. The girls do wiggle their butts at you. In a way. Sort of. All right, the girls walk down the corridor and if you're walking along behind them you can look at their bottom if nobody's coming the other way who might see you doing it. Practically no difference, really.

More worryingly, my sister has been looking at my Friends Reunited profile, which I'd updated a few months ago on my biannual visit to the aforementioned site and completely forgotten about on the grounds that, well, nobody looks at these things. Oddly, she picked up on the bit about meeting someone I went to school with outside Tesco rather than the bit about talking to girls 10 years younger than me at Sleater-Kinney gigs, which is the sort of detail you'd expect your sister to be more interested in. I'm going to have to be a lot more careful about this sort of thing in future.