This morning, I must confess, brought back painful memories of my divorce three years ago - it was bitterly cold, and I found myself wandering around the train station with no home, feeling poor and wondering what to do next in my life. Failing all other options, it was time to get stoned.

I can exclusively reveal, dear reader, that I have unravelled the mystery behind one of the stupidest remarks made in the history of American Presidents, before George Dubya arrived on the scene, that is.

You will of course remember Bill Clinton's classic statement about dope, "I smoked it, but I didn't inhale." Sounds stupid, but I now know where he was coming from. As those who know me will testify, I'm not much of a smoker, but as has been oft quoted, "I do enjoy an occasional cigar."

As I'm sure you know, with cigars, par for the course is not to inhale, but to get the taste on the palette, so to speak. I have to say in Clinton's defence, that he must have been a habitual cigar smoker, because in all honesty, I sat there for a moment or two, wondering why the stuff wasn't doing anything. Am I foolish enough to be President? No, because it only took me a second to figure out where I was going wrong, and then we started cooking.

Perhaps that qualifies me for Vice-President.

I feel a definite need here to quote Douglas Adams, though I'm not sure why.

I've never understood quite what Mr Adams meant, but somehow it feels appropriate to say it.

So I must have my two'penneth - What's all the fuss about this stuff? I mean, yes I think it's cool, and for the remainder of my stay I'm going to be happily smoking my way through a score that would send my brother into spasms of envy and have his eyeballs popping out of his lovable little head, but why is hash illegal? It's certainly no worse, socially speaking, than getting drunk. Probably better in fact. Sure it's a waaay quicker high, and perhaps less social because of it, but I can't see this stuff depraving or depriving society. Is it just force of habit that keeps it illegal? Please, someone offer some explanation to the usual address!

Devoid of the famed munchies, but definitly in need of some verbal digestion, I thought I'd fill you in on some of the unique and odd things I've found during my time in Amsterdam so far...

John Travolta, in his comeback special, Pulp Fiction, said of Amsterdam, "They got the same shit over there as we got here, it's just the little differences." He could not have been more wrong, for I challenge anyone to find, anywhere in the world, anything even vaguely like the spectacle of a tramp playing Blues Ukelele with Kazoo accompaniment, strumming with all the right-hand-gusto normally only found in adolescent boys, singing like the Four Horsemen of the Apocolapse are coming, and one of them's George Fornby.

Nothing like it, truly. But then, Amsterdam is, I believe, a European centre of weird. I cite as another example, a plaque by an admittedly fine painting in the Rijkmuseam - "Jan Weenix was skilled in the depiction of dead game and birds against garden landscapes." Where, why and how does anyone become skilled in such a branch of the arts? I know the twentieth century was the era of specialisation, but even so...I am baffled.

Baffled so, that my mind turned to more thoughtful matters. For those of you who side with the, "Never talk about Religion or Politics," schools, please skip to the next paragraph.
A thought occurs to me, and it is this. Suppose for a second, if you don't hold this already, that Jesus was all he claimed. Most non-fundamentalist Christian's will accept that Darwinian evolution is fair enough, and non-conflicting. Given those two viewpoints, here's a problem - Jesus appeared at a particular point in evolution - modern Homo-Sapiens. But there's nothing in evolutionary theory to say that that's where it stops - Human Beings are presumably still evolving. You have to come to one of two conclusions, either there's something in the Cosmic Plan that says Human Beings are the pinnacle of evolution, which is tricky from a scientific point of view, or you have to assume that eventually we'll evolve into something for which Homo-Sapien is a distant ancestor. If that's the case, then that eventually makes Jesus akin to just another ape. Which is unacceptable from a Christian point of view, because He is officially the final, one and only Saviour.
Can open, worms everywhere. I don't have an answer, but I think it's an interesting question which I throw out to the group, and hope it gives cause for interest and thought.
On with the weirdness and cheap gags.

And speaking of Jesus, I had a thought about the second coming, should there be one. I think, in the age of packet, freeze-dried, and microwave foods, that feeding five-thousand people is no longer a particularly impressive feat - any major London caterers could probably manage it with some advanced warning. My bet is, that should the Lord mk. 2 show up any time soon, he will perform a much greater miracle that combines both the wonders of the Lazarus and loaves and fishes miracles - he'll take a lifeless Big Mac and fries, and actually make it resemble the photos...

Still speaking of Jesus, and it's the last Jesus comment, I promise, but who remembers the film, Dogma? If you've seen it, and especially if you're Catholic, you have to remember 'The Buddy Jesus' statue at the beginning of the film. You can actually buy them here - 49fl. I'd ship one back to Brian, but it's a bit off my budget!

That's another point - under who's logic does Gilder shorten to fl.? Presumably the same guy who decided that the Dutch don't live in Deutschland. It must be Them, on the loose again. The Bavarian Illuminati, perhaps? Maybe they're also responsable for the other great mystery of Europe - Why does every European city have both a Sex Museum and a Torture Museum?

Sex brings me to another thing I wanted to mention - you really can learn a lot about what has just happened in a brothel by the way the man walks out afterwards. Two examples. The first day I was here, an old man of about sixty came out of a brothel that I was passing, and he must have got a good service, because his legs were bowed like Charlie Chaplin and he could barely walk! Compare with the guy I saw yesterday coming out of another brothel, and frankly Samuel L. Jackson with a Kool and the Gang soundtrack never strutted as confidently as this man. He was it. And so, conversly, he knew he'd given as good a service as he'd got...

Small beer problem solved, by the way, courtesy of "Mr Coco's - Lousy Food and Warm Beer." I think happy hour is the one cultural tidbit we Brits have managed to export successfully.

A radio inspired aside: For a billion bonus points, could someone please cheer Eric Clapton up? I like the blues probably more than the next man, but a song called, "Drowning in a River of Tears," is not a song, it's a pathology.

Well, that's all for now. Perhaps next time I'll talk about me more - it would be less fun for you, but you know I'd enjoy it...

It's gone four o' clock, it must be time to find some fish, and get stoned.

Strike that, reverse it.