hey My good mate David from Hell's Video Store is a man cut from many weird, mismatched cloths. I wonder how he gets through his life without, you know, spontaneously imploding. He has a phobia of buttons. Loose buttons, like when one falls off your shirt. If you want to freak him out completely, throw a button at him and he goes into convulsions. Seriously - I've seen it. Somebody dropped a button down the back of his shirt last week and he went into a flat spin and started frantically ripping his clothes off to find it - a trick for someone like him who has an even bigger phobia of undressing in public places; he won't even walk around the house in his pyjamas, apparently - and he spent the rest of the evening shaking and trembling and muttering to himself like Gollum on crack cocaine. He can handle buttons attached to things, like a school shirt, but starts to panic if there is a loose thread and the button is not as secure as Fort Knox. He also has an immense dislike of "Things which make skin." Like gravy. Or custard. To the point that if he at dinner and someone puts a gravy boat near him, he has to ask someone to move it. He cannot move it himself without going into a complete panic attack. To this end, he cannot even pick up a plate which has remnants of gravy or custard on it. He's basically a good guy, with a razor-sharp wit and a willing, ready smile. He tends to exist on CocaCola and grilled cheese sandwiches only, because apart from the panic factor, he is an immensely fussy eater. His family have suddenly become religious born-agains, which he can't be dealing with, either, as a definite atheist, even though he is but a young 'un at 19. He's also exceptionally clever; so does this make him merely eccentric? Spare a thought for David on your travels this morning. It's good to know people like him, I think, to give our own lives a vague sense of normality. And because he's also a hell of a nice guy. laters