Sometimes you go out to a restaurant and you remark that the food tastes like cr#p. Well for these unfortunates they could say it with utter conviction; their food really did taste like cr#p, because it was cr#p - literally.

Never upset managers or chefs at a restaurant, it's the unwritten rule of dinning out, because when it comes down to it, they're the people who are serving you the food. And if they choose to curl out a dirty protest into your dessert then by Gordon Ramsey's tiny balls, they will.

In a move that was bitterly ironic, as bitter as the finest 80% cocoa solids dark chocolate, the dessert served to these hapless souls was chocolate ice-cream! You can afford yourself a little chuckle at that, it's harsh, but funny.

It's now descended into a nasty spat, with the pub vehemently denying it, while the offended patrons try and seek damages, both accusing the other of seeking financial gain. I bet both parties can't wait to see the back of the whole damn, ahem, stinking mess. The lesson? You can't polish a turd, but you can disguise it in some chocolate ice-cream.

Until someone eats some, that is.

Lasers, as a sci-fi staple they're up there with aliens, eternal night, robots sent from the future and Lance Henriksen, so it's good news to sci-fi fans to hear that a laser weapon is ever nearer. Hoorah! More weapons to eradicate our fellow man, just what we need in this current climate of fear, blame-mongering, hatred and contempt!

While lasers are something straight out of popular sci-fi, I think the world is edging ever closer to a sci-fi akin to that of Philip K Dick. If there's ever been a paranoid drug fiend, he's your man. He deals with the blurring line between the real and imagined, constantly confusing the reader with multiple realities, dead-ends that look like answers, cruel jokes, non-linear timelines and highly elusive conclusions. His characters are swathed in an eerie despondency, a hopelessness, a restless unease, a feeling of being trapped eternally in a mirror house of confusion and falsehood. That, I think, is closer to the realities we face each day.

But anyway, don't let that grind you down, lasers are cool! Imagine a laser this powerful in one of those laser toys for cats. Here kitty, kitty, here kit- ZIMP! MEOW!! Where'd kitty go? And where'd all this fur come from?