I am starting to think that Stephen Merchant and I should be friends, but the problem is that we have too much in common.

- We have the same birthday. This would get confusing, we'd have to share the same birthday party. We'd both be trying to take the limelight, and people wouldn't be sure who to pay the most attention to. I think of course it should be me, and Steve would think the same thing, so the night would have a continual undercurrent of uneasiness that wouldn't make anyone happy.

- We are both tall skinny ectomorphs. Ok, this might actually help both of us. When standing next to each other people might start to think that being tall and skinny is the way that normal people should be. But then I'd probably get annoyed that Steve is taller than me, and he'd get annoyed that I'm shorter than him, and no-one would be happy.



- We are both allergic to dust and cat hair. If you got us both into a dusty room with a few moggies we'd be effectively useless. And we'd both resent the other person for it.

- We both agree that the "lord of the rings" movies make no sense. If you got us together talking about our mutual distaste for these movies then no-one else could ever fit a word in. We'd probably disagree with each other about how much the other person hates each movie.

- We have both read the first 20 pages of "zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance". I read the first 10 pages at my parents one night and got bored, Steve read the first 20 pages trying to impress a lady. Our mutual distate at each other's failure to follow through on our commitment to read a philosophical book would be not a lot of fun.

- We both did university radio. My love of 80's guitar metal and Steve's love of hip hop and pop would definitely clash. We wouldn't really agree on any kind of music that is "good" and it would dissolve into another argument.

Oh well.