Well now, after some considerable delay since it was first announced, I'm finally posting my first contribution to this, yet another no doubt deeply inconsequential and little-read blog, one maintained mainly for my entertainment and vanity.

Why Pickled Flex? Well, it's a combination of elements which make no sense whatsoever when placed beside each other and is ultimately meaningless - which is a lot like life. Besides that, it also sounds like the name of an internet startup created by some odious product of Britain's public school system going by the name of Tarquin, with only a media degree, a trust fund and a superiority complex to his name.

As should be clear by now, I could talk rubbish for England. You should probably also know that my life is not especially interesting, but it was not always thus. Alone In Ogura was a blog I kept until very recently which detailed the tremendously good times I had in Japan as a participant on the JET Programme, until I arrived back in England again last week at the end of my two year stint. I now find myself contemplating my career options, which I always find terribly depressing, and otherwise getting on with the comparatively far more enjoyable business of seeing family and friends again after a very long time indeed.

Of course, what one needs in order to to stay in touch with friends in this day and age is a mobile phone (or keitai as the vastly superior Japanese term would have it). Which is my way of awkwardly linking to what will no doubt be the first of many rants, namely, since when did mobile phone companies become so damn chummy? Have I just been out of the country for too long?

It's the enormous amount of literature you have to wade through before you can get the thing working that gets me, and as well as there being lots to read, it's all written in an unbearably patronising way. Examples escape me just at the moment, and laziness prevents me from fetching said articles to check, but anyone who's an O2 customer should know what I'm talking about. It's designed come across as though you're their new best mate that they've got to look out for, rather than the latest mug who's wandered in off the high street for them to fleece. Which only makes commercial sense I suppose.

Interestingly though, nowhere does it mention the potential hazards of owning such a small piece of electronic equipment. Honestly, my Sony Ericsson model is so small and light I'm actually slightly worried about the possibility of getting drunk one night and accidentally swallowing it. I'm starting to miss the nice, solid feel and chunky craftsmanship of my Docomo N900iS dearly, but then we all have to move on. And forming an emotional attachment to an electronic communications device is just plain wrong.

Stay tuned for further scintillating dispatches from the blasted commuter wastelands of Essex coming to you very soon...