I've dumped Old Sparky. I can't help but feel a bit guilty, ditching my faithful companion after all this time together. Worse, I've traded up for a younger, flashier, more glamourous model. The chorus of tabloid denunciation must surely be imminent. I am to facial stimulators what Rod Stewart is to blondes.

The old machine I used to shock my face into activity and tone was an elderly, biscuit-coloured, second-hand affair. The new one, which I suppose I am compelled to name Young Sparky, is bright and flash and shiny and contoured. When it came though the post the other day I was more excited than had I been given a fresh laptop or stereo.

Its technical name is a Neuro 4 Advanced Stimulation System and it is a purring Aston Martin to the old model's creaking Honda Civic. This is what it looks like:

The first thing you will notice about it, from the acres of cabling stuck to my face in the photo at the top, is that it comes with extra electrodes. The old one had two pairs. The new one has four. This isn't just about the relentless trend under capitalism to create unnecessary new commodities, such as Gillette's daft five-bladed razors (a development predicted with profane yet eerie accuracy in The Onion). No, each pair of conductors relates to the four endings of the facial nerve - the forehead, under the eye, the cheek and the chin. Before I was only energising the ones around my mouth. Now, the entire face gets a workout. It's surprisingly refreshing if I get the levels right. The old contraption felt like it was gently tickling me. Young Sparky is more like an electric cold shower.

This is also because the new one is much, much more powerful. Unused to the increased voltage, I managed to hurt myself at first by cranking up one of the little blue dials too far. Ouch. After a week's use I've grown slightly more adept. Disappointingly, despite the currents flowing through my head, my hair has so fair failed to stand up on end like  when you put both your hands on a Van Der Graaf generator.

Like a car, it also comes with different gears. The old model was single-speed and I had to remember when to switch it off myself. This one comes with three different programmes - 30 minutes, one hour, three hours. It shuts itself off when it's done. I'll have to check the instruction manual to see if it'll make me a cup of tea as well.

One slight drawback. Because the old one was quite mild, and concerned itself only with the centre of my face, I was able to attach it before going to bed and go to sleep while it was on. I'll have to give this one a bit longer before my forehead and chin get used to the novelty of being cranked into action, however, as I suspect it will distract me from nodding off. Although this means having it on during the day, limiting when I can go out or, indeed, answer the door without looking like a tool, the new regime has its advantages. Going to bed with my stimulator is probably a bit weird. I don't want you to think I'm taking my anthropomorphic analogy too literally.

Brain tumours generally get a pretty bad press. For the most part popular culture takes a dim view of them; you never see one winning fame as a Hollywood matinee idol, for instance, or performing a hit single on CD:UK. As such I'm very pleased to learn that the latest sensation in the teenage publishing market portrays neoplasms in a sympathetic and indeed heroic light. Anthony McGowan's Henry Tumour (Doubleday £10.99, pp306) is the story of a nerdy, maths-loving schoolboy whose cranial growth "turns out to be the perfect alter-ego, advising Hector [its host] on haircuts, high-fashion, and tactics for snogging the best-looking girl in school". While I naturally welcome any attempt in literature to challenge negative stereotypes, I can't help but feel a bit short changed: after all, my neuroma neglected to offer me any similar tips. 

Already the novel has won general acclaim. Shortlisted for the Booktrust Teenage Prize 2006, it was lauded by the Guardian as "dark and (if you're 14) funny". I wanted to buy a copy myself (the humour sounds pitched at about my level of maturity). But I searched in vain for one in the "Young Adults" section at Ottakar's in Dumfries, and if I'd hung around there any longer I'd have started to look like Sidney Cooke.

The dramatic technique of using such a lump as an inner voice or alter ego seems such an obvious one that I'm surprised no-one's thought of it before. But a cursory Google of "brain tumour" and "literary device" produces no other examples of this oevre (uncannily, the first search result is my own Guardian article). I did once interview veteran anarchist Ian Bone, who wanted to write a novel called TUMOUR! from the perspective of the growth itself, describing its plucky battle to survive radiotherapy. In the end, however, he feared his own cells would start to multiply in retribution, and shelved the project.

Can anyone who reads this come up with any films, songs, books or other cultural forms which take a similarly benign (boom, tish) view of brain tumours? The best gets a prize, probably not a very good one though.

It's a funny old game. Former West Ham manager Glenn Roeder returned to Upton Park with his new club Newcastle at the weekend. In 2003, while still in charge at the east London side, he collapsed with a brain tumour. The Hammers were subsequently relegated and their boss was dismissed after returning to his post the following season. However, since then WHUFC have bounced back into the Premiership and Roeder has seen his career revitalised in the north east. So surely both sides had cause to celebrate the revival of their fortunes when they were reunited on Sunday?

It would appear not. Those loveable cockneys displayed their charming terrace humour by singing about "tumour boy" and asking Roeder "why didn't you die three years ago?" The manager himself admitted he was disconcerted. "I looked at the faces of some of the people who were shouting at me, they were men of my age," he said yesterday. "Men in their forties and fifties, men screaming about brain tumours and death, men who, God forbid, might find themselves in the same position as me one day." Newcastle won 2-0, you'll be pleased to learn.

Now, some of you might reckon I'm not in a position to cast judgement on the Irons fans. I've certainly never shrunk from making jokes about brain tumours (indeed, this blog can be seen as one such extended gag). Regulars will recall the incident, recounted in the newspaper articles linked to on this page, when I caught myself sniggering at a chant about Darren Jackson being struck down a similar condition to my own. Nor do I believe that only those afflicted by a condition have the right to laugh about it. When Rangers goalkeeper Andy Goram was diagnosed with mild schizophrenia, I joined in with every other football crowd in Scotland: "Two Andy Gorams... there's only two Andy Gorams..."

The fact that sick humour makes me laugh is not something I feel I need to apologise for, any more than I should say sorry for jerking my lower leg in a reflex action when someone taps my knee. Most jokes depend on an element of surprise, and the shock of hearing something tasteless or offensive takes that process to its extreme. Example from today's Popbitch mailout: "Charles Kennedy is to be the new face of Irn Bru. They're both Scottish, ginger, and drunk a lot in public."

Now, that's equally cruel - mocking a man's medical condition (and his nationality, and his hair colour). But what it does also possess is a degree of wit, something it shares with the Goram chant. The Irn Bru wisecrack has the benefit, too, of context - it is funnier when told at the end of a gosspiy email than it would be, say, from the floor of the Lib Dem conference during one of Kennedy's speeches. Likewise, I permitted myself to laugh at the Darren Jackson song because one bloke was singing it at the back of a stadium where Mr. Jackson himself was not present. Had an entire crowd been belting it out when the striker himself was on the pitch I'd have been a bit less sanguine.

Above all, though, there's a question of intent. The Goram ditty was a dig at the keeper, it's true, but a relatively gentle one in the context of Scottish football matches. The West Ham fans were not displaying any wit or linguistic ingenuity. They were just being as nasty and spiteful as possible, which leaves too unpleasant a taste in your mouth for you to laugh through. Fair enough. It's not for me to set limits on their right to free speech. The chant doesn't offend me personally. But ultimately it just isn't funny, and that's far more damning.

Another tumour-free entry: I'd once again like to plug my brother's band The Martial Arts. Their debut album, splendidly titled Your Sinclair, is out now on Groover Recordings. Personally I think it sounds very accomplished, like a cross between Martha Reeves and the Modern Lovers, with some guitar noises and occasional electro bleeps thrown in. If you don't want to take my word for it, check out their MySpace page where you can hear some choons: Mod Val is my current favourite, or maybe Kicking and Screaming.

If you like what you hear, you can buy it for 19.10 euros (including postage and packaging), which works out as about £12.