Feedback Friday :: Working From Home

bulk :: 15st 8 (damn you, Christmas chocolate!)
exercise :: 0 (joining new gym next week though, I swear)
glasses of wine :: 6
cases of wine :: 0
cohabitation disputes :: 3
kittens :: 0
senses working overtime :: one, two, three, four…. Four.
Twitter updates :: 111

So here we are, one week down, hopefully at least a couple of thousand to go. And I’m happy to report that it’s gone tremendously well, especially once I’d moved down from the icebox of the study-cum-second bedroom to the relative hospitality of the kitchen. As well as being at least 10 degrees warmer than the spare room, the kitchen has the concomitant allure of a fridge full of fish, a kettle full of water and the inexorable poignancy of a poor poinsettia, for whom it seems, it is forever Autumn. It does feel a little odd masturbating at the kitchen table of course, but that’s something I’ll get used to, I’m sure.

I mention masturbation not merely to shock you, gentle reader, but rather to neatly segue, like a fractured infinitive, into the subject of Distraction. In my previous incarnation as a website editorialist and junk-puking killer of trees, deadlines tended to impend. I’d generally have just a few days or a week or two at most to get something done. This meant I was usually up against it and if I wanted to get paid, I couldn’t afford to piddle around on Facebook or Twitter or – eek! – YouPorn. With this book thing however, I’ve got till some time in March to complete, and although there are countless mini-deadlines along the way, I don’t think I’m going to get dropped if I miss them, so you know… ooh, look, a penguin!

It has to be said however, my main distraction this week hasn’t been pornography, and it hasn’t been abused penguins. My main distraction this week has been Twitter.

I must admit, until the beginning of this week, rather like the ghastly Bryony Gordon, I didn’t really get Twitter. I just thought it was a place where a bunch of people – the vast majority of whom you didn’t know and would never want to – mouthed off about the wholly insignificant minutiae of their often very mundane lives. And I was absolutely spot on. That’s exactly what it is. What I didn’t realise however, was that although that sounds like the height of tedium, it can in fact be excellent fun and a source of constantly sporadic fascination.

Two things make it particularly enjoyable. One is the arrival in the Twitterverse (shudder) of Jonathan Ross.

Wossy, to give him his Twitter name, is a fantastic fellow to follow. And if you’re a fan, Twitter is a great place to get close to him. Obviously he gets a lot of people yammering on to him all day and night (a Twitter search for to:Wossy gives you some idea), but that doesn’t mean he won’t get back to you. Most of his Tweets now are responses to some of the hundreds of messages he receives daily. Indeed, for a man who occasionally abuses one-time national treasures, Jonathan Ross is extremely personable. He’s also perfectly wiling to speak his mind. For example, in one Tweet he describes Piers Morgan as ‘a grotesque talent-vacuum’, which made me feel all warm inside. And in another he writes: ‘Just broke wind with such force that my wife is on the verge of tears’, which I must admit made me laugh out loud.

Of course it’s not just would-be starfucking that’s endeared me to Twitter – it’s more that I just happen to have started following the likes of Jonathan Ross, Stephen Fry, John Cleese, Graham Linehan, Henry Rollins and Darth Vader in the same week that it finally clicked for me. The other thing which made it all make sense is TweetDeck, which, thanks to Patroclus, I downloaded yesterday.

TweetDeck is an application which sits behind your browser and aggregates all of your Twitter twaddle. What this means is that I can have the document I’m working on here in front of me, and then, just to the side I can have TweetDeck feeding me Tweets as and when they are twittered. So I don’t even have to stop typing! I can just glance to the right and see that Stephen Fry is cuddling a narwhal or whatever and the delightful Veronica Belmont is going on and on and on and on about tech stuff. Please stop, Veronica. Tell me more about your cats!

In short, Twitter, via TweetDeck, takes all the lonesomeness out of working from home, but without the annoyingness of actually having to share a room with real people.

Do you see now?

Come on. Let’s live together!

...

In other news, I got virtual chatting to one Alex B, who was diagnosed with Clinical Depression in 1996, has now given himself 45 days ‘to defeat a lifetime’s worth of negative thinking’ and is chronicling his efforts here. Good luck, Alex. Look! Sunshine!

And speaking of depression, I’m finally owning up to the fact that my eyes are not what they once were. I’m going blind. Or – exaggeration aside – I think I might need glasses. I’m going to seek out an optician this afternoon. Oh, and because of a piece of tooth that broke off while I was in Scotland, I’ve also made an appointment with a dentist.

Oh, God.

I AM FALLING APART!

More wine!

See you next week. If I’m still here.

Oh, and have a nice weekend. Are you up to anything nice by the way? Let me know in the comments. (Twitter will never take the place of comments by the way. Comments are for real friends. Mwah.)

Feedback Friday :: Change

It’s been a funny old week. While the rest of the world’s been getting high on hope, I’ve been getting increasingly depressed on trains and tubes, and increasingly sick of spending my days in a small room with a man with a gastric problem. I also found out this week that the government job I was hoping for has been put back again. I should still get it, but not for another week or two.

God, I’m bored.

Also, it looks like Keith is leaving London. I’m not sure he’s making the right decision personally, but of course, it’s his decision to make. Not mine. Now, don’t tell anyone, but he plans on doing a rent-runner at the end of the month. This is because he hasn’t yet paid this month’s rent yet and landlord Dudley – because he’s rich as Croesus and has more properties than I have teeth - hasn’t even noticed. So Keith’s skipping town, leaving behind – as well as one month’s unpaid rent – one broken bed and one horribly, suspiciously stained and torn living room carpet. He’ll lose his deposit of course, but Dudley will still come out on top, so Keith figures it’s fair. I figure he’s probably right. Ish. This means I have until the end of the month – or until Dudley notices that the rent hasn’t been paid – to find somewhere new to live. Or of course I could take over this place, but frankly, this place, and Peckham as a whole, has rather lost its charm.

So. Back to Gumtree I go. Or I suppose I could start doing the rounds of agents. I do so despise them however. I’ve never met an agent who wasn’t either unscrupulous and self-centred to the point of pure evil, or, if not evil, severely mentally retarded. It's not uncommon of course, to meet a rancid melange of the two.

Still, needs must.

So. Keith may well be Burnley-bound as soon as the end of this coming week. So this weekend, we're going to buy some drugs.

In other news, I had this dream that I was sitting around with Stephen Fry and Simon Amstell and we were trying to think up cat-related Beatles song puns. I have no idea why, but it was possibly a new round on Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

‘Let It Beep,’ offered Stephen.

Simon and I looked at one another. Simon was wearing that expression he wears when he’s about to say something terrible and mean, but he didn’t want to say anything terrible and mean to Stephen Fry. Rather, he wanted to have snuggle up with him on a large bed.

‘Cats, Stephen,’ I said. ‘Cats don’t beep.’

‘Oh,’ said Stephen. ‘No, that’s right. Sorry.’

‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘Try and think of another one.’

‘I’ve Got A Feline,’ said Simon.

‘Moggie Mae,’ I added.

‘Maxwell’s Silver Hamster,’ said Stephen.

‘Please,’ I said. ‘Stephen. You're ruining this for the rest of us.’

'Sorry,' said Stephen, ashamed.

‘Please Please Miaow,’ said Simon.

‘I Want To Hold Your Paw,’ I added, pleased with myself.

‘Sergeant Puppy’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,’ said Stephen.

Which was when it occurred to me that Stephen was merely toying with us. Of course he could think of cat puns. He was Stephen Fry. He could think of cat puns until the cow puns came home.

Which was when Simon Amstell turned to me and said, ‘Remind me. Why are you here?’

‘Oh, don’t be mean,’ said Stephen, but he was tittering like he didn’t mean it, like he was enjoying the meanness.

Which was when I noticed that Morag was sitting on Stephen Fry’s lap with her blouse unbuttoned and her bra pulled down to her navel. Stephen Fry seemed to be weighing her breasts in each of his hands. ‘So what’s the point of these exactly?’ he said.

And then, as Morag began to suckle Stephen Fry, I awoke, strangely depressed, and horribly aroused.

I wonder what it can mean.

So, this weekend, as well as attempting to procure some send-off narcotics, I’m going to start packing my life into boxes again.

Oy.

And you? What have you got planned?