In With the New

Hello! Happy New Year to you, each and every one! How are you? Are you well? Are you happy? Looking forward to the next year? I do hope so. I am.

There are going to be some changes around here, however. For various reasons. One reason is that I’m done besmirching the web with this half-baked life. I’ve been cutting back on soaping my smalls in public for some time now, and although at time it’s tough - for the urge is strong - by and large it’s working out. So much so that I’ve decided to go the whole hog. For various reasons. And I’ve been led to believe that this is quite common, that it happens to a lot of people who blog. Sooner or later, they go the whole hog. Well, it’s happened to me.



Also. I’ve got a job. Not writing words of my own that I care about, no, but not writing words of my own that I don’t care about either. Not writing words at all in fact. Merely editing them, and making up some headlines to boot, which is basically just playing. I’m looking forward to it. Very much. I think the routine will do me good, and hopefully I can learn something about concision along the way, which, I think we can all agree, would be no bad – or in any way unduly negative - thing.

I don’t intend to stop blogging altogether, however. Rather I will write something once a week, something slightly removed from my stomach and my groin and my heart, but still connected to my brain. And maybe my spleen. A review of something I’ve watched maybe. Or read. Or something else. I’m not really sure yet, and as I grope around for ideas now, in the dark of a dank new decade, where the future drops a banana skin and darts off, fast as a badger through a time hole in the wainscoting, I realise this might be much more of a challenge than I have hitherto imagined. But that’s no bad thing either. It's good to be mentally challenged.

So there it is. I'll post it on a Monday. This is the bridging post. Between the old and the new. Next week will be better. (Or worse.)

If you think your day would be brighter for sharing my dreams or my anxiety or drunken come-ons, then please feel free to follow me on Twitter. You’ll also be privy to provocative reportage, devastating cultural commentary, refreshing titbits of philosophical fingerfood and lies.

Oh, and one more thing – the party I talked about last summer… I’d like to have it next summer. The paperback of the book comes out around June so that seems like the perfect time to try and get the publishers to pay for a tiny party. Or even a medium-sized one. It really is the least they can do. But even if they choose not to, because they are too mean, they can go hang. We should just meet in a pub somewhere. What do you think? I’m thinking Friday 4th June, somewhere in London. Are you free?

Let me know in the comments and I hope to see you then.

For now, for the most part, for a while, cheerio.

x

Out With the Old

It’s a wonderful life, don’t get me wrong, but there can be no denying that it’s been a fusty old twat of a year. On the whole. If you don’t mind me saying. This is not a complaint, mind you. Heaven forfend. Just a mild and timely lament. End of the year. Looking back. Looking forward. All that.

I feel like it’s time for a change. You know? I’m bored with myself. I need a new direction and new things to occupy my time.

And what better time for embarking on a new direction than the beginning of a whole new decade? Sadly, however, it’s not as simple as that. Why are things never as simple as that?

The fact is, there are already some pretty exciting changes in the pipeline for the twenty-tens, but - alas - there are also already grumblings from concerned parties who don’t want me flapping my mandibles on the blog. Can you believe it? Can you believe I’m allowing other people to dictate what I choose to talk about? I find it difficult to believe. And monumentally frustrating. I just want to defy them. I want to follow my instincts, master my destiny, plough my own furrow and ride my own melt. But then I don’t want to fuck anything up. Or do I? Oh, it's so difficult to be sure.

One thing I do know for sure though, one way or the other there will be no more of this laborious doubletalk in 2010.

That's a promise.

Also, I’m pretty sure, 2010 is going to be smashing. Good years are like bald men – they skip a generation. 2008 was pretty great. 2009 was barely fine. 2010 will be great again. I feel it.

Last night I realised something quite shocking. I realised that I had drunk almost an entire litre of vodka in just two evenings. Alone. I consoled myself with the fact that I'd also gone through a bottle of Kahlua in the same time, but quickly and thankfully I realised that this was meagre consolation.



Things have definitely got to change.

2010.

My year.

You'll see.

Before we say goodbye for this year, however, I’d just like to share with you a couple of new year’s resolutions which I know I am destined to break almost before I have made them. But I want to make them anyway.

One, I resolve to stop reading film reviews on IMDb. This year I became a bit obsessed by them. Especially the bad ones. I would look up my favourite films and just read all the bad reviews. I'm not even sure why. Presumably I took some pleasure in the fury they gave rise to. On reflection, I don’t think that’s an enormously profitable way to spend one's time. Unless... unless I can make an unconscionably diverting quiz out of it all. Or even a marginally diverting quiz. Or even just a quiz, fuck it. Here it is.

THE 'GUESS THE FILM FROM THE IMDb REVIEW' CHRISTMAS QUIZ SPECTACULAR

Go!

1. 'I have no use for children porn and this is truly a disturbing film. The only remotely normal people are the Homosexuals who live next door. The three main family groups are all living on another planet. The acting is good but the story is a monument to the total meltdown of our culture.'

2. ‘I can't imagine how this could be more depressing. It has no forward momentum. It seems to lack the generous helping of wit that would push the material anywhere near the vicinity of "entertainment." Maybe you had to see it the moment it was released to have a fond recall of it. Maybe being a weed fiend would help. Maybe being British...’

3. ‘The performances here are lazy. The camera-work is not as good as Death Wish. Everything is sub par, including the awful soundtrack.’

4. ‘I mean the ending is so predictable and I guessed the ending of the movie since the beginning of the romance, breakup and welcome back and another (I will not mention the ending)... but you could have guessed.’

and

‘Now I am not one of those ignorami who hate movies made before 1970... While the work of [the leading actors] may have been good for it's time it is insufficient compared to todays advanced standards.’

5. ‘As a somewhat well read person, I thought this movie was a self indulgent poor imitation of a seinfeld episode.’

and

‘The movie crawls at a pace that would make operating heavy machinery while watching impossible’

6. ‘it is silly and immature and anyone who likes it must have the mind of a child. it is really stupid.please if your considering watching this please take caution.oh and if you were thinking of watching the other one please don't it is worse... the humor in it is just stupid i mean i see it on the screen and i just don't laugh it just not funny!!’

7. ‘None of the characters are likable or interesting and the whole experience is like someone being sick on your face.’

8. 'I watched this terribly long, boring, slow, bloody, gory, silly film several times. Why, or why was that so overestimated? What for? It has nothing, but too much blood, sex, more blood, more sex, child molesting, more blood, more child death, child sex, more blood, more slow talks, more long shots, more blood and more molesting. Raping, killing, talking, sex in a car, more fights, more sex... I am not a sick person. This film did make me feel sick. Why was it made?.'

9. 'I was expecting a COMEDY for crying out loud. And I'm just waiting for a funny moment to arrive. All those stupid gags and dumb jokes and situations are so bland and tedious to watch. It gets too repetitive and uninteresting. I don't know, maybe its a European or American thing but this is not my idea of a funny movie. And what more can I say...even the makers of the movie knew that the jokes were so not funny that all those cameos had to be used...and still, to no good result. My recommendation...If u want a comedy movie on rock n roll watch "School of Rock".

and

'This is really not a good movie. I looked on IMDB and saw this movie on the top 250 and thought for sure it was one of the signs of the apocolypse... Please, oh please don't tell me "you must not have a good sense of humor" either, cause I know at least 50 people that have only met me once or twice that could tell you otherwise.'

10. 'This movie made absolutely no sense to me (and I'm not a stupid person...IQ in the 140's) until just before it ended...meaning I just sat there for about 90 minutes wondering what I was watching. '

11. 'I came to this movie expecting smart satire and cinematic invention. The first 30 minutes of this film offended me on every level possible! It is grotesque and perverse and sophomoric. I can't remember hating a film more. I never had the stomach to finish this disaster of a film, which is ugly to the eyes and the soul.'

12. 'The boxing scenes are very amateur in execution, none of them have the shocking realism of Rocky IV... Rocky movies make you sit up and take notice. They move you. [This film] moved me, too. Right out of the cinema.
’

Answers here.

Now tell me that wasn't fun. (Don't actually tell me. Unless you're that particularly unpleasant and embittered troll who keeps bothering me. You can tell me. And I shall ignore you.)

Secondly. No more pornography. It’s really vile. What reminded me of its vileness was reading the unspeakably rank Rock Her World by Seymore Butts. Do you know that despite the vastness of that review, there were still heaps of other quotes which, for one reason or another, made me shake my head. I wanted to share them with you, but there was no space. So, as a special Christmas treat, a stocking-filler, I present them here, as The Seymore Butts Guide to Life & Love & Whatnot...

Butts on sincerity: ‘Let’s face it, in order to bed over six hundred women you’ve got to be willing to say or do anything it takes to achieve your goal – whether you really mean it or not.’

Butts on feminine hygiene: ‘If you or anyone else are dumping loads of sperm into your partner and she’s letting them ferment inside of her instead of rinsing out after each deposit, you can expect her pussy to smell like the inside of a peep show booth.’

Butts on cunnilingus: ‘Let’s be honest, some of you guys approach pussy like a starving Indian would a tandoori chicken.’

Butts on the apparent non-existence of women experienced in anal: ‘You will encounter two types of women: those who are open to the idea of anal sex but inexperienced, and women who seem to be closed to the idea.’

Butts on bars and clubs: ‘These are what I call “sexually charged social environments” – places that, when I’m in a relationship, I avoid like I would being raped by Shaquille O’Neal as he sang, “Tell me how my ass tastes!”’

Butts on rejection, horses: ‘Get back on your horse and start looking for another filly to saddle up.’

Butts on successfully bribing a bouncer and getting into a night club ahead of a queue with a woman: ‘The next sound you hear should be that distinctive squish coming from between your date’s legs as she becomes turned on by your ability to take charge and get things handled.’

Butts on the embarrassment of being a woman: ‘Most of the potentially embarrassing situations that can and do happen during sex happen to women.’

Butts on Holly: ‘We might not have made it to the restaurant but that didn’t stop her from ordering up some stuffed sphincter with a side of ass à la mode or either of us from eating plenty of brown-eye pie. For our final course, it was hot loads of sweet cream in Holly’s hot buns as she screamed with delight.’

Butts on butter: ‘We wrapped after both girls lovingly snowballed Steven’s nut butter.’

Butts on the dangers of spicing things up: ‘No joke, you can very easily kill your partner by choking her. Don’t try telling me you know what you’re doing either; that’s what hundreds of guys say every year before they accidentally kill the women they are having sex with.’

And finally, Butts on life: ‘The proof is in the pudding.’

No, Butts. No, it isn’t.

So yes. That's that. Done with porn. It’s dirty. From now on, I shall devote myself to the works of Ellen von Unwerth. Thanks to the delightful piece of adorable that is ScruffyPanther, I came across Von Unwerth's photos only last week. (No porn intended.) And they're wicked.





Woof.

Thirdly - actually no. That's it.

Now I am out of here till Twenty-Ten, which sounds so far in the future as to be just silly. Will there be hover boards? Yes. Yes, there will. In the meantime, and for most of the rest of the decade, I'm back up here in the frozen North, where even skate boards still bring forth oohs and aahs of confused awe. I should be back in time to finish my vodka on New Year's Eve.

2010.

My year.

What about you? Anything special planned for the next decade?

Bingo? Let's Play!

So, a few days ago I was contacted by one Thomas Brown asking me if I’d be interested in placing a little text ad on my blog in exchange for wonga. Brown works for Topspot Promotions, which essentially, is a kind of perversely legitimate virus which spreads virtual cancer throughout the internet. However, as I’m on the verge of declaring myself bankrupt, I thought I might as well take my principles and general anti-capitalist, anti-marketing standpoint and shove them up my adolescent broke ass. So I wrote to Thomas, asking him what he had in mind. ‘Let's talk numbers,’ I said. ‘How much can you give me up front?’ Thomas replied, saying, ‘We are willing to pay you a one-time fee of $80 for writing a regular post (in the spirit of the rest of your blog’s posts) which will include a paragraph that will describe my client’s website and its services.’ Now, in this day and age, what with the pound lying in the gutter with its entrails hanging out and me in a really quite terrifying amount of debt, I thought, well, $80 is not to be sneezed at, especially if I could write the promotional post in the spirit of the rest of my blog. Thomas had obviously seen my blog and realised that my tone was a good fit with his client’s product. So I asked for more details. Thomas wrote back, explaining that his client was an online bingo company called 888ladies.com. Hmmm, I thought. Sounds right up my alley. Thomas continued…

‘The post of course should be about online bingo and should include, as mentioned, information about my client’s website an services. You can write the post as you want as long as it will be positive. I don’t want to limit you but of course that the longer the post will be it will be better. Once the post will be ready you can send it to me and I’ll show you where I want to place the links (from which words). I look forward to hearing your thoughts.’

So, even though I had a million other things to do – get a job, write a bestseller, get Paul McKenna to hypnotise me to stop smoking, get my ears syringed, get my piles waxed, honestly, the list really is endless – I decided to spend some time on my positive promotional bingo post. It took me bloody ages too, but I think in the end I got the tone right. This is what I sent...

Hi Thomas I have decided to take you up on your generous offer and so include below my first post for your perusal. I hope it’s not too irreverent… … Bingo! If you’re anything like me, you’ll be wondering what went wrong with your life. Here you are, rapidly approaching middle-age and what have you got to show for it? Stretchmarks, fat ears, unwaxed piles and a wasted life spent predominantly alone wanking into an old sock and wondering why no-one’s buying your really quite remarkable book. But fear not, for help is at hand in the form of a really quite excellent online bingo site called 888ladies.com. Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, ‘Hello. What’s all this? Has Stan lost his blinking benkers? What’s all this about online bingo? Everyone knows it’s a mug’s game – essentially Stupid Tax for people who find lottery tickets just a little bit too challenging. Surely Stan – good old sensible cynical savvy old Stan – isn’t seriously suggesting I go to this swindler’s website and get shafted by the dregs of humanity?’ Well, hold on a minute – let’s not go jumping to conclusions. Let’s give these people a fair crack of the whip. Just because they prey on feeble-minded imbeciles, lonely retards and desperate addicts doesn’t mean they’re bad people. 

For the rest of this article, Stan recommends you go here and purchase a copy of The Little Book of Shame. Not only does it contain the article you're currently reading, it also contains around 50 others, and all for the incredible price of whatever price it happens to be at the moment. You lucky thing you.  

London Philharmonic :: A Fresh Start

Ben’s divorce came through last Saturday. There was a party at our house to celebrate. I live with Ben. And we both live with Imogen.

Both Ben and Imogen are musicians.

Imogen plays the oboe. No. The oboe she plays is not pink.

Ben plays the cello. Yes. Ben's cello is pink. Figuratively. Hence Ben’s divorce.

It’s a long story, and unfortunately not mine for the telling. It’s off limits. And rightly so. Because it has nothing to do with me. Sometimes though, even if something does have something to do with me, that doesn’t give me the right - certainly not if there are other people involved - to take this thing out and wash it, or dye it, in public, then leave it to slop around in the faceless, phlegmmy sea of eyes and ears that is the internet for all eternity. I know. I'm an idiot. I’ve said it many, many times before, but it bears repeating now.

Recently I fucked up a good thing by saying too much on this blog. I knew this person wasn’t comfortable with the whole Truman Show-lite, self-fellatio thing, but I thought I could make it work. I was wrong. I fucked up. And I gave myself a fucking egohernia in the process. The egohernia erupted spontaneously when this woman compared me to Liz Jones and I could see quite clearly that she had a point.

Well, I wish I could say I’ll never make the same mistake again, because it makes me proper sad, but in one way or another, I'm thinking I probably will. So I won’t say anything more. But I am sorry.

But then... I’ve just moved into a new house and some very interesting new people are suddenly knocking about the place and I want to talk about them. So what I did – I had a brainwave, and I thought, I’ll feel them out first. So that’s what I did. I felt them out.

Ben said that as long as I don’t use his real name, or the name of the real musical instrument he plays, or the fact that he has an alcohol problem, then we’ll be alright.

Imogen said I could only talk about her in rhyming couplets, but even then I wasn’t allowed to use her real name, her real instrument or say anything to bring shame on her or her family. Then I made her see that rhyming couplets were a very bad idea. And we talked about something else.

So. I feel like a student. Except I’m also the oldest person in the house, which is a little odd and makes me feel like an underachiever. Yes, a student. Imogen and Ben, and as far as I can tell, most of their friends, studied together. Or else they met on the circuit, or on big jobs. Now they gad about all over the world in vibrant little shifting clusters, playing whatever needs playing and having a whale of a time. (Tour Wives indeed.) Concerts. Film soundtracks. Weddings. Adverts. TV Shows. Rich People’s Parties. Royal Variety Performances. Band tours. You name it. Wherever there is need of string, reed or piston valve, these people fly off, play their pieces, drink very heavily and commit heinous immoral acts.

Here are some of them here:



They’re all top rank humans though, the ones that I’ve met so far at least, and what’s really funny is, although you’ll often find them denying it, they’re all terribly posh. I don’t say that in a disparaging way by the way. Posh in my books is Excellent. I love posh people. And mark my words, if I ever have offspring of my own, as opposed to someone else's, they’ll be posh offspring. Palpably posh. I’ll be shoe-horning them out of the womb with a silver spoon the size of a spade and they’ll be bashing notes before the cord is cut. And if they ever know the uniquely dispiriting sight of a Goblin Meat and Gravy Pudding spilling its unseemly guts across a plate of cold chips, I’ll work my balls off to ensure it’s merely in the name of play or posh gloating.

Speaking of play, two of Ben’s best friends are happy to label themselves ‘failed musicians’. Will is also happy to label himself ‘designer florist’. And Kingsley is perfectly content with ‘music teacher’ at a London comp. I met them both at Ben’s Divorce and Coming Out party. They’re both single. One very recently. Ben too now of course. Mum’s the word. And as for me, I’m up around the nine-month mark. It’s getting just like the old days. When I told them this, they were sympathetic, and drunken plans were immediately hatched to Do Something About It. In the meantime, apparently I have to watch some Sex and the City and figure out which one of us is Miranda.

In other news, I have recently mistreated my spine and now my spine is taking revenge. I currently have a cheap wooden chair tilted forward on two bricks and I’m pumped full of Nurofen. I think I’m going to watch a little more Larry Sanders now, then lie flat on the floor and listen to some Brahms. (Imogen is teaching me about classical music. I still prefer Michael Nyman at the moment, but wouldn't you simply die without Mahler?)

If anyone has any chair advice, by the way, I would be very grateful. My back is proper crippling me at the moment, worse than The Da Vinci Code, which I finished today. (Eminently readable. Hilarious. Inconceivable!) Balls. There must be a surfeit of decent office chairs in London at the moment, what with all the lay-offs and all. I might do some sniffing about.

Happy 9/15!

Dan Brown :: A Clarification

In my last blog post I gave an account of a recent conversation I had with a shop assistant in a branch of WH Smith. The post gave rise to some stinging controversy in the comments, which on reflection, I thought I’d better address. So, in the name of full disclosure, I feel I should point out at this stage that the account of the conversation I provided last week was not a particularly accurate one. A more accurate version follows here:

Me :: [Handing over a card with the meerkat on it which I was buying for my grandmother, who likes meerkats] Just that please.

Lady :: Are you interested in half price Dan Brown today?

Me :: I’m sorry?

Lady :: You can order Dan Brown’s latest book for half price.

Me: Wow. No, I’m alright actually. And do you have to ask everybody that?

Lady: Aye. Sometime it’s Dan Brown, sometimes it’s half-price chocolates.

Me: Ha! Well, good day to you, Ma’am.

Lady: Good day to you, sir. Do come again!

Sorry if I misled anyone with my slightly doctored version below. It was never my intention to hoodwink or disconcert. I guess I was trying to be funny or something. Please accept my sincere apologies.

In other news, I am in my super spacious new room in London and today - because I think it will do me good - I started reading The Da Vinci Code. At the moment I'm only two chapters in, but I must say, it really is eminently readable.

The Happy Hooker

Yesterday evening a reader of this blog expressed polite frustration at what can only be described as my ceaseless self-promotion of late. I told her that I know exactly how she feels. And I swear I do. Sadly, my hands are tied. My hands are tied by a rapacious desire for bags and bags of money. I have changed. I have foresworn myself. I have broken every law I have sworn to uphold. I am become a starving flea, suckling at the tiny teats of Jabba Mammon...



But without meaning to jerk your tears, it’s a case of needs viciously musting. I am a popinjay in penury, teetering on the slippery rim of actually accepting hand-outs from my grandmother. ‘Call it a loan,’ she says, toasting my genitals over the emasculating flames of her kindness. Do you see now? You see how my hands are tied?

It’s time now to stand up, to grow up, and to be a man. And if that means I have to do a little whoring along the way… then so be it. As long as I believe in the product, I can sleep. All day if necessary.

Besides which, it is worth remembering, whoring can actually be fun! That’s what people forget. It’s not just a case of being forced into it because of financial difficulties and drug dependency. Na-ah. Part of me actually enjoys it too.

For example, I was positively crack-high with glee at being offered the opportunity to write something over at the blog of renowned bookman, Scott Pack. I like to think I was accorded this very special honour because of the delightfully winsome comment I left here over a year ago, rather than merely because Mr P happens to work for the same company that just a month ago published my book. That’s what I like to think. And you can't stop me.

Here is what I wrote:

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a writer. To me, being a writer was better than being President of Real Madrid. Better than managing a branch of Nat-West in Dartford or Orpington. Better than being trapped in a chocolate shop with a cloak of irresistibility and Audrey Tautou. Maybe.

Then a couple of weeks ago, it finally happened. My dream came true and a book, a real-life, flesh-and-blood, tough-bodied book, full to gushing with words from my very own fingers and heart hit the shops and shelves like something from an outlandish daydream being dreamt by somebody else. I don’t mind telling you, for a while there I think I felt a little of what Susan Boyle must have felt, shortly before it destroyed her.

And so I did all the things I imagine first-time authors do: I developed a fleeting obsession with the Amazon Sales Rank; I skulked into Waterstone’s, located my beautiful memoir wedged uncomfortably between Belle de Jour and Les Dennis, took a surreptitious photograph and skulked out; I became briefly obsessed with the fate of my book, much like a mother fearing for her first-born – what was going to happen to her? Would she be loved? Would Les Dennis jostle her to the floor of the shop and do her a mischief? Why was my book a lady?; I discovered insomnia – I was either up all night rehearsing award speeches or else repeatedly throttled awake by cruel nightmares in which I was writhing in human ordure, trapped in the base of the portaloos at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival, with both Martin Amis and Margaret Drabble above me, in adjoining cabins, voiding themselves vigorously into my eyes. I also did a few interviews, sent a few emails and flounced about like the whore one automatically becomes when one has a book to hawk. But without the sex.

This week things have gone a little quiet. And apart from the sempiternal dread of the book disappearing like sunburn – flare, fade, peel, pillow – and the failure fuelling thirty years of abject misery, I’m actually rather relieved. My life is the calmest it’s been for about a year. And despite the fact that it’s become like something out of one of Alan Bennett’s rejected monologues, I like it.

Yesterday afternoon, for example, I was lazing in the living room, watching the tennis like a lump of lard whilst Grandmother peeled turnips and carrots in the kitchen. ‘There’s no need for that,’ she said, as one of the Russian girls grunted like a scalded cat with every stroke of the ball. Then she shuffled into the living room brandishing her peeler, spits and spots of carrot skin stuck to the bandages on her hands. She shook her head and despaired. ‘Is nothing sacred?’ she said. I said I didn’t think so. Not these days... Then last night I crept through to the kitchen to find – amongst the shadows and the silence and the silverfish – that Grandmother had put some new jellies to set.

I smiled.

So this is my life. This is the life of a writer. A proper writer with a book in Waterstone’s. Just like Les Dennis. And all the other whores.

My book by the way, is called ‘The Intimate Adventures Of An Ugly Man’ and I want you to buy it. It has its roots in a blog I’ve been writing for the last 18 months. The blog is about me – face like a bag of elbows, gut like a pastry parade, bed like a beached windsock – trying to sort myself out and find someone to love. The book is about my life in general: my trials, my tribulations, my triumphs, my hilarious neuroses and my recent family upheaval.

Because the blog was highly confessional in nature, and genital-warts-and-all in its approach, and because I still had the remnants of a fairly ordinary life that I didn’t want to entirely besmirch, I decided I would write anonymously. So I became Stan Cattermole.

In eighteen months then, my life has changed substantially. I still haven’t found the everlasting wholly reciprocated love I was seeking. I still haven’t lost all of the weight I was hoping to lose. And if I’m honest, I still struggle with tobacco consumption. But at least now I have a ridiculous fake name and I eat a lot of jelly. Oh, and I have a book in Waterstone’s. Next to Les Dennis.

Whatever happens to my book – whether it becomes the bestseller it thoroughly deserves to be or disappears like a toddler in the Algarve – I decided today that I’m going to try and write another one. This one will be a novel, however. I’m going to write it as much of it as I can over the next two months, then move back to London in September and have a party. Anyone who’s ever left a comment on my blog will be invited. And Audrey Tautou. She’ll be invited too.

So here’s to the future. Feel free to buy my book, won’t you? And if you fancy coming to my party, you’d better go make your presence felt at my blog.

There will be jelly.

Goodbye.

Then I washed, put on my clothes and left.

The Dead Blog Amnesty :: An Open Letter to Blogger

Dear People of Blogger

A few years ago, I decided to start a blog. I had a novel that I wanted to write and I figured that if I had a blog, I’d be able to pin myself down to a chapter every two or three days and within six months, I’d have my first novel in the bag.

My book was going to be about an ugly man who – somehow – woke up one morning to find that he was irresistible to women. The blog on which it was to be based would simply be called Irresistible. It was perfect.

So I switched on the internet and went to the Blogger sign-up page. Unfortunately, Irresistible had already been taken.

Of course, I could have then turned to Wordpress or LiveJournal or one of the many other free blogging platforms, but I didn’t. Rather, I cursed the owner of the title I wanted and I ditched the whole idea. Which in retrospect is a shame, because if I’d kept up with it, I might now be lounging, tan and strong, poolside in Malibu, sipping margaritas with Charlie Kaufman and Audrey Tautou.

And you know it wouldn’t have been so bad if the person who’d stolen my career had actually done something with Irresistible. But instead, they just let the weeds have it.

The tragedy of course, is that this kind of thing happens all the time. And it can be very frustrating.

As I’m sure you’re aware, finding the right name for your blog is very important, and very likely something every blogger agonises over. If you’ve ever named a child before, you’ll maybe understand just how important it is to get it right. I personally have never named a child – not officially at least – but I have named a couple of cats and let me tell you, it’s a tough old job.

Young bands also, at that tentative christening period, must feel something similar. Of course, with a band, as with a blog (not so much with a child), you can always ditch it if it doesn’t work out and start again… but to get it right for first time. That’s when you’re golden.

And when it happens, when you hit upon the name that’s right for you, and right for the thing you’re naming, you know. You feel it. It’s like falling in love. It chimes with your core. You roll it around your gums and imagine your enemies jealous, kicking themselves that their blog is such a self-regarding bag of bumbling and mumbleweeds; and you imagine your pals smiling and saying, ‘Oh, that’s good’, or ‘That’s so Sam'.

Let us imagine a typical example. Maybe you’re an annoyingly over-zealous Withnail fan and you’re also a budding poet. A chilling combination. The blog you ache to start, populated with your poems and occasional love letters to Bruce Robinson can only have one possible title.

It’s from the scene in which Monty and Marwood meet for the first time, and Monty asks Marwood if he writes poetry.

‘Oh, no,’ says Marwood, ‘I wish I could. It’s just thoughts really.’

There it is. Your blog name. There can be no other.

Unfortunately, Just Thoughts Really has gone. And it’s not a pretty site.

Sadly, examples of such blog atrocities are seemingly infinite. Think of almost any potential title for any kind of blog and check to see if the blogspot domain is free. The chances are it won’t be. Furthermore, the chances are, the domain will be an unweeded garden, grown to seed.

Let’s say for example, you want to start a Shakespeare fan blog. Where shall we start? Um, what about To Be Or Not To Be? Nope, that’s taken I’m afraid, and tarnished. OK, what about To Blog Or Not To Blog? Nope, nor that one neither. Nor that one neither. So, let’s try just Hamlet? Nope, sorry, taken by the aptly-named Procrastinator. I Am Not Prince Hamlet? Nope. Alas, Poor Yorick? Nope. OK, what about just Shakespeare? Taken and, frankly, violated. Shakespeare Blog? Nope. I Love Shakespeare? Nope.

OK, balls to Shakespeare. What if your tastes are in the cultural gutter? Well, sadly, both Sex and the City and Mamma Mia have been snapped up and abandoned.

But hold on a minute. These aren’t the kind of names that people generally hit upon for their blogs. Let’s try and think of some more likely blog names.

OK here’s a list, off the top of my head, and - surprise, surprise - they’ve all of them gone, and they're all of them dead.

My So-Called Life. Me and My Life. Days of My Life. My Big Fat Geek Life. The New Me. Man of Many Hats. Excess Baggage. The Sound of My Own Voice. Where the Wild Things Are. Time Please. All You Need Is Love. Love Is All You Need. Love and Death. Making A Killing. English Psycho. Lol. Port In A Storm. Sex. Drugs. Rock and Roll. Sex and Drugs. Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll.

Pfffffffft.

I’m beginning to wonder, of all the blogs that have ever been activated, how many are actually or have ever been used?

If the internet was the real world, you wouldn't be able to move for dead blogs. All life on the planet would be snuffed out, suffocated by the tiny corpses of aborted Blogger foetuses.

It's a bit depressing, frankly.

Setting up a blog should come with some sense of responsibility, and if the blogger is not prepared to take that responsibility, then it must be left to the service provider.

Therefore, in my most humble opinion, you, the people of Blogger, should do something up about it. Firstly, you should send an email to all Blogger clients who have posted on no more than three occasions and who have not touched their blogs for over a year, and you should ask them if they wish to continue using their blog. If they don’t reply, you should write again, just to make sure. Then if they still have not replied, their blogs should be deleted and their domains once more made available for public use.

Then, maybe on a specially designated day, you could make a big deal about how from this moment on, another 500,000 Blogger domains are available, waiting to be snapped up.

Not only could you make a huge amount of positive PR out of it – ‘We’re Tidying Up The Internet!’ - but also, by freeing up your dormant domain names at once, it would greatly improve the experience of using your product, especially from the point of view of the beginner blogger.

Also, you could even say it was good for the environment. You’d be recycling all the dead domains. Hey, maybe it is!

So could you do that, please?

Oh, and please check on this chap. I’m worried about him.

Thank you.


Stan

Seconds Out :: Year Two

Someone said to me the other day, ‘How on earth are you going to follow 2008?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, 2009?’ I replied, hilariously.

‘No, but blog-wise,’ they insisted, wilfully unamused, ‘what are you going to do? You’ve found a woman, you’ve got a book deal, you lost most of the weight you were trying to lose. You stopped smoking. Mostly. It’s like, what’s left to do? What’s left to blog about? And the answer has to be – as far as I can see: nothing. What’s the point? There’s no point.’

I pooh-poohed the pointlessness. After all, most of what I blogged in 2008 was just ordinary stuff that happened to me: relationships I was having, things I was getting up to, stories from the past. And despite the fact that I won’t be speed dating or whoring myself online in ’09 – fingers crossed – I’ll still be getting up to stuff. I’ll still be having ridiculous conversations with idiots. I’ll still be doing and saying idiotic things myself. So I don’t think things round here will change so radically. Not really.

But still, something worrisome lingered like a foul smell. Maybe it was all that pooh-poohing, maybe it was the fact that in 2008, there’s no denying that this blog did have a hook. An angle. Something that made it a bit special, and gave me a raison d’etre. In 2009 however – unless I come up with something a bit special – it’ll just be another run-of-the-mill blog, and I’ll just be another navel-gazing cyber-diarist, regurgitating an unspectacular existence like a shouty old man in a train station with stuff in his beard.

So, what I’ll have to do – obviously – is come up with something a bit special.

Hmmm. That may take some time.

In the meantime, here are my general intentions, in the traditional, timely manner.

New Year’s Resolutions :: 2009

1. First and foremost I resolve to write the best book I can possibly write. It has to be good enough so that anyone looking forward to reading it is not disappointed. It also has to be good enough to afford me the possibility of writing another one. In fact, ideally, it’ll spawn a career which takes in novels and screenplays and this time in 2010, I’ll be poolside in Malibu, sipping margaritas with Charlie Kaufman and Audrey Tautou. It’ll be purely platonic between Audrey and me however, despite her best efforts and leechlike attentions.

2. Secondly, I resolve to ensure that this blog remains readable. The last thing I want to do is become one of those bloggers who get lucky and then turn their back on their blog. I’d rather jack it in altogether than let it fester and ossify, and I have no intention of doing that.

3. Thirdly, I resolve to purchase or otherwise procure for myself a kitten. I recently saw some pictures of Bengal kittens and I resolved to have one of those.



But then I thought, no. They’re too pretty. I would get one, fall in love with the little thing and then some evil swine would take it away, torture and skin it. You know what human beings are like. And I would never recover. So I resolve instead to get an ordinary moggy. This makes more sense. I’m more of a moggy man really.

4. Fourthly, I resolve to grow my own vegetables and make the healthiest soup known to man. The garden is a bald mess at the moment so the transformation I intend to visit upon it will probably make for some exciting blog posts too. No, really.

5. Fifthly, I resolve to love well and with ecstasy aforethought. (This should maybe have been further up the list.) (Oops.)

6. Sixthly, I resolve to learn a foreign language. Maybe French. Maybe Mandarin Chinese. (Probably French.)

7. Finally, I resolve to carry on in my attempts to become healthy. This means eating well, attending a new gym regularly and generally doing as much as possible to compensate for my increasingly sedentary lifestyle. Ideally I’d like to get down to around twelve or twelve and a half stone by the end of this year.

Then I’d be happy.

But as it is, I’m pretty happy anyway, and I can’t wait to get going on all of the above just as soon as I’m back from Bonnie Scotland.

So all that remains to be said is a gargantuan thank you for reading this year, all of you, even the evil stalker. It’s been a fantastic year and it genuinely would have been nothing without all of the feedback I've received from all of you. And I hope you all have a fantastic 2009.

See you next week.

x

Feel free to leave your own resolutions in the comments. I’d love to hear them.

One Year On :: Happy Anniversary

On December 15, 2007 – a year ago today – I started this here humble blog. The idea behind it was to use my words to spur me on to change my life for the better. Specifically, and most importantly, I wanted to lose weight, get fit, make some friends and fall in love. I gave myself a year.

Piece of cake.

On February 6, 2008, I received an email from one of my first regular commenters and brand new blog friends, Suburban Hen. Hen wrote:

‘It used to be easy to find a good blog to read, there were so few to choose from. Only people who were genuinely interested in writing as a medium actually bothered with starting a blog. It was for nerds. And then it suddenly wasn't, which is terribly depressing for those of us who really enjoy reading a good blog; like some people might enjoy reading a good book or the daily newspaper.

You will become increasingly popular and in as such you might change. Your blog might change. It might all go to your head and where once there used to be thoughtful posts about how ugly you are and how much weight you have lost and how delighted you are to receive one comment from a lady expressing her desire to nob you, there might instead be short posts that read something like this...

"...Oh, my EDITOR is so demanding. He/she is expecting me to finish the third draft of my BOOK by next week and woe is me, I just can't find the time, what with meeting up with MY AGENT to finalise the locations for my BOOK SIGNINGS, and with all the INTERVIEWS, you must understand that I haven't really felt much like blogging at all. As I'm sure you can all imagine..."

Please don't misunderstand my annoyance with them as begrudging their success, but that in their success they have mostly left behind the very medium that gave them their voice. I begrudge them that. I begrudge them...well, Mike said it better than me...

"From my own highly subjective little corner of the blogosphere, 2007 was the year that the Bloggers With Book Deals started yielding tangible end results (otherwise known as, coo er gosh, BOOKS!), with many more to follow in 2008. As The Blogsbury Set came of age, and as "portfolio sites" started to make their presences felt, you could also detect the first rumblings of an increasingly widespread shift in priorities. ("Sorry I haven't had much time for blogging recently, but I've been SO BUSY, agents, deadlines, press & PR, oh it's all been such a GIDDY WHIRL!") And what with stunts such as Shaggy Blog Stories, which saw over 200 bloggers left out on the pavement as the Blogsbury glitterati sailed through the velvet ropes, and Post of the Week (over 200 blogs shortlisted to date, so why wasn't YOUR blog GOOD ENOUGH?), there was a distinct sense of competitiveness in the air, as a new élite basked in self-regard ("SO wonderful to see my DEAR FRIENDS doing SO well!") while the Not So Beautiful People muttered seditiously behind their backs ("Who the chuff does HE think HE is, and SHE'S nothing special, and who the f**k made HER the Queen of Bloody Sheba?")"

This is me, introducing myself to you and saying hello, I love your blog. I love the way you write.

And that other people are going to come along, people more engaging and more important than me (if they already haven't. For all we know you're possibly being watched by an agent AS I WRITE) and they are going to fawn over you. While one can't begrudge another person friendship or success, one can sit back and wonder at it all. Coming into your own is one thing, but friendship because it's cool to be mates with the ugly guy... I dunno. I hope it doesn't happen, is all. I hope that if you find friendship with people through your blog, or better still, a lady love, that you will keep your feet firmly rooted to the ground... Meeting a lady love through your blog is probably going to happen, by the way. Completely. Because it happens to the best of them. Don’t Go To Vegas, for example.

Anyway, enough from me.

dix
aka suburbanhen

My reply began:

‘Hello Diana

Thank you for your kind, if to my mind rather overripe, words. You’re the second person to suggest that my writing might change as I get more readers. I’m torn between thinking, ‘well that would never happen’ and ‘so what if it did?’ I’ve been writing, mostly corporate hogwash, for around 10 years, and it’s pretty soul-destroying on the whole. I’ve written other things, for my own pleasure, some of which I’ve tried and failed to get published. So this blog is actually the first time more than two people have read my words, and I do get a big kick out of it, yes. Therefore, if someone offered me money to write about something that wasn't pharmaceuticals or cosmetics or higher education, I would be delighted. Would I then start posting about the stresses and strains of lunch at the Ivy and pressing book draft deadlines and the like? YES!!’

And ended with:

‘Anyhow, I can’t help feeling that you’re rather over-egging the pudding with your confidence that agents and publishers might be interested in big old me… I think the idea of finding love through the blog is more likely than finding a new career, simply because there are lots more people out there looking for love than for someone to publish.

Anyway, we shall see.’

So. You’ll never guess what’s been happening over the last couple of months…

Well, you know I started seeing Morag properly? Well, I did. And this time round we’re having fun. But serious fun. Grown-up, going out and forsaking all others fun, with no messing about, no mind games and no nonsense. Well, that’s the plan, and thus far it’s going well. I think not blogging about it all makes it easier. So I should really shut up right now, before I say anything I might regret. Although this is different obviously. Here I’m just sketching an outline, I’m not giving away personal details about Morag’s body hair, or loud toilet habits or the fact that she doesn’t clean her teeth of a morning. Oh. Those were just examples by the way, of idiosyncrasies a person might exhibit. I realise I made it sound like I was describing my lovely Morag there. I was not. Sorry.

Anyhow, as I say, it’s going well. So well in fact, that we’re planning on spending Christmas together, just me, Morag and the occasional special guest or two. And that’s not all. We’re also planning a trip to meet Morag’s old man and her step family, in Scotland, just after Christmas. And that’s not all. Also – on the sole condition that nothing goes horribly wrong between now and the end of the year – we're planning to give living in sin a shot come January.

In the same house.

I know this might seem a little previous to some of you - it certainly does to me - but it's what we both want, so we're going to just cross our fingers, hold our breath and jump. Just like Butch and Sundance. And if that means we're destined to die in our prime in a hail of poisoned pig-bullets, so be it. At least we gave it a shot. I’m very excited. And a little scared. But I want it. It’ll be fun. We have fun together, Morag and I. And as long as we continue to have fun together, I think we’ll be alright.

So that’s pretty good. I’m happy. Very happy actually.

Now, ordinarily this news would be more than enough of a wonderful thing to be able to make the anniversary post sufficiently special.

But these are no ordinary times.

Second big news item coming up… Drum roll…

You remember that writing project I mentioned on Friday? Well, it's a rather special one. I still can't quite believe I'm about to write these words, but here goes...

I’ve got a book deal.

Ha!

Actually, 'ha' doesn't really do it justice, even with an exclamation mark. What I really feel like doing is running up a few walls like Donald O'Connor at the end of Make 'Em Laugh. But I don't want to be writing this book from a wheelchair. So instead, let's just imagine, just for one moment, that this is me...



Ha!

Diana. You saw it. I shook my head at you, and I smiled and thought, ‘Who is this silly, simple-minded wretch?’ But you were right. And I take my hat off to you. Furthermore I promise, with my hat held out in front of me like – alas – a skull, I promise that I shall never sully these pages with tedious talk of deadlines and blog star-fucking. Also, I promise I will never whinge about the pressures of good fortune. Or if I do, I will grovel on the ground and wring my hands in abject and heartfelt apology just as soon as it’s pointed out to me.

The truth is, I have no intention of spending any time whatsoever with the agent, or the publisher – not because they’re dim-witted, spineless, self-serving imbeciles, as I’m certain they’re not – but because I’ve got a book to write, and as of yesterday, a garden to tend. More importantly, I've got a wonderful woman whose company I crave, and in a few weeks’ time, I’ll have a kitten to raise and tutor in the ways of righteousness. And frankly speaking, a kitten, a garden and the company of a wonderful woman are just about pretty much all I've ever wanted, so I can't see myself giving them up to go and hang around with publishing people.

Indeed, as far as the day to day business of my life goes, I promise that nothing will change. Except perhaps, I will be a lot happier as I potter around, from litter tray to oven glove to knicker drawer. (I am obsessed by the concept of the knicker drawer by the way. I would like to write about it at some length, but of course I simply don’t have time. Deadlines to meet, lunches to do, bloggers to schmooze....)

So there we have it. One year on and I can safely say, the decision to start this blog was by far the best decision I ever made in my entire life.

Thank you, the internet.

What a contrast this post is to this one of just three months ago. It just goes to show, something you probably don't really need reminding: life is irrepressibly, relentlessly surprising. But also, sometimes, sometimes, the surprises are pleasant.

Two more things worth noting:

1) Yesterday was my birthday. I am 31.

2) This is my 200th post.

Life - for the moment at least - is sweet.

Feedback Friday :: Turning Point

bulk :: 15st 9
gym visits :: 2
haircuts :: 1
accusations of misogyny :: 4
misogynistic episodes :: 0
misanthropic episodes :: 12
turning points :: 1

It strikes me as kind of funny how I’m always so keen to seize on certain moments in my life and declare them ‘turning points’ or ‘fresh starts’. It seems I’m desperate to imbue quotidian events and decisions with special significance, perhaps in order to convince myself that I’m actually making some definite progress in life. It strikes me as kind of sad too. But I guess it’s normal. Anyway, here we go again.

I’ve reached a turning point. With this blog. With this life.

A few things have happened recently which have probably affected me more than I was prepared to admit, or more than I even realised. One was the end of my relationship with Morag, and the way I dealt with that. (Badly.) One was the reunion with my newly meek, practically lobotomised father and the fairly fundamental news about my life he finally elected to share. (What is it with people and their inability to communicate?) And one was the arrival of ‘the stalker’. (Shudder.)

Speaking of whom, it was only last week that I realised the full extent of the stalker’s derangement. I reread the comments that they’ve been leaving, and continue to leave, and I realised that there were messages hidden in them. I started to get scared for the first time when I realised there were references to books I’ve read recently. It sent a shiver down my spine. They must have been following me – In Real Life – seen me out and about with my nose in a book. Then I remembered that I’d actually blogged about the books I’d been reading, so probably they’d just been reading the blog. Phew. But then I’ve also blogged about where I live, more or less, and I don’t want to start getting paranoid, but… well, I’ve started getting paranoid.

Added to which, a few people have accused me of changing recently, and not for the better. Thing is, on the whole, I tend to agree. I think I have changed a bit recently. And not for the better. Therefore, before they go too far, things have got to change.

First and foremost, this blog has got to change.

No more deeply personal stuff. From now on I’m going to concentrate solely on life’s trifles. Everyday fancies. Crab sticks and horsefeathers. This blog, I finally realise, is supposed to be where I play. Therefore, I need to start enjoying it properly again – I had stopped recently. Also, importantly, I need to draw a line between this blog and my real life. A thick line. In permanent marker pen.

There’s no harm in the occasional real life anecdote of course, but no more of this blow-by-blow analysis and recounting of personal conversations. No more shall the horrible little midgets of my mind be allowed to crawl out onto my keyboard. It’s not fair on anyone.

I’ve made a lot of stupid decisions over the last year, and I admit, sometimes I feel wholly out of my depth.

And recently particularly, I’ve felt like I’m starting to lose control of this blog. It’s like it’s become a microcosm of my life and losing control of it, even to the relatively small extent I have, is a reflection of a wider-ranging trend.

I need therefore, to wrest back control. Also – for God’s sake, listen to me – me, me, me – what I really need to do is step away from myself a little, create a little distance and engage with the rest of the world, because at the moment I am in grave danger of disappearing up my own arse. And nobody wants that.

So, there we are. I probably won’t be blogging as much as I have in the past, but I hope to be a lot more professional about it.

We’ll see.

Fine words butter no parsnips.

Oh, and with reference to Courgettegate, I didn’t really say, ‘I’ve got a woody’. I was just playing. Jesus. What do you think I am?

Don’t answer that. Answer this:

What are you doing this weekend? Anything nice?

Your Children Aren’t Special. Mine Are.

There’s nothing worse than those ghastly parents always wittering on about their kids and how amazing they are when really they’re not that amazing at all, they’re just ordinary little blobs of meat learning how to be humans.

‘Oh, little Steve is so talented! Look at this picture he did with crayons. He’s only seven!’

‘No, he’s not talented. That picture is crap. An untalented four-year-old could do better. Stop it now. Steve is a moron.’

The reason I mention all this is because I find myself about to come over like a deluded parent, the only difference being, I’m not a parent, and I’m not deluded.

My friend Keith – who may well be the closest I ever get to a son – has ditched his old blog and started a new one. He’s taken with him the best of the art he’s done over the last five months and put it into one post at his new place, and I - for one - think it’s amazing. So I’m clucking over him like a proud parent and telling everyone about it. Awww. Little Keith is so talented! And I remember when he was wiping his own faeces on the wall. Actually that was only last week. Awww.

So. Look at this and tell me it’s not astonishing: NotKeith’s Greatest Hits April ’08 – September ’08.

Thank God for MS and aneurysms.

Fresh Start No. 12,876 :: The Big Push

bulk :: 17st 1
cigarettes smoked :: 0
joints smoked :: 0
alcohol units taken :: 50
osteopathic beatings :: 1
chiropractic diddlings :: 0
runs run :: 0
swims swum :: 0
stretch sessions stretched :: 6
gyms joined :: 1
training programmes drawn up :: 1
gym sessions enjoyed :: 1 (enjoyed might be stretching it)
wishlist alerts :: 2 (enormous rubber ball for rolling around on, bidet)
days passed without blogging :: 18
days passed without thinking of blogging :: 0
responses from Virgin Media :: 2
satisfactory responses from Virgin Media :: 0
books read :: 2
lists made :: 12
new blogs launched :: 2
promises made :: legion
fingers crossed :: 8
toes crossed :: 0 (fat toes)
laptops rescued :: 0
laptops replaced :: 1
parents traced :: 1
trips to Brighton :: 2
London rendezvous :: 2
unseasonal blues :: 1
predictable pinks :: 1
fresh starts :: 3

Well, that was a few weeks well wasted.

How are you? You’re looking well, I must say. You look great in fact. Your eyes are shining. In fact, your whole body is practically fizzing with energy, like there’s some inner light seeping out through every pore and orifice. And… is that… have you been working out?

But enough about you.

So.

It’s been a while. Nearly three weeks in fact. Nearly three weeks in which I’ve discovered one very important thing. What I’ve discovered is that although life definitely does goes on when you don’t spend most of your day plugged into the internet, nobody really notices. Therefore, I ask you, is it really life?

Or in other words, if a blogger posts a story about a tree falling in a forest and no one actually reads it, what’s the fucking point? Eh?

Anyhow, as you can see from you above stats, I am officially a giant fatty again. In the last three weeks, I’ve managed to put on over a stone in weight, simply by doing next to nothing and eating like a stoned pig. (Although I haven’t been stoned, I hasten to add. Merely unpleasantly piglike.)

It’s weird. From the moment I knew I wasn’t going to be blogging again till September, I just thought, ‘Fuck it’ and strapped on a nose bag.

Pathetic. I hate compulsive behaviour. I hate being out of control. Even if it is, as in this case, a pseudo-controlled lack of control. Inasmuch as I gave myself 18 days to stop caring, to drop out of the regime I’d already let slide laughably, and do whatever I liked. Christ. I could’ve written a book in that time. A short one perhaps, but a book nonetheless. At the very least, I could have written a good few blog posts – maybe attempted to rewrite some of the stuff I’d lost in the flood. But I didn’t. I ate pizza. I ate cake and rice pudding. Ice cream and Sugar Puffs. I even ate a kebab, for heaven’s sake. I watched TV. And crap films - Sex and the City - God forgive me – a film that makes Mamma Mia look like The Sound of Music. I played Guitar Hero. I looked at the rain. I indulged myself. I pitied myself. I loathed myself. In that order. As I say, pathetic.

However, I also got a few things done, some of which I’ll be boasting about over the coming days and weeks.

Suffice - for now - to say, I have joined a gym and have started using it; I have started two new blogs, one in which I talk about the weather (I have no idea why – it’s quite possible I am having a nervous breakdown); the other in which I post desperately amusing examples of dodgy English.

What else? My laptop was tended to by various experts. It underwent numerous operations and experimental procedures, most of which tallied with some of the very helpful suggestions in the comments to the previous post. But all to no avail. So I gave up and bought a new one. I’m not sure I felt the sense of lightness some of you predicted on giving up on all the old stuff, but I certainly felt an enormous elation on becoming acquainted with my new jet black Mac. It’s a Notebook. And it's genuinely lovely.

In other news, I haven’t seen much of Keith of late, which leaves me feeling a little weird. If I’m completely honest, it makes me feel a little bit jealous and a little bit lonely, and I think I just feel weird about admitting it. Better out than in though. Also, when I have seen him, he is clearly very happy with his special lady, so obviously I have nothing but good wishes for him. They're even off to the Lakes tomorrow. The Lakes! In September!

Not that I’ve been entirely on my own of course. I have been spending a bit of time with my sweet-hearted fuck-friend Morag. More time perhaps than you might think strictly healthy for a copulation-based arrangement, but I have no regrets. We have fun.

I also made enquiries about my father, and have been surprised by my discoveries.

And also, worth repeating, I've finally joined a gym.

Oh yes. Fresh start, here I come.

But for now, sleep.

Before I go however, a massive thank you to everyone who's left comments and kind words in the last few weeks. Made me really happy.

Aaaaaah.

It’s good to be back.

Act Of God Destroys Blogger’s Spirit :: Rest Of Summer Cancelled

Yesterday morning at approximately 7.25, I was awoken by a ratty-looking man with a beard and – for reasons I’ve still yet to work out – two policemen.

I opened the door to the flat in my sleep-clothes: a pair of sweaty underpants and an oversized grey hoodie – one that was way too big for me even at Christmas, when I was four stones heavier – and I looked down at these three men, gathered as they were one floor below me by the open garden gate.

After the customary, and to my mind slightly offensive, double-take, the ratty one said: ‘There he is. Bag in your drain, mate.’

As you might suspect, I had absolutely no idea what was going on. My first thought, on seeing the police, was that someone had been broken into. Or stabbed. But why then would a strange, wiry man with a snout be telling me to bag in my drain. And what on earth could that possibly mean? Was he insulting me?

‘Wake up, mate!’ he shouted, smiling, and both policemen chortled into their attack-proof vests. ‘A plastic bag got caught in your drain out back. Flooded the shop downstairs.’ I still wasn’t quite getting it. I wondered if maybe I was dreaming. ‘Go and check your back room, mate.’

Leaving the front door open, I wandered to my bedroom feeling slightly shell-shocked...

I should explain: Keith’s flat is over a shop. The two bedrooms – mine and his – look out over the roof of the shop, which slopes back from the street down toward our bedroom windows. Beneath our windows are two small drains which take care of any excess rainwater. Sometime on Monday night / Tuesday morning, one of the drains had become partially blocked with rotting leaves and other ghastly ichbar, whilst the other had become completely covered over with a rogue carrier bag.

I pushed open the door to my bedroom and my face fell. Literally slipped off my head and fell at my feet in a horrified pile. I had to pick it up and plaster it back in place before I could even begin to decide whether or not I could actually believe my eyes.

Apparently it had rained rather heavily in the night.

Annoyingly, after my recent conversation about deskplace posture with Dr Lovely, I had just invested in a new monitor and keyboard, both of which I had plugged into my trusty Toshiba laptop and arranged in an ergonomically sound configuration on my desk.

I walked slowly toward my computer, as if approaching the charred body of what may or may not be an elderly relative. Halfway across the room, my feet began to squelch on the sodden carpet.

Keith incidentally, was not at home. He was staying over at Tilly’s house on the fashionable side of town. I - as I am wont to do when I am home alone – had been sleeping on the sofabed in the living room. I’d had a bit of a film night. Just me, a large packet of Revels (I know, I know) and a couple of DVDs. What DVDs were they? you ask. I’ll tell you. One was The Libertine. (A few good scenes but mostly rather dull – it seems the Earl of Rochester was the Sebastian Horsley of his day. Actually nowhere near that dull, but that same sense of ‘egotism as raison d’etre’. Yawn.) The other was Lars and the Real Girl. (Quirky and charming at first but after an hour I just wanted to slap Lars and set his stupid doll on fire. Towards the end of the film, I was actually praying for it to end.)

The thing is, ordinarily I would have had my laptop in there with me, but because of my back and the wise words of Dr Lovely, I’ve been trying to restrict laptop use to my desk.

My poor desk. Jesus. It looked like a desk on the Titanic.

My window had been open an inch or two, which obviously hadn’t helped stem the tide.

My laptop was also open, sitting there on the desk like a raped clam. It was drenched. Wetter than an excited mermaid. I cried out. A curse word. In agony. Then I quickly unplugged everything – two lots of four-socket extension leads were sitting in a centimetre of water – and I returned to the front door.

The police were now next door talking to the little old lady, whose flat had also suffered a soaking. Meanwhile, the ratty guy – who was annoyingly chipper, I must say – was on his way out of the front gate. He smiled at me as he left and said, if I remember correctly, ‘Don’t let any more plastic bags on the roof’. I bristled at this, angry at the implication that I could have in some way averted this catastrophe. ‘Nothing to do with me, mate’ I responded, but he’d already gone.

I closed the front door and returned to the scene of the crime. (It certainly felt like a crime.)

When I unplugged the various leads from my laptop, picked it up and held it on its side, a pint of water poured out onto the floor. I didn’t know what to do. It was like it was bleeding.

I shook it gently till it had more or less stopped dripping. Then I dried it as best I could with a towel and took it into the living room, placing it open and upside down – like an open book, spine up - in a brief patch of mocking sunlight. Then I did the same with the keyboard, my old PC, a pile of books and magazines, DVDs and CDs, a bunch of various lovely bits of stationery and all of my bedding and mattress.

Then I wiped down the walls and covered the floor with more towels. I then stamped on the towels like I was pressing grapes and as soon as they became soaked, I chucked them in the empty bath and replaced them with more.

Leaving the bathroom I caught sight of myself in the mirror. The first thing I noticed, apart from the look of panic still smeared across my face, was that hanging out of the flap of my boxer shorts was the fat end of a crispy piece of kitchen roll. Ah. That may have had something to do with the sniggering and double-taking. My face fell on the floor again.

I pulled the kitchen roll from my pants, wandered back into my bedroom and threw it into the bin. Then I realised that there was a length of toilet roll in there too. Ah yes. I remembered I'd had a bit of a restive night. Lots of tossing and turning.

When I tried to pull the toilet paper out however, I realised that some of it was stuck to my Johnson. So I pulled off my pants and threw them in the wash basket. Then I stood there, picking at the scraps of bogroll that were clinging fast to the end of my old chap. It was then that I noticed a shadow had fallen across the room. I looked up and saw the ratty guy on the roof outside my window. He was crouching down scraping some bits of rubbish and old leaves into the offending plastic bag. He was looking directly at me. I just stared, till eventually he gave me a thumbs-up and moved on down the roof, chortling as he went.

I continued staring long after he’d gone.

My humiliation was complete.

Not only had this gurning ratman observed me at my embarrassing worst, but also, and worse still, I had realised that the plastic bag which had been the major cause of the flooding and had resulted in God knows how much damage to Keith’s flat, the little old lady next door’s flat, and the shop downstairs, did in fact belong to me. In fact, it was the Curry’s bag I’d brought the new keyboard home in at the weekend.

I was mortified.

I figured out what must have happened, all the while trying to convince myself that it wasn’t really my fault.

When my window is closed, it rattles something awful. Every time a car passes outside, every time someone sighs upstairs, rattle rattle rattle. It is incredibly irritating. Thankfully, silencing it is merely a matter of wedging something between the two sections. Usually I wedge a tissue in there as there’s always plenty of them lying around. On Saturday however, I used a folded-up carrier bag. On Sunday I was sweaty so I opened the window. The bag, I now realise, must at that stage have fallen out onto the roof and floated about pretentiously, as if it were in a film, just biding its sweet time. Then, sometime in the very dead of Monday night, it struck, causing absolute maximum havoc.

So, it could I suppose be argued - at a push - that the flooding, and the damage, was actually my fault.

Jesus, I hope the landlord isn’t reading this. He might be jolly angry.

Speaking of angry, it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t looked in at Keith’s room yet. He might be angry too. Actually, if his room was in anything like the state mine was, he might be furious.

So I stopped staring out at the empty roof and I pulled on a clean pair of undies. (I make it a rule never to go into another man’s bedroom with my balls bared.) Then, tentatively, I turned the handle on Keith’s bedroom door, and I peeped in.

Phew.

It was fine. (If it hadn't been, there is no way I would have admitted to owning that bastard bag.) I walked over to his window and peered through. The roof on his side of the flat is a good foot higher than on my side. I don’t know why. And I don’t care. I was just very relieved. As I crept out of his room – I have no idea why I was creeping; I think I felt guilty – I noticed a pair of handcuffs attached to his bedstead. I giggled like a four-year-old and ran back to the mess of my life.

…

To his credit, Keith was not that angry, even though the flat currently stinks of stagnant rainwater and what smells like mouldy cheese. ‘It’s not my flat,’ he says. ‘Otherwise I’d break both your arms.’

Thanks, Keith.

…

I have found someone to have a look at my laptop but their prognosis is not good. The first thing they told me is that I have to let it dry for ten days. After that, they said there is every chance it will never work again and everything on it will be lost. The very fact that it was so utterly saturated apparently bodes horribly unwell.

My laptop is three and a half years old and it has so much totally irreplaceable stuff on it that I still feel physically ill at the thought. As well as the photographs, some of which I will one day miss, there is writing. Lots of writing. This is what upsets me. There was a lot of stuff that could one day have been useful. Loads of notes I’d made, blog posts I’d half written – the survey results, stuff about my parents, stuff about my childhood… shit. Loads of stuff. Nearly four years of stuff. Even longer actually as I’d written up a few older notebooks which I then tore up and tossed away.

I’m gutted.

I actually feel literally gutted. But obviously I’m not. I’m merely metaphorically gutted.

I mean, I know no one’s actually died or anything, and there are probably some amongst you who will be thinking ‘Jesus, get over it’, and in time I’m sure I will, but for now I’m utterly devastated and I really need to go and stand in a corner and think about what I’ve done.

So.

I’ve decided I’m going offline for a couple of weeks. Just till September, by which time I’ll hopefully have sorted out my old laptop or got hold of a new one. Hopefully this will also give me time to sort out my body a bit. I’ve had my blood test and I’ve got the ultrasound arranged for Thursday. I’m also going to get my bleeding anus checked out.

So, one way or the other, I’ll be back in September, ready for yet another fresh start.

In the meantime, please leave your commiserations in the comments. Plus, any thoughts on repairing severely water-damaged laptops – or at least getting the information off of the hard drive. And if you have any heart at all, please don’t mention the words a) insurance, or b) back-up, else, I swear, I will throw an enormous tantrum right in your horrible superior face.

Enjoy the rest of the summer.

Watch out for plastic bags.

…

PS. Here is a lovely picture of a rainbow over Peckham that I took on Sunday night. I remember thinking, ‘Awww. We might moan about the rain, but if it can do this, then it can’t be all bad.’ Oh, the irony.

Blogging a Dead Horsley

Earlier this evening I saw a young man in Camden Town looking ever so slightly ludicrous in an ill-fitting top hat, and I was reminded of Sebastian Horsley. Horsley is fond of a topper, I reflected. It makes him feel important. I shared my thoughts with Ange – with whom I had spent the day at London Zoo, of all places – and then she mentioned that she’d read a rave review of Horsley’s autobiography in the Guardian. Of all places.

So when I got home a short while ago I read said review and then went to check out Horsley’s blog. I imagined there’d be a publicity post gloating over the acclaim, as well as any other recent plaudits. Instead I discovered that six weeks ago, Horsley stopped blogging.

The curious thing was that my first reaction was one of genuine disappointment. I felt sad.

‘I’ve had enough of this shit,’ Horsley types. ‘The internet is for those who lack the flair for conversation. A blog is what you write for after being rejected by all the reputable publishers. It is Loser Central. The last refuge of the refuse. Anyone who has a blog or leaves comments on a blog is a wanker.’

Even more curious. After reading this – in which yet again he comes across as a petulant, attention-seeking little boy – I began to feel sorry for him.

‘It is far too undignified for a man of my stature,’ he continues. ‘That it attracts such bitterness is not surprising. For one person spoilt by success, a thousand are spoilt by failure. Success makes people, for the most part, humble, tolerant, and kind. Failure makes people bitter and cruel. I can make no more of you than a hedgehog. You are too dull to be ridiculous.’

It was very odd. I felt that I was seeing Horsley with a new clarity, seeing him as a deeply, deeply unhappy man, too ridiculous to be merely dull. I felt instinctively that I was seeing a man wholly incapable of feeling love for another human being.

‘I am the only thing of value on the internet,’ he concludes, ‘and I am removing it immediately. Goodbye.’

Oh, God. Then that his final flourish should be reek of grammatical ineptitude was just too sad.

He’s absolutely tragic. He reminds me of Horatio Alger, the American arch-moralist and zealous advocate of the American Dream who took it upon himself to instruct the world how to live correctly, citing hard work and respect for other humans, but who all the while was a self-hating sickening boy-rapist. (His first novel incidentally, was called Ragged Dick.)

I get the feeling that Horsley is similarly tortured, similarly living a lie. He’s carved out this niche for himself, created this character, this rather contrived cocktail of the Marquis de Sade and Oscar Wilde who struts through life, whoring, pontificating, smoking crack and playing the gigantic ‘I am’, when all he really wants is someone to hold him close, mop his furrowed brow and tell him that everything is going to be alright. That’s right: all he really wants is love. But of course he is incapable of accepting love, even when it is offered. Incapable of accepting it, incapable of offering it. Because he is a narcissist. And a deeply, deeply unhappy man.

But of course, who the hell am I and what the hell do I know? Well, I'm a man who's had a few ales and is perfectly aware that he could be very wrong. It’s just a feeling I got on reading his last hurrah tonight. And I thought I'd share it. On my blog. Like the wanker I am.

I should probably read his book.

One moment, please.

There. I’ve reserved it at the local library.

Now, to sleep.


PS. I’ve just found this. You can’t deny, he does have his moments.


UPDATE :: As some of you have pointed out, Horsley is back blogging again, without so much as shamefaced nod to his 'last post'. Lack of hypocrisy my arse, Nicholas Lezard.

Feedback Friday Tuesday :: Upheaval, Distraction, Renewal of Vows

bulk :: 15st 13 (slowly but surely)
alcohol units imbibed :: 10ish (surprisingly few, considering)
cigarettes smoked :: 0
joints smoked :: a thousand
runs run :: 1
bets won :: 1
promises broken :: 1 (I’m very unhappy about it but I can’t start training for the marathon until a) the weather gets better, and b) my back gets better. I feel like bad about it, but there it is.)

Well, here I am in sunny Peckham where - thanks to Keith’s disturbed, effervescent rage and my own idiotic sense of pride – I have been disconnected from the internet for an entire week. In fact, today is my first day back online, and while it’s obviously a relief, I suddenly feel like I have a terrifying amount of work to do. It’s like I’ve been constipated for months and then all at once – with a slow creak and a hefty crack - I’m flowing like Enya’s Orinoco, close to drowning in my own backed-up effluent.

Ewww.

So, catch-up. On the whole – although not exactly what one might consider a move up in the world - the transition from Herne Hill to Peckham went fairly smoothly, albeit in some of the heaviest downpours this side of Noah’s Ark. I hired a van for the weekend so managed to get it done in four shifts. Or was it fifteen? I can’t remember, but it was all staggered over the bank holiday weekend and included a couple of trips to IKEA to stock up on still more beautifully designed but absolutely one hundred per cent completely unnecessary stuff.

One thing I realised when I was packing up to move was that I already have far too much stuff. I hoard. I can’t throw anything out, but both Keith and Sally did their best to make me feel bad about this, so I ended up acquiescing and chucking lots and lots and lots of stuff away. In the end, this actually felt rather good. It was like a spring clean. A spring clean of the soul. But then I went and spoilt it all by buying lots of rubbish from IKEA. I couldn’t help myself.

The most exhilarating part of the spring clean incidentally, was giving away lots of clothes that don’t really fit me any more. As I dumped them in a supermarket recycling bin, I felt ever so slightly like a snake must feel after shedding its own skin, except of course that when a snake sheds its skin, it grows larger. I felt like a snake in reverse. Like the Incredible Shrinking Man in fact. And not like a snake at all.

So anyway, by Monday evening, it was all done. I closed the front door, opened my extremely cramped bombsite bedroom window for Pablo to slink onto the stairwell and start exploring the back garden, and I slumped down in the living room, like a great big lump of sweaty lard. At which point Keith revealed that he had three surprises for me.

He said, ‘While you’re here, staying in my humble home, we are going to have fun. I’m going to make sure of that’, and then he produced the first surprise, which actually wasn’t so much of a surprise as he’d already warned me it was coming. It was a large bag of grass. I pulled a face. I was trying to convince myself that I didn’t want any more of that. But in truth I did want it. And I was grateful. Sorry, Sally. Sorry, Curly.

The second surprise was a brand new box of Wii, which I have to say, was a wonderful and glorious surprise. I’d only ever played once before and I loved it. I was very excited. In fact, surprises one and two very nearly made up for surprise number three.

‘I’ve killed the internet,’ said Keith.

‘Excuse me?’ I said.

‘It’s gone,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘It’s gone.’

Keith had an account with Virgin Media, but apparently: ‘…they were really, really shit. The TV was always going down and I seemed to be paying loads and loads more than I originally signed up for. Then every time I phoned them up, they annoyed the shit out of me, keeping me on hold for hours, making me pay for calls when it wasn’t my fault, refusing to phone me back and refusing to let me speak to anyone who was in any position of authority or even in the same continent, so in the end I just told them to fuck off.’

‘When?’

‘I don’t know. Last week sometime. I know that the person I told to fuck off was just some poor call centre bogey and it wasn’t their fault at all so I explained that hopefully this would be one of the calls that they were recording for training purposes and somebody else, somewhere down the line, could take the brunt of my ire.’

‘Did you actually use those words?’ I asked. ‘The brunt of my ire?’

‘I dunno,’ said Keith. ‘Might have. Anyway, I tried to go online a couple of hours ago and it was down. So I think that’s probably it. No more internet.’ He nodded sagely, as if it were a good thing. ‘So,’ he added. ‘Let’s bowl!’

I pointed out that I had very important proofreading work I had to get on with all week, work that would eventually enable me to pay Keith rent money.

Keith pointed out that I didn’t really need the internet for that. Surely all I needed was my laptop and my brain? I scowled.

I then pointed out that I needed to blog urgently, that I hadn’t even managed a Feedback Friday post this week, which was basically the only thing that ensured that I blogged at least once a week.

Keith pointed out that I had become addicted to the internet and that I should make an effort to participate more fully in the real world.

I pointed out that smoking grass and playing video games was not necessarily what a lot of people might consider ‘participating more fully in the real world’.

Keith pointed out that a lot of people needed to get with the programme.

I pointed out that using terms like ‘get with the programme’ was probably going to cause the two of us to fall out.

Keith pointed out that I should probably wake up and smell the coffee.

At which point we fell out.

Then Keith suggested that while we waited for a new ISP, this would be a good opportunity for me to test his theory that I am now officially addicted to the internet. As an added incentive, he then bet me £50 that I couldn’t stay off the internet for an entire week. Rashly, I shook his hand.

This morning there was £50 waiting for me on the kitchen table.

I have to say, it really amuses me that Keith genuinely seems to believe me when I say, ‘Honestly, Keith. Cross my heart and hope to die, ram a chisel in my thigh, I have not been checking emails on my phone.’ Which is not to say that I lied, for I did not. Or did I? No, of course I didn't. Or did I? No, no, no. But if I had of course, he would never know. He can be so childlike sometimes. And he still leaves his oven chips just lying there in the freezer.

Anyhow, I’m going to put my winnings toward buying a Wii Fit just as soon as they become available again. I really want to be told I’m fat by a machine. I’m sure it will inspire me. Like it did this guy. (I’ve just got off the phone to a man in HMV who explained to me that there is ‘a national shortage’ and they have no idea when they’ll be back in stock. And meanwhile the rain continues to fall and us chubbies are just getting fatter and fatter and fatter.)

Anyhow, today we have a new internet service provider and I am prepared to bet Keith £50 that they will be every bit as shit as Virgin were. If not shitter.

In other news, Pablo didn’t come home this morning. And Pablo hates the rain. I can’t help feeling something is horribly wrong. Usually he comes home in the middle of the night, bringing me the intestines of some rodent as a gift. Always he wakes me up some time around dawn seeking food. But not this morning. I am worried. If he’s not back in a couple of hours, I may have to attach signs to local lampposts.

Hmm.

Until tomorrow.

(Honest.)