July 26 (Monday): Week starts tired. I awaken from a dream where I am walking to a house on Holland Road in Little Clacton, my street growing up, and I am guiding a girl to a certain house on the road. Read into that, what you want.

I trapse into work semi-zombie, still shattered from the weekend, yet again I need a weekend to recover from my weekend. This is week two of/for Emma, she’s still here at Planet Podunk. My week begins poorly with an email from Ebay regarding the sale of porky pies. I suspect it may be a bad week.

I start out the day a bit sheepishly but Ivan is cool with me fortunately and I actually have a decent meeting/conversation with Andy about things.

After work, I do my thing of heading out to Asda just to shop, its an addiction I appear to perform daily these days. When I get back from Asda I return to find Sarah has tried to get in touch on MSN. Strike 1: “u spking yet�. Strike 2: “obviously you havent got over yourself�. Strike 3: “c ya�. The grammar of this girl. And the cheek!

Beyond that I have a bit of a nothing evening, no worries.

np: Husker Du – New Day Rising

July 25 (Sunday): I wake up at 10 still tired out. Sara is on MSN but my MSN still is not working. I restart and get in touch with Sara, Thursday night’s phone call leaves me remaining a bit freaked (but in a good way).

Today is hard work and slow moving. Dad MSNs me also wanting to know what I’m doing today. I dunno but best show my face there though and mum can have a crack at my bubblegum trousers and shirt.

I also check Friendster to discover that Sofie has added me as a friend: my little Viking.

I take an eternity to get out; I throw on my Millwall shirt and think about leaving the house. I stop at the Layer Road general store to get today’s newspapers, stomping too prominently outside the football ground.

I get home and Snowy is all over me, which is nice. I tell Dad about my job and he tells me about his job, or rather his old job and his current woes in resolving some sick pay and some due holiday pay. He’s been to the citizen’s advice bureau and I cringe, those people are useless and put up against a real legal mind, such as any company employs, I fear Dad may be chasing up a blind alley.

I have found a new favourite tv show. For three weeks running now I have been watching Relic Hunter on Sky and I love it. Basically it is some US cable production that they film in Europe (Young Indiana Jones Chronicles type thing). Relic Hunter rules, it’s a kind of cash in on Laura Croft/Tomb Raider and stars the bird from Wayne’s World and the drippy guy from Preaching To The Perverted (most definitely not Tom Courtenay). Tia Carrere though actually remains a fox. She looks obviously older but this just adds a quality for me. Or maybe it is all the martial arts moves she does while the wimpy guy ducks out the way. This show is dope, I’m gonna get the DVDs. I wish I could get Sky for my flat (damn health and safety).

I watch Takeshi’s Castle and Malcolm In The Middle with Dad (the one where Lois is forced to tart up at work and Hal cheats at basketball against the boys) before taking off home.

It’s a real tv party tonight; Big Brother is now really fascinating to me. Jason is fascinating, I’ve joked all the long over how similar we are but we really are and now that Victor has (wrongly) gone, he has been left isolated and more moody and grumpy than ever and his behavioural patterns really match some of mine at times.

np: Charlotte Hatherley - Summer

July 24 (Saturday): I wake up with one hell of a headache. It’s a hang over. I really wanted to get to Colin’s today and get my haircut but it is one bridge too far for me. I wake up seven which after getting in around at two or three equates to nowhere near enough sleep yet again. I have slept really uncomfortably last night, on top of magazines and newspapers which now stick to my body, along with that fucking bubblegum I sat in. Seems I was listening to music when I got in (whoops) and Media Player is playing all tracks in alphabetical order and has reached the letter W. Wynton Marsalis’ last album rings in my ears and is actually soothing to me in-between my four trips to the bathroom to throw up this morning. However, all good things must come to an end and Wynton Marsalis turns into X-Ray Spex and my head pounds like a jackhammer.

After a few aborted attempts to get up, get dressed and get busy I find that at some points that I am actually so hung-over that I can’t even hold water. Eventually I find myself up and mobile, it now being 1pm in the afternoon. I go down to my local newsagents to get the papers. My local newsagents is the Layer Road General Store right next to the football ground, where people are already congregating for today’s friendly against the almighty Watford. I am almost tempted to phone up and Ben to ask if he is going to the match and as if I can do a “come with�. However I am then almost run over by some dickhead Colchester United player in his flash personalised number plated car, speeding up as he pulls into the Colchester United players’ car park. Arrogant prick, you’re just a chimp with a huge wage packet at the end of the day.

When I get in I set about planning for my DJ set in the evening. I still have many good burned CDs left over from my set at the final Hirameka DJ set so really all I need to burn is at most another two CDs with a few more choices/picks (mainly omitted Big Black songs!) and current hot new picks (Walkmen, Snow Patrol, new Prodigy).

I am supposed to be meeting Staff and Allen at the Hogshead at 4pm but I find myself running much too late and out skip my initial plan of walking into town to be there followed by the skipping of the plan of actually being there on time (my bad). Eventually I plum for driving into town and sheepishly turning up a bit late.

When I arrive at the Hogshead it is almost five and there is no sign of Staff or Allen but fortunately Justin Bad Hand and his girlfriend Helen and Adam Cats Against Bombs are all there so I have someone to hang with. Justin has already got the Blitters squat gig photos from the previous night developed and the place looks insane. I really am on form, making yuks about the photos. Eventually Staff and Allen and others turn up and it’s a brilliant day to be sat outside in the Hogshead beer garden in the sun. I’m having a good day but also it is somewhat alarming to have so many people telling me “I think this is the first time I haven’t seen you drunk� and that all my stories begin “when I was really drunk….�. Ouch.

The beer garden today is star studded, mainly for the Elton John lookalike and a guest by Meg from the White Stripes. I suspect that it is the actual Elton John when he goes to the men’s toilet and never returns (“bumming!�).

We leave the Hogshead around 8pm and as I leave, Ivan and Jackie turn up. I say “hi� very sheepishly and comment over how much carnage last night was. We do all right, there are no visible ill effects from last night but I suspect one day it/they will rear their heads.

As we arrive at the Arts Centre Montana Pete are already playing and they sound better than ever. Montana Pete still do the stop start, quiet loud thing and they’ve always struck me as a kind of geeky version of Girls Against Boys and tonight it sounds more forceful and effective than ever.

After their set I begin DJing, opening with New Year by the Breeders and then into the opening track off the new Sonic Youth record, prompting the resident pseudo cool ice bitch to come running up to me and ask what it is.

The next band is the Parnell Deception or the Parnell Incident or something. I recognise members from other, older Colchester bands back in the day who actually weren’t too good. This band sounds to me like Tool and my friends reckoned they sound like A Perfect Circle which suits as Maynard Keenan (or whatever his name is) sings for both bands. Their bassist is a snarling beast of man, shirtless pretending to be the guy in Queens who used to be in the Dwarves, only not as interesting or cool. I think I saw this band opening once before for Part Chimp and wasn’t really into them either.

In the house tonight are the new local stars called Absent Kid. They have had some nation press and are now going to be big (apparently). All their family is in the venue, which means overdressed mothers and sad dads in band shirts. It also means they drag out female relatives who are real honeys and are completely out of place. It is hard to concentrate on DJing when there are a couple of honeys buzzing about. I do manage to pull myself together and play the Blitters single which gets a big cheer from our collective, making me appear good at DJing. Absent Kid play and are pretty awful in earnest, I’m not really sure what they sound like other than a thousand other confused indie rock bands (“are we indie or are we rock?�). At one point they do the quiet loud thing and I figure where Busted are to Blink 182, Absent Kid are to Mogwai. Probably not though. After their set I play the first song I play is Money Will Roll Right In by Mudhoney.

Cove headline and do their instrumental Shellac type thing I came to OD on with Reynolds. Didn’t Cove used to have a member who was the spitting image of Bill Hicks? He now looks replaced by a guy that looks like Eric Clapton (sorry). So ultimately I guess Cove sound like Slint gone hard which rhythmic and catchy (I’d like to come up with better descriptions and comparisons but I am so out of touch it hurts).

The show ends and I put on World Destruction by Time Zone followed by Wesley Willis to clear the venue. I actually think my set was pretty good tonight, the night was buzzing so I guess it didn’t really matter what I played but it still made it all the more fun to appear that in one way or another everyone was having a good time.

At the end of the night I go over and talk to the infamous Emma Webb. She’s actually the most receptive she has been to me for years and we talk shit, mainly about me going to porno university and how she could become my Madame. Not bad. I then go over to speak to her sister and something explodes in the venue.

After show there is a party back at Staff’s and eventually we head over there, our group including Zack, Staff’s bandmate in Extreme Noise Terror. Originally I had the best intentions of staying sober tonight and getting home in time to see Beavis And Butthead Do America on BBC1 but in the end that is not to be. We get (feast on) Bodrums and I eat a donner sober, not the best of sensations. On our way to Staffs, a few drop out but eventually Allen and myself get there by car, finding the place in deepest darkest Lexden. And it’s a fantastic crib. We stay up until 4 in the morning, with people trying to be bribed into drinking home brew and people passing out on the floor in the process. Cove tell us about their experiences playing alive, then I tell everyone about what happened with Gringo Records and then Staff beats us all with some of the funniest music stories I have heard in ages about Extreme Noise Terror. Around 4 I find myself nearly falling asleep but I still manage to give Allen a lift home. I’m so tired after three days of staying out.

np: Sonic Youth – Pattern Recognition

the glow on the left of an Abba tribute and the black ending to our evening 

the horse that I bet on, on it's way to the glue factory I believe 

July 23 (Friday): Off to Newmarket today. I stumble into work with the weather above not looking very promising. I take a jumper into work with me in the threat/premise that tonight it will rain. Surprisingly this morning I am actually full of beans, I didn’t drink THAT much last night and I’m just tired instead of hung-over. Sandip comes back over from seeing Andy and he says he still smells of booze! I go into to see Ivan. He isn’t overly keen on the horse racing tonight and looks of the verge of ditching it, dropping out. I explain if I didn’t feel so obliged to go I would happily laugh it off. At this point Seymour comes into his office and asks me how I’m doing. It seems surprisingly that I am even doing better than him (pissheads the lot of them). He tells me that he had two of the ladies from last night stay over at his last night (three is a crowd I always found).

The day sails/flies by save for a mad rush at the end by JH flapping about a client he is seeing Sunday! Who see’s a client on a Sunday? Not anyone with sense.

The minibus arrives to take us to Newmarket. It is not a bus; it is a glorified Transit with comfy seats and windows. By this stage the numbers really are down and the roll call now is: myself, Ivan, Brian, Andy and Andy’s other half Rachel. Two other stragglers get on the “bus� but god only knows who they are (friends of Seymour ultimately). The bus journey is rough, the weather has now turned and now it is hot. I labour conversation with Ivan but neither of us seems in the mood. We get a call from the office and it turns out that another minibus has arrived to pick us up. Bet that was a better one. The journey is long and I am parched and not far from feeling carsick just by way of something to do for entertainment. After a few hic-cups we arrive in good time, some of us raring to go. Myself, personally I just want a drink and something to eat to salvage morale on my part. Being that numbers are so low tonight, there is little change of it being an all triumphing evening so we are entering into proceedings in the spirit of getting as pissed as humanly possible, myself with view to wind jockeying a racehorse. And Ivan’s new pyromaniac past now adds a whole dimension to his ways/persona, added to his existing nickname “Screwdriver�. We have an initial £10 whip round and go into drinking with gusto. I’m not betting. I hate betting, I only ever lose. I hate horses; horses are loved by over rich people and perverts (often both types are combined). Still though it is a fantastic evening, beautiful weather and really chilled as it is still early evening and things have not gotten too busy as of yet.

The first race occurs. The others bet and I just front, saying I’m just in it for the ambience (what a wanker). For the first time in three visits we actually sit in the stands and watch the horses and I am actually able to see some of the race for the first time. Around me people get very excited but I don’t, I’m too cool (and not betting my money). Someone from our crowd wins something but it doesn’t seem/sound substantial enough to match the effort. Whatever, time for another beer. Its all going down quicker, better and smarter than last night.

It turns out that Andy is wearing the same shirt that I was wearing at the Christmas meal back in December. He is copying me, trying to be me? Or just be like me. Envious? Whatever, its all probably just coincidence but a meeting of the mutual admiration society occurs between the pair of us (me "nice shirt!", him "I've always thought you've had good choice in clothes").

Slowly Newmarket begins to pack and for a third year running I find myself have a different experience to the last. Finally I get around to betting on a horse, with everyone around me winning money on theirs. I fork a fiver and place it on a horse called Garnett, Alf Garnett I presume, and I want In Sickness And In Health on DVD now! Fucking old nag, doesn’t do shit and certainly doesn’t win. Its lose and failure only reflects on me and I almost start to cry at the realisation that that five pounds could have been spend on something cool, something like…….any fucking thing tangible. For here onwards, I vow to be sly and not to bet on another thing. Some people might argue “then what’s the point of going horse racing?� For the record though, I do pick horses on everyone remaining race of the night and not one of them did shit, so who was laughing in the end?

The food here is overpriced and upper-class. You could easily attach the Fear And Loathing line about this being entertainment if the Nazis had won the war but actually this is entertainment as the result of the Nazis not winning the war. I see Barlow and he blanks me but his wife doesn’t.

My phone begins beeping and people are texting. First it is Staff asking me if I want to DJ tomorrow night at the Arts Centre in between bands. Oh yes! He tells me how is off to Dunston tonight to play a squat gig with the Blitters. That sounds as exciting as it does scary. I also receive a text from Steph, Margaret’s daughter who is trying to set Stevo up with one of her friends. She is telling me (us) that she isn’t going out tomorrow after all (was we supposed to be accompanying them? Whoops).

As a group we walk to the paddocks where we get to see the horses and jockeys close up. I’m now kinda tipsy so I lead the laughs directly at the height and size of the midget jockeys. Rachel makes comment about how fat the owners are in comparison to the jockeys. Two wrongs do not make a right! As the others place bets I ask Rachel was accusing me of being gay last time I saw her. Seems she wasn’t according to her but I was less drunk than her though that night….. While they put on bets, I put on beers.

The night takes a bit of a dip when I check my GPRS on my phone to discover that Victor has been voted out on Big Brother. Dude was the best thing but apparently while I was out cavorting last night, he was making a real arsehole out of himself at the pretend wedding.

The remainder of the races fly by, with us winding up spending the remainder of our night in the bar. Brian, the arranger of this trip, who normally doesn’t drink decides to take up drinking tonight and spending the entire whip on the weirdest concoctions of booze ever seen to man (Baileys, Baby Sham and Red Bull or something). Needless to say he gets the most tipsy (but not drunk) I have ever seen him.

The final race happens and we spill outside to where a Bee Gees tribute band has taken it upon themselves to entertain the masses. Brian leads us blindly for a peak but immediately we return to safety. The crowd is packed but onstage it is pretty vacant. My worst memory of this act is when me, Ivan and Griggs wind up in the portakabin pisser (actually pseudo plush) and Griggs is singing at me “how deep is your love� while I am trying to do my business. Is this a mild form of cottaging?

Next up is Mama Mia, the height of tackiness. I decide to slip off for some more chips at this point; I think they have this creamy, mustard barbecue sauce which has taken my fancy. Pissed up, I find a place to sit and sit scoffing my chips probably a right state while in the background four people pretending to be Abba while away the remainder of the evening. Upon finishing my chips I realise I have lost the others and it really is too dark out to find/look for them. Mildly I begin to panic but fortunately immediately find them where we were stood previously and this is where I find Ivan and Andy now talking shop while Brian dances like a fool with Rachel, equally lairy. I also enjoy the opportunity to chip in my two cents because I really don’t think the bosses of the firm hold me in high enough esteem nor realise my knowledge and capabilities (and potential that goes with that). So why not pick the best possible time to display this fact: when I am pissed out of my skull, incoherent at best. God knows what triggers it but Ivan and I get into a massive argument perhaps sparked by him telling me what I do wrong at work and/or my attitude problem. Andy also tells me again that I am “too laid back� to deal with clients. That’s a red rag to a bull, how can a person be too laid back to deal with clients? I ask him how many clients and who I have fucked up. No response. Who knows what’s what from here but all I know is that I wind snarling at Ivan and getting it straight back from him. My arguments are ridiculous and with hindsight I realise I was/am arguing without an agenda. So what’s the point? I do remember Ivan saying to me “I take more pride in my work than you ever will� which I find a really bold statement, if probably true. Suddenly an OK night against the odds goes completely tits up. Almost immediately I realise I’ve fucked up by having an argument with Ivan, almost to the point of hurting his feelings more than anything. After being pissed arrogant, I suddenly find myself acting very sheepishly.

Thankfully the night ends and we leave to get the bus/mini coach/glorified transit home. We are supposed to be picked up at 10.30 but no one turns up to take us home. I guess two coaches arriving to pick us up was always going to equate to no coaches picking us up to take us home. After a number of angry calls to the coach company (yeah, that will really encourage them to pick us up so late on a Friday night), one way or another we wind up on a coach going god knows where. I sit at the back and ask the bloke next to me where we are heading and it turns out the bus is going to Swaffam (“isn’t that near Norwich? They’re shit, I support Millwall�).

Eventually the bus stops and we get tossed out onto the streets of Newmarket at closing time on a Friday night, mad time. Unreserved, I take a piss in public outside a seemingly prominent night club on the high street, I suspect in an attempt to egg the night on to get any worse. By this stage I am super hammered and oblivious to all around, these really should feel like bad times but just do not. We wind up sitting on the steps of some building opposite a banging nightclub. Apparently, it is said, Rachel was up for going into the club and I felt equally the same. While we sit on the steps jollying it up, some lad turns up and begins talking to us. Rachel takes the bait and chats and we listen in as he moans about leaving his £180 Burberry jacket in a nightclub he has been thrown out of and how it still has all his gear in it, this little bitch is claiming to be a dealer. As Rachel talks to him, claiming to be counselling him, Andy flaps concerned the kid might flip on us. Eventually he fucks off. I don’t remember much else about our wait for the bus other than at one point having my shirt up and everyone rubbing my belly for luck. I guess I must have passed out on the steps.

A bus turns up to take us home eventually and now awakened (I guess) I get something of a second wind which sees myself talking utter bollocks and singing Estelle “1980� lyrics back and forth to/with Ivan. As soon as that gimmick wears off, again I fall asleep in public (on the bus) and find myself home around 2 AM. What a fucking disaster.

np: Estelle - 1980

July 22 (Thursday): Interview today. I wake up pretty much as per, this time round I want to go into the interview. Today I am motivated and eager to make a good impression. It’s a shame I was unable to get a haircut at the weekend but otherwise I am tip top. I arrive at the station in time to catch a train around 8 AM. I don’t rush to get onto the rammed Anglian railways number from Norwich, instead I choose the leisurely choo choo, the plan being arrive in London around 9 AM giving me 30 minutes to get to my destination with plenty of time to spare.

Things look really up when I bump into Allen who I ride the train with until he gets off for his job in Chelmsford (this despite the automated train announcer’s insistence that the train is going to Frinton on Sea). I show him the weird bruise that has appeared on the inside of my right knee from playing football last night, there is a straight indentation like it had been jabbed with a screwdriver. Things begin to go rather pear shaped when the train shudders and slows down not far after Marks Tey and eventually it grounds to the expected halt. Nervously I begin to clock watch. Allen assures me that will get there on time but I’m always sceptical. An announcement is made and apparently a truck has run off the A12 and is now encroaching on the embankment of the rail tracks. We sit for several minutes, many more than are comfortable. Probably twenty minutes plus later we are rolling past a crazy transit pretty much shredded on the embankment almost on the tracks, they were not telling fibs after. Still, whether they were or not, I am now really pushing it for turning up on time to the interview. Allen gets off at Chelmsford and more late commuters get on. Today is so hot and I feel myself already getting hot under the collar and perspiring profusely. Sitting opposite me is a semi attractive office bod (probably junior) and she is clocking me chewing/picking my nails, I watch her as she watches my fingers pick away. She seems repulsed, I can’t blame her.

It is around 9.30 when I step off, into Liverpool Street and now there is a real big urgency to movements on public transport. I look on the map and cannot decide which is the best method to get to the firm for the interview. I head for Charing Cross and by the time I emerge from the tube station it is past 10.00, my original interview time. I stagger out the station at the Strand end and call ahead to announce my obvious lateness. The secretary is semi unconcerned, telling me she will pass on the message. What, no verbals over the telephone? I have a lot of trouble finding the place and I find myself walking past Trafalgar Square frantically trying to find my bearings on my crappy little map. I end up trawling down Pall Mall, eventually I am headed the right way. I spot the Sports Café and storm past it wishing so badly that I could pop in for a quick one. Finally I find St James’ Square but your guess is really as good as mine as to which of the four sides of the square the office is at. I do a complete lap of the square before finally finding my way towards the correct numbered building.

The office is quite unimpressive, almost like something out of This Life. That is kind of the running motif mentally in my expectations and mind wars of what to expect and tackle with a city firm, and this place is straight out of that show. The office is old and a bit stuffy. I walk into the entrance lobby and there is woman on security which looks the softest line of security in history, so on the contrary she is probably really dangerous with hand-to-hand combat blah blah blah. Finally I arrive. I look at my watch and the time is 10.20. This is pathetic (on my part). Mr Shah appears along with a firm partner who does all the talking. I am steered into a minor meeting room and I apologise profusely for being so late. They don’t seem care or register which leaves me with a distinct lack of assurance either way. The Asian guy Hahish looks weird and I am so relieved that I am not being interviewed by him alone. The partner who does most of the talking is kind of stereotypical in a Ron Manager style. For a partner of a city firm really isn’t dressed overly impressive and his Coke bottle glasses look dated right back to the sixties. And Hahish does appear to have a regular pulse. I’m a prick to the end. Mr Ron Manager seems a cool guy though, warming to me somewhat as I go into charm overdrive. This interview has really gotten off on the wrong step severely and I just present myself really sheepishly and pretty different to how I represented myself on the Bond Street interview, that version of me might well terrify my interviewees on this occasion. The job itself is a real dream position. Basically the company serves as the outsourcing function of Next Model Management in the UK who do work for FCUK and involves running the accounts for an agency booking fashion shows and it involves offices in New York, Paris and Milan and communication with all offices over the globe. And the job on the face of it appears a real doddle for someone, such as myself, familiar with the accounting package involved. I get really excited about the job and when it is discussed I really try to sell them on my experience in the area. The interview lasts just under an hour and I am let feeling in a state of limbo down really to the general stuffiness and flatness of the event (not on my part, ho ho). We wrap up the interview and I think I mess up by not asking enough further questions about the position but to this point I really think further questioning would lead into over familiarity territory. I make nice nice as I leave the office and the partner thanks for me coming to interview, which a paranoid person might take as a kiss of death/vote of confidence.

Post-interview sprawl out onto the West End, straight opposite Haymarket Theatre where When Harry Met Sally is playing reminding me of Phoebe’s no no that suggestion. I mill around the area for a while, heading to Leicester Square tube station where I hope to find that crappy back market video/DVD shop where the guy sold moody copies of Kill Bill when it first came out (“it’s a pretty good copy, you can only hear the audience for a little bit of it�). Walking around the backstreets is a real eye opener, this is the pinnacle of the Europeanization of London. Eventually I find myself staggering around Leicester Square proper, hurdling over tourists and shocked by just how quiet the area is for eleven o’clock in the morning (aren’t the kids on holiday yet?). Eventually I find myself on the bottom of Charing Cross Road, seeing a part of it I have never before seen in my life, these are the real book shops (none of your Borders bollocks here). I wander into the best poster shop I have seen in my life. Officially I don’t do posters but I find myself searching for Woody Allen prints, movie posters with taste and class. Initially I do not come across any but I do find a Goonies poster and like the person in a complete state of Arrested Development that I am, for a second I almost buy it. Eventually I hit paydirt and find the Manhattan poster. This is the best, two people falling in love, walking a dog, sitting on a bench at the crack of dawn, discussing what is important in life. The purpose of such a vision is escapism and capturing such an image and putting it on my wall might allow me to exchange places with them for five minutes. I procrastinate but give up on the whole poster idea in the end, they’re horribly tacky and ultimately found on the walls of the emotionally stunted. That is until I find my holly grail of posters: a poster with every Simpsons character EVER! And it is a good size (in other words small). I buy it immediately (however to date, today being August 11, I still have not put it on any wall anywhere).

I leave there and find myself in a comic shop. What’s that about, all of a sudden I am going through a comic renaissance even though I still have comics left unread from my last little period. I have to say I am tempted but when I am unable to find the really perverted issue of Weasel by Dave Cooper I exit in a huff. Today is glorious, this is the best (or worst) weather of the year so far. Soon I find myself in a more recognisable part of Charing Cross Road, on the verge of Covent Garden. Still this whole gotham is next to dead, where the fuck is everyone? Does everyone hip in the city nurse hangovers and crank comedowns until midday regularly? I go to Rough Trade Records for the first time in absolutely years. As per everywhere else in London it seems, I am the only person in the shop. And I am wearing suit and look a total narc or someone well past it trying to be cutting edge. Rubbish Graham. I scan the racks and don’t really recognise any records I want to buy. I look around for records by the label I used to be involved with and no dice. I do confusingly come across the complete Free Kitten back catalogue though, are they hip again? Is there money in it? Is it time for Kim Gordon to regroup? I get out of there pretty quickly, seems finally that part of my life is past me. Back outside in the summer sun I immediately text Allen telling him I have never felt so out of touch in my life. Seems, Fopp is now more my kind of shop.

I wind up in Forbidden Planet looking at things I have looked at before. I buy the Video Nasties book I saw a few weeks ago and finally bite the bullet on the American Splendor book (just after my little epiphany with the cbr yesterday). I ask about the Dave Cooper Weasel comic here and get sent to a comic shop on Old Compton Street (“oh really? What you saying?�). I plonder out of the shop deciding, the girl I find to drag into Forbidden Plant and still be interested is the girl for me. I wind up in Fopp but there’s nothing new in there for me. There are also a couple of hippy, probably Scandinavian travellers making out in the shop, so repulsed I leave. I also get funny looks for another security guard yet again (maybe I’m paranoid). I go to the comic store on Old Compton Street and its in the basement somewhere and really good but ultimately full of comics I am to be honest completely uninterested in. I do the Borders thing but soon get nauseous and leave.

Eventually I land up in Virgin Megastore. The sale suckers me in but first it looks a good/safe bet for a coffee break, for some reason all other coffee houses appear packed and therefore intimidating to me, it being lunchtime and all. I go the basement and Café Nero and a large Friends’ sized cappuccino. I pay about £2.40 and feel a complete sucker…..until however I taste the brew, it tastes so good. Sarah at Hays phones me and enquires as to how the interview went. I tell her good and get very enthusiastic at the position but she sounds very disappointed by the fact I was held up and turned up late. This is of course when she can hear me, behind Virgin has a booming big screen meaning I have to repeat myself about three times before she hears me. We give up on our phone call and she leaves me to finish my brew on the proviso she will call me later. I finish and join the queue for the bathroom, the men’s is out of order so we’re all queuing for the wheelchair facilities. A girl emerges from the women’s and goes “there’s no one in there, you can go in�. Yeah right jail bait, I tell her “I don’t want to get arrested� and it makes her laugh. I still have it. Upstairs in the shop I buy CDs I don’t really want and probably will finally listen to in six months and then I am done and another wasted day in London is put out of its misery.

I get an early afternoon train back to Colchester and it is a breeze. I text Azmei about being interviewed by another Shah, making the joke “you might be related�. Its all blah blah. On the train Hays attempt to phone me again but the signal is piss weak and once more the call gets discouraged, I tell her I’ll phone her when I return home. As soon as I get back to Colchester I quickly pop into Asda to buy vitamins, Fructis and cereal.

When I get home to Bohemian Grove I check my PC and its still online and on my MSN Messenger list is Phoebe online. Strange, she said she could not do lunch today because she was going to be at a client’s. She lied to me, she didn’t want to do lunch. I go offline and speak to Sarah at Hays. She’s asking me whether I have considered working in North London. I reply “certainly� but by North London she is thinking Reading, Watford and further afield, I kid you not. She also mentions that the Slaven Jeffcote interview feedback was positive, they thought I took five minutes to get warmed up but then came out of myself. She says also that they made mention of my appearance, that I looked a bit bedraggled. I was chasing around like a blue arsed fly to get to that interview, running against the clock etc, I may have looked bedraggled because I was bedraggled. She says when she interviewed me she didn’t think it was an issue and I tell her “that’s harsh, I didn’t look like a pikey or anything�. And as I write this (three weeks later) this was the last time I spoke to her, read into that what you want.

With that little chore out of the way, I bite the bullet and hit Phoebe on MSN. Fear knocked at the door, faith answered and there was no one there. Phoebe is aces and sounds happy to hear from me. I seem to be making her laugh, even with my strange sense of humour that is not for everybody in earnest. She explains to me that she was at a client’s this morning. Excuse accepted. I keep going about the appearance comment thing, half joking and half serious. She jokily tells me I sound obsessed by it. I bet I do.

Eventually the afternoon turns into the evening and it is time for this weeks appointment with the good doctor. This weeks session is hard work. It is all about her telling me to find something to do that I really enjoy. Rightfully she scolds/criticising me for turning up late for the interview and my whole attitude towards it (which in my defense I think is city). This week it gets pointed out that I have gone off track again. The dynamic I have with my parents is pointed out, the whole only child scenario and how I am automatically placed at the bottom of the hierarchy due to that and how it is slipping into my everyday life and all my other relationships, how in those I also slip to bottom of the pile and how I just let it occur. Its happened in work, social, the record label, relationships with girls, when really I should have been taken the reigns and control while in actuality lesser people have been able take scope and override and basically take the piss. The session reverts to the finding myself suggestion. The good doctor suggests (tells me) I should quit my job (my career) and pursue what really makes me happy, one thing of which is to go to university. As if I could afford to get off the career ladder now, yeah right.

Once out of the session I go flying to Abberton where everyone is having a cricket practise. When I arrive, after getting semi lost/taking the worst imaginable route, Seymour, Griggs and Heddle are already done and are leaving to go for a drink. Good idea, I only turned out in order to go to the pub afterwards. I remain behind with Stevo and Brian though to get some batting practise. Stevo tells me that each partner had individually asked him today where I was (officially I was taking a holiday day). I start out by batting right handed but that does go so I try out batting left hand (I used to swing the baseball bat left handed, considering myself to be a switch hitter, ho ho). I fair much better left handed and decide to go with it come our match next Tuesday. We practice for quite some time but I am also very worried about missing our chances at the pub!

By the time we are done and arrive at the Crown pub in Abberton, it is to the partners of the firm leaving. Fortunately, they are choosing to head into town and go for a drink there. Nice idea! Moves are made to meet up in Smiths. I drive back, following Brian and park up in the office car park. Brian and I head to Smiths and are the first people out to represent. I decide not to get super pissed tonight, just to take it easy but still be visible in drinking (too much think, not enough drink). God only knows where Stevo chooses to park up, he takes forever to turn/catch up and then he is dressed as if coming straight off the cricket pitch as opposed to the rest of us who have changed, Seymour and Griggs even taking so long to change they must be getting dolled up. Eventually they arrive by which time Stevo is already well over the limit on drinks and gasping for more. Myself, I am slow and subtle, bursting for peanuts and probably somewhat boring in my seriousness brought on by not getting pissed up. While in Smiths, in trots Steve Whitton who used to manage Colchester United (and play for West Ham and Ipswich amongst others). The man looks pretty healthy and carefree with a clear conscience for a player that I never saw have a good game for Ipswich and a person than almost ran our hometown team into the ground. I’ve seen him in Smiths before (apparently he lives in Eight Ash Green near Dick) and as per usual I do my thing of texting Ben and telling him to come down and slap him. I don’t know if it’s down to Whitton but around this point Seymour suggests that we move on (“it’s a bit dead here�).

Our original plan is to go to the Hogshead. Stevo is drinking away happily but doesn’t appear to want to ask me if he can stay over and I don’t feel like offering to let him stay, so when we leave Smiths, Brian as expected goes home but Stevo as unexpected also goes home. I head to the Hogshead with Seymour and Griggs but it is Thursday night which is bad music night there and as soon as we reach there we see some duo doing a terrible Police cover version so we walk straight past and go into Roberto’s Wine Bar. Last time I was here was with Sarah, which was a real nightmare. It does concern me slightly just how many faces (faeces) I recognise in this place, my boss is a man about town and I get dragged into it occasionally.

A visit to Roberto’s has been more fun (historically). Immediately John gets talking to a friend and a client (or is that client first, friend second). He begins doing the rounds and I and Andy get stuck with some guy with property on Lexden Road boring the tits off the pair of us. By now I have pretty much given up on drinking and I am kinda quiet due to probably being out of my depth in this “adult� world. When it winds up being just me and Griggs in conversation I bring up the subject of Sarah when he asks “how is Sarah?� when he actually means Sara. I fucking snap at him, being aggressive more about her rather than towards him. I tell him that I know he had her calling the office for him and that it fuck things up for me with her. He acts in some kind of denial, telling me “she is bang up for it and I’d be taking her out�. Ultimately the conversation/information appears to be doing anything but registering with him. I hope I let him know I am steaming about the situation but who knows. I think I am unnerving the partners tonight, I am out but drinking slowly and subtly and basically not falling all over the place. I begin pushing the envelope with Griggs and suggest/insinuate that he (a 35 year old man) is dating his partner (a 40 year old woman) in order just to get her daughter (a 15 year old girl). Basically I am sarcastically accusing him of being a nonce, attempting to make him get defensive on me. I know its acting strange/weird but I’ve got the right arseholes with the man.

And then along comes another familiar face (to Seymour), a gentleman taking a young lady out it seems. The guy turns out to be the landlord of the infamous Bricklayers Arms and the young lady is jokingly referred to as the man’s daughter, as opposed to bit of stuff. Turns out though, the girl actually IS his daughter. Trollop. Incest. The girl gets chatty with Seymour and asks if she can get a job in his (our) office. I jokingly chip in (wrongly) “hey, they’ve already taken on a pair of tits on once this week�, Seymour jokes “two pairs of tits� and she grabs mine going “you’re all right then� and Seymour pipes up “they’re the biggest in the office�. Screwed, I can only retort “second biggest, no one beats Andrea�. I am fucking obscene sometimes.

Faces disappear and I find myself left with the Father and Daughter team. Now there is legend of Ivan getting barred from the Bricklayers so I ask them about it and it turns out that once he got so ratted, he threatened the Mother of the team, got barred and threatened to come back and set fire to the pub. Nice! This is the kind of dirt I want to hear. Eventually Seymour and Griggs return from their schmooze and talk is made of moving on now that time has past eleven. Mention is made of Edwards but the Family man and girl want Chinese or basically any kind of food. The class act that I am, I suggest Bodrums, only jokily, but they decide to go for it. Ouch. The remainder of us get moved to a table near the door where Seymour is working his shit on some ladies, two of whom I recognise. Griggs joins in and I sit still and quiet, next step is falling asleep for me. At this point the ladies I don’t strictly recognise begin introducing themselves to me and I say “hi� but lack in conversation when it comes to sexualised women old enough to be my mother. The lady I know most out of this motley crew of three is a lady called Barbara who used to answer the phone at a New Town Colchester boudoir called Dollies (making her a Madame?).

With time reaching the witching hour (is that midnight?), Seymour is to be found attempting to get these ladies to come home with him (us). I feel left in a state of limbo but Griggs says to me “come with us, it might get interesting�. A privileged invitation, kind of. We bundle into the Barbara woman’s car and it is kinda grotty and suddenly the shine of the Colchester high life dulls a little. I sit in the back with Griggs, by now fucking ratty drunk, jokingly taking blackmail photos of him with my mobile. He calls me a wanker and has a go at hitting me, prick to the end. By now the heavens have opened and outside the car it is a midnight storm but we have no way of getting into Seymour’s as he is nowhere in sight. Eventually Griggs and myself get thrown out onto the street (West Stockwell) and I find a doorway to shelter under, believing it to be Seymour’s. We stand there for minutes, waiting to gain access. Griggs begins attempting to thump and rough me up again when I suspect I am snarling some kind of abuse at him (my boss) about him being a pussy. Bastard though, he hits me without a second thought whereas I feel restricted in my retaliation towards my employer (biting the feeding hand and all that). As we tire of each other’s company we begin banging on the door to get let in and the next door opens and Seymour emerges. Whoops.

Seymour has a fine house and I have now been inside it a number of times, each time stickier than the previous. Two years ago I found myself there until 5 in the morning at the aftermath of the Christmas meal when Griggs was attempting to fuck a coked up Sara and last summer at around 7 in the evening I found myself pissed as a fart giggling myself silly on Seymour’s sofa as I could hear him in the background (I believe) lining me up with a lady to sleep with wearing my Millwall shirt (honest). The sad aftermath of the second story though was that I passed out in the Roberts nightclub toilet and was thrown out before good times were allowed to occur.

The bosses at my company/firm are notorious for buying pink champagne in order to impress the ladies. Personally I think the beverage is gay and tastes like wee. Today/tonight however out comes a bottle of the real deal stuff. The most attractive of the three ladies works for (or maybe owns) a store in town called Mismo and initially plays it cool until Seymour pulls out a bottle of plonk which she is aghast at him possessing as it is “her favourite wine and I am surprised anyone has it in their house�. This is primo stuff I am witnessing, suaveness in action. Want to learn about pulling birds for forty years, watch this guy in action. This whole scene and my appearance in it is complete weirdness to me, three males three females, is something going to happen?

Soon it becomes obvious the two ladies, whose names I forget, are vying for Seymour’s attention when really the “Madame� lady is acting a kind of manager/coaching role and Griggs and myself are just bit players/bystanders. I find myself on able to laugh at the absurdness of the whole situation……and dig into as much free hooch as possible. I begin to get involved in conversation and feel a bit mothered in the process. I use Phoebe as a topic of conversation so as not to appear completely impotent (although compared to this situation I probably am). Around 1.30/2.00 a taxi arrives to pick a fucked in the brains (but not in the pants) Griggs up. I’m not offered a lift but don’t expect one from that aggressive thug.

Around 2 in the morning my phone rings and it is Sara from Dubai. It is five in the morning out there and she sounds pissed, both drunk and angry. Turns out she has just had a phone call from the wife of the South African gentleman (her Mr Big, ho ho) who she has been fucking. What does she expect? The woman to phone her up and suggest they band together and take revenge on Leroy (Mr S.A.) like Thelma & Louise? Oh my. In the house, now just me, Seymour and three women, they all think it is Phoebe calling me. It actually looks good in front of these people that I am being called at this hour, it looks like I have more of a life/social circle than I actually do have. I talk dirt with Sara with occasional pitch ins from Seymour and the ladies until 2.30 when I leave Seymour’s house along with the ladies (I think). I walk home clutching my cellphone talking to Sara about things I can’t remember. At one point I walk under the Southway underpass and the signal cuts out. I feel left off with the conversation ended and then she goes and immediately rings me back! God, she is calling my mobile phone from Dubai, it must be costing her a packet. I get back to the office where my car is parked and so is Griggs’ Jag. Needing a slash, I piss on my boss’s car, exacting revenge for the past two years of heartbreak he has caused me by being better at pulling work colleagues than I. Job done, I get in my own car and slump as Sara harps on and on, moan moan moan. I find myself with half a chubby in my pocket and begin asking Sara what she is wearing, asking her to talk dirty. She tells me how skanky she is in bed but all the same I enjoy it. I do the usual game of accusing her of loving me (“you lurve meeee!�) and I do Bear At Bedtime impressions/voices and get away with saying the cheekiest dirt with her. Eventually the call ends at 3 AM (6 AM Dubai time) and I feel frazzled, my mind/brain fried from an hour of having a mobile phone pointed at my head (almost as harmful as having a gun pointed at one’s head). I am very naughty as I drive home and get in just after 3 AM and put on the School Of Rock DVD (again!) and immediately fall asleep, clothed in the heat. Life’s just a ride, this has to be real.

np: The Doors – Touch Me

July 21 (Wednesday): This morning in the AM I find myself reading an American Splendor cbr in order to free up some space on my harddrive. There first story in there is horribly familiar sounding to many of my current predicaments and interestingly mentions San Francisco and Sacramento.

At work I am doing a job where the client is called Jugdish and he is a whinging bastard complaining about the effect of supermarkets on his urban corner store. Yes, he is foreign and out for every penny he can get it seems. The lazy cunt though doesn’t open his cornershop on Sundays for starters. Shut up, you make my fucking blood boil.

Lunch is a Boots Meal Deal affair spent wandering around town with Louise and buying the NME as per every other Wednesday this year.

Football this evening is fucking carnage. We put out an ok team but there isn’t really anyone in our side to score goals. And neither is there anybody to keep Anglian Grain from basically pulverising us. Tonight they have their best team going, complete with two subs and Dick managing things from the side like it is a real competition with a proper cash prize. Stevo and myself didn’t bother to get the footballs from Birketts this time after the farce that was playing with the ten year old glorified tennis ball last time. And then they go and ask us where the balls are. Pricks. At the eleventh hour Jeremy has come in to play for us and I have (friendly) words with him about his actions at the Arts Centre this past Friday night. He denies everything, saying he was too drunk to remember any of it and at 11pm he had been puking up his guts before getting his second wind and tearing into clubbing mode for the Arts Centre. That’s the spirit! I’d like to blame Anglian Grain’s supremacy in this game over the fact they had an extra man but that would be kidding myself. Instead, with their monkey eared Rooney monster up front, they pummelled us with everything and were solid at the back. I find myself insanely busy and getting knocked about in the process, here comes bruises. At half time the score sits at 8-3 to them and that is with them taking it easy. So much for my intention/ideals of keeping my goals against average below ten this year. In the second half they joyfully/wilfully run rings around us and try out new things posing as their “second� team. At one point Dick orders on a double stuff as if it is a major re-allignment/re-arrangement of formation/tactics. I see Jeremy’s face/reaction to this, it is utter bemusement and the word “wankers�. I roll my eye balls. Ultimately our small victory turns out actually scoring in the second half (ouch!). The game ends with losing 12-4 and knowing our oppositions score should have been in the twenties. Apparently after the game Jeremy texted Ivan saying “Dick ruins it�. Agreed.

I get home disillusioned, with a total can’t be arsed with this anymore attitude. Dad hits me on MSN when I really can’t be bothered to talk. I was meaning to go to the chip shop tonight and get some chips, comfort food I guess, for something or other. I subtly mention this to dad and he lets me go and get them.

When I get in I watch my new TV crush. Its that bird Jo Frost from the show Super Nanny on Channel Four. This woman is built! And very big/hot on the discipline thing. Maybe I could have done with her as a youngster myself (no nanny stories/experiences for me).

I go to sleep. Pony.

np: Sugar – JC Auto

July 20 (Tuesday): Who has got the hump? Jason has got the hump. Chris Moyles is off this week so I am unable to listen to him on the walk to work and clear my head slightly. I arrive at the office and Emma is already there, the first person to arrive at the office this morning, which I feel makes us all look bad.

Today I receive an improved, more enthusiastic email from Phoebe but she still sounds a proper grump at the moment. She can’t meet up for lunch Thursday which is a drag and sometimes can be read as more rejection. I think I will cool off on her for a couple of days, if anything, just to maintain my sanity.

Ivan is in today and it turns out that he has broken his thumb and will not be able to play football for us tomorrow or cricket next week. His thumb don’t fucking look broken. I joke “did you break it sticking it up your arse?�.

At lunchtime I go with Stevo for a Chinese buffet at Mr Wing’s place (apparently a local property mover with links to the Triad). The food is GOOD but the selection is limited. Halfway through the dinner (to me) Stevo says “I’m off now�. I get the fucking hump at this, one thing I will not do is eat alone, I’m funny like that. Who get da hump? Jason get da hump.

In the afternoon Accountancy Additions phones me three times about one job opening in the city. It is industry not practise but nevermind. The first call is the most excruciating, it happens when Barlow is well within earshot. Generally I would say it was obvious to any eavesdropper who would be calling me but this is Barlow (ho ho).

I get home and do next to nothing this evening, its too hot and tiring to bother.

This evening Big Brother is good and Victor is the funniest when nominating his eviction choices this week, this guy HAS to win, he has character and everything going for him. During the show my phone beeps and it think it is Phoebe doing her now regular late trick of texting me. Nope, it is tactless Sara telling from Dubai just how she has been offered a new job. God, talk about keeping up with joneses, just as I stress and labour with getting a new job, Sara pops up/in to remind me just how superior she is to me and how people are throwing job opportunities at her.

Tonight’s movie on TV is Dragnet. This movie is the best and Dan Aykroyd the coolest in his prime. And fuck anyone who disagrees with me. Unfortunately though I do my trick of falling asleep to the movie almost immediately. Night.

np: Public Enemy – Cold Lampin With Flavor

July 19 (Monday): Today is entered into with trepidation. Firstly I’m expecting some fall out with Stevo for not helping him tidy Chernobyl, instead I chose to tidy on my own. However, main thing on today’s agenda is the new girl. I step into Chernobyl and the office looks fantastic, Stevo really did a job on it at some point yesterday. However, it kind of sucks that he has not turned up her first day. Around 9.30 she emerges with Cris who brings her over and introduces her. My initial thoughts are that I really don’t fancy her. I talk to her and try to introduce and welcome her as best I can/do. Sunny isn’t really saying anything to her, so she is coming to me with questions. And she is really posh! At one point I have to pop over the road for something and within minutes Sunny has followed me over, seems he doesn’t want to be stuck with her on his own. When I go back over I catch her checking out the toilet in Chernobyl and pulling a pained expression. I ask her about Baker Tilley in comparison and it sounds like another world, much preferable personally sounding to me.

Disaster ahoy though this morning when I receive an email from Phoebe sounding less than enthusiastic/interested about going to see When Harry Met Sally in the West End even though including the term “I would love to go with you�. She also adds: o(@_@)o , which is apparently how her eyes currently look. I can see a smart response will be required to remedy this one.

At lunchtime I drag Louise out with my as Stevo is remains AWOL. Shocks horror, she actually agrees to come with me to ACE comics. I heard Simon say to Chris Friday that there is a new issue of Eightball out. We head into ACE and the basement with the comics and Colin is still actually working there. It has been forever and a day since I last saw him. He is as per, now showing me his engagement ring and authoratively telling me not to get a mortgage as it is killing him financially (“three years too late mate�). He seems as much out of the old social loop as I am and definitely, dare I say, better for it. I get my Eightball and get out of there, Louise bitching me out for spending £4.50 on a comic accusing me of not growing up. We head to WH Smith for newspapers and I now bump into Ellen, just back from her wedding and honeymoon. She looks good and happy. I tell her about my job exploits with a distinct lack of gusto. Louise hovers round and I point at her “I work with her� and then I bring her into the conversation, talking about AAT and the Colchester Institute (a certain tutor has passed away since we were there). And then finally completing the set, as we walk to McDonalds I bump into Chris Lox. I can never tell if he is trying to avoid me (maybe) but I stop/grab him for a good one. He is now sporting a funny goatee beard and he is starting his first day of his six weeks summer holiday (fucking teachers). We talk bollocks and then I point out to Louise that he now teaches at our old school, she seems less than impressed. Finally we get to McDonalds with time ticking by. She gets her thick shake as originally intended for both of us but I go the whole hog and get a big meal (didn’t have breakfast). As we walk back I purposely piss her off by pointing out that “all my friends probably thought you are my girlfriend� (ho ho). What did freak me out though was seeing three friends: engaged, mortgaged, relationship, mortgaged, married, mortgaged. Everyone around me is getting so old.

Stevo finally makes an appearance in the afternoon, acting a bit silly for Emma’s benefit. When five comes around her boyfriend picks her up and he is sat in his car wearing one of those Bluetooth earpiece phones. Now there is one of my irrational hatreds, I just dislike anybody that uses one of them. How fucking important do they appear to think they are?

In the evening I reply to Phoebe’s email with something touchy feely although I don’t know why I am stepping on egg shells. Sara then texts me, telling how she just stumbled into her “villa� (flat/apartment really) to discover her roommate having sex. How can I possibly express how little I give a fuck?

TV tonight is a right royal shower of shit, it makes it an early night for me.

np: Ladytron - Fire

July 18 (Sunday): I wake up as normal when really I need a good rest. Soon though, the “I’ll sleep I’m dead� mentality kicks in and I get bored. I MSN Sara to see if she is over our little spat Thursday. Seems so but it is laboured and dragged out. I talk to her about things and it occurs to me that my friends have this way of manipulating what they want to sound like it is a good thing for all parties concerned/involved. I also MSN dad for a while, regular like clockwork.

Eventually I make it out to get a newspaper. I park up at the office and go into town. Stevo has been nagging and hassling me to go into work this Sunday to tidy up for tomorrow’s arrival of the new girl, even to the point he is bribing me with buying me a Chinese meal. However though, I doubt he will turn up until late afternoon at best meaning any tidying up will lead into Sunday evening which religiously to me is a quiet night. Before going into the office to tidy I go into town for a Sunday spree. I get the News Of The World etc and begin looking for the book that Phoebe is reading. It is The Food Of Love by Anthony Capella and I find it in both Waterstones and WH Smith, so I buy it with view/hope to maybe getting a look into her mindset. It is a romantic comedy, so maybe I pick up some romantic moves from it that might strike a nerve/chord with her. Is this just plain stalker-esqe?

I go into the office and clear my desk and desk area. It is a doddle, my work area is nowhere near as muddily as Steve reckons it is, it is just organised chaos if anything. I through a hell of a lot of stuff out and come across the Greyfriars adult courses catalogue again, maybe I should do one of them. I put two boxes of shit in the boot of my car and by two I am done and there has been no sign of Stevo.

I head home in time to catch War Games on ITV. It sends me to sleep for my old man Sunday nap. I am so lazy, I am rightfully a Leo, a cat.

The rest of the day (the evening) turns out to be a real snorer, a proper Sunday. Maybe I should have joined Stevo in tidying the office and having a Chinese.

np: TV On The Radio – Young Liars

July 17 (Saturday): I wake up around 6.30 pissed off. I have a sore head which comes from forgetting to have any water to drink before going to sleep in the early hours, in other words I am dehydrated.

It is hard work but I manage to get Stevo out the flat by 10.30 but not before I a get pissed off by his presence. As a method of getting him up and out I play Shellac MP3s at ear bleed levels of volume, to the point I catch him trying to cover his ears with a pillow (note to self: destroy spare pillow). We walk into town to pick up our respective cars and he is still pissed! He obviously hasn’t seen a mirror, if ever a man was in need of a comb…..

It is a beautiful summer’s morning and we pick his car up from the office and Seymour is in working so we pop in and say hello. I actually look pretty good for my night, my head is even clearing. Stevo unfortunately looks terrible, it’s a giggle. We talk donkey for about ten minutes, the most attention I have had from JS in months. By the time we get outside into Stevo’s car the heavens have opened and it is a storm beyond storm happening. Stevo drops me off at my car but by now it is too late to try to get to Clacton/Holland to get to Colin’s for a haircut. Instead I do the Saturday run of getting newspapers (The Sun, The Star, The Guardian) and I also head into town to Cash Converters (Swag Converters) to buy old Playstation 1 games. I am too shy to go into the shop during the week, would anyone wearing a suit in their right mind shop there? Nope, you’d just look like you were from Customs and Excise or something. There are quite a few good Playstation games in a 3 for £10 deal and I end up getting FIFA 96, FIFA 2000 and NHL 2000. I also check out the DVDs and find two recent WWF (WWE) titles. Like a male without a girlfriend or life, I snap them up immediately.

Eventually I drive to my parents and the rain is insane, the heaviest it has been in a long long time, the kind that actually does make driving hard. I still drive like a prick down the A12 though. Dad has bought a DVD player for his birthday but he doesn’t have a scart lead so much of the day is spent agonising over what to do. Like an idiot I say “I might have one at home� instead of just letting go out and get one. I spend the afternoon on their sofa trying to catch up on lost sleep but the cricket is on TV and dad comes in and insists on talking to me (the cheek!). My head pounds and I have to get away so I move to the computer room and watch my Before They Were Famous 2 DVD. Around 4pm Chris phones me up to see what I am doing, did I drunkenly make daytime arrangements with him last night? Whoops. He’s in a rush to go charity shop shopping with Sofie and he says he will call me later about going out this evening.

The night gets old and I am still at my parents watching their Sky television, episodes of the Simpsons and Malcolm In The Middle that I have never seen before. Excellent!

Eventually I get home, back to my crib and promptly crash out upon arrival.

np: The Walkmen – The Rat

July 16 (Friday): Day 50 in the Big Brother house. Another day in Chernobyl.

Today is the last day on the countdown until we get our new girl in the office Chernobyl. It seems to me that Sunny and Steve are really dreading her but I don’t care, a big part of me is actually really looking forward to it. Stevo is however giving it the large about getting the office tidy and ship shape for her arrival. This I don’t necessarily care too much for.

In the afternoon Sarah from Hays London phones to confirm I do not get a second interview at Slaven Jeffcote but I have another interview, set for either next Tuesday or Thursday. I choose Thursday and am given the option of either a 10.00 am or 4.00 pm interview. I choose the 10.00 am option. Excited.

This weekend Chris is back in Colchester and he has dragged Sofie (his new girlfriend from Denmark) along with him. We all arrange to meet up tonight in town, I speak to Chris around 6.30.

Before however I play football with some of the oldsters who play on Wednesdays. Dick is the main organiser and the one who asks me and Stevo to play, to fill in. Seymour also plays. It’s a weird game, a few players give it there all but on the whole it’s a stroll and the players have fun and piss about. Its not THAT laid back though, I still manage to take a shot in the face. The players are kind of odd, there is one that looks like Maradona, one that looks way too young (and cool) to be playing, one with a big beard looking a bit like Millwall’s old striker Dave Mitchell and then there is a hyperactive Scotsman with a Hitler moustache. Tonight I don’t do myself many favours allow my efforts do get commended. At halftime the score is 6-2 to the opposition. In the second half I find myself keeping goal in my lucky end (it has netting and as a result does not rebound as much as the other end). At one point however I find myself hearing some high pitched sound in the distance? My mind wanders and I begin to recognise the tune, it is the A-Team. I look around and wonder “where the fuck is that sound coming from� and the other team go and shoot a goal straight past me, no effort required. I look down and realise it is a cellphone in one of the oldster’s bags. How immature. The game ends with our team losing 13-6 but who’s keeping count other than me? Probably everyone.

I get in my car to find three missed calls, all from Ben. I call him and sort it out, once I’ve had a bath I pick him up and drive us into town. We all meet up outside the Hogshead where the others drink until barstaff order us back inside with our pints. I get some money out of the cash machine first and rejoin. Tonight the footballers are operating a whip system and it’s a tenner to get in. I hadn’t really intended on getting mashed but put in, basically as a gesture. I get asked to put in for Ben as well though, not so obliging there. We (me and Stevo) introduce Ben to Seymour as our cricket ringer mate and Ben, lairy, tells him how he is mad up for it and that he will be bowling at their heads. Seymour does not seem into this, he actually seems to have the arseholes with me a bit for some reason.

Eventually I Chris and Sofie turn up and according to Stevo its drinks all round as the whip is entered into again including drinks for those who have not chipped in this. This feels like a real social faux pas and John is frowning but its Stevo who is trying to accommodate my friends. Whoops. Ben clocks this also and tells Seymour “it’s all right, I don’t want a drink� but Seymour gets him one anyway. I see Staff on the other side of the bar and he gestures that they are sat outside. I give him the thumbs up but fail to move in his direction. To be honest I fancy knocking about with the oldsters tonight but Chris, Ben and Sofie make moves to sit outside. I remain with the footballers for a while until Ben phones me bored to see where I am and where I have got to. I take this as my cue to join up with my friends and drop the footballers. I sit on a bench with Ben and chat while everyone else appears already paired up socially for the evening. I’m not drinking heavily tonight and it is all hard work. When it comes around to being my round again I find myself still nursing an almost full pint. It is a really good turn out tonight and things get even better when Allen turns up. When Chris goes off to the bar I see Sofie sat on her own awkwardly to I chat to her and she is so cool, cooler than I was expecting (sorry). I accidentally kick Joe Searls in the arse and he comments just how clean my shoes, nice one. I check my phone and Ahmed has been voted out of the Big Brother house, no surprise but a real drag all the same. Ben is really on form tonight, his Ahmed impression(s) is/are blue chip.

Everyone is going to the Arts Centre tonight but I feel fucked (knackered) but Ben keeps hitting me for re-assurance “you’re going to the Arts Centre tonight aren’t you�. His enthusiasm stems from the fact that Nina is DJ-ing. Not long before closing time Stevo re-emerges fucking pissed out of mind. It turns out that he carried on with the oldster footballers and wound up in Smiths where they talked about the BNP, pissed talk to the point they say “but it’s what people are thinking�. Nice. Stevo and Ben are football bores and talk the hind legs off this donkey about non-league. The night caps when I find the three of our pissing in a row at the Hogshead toilet, me in the middle, and those two are talking about the legendary Scott Barrett Colchester goal at Wycombe. Hey, hey, HEY! When did public toilet etiquette drop to the point where people have started to talk to each other again?

We all head to the Arts Centre and get in a breeze. I wind up paying for Stevo, who is pissed and penniless. As we walk in there is a girl stood outside counting rhinoceros in an attempt to sober herself up or at least to display her sobriety to security on the door. I ask her what the fuck she is doing and suggest that she begins to count a less challenging animal. Inside the Arts Centre is kinda slow/quiet. I was told tonight was a punk night but its pretty metally, especially funk metal for the first set. I talk some more to Allen and it turns out it is not less than a month before he leaves Colchester and returns to Canada. That puts a downer on the night. Stevo joins in on the conversation, wrecked and incoherent, making no sense whatsoever. Allen looks to me to interpret but I have no idea myself.

The night plods on and I’m really not drinking. This appears to really piss Ben who stuffs/rams two quid in my hand and orders me to get a beer. Stevo has run out of money and is trying to tap me up for some. I tell him I have none and he disappears out of the venue to find the nearest cash machine (“they won’t let him back in�). We all knock about, myself, Ben, Chris and Sofie. Sofie turns out to be really funny because she is really Danish. I tell her about my adventures at Legoland and how my favourite footballer back in the day (1986) was Jan Molby. Amazingly Stevo returns, money in hand/pocket with the expected story about how he almost got into a fight at the cash machine when he was accused of being Australian/New Zealand/South African (one of them, delete as applicable). This shit on ever seems to happen to Stevo. Nina is floating about and it is fun to see her. Ben gets in a request for At The Drive-In and One Armed Scissor (good choice!). Lucy is not about, which is a relief to Sofie who mentioned that she was concerned about seeing her (yeah, I would be). I plough on with the night and drink very slowly while all around me (Ben and Stevo) get wrecked beyond belief/existence. Sofie keeps banging my can and saying “cheers� in Danish, telling me it is Danish custom to swig afterwards each time. Tonight is REALY hard work. Nina does her set and it is the best of the night. One Armed Scissor comes on and we all go bolo, it sounds so fine. And then Nina plays Shady Lane by Pavement and it is nirvana. Around this point I spot Jeremy, Ivan’s mate who we play football with Wednesdays. I go over and say hello and he is fucking mullered beyond belief. I tell him it is the most drunk I have ever seen him and his slaps me in the face! It doesn’t hurt my face but it does hurt my feelings (ha ha). For revenge I keep sending the now rather annoying drunk Stevo over to keep pestering him (“Steve, Jeremy just said he wants a word with you, go over�). Job done, I rendezvous with Allen and he is hanging out with a guy called Zach who is giving me evils, basically going to Allen “who the fucks this cunt?�. It turns out he’s from Extreme Noise Terror. Cool! I don’t make conversation though and soon after I join them, they moves to go home. People soon begin to drop like flies when Chris orders a taxi and he and Sofie shoot off leaving just myself, Ben and Stevo representing the side. Nina comes over for a chat and Ben shows her some of that abusive brotherly love those two are pretty much infamous for. Pretty much, it is the Ben and Stevo show now and Nina steps over to me and goes “can I talk to you instead�. I remain coherent, an utter hero (ho ho). The talking in toilets motif continues as when I piss towards the end of the night and Alive by Pearl Jam comes on, some random guy goes to me “without doubt this is an absolute classic�. Hey buddy, I’m trying to do my business.

We stagger out onto the streets of Colchester and soon realise/wonder “shouldn’t we have been trying to eye up and pull birds?�. My god, girls were nowhere on our agenda tonight. Is it that we have now been burned so much we no longer bother, our esteems have shrunken THAT low? Or is it we is turning batty? No time to think though, gotta get kebabs. Stevo wants a pizza but there's not enough meat on one of them for my desires tonight. I do the full on donner thing, Ben avoids meet and Stevo goes and gets his pizza from Sam’s. We resume at around Sam's and Ben is just acting up so badly. Every other sentence from him now is an impression of Ahmed (“Salem Big Brother�, “ai hait heem�, Ciao Big Brother�). This is the stuff of legend. The other new thing is drunken bonding by just screaming out Bo Selecta Michael Jacksons, it seems you will always find a friend to hurl one back. The inevitable occurs when Ben drops his chips on the pavement. I get to view full on the heartbreak on his drunken face/expression as the slow realisation of his actions dawns on his slurring mind. It is so sweet and serene. However he is not done. When waiting for Stevo and his pizza begins to test our natures and patience Ben leans against some crappy brown car and it budges slightly: “that just fucking moved, the hand brakes up�. Like the responsible adult that I now am, in between wetting myself with laughter, I now find myself egging him on the move/push/roll the car down Crouch Street as far as possible, maybe “into that taxi over there�. Luckily for all well beings involved, the car hit a curb and refused to be budged any further. It was always going to end in tears anyways.

Finally Stevo gets his pizza and like a complete ponce tart, I am straight in there. It is so tasty, Chinese chicken or something covered in fucking sweet corn but with the greatest tasting sauce all over natty chicken. We walk home with the two batty football hooligans talking all the way about Col U and Wimbledon whilst I do sneaky lifts of slices of pizza that really are not mine, Stevo actually appears to completely forget about the pizza altogether. Nice. At point I do drop it on the floor but it remains in the box and remains safe. This is primo cuisine. Eventually we reach Hollytree Court and part ways, Stevo is crashing on my sofa with view to stinking up my great indoors unfortunately.

We get in and he calms down. Usually he wants to watch porn (his porn!) on my TV but remember though, last time he came around the TV stopped working (he broke it) so all things are forgiven as we just get down to getting to bed with the time heading quickly towards 4AM. Harsh.

np: At The Drive-In – Rolodex Propaganda

Snowy and Dad enjoying his birthday 

July 15 (Thursday): Dream wise, I have a fine one. Sadly however Sara wakes me up on MSN first thing and it seems she is kind of argumentative and so am I, not least when she harps on about the latest guy to fuck her. She’s pissed and pissing me off.

I am a bit late getting prepared for work and leaving but this works to my advantage as I am home to accept a package. It is my 20 live Fugazi CDs from America. Bonus, there has been no shipping declaration for customs and therefore I do not have any customs charges to pay, which realistically would/could have been around £60. Wahey!

Today is Dad’s birthday, there is supposed to be a cricket practise tonight but nobody seems interested or likely to turn up. Myself, I have to see the good doctor until 7.30 so I laugh it off also, although everyone doesn’t seem to believe me when I tell them I won’t be attending.

At lunch time I have to get dad a card and a present. Last week when I had to get a card for Phoebe I had Louise helpfully helping me choose. This week/time I have Stevo tagging along talking donkey, being a pain. While I make my card selection all I can hear from another part of the shop is someone opening all the tune birthday cards. We then go to HMV to get my dad a present. Dad has asked for a Dire Straits CD, they cheeky fucks for some reason have recently been repromoting their old CD on television and now he wants it (even though I bought it on tape for him years ago). There are no cheap copies anywhere, instead just whack £16 jobs. I don’t have the heart to fork out that much for something so bad. We look around the sales and suddenly come across Father Ted DVDs. Dad used to like Father Ted and so do we (me and Stevo) so I get them, unlike Dire Straits, these age like a fine wine.

Stevo spends much of the afternoon showing Sandip Father Ted on a company laptop while I struggle in the heat of Chernobyl to stay awake.

Around 5pm Dad phones me up to confirm that I am going over there this evening and what time I will be there so that he can go get us all a Chinese. Nice! I get my order in and finally it clicks with the others that I won’t be making it to cricket practice after all.

First things last though, I have to get this weeks session out of the way. Tonight, as per usual, there is lots to talk about. Mainly it is a dissection of my Saturday with Phoebe at the Tate but this swiftly moves onto my interview in London and the major progress that is apparent to me but not so the good doctor. I perform a Freudian slip when I mean to say I wasn’t a “shrinking violet� in my interview but instead I say I wasn’t a “shrinking violent�. I also mention Sarah and Sara (and Louise) and my life sounds so complicated in a good way. That said for all this apparent activity, it remains/sounds so unfulfilling when it spews/regurgitates out of my mouth. I leave feeling like a faker.

Done and dusted, I tear ass and fly down to Holland/Clacton for Dad’s birthday. It is a beautiful evening after a beautiful day. The Chinese is fantastic. Sadly though the Father Ted DVDs really go down like a lead balloon and mum sternly asks me why I didn’t get Dad his Dire Straits CD (“but its what he wanted�). In the end I wind up mending the adults’ computer as usual at home and downloading Lightning Bolt MP3s on their computer. The COPA America match starts on Sky and dad watches that but I watch the BBC documentary of one of their reporters going undercover with the BNP. It is a right royal stitch up but, just like with Michael Moore, nothing is revealed that we didn’t already know about these mugs that, in my opinion, due to their extreme viewpoints, are as ridiculous as each other.

I head home before it gets too late. It’s a pretty deflated birthday for Dad and I feel bad about that. Next year he hits 60 so really that should be a bash. I sleep tight.

np: Royal Trux – Money For Nothing

July 14 (Wednesday): In order to get to Norwich for nine to appease Drew I have to be up at six in order to be picked up at the office at seven. And this is even without a definite ride back to the office (“I’ll drop you on the edge of the A12�). I wake up after a rest less night to discover a scratch on my left cheek, my right ear is not working and I appear to have been sleep typing on my PC during my sleep. I spent the night tossing and turning considering my career and how I may or may not have acquitted myself with the big boys. I even feel confident to the point that I have self belief in that I passed my exams in June.

Getting to the office for seven is really begrudging for me, to the point that when I pop into Chernobyl I accidentally on purpose set off the alarm just to kinda highlight/illustrate that nobody should be in the office at seven in the morning. I’m a prick to the end. Drew surprises when he is only ten minutes late in turning up.

Our ride to Norwich is ok until we actually reach Norwich. After stopping at a roadside greasy spoon for bacon rolls, we arrive at Norwich and it turns out Drew is ill-equipped, he only has Yell.com’s piss poor directions and no actual map. We fuck around for a while (too long) and after Drew makes two phone calls to the client, she guides him in like an aircraft coming in to land. Ultimately our trip from Colchester to Norwich winds up taking nearly three hours!

Upon arrival the work is actually pretty straightforward on my part. Drew however seems to be having a hard time from the poker faced office manager (?) at the client who is nowhere near as approachable as she was last year. Suspicions are aroused that there is something to hide around this audit job. For a three hour trip there, we barely stay for two hours and soon we are headed back to Colchester. It all feels like a complete waste of time, ordinarily I would be unamused but the threat of dumping me on the edge of the A12 still hangs over me. Again for an entire road trip I manage to talk to Drew almost non-stop, he may say some outrageous things but at least he speaks.

My afternoon ultimately feels a bit of a washout, especially considering I have pretty much already clocked six hours of service for the firm by the time we arrive back for lunch. I tear into town to catch up with Stevo with the premise of going somewhere for lunch. I hook up with him in Waterstones, as Sunny said he’d be, but he has his head in a book and can’t be budged, so I do my Wednesday routine of STILL buying the NME and head back to the office. As I head back to the office on my todd I bump into Kathryn Hicks which is a real shocker, not least because she stops to talk to me. She sounds like she is doing fine and still with the same old same old from Oxford. She tells me that she is thinking about getting into accountancy. I wouldn’t. I’m in my suit and I look good so I am able to big up the fact that I have just had an interview on Bond Street, I actually begin to sound bigwig. I tell her that she should come and see me about being an accountant but that’s not really a very good idea and she probably won’t anyway. As we chat Stevo passes and he looks impressed (dirty old fucker).

Football in the evening is a hoot, we paste Birketts mainly due to the fact that their regular keeper Mike is absent. And fortunately it compensates for yet another nightmare on my part. Birketts freak me out a bit now, they have a Jake Gyllenhall player on their team, which I guess is kind of cool. At halftime the score is 8-4 and in the second half we really take over and win 23-14.

Afterwards myself and Stevo speed up the A12 to Chelmsford to see Fahrenheit 9/11. I drop Stevo off at his house to change and when he emerges he gives me a bag full of Panini Euro 2004 swopsies, fuck it’s just like being 12 again. We get to the pictures early and Stevo doesn’t want to hang around so he drags me into a place called The Bar just opposite the Chelmsford Odeon. Chelmsford is really nice, it is a long time since I have been in this section of town (riverside) and it all looks so fantastic, lots of places to go, albeit different versions of chains we have in Colchester and every other half decent town in England. The Bar is pretty nice too, very poncey and Stevo takes great issue with this, blaming the whole wine bar culture on women in pubs. I appears to be pining for places like the Rovers Return and Queen Vic.

Didn’t have any tea tonight, so we feast on horribly overpriced cinema food. The spotty brown oik, thick enough to be working in an Odeon, gives me a little elocution lesson when I order nachos. I ask for “nahchos� and he goes blank and asks “nattchos?�. Fuck off! Still, the hot creamy cheese dip and helapinas made it all worth the while.

Fahrenheit 9/11 the movie itself really pissed me off, like a fool I was expecting a work as interesting and entertaining as Bowling For Columbine with some satirical content. Instead, we got this droney dross which is actually pretty poor. It seems to me that Michael Moore has really gone out his way to nitpick and produce a product that appeals to his crowd anyway, who like sheep lap the fucking thing up tenfold. The content was not overly illuminating and it just seemed Moore is hitting home information the world already possesses but going to town on the facts including addresses and the like. Does the man think the mass majority of people currently think that Bush is a stand up guy and that he (Moore) is bursting our bubbles with his startling revelations? No, everyone is aware he is in there off the back of his daddy and his boy’s club. Personally I just thought it was wrong the medium more than anything, this was/is television and to drag a person to a cinema to get bored out of their skulls is kinda arrogant. Moore seems on some kind of mission to startle people with this movie, unfortunately this is the world we live in with its enormous wrongs and imperfections that will always be in place and occur in one form or another and no pinko chest beating will tangibly change these things, they will only serve to stir up the vocal disgruntled. There’s no cure for life. The actual highlight of the movie was when Phoebe texts to ask me how my day has been but I guess in the longview that does not count as a highlight for everybody.

After the show, I leave the cinema feeling like I want a fight/argument. I feel you can/should attach the emperors new clothes tag to this pile of donkey shite, to me it genuinely seems that Mr NWO A is into the movie because Mr NWO B has added it to his “list of cool�. Stevo, who squirmed all the way through the movie� is equally hacked off so we head to the closest pub, a place called The Nag’s Head of all things. This ain’t Peckham though. We talk shit about the film for thirty minutes whilst the punters watch poker on Sky Sports (pondlife). We leave and I drop Stevo off, far from his home, the home he is embarrassed of. I listen to Peel on the radio for the first time in literally years, nothing changes.

When I get home there is nish on tv so I pop on School Of Rock and immediately fall asleep to that.

np: Bloodhound Gang – Fire Water Burn

chopper! 

July 13 (Tuesday): Today I am nervous and horribly blasé. I’m not actually all that stressed about an interview on Bond Street, I almost think its out of my range/league anywhere so I am almost dragging myself up there as a lark. Realistically I’m treating it as a “see how it goes� experiment, to the trained eye the job just seems much too beyond me and a dream come true.

I drive to work and go into work coughing announcing that I have a doctor’s appointment for the afternoon and my apparent chest infection, which I actually think is real.

Today is Phoebe’s 23rd birthday so early morning I text her to wish her all the best.

I leave the office around 3.45 and it is a nightmare, I hop sheepishly so that I do not get seen and do not get inquisitioned. I get the train station well within time and manage to nicely catch a train minutes after four. As I stand on the platform waiting for the train my phone beeps and it is Phoebe “Hiya! Good luck at your ‘Doctors appointment’ (“,)�.

The train ride isn’t the greatest but it is pretty safe and reliable. I am not used to being on such quiet trains to London and the carriage is almost empty. The office (Chernobyl) phones for me but my phone is on silent and I do not know what the hell it is that they want. When we get to Liverpool Street though we hit a snag as the train sits outside the station for about ten minutes as it waits for signals to change (and probably to allow commuter trains out the other way). This is bad, the delay throws all my tightly timed plans out of the window and it begins to look like I will struggle to make the 5.30 appointment time. Around 5.10 our train is finally let into the station and I finally get out of the train. Just as I run through rush hour Liverpool Street some crappy punk band is setting up equipment and starting to play a publicity stunt set, I LOVE LONDON! The bands however are only using practice equipment and the sound of rush hour not drowns but blows them out. I stumble onto a tube and they’re screwed also, stopping and starting and basically dying on their arse. Around Tottenham Court Road, I am officially late. Eventually I make it to Bond Street station and I have never seen this one before, it is magnificent. I manage to find my way out of the station (easier said than done when a stranger) and I set upon finding the road just off Bond Street where the firm is.

I end up running to get to Slaven Jeffcote, basically with the word damage limitation on my mind with regards to lateness. I find it and go up to the fifth floor. For 5.30 I was expected the office, a city office, to still be in full flow but instead it is dead. So, this is what a city firm of accountants looks like internally. As expected I am interviewed by two bods, the younger of which directs me to the board room where the three of us sit around a huge, inappropriate table. The manager, a Mr Paling, appears a real hard nosed type who is next to impossible to impress, talk about nonplussed. The other guy, a gentleman known only as Steve but a future partner it seems, seems more receptive and much closer to my age, therefore I feel I get a little bit more of a break from him. The interview is really hard, immediately I am hit with “tell us about yourself�. I have been running around like a blue arsed fly for nearly two hours to get to this interview, my heart is going a hundred miles an hour from running around and my throat is parched, I need a break before I can attack a question like that. They seem unaware or impressed about my efforts in getting to interview from Colchester at such short notice. And of course, unfortunately I am the person who finds it next to impossible to sell himself. I stumble through my career highlights/details though and get going eventually but Hays do not appear to have done a very thorough job of transferring my CV into their format CV. I find myself speaking high of W&D and making my current firm sound a bit bodge to say the least (unfortunately). We discuss roles and experience and then we get onto the ins and outs of this big arse Bond Street firm. I feel under interrogation, playing good cop bad cop but I genuinely do find that I hold my own with these NFL types, if not thriving, I certainly am surviving to hold my own at their level. The interview is really heavy and the work sounds very hard, much harder than my current “easy� workload and the prospect of working in such an environment and culture is daunting to say the least. I wonder sometimes if I come over as aggressive when I over compensate what I feel are my verbal shortcomings. I am asked why I want to work in the City and I say all the right things. And mind bogglingly, the subject of audit work does not come up as much as expected, the limit rise effects these firms in the manner that instead of losing all their audit work, they are now in effect gaining a number of additional accounts jobs. We get back onto the subject of my and I am asked to tell them about myself, not the accountant the person. As per usual, despite being an egomaniac I find it next to impossible to describe and sell myself. I almost turn the conversation around and say “enough about me, what about you?�. I fail to mention any real interests I have and as usual I never mention my involvement in music with Gringo Records, something I never boasted about in the first place anyway. Instead I go off in a tangent and tell them why I like my hometown Colchester and why I think it is a nice safe place to live, because of the squaddies. I take some heart from the fact at one point the younger guy Steve says “I think I know where you’re coming from, stuck in a small office/firm doing the same thing all the time wanting to progress�. He the man!

One hour of my life later and the interview is over. I take a hell of a lot of heart from the general sense of feeling that tonight I more than hold my own with a group of individuals far more progressed than I in the industry. Even if I do not get this job, I will have at least taken a big step towards getting somewhere I want. I stagger back onto Bond Street and check my phone to find text messages of words of advice from Phoebe and a text from Sara asking how the interview went. I ride the train home with the late commuters in a general hunch.

Not long after getting in I get changed out of my suit and decide to go out and get the School Of Rock DVD. I go to the Tesco on Highwoods (rough part of Colchester). As I enter the store I notice the black security guard dude eyeing me up. I pick up my DVD and begin scouring/scanning the CDs for the horrible Dire Straits compilation for dad. No dice. I look up and much squinting to see said security guard stood two metres to my left checking out CDs also. Motherfucker, he suspects on the pinch! And I get this surprisingly quite a bit and this royally pisses me off. I decide to hang out with the dude for a while and attempt to annoy him as much as he has annoyed me (is it cos I is white?). Mentally I get really arsey and feel like asking him how many exams the man has taken in order to qualify to being a Tesco security guard. I feel like asking him how many heads he has cracked open in his time and on the subject of time, how much fucking time has he spent inside. I also want to know his hourly pay rate just to know how many times over mine is better (two? Three?). I am a prick to the end. I pretty much pay for my DVD and storm out. As I leave through the exit the guy has returned to his perch, that or his twin brother (as Condon once said…….).

The rest of the evening is a snorer. I didn’t really need to get the DVD because TV is so good tonight. First up after Big Brother is Average Joe and about a dozen geeks are all competing to pull a glamour model. Next up is Rocky 2, the rematch and finally late is Kids In The Hall: Brain Candy is on BBC2 late. YES! I absolutely love this film really because I love Kids In The Hall though. The Cancer Boy character is SO sick but funny all the same, this is some of the least sympathetic comedy in history. And this film could almost have been written with St John’s Wort in mind (ho ho). Pathetically though, I manage to stay awake/alive for the 12.20 start time but almost immediately fall asleep, dead to world. You snooze you lose.

np: Pell Mell – Swoon

July 12 (Monday): I get up early in order to get to the office for 8.00 so that Louise and I can get to Stapleford and Aeromega in good time. I wind up arriving at the office a tad earlier in order to get my shit together. I am surprised at just how many of the partners are already in. This whole trip to the client seems to be being made into such a song and dance.

The trip/drive with Louise is actually really enjoyable, I tell her about Saturday and in the cold light of day, again it doesn’t sound as if it went too well, she thinks Phoebe thinking I was bored with the art might have meant she thought I was bored with her. Needless to say we get lost on the way to Stapleford. On Friday I think I was giving about three sets of directions to the place, which is never helpful. Luckily Louise has a sense of humour and there is also security in the knowledge and FACT that Drew will be late to the client also, regardless. I’m not really sure how or where we go wrong but we somehow about midway into the journey we manage to emerge from the wrong side of the Army and Navy in Chelmsford, somewhere all three sets of directions had been designed to avoid. Eventually we get there though, around 10 AM, about five minutes after Drew, many minutes after Stevo gets in.

The job is actually pretty straightforward for our efforts, just a rehash of last year’s efforts. Louise doesn’t have the familiarity with the job that I do so I am able to help out and make the job easy for her.

Mid morning Hays phone me from London with a job interview. It is the position on Bond Street and I am jonesing. Everything is also now now now with these guys and the Hays guy is pressing me immediately for an interview this week asap. My only open day is Tuesday (tomorrow) and an interview is set for 5.30, which will make things super super tight but for an interview on Bond Street, it is worth the effort it seems.

At lunchtime Stevo drags us to a country pub for lunch which I suspect is the most expensive pub in Stapleford. I was trying to keep to a budget this month. I have some sloppy chicken masala, nowhere justifying its price tag.

All afternoon I am really really nervous. Hays phone to confirm my interview and I feel sick. I make the predictable toilet break and obviously I take too long on my throne as the lights go out and with no light switch in sight I have to wipe in the dark, illuminating my arsehole with the light coming from my mobile phone. Too much information.

Louise and I get our work done while Stevo and Drew appear to be still waiting for information from the financial director (?) guy, an Irish man called Kevin who I have christened Father Kev. Louise does things a little too thoroughly and causes us to be a little late leaving with view to us having to tackle the rush hour A12 the wrong way. She has kind of shot herself in the foot, she has a doctor’s appointment set for around six which we don’t have much chance in arriving back in time for. Silly cow however lets slip that the appointment is for her pill renewal. And you know how mature I am, for the entire drive home I am a funny guy! Thing that pisses her off though is when there is a story on the radio about a man locking himself in a steam room and passing out. I comment “I bet he was fat, only fat people go into steam rooms� to which Louise replies “I go in steam rooms� and I pop “there you go�. Whoops, she takes this to heart and doesn’t talk to me for about fifteen minutes along the A12. By Colchester though she is popping at me, telling me I have a “comedy dick� blah blah blah. We get back to the office around 6pm and it has been a long day. We walk up Butt Road to our respective homes and cars and then the fun ends.

Nothing really happens in the evening, it’s a Monday and Mondays are always a really slow night by nature. I consider going out to buy School Of Rock on DVD a few times but instead I stay in and crash out forgetting that a Father Ted show is on. Motherfuck!

np: Led Zeppelin – Immigrant Song

July 11 (Sunday): You can’t spell neurotic without the word erotic. I wake up from a dream of me being criticised, scarily by Ivan of all people.

Today is a void and waste land of mentality and living. I MSN Sara at work in Dubai some and recount the disaster in my mind that was yesterday. Sara points out that it doesn’t sound like a disaster. What does she know, she’s just a girl (ho ho).

I stagger out to get the Sunday newspaper and stagger back in; it’s become plainly obvious not a lot will be achieved today. I watch The Ladies Man on DVD which I bought yesterday is a stupor and wish I had the moves of this guy. Ultimately though I finally get to see the ending of this movie and I think it is fantastic, being a lame arse fan of Saturday Night Live spin-off movies (I’m probably the only person in the world that actually likes the It’s Pat movie).

In the afternoon Sarah attempts to contact me via MSN, asking me if I’m speaking. I ignore her, taking some perverse pleasure in the process. I win, in my little fucked up mind this is a sure gesture that she needs me more than I need her and she likes me more than I like her. As I said, my fucked little mind.

I end up sleeping from one pm to five pm, pretty useless. I wake up in time to find Driving Miss Daisy on TV and watch that for reasons pretty much unknown to me.

The night passes without incident, Sundays at times are death on a stick. At 11.30 my phone beeps and it’s a text from Phoebe “Hiya! Thought bored u out of ur skull with art-cy talk! Am reading another book-guess whats its about! food! a change from crime! Sweetdreams!�. Pigeon street.

np: Yes - Sweetness

! 

riding the loser train home 

Nighthawks by Hopper 

July 10 (Saturday): This could be the best day of my life. It begins early when I wake up at 6.30 to discover Before Sunrise has been playing on loop on my DVD player all through the night. I leave it to run one more time and take a little of it in (prepping for date small talk/chit chat). It’s a real downer how this film has little effect on me these days.

I put a huge effort into today and I aim to catch the ten o’clock train, today there really is little room allowed for any error. I bath fast but thoroughly but in that special when out to impress. I leave the flat looking and feeling good. My shirt is nice and so am I. I get to the train station well in time only to sit on platform whatever to see a goods train sit there for ten minutes with no intention to budge. Eventually it does move and I board my train, internally panicking to death.

The day started beautifully but by the time I reach London the clouds have taken over and rain looks set to fall at any time. I have a nonchalant swagger today brought on by fear, flight or fight. I walk around whistling to myself, that song from Kill Bill Vol 1 (Torn Curtain by Bernard Hermann).

Needless to say the trains/tubes are screwed and to get to Southwark is a mission upon itself. Still, I’m a trooper and I get there in good time. Southwark is a strange part of London, this is real London and I am lost. I am no longer in the city (strictly). Without an idea in which direction to travel (a compass would actually be a real help today weirdly sadly) I follow people who look like arty types and look for buildings with architectural value.

Miraculously I find the building, not too difficult really, it is just an old power station like Battersea Power Station built by the same person, my problem now is that I cannot find the entrance and it is finally beginning to give way and start to rain. After attempting the back entrance (ho ho), I finally stagger in and the place is enormous, mind-blowing. I see the queue for tickets and it was such a good job that I pre-ordered, the ticket collection queue alone looks like a baby version of an Alton Towers queue. Timing is actually working out perfectly; Phoebe’s heads up for 12.30 idea was a winner.

Just as I collect our tickets my phone rings and it is Phoebe Luk. I see her in the distance and walk over; she looks fantastic, as gorgeous as I remember. Initial steps feel really awkward, is this the point she finally remembers who I actually was and balks? This is most frightening feeling in the world, stepping on egg shells trying desperately to play all the right moves and impress the apple of your eye whilst also trying to be “yourself�. I tip my hat to anyone who can really pull off this dating/relationship rubbish, I can’t and my life depends on it. Enough negativity already!

We stagger aimlessly, winding up in the souvenir shop first, what’s that about? Conversation is horrible, where do I start? Suddenly a million things I want to say to her have been reduced one syllable grunts, I am out my depth. Fortunately the sphincter finally loosens when I see some books (graphic novels) I recognise. I try to explain to her what American Splendor is and why a comic strip about a cranky old man having adventures and complaining about them is so cool. I fail to sell. I begin regurgitating every single thing I know about art (back of a post-it note stuff) and the whole scene, to me, is exactly like the one in Annie Hall where they are having a high brow conversation but there are subtitles revealing their real thoughts. Phoebe is the real artist out of us two though and she knows her onions really and shows me a book of work of her favourite artist Kandinski. I don’t get it but I pretend to, if Phoebe likes it, I like it. What a suck up. At this point I haven’t even been able to give her her birthday card and when I do she is really impressed that I remembered her birthday (July 13) and appears genuinely chuffed, I score points big time! She asks if she can/should open it there and then but like a div I tell her it is bad luck (when on earth did that rule come into play?).

FINALLY, we escape the souvenir shop, that was a bad idea. We head upstairs to the gallery where the Edward Hopper exhibition is. She tells me how she was up to two last night and she keeps rubbing her eyes, it looks like this is going to be hard work. I ask her if she was out clubbing but actually she was playing an old Chinese game with her family until that hour. Mind-blowing, her family must really get on as opposed to being the modern day “normal� family like the Simpsons.

The Edward Hopper exhibition is fantastic and we genuinely have a great time. Thank the heavens for external stimulation. We stand close viewing the paintings and pictures and discuss them like real civilised human beings do. This is the best, these paintings represent something I feel, Hopper obviously sees the beauty in isolation and his vision is not a million miles from mine except he can express is in a way I never ever will able to. I say his vision of isolation but at the same time the paintings may be night scenes, they’re dim but never dull, he still sees vivid colour within as if it is a flicker of optimism for his life. Of course I never sound so confident or knowledgeable verbally but discussion with Phoebe is the greatest, it’s fun, natural and interesting. We catch up and add, she is unlike anyone I have met before and I know that is a cliché but she actually appears to do stuff, have beliefs and be the most adjusted person my age (roughly) I have ever met. I am awed by her composure and calmness, she is the coolest cucumber. She tells me about this great book she has just finished reading and about a “dorr� in the story. She means “doll� and I am worshipping her accent. We look out the window of the Tate Modern and look at the city of London together. Outside the view is St Paul’s and the famous Thames crossing/bridge which “moves� under the pressure of the river. We agree that “we should so go across the bridge� but unfortunately the rain is pummelling the earth. It takes an hour to get through the entirety of the Hopper exhibition. Phoebe seems to really connect with it and if she hasn’t, she really is putting on a good show. We reach his masterpiece “Nighthawks� and it is breathtaking and huge. Interestingly opposite there are sketches of objects in the painting and an indicator as to how it was constructed. It takes an hour to look at the all paintings and take them in.

Afterwards we feel shattered and she asks if I want to go eat or look at the other galleries. I want to see the galleries. This is the point at which things begin to go over my head. The remainder of the Tate Modern is hard work. We go to the Still Life/Object/Real Life gallery and the Landscape/Matter/Environment gallery and this is where the real modern stuff is at. The Picassos pop out at me but little else leaves an impression (I thought they were supposed to be impressionist!). I begin to clock watch as suddenly the day begins to lull. Whilst viewing paintings, Phoebe and I drift and I realise I am acting just like my dad on a shopping trip with mum. The Dali paintings are fantastic and the Pollock is insane but the whole experience begins to become something very personal and no longer shared. I make attempts at conversation with Phoebe but the subject matter is now way way over my head and, to be sadly honest, not all that interesting to me (I guess I need things to be coherent to the death). I see a Pollock and it is great but also very random. We happen across some Warhol pop art but I’ve seen it a thousand times on posters on walls sadly. Phoebe is overjoyed when she finally finds a Kandinski. I wish I were more impressed, I genuinely tried to be. Maybe viewing his pictures further may open something into her mindset, which to me remains a mystery. After an hour plus we finally reach the end of the galleries and I feel exhausted and so does she. We look on the Tate computer database for a while searching for our favourites (her: Kandinski, me: Chapman Brothers, which pretty much sums us two up) and then head for some tea.

We leave the Tate and it is beginning to rain semi heavily. I have just a short sleeved shirt on but she is prepared for the elements. She has a Burberry umbrella and I make yokes about her being a football hooligan which sail thoroughly over her head. We squeeze underneath the little umbrella but it is really awkward and I am acting very self conscious (i.e. really goofy). With nerves I walk more quickly than usual and she struggles to keep up with me and I am sensing that I am annoying her, not least when she gives up on the umbrella being a shared experience and she pulls it down. We walk along a weird part of London (to me) to a coffee shop she said she saw on her way to the Tate from Tower Bridge station. Conversation is a little stunted and I begin talking to her about work which is a royal snorer and an indication that we are going to a bad place. Eventually we reach the coffee/tea shop she was talking about. This is weird to me, a granny parlour on a Saturday afternoon, is this a sure sign of failure to liven up proceedings on my part? Whenever I think of tea rooms I think of the one in Withnail & I rather than Central Perk from Friends, it’s all a bit too sophisticated for a white bread like me. We are greeted at the door by a gentleman saying “welcome in, we have just put a pot on boil for you�. What? Eventually we get sat down and pick out what we are drinking. It’s all kind of exotic but…..I dunno. We sit down and things are really relaxed but to a degree of falling asleep. She asks me “what are you doing tonight?� and mentally I reply “getting Dim Sum and hanging out with you�. Instead I say “nothing planned� and she tells me that she has a birthday meal to go and that she has to leave at 5.30. Oh! I plummet; I thought I was more of her plans today, whoops. Now that’s why she said “we will have to have Dim Sum in the afternoon�. We sit talking for an hour plus and I am really uncomfortable in addition to over compensating in conversation, I am the king of faux enthusiasm. She has some fantastic stories and I love being with her. She shows me how she is learning sign language and it blows my mind. I feel I just sound so neanderthal in comparison to her. And she is so unphasable, for some reason we get into the conversation declaring that it is almost impossible to annoy/offend her. Good job really, it seems I go out of my way to repulse people these days. That said, when I put sugar in my coffee and stir with the same spoon, it feels like a bigger faux pas than blatantly parping in a crowded room.

Time comes around and it is time to make moves. It is really fun and enjoyable but it all lacks spark and for this I take total responsibility. I am also paranoid to the hills, is the friend’s birthday a get out clause? We walk together to Tower Bridge and now I am thankfully more relaxed and walking at a more normal human pace. For some reason we wind things up talking about female footwear. We board the train together and tell her that I am heading to Oxford Street (“might as well while I am up here�). We hit the Northern Line and I figure I’ll go around the houses and get off at Tottenham Court Road. She then suggests I’ll be better off getting off at Bank (trying to get rid of me). We sit on the train for two stops chatting. She points out a Manga sticker on a pole which reminded me of a moment with B. When Bank arrives, I mess up. I get straight up out of my chair and barely say “bye�. I hear her semi-shouting “have a good time� or something but I am gone. Some might call this a runner (ho ho). As I walk along the platform, the train passes and I see her. I wave and she doesn’t, she is just sat looking ahead, looking pissed off but this is also kind of her automatic expression. Ultimately though, the way things have panned out, I feel like I have been punched in the head.

I wind up on Tottenham Court Road headed like an addict to retail therapy to Fopp. I finally get the final four Nick Cave albums I am needing to complete my/his discography. Sad truth is though that I still have not come anywhere near to listening to the other four CDs I bought the other day. I wind up wandering around the centre of London kind of aimlessly; I really did not want to be home on my own tonight. I stagger up Oxford Street on early evening Saturday and this really does feel like another world. I find myself in Electronics Boutique (or whatever it is called) looking for old EA Playstation 1 sports games. I also wind up in HMV and it is 7pm and the way things ended (on the train) is really beginning to ride on my mind. I go through the HMV DVD sales (awesome) and indulge in retail therapy even more purchasing Ladies Man, September, Alice, Being There and Bully all on DVD. Yeah, I’m fucking made of money (then again, I didn’t spend hardly anything on Phoebe in the end).

I decide to text her to apologise (kind of) for not saying goodbye properly, pointing out how I thought things ended weirdly and to ask her if she had a good time, fishing for backhanded compliments. Kind of. I am also paranoid to the hills because my ears are burning and, as ridiculous as this sounds, this is my main motive/incentive for sending her this text message. Of course I get no response straight away, she never does text straight away, which has its pros and cons but cutting out the immediately expectancy of a text message really does cool the whole medium/concept down.

I walk back down the other direction/side of Oxford Street and end up walking down Greek Street. The bars look fantastic but I am on my own and never will I be a barfly. Finally I throw in the towel and head back to Liverpool Street and home. At Liverpool Street I get a cappuccino and it is the greatest tasting thing in history but sadly though it is too early to pick up the Sunday papers, I probably just miss them by minutes. I ride the 8.00 train home and it is mostly empty, the real loser train for people with no place to be on a Saturday night. I can't remember how or who it happens but I wind up texting Sara who peps me up when I need it most, when in the light of things appearing to go semi wrong, she serves as the voice of reason, my hero. I never got my Dim Sum so she orders me to get a Chinese as soon as I get back into Colchester. I can’t be arsed, I haven’t a thing all day and I am not hungry, I want to suffer, that is what being alpha male is about (ha ha). As soon as I get into Colchester I head to Asda and buy one of those Chinese chicken wing things you can do in the microwave. I also kind some frankfurters in a sale, so spot the single man on a Saturday night buying random meat products.

I get in and finally get around to reading the days newspapers. OK, there is actually something pretty comforting about getting in on a Saturday after a long day in London will some head space and evening remaining (it is bliss after Millwall games on a Saturday to just get in and chill out in my room and recap/celebrate the day). And TV doesn’t let me down; Dead Poet’s Society is on book marking my day with an Ethan Hawke experience. The film is pretty nish but watchable when looking to fall asleep to a movie.

In the early hours I awaken to a text from Phoebe timed 00.36 saying “Hiya! Sorry so late! Yeah i had a great time! Hope u too! Thnks for intro edward hopper! Really like his work!�. The world has just become a slight better place, sweetdreams.

Np: Bernard Hermann – Twisted Nerve

July 9 (Friday): I wake up still tired, emerging from a dream watching Millwall at the Den, onto lugging bands and their equipment around (Adam from Cats Against The Bombs for some reason) and ending with job hunting for high paid jobs. There is a email waiting from Toronto Phoebe with the subject “longest email EVER...not really but close!� and shortly after reading it she hits me on MSN. We shoot the shit and this makes me slightly late for work, as I walk in listening to Moyles on a morning rather off form.

Work is a spin. Tompkins buys us cakes for his birthday last week (whatever, just give me cake). I look out the window of Chernobyl and see Azmei drive past the office. I wonder if she is on her way to Leicester at that precise time. Its kind of sad how things ended with us. Just imagine her position right now, packing up and heading to the Midlands to begin a new life, how many emotions must that be evoking. Everyone seems leave Colchester.

I finally get my expenses out of Seymour, who is in a very good mood which is really pleasant. I think he took pity when I told him “I am sailing close to the wind� and that I was meeting a beautiful lady in London tomorrow. We lunch in The Castle, we being me, Stevo and Louise (again) but not before I bank my cheque and buy Phoebe a birthday card. Me and Louise could have lived without the lunching, especially when it makes us late back for the afternoon.

In the PM, Ivan comes over with Brooks and makes comment to me that I have used to wrong ETB on the job. We have a really heated argument, or rather I get quite heated. At the firm Ivan is one of the good guys, not to be argued with but there I go, shouting him down. He points out every other word I am saying is fucking and I slow down and sort myself, imagine if I was arguing like this with a partner. Whoops. The afternoon gets worse when Andrea comes over with the budgets for the year so far, the first six months worth and I am six grand the wrong way on my budget, by far the worst staff member at my/our level, only beaten by Drew for on paper incompetence. An even worse statistic is that Louise has physically billed more work than I this year. On paper, I am a terrible accountant. Other than that though it’s another sweltering afternoon in Chernobyl and at the end of the day Stevo gives me a lift home after a lot of the end of the day is spent fucking around getting a map together for Stapleford for Monday so I can get to the client we are doing an audit on (Aeromega). The one time I need to off and out the door on time in order to get somewhere (home) I am held up. Needless to say we don’t go to see Fahrenheit 9/11, it has not come to Colchester. I take it that it just isn’t big enough a film to make happy Colchester but I later get it pointed out to me that being a soldier town, such a film showing here would cause something of a rumpus to say the least. When Stevo drops me off it is the most beautiful summer’s evening and I really feel I should be making more of life, I note:

“PM Friday. I finally get in and I am experiencing some kind of epiphany. The only night I had to be somewhere fast and I’m dragging. Millions of thoughts are literally racing through my head. I listen to the same song over and over, 5 times in a row (Leaving California by Shawn Smith). I’m having one of those “what am I doing moments?�. The week is over and all seems to have gone quiet and it is really unnerving to me. Obviously my budget apparent seachange changes everything. I really should have and should be going out tonight; very few evenings are as beautiful as this�.

I text Azmei to tell her I saw her and ask her how things are going and to wish her luck with her move.

Finally, I manage to get home to see the olds and help them out on their computer and online loan application. The loans they are going for are horrific, the interest rates make my skin curl and the collateral is my parents home, all this for a new Ford Fiesta.

I can see why dad is having problems with the computer, it is full of filth. I attempt to rectify to situation and some kind of adware attaches itself to the desktop and I can’t get rid of it. I phone Tom for tips on software to download to sort this and he recommends Adaware but can’t speak because he is on his way in to see Fahrenheit 9/11 on the day of its release. So now, instead of just helping my parents fill out their online loan application I have managed to get myself involved in a major mission of cleaning up their computer, scanning for virus with Panda and wiping shit off with Adware. And all the time I have the olds like parrots asking me what I’m doing and how is the loan application going. A normally calm person, tonight I am short of patience.

Azmei texts me and says she thought that I had forgotten about her, adding “keep in touch. Please�. I look out of the window, into the bright Holland-on-Sea summer evening and it makes me feel young again but also prompts me to pine for similar times which I now feel I wasted, nostalgia makes you old.

Eventually we get onto the loan application by which time it is getting late and the olds have lost as much interest as I never actually had in it in the first place. We go through the motions and it is actually pretty easy to fill out in the end, providing the information is at hand. All in all, it barely takes ten minutes.

By this point, Becki has been evicted from the Big Brother house and I watch her post-eviction interview. She still looks like a plant to me. After that is Bo Selecta and this show gets better and better, I wet myself laughing out loud at the Jack Osbourne and the Bear is on This Morning with Philip and Fern and when they cut to a caller, Stephen from Hampstead Heath, I realise I will never be that funny.

I drive home late and pretty much fall asleep as soon as I get home, nothing doing tonight in this world.

np: Shawn Smith – Leaving California