Just another day before another manic Monday

Here we all are again. Andy Murray has just lost the Australian Open in straight sets and so instantly becomes Scottish instead of British again, the sun is shining outside trying to lure me out of my pit but it really stands no chance, Monday silently creeps ever closer as if it were the day most likely to be a ninja. There really is a lot of mess in my room; socks, shoes, clothes, random boot fair fodder strewn all over the place like a cross between a launderette and a junk shop. As you can see, I am struggling a little for inspiration this morning. Here are my choices: tidy up the room so that it goes with the freshly made bed (main reason the sun stands no chance), go and play golf (no........no that's outside), tidy up the rest of the house which has gradually become - well - no point beating about the bush - a shite tip. There is of course another choice - keep typing for so long I forget the previous three and have to have a little snooze - yes - I like that one.

I did go out last night, however, there is so little to impart, so few highlights, I really feel it is not newsworthy. At one bar, the wonderfully named Lady Luck, there was a pirate themed evening, eye patches, fake swords and rum aplenty. Not wishing to feel out of place I went dressed entirely normally, carrying a simple VHS cassette, so that when quizzed I could say I was a pirate video. It got a few laughs, but maybe not as many as I had hoped. F*cking landlubbers.

I just learned a very valuable lesson.

There I was, having a relaxing end of Thursday bath, reclining at leisure, mulling over the day's (non)events, contemplating what the evening holds, obviously doing the odd cheeky fart (as us gentlemen are wont to do in the privacy and excellent acoustics of the bath). I washed my hair and then sat up, grabbing two handfuls of bubbles which I, for some ungodly reason, put on my face, clearly not remembering the aforementioned down-below coughs. Good God. It was like inhaling cauliflower. As I say...lesson learned.

Just thought I would share...

...a line from an episode of Drop the Dead Donkey which I watched last night. It just made me laugh out loud a full 11 hours later - love that. "If you are talking about bad luck, talk to to George, no one is as unlucky as him. He is the only man I know to get savaged by a pine marten in Marks & Spencers". Brilliant.

Are you nuts?

My flatmate re-arranged the living room while I was out last night. This wasn't a complete shock to me, as he had aired this suggestion, to which I had shrugged and said "yeah whatever" (for this read "as long as I don't have to do it"). I have to say he has done a wonderful job. The huge dining table which I garnered for the flat which, along with four accompanying chairs has sat mainly gathering dust for a year has been lovingly dismantled and put in the outside toilet! The enormous TV (television not Lilly Savage) now takes pride of place and there is now AT LEAST enough room to swing a cat. Possibly even a labrador.

Anyway, it was while I was getting used to the new living room that my housemate looked at the "shopping" I had done (bread, Nutella........that's it) and commented thus: "You would think they would have put a warning message on here that says "may contain nuts". Now then, whilst I agree in principal, if someone thinks that when they buy a hazelnut spread, with a picture of nuts (hazelnuts not man ones) on the label called NUTella, they are getting anything but nutty nut goodness, they are, well, nuts. I just had Nutella on toast for brekkie. It was well nice.

Right, I will talk at you some more later. Bye.

It's cold outside

It really is. I went out at lunchtime and I was so cold I was doing that hurried breathing thing. Not all sexy like when you do it down the phone at someone (before they say they are reporting you and hang up), but like when you jump in an icy lake and in that very instance the breathing fairy steals your lungs! Not sure how many readers of this blog will have actually jumped into an icy lake, I have. I was forced to go on outdoor pursuits holidays in my early teens at school and by crikey I hated every second. Learning to sail in a plastic sailing dinghy in sub zero waters was not my idea of a good time. I would have been happy if they had let me eat barbecued food and skimmed flat stones over the still lochs every day, but ohhhhhhhh no. What 12 year old do you know goes on 25 mile cycle rides answering a questionnaire as he goes? I shall hear nothing about it being character building either, I am still a git. I have memories of eating really cold beans with boys I didn't like, having difficulties with a particularly tricky karabina (is that how you spell it?) white water rafting in nothing more than an old bath (actually that was a good laugh) and going fishing in a small row boat with someone who was scared of water and just sat there with his eyes shut humming (making noise with his mouth shut not stinking...)

I am listening to my own music on myspace as I type this. Big enough ego? Typing guff about myself and listening to myself. I just wish this laptop had a mirror for a screen.

I might write more later. For now, I grow tired (back of right hand limply rests against forehead)...

Free wine you say? Excellent

I was musing on how to make Sunday better yesterday - and by George or any other cast member from Children's TV gem "Rainbow", I did it! "How?" I hear you cry, as if this very information will furnish your soul with warmth. Two things. A cobbled together curry and a succesful pub quiz! I simply took a couple of chicken breasts and a vegetable curry slowly dying in the fridge and married them to make a wonderful feast. After having scoffed this culinary masterpiece, my flatmate and I trollied along to a pub quiz we have begun to frequent on a Sunday. We came third in the over all quiz (our music knowledge sadly lacking for once), however, the picture round - where this week one had to identify 12 celebrity chefs - was a triumph. 12 out of 12 and a lovely shiny free bottle of red plonk later, I was pleased with Sunday. Nicely rounded off with old episodes of Drop the Dead Donkey on 4oD. Excellent. What is more, we uncovered another pub quiz on Tuesday night which may require investigation. I wonder whether it is possible to make a living from quizzes. After "doing silly voices" or "eating jelly" I think that would be my career path of choice....

Morning has broken

Sunday morning is a little treasure for me. A lie-in in the truest sense of the word. I have this morning been watching "Blackadder Goes Forth" on dvd, a comedic gem which I treated myself to from a charity shop yesterday. Add to this the fact that I have just had cheese on toast and a cup of tea and you have a rather perfect Sunday morning. Here's the problem, how do I push on and make Sunday a real success. Funds are limited, tis the week before payday and the cupboards are more bare than anything Mother Hubbard has ever opened. Going for a walk has limited appeal - some days are made for walking, today, Canterbury has a grey sheen which to me says "I would stay indoors if I were you - much nicer, only bad things can come of leaving the bolt-hole". That having been said, I have limited options indoors. My flatmate has roped off the living room, using it as some sort of hangover recovery unit (just picture left over indian food, old duvets and discarded cans of soda rather than hospital acoutrements and you have the idea). Therefore, I am limited to my bedroom, which is messier than a suit made out of spaghetti, or the outdoors which is greyer and wetter than a scuba diving elephant. More tea is needed for decisions of such importance.

I can't get no sleep

Well that's the last time I plan anything, I can't even get a snooze right! I haven't slept a wink (idiotic phrase that "40 winks" - far from sleeping you will just look like you have a really really bad tic). I did however make it out to the living room where I tried to bore myself with the kind of televisual tripe that resides on freeview boxes (I like to call it pauper-view; it aspires to be -pay-per-view, but it's skint). My slightly sore and befuddled eyes have begrudgingly consumed an old episode of "Have I got news for you?" (clearly not, this is very very old - it had Keith Chegwin on it - post alcoholism and getting his wanger out on a gameshow), something with Jeremy Clarkson on it (I caught the last 4.8 minutes of a programme where he apparently fell in love with Europe - I didn't care for it), Come Dine With Me (always brilliant in an entirely pointless and slightly socially retarded way) and a programme about mother in laws, where one of them called her daughter in law a fat c**t. Fantastic.

What is nice though is that I have my flat to myself for the evening. It is as quiet as a mouse listening for a pin drop in a library. All I can hear are my industrious fingers dancing like ten flabby Michael Flatleys (well, just ten Michael Flatleys) over the keyboard communicating with I don't know who. It is quite liberating this blogging lark. This may not be quite the fad I believed it would be when I started this earlier today...

Now then, do I watch a Blackadder DVD, have a nose around youtube and the like or try again for that elusive snooze? It is decisions like these that would frighten presidents, CEOs and other industrial and political leaders. Not me though. I can handle it.

Later that day...

I am in bed. It is ten to five in the evening!! This is the behaviour of the bewildered and elderly. I intend to watch a DVD and have a little snooze. Yes, I really am that go getting, that I am PLANNING a snooze. This is mainly due to the breakneck high octane afternoon I have had, which was a sofa based diet of football and BOWLS on the tv, with crisps and soda. Yep, glad I gave up smoking - I will be healthy soon (he says coughing up just a little cholesterol).

Still - I have played the lotto again tonight in the vain hope I will win enough not to have to work again in my life (hahahahaha). I scooped a tenner last week, which means since the lottery started I must only be about £46502786357 down on the deal. Damn it.

Anyway, it's now snooze o'clock......before I go.....how long do we think a snooze is? What are the time boundaries on a kip? A nap even? I would like these confirmed. By the government department responsible for this sort of thing (doubtless they will have a small group of twitching white coats who are in charge of "nocturnal studies". Yeah, and I bet they have deep pockets in those coats...)

Giving up smoking, hangovers and wallkies

At the young age of 36, I decided I really should start putting my thoughts down on this interspace or whatever the youth are calling it this week. I think 36 is a curious age. I get that I am a grown up and should be married with kids in a house I bought. I am not though - I am in a flat with my mate and a cat (unintentional rhyme, not freestyling).

Today is a Saturday and it is starting with a rather irksome hangover. Irksome, because by their very nature, hangovers are rubbish, but also because I really didn't set out to get piddly last night, it just kind of happened. Not really the behaviour of a not-far-off-forty year old now is it!? I didn't though succumb to temptation. I am talking about cigarettes here. I finally gave up after smoking for about 12 years on and off, 8 days ago. I am starting to feel the benefits tis true; more energy in general, not stinking, more money in my pocket, but it still holds an allure. Here is the thing - I consider myself a fairly intelligent, rational guy. I don't though, understand why, when I am asthmatic and not exactly rolling in money, it has taken me this long to stop smoking! "Oh yeah, this £5 which I could have spent on some throw-away folly like food will be much better spent on slowly ruining my already slightly pathetic lungs and making my fingers smell like a tramps hat". Yet still, while I was out last night, I still had to fight to not have one - and then - fate, being the filthy tease that it is, played the following little trick. As I was walking along, I kicked what at first appeared to be an empty fag packet. KICK, I kicked. I heard a rattle. Immediately, I felt a rush of "OOOOOOOH FREE CIGGIES" (because I had had a couple of drinks and this felt like a mini win), followed instantly by "OOOOOOOH THEY ARE AS USEFUL TO ME AS BUTTER IN MY PETROL TANK". In the end I actually got my mate to pick them up, snap them in half and bin them. Yeah, showed them. A few seconds later we passed a homeless chap and I was suddenly racked with guilt thinking "ahhh, we could have handed over those ciggies to him" followed swiftly by another side of my brain saying "sod him, if you can't have them, he can't have them".

Err, what else happened last night? Someone asked if I was gay because my tshirt showed a little bit of chest hair. That was fun. Won't be wearing that again then!

I am thinking of getting out of bed for a walk round town. Bed at the moment though is winning the battle for my attention. Mmmm comfy.