insomnia hither & thither

I haven't slept properly since Sunday evening. I'm not sure why. But Monday, my first night of little sleep, saw me lying on back, eyes wide staring at the ceiling until about 430 or 5 in the morning. When sleep did come, it was brief and followed by a 400 mile drive. Tuesday, exhausted from the drive and lack of sleep, I went to my bed early and attempted various contortions for about 3 or 4 hours before finally passing out. Yesterday was the yo-yo between Fife, West Lothian, Perthshire and Edinburgh - back and Forth (geddit?) to touch base with as many of the gang as possible while still making it home in time for dinner. I was late for dinner. And after dinner was out again for a cup of tea with someone whose wife I'd rather have had a cup of tea with. Again, pretty tiring. Again, hours before Morpheus grabbed me.

There's quite a lot on my mind at the moment, and I have a stiff knee. I massage the knee and stretch it to subdue the stiffness. I try the same with the stuff on my mind, but have more luck with the knee. Any one of the things on my mind could be hindering my zzzz's and I do go through all of them a couple of times while staring at the ceiling, wall, window or pillow - I'd probably be better counting sheep.

I said goodbye to a beautiful girl yesterday. It was an odd parting. For a brief time we were inseparable, much to the chagrin of her then boyfriend. She played a large part in me wanting to rediscover adventure and look back to goals long forgotten. Sadly, running alongside her own sense of adventure was a naive, blind conformity to the people she felt she had to run with and the direction her life should take. For such a passionate person to be so dispassionate, yet focused, about the course of her life broke my heart a little. Maybe she's right, and corporate finance, MBA's and no vacation time is right up her alley. But there's no excitement or even trepidation when she talks about it - just a shrug of shoulders and a blank look of inevitability. Apparently it's what all the cool kids are doing. I mentioned this a few times but to deaf ears and we grew apart in as little time as we'd been friends in the first place. Yesterday's meeting was cordial and affectionate and we drank our sparkling water with smiles, but I fear it really was goodbye. There were no silly squirrel impressions and no fond recollections, just a recital of brand names purchased and luxury holidays to be booked for the future.

I brought film with me to get developed in St Andrews because people in-the-know know that it's the place to get film developed. Sadly, as good a developer as Ian Joy's is, they are only as good as what they're given and not since I started taking pictures have I snapped such rubbish. Maybe 2 pics in 3 rolls worth looking at, but certainly not posting. Oh well.

In spite of all this, Scotland has once again fit like a snug glove, the cats are in excellent form and even the weather's been good. On my run this morning I found many a toad and even some wild borage - a perfect Pimm's garnish - growing on the banks of the Union Canal. I'll be sorry to leave tomorrow but may be back sooner than planned.

Hopefully with more sleep. It's bothering me, the lack of sleep. It's sort of like the twitch I had last year. If it's some sort of response to stress and fatigue, then it's a bad one - it just makes me more stressed and fatigued. Sometimes it strikes me that I'm angry about something, but it eludes me as to what that may be. Perhaps I'll try a nap.

no flowers in the attic

There's something about children and attics. For kids, attics are unknown frontiers - danger and adventure waits in every dark corner and a box of old clothes may be hitherto undiscovered treasure. Omnipresent dust conveys atmosphere and there may well be a treasure map jammed between the rafters. It gives you an excuse to play with flashlights. The prying eyes of adults are easily avoided in attics, making them both mysterious and a refuge from the rest of the world. They ignite imagination. Some of the greatest children's adventures in fiction kick off in attics: The Famous Five, The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, The Magician's Nephew - attics abound and play an integral part in everything from solving crimes to discovering new worlds. The Goonies kicks off in an attic. As a petulant youth I felt our lack of attic (condos are not attic friendly) a sign of terrible deprivation and as such any friend with space between the ceiling and the roof was a friend indeed.

I keep in close contact with my inner child. I still watch cartoons (good ones - Pixar and the like), I love the snow and sometimes I just need to be silly. I wish they built playgrounds for grown-ups. Pirates are still cool and part of me still thinks it's not too late to be Indiana Jones. I still love Star Wars - the originals, of course.

This weekend we cleared out our attic and part of my inner child died. Or was in a very deep sleep. I'm hoping for the latter. An attic for an adult is a place to throw shit you hope never to have to move again, which then attracts dust like Charlie Sheen attracts hookers. In the summer, which it is at the moment, it's hot enough to roast chicken in and that, combined with the disturbed dust (which as a child was atmospheric) chokes you rotten while you're hunched over trying not to smack your head against one of the beams, chucking stuff down the ladder as fast as possible so that you can get the hell out of there and breathe again.

So what was up there? Well, lots of clothes, boxes full of copies of my dad's book, boxes full of some strange business literature no one will ever need, more clothes and enough luggage for the wives of the England football squad (though not quite up to their strict fashion standards).

No treasure map
No treasure
No clue to a crime
No doorway to another world
No fun

That's more dusty luggage than anyone will ever need, ever.

music and frisbees

The last several weeks have been a bit hermit-like. Self-imposed exile is tedious and, while the reasons for that exile still exist, my recent escapes into the wide world of London have bolstered spirits. I've been out more in the last 3 days than in the last 3 weeks. It's amazing to see the world again. Especially with brilliant friends.

Last night saw myself and Ru venturing into the wilds of North Kensington, past Ladbroke Grove and above the Regent's Canal to find a pub named Paradise By Way of Kensal Green. That's a pub name to make you wiggle your toes with glee. It turned out there was a great deal of glee to be had, whether it was toe wiggling or not was up to personal preference. We'd braved the wild North Ken for Kate's birthday. Neither of us knew what to expect - she's a successful musician and it could well have been some glitzy, diamond-studded, Cristal-popping affair with papparazzi and wannabes lingering at the entrance. But then she wouldn't have been Kate and the party certainly wouldn't have been in a pub on Kilburn Lane.

First of all, the pub was wicked. Chilled out, comfy decor with cozy old couches but lots of natural light. They had Spitfire and Red Stripe on tap. Red Stripe on tap is cool, and very rock and roll. I base that on the fact that the only other rock star I know drinks Red Stripe. Anyway, the private room upstairs was also funky, but in the sort of bar at a brothel kind of funky. The cool, relaxed tones of downstairs replaced by hot reds and sinful purple.

Second of all, Kate's a genius and had the best idea for a party ever. As loads of her mates are professional and very talented musicians, why not mix them all up and have them just rock out some awesome covers? Which is what happened. It was so cool - the 9 year-old daughter of one of her mates got up and did a heart-rending rendition of Bob Marley's Three Little Birds, the drummer and keyboardist from Kate's band paid homage to Van Halen's Jump with some bassist I didn't know who kicked pretty serious arse. Everyone went nuts at Jump - it was pure musical crack. All this while chucking down Red Stripes, jumping around, grinning and laughing like a moron and just getting goofy excited when the next bunch took the stage to sing a classic. Then Arnie, Kate's awesome bassist with incredible dress sense, sang the cover I've been waiting for for so long. It was the perfect Rock Me Amadeus. I'm not kidding. It was awesome and brought the house down. If they released it as a single, I'd buy it.

Third of all, I got a chance to catch up with Kate. She's ace.

Then Ru and I drunkenly staggered to the world's most dreadful, ghetto, filthy fast food chicken place and pigged out before finding a cab driver who knew where Chiswick was.

Today it took me over 2 hours to get to Regents Park for a picnic that I was, yup, over two hours late for. Beer, football, frisbee, sun, food and some nice new people and the afternoon went too quickly. Walking back to the station through the park a tremendous sense of well-being hit me and the glow still resonates. Though that may be sunburn.

And the Red Sox just won their 8th in a row.

And the other day, on my run, a pretty girl gave me a nice smile. She was running too, the other way but the same route. So when we crossed eachother's paths again (the route's a loop), she gave me an even bigger smile. I've yet to see her again. The warm smile of a woman can be haunting.

odd inheritance

The other day and lacking the confines of context, my mother informed me that I had my grandfather's fingernails. My grandfather, long since passed away, was a general in the US Marine Corps and, from what I understand and remember of him, a brilliant strategist and quite a remarkable individual. That the miracle of genetics allows any of that to be passed on is remarkable, though I feel somewhat shortchanged that it's only fingernails. Ah well.

hay hay hay

The lawn is no longer green. Well, there's some green left, but it's not in the majority. The majority is now a sickly hay colour. Patches of green hold out here and there, but their numbers dwindle and every one lost is another in the ranks of the sickly hay. This isn't a permanent condition - rain will eventually bring the green back. Not in time for my folks and I to appreciate it, but perhaps that's for the best. It's easy to project meaning into the decline of the lawn, toy with the idea that it's mourning the loss of such fantastic caretakers. But anthropomorphising grass is silly, and its decline is due to drought and the hosepipe ban.

Hyde Park's grass is not fairing much better, and I'm sure that it's not mourning anything. Of course, with the partygoers of the O2 Wireless festival trampling it, it may be a case of self-pity. I wouldn't begrudge it a bit of self-pity. I've indulged in self-pity myself and while it lead to dehydration I never changed colour. Unless it was to turn a little green.

Yesterday was a cocktail of beer, music, food, more beer, pubs, festivals and surprises. I played my part in punishing the grass at Hyde Park. Ru, academic son and music raconteur, provided several comp passes to the 'chill out' day of the Wireless Festival. Which was wicked. Many people took a half-day and we all met at the Star in Belgravia to drink beer before, and this is a technical term, "rocking out".

Moments of pure adrenaline-laced joy spiked a general, sustained note of well-being throughout the day. Seeing Kate jam brilliantly on a massive stage to a loving crowd of 30,000, then - and I had no idea they were there - going to see The Fun Lovin' Criminals and bouncing like a lunatic to Scooby Snacks and realising that Huey really is the most incredibly cool individual ever. Except for Indiana Jones. Then we went on a crazy carny ride and managed not to be sick and, had it not been for a lack of cash, would have gone right back on again. We also drank lots of beer. And Ru's mate played some chilled out tunes that I almost heard over the roar coming from the Fun Lovin' Criminals' tent.

So it was all quite groovy really. I paused to pity the grass once. But then I thought of all the free beer that was getting spilled on it. Lucky, lucky grass - no pity for you.

It was such a good party that alien robots came to see what all the fuss was aboutHuey, the Fun Lovin' Criminal
Kate, looking tiny on the big stage
Kate, looking enormous on the big screen
Academic daddy with his boys. My, they've grown.

shadow puppets



Sometimes while typing I just pause, maybe even mid-word, and gaze around the Belfry. There's no view to speak of. But today the sun poured through the skylight, bounced off a messy glass table and threw some groovy shadows against the wall. It's not quite stopping to smell the roses, but it's close. Look up from the desk every once in awhile.

week's end

This weekend I shall mostly be writing. Which is good, because writing is free. I shall also be drinking tea, which is not free but has already been paid for. I'll watch DVDs that I already own, run, walk and just sit around. If glasses are raised, they will be raised at home and not in pubs and filled with liquid pre-purchased. I already own quite a lot of wine, so I may just dip into that.

If I sing a world cup song, it will be this one. But I'm not likely to sing a world cup song.

This flurry of excitement means little chance of chat over the weekend. Unless I get attacked by another toad.

In which case you'll all be the first to know.

mole, ratty and badger were nowhere to be seen

Heading out to the Belfry this evening to finish my scribbles of the day and get some shut eye for the the scribbles of tomorrow and I get the fright of my life. Well, maybe not my life, but certainly of the evening - and that's topping a pretty intense episode of House. So I close and lock the door of the conservatory and I feel something cold, clammy and hopefully alive - or possibly undead - land on my big toe (a drawback of flip-flops). So I, big girl's blouse that I am, let out a yelp. Sort of a winded, hollow yelp, which is good because if it had volume it would have been a ninny-like shriek. And, of course, it is not the grasping hand of an undead corpse rising from our lawn but a toad. Quite a fat one at that, but in a rush as it leapt away sharpish. Once my heart crept back down my throat I decided that having a toad land on your toe in London was quite a cool thing. Not in a trend-setting way, of course, though I could see 'toad on your toe' become the name of an ultra-chic cocktail. Or maybe a shooter.

My goodness I'm talking rubbish.

And I've almost got used to the water. Twelve years of clean, fresh and pure Scottish water and almost used to London water and it's disgusting, nigh-undrinkable, overly-chlorinated, oestrogen rampant rubbish. I may need to leave sooner rather than later.

a little less conversation

Me: Where have you been?

Little Nagging Voice: Dude, your mom's home, what do you need me for?

Me: I need you now more than ever.

LNV: You mean you want more nagging?

Me: No, I want the right nagging.

LNV: Ah.

Me: What do you mean, 'ah'?

LNV: Well, up til now, everytime we've spoken you've told me to shut the fuck up. So that was a bit of a self-satisfied-because-I-told-you-so 'ah'.

Me: Ah. That was the oh-christ-what-a-wanker 'ah'.

LNV: I am a facet of you after all.

Me: Whatever. If you're a facet of me then where were you this morning? Not only did I not go for my run but I had pizza for breakfast.

LNV: So you missed a day. You'll be back out tomorrow. And pizza for breakfast tastes good.

Me: That's not very nagging.

LNV: Nope.

Me: I haven't updated my CV. Surely that calls for some snide comments.

LNV: That's not that urgent. Unless there's some fantastic job you're applying for and haven't even told the rest of your consciousness about it. And don't call me Shirley.

Me: Well what fucking good are you if you're not going to nag me about something?

LNV: What did you do yesterday?

Me: You must have read my whiney post.

LNV: Ah yes, fixing computers. And the day before?

Me: Helped mom with stuff - been doing some work for dad too.

LNV: Right.

Me: Right.

LNV: Very selfless.

Me: Thanks.

LNV: So, how's the writing going?

Me: OK, not great but ok.

LNV: How do you know?

Me: Well, you know, it feels good. I've had a lot on so I haven't been able to -

LNV: A lot on what? What's more important to the course of your life than writing this book?

Me: Nothing - but family commitments, friends -

LNV: You want to be a successful novelist, not a jobless daydreamer who can help with the odd IT problem.

Me: Fuck you man - I need to help the people I care about.

LNV: The people you care about care about you and want you, more than anything, to be happy and successful and that's not going to happen if you don't get a bit more fucking selfish. Do you think your mom would be lamenting your lack of job and questioning your goals if you'd, instead of jumping at the chance to help her out at Sainsbury's, told her to fuck off because you were writing?

Me: Ah.

LNV: I know that 'ah' - that's a you-know-I'm-fucking-right 'ah'. So I'm going to ask you again - how do you know the writing's going ok?

Me: I just sort of feel I'm on the right track.

LNV: But you've had no feedback?

Me: I haven't - I don't - I haven't shown it to anyone yet.

LNV: You should've shown it to the squid months ago.

Me: I know. But it's hard - you just - the whole premise is so important that if she doesn't like it I don't know what I'll do - I'll just have been wasting 8 months of work.

LNV: She's your friend - if you can't show it to her then you won't be able to show it to anyone and you'll have wasted 8 months of work. Finish cleaning up the chapters and send them to her and finish the fucking novel. And start telling your family and friends to fuck off - you're busy. Then I can get back to nagging you.

Me: This wasn't nagging?

LNV: More ranting really. You're pissing me off. Just be selfish. This is for you. Live for you. And remember, chicks dig selfish guys.

Me: Really?

LNV: Dude, totally.

Tenacious R

The bee and my bonnet - a tale of woe, long hours, glimmers of hope, lots of very small screwdrivers, lots of very small screws, 2 powerbooks, an ibook and some electrical tape.

I wasn't going to fix the laptops for awhile. There was no great rush and I've got a lot on at the moment. But I needed to back some stuff up, so I thought I'd get them ready for that. It's just 2 I was going to fix, when I got round to it. So, just back them up, burn some disks and that would be that. Chuck them in a corner until I had some time free to sort them out properly. Easy peas-y. That was at about 4 yesterday afternoon.

At 330 this morning I had successfully fixed the powerbook. In fact, it was running better than it had in years. The ibook, sadly, wouldn't even turn on after I'd reassembled it. I paused to regroup and sleep.

I'm not normally obsessive. In fact, that sort of behaviour in others freaks me out. It freaks me out more when it happens to me. But sometimes it happens. Sometimes I cannot rest properly until I've fixed/solved/finished/sorted whatever it may be. Occasionally it's something important, more often it's irrelevant and moronic. It's a single-minded tenacity that, were I able to sustain it, and apply it throughout all my endeavours, would no doubt lead to a fabulously successful life with absolutely zero enjoyment.

I slept terribly. I ran in hopes of burning off some of the doggedness. I started back on the ibook at 930 and hours disappeared as I disassembled and reassembled, losing screws, finding screws, and at one point stripping down a very old powerbook in search of spare parts. I got it turning on again but the monitor wouldn't work. Time to disassemble again.

Breaks would be spent fiddling with the resurrected powerbook, just giving it some use and making sure it wasn't going to give anyone any nasty surprises. I even cleaned it.

By 8 this evening I put the ibook back together for the last time. Still no screen, but keyboard response - it works but I can't see anything. The powerbook's been ticking along fine and I'm using it to IM a friend in New York. I pick it up and put it in my lap and adjust the screen and it just snaps in my hand.

At that point I decided it was time for pizza and beer. My tenacity and tear ducts snapped with the screen.


On a totally different and bizarre note, yesterday marked the 86th anniversary of the US Postal Service banning the mailing of humans, after a couple posted their child to his grandparents for 53 cents. I just thought that was a cool little fact.

Update at 1105pm. I managed to get both the ibook and the powerbook backed up. Over 24 hours later.

melting and menageries

The Belfry is hot. So hot that I bought one of those vertical office fans in hopes of cooling down. It certainly moves the warm air around but I don't think it's actually lowering the temperature. Still, better the air to move than stagnate.

Nothing much stagnates around here at the moment. The garden is running wild, for instance, nearly cutting me off from the main house. The gardener 's been away due to roadworks. Thames Water replace the water mains, leading to a sort of barricade in front of the house, denying access to gardeners and the council recycling people. Why the rubbish men can get to the house and the recycling men can't is a mystery.

I nearly mowed the lawn today. I decided against it because the barricaded gardener is attempting his return tomorrow and he is a man of habit and protocol. He's expecting to mow the lawn. It was also too hot to mow the lawn.

The local food chain thrives on the heat. The Mall has quite a menagerie these days, an ecclectic mix of the domesticated, the undomesticated and those in the middle that humour their 'owners', the latter being the cats of the neighbourhood. We have no pets ourselves, but in my mind I adopt various cats who earn my admiration. The front steps have become disputed turf. The cats and the foxes each put their flag up (in their own way) and wait for the other side to challenge them. There's a blue cat, formerly quite a lithe and elegant beast, now somewhat battle scarred and uneven in the ears. He - or she, I haven't asked - watches the steps in the afternoon and early evening when he's relieved by a black and white tabby. The latter makes the journey from a house on the other side of the motorway - there are fewer foxes to fight over there. It's hard to gauge victory but I like to think the cats give the foxes a good kicking. I recently noted a young and vigorous marmelade cat with an adventurous nature examining his territory further to the west. There'll be nicks in his ears in no time, as no feline seems to go unscathed in these parts. The dogs have it lucky.

There are other signs pointing to the decline of the urban fox, or at least its relegation to a lower division. We have seven swans on our corner of the river - meaning that all of our local couple's cygnets have survived to maturity. This hasn't happened for quite awhile and the family's drawing quite a bit attention from passers by, none of whom seem to realise just how bloody vicious they can be. Just because they belong to the queen doesn't make them pets. In the past the foxes used to get a few cygnets, sometimes all of them. I'm guessing the thriving family this year points to particularly protective parents. Or maybe the cats have battered the foxes too much. It's odd to think of a vigilant feline population helping out the swans but stranger things have happened.

Yesterday I drove to Hertfordshire to watch my mate play polo. Picnic, sun, beer, Bentleys and horses - far more gentrified than Dundee and Perth Polo Club. I found myself missing the ramshackle blue clubhouse and precarious seating. I don't pretend to understand too much about the sport or the horses but it's fun to watch and there's a bit of social anthropology to enjoy as well. The haves, the have-mores, the have-but-still-not-that-cool, the wannabes, the Argentinian grooms who all look as though their having a joke at everyone else's expense, the friends who really are the only cool people there - it's as much a menagerie as the riverside, really. No cats to adopt though.

smatterings

Yesterday was a bad day for shortcuts. Driving back from Portsmouth I took the road I shouldn't have. I suppose you could say it was, much to my chagrin, the road more travelled. My parents snoozed away, exhausted from their holiday, and unaware of my navigation errors. Mom woke up in time to give me another shortcut, which turned out to be nothing of the sort. Thrown by this I made an equally bad decision and the final 5 miles home took 30 minutes.

This morning I untied a knot that had been tied for 12 years and found some pics from last summer that I like but had never posted. They're from Mull - I was there for a wedding. I posted only one pic then, the first pic I'd ever posted on this blog. Anyway, I found these while doing a bit of a photo clear up. The top and the bottom are from Craignure in the South and the cow (love the cow) is on the single-track road from Craignure to Tobermory (lovely village, rubbish whisky). She was just chillin' and chewin' as we drove past, not a fence in sight. Brilliant.

I want to jump in the car and shoot back up north in great haste, doing 105 on the M6 Toll Road and breaking only for the fantastic Westmorland Farm Shop at Tebay Services. Fuelled by their amazing pies I'd stop to make the required hellos in Linlithgow, St Andrews and Balmorino and then north. I was brought up in cities and I'm comfortable in London but comfortable is dangerous and not necessarily belonging. Out north and west to Mull and Skye and Raasay, north and east to Tain and Brora, then slowly south through the middle, stopping at Kinloch Rannoch to skip their perfect pebbles on their glass loch.

This afternoon I'll be writing and cursing the weather for tempting me. Next time I'll finish the book while the weather's still shite and the summer will be my reward. The Belfry is hot in the summer, sort of like a greenhouse with no plants and more bugs. Even the birds are too hot to chirp.


PS Crushed and disappointed that Cars has opened in the States and not here. Here we must wait until 28/7. Bummer.

lawn ornaments

It's Summer, and with the season comes groovy culture in every nook and cranny. Some is obscure, hidden in odd galleries and discovered only with perseverence, luck and ingenuity. Others are signposted by 30 ft tall pregnant women in bronze. Today I attended the latter.

The pics are from the forecourt at the Royal Academy.

Virgin with Child by Damien Hirst Sir Joshua Reynolds all decked out in his summer gear.

I can't remember the artist or the name of the piece, but I liked it because it reminded me of climbing behind and under the bleachers at the little league fields on Beacon Hill when I was knee-high to a grasshopper.


I also went to see X-Men 3 this afternoon. Good popcorn fun - leave your brain at the door.

And apparently my running attire is a fashion nightmare. Who'd have thought?

classic

I finished One Hundred Years of Solitude last night. Well, this morning, at about 0220. The trouble with reading a classic so long after its acceptance as a classic is that, if it is worthy of its praise, then everything that can be said about it has been said. Chiming in with the literati, nodding sagely in agreement, seems silly, arrogant and pointless. And this novel deserves the praise heaped upon it. I drank the last 100 or so pages as one parched, desperate to slake my thirst. The pages are like over-saturated technicolour photos, colours bleeding into each other, from vibrant solids to whimsical pastels swirling in time with the rhythm of the swamp in the background. It left me haunted, staring at the ceiling of my room, unable to succumb to exhaustion.

I've already started Love in the Time of Cholera.

wedding bumps & soccer balls

Any wedding tradition that has the bride and groom bounced up and down on chairs, holding on to a napkin, is good by me. Danny and Laura seemed illuminated on the day, which is a good way to be at your wedding, and much fun was had by all. Until the bar closed at 10. At which point pilfered bottles and a new venue were required. So we all got on the bus and headed to the hotel bar and drank until the much more civilized hour of 2 in the morning. I think we went to another bar beforehand. I have vague memories of drinking pints of Guinness in quick succession. Guinness in the States is served too cold and lacks creaminess.

The next day I went with my folks to see my brother's family, feeling a little bit hungover. I didn't go for my run that morning. My eldest niece, Katie, had reached the finals of a local soccer tournament (this is Massachusetts, so it's soccer, not football) and we all went, watched and screamed in maniacal support for the Wilmington under-13's girl's team. Did wonders for my hangover. Sarah, Katie's younger sister, got all face painted up and hollered as loud, if not louder, than everyone else. Bound to swell with uncle pride, I bellowed along and took lots of photos of Katie kicking the ball and sometimes her opponents. It was a very impressive match and she played a hell of a lot better than I ever did. And she won, of course, and I remembered being 11 years old and winning the local little league championships and how awesome it was to get my trophy. Getting a public speaking trophy at summer school never quite equalled it.

That's the last of my Boston chat.

blurry bond

The name's Bo- oh, never mind.
It's childish to take your picture in a mirror, especially just because you're wearing black tie, but I don't care. It's the only picture of me at the wedding in Boston and I think the blurriness does great things for my sex appeal. The shiny reflection on my bald pate does not.

The fever's back. Last lemsip of the day to come. I resent rationing it due to potential so-called side effects.

Three a day.

Boo.

And the Yankees clobbered us last night.

Boo too.

the pub who would be king

Planning adventures gets easier the less grounded in reality you become.

For instance, I started scribbling something about a history & natural history voyage around the Caribbean (™®© and all that - go get your own idea), checking out wrecks and looking for treasure while examining how the sealife adapts and then absorbs man's stuff into its own, building reefs and hiding menacingly in old portholes (and it's always a moray eel looking menacing in old portholes - why is that?). It would have to be done on a sailboat. This sort of expedition requires a respect for the past and elegance that a motorised gin-palace is incapable of - it would have to be a classic schooner fitted out with all sorts of kit that goes 'beep' and a camera on the hull. Money is no object because I don't have any.

The more I scribbled, the more lemsip I drank, the less interested I became in natural history and the more interested I became in finding huge amounts of Spanish gold and retiring somewhere sat on a great big pile of dubloons. A modern day Jack Sparrow and Han Solo type, but with better hygiene and no laser guns. My fever ran high at this point and Gabriel García Márquez did nothing to reground me in reality. Buccaneers in flip-flops, my crew and I would strike fear in the hearts of our enemies (few) and bring smiles to the faces of our friends (many). We would haul ropes dramatically and squint meaningfully at the sun-drenched horizon. Women would swoon as we stepped ashore. I would crown myself king of some small jewel of an island conveniently situated in international waters and take out an advertisement in the International Herald Tribune for a suitable queen to accompany me on my next set of adventures.

Then I passed out and slept for some time. I drove my folks to Portsmouth and made it back in one piece. I looked over my notes and sighed, scribbling down some more realistic adventures before starting some real work on my book. Web procrastination got the better of me for a time and I discovered Piel Island in Cumbria. Well, I didn't discover it - it's been discovered for ages - but I found out they're looking for a new king. It turns out that the landlord of the Ship Inn on Piel gets the title of King of Piel Island. That. Is. So. Cool. That there're castle ruins on the island is a bonus. Sadly, reality rears its ugly head and the Register points out the shortcomings:
"potential landlords should be warned that it has no mains 'leccy or phone line, is accessible by ferry only on summer weekends, and if you want to get out of the place in a hurry you'll have to wait until the tide goes out and make a dash for it across the exposed sands. On a tractor or similar, naturally."
Nevertheless, ideas have taken seed, the book will be finished and adventures will begin.

But first, a bit more lemsip I think. And some sleep.

mug of happy

How can one not recover when one drinks from the happy face mug? And eats chocolate. Chocolate, lemsip and the happy face mug will make me healthy and happy again. Respect the happy face mug, for it is happy. And happy china is a good thing. Not so sure about the chocolate though.