Golden Omelette

Every day, do something that makes you proud.

It's a simple piece of wisdom. And by thinking of it, I've fulfilled today's quota.


Do something that makes you proud every day. 

That's not the same as my first statement. I've mixed things up syntactically. If there was a comma after the word 'proud', it would be the same.

[Every day, do something that makes you proud = Do something that makes you proud, every day]

But there's no comma in my second statement.

[Every day, do something that makes you proud ≠ Do something that makes you proud every day]

In my second statement, I'm trying to say that you should do something, and that one thing should make you proud every day. Like the goose who laid the golden eggs. Daily.

Actually, that's a bad example. Each egg is a different thing. That's more like my first statement: every day the goose is proud of a distinct egg.

I suppose a more fitting analogy would be the goose that laid the golden eggs, but wasn't so much proud of each individual golden egg, as proud of its own capacity to produce golden eggs. The capacity is just one thing. And it makes the goose proud every day. Because of all the eggs.

Can a goose feel pride? It doesn't matter. Analogies don't need to be based in reality. If they were, they wouldn't be analogies. They'd just be reportage. Goose reportage.

I'm proud of almost all of the sentences in this blog post so far, especially the bit with the ≠ symbol. They should keep me stocked up for a couple of weeks. I like to get all of my pride done at once, then I can coast.

Do something that makes you proud, every day, on average. Like the goose who laid thirty-one golden eggs in one day and had the rest of March off.

***

I don't want to offend people, so whenever I see them, I tell them that they don't look tired.

"You're not looking very tired this morning!" I say, as they take off their coat and hang it on the coat rack.

"Thank you," they always say.

Or, sometimes, "why should I look tired?"

To which I reply with the following. "You don't look tired."

"Yeah, but why should I?"

"You don't look tired."

"No, I know. But..."

"You don't look tired."

"Stop! Stop saying that," they tend to say at this point. "If I don't look tired, why even bring it up?"

"There's no 'if' about it," I say. "You definitely don't look tired."

"I'm not tired."

"And you look it," I say. "Not tired, I mean."

Then Amanda (and it is always Amanda that I say it to), gets out a little make-up mirror and checks to make sure that she doesn't look tired.

In fact, I tell her she doesn't look tired even when she does look tired, just to be polite. I'm considerate.

Her self-esteem is through the roof. 

"You don't look tired. You don't."

She likes working at the desk next to mine. I can tell.

Ups and Downs

My neck hurts.

Here's some hilarious topical material:

Sandra: Ooooooooooo!

Man Dressed As Skeleton: Oooooooooo!

Mark Clattenburg: Oooooooooooo?

Lord October: Well. Hasn't this been fun?

I have no interest in anything anyone has to say about that.

***

As I get older, I'm becoming more and more less convinced.


Oh right. I forgot I was writing this. I forgot some time after "convinced", and remembered just before "Oh right". That's how my brain works.

The best thing about getting old is that it legitimises my permanent state of fatigue. In your twenties, it is a concern. In your thirties, it's par for the course. I'm looking forward to that. All of my inadequacies will become expected. It will be brave for me to even get out of bed every morning.

So, on the frequent occasions when I don't get out of bed, I'll have no reason to chastise myself.

I'm happy to salute the flag of reduced expectations, even if it's not as big as I'd hoped and my arms are too tired to salute above waist-height.

It's nearly lunchtime. I'll eat seven hard-boiled eggs and a tea bag. By the time I'm back, I'll be in tip-top shape, and ready to tell you all about how I lost my lustre, where I found it, and why I decided I was better off without it.

***

I'm back, and boy am I.

Sorry to keep you hanging on the whole "lustre" story. To sum up: I lost it whilst queueing for a bus festival, I found it taped to the inside of my right thigh, and I decided I was better off without it because it sounds all Gallic. I'd rather have luster.

***

People like writers who resent having to write.

That's why I'm so popular.

I'm annoyed at having to do this, even though I don't have to do it. Pretty much nobody will be reading this, and anyone who is will be actively wanting me to stop.

Writers need to hate writing. They should also hate reading, if possible.

A good writer hates first, and writes second. They should also hate what they've written.

I'm a pretty skilled writer. I'm now at the stage where I can hate what I'm writing as I'm writing it. It's almost simultaneous. I also hate my formatting, but there's more of a lag with that.

I have to be finely honed when it comes to hating my writing, because it can be difficult to make out specific hatred against a background of continual negativity. It's like static: it's always there, but you can learn to tune it out.

You wouldn't want to hate the wrong thing in the confusion.

I could represent my country at Precision Hatred. I can hate a Tory mosquito from six hundred yards, even if it's during an episode of Jeremy Kyle. You can't teach that.

I'm just going to scan what I've written so far, and check that I hate it all.

Yep.

I'm going to slam my foot in a door!

***

OK. I need to salvage something from this. It's not acceptable in its current condition.

What I'll do, right, is not post this now, but will leave it as a draft. Then, later on, when I'm in a better state of mind, I'll come back to it, finishing it off with a flourish of such beauty and pathos that we'll all become monks.

I'll see you then.

***

The rain is falling. It is always falling. By the time it rises again, it will no longer be rain. It will be something else.

It can only return to the sky as vapour - only the vaguest recollection of its previous self. What was once a proud and sturdy raindrop is now a shimmering residue. It is back, but it is not back. It is rain, but it is not rain. It is home. But it can never be home.

We are like the raindrop. We must forever fall. Our only ascent is through our memories: melancholy, intangible, familiar, inconsequential.

To remember is to turn our lives to vapour, to feel the moistness of the past on our cheek, to realise our oneness with the past and future, without ever quenching our thirst.

We are caught in an ever-fading cycle, looking to grasp the solidity of the self, but eternally destined to fall.

***

See? It's now over a day since that opening disaster.

I feel a lot better now. It's funny what ten hours of sleep will do for you. And some tea. And some sandwiches.

The rain is falling. That's where I got the idea. I got it from the sky.

I'm starting my novel tomorrow. I still haven't the foggiest (another sky idea) notion of what it will be about. Other people seem to have a clear idea. They have planned this for months.

I have no characters, no settings, no plot, no premise. But that's how I roll. Unprepared is the harvest that yields the worthiest wheat.

You see? I didn't plan that harvest thing. It just happened. And it was beautiful.

I'll just throw myself in tomorrow. Sink or swim. Fish or cut bait. Shit or get off the pot. (Of those, I'm instinctively draw towards sink, cut bait, and get off the pot, but my plans may change)

Whilst I have no idea what my novel will be about, I've decided what it won't be about. This is my via negativa. Rule out what it is not, and you will have ruled in what it is is.

The following things will not feature in my novel:

• vampires
• werewolves
• zombies
• aliens
• the FBI
• extra-marital affairs
• first-person narration
• lots of adverbs
• haunted hice
• a character who is basically me, or any other Charlie Kaufman bullshit
• the word "bullshit"
• Turks
• any deus ex machinis
• bullet-pointed lists
• self-referential lists
• a link to the various other self-referential lists I've done in the past
• Latin
• Americans
• cigars
• sex scenes
• a scene where two characters are fighting and fall into a giant vat of stew
• Star Wars

By following these guidelines, I have quite a narrow remit. That will make things easier.

By the way, I reserve the right to include any of the above if things get difficult.

I'm supposed to write 50,000 words in thirty days. It's very possible that I won't be able to do that without at least some Turkish content.

***

This has been extremely encouraging. I've already written 532 words in this blog post today. If I include that whiny stuff I did yesterday, it's over a thousand!

Word counts are easy. You can throw down words as easily as the man with a diamond allergy throws down a playing card.

I think I'll have NO TROUBLE WRITING A NOVEL WHATSOEVER.

I'm trying to double-bluff Fate. It never works. ;-)

:-(

8-O=

Hmm...

None of these emoticons are properly capturing my Fate-challenge. I need something a bit more expressive.

That's better.

Bear Food

About five minutes ago, I just stopped.

It usually happens later. In the afternoon.

The afternoon is a reasonable time to stop. Lots of people do it. The afternoon is long, and comes after a long morning. Stopping is a natural reaction.

But today, I stopped at 10:09. That's too soon to stop.

I stopped clicking my mouse buttons (both left and right), I stopped using my eyes, I stopped thinking thoughts. My activity was at an end.

The day is long. I can't be inactive for a whole day. Not when I'm supposed to be alive and awake and earning my corn.

So I'm writing this in an attempt to jump-start myself. I don't know if it's working. I'm definitely typing, and occasionally clicking (mainly left), but I don't think I've stopped stopping thinking yet.

I had porridge for breakfast.

Whenever I have porridge, the first two spoonfuls are a revelation. "Why don't I eat this ALL THE TIME?" I wonder. It's hearty, it's warm, it's healthy, it's cheap. I'm going to eat nothing but porridge until I die of oats, I think (this time without quotation marks).

But by the third or fourth spoonful, the thrill has gone. The porridge isn't hearty, it's starchy. It isn't warm, it's tepid. It isn't healthy, it's cloying. It isn't cheap, it's... actually it is still cheap. But it's bland.

The porridge becomes an ordeal. I struggle to finish it.

"I'm never eating porridge again," I think to myself, with quotation marks again.

And I never do.

Counting Sheep

I couldn't get to sleep last night. For some reason, my brain was whirring like a whirring brain, and I kept thinking and arguing and ranting to myself.

This will occasionally happen. It's usually about politics or some other moral issue. I start to rehearse arguments with idiots in my own head. I am outraged at their views, and try to persuade them with eloquent fury and cold hard facts. I rarely do convince them, because they don't live inside my brain. It's difficult to win an argument with a figment of your imagination. Straw men can be quite aloof.

Some of the things that I was furious about last night were gun ownership, health care, The Daily Mail (at lot of my anger was directed at that), Page 3, and pretty much anything else.

I was stirring up these arguments for no apparent reason. I suppose I enjoyed the righteous fury. There was an adrenaline rush, putting those people in their place. But it meant that I couldn't get to sleep.

It would be OK if I could make a tidy conclusion. If I'd worked out exactly what I wanted to say, I could let the matter lie. I could even transcribe it as a blog post, and be thought of as quite the polemicist.

But I never reach an end. The same thoughts keep churning and churning, the same objections are raised, the same stupidity is identified. It's like being on a rollercoaster powered by your own ego, and the rollercoaster is determined to teach me a lesson. It won't stop, and the safety restraints hurt my neck. I'm wasting my time and accomplishing nothing. There's no use in setting the world to rights if the world is contained within my skull. That world can never be saved.

I was most angry with things that seemed to me (and still do seem to me) to be OBVIOUSLY STUPID. There's a campaign to remove the topless girls from Page 3 at the moment. There are some interesting arguments about the objectification of women vs freedom of choice. But the real argument seems to be: COME ON. Having a topless woman in a newspaper for no reason is CLEARLY STUPID. It's just obviously a ridiculous idea. STOP MAKING THE HUMAN RACE LOOK BAD.

I don't think my debate skills have improved with age. I hope I don't resort to such irrational discourse in my waking life. I might become one of those people (those idiots), who think they can identify a clear-cut morality.

Of course, unlike all those other people, I'm right. They may think they're right (in exactly the same way as I think I'm right), but it just so happens that they're actually wrong and I'm actually right. I'm me and I'm right. A strange coincidence, but there it is.

I wonder why my brain wanted to rob me of sleep. Maybe it just wanted a few more hours of activity, so was stirring things up, like someone throwing a beehive into a synagogue. My brain played me for a fool.

Well, the joke's on him (I assume my brain is male, despite the lipstick). Now I'm so tired I can barely string two thoughts together! He's useless!

Now I'm the one laughing! Or I would be, if the brain wasn't the driving force behind that particular physical activity.

I'm breathing, though. Don't need the brain for that. No, sir.

Paul 1 - Brain 0

(Legs - 2)

Midnight Feest

I can't sleep. So I've moved my whole body from the dark comfort of bed to the slightly brighter comfort of the living room armchair. Let's make use of this consciousness. Tossing and turning is an ill wind that blows my chances of making it as a professional golfer or something.

I don't have to be coherent. It's 2:50am. The time for sense has passed. This is the hour of the hawk and the nightworm. They care not for intelligent discourse. They only care for prey and soil and the absence of traffic.

My mind was racing back there in bed, inventing hypothetical scenarios and arguing hypothetical issues with hypothetical peers. I was going in circles. That's why I've started this: to drain all of my excess thought into the blog basin. Then I'll turn on a tap, and wash it away. Then I'll turn on a sixpence or a dime (depending on the exchange rate) and head back to the land of pillows, all vacant-like.

But now that I'm here, I don't have anything to say. In bed, in my head, I was all mouth and no trousers. In the cold light of night (I should close that fridge...) I'm mostly trousers, and only a tiny bit of mouth. And what mouth I have is agape at the sight of my enormous trousers.

You're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't. The grass is always greener on the other side. One man's meat is another man's... chaff? I forget how that goes. The long and the short of it is that I have nothing to say. But if I go back to bed, I'll suddenly be brimming over with wisdom and snappy dialogue. It's probably horizontality. It must be that that causes the thoughts to tip out. I should lie down, but it might be difficult to type.

Is horizontality a word? It doesn't seem to be. But then what's the opposite of verticality? Verticality is a word. It must have an opposite: a yin to its yang, a Moriarty to its Anti-Moriarty.

I've googled it. Horizontality turns up fine. This spell check facility is a diaster. It doesn't even recognise the word 'diaster'. Ridiculous. This is why computers could never triumph over woman or man. Isaac Asimov needs to buck his ideas up.

Here's a photo of Jerry "The King" Lawler piledriving Andy Kaufman:

That's pretty good. Though the spell check doesn't recognise 'piledriving' either. It wants a hyphen.

Well, we don't always get what we want. Sometimes we want hyphens, but they don't have any left at the shop, and the shopkeeper doesn't care that it's your birthday. How was he to know that it would be your birthday when he was requesting stock? He's not psychic. He has to order a sensible number of hyphens. If demand is unusually high, then there may not be enough hyphens for everyone Paul, so stop crying, huh? I bought you a cake.

He wouldn't want surplus hyphens taking up space in the stock room, now would he buddy? That's economics. You'll learn more about that when you're older, so let's just have some cake and try to make the best of it, OK champ? There. That's a good boy.

It's later now. I don't want to give away how long it's taken me to write this, but there's now a "3" in the time. A "3" in the time is worth a certain amount in the bush. It's like that old saying.

I don't have to go to work tomorrow. That's why this is all fine. I can make up for this sleeplack with an extended bedstay. I'll be laughing. "Ha ha ha," I'll be saying in the style of a laugh. I'll have another blog post in the bank too. This blog post. It makes sense and everything. "It makes sense and everything," I'll say to a friend, referring to this blog post. "Ha ha ha," I'll repeat. "Ha ha ha." And the friend will move away as though she doesn't even know me or what I'm doing in her kitchen.

"It's all fine," I'll say.

I think I'm making some real progress here. And sense. Progressence.

It might be time to turn in (I tuned in and copped out earlier in preparation). I'm going to turn so far in that I'll be wrapped up in my own tendrils. Encased. Cocooned. Snug as a bug in a bush as the chaff of another man's snug meat. All vacant-like.

I Didn't Delete This

I'm feeling melancholy.

Sometimes I think about the short preview of this post that will appear on Facebook. Hello Facebook people! If you don't want to click on this, I fully understand.

Who would look at a blog extract that begins 'I'm feeling melancholy', and decide to click on it? An idiot, that's who.

Hello idiots!

Nothing captures the attention more than a proclamation of melancholy.

The word itself suggests dynamism, biting political comment and laugh-out-loud funny material from beginning to end.

"Oh really, Paul? You're feeling melancholy? That's fascinating. I'm sure this won't be whiny and indulgent. Hey, are you feeling melancholy as an adjective or a noun? We're all dying to know."

I'm listening to melancholy music, just to hammer it home. Not the Smashing Pumpkins though. That's spelled differently. The trouble is, I'm listening to my iTunes library on shuffle, as I don't want too much melancholy from the same source. I like to have wistful sadness from a wide variety of receptacles, one sup from a flask of regret, then a slurp from a curly-straw of existential angst.

But not every track I have is melancholy. Melancholy is probably only around 30% of my music catalogue.

The track playing now is called Lie to Kick It by 2Pac.

Its lyrical content was disheartening, but not exactly melancholy.

I just wrote a hilarious annotation of the lyrics but have decided to delete it as the horrible misogyny of the lyrics was only matched by the horrible condescension of my analysis.

It did contain a good joke about Jordan's Country Crisp, but those are ten-a-penny on the stand-up scene.

The next song was The Guests by Leonard Cohen.

Much better.

I've lost the momentum of this post now.

That's right: momentum.

Backwards momentum is still momentum.

Maybe I should do a hilarious analysis of the Cohen lyrics instead. I think that won't be quite as good. There won't be any opportunity for jokes about Jordan's Country Crisp.

(I wonder if I'll get offered some free Jordan's Country Crisp if I continue to mention them. Like I did with Rombouts coffee.)

How about a lyrical mash-up? That sounds like fun. It will probably be poetic and beautiful. Try to guess which parts are from which song.

It will be like a game.

A fun game.

Ladies and gentleman, I give you

Guests Lie To Kick It
by
Tupac Shakur and Leonard Cohen

One by one, the guests arrive
You ain't got to lie to kick it
The guests are coming through
To them tricks and them bitches
The open-hearted many
Out to get a nigga's riches
The broken-hearted few
You ain't got to lie to kick it

But you's an old basehead kickin' too much hype
And all go stumbling through that house
yo bicentennial pipe it got rally stripes
in lonely secrecy
And if they knew yo identity
Saying "Do reveal yourself"
you'd probably be the victim of a sticking (ugh ugh)
or "Why has thou forsaken me?"

And those who dance, begin to dance

I did more of this, but it was too long and not good enough. These were the highlights. (Interestingly, Cohen wrote the the first 'ugh', and 2Pac the second. Interesting and a lie.)

This post has had too many false starts (not to mention false middles). All I need now is a false ending.

Goodnight everybody!

***

Psst.

I'm still here.

I should go to sleep now. I've gone down so many blind alleys, I've developed a form of sonar. Misleading sonar. I just keep clicking until I get reprimanded by a dolphin.

Even my atoms feel tired. I can't imagine ever not being overwhelmed by everything in the world. I might build myself a special helmet that doesn't let in any events, lights or radio broadcasts, and I can live in the dark.

With an itchy chin-strap, just so I don't forget where I came from.

On Cloud Nine

It's late, but I don't want to go to bed. I'm quite tired. You'd think bed would be an option. But I want to stay awake.

At first, I thought it might be due to resentment. I suffer so much being forced into consciousness in the morning that I want to extract every last drop of it.

But it's not about that; I don't think so anyway. That's a negative thing. My desire to stay up is more of a positive one. Perhaps I just prefer being awake to being asleep.

That's a good thing. It would be a sad state of affairs to prefer unconsciousness - looking forward to it, wishing away the waking hours.

But I'm not sure what to do with my waking time. Sometimes I get caught up in the desire to be creative, but my options are limited. I need to stay quiet (I don't want to wake anyone up). Also, my talents are just as limited as my options. I'd like to be able to paint. Or play the harp.

I feel like I've written about this before. Well, maybe not the bit about the harp.

So that's what this blog is: my harp. Just quieter, and less beautiful. The traditional heavenly notion of angels would be somewhat tainted if rather than playing harps, they wrote blog posts about waffles and paedophiles.

More portable, though. I wouldn't be able to carry a harp round with me. Unless it was one of those mini-harps. But playing those makes you feel like a giant, rather than an angel.

Anyway, I should stop harping on about that.







...








Gif animator

***

Man, I think I'm going to be using that .gif maker a lot from now on. You lucky people.


Also, I've got a really big head.

I'm growing my beard. I haven't trimmed it for ages. I really want it to grow long and straight like a Triad boss, but I think it will just get wiry and bushy like a young farmer.

My facial hair isn't conducive to stylish grooming. One day I'll go for something spectacular, like the one-inch beard, or an eyebrow weave.

It's now even later than when I started. But at least I've created something.

It's a thing.

A thing of my face.

Not quite harp music, but still pretty good for 1.30am on a Weds morning.

Also (and I realise I've already started multiple sentences with that word, but bear with me - it's late), I'm listening to Billy Joel's Piano Man, which is quite stirring and has instilled in me a sense of camaraderie with my fellow man and woman. I'm sure there are bloggers all over the world creating gifs of their own faces in response to a terrible pun about harps.

And we're all in it together, trying to make our way through life, doomed to die but enjoying the ride, even if the ride is made all the more difficult by a cumbersome beard (or in the case of the women, a cumbersome beard).

Our internet connection has cut out. It's been doing it all evening. I hope this isn't the beginning of a problem. I've just reset our wireless hub.

[I'll just give you a few seconds to absorb that fascinating nugget of British life in the twenty-first century]

...

So I'm writing this offline. If may never see the light of

Oh. No. I'm back online now.

[I'll just give you a second to say "Phew!" to your spouse/Irish cousin and pantomime the wiping of sweat from your brow]

I'd better take this opportunity to post this, refer back to something earlier in the post (like the harp - remember that?), and then finish of with a seeming non-sequitur that actually calls into question your very essence as a living human.

I'm ready for sleep now.

Edinburgh 2010 - Day 10

Day... 10. Mond...

Yesterd...

Gig...

Rain...

Tired...

See ya tomorrow!

***

Oh, I suppose I'd better do it properly.

I've been in Edinburgh too long. The city is fantastic, but doing a performance a day gets a bit draining.

Of course, loads of people do multiple shows in a day, and do that for the whole month of August. But I'm just a simple man. I like the familiar sights and sounds of a home-cooked Lucy.

I'm ready to go home. (But then, I've been ready to go home since Day 2/Sunday/The Eve of St Gibrideon's)

Yesterday, was quite good though. The sight of home on the horizon has given me a bit of a boost, and I felt like going to see some shows.

In the afternoon, I went to see a stand-up called Martin "Bigpig" Mor. It was upstairs in a pub's function room, and there werzen't many people there, but it was a nice atmosphere. Mor didn't do much prepared material, but was extremely amiable and charming (even if he suggested I should be a Canadian called Mitch).

After wandering around for a bit, we went to see a poetry show in our venue, the Banshee Labyrinth, lured by the appearance of Simon Munnery and John Hegley. It was a fun show. I might start writing poetry myself. (Or I might just leave it on the shelf - RHYME!!)

We only got to see Munnery in the end, as we had to do some flyering. He was great, though.

Our show was one of the best yet. We had a medium-sized crowd, but they were very receptive. Everyone did well. (Also, I did one of Alex's jokes. Annoyingly, it got a really good laugh.)

Hmm. There were a lot of capital As in between those brackets. Probably my own subconscious, telling the world that doing a comedy show at the Edinburgh Fringe is like fucking the capital 'A'.

After the show, I had a greasy veggie burger in the pouring rain. There was something noble about it. Unfortunately, the noble thing was: nothing.

We went to a weird sort-of panel show, with few people and too many ideas. I was quite tired by that point, but not too tired to act like a dick in front of strangers. That's just muscle memory.

I got wet. I still haven't tried on my shoes. I hope they have been dried by some mysterious hot-air elves.

I think I'll have to burn everything I own when I get back. Too much walking, too much sweating, too much shouting.

I might become a monk. As long as I can keep my iPod, and still swear.

Basically, I just want to wear a cassock.

I'm Tired

Once upon a time, I wasn't tired.

No-one alive remembers me not being tired, but ballads and stories have been passed down through the generations. Fairy stories, some say. Wishful thinking. A relic from a simpler age, when people believed in elves and astrology and sleep.

But I believe it happened.

Call me naive, but I believe there really was a time when I wasn't tired.

Because all these stories are based on an element of truth. Even if they evolve into something preposterous, and are taken too seriously. There's still that original factual seed from which elaborate fictions grow.

So, just as a belief in gods stems from an initial encounter with natural phenomena or a portentous coincidence, so the belief in non-tiredness must be based on something.

Maybe, long ago, I wedged my eyelids open with toothpicks, creating the illusion of wideawakeyness. Or maybe I wore a T-Shirt reading "I'M NOT TIRED".

And as the years have passed, the truth has become legend, and people speak of my not being tired as a glorious primal law.

I want to believe.

But it gets more difficult every day.

The cynical modern world demonstrates my perpetual fatigue with every hour, every job, every institution. If you bring it up at a dinner party ("Hey, I know I'm tired now, but what if I haven't always been tired?"), you get ridiculed - occasionally even assaulted.

I don't even remember what non-tiredness was, exactly. I find it hard to conceptualise. It's like a fourth dimension, or an extra sense, or dark matter. My brain isn't equipped to deal with the concept of being wide awake. I don't have the neuro-processors to deal with it.

Tiredness is what there is. It's what there's always been - that's what all the signs tell me.

But the mere fact that I'm writing these words suggests that I yearn for something more.

I wonder what a non-tired Paul could accomplish.

Tiredness has been my constant companion these twenty years. I've managed to achieve some relative success: I haven't died yet, I own my own shoes, I've eaten a fish. But imagine if I was awake!

Why, I could be King of London Town, or an astronaut! I could have cured the sick, and fed the hungry (with the sick).

But alas, fate has dealt me a sleepy blow. And I must live my life like a zombie, staggering from place to place, day to day, snacking on brains (sandwiches), gouging flesh (sandwiches), and never knowing true humanity.

But behind my vacant eyes, something human flickers. Some remnant of a golden time. A mythical place, perhaps, but a place nonetheless. A place called Awakeness.

But aside from a few blurred black & white photos, the Awakeness Monster has yet to be seen.

Another idea has been passed on through the years - carried on the winds of time to eager young ears. This idea is:

GO TO BED EARLIER AND YOU WON'T BE SO TIRED.

There's something there. Some hint of the glint of some sort of truth.

But like the mermaid's song, it is carried away on the tide, over the horizon, always out of sight.

And tonight, at 1am, I'll sit, fatigued and withered, ignoring the warmth of bed in favour of looking on the IMDB for movie trivia on obscure, terrible 90s comedy movies.

A song will tickle the back of my mind. The tune will be familiar, but I won't be able to make out the words.

A New Yawn

I think my post-count for this month is in trouble.

I've been unusually busy, so I haven't had time to sit around, writing about how un-busy I am.

Lots has happened since my last blog entry. I went to London for some filming of comedy things, I bought a bagel, I prepared for a work Sales Conference, I had little sleep, I got sad, I got happy, I participated in a work Sales Conference, I got sad again, I drank some orange juice, I bled a radiator, I lied about bleeding a radiator.

All those things.

Which has left me as weak and whiny as a diluted lemon child.

So it's going to be difficult to hit double figures.

Maybe I'll do it bit by bit. A little here, a little there, and a little there.

So here's little bit number one:

On Sunday Lucy and I got a Chinese takeaway. I waited for the food, whilst she went to get other stuff from a shop. So I waited on my own. It's quite a nice place, and has a big bar, so I bought myself a drink and sat down.

Opposite me, on the other side of the room, the wall was mirrored. I could see everything I was doing.

I began to realise that whenever I'm alone, I must be worried about looking like a loser or a loner. I look too smart, or too scruffy, or too posh, or too keen, or just too out-of-place. But I've developed a technique for counteracting this:

I act tired.

I rub my eyes, I scratch my head, I yawn, I exaggeratedly open my weary eyes. It's not a conscious thing, I don't think. It's instinctual. But I do it all the time. I don't know what the underlying thinking is.

I suppose I'm hoping any stranger that sees me will think: "Oh. I thought he was a loser. But look - he's tired! He's probably been up all night partying with models and Russell Brand! What a cool guy!"

Or: "Wow! That guy looks tired! He's obviously so relaxed, he doesn't care where he is! He doesn't have any pretence about him. Someone like him must be confident, intelligent, and handsome!"

But in reality, I look like a stoned Winne-the-Pooh, staring at myself in the mirror.

I need a new technique. Perhaps some kind of prosthetic limb or a cello.

(Not literally)

I've added a poll to the right of this column. I thought it would give me a flavour of the kind of person that reads this. I can then tailor my content to fit the correct demographic. Please vote.

What is your favourite liquid?

(I was going to add an 'Other' option, but I think I've got most of the major ones covered)

***

I'm experiencing the kind of odd energy that can only come from a bad night's sleep. I'm tired all day, but when it comes to bedtime, I'm wide awake.

I'm thinking of modifying my sleeping patterns. I'll sleep from 5pm to 9pm, have free time until 4am. Then sleep again until 8am. I think it will work.

I've always thought I could have been nocturnal. An owl, perhaps. But I'm not perceptive enough. That's the only drawback.

And the mice eating. I couldn't manage that.

I'll stick with the urine.

I say, eye c'est, ice eh?

I'm trying to hone my craft by writing jokes within an accepted framework. I think it will be tricky, but will provide a useful learning experience.

***

Doctor, Doctor! I feel like a pair of curtains.

In what way?

I don't know. I just feel a bit like fabric.

But why curtains, specifically?

I feel like two bits of fabric. Hung vertically from a rail. Usually used to cover a window.

Yes. That does sound like curtains.

Well, what's your advice?

It sounds like a stressful situation.

Yes, it is.

To be honest, I'm at a bit of a loss.

My wife told me to pull myself together.

That seems a bit dismissive.

That's what I said.

You often get that with people who aren't trained in this kind of thing. It's like depression. And M.E.

Curtains is like that?

A bit like that, yes.

Is there any kind of medication I could take?

A bullet to the brain.

Really?

Yes. I prescribe it to most of my patients.

How many times a day should I take it?

Just once. It should do the trick. If the problem persists, up the dosage to jumping in front of a train on fire.

What about the Hippocratic Oath?

He's dead.

Who?

The Hippocratic Oaf.

Oh, I see. Ha ha ha. We appear to be talking at crossed purposes.

He took his prescription and now he's dead. The Oaf.

Right.

And now it's time to take my medicine, if you'll excuse me.

Goodnight, Doctor.

Goodnight.

***

That was easy.

I'm going to write a series of stories about the Hippocratic Oaf. He's like a Frankingstein, but with a stethoscope.

(I foolishly searched for Hippocratic Oaf on Google. It has been done many times before. I thought I was clever, but I suppose it was inevitable that an idea of such genius would already have been done.)

I'm going to go to bed now. I'm very tired. You don't need to know that. But it will help contextualise this entry in the event of my death.

Keep it Ticking Over

I'm so bored, my brain is barely operational.

As most people know, the brain has to maintain a minimum level of activity, or else it will stop working, decompose, and spread any remaining nutrients into the soil (or - if buried in a coffin -the coffin).

I'm working at absolute minimum right now. I could not be any less mentally active without forfeiting my rights as a sentient mass.

How do I maintain this dangerously low level of activity, whilst ensuring I continue being?

Well, if I feel myself drifting off into nothingness, I give my brain a quick prod with a philosophical question. That usually gives me enough juice to continue for another quarter of an hour or so.

I generally have a few stock questions that I can use as mental top-ups. It's the equivalent of trying to keep a computer running by connecting it to different citrus fruits. It's barely effective, but it is effective. Barely.

Some of the most common stimulating questions are:

1) If a man were to eat a sandwich, what colour would the crusts be?

2) How many roads must a man walk down, if his daily commute takes him down a road broken up by an infinite number of shrubs?

3) Do pancakes feel pain?

4) Does French toast feel bread (bread is English for pain)?

5) All life is a result of a series of chemical reactions, preconditioned by their innate properties, governed by a series of fundamental laws. In what sense, if any, can human beings be considered moist?

Questions 1-4 are for general thought maintenance. Question 5 is used when I need a real boost (such as after watching golf).

I can never ultimately answer these questions, or they will lose their power to make me think (and I'd have to come up with new ones). Unfortunately, there are answers. I just have to make sure I forget them.

***

I know you're curious, so I'll give you the answers. Just don't remind me that I've written them down, or I'll be in trouble.

ANSWERS:
1) Brown

2) It's still just one road

3) No

4) This is nonsensical

5) The moistness of humanity is a relative concept, and any answer would be patronising or arrogant, and sometimes people go swimming or sweat, which has some influence, and some people are subject to rain or condensation, or work with liquids, and then there are towels to consider, and we were all amphibians once, except for Mark Curry who used to present Blue Peter because he's composed of gases, and it's all subjective anyway. So, y'know, whatever.

I shouldn't have tried answering number five, because now my brain is at a dangerously high level.

My usual level is 0.5. My current, dangerous, level is 1.1.

The national average is 60.

I need a lie-down.

Holiday Journal - Day 5

Holiday Journal - Day 5 - 27/08/08

I really shouldn't have built this up as a 'journal', as the entries have been rubbish. Most peoples' journals probably include details about their bungee jumps or holiday flings or the time they almost saw Cilla Black in a New York H&M's (that one actually happened to me - good times).

Today we went for a pleasant walk up to Connaught Gardens in Sidmouth, which is a pleasant place to be. Then we retired to a cafe for some Earl Grey tea and a slice of cake. All very civilised. And pleasant.

I still don't feel very relaxed. But I do feel tired. Intense fatigue is a bit like relaxation, because you don't move much.

In the evening, we watched Liverpool almost lose, and I ate too many chocolate fingers.

And that, my friends, is it. Wow, that was a whole lot of nothing. Maybe I did do some more exciting things, but have forgotten them. I'm writing this on Thursday after all. You can forget a lot in half a day.

Did I go bungee-jumping? I don't think so. Did I see any celebrities? Well, I did see someone who looked like a handsome movie-star, but then I realised I was looking in the mirror! Then I wept...

Maybe I was drugged and subjected to strange experiments. I did sleep in quite late. But I don't feel particularly sore in any sensitive areas.

So I suppose it must just have been tea, walking and footie on the television. What a life I lead.

Oh, there is one other thing. In the evening, my mum reminded me of 'back-slang' which is a kind of Pig Latin variant that we used to speak as a child. It's impossible to convey written down, but involves adding the sound 'aig' into every syllable. We proceeded to speak this way all night, until we no longer had any sense of normal language or propriety.

To demonstrate the language, I'll embed an audio file of my reading the first stanza of a D.H. Lawrence poem in back-slang. Read along with the recording. I'm sure it will entertain you. Sure.

Brooding Grief

A yellow leaf, from the darkness
Hops like a frog before me;
Why should I start and stand still?

(For some reason, my voice will only record at a very high pitch, but high voices are always funny. That's why I keep children in my basement.)

Oh, just make up your own title. No. That one's stupid.

I'm suspicious of the human brain, because it doesn't seem to make any noise. If it did, I think I'd notice because I keep my brain rather close to my ears. I'm also in a good position to determine if it smells or not, my nose being similarly well located.

But I'm used to powerful things making noise. Engines chug a lot. And whirr. Computers buzz and hum. But the brain - a spectacularly good thinking machine, seems to be silent. I don't even think it vibrates. It doesn't have any moving parts that I can see (or feel). It seems like it can't really be doing the thinking. It's a spongy decoy.

Through the pursuit of science, we're constantly finding out that what we think is wrong. Knowledge and facts are always being superseded as we get cleverer and older and more streamlined.

I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that our brains weren't the things doing the thinking. The brain seems like a place-holder. It's just something soft that can plug the gap in our skulls.

But what is doing the thinking, then? I don't think it's my heart. That has enough stuff to worry about already.

Bones don't think (I think).

Maybe we're all just hooked up to some central thinking centre in Dubai or somewhere, and out brains are just receivers. And every time we forget where we put our keys, it's because the wi-fi has cut out.

Even though I have no neural pistons, I'm running out of steam.

I can't remember what it's like not to be tired. I'm sure there have been times in the past when I haven't been tired. I've been awake and sharp and vibrant. Well OK, I've never been vibrant. But I have been alert. But that seems like a world away.

Even caffeine seems to have failed me. I think I might have offended the Caffeine Gods by drinking about ten cups of coffee a few nights ago, even though it had been left out for ages and was tepid at best.

I'm always offending gods. The idiots.

Once, I offended the gods of full-fat mayonnaise. I bought a bottle of light mayo. Luckily the gods of light mayo were there to even the odds. But the whole thing angered the gods of peaceful mayo co-existence. And that angered the gods of realism.

And this whole idea is angering the gods of Having Something Interesting To Say.

Maybe if gods weren't so quick to anger, the world would be a better place.

I've just angered the Gods of Atheism with this concept, which has thrown the whole thing out of wack.

I've never been in wack. I've never used it in a positive sense.

"How's the project going, Johnson?"
"Excellent sir! Everything is 100% In Wack."
"Good work, Johnson. Now how about that blowjob?"

Birds of a Feather

This morning was another tough one. I remember being outraged that I was being forced, against my will, to wake up early every day. It should be outlawed in the European Convention on Human Rights or something. It's cruel and unusual. Except it's not unusual. That's the problem. It's cruel and usual. Regular as clockwork. A cruel clock. Like a rape-alarm clock. Or an abusive grandfather-clock. Or a suicide watch. Or a miscarriage clock.

Who would have thought there would be so many cruel clocks?

I don't want to oversell the ordeal of waking up in the morning. That's the last thing I want. But, in many ways, my experience of waking up early is a bit like that of young evacuees during World War II. They were torn from the comfort of their regular lives, and thrust into an unfamiliar world. Their lives were turned upside down by faceless, destructive outside forces. I'm not saying what I'm going through is as bad as the blitz. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying... same ballpark.

***

I've been thinking about pigeons and doves. They are essentially the same bird. And yet pigeons are kicked, abused, and hated, whilst doves are venerated as some kind of image of purity and peace.

The dove on Noah's ark fetched an olive branch (or something). What were the pigeons doing? I'll tell you what they were doing: they were trapped in the bowels of the ship, forced to row. Sound familiar? Amistad and Ark both begin with an 'A'.

"But Noah", they pleaded, in indecipherable cooing, "whilst we're happy to help your crusade in any way we can, surely the task of rowing would be better performed by those creatures God created with the means to manipulate an oar. Our wings are designed for flight. Rowing is not one of our key talents. Why not seek a creature with opposable thumbs?"

And Noah, laughing with indignation, kicked the pigeons. "You filthy swines (no offense, pigs)! I suppose you would have me use you as some kind of flying sentry! That is the job of the dove. The pure, WHITE dove. Not for the likes of you!"

And so it began. The lily-white dove was treated as some bird-king. The pigeon was forced to live in filthy city-streets, eating whatever refuse it could find. And all just because of the colour of its skin (feathers).

"They carry disease!", I hear you cry! Do they. They carry disease. Just like homosexuals carry the AIDS virus?! Is that what you're saying? These dirty outsiders carry disease? You sicken me. Maybe we should be looking at the underlying cause of this disease. Here's a hint - unmerited poverty, caused by discrimination.

These poor birds have been discriminated against for too long. Don't act innocent. I'm sure you've kicked a few pigeons in your time. Perhaps you've even cheered and gloated at the sight of a mashed pigeon corpse on the side of the road. But you love your precious doves, don't you. Your precious white doves.

A change is needed in the world. I'm looking to start a pigeon civil rights movement. The pigeon has been maligned for too long. All I need now is a Martin Luther Wing figure to spearhead the initiative.

I have a dream that one day young pigeons and young doves will sit side by side, defecating on national monuments, and repulsing and arousing us in equal measure.

Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, they're free at last!

(And, in parting, I hope you'll raise a glass to me for not using the obvious 'coup/coo' pun. That's willpower.)

Cover Story

I haven't written anything here for a while, because I've been finishing my dissertation (yay!) and going to work (boo!), leaving little time for my important works.

My brain is a bit fried at the moment (and not in the good way), so my powers of... uh... you know, thinking and shit... will be... pff. Whatever.

I'm listening to Elliot Smith's version of 'Because' which is almost identical to the Beatles' one. Still a good song, though.

I feel that a good cover version should either be completely different from the original, or be covering a largely unknown song in the first place. What fun is there in doing a straight cover of 'Don't Stop Me Now'? Whereas a thrash calypso cover of the same song, possibly sung by Gary Glitter, would be much better.

***

I feel so tired, I can't imagine a time when I'll be happy anywhere but my bed. The world seems a cruel and hectic place. One can only find true happiness, true contentment, in that magical place where the eyelids meet. That place is probably some kind of idyllic forest made of duvets and pillows, where little feather bunnies beckon you towards home. Your true home. Your only home.

Tomorrow morning, my eyelids will be wrenced apart like rusty machinery, leaving the soft creatures screaming and burst. And I won't have time to say goodbye. My heart is broken every morning by the sound of the alarm.

Melodramatic melancholy? Fuck you.

Fuck. You.

Banal Observation Pack

Have you ever woken up and found that your hands are still asleep? Waking up is a disorientating experience at the best of times. But if your hands are asleep, it's like being born again.

The instinct to turn the alarm remains, but you can't use any of your fingers, so you end up just swatting at it and mashing it like a dyspraxic fawn. You knock it to the floor and can't believe that the world you have just entered could be so cruel.

You then stagger to your feet and try to avoid the clothes and shoes that Yesterday You carelessly left on the floor, then stagger to the bathroom, clumsily walking into the doorframes.

The only way I could ever convince myself to continue with the day; to stop myself to crawl back into my pillow and duvet womb, was to bargain with myself: "As soon as you get back from work, we'll go to bed. As soon as we're home. It won't be long".

And then I'd believe this lie and carry on until the next day.

I'm not looking forward to going back to work.

***

Did anyone watch The IT Crowd on Channel 4?

Anyone?

Bueller? (Cliche reference #30)

I thought it was really funny, and seemed quite underrated. That may be because Richard Ayoade is always very funny in eveything. It could be because it has Noel Fielding as a goth. But it's probably because Chris Morris played a fantasticly typical sitcom boss.

Anyway, they've been repeating it and the new series starts on Friday. It's worth checking out. Especially as it appears Matt Berry (of the below guitar video) is in it. They've almost got the full house of those incestuous young comedy folks from the Boosh/Marenghi group.

Also, they're apparently making a US version with Ayoade reprising his role. It could be a US Office-style success, or an Every Other US Adaptation-style failure.

***

How many Weetabix are too many?

Or is it Weetabixes?

***

I must get back to work now. I must. I really must. Really.

Really?

Yes. I'm afraid so.