Ask the Lonely

It’s as common a question as I’m ever asked. And remember, I’m from an Indian family, and it’s more common even than questions regarding my ultimate wedding to a nice Hindu girl, or my decision to not study law or medicine, or why I’m not more like my cousin, Dinesh. It’s so pressing, in fact, that my dad himself, a man of few words, and certainly not with a vocabulary of emotive language, felt it necessary to ask: “Don’t you get lonely?”

This usually follows a tour of my flat, and is becoming as obligatory as the tour itself; my response as short. “No,” I say. “Of course not.” But, for some reason, people tend to equate my single life with a life of bleak loneliness, posing the question with a tilted head and a look of concern.

The truth is, I’m too busy to feel lonely. And, in fact, I’m rarely even alone. Sure, I don’t have a girlfriend, a life partner, a Hindu wife, or whatever else people think is the opposite loneliness, but I’m so inundated with visitors asking me whether I’m lonely that I’m, frankly...not.

My Mental Girlfriend

I was on my way to see an attractive local weather girl switch on the Christmas lights when I met Lucy. There she was, standing on the platform, practically illuminating it, when I began to rethink my 15 mile journey. Here are the Christmas lights, I thought. And this is my weather girl. And though I couldn’t, from my vantage point on platform 5, accurately ascertain her occupation, I nevertheless took my thoughts as profound, broke all the rules of my involuntary celibacy and asked for her number. Breaking further rules, and indeed, expectations, she gave it. And I waited just a few moments until she disappeared behind the station building to punch the air in delight.

As I swung somewhat pointlessly into the cold, dark night, I considered my recent romantic misfortunes and felt glad to have not seen Lucy with a child, a grey hair, or even a hint of a penis.

My friends were less sure. “Come on,” said Bill. “What’s wrong with her then?”
“Nothing!” I said. “Well, anyway I’ll find out on Sunday. I’m seeing her then.”
“There’s got to be something.”
“Can’t this just be that I meet a hot girl, my own age; I ask her out, we have a good time and it all works out?”
And, though this was really a rhetorical question, by Sunday it had been answered loud and clear, and only fifteen minutes into our date.

“So, do you live with your folks or do you have your own place?” I asked, already thinking of potential sleeping arrangements.
“No,” she said, putting her coffee down, as if getting ready to leave. “I live with my daughter.”
Thinking, perhaps under some sort of illusion, that I wasn’t the kind of guy to just get up and run, I held steady on to my coffee cup, and looked interested. “Oh wow!” I said. “What’s her name?” I didn’t really care what her name was. What difference does it make? And the smile that curled at the edges of my mouth wasn’t in excitement at this news but in knowing that, of course, this was “what’s wrong with her.”
Whilst she told me her daughter’s name, and the story behind it, which I hoped I’d never be quizzed on because I wasn’t really listening, I began to rationalise the situation, and think of how this could work without my becoming little whatsherface’s new daddy. The pause, I thought, signified the end of her story.
“So that’s where little…your little daughter gets her name from!” I said. “Great. Shall we go for a walk?”

And so we did. But at every turn was another startling revelation that only the illusion of my own kindness kept me running from. She’d been unwell for several years, she said, and so, tempted by curiosity I asked with what. And when she answered, “anorexia”, I again responded with “Oh wow!” but suddenly felt awful for having listed ‘thin’ as a quality in describing her to Bill. (I’m surprised he didn’t already guess.) But that wasn’t all.

As our walk took a turn towards the river and our conversation for the worse, she began to recall her days in the mental health institution where she was committed with schizophrenia. It was there, in her defence, that she discovered that she was pregnant and that she must recover for the sake of her daughter, whose name, at this moment in time, escapes me.

Her recovery and, indeed, the sing-song way in which she told her story, endeared me to her and, as our walk led us to the pub and one drink to another, the date somehow picked up. But whatever good she impressed upon me that evening she soon undid with the 87 text messages that followed.

In the brief moments between them I pondered my dilemma. Just how do you break up with a young, single mother with a history of schizophrenia and anorexia? Despite the phrase ‘unlucky in love’, which I take credit for coining, I’d never been in this situation. I thought that doing it in a text message was a bad idea. Over dinner was even worse. I mean, what do you say? “It’s not you, or you, or you, it’s me”?

End of the Line

You can’t imagine what it’s like to lose your mobile phone until it happens to you. At first there’s the sinking feeling that it’s not coming back, an anticipatory worry, building like the interference that interrupts a radio signal – pip-piP-pIP-PIP; then the silence, and a brief moment of liberation, when you can just about imagine a world without it; before the ringing sound of panic, blaring in your ear, like an inaudible melody of the names and numbers that you realise you’ve lost for good.

This happened to me yesterday, like some sort of comeuppance for actually engaging in any kind of physical exertion, on a golf course. I guess I swung too hard, and now, only a day later, I’m quickly realising what a handicap it is to be without my phone.

In that time I’ve been unable to cancel a meeting with a mate, respond to the outrageous advances of a lady friend and wish my big sister a Happy Birthday, leaving three people waiting, wondering and wanting to kill me, respectively. Worse still, sitting now on the train, I can’t tell the woman meeting me at the other end that I am more than one hour delayed.

I guess that’s two people wanting to kill me.

What are we complaining about?

1. It being cold in October
2. Kate Moss taking our share of drugs
3. The EU ban on imports of exotic birds. (There goes Christmas)
4. Things not being the way they used to be
5. Lack of British hurricanes

Under the Weather

If only my cleaner had more in common with Gwyneth Paltrow. (Sigh.) I realise how that sounds, but it really is the least of my problems. (For starters, I can’t even park my Hummer in the street and my £50 notes won’t fit in my wallet.)

After walking home in the drizzle (there is no Hummer, but if anybody has any suggestions about the £50s...), I found a note from my new cleaner, Sylvia, whom I’d recently discovered was pleasant but not hot. I always imagined Jennifer Lopez in Maid in Manhattan – a weapon of ass distraction. Instead Sylv, although very pleasant, is more of an A bomb. And, it turns out, no Sylvia Plath.

Sam [sic],

Could you get me some more bleach please? And you need washing up liquid. Don’t like this weather.

Sylvia

What’s particularly interesting about this note is not that she spells my name wrong, despite my attempts to print it clearly in all correspondence, but that even in its economy of only five lines we still see a mention of the weather. Are we Brits so obsessed, or rather, so upset by it that it pervades our every conversation, whether spoken or otherwise? The weather constitutes one third of the message body. I didn’t even get a mention when it was obviously my birthday, cake and balloons strewn around the flat. (Maybe that's why.)

Okay, now I’m complaining. But that too – I suppose – is as British as talking of the weather, which brings us back to Gwyneth Paltrow, whom by doing both, last week became 'officially' British. It seems all is not yellow for Mrs Coldplay.

“Bring a raincoat, definitely,” she advises potential ex-pats in the US edition of Marie Claire magazine. “Or at least a little umbrella that can fit in your bag, because it always does rain.”

Even on the off chance that it’s not raining, things, according to Gwyneth, are still rather gloomy, with poor customer service and dirty streets. “My husband thinks I'm way too obsessed with cleanliness and germs. I'm just like, ‘The street is filthy, could we take off our shoes before we come into the house?’”

To be fair, Sylvia says the same. And at least one of the two has no complaints about British men. Gwyneth married Chris Martin in under a year and who knows what the future holds for Sylvia and Sam. At least he takes his shoes off.

Parting Shot

There was an awkwardness with which Peter swept his hair across his brow. Noticing it, I asked, “did you do something different with your hair today, Pete?”
“Yeah, I switched my parting,” he said, once the motion had completed its conspicuous path.
“Can you just…do that?” I asked.
“Well, guys usually have their parting on the left,” he said. “And girls on the right. But I thought I’d switch it up a little.”

My mouth curled into a smile at the thought of Pete, extending the switching up to his dressing habits, turning up at my flat, not as Peter Woods, sports fan and Dylan aficionado, but as Petra, wood strapped firmly to the thigh, bra stuffed with tissue and long black hair, parted from the right.

“Why do we bother with all these gender rules?” he asked, his sensible question interrupting my sordid thought. “Left or right, does it really matter?”

He’d had more profound thoughts, I’m sure, but his question was an interesting one. Watches, badges, earrings, depending on which side they’re worn, can indicate one’s gender or sexuality, in case it’s not already obvious (in which case, the ‘left or right’ dilemma is probably the least pressing).

“It makes me anxious,” he said, “these rules. I don’t know if I’m misrepresenting myself.” Throwing his hands dramatically in the air reminded me of Petra. “If I wear my watch on the right hand does that make me a girl?”
Wearing a bra does, I thought to myself.
“And if I wear an earring on my left ear, does that make me gay?”
“I think with the watch on your right hand it would make you a lesbian.” I said. Pete thought about it for a second, long enough for the excitement to wear off, imagined himself as Petra, stuffed bra and long hair, and unceremoniously switched his parting back, sweeping his hair across his brow so that it started at the left. Like a man.

The Crotch-Grabbing of Fate

In, what can only be described as a twist, a pirouette and a crotch-grabbing of fate, singer Michael Jackson today received a jury summons at his Neverland Valley Ranch in California – four months after he was acquitted on child molestation charges.

If anybody remembers the trouble lawyers had in finding a jury of his peers (although I think two-thirds female, and mostly white was about right), imagine the fun they’ll have with Jackson in the jury box. Although by the sounds of it, he could do with the $15 a day.

On his recent trip to London the singer spent only £85,000 in 30-minutes at Harrods. Looks like someone’s tightening the belt...

Rain Man

So, I’m standing outside my flat, in the rain, waiting for a cab in the busy rush hour traffic, when my neighbour walks by. We do the stop-and-chat thing. You know, how it goes.
“How are you?”
“Fine. How are you?”
“Fine.”

I extended things by asking where she was going.
“I’m just off to M&S to get some wine.”
“Ah,” I said, looked at my watch. Seeing that it was 10 minutes to closing time, I shouted over the noise of the traffic, “Well, you better quicken the pace!”

I mean, we don’t see each very other often. And, in doing the friendly neighbour thing, I didn’t want her to miss the shops. Besides, I think we had the stop-and-chat thing fairly covered. I was fine, she was fine, both our businesses were well. And anyway, I think you need the whole 10 minutes to get wine. You’ve got to get to the shop, you’ve got to decide the wine, you’ve got to queue. And nowadays you’ve got to factor for the charity collectors on the way, perhaps even alter your route.

My neighbour, on the other hand, thought this plenty of time, and perhaps mistook my volume for aggression, when in actual fact, I was just shouting over the traffic. “Ok,” she said, quietly, and then tip-toed away. Just as she did, a truck roared past.
“See you later!” I shouted. By the time my words reached her ears the noise had passed and all that remained was a screaming man in the rain.

The Big Three Killed My Baby

Oh, ITV. Is it not enough that you bombard us with bollocks programming every day? Were you not satisfied with your 50th Anniversary celebrations, reliving each year in what felt like real-time? Are you not filled with content when you produce yet another detective series with a maverick lead character? Why then, you gaudy yellow and blue thing, must you now interfere with my love life?

Okay, perhaps love life is a bit much. But when, last night, Lucia– a talented and charming, not to mention, gorgeous looking artist – wrote to alert me to her upcoming TV appearance I was, at first, hesitant. “I didn’t imagine that I’d see you next on ITV,” I wrote in my response. “Though you realise I’ll have to break my ‘no ITV’ rule to catch your show.”

And so I broke my rule. But not wanting to break the one that keeps me in the office, 9am-5pm, I programmed her lovingly into my PVR guide and returned home this evening, excited to be seeing her again, albeit on ITV. Imagine my disappointment then when I didn’t see Lucia on my screen, but instead an error message saying, that “the guide encountered a problem trying to download listings for this channel.”

The error message gave way to an e-mail alert. It was Lucia. “Hey, cheers for taking an interest in the programme!” she wrote. “I’d be interested to know what you think.”

I didn’t know what to think. The programme had not recorded. And so, what could have been a great opportunity to connect with Lucia on a personal level instead became another reason to hate ITV.

Think McFly. Think.

Another ghost from blog past is Vicky the Violinist. Remember the hot busker I asked out with the aid of a low-fat, savoury snack? (See Pretzel Logic) Well, it turns out, I’m seeing her again.

Don’t worry. I realise my actually dating a girl would probably bring about the demise of this here blog; and anyway, since my pretzel antics I’ve not heard a thing from young Vicky. So when I say I’m seeing her, I mean just that. She’s in the new McFly video.

Old Strangers

Connoisseur of the surreal, Louis Theroux, this week releases his first book, The Call of the Weird, in which he revisits the subjects of his television documentaries – the off-beat characters on the fringes of American society.

Tall, bespectacled and only just handsome, I often meet the comparison with the TV star, whom, I usually point out, was dubbed “the thinking woman’s crumpet” by a leading women’s magazine in 2001. As if to further our resemblance, this week I too found myself revisiting a subject of my blog.

You may remember a not-so-brilliant post that I wrote about an Indian-run chip shop on the fringes of the Shrewsbury town centre, and its blaspheming staff member that made a sincere effort to sound English.

Well, just yesterday, I saw him at his new place of work and, not content with now sounding English, his latest challenge, it seems, is to be a black man. Smiling behind the counter at McDonald’s, his newly acquired teeth gleaming like the golden arches, his hair a curious design, cut to appear like swept-back braided hair - “cornrows” I believe they’re called - he greeted me with the surprise of an old friend, when in actual fact - aside from both being Indian - we knew nothing about each other.

And, while I decided between fries and carrot sticks, he served the gentleman before me, a flustered looking, middle-aged man with greying hair and a temper fiery red. With the distinctive accent of upper-crust Britain and the manners of its stone-age ancestors, the man spat his order at the young immigrant. “And a bottle of Water,” he added.
Bagging the Big Mac, the young man reached for the fridge and asked in perfect RP, “was that a cup of tea?”
“No. A bottle of water, boy.”
And then with absolute grace, he handed over the water, took the man’s money and then, with a strange knowing glance my way – like old friends – said with a smile, “And here’s your change, sir,” before dropping the 50p piece into the charity box depository, just an inch from the man’s open hand. “Thank you.”

And with that, the man showed his ungleaming teeth, looked as though he was about to say something, but, unable to take from a children’s charity, simply walked away.

“And what can I get for you, my friend,” he said, as if he really knew me.
And, somewhat overwhelmed, I considered the last five minutes introduction enough, smiled – like an old friend – and gave him my order.

Kill the light, Save a Bird

Assembly Line

Trying to imagine the crowd in its underwear, as the age-old trick has it, complicates matters by several orders of magnitude, I discovered, when addressing 160 children last Friday. “Know your audience” would have been better advice. Instead, adult themed jokes fell on the young ears of disturbingly Y-front clad small boys as I spoke at a school assembly.

“A funny thing happened on the way to school gym hall today,” I started.

The Words and the Bees

When it comes to dating it’s not like I’m spoilt for choice. When presented with options however I somehow manage to spoil them for myself, finding flaws and faults that ultimately put me off. You know the thing, she’s got kids, she wants kids, she is a kid…

These are, I suppose, legitimate concerns. The latest however do test the boundaries of fairness. Should I be put off by someone’s misuse of English grammar?

It’s a common mistake, I suppose – to write “should of” instead of “should have.” It’s not like she slept with my brother. (Although my not having a brother kind of works in her favour.)

Then there’s the apostrophe. I imagine that would get between us, and probably in the wrong places.

And what of the semi-colon – the most underused of punctuation marks, so undermined by the comma? You can’t just whack it in when you feel like it. It has feelings.

But, San, you can’t date a semi-colon. You’re right, full stop.

Pretzel Logic

Many great men have fallen victim to the almighty pretzel. George W. Bush springs to mind. Who could forget the leader of the Free World, fainting and falling from his couch after choking on one? Here’s another story with a salty twist.

I usually walk away from team meetings with the most arduous of to-do lists, and last Monday was no different, save for the diamond in the rough – the task of sourcing musicians for a lunch event our company was organising.

Diamond, I say, since the requested musicians – two nubile, busking violinists – had quite a following in Shrewsbury. In fact, as an ardent follower myself, I had began altering my routine in order to pass them in the street, even stopping to give change. Especially odd, they might have thought, since with my iPod constantly in, I had never actually heard them play.

I passed them again after my meeting and they were indeed a sight for sore eyes. Pulling the little white things out of my ears (the iPod, that is, not the girls), I looked and listened as they played something by Mozart, or Beethoven, or something I’d heard on a TV commercial. And when they were done, I applauded, of course, told them I was a big fan of their work, and invited them to play at our event.

Since it was completely sold out I couldn’t offer the girls lunch during the event.
“That’s alright,” Vicky, the violist, said. “I’ll take a pretzel though.” She pointed at the bag in my hand.
“Okay,” I said, handing the snack. “And, since you’re clearly a fan, why don’t I bring you pretzels for the lunch as well.”
“Deal.”

And though I’d lost a pretzel I’d earned a phone number and I was happy; especially at the lunch event, where the girls played the one from the British Airways commercial. I even went out and bought the Best Classical Album in the World Ever…Vol. II CD, on which it appeared. Better still, I was really getting to like Vicky. She was cute and funny, and more importantly, found me funny, and spoke with the sort of posh accent you’d expect from a student of the Royal Academy.

Following the lunch, I sent Vicky a text message asking her out for a drink. But concerned that she didn’t immediately reply, and that SMS was not the right way to go about asking, I again headed into town, hoping to run into her. And I did.

And when she was done playing, what I think was one of the Four Seasons (probably ‘Summer’), she stopped to chat, alluding to the pretzels that I had forgotten to give at the lunch. Sensing a way to impress her, I decided to buy a bag and drop them in her violin case as she played.

And so, whilst she launched into ‘Autumn’ or something, I scoured the town centre for a bag of pretzels. Not being so popular outside of New York, never mind in the West Midlands, I struggled, only finding a bag from the Boots’ ‘Get in Shape: Low Fat’ range. I decided it was better than getting a bus to the supermarket from whence I’d originally found them, and so bought these, the healthier option, and dropped them in her case, as planned.

Later that evening Vicky responded to my text. “Thanks for the ‘Get in Shape: Low Fat Pretzels.’ Very considerate,” she wrote, mentioning nothing about going out for a drink. I hoped, if nothing else, that the pretzels would make her thirsty. But, of course, I thought, they were reduced in salt. Needless to say, I’ve not heard from her since.    

Message in a To: Box

Top Tip, readers: When sending a mass group e-mail, address it to yourself and put your contacts in the BCC box. That way, you get a copy (and everybody likes e-mail, even if from themselves) and the warring fractions of your social circle aren’t awkwardly placed together in the To: box, their e-mail addresses on display.

Have you ever glared at an impossibly impersonal group e-mail, its To: box a-brimming with addresses, and wondered why Timmy’s came before yours? Whether it would be inappropriate to e-mail your mate’s fit sister? Or who eatonsht@dku.edu is? (It’s Helen Thomas Eatons of Duke University, if you were wondering.)

I certainly had a few questions (and a few answers) upon receiving an ex-girlfriend’s change of address e-mail this morning. It seems she’s still with her boyfriend, whom she addressed first, and whom – it appears – has a surname worthy of ridicule. She’s also still in touch with her hot friends, whose e-mail addresses I now have, and with whom it has been a pleasure sharing a To: box.

Even more interesting was how fervently she added me to the list. I was the only recipient to appear thrice, ensuring the message’s delivery. Interesting especially since we don’t talk. Well, not since I wrote an extensive post about her on this here blog (see Postcard from the Camel's Mouth). Perhaps, knowing what a fan of Google I am, her switch to Gmail is an effort to get closer to me. Or perhaps I’m reading far too much into it. Perhaps, in fact, I should get back to work, before I find myself the only recipient of an angry e-mail from the boss.

Dressed to Kill

I had no sooner shelved a posting, called ‘Pocket Full of Poses’ on the advice that it was too self-obsessed, when tonight its sentiment rang violently true. Perhaps one day it will see the light as part of an unreleased collection for die-hard fans (I hear there are already bootlegs in Asia), but its gist was one of standard self-deprecating fare, alluding to the name-calling my appearance elicits, from foppish hair to impractically white leather loafers and every metrosexual muscle in between.

Beth – erstwhile girlfriend, incessant critic – argued that it was too insular and failed to connect with the larger, more pressing issues on readers’ minds: global terrorism, the ‘Islamic threat’, Craig off of Big Brother. Tonight however, I found that same insular subject the unwitting site of a body politic, a dapper scapegoat for our badly dressed social ills.

As I wandered the length and breadth of the bar, looking for my friends, I suddenly felt my conspicuousness. Tall, dark and in a carefully handpicked outfit, I was the antithesis of the short and pasty “chavs” that watched my every move. Unable to find a single familiar or even friendly face I sat myself between breasts instead and chatted to a lady by the bar. In this instance, I was a brunet having more fun than a blonde.

That was until the chavs, in their baseball caps and tracksuits, muscled in.
“What’s a gay twat doing with a bird like that?” one asked.
“Well, I’m not gay.” I said, thinking the situation itself made this quite obvious.
“Of course he’s gay,” one said to another. “Look at his shoes.”
At this the shoes shied away. Hoping to get a better a look, a third clamoured under the table, seemingly to be with the loafers.
“Don’t mate,” his friend warned. “He’s probably got a bomb in them!”

Which would, of course, if their theory proved correct, make me a gay terrorist. Could you imagine? (“Does my bomb look big in this?”) I assured my lady friend that I was indeed neither; that I was, in fact, a lover, not a fighter; and packed nothing more sinister than a sex bomb (sex bomb). Despite this, and I guess through fear of guilt by association, she too left.

But what is my association – what is my relationship to the phobias and the isms in the minds of those young men? Does my wearing white shoes make me gay? Does my having a brown face make me a terrorist? Are those the indicators - the tell-tale signs?

Last night I narrowly avoided a fight. The police were called in and the boys, who got more and more aggressive, left unscathed (the lucky bastards). This morning however, looking at the weekend papers, it seems some other young men, in Central London, didn’t escape the grip of the police so easily, nor the scorn of the tabloid press. “Got the bastards,” screamed the headline of The Sun, referring to the arrest of the suspected London bombers, stripped to their underwear, their brown faces filling the 11’’ X 7’’ page.

Turning over I saw another brown face but under a different headline. “Teenager Killed in Racist Attack,” and I thought to myself how tragically one begets the other. Hatred begets hatred. The “cowardly suicide bombers” of The Sun article are, after all, suspects, but their coverage in the news media breeds the kind of hatred that threatens to infect a nervous nation.

I don’t suspect this is the last time I will notice its effect. Nor can I change my brown face or my white shoes. Well, I suppose I can change the shoes. But why should I? George Michael, a singer who is actually gay and not adverse to a bit of white shoe wearing himself, sang in the aptly titled, ‘Freedom’, that “sometimes the clothes do not make the man.” But, for the chavs in their tracksuits, the suspected terrorists in their pants, and even for me, in my shiny white loafers, it’s often hard to escape the assumption. At least unscathted.

Goff or Go?

Strange though it seems, I hate to talk about art in an art gallery. I’d rather do that museum shuffle, hit the gift shop, gobble a panini (or what is essentially a toasted sandwich) and leave the whispering analyses to the culture vultures more in the know.

I’m always slightly afraid that one might overhear my transparent paraphrasing of the gallery programme, swoop down and brand me a philistine for my hopeless pronunciation of artists’ names. (Is it Goff or Go?)

Today at the Tate, I’ll admit, I took credit for some rather intelligent observations regarding Cubism that were not entirely my own. “Its radical fragmentation of the human body,” I said, glancing at the museum notes, “and aggressively angular forms could also be seen to reflect a troubled and changing world.”
“Gosh.” The lady was suitably impressed. “And who painted this?”
“Diego…” I began, having caught the first name in my discreet glancing. “…Maradona.”
“The football player?”
“That’s right.”
At this point, she too glanced at the museum notes. My eyes followed and soon realised that my hopeless pronunciation had exposed me again. The lady, also realising this, slowly pulled her jacket from the bench, shuffled towards the gift shop and left me for the vultures. It was Rivera, I thought. Bloody Diego Rivera.

There's no such thing as a three lunch

It used to be I’d say to people, “hey, I’m getting kind of fat.” And people would say, “what are talking about?” with some surprise, “you’re totally skinny.” Then recently, I’d say the same, and they’d go, “yeah, you are putting on some weight.” Now, quite remarkably, people are volunteering this information. “Dude,” they say, looking at my belly. “You’re fat.”

How did this happen? In just a few months I’ve gone from floater to bloater. My blazers are tight (and not like in an indie rock and roll kind of way), my jeans don’t fit and, well, I don’t even want to talk about the swelling in my feet. I find myself wearing more black, saying stuff like, “moment on the lips, lifetime on the hips”, and asking retails assistants if my bum looks big in any number of outfits.

Now that everybody and their mama is noticing (never mind that my lifestyle is inherently unhealthy), I feel driven by vanity to act quickly. This involves switching from regular M&S ready meals to their ‘Count on Us’ low-calorie range, drinking spirits instead of beer and occasionally – get this – walking over to the TV to change the channel. (That won’t last.)

But, before my toes disappear beneath the shadow of my belly, I am going to have to do something. Even if that means just eating the one lunch.

Romeo, Juliet and her three kids

When a friend of mine, Amanda Mullins, called Friday night and suggested I go to bed early in preparation for the ball she and her husband had invited me to, I did just that. Though it was early, like early morning, by the time I got to bed and late afternoon when I woke up and vowed to never drink again.

I was therefore most excited, and somewhat hungover, to attend the Prestfelde School Summer Ball, an annual knees-up for the sort of well-to-do parents whose incomes could afford its offspring’s private education. And so, as a childless, single, twentysomething male, I expected to fit right in, though perhaps bore more likeness to its pupils than parents.

The Mullins had invited me – and I was flattered – because they couldn’t think of “another single guy” and, frankly, it doesn’t get any more single than this. They had a spare seat on their table that needed filling and my ass stepped up – and sat down – to the job. I didn’t really give much thought to whom I might be sitting next to, or whether my attendance made an even number and therefore some lucky lady’s night.

Was this a blind date?

When Amanda’s husband, Steve, picked me up yesterday afternoon for a little pre-ball drinkage that question was answered. No, Steve was not my date. She was inside, finishing her nails, and while Steve ran in to collect her, I spoke to her neighbours and realised that this was very much a date.
“She looks absolutely stunning,” one said. “She’s doing her nails last.”
“Yep,” I said. “That’s the way I do it.”

Then out she came – Juliet – and, true to her neighbour’s word, looked, and this is no overstatement, absolutely stunning. I suddenly felt tiny in my suit and swore that the guy who had rented it to me had only convinced me that it fit because it was late in the day and they didn’t actually have my size. Bastard.
“Hi,” I said, extending a hand from somewhere in my massive dinner jacket. “I’m San.”
“Nails,” she said.
“Right.” And the evening would continue, in a mostly awkward fashion. “We can just wave.”

And, as we left, three children did, waving at Juliet and staring at the boy that sat beside her, not much older than themselves. Staring back at little Alvin, Simon and Theodore, I realised that they were her kids and I was on date with – in its literal sense – a MILF. And she looked stunning - tall, dark, handsome in a feminine way, and in a sexy black dress that plunged in all the right places. She even looked like a certain soap star I’d harboured strong feelings for. This was going great, I thought. But things were about to get worse.

Drinks with the Mullins became an open discussion about kids and grandkids even. And since I’m not long out of my own childhood I could at least bring a different perspective to the table. When Juliet left to go outside for a cigarette I decided to take up smoking and join her. It was then that we realised the twelve years between us. “That’s a whole person!” she exclaimed. “That’s almost a teenager.”
I tried to downplay it by stepping a little closer and giving it the old, “you’re as young as the person you feel,” but in saying so, sounded about twelve.

The evening continued in much the same way. She popped out for a smoke, I joined her, said something wildly inappropriate, and generally ballsed it up. I asked her to dance however, which I thought was rather appropriate, since we were at a ball, but she insisted that she didn’t. This, like my sudden smoking habit, was untrue, and I soon found myself swinging into her on the dance floor. It seems we were both with other people and, at least, having a good time, albeit not with each other.

And while Juliet swung with Steve – or so it seemed – Amanda asked how it was going.
“Yeah good,” I said. “I think. I mean, I haven’t actually seen her very much.”
“I’m sorry, San,” She said, genuinely apologetic. “I thought you were the same age - that you might have something in common.”
“She’s 34.” I said. “And yeah, I suppose, she likes Coldplay.”
“I like Coldplay!”
“Everybody likes Coldplay.” We both burst into laughter with this and, while the house band segued into a rather jazzy version of ‘Yellow’, took to the dance floor. The disco lights dimmed a predictable colour and, looking around at all the parents, all tuxes and ball gowns aglow, I realised that for one night, with their kids tucked in bed, they were in their twenties again. Amanda was totally drunk, Steve was dancing outrageously with my date, and I think someone was even smoking a spliff outside. And everybody was liking Coldplay.

And when I kissed Juliet goodnight I knew that in the morning she’d be in her thirties again, and I wondered if, in ten summer’s time, I might be here, in my thirties, acting twenty and with kids of my own. It was a sobering thought. And, with it, I vowed to never drink again.

Message from sansharma.com

Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted by Bylli Crayone (xxx@Yahoo.com) on Tuesday, June 21, 2005 at 20:14:49

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Location: Boston, MA USA

Body: Hi. I found your site from another fan of MJ who had your pic on her site. I thought to myself "Wow, he is cute!" I clicked the photo thinking it would make the photo bigger but instead brought me to your website. Very impressive. I think you are amazing and would love the opportunity to talk or even meet you.

Sincerly, An online Admirer.

~Bylli Crayone

www.BylliCrayone.com

write back please.

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Your Hapless Hero

People have noted that I, more so than others, seem to find myself in those awkward situations that are funny in retrospect. Perhaps, with a mixture of oddball humour and sadomasochism, I place myself in such situations. Beth has suggested that it’s not the frequency with which they happen but the way in which they are told. Or maybe I’m just that goofy. Either way, the following – unfortunately – really did happen to me. And all in the space of a few days.

---

The weather has been unusually hot. Or so it seems. We Brits, I’ve noticed, are always surprised by the changing of seasons. It’s like we didn’t know it was coming. And although it’s June, generally considered a summer month, the warm and pleasant weather is a major topic of conversation. “Isn’t it hot?” we say to one another, and will continue to until around October when we’ll say, “Isn’t it cold?”

This past weekend was particularly hot and so I slept with my bedroom window wide open. As did, so it transpired, the girl upstairs. She’s pleasant enough and though we’ve not struck an immediate friendship exactly, we’re certainly on “hi” and “hello” terms.

I was most surprised in the morning however to hear her add another greeting to our phrasebook. “Good morning,” she said, followed by a yawn and the sort of creaking that I can only assume was her stretching in her bed.
“Ah,” I said, pleasantly surprised. “Good morning.”
Then, after another creak, this time louder, a third person added, “good morning.” It seems, further to my surprise, that she was not alone. I was, or so it felt, more so than ever and while my neighbour and her male friend continued their creaking I rolled over, awkwardly, and hid under the covers.

---

More often than not my trips to the supermarket are long overdue and I find myself walking back with more bags than I can manage. On this particular morning I hadn’t walked far at all when two bags broke and twelve bottles of Becks smashed around me in a sort of fountain of beer.

I’d not even made it passed the car park and, since it was a Saturday, there was plenty in the way of unhelpful though entertained shoppers. One of whom was an old lady, so British in her unfriendliness that she stared at me as though I’d wronged her in some way. “That wasn’t very clever, was it?” she snarled. “Well, I wasn’t going for clever.” I quipped, before crouching down to pick up the pieces. What my motivation was exactly, I don’t know, but what happened next was an even greater mystery.

I’ve come to accept that the zipper on my jeans has a tendency to open by itself. I kind of view it as being playful, though at times inappropriate. (Again, my apologies to Shrewsbury High School.) But I’ve never known the top button to undo itself. That was until this moment, crouched in a pool of beer, when I stood out of my jeans. That’s right. I stood up. My jeans did not. And the little old lady suddenly fell silent. As embarrassed as I was, I was quite proud of that fact.

---

No pride could be gleamed however from this story. Already embarrassed by the heat rash that the surprising weather had caused my face, it was with reluctance that I accepted an invitation to a barbecue with my friend Sïan. Told that – “rash or no rash” – I could not flake (though, if you saw my face, you’d beg to differ), I met Sïan after work and we caught a cab to the barbecue. I’d no sooner commented on the taxi’s clean upholstery when I had the sort of nosebleed that upholstery dreads.

To make matters worse nobody had anything to stop the bleeding. Well, that is nobody had any tissue. Sian however had panty liner, which she – in the panic and the rush hour traffic - shoved under my nose. Imagine the scene, if you will: I’m sitting in a stationary taxi, pedestrians wandering past, holding a bloody panty liner to my face. I’m sure the other guests were similarly charmed with the delicacy I brought to the barbecue. “Gosh,” one said, looking over. “Isn’t it hot?”

Michael Jackson: The Monster that Lurks Among Us

The three month trial that ended this week with the acquittal of Michael Jackson was the ultimate assassination-of-character attempt on the one time King of Pop. And as he emerged for the final time from the Santa Maria courthouse Monday he was a free, albeit shadow of a man, hobbling to his SUV, barely managing to raise a hand to acknowledge his fans, many of whom recognise him now only as a zombie from his Thriller music video.

He appeared the relic of a human being, whom once, to quote Sir Bob Geldof, sang “with the voice of angels. And when his feet move, you can see God dancing.” His fall from grace was neatly packaged for network television and we gawped and gazed, not at the mastery of his art, but at the curiosity of his demise. From master to monstrosity, Michael Jackson is, at best, a freak.

But Michael Jackson is us.

Since he was a child, he has had the tragic misfortune of having been cast as a lightning rod for our cultural diseases: racism, homophobia, gender confusion, celebrity obsession, sexual obsession, materialism, beauty obsession, paedophilia, security obsession. The bomb that loomed over Jackson’s head over the last few months can not be underestimated.

And it took 12 sensible-minded men and women seven days to defuse it.

We can see the way American culture has deteriorated to a society at war with itself – eager to demonize, unable to heal – in the tragic deterioration of Jackson's face and form. The crossover King of the 1980s, who offered a true promise, to quote Funkadelic, of “one nation under a groove,” left the courthouse on Monday to a more divided America.

The ugly ordeal of the past few months revealed a monster that lurks among us. Only it turns out the monster was not the freak.

It was the assassin.

Jerry Maguire 2

Hello. Of all American romantic comedies, Jerry Maguire is probably the least likely to spawn a sequel. That is, of course, unless Tom Cruise and Renée Zellweger were to reprise their roles for a decidedly downbeat divorce drama. (Can you imagine? Jerry Maguire 2: “Show me the child support!”)

Still, I delivered a memo with such veracity last night that it left me feeling, and not for the first time, like our chisel-jawed hero. Short of taking the gold fish with me (I do hope you’ve seen the film), I outlined my idea to revolutionise business to a somewhat panic-stricken company director.

“Oh God. What is that?” She asked, pointing at page three of the memo.
“That...that is a sketch of my brain.”
“Right.”
“It delineates how much of it I use for each task…”
“Was there a need for the blood?”
“I thought it would add...effect.” Then, standing suddenly, I shouted, “who’s with me?!”
“San, there’s no-one else in the room.”

And so the meeting continued. She pointed at indecipherable sketches; I explained my intentions; all the while, skating the underside of thin-ice, aware that at any point – and I almost expected it at the page headed, “Don't Chase Money” – she might present me with a box of my belongings (which is always the way people are fired in movies. Have you noticed?).

Instead, she went very quiet, gathering her thoughts, I guess, and the memo that lay strewn across the table. And in the silence, I pictured a box somewhere, filling with executive toys, issues of NME, an assortment of biscuits, and whatever else I have on my office desk (overdue work probably).

It’s unlikely that I will be fired. But, if I did have to go, it would be nice to have a fish or a Renée Zellweger to take with me. And you, of course. Though I had you at ‘hello,’ right?

See You Next Thursday

It’s the fear of right wing Daily Mail readers everywhere: The colourful immigrants that dot our towns are not painting them red, or enriching them with their cultures, but quietly muttering insults upon its locals. Have you ever sat on a train, overheard foreign language speakers and thought, for a minute, that the joke they’re sharing with their friends is on you?

Surely not, I thought. But today, I found myself – and not for the first time – sharing the fears of a Daily Mail reader. (The first time I was genuinely worried about the Y2K Bug.)

The Town Frier in Shrewsbury is a brilliantly named chip shop in the centre of town, and run by a family of Indian immigrants, one of whom I’ve taken a particularly shine too. (Chip shop workers too, I find, are particularly shiny people.) He’s made a sincere effort to sound English and, since knowing him, I’ve noticed an improvement from the Carry On language of yesteryear, to the sort of Gallagher brother English he employs today, going as far as referring to his younger brother as “our kid.”

He does usually converse with his family in Punjabi, and fair enough. Today however the conversation took a turn for the worse and, upon handing the customer ahead of me his order, he muttered a word that, translated into English, is generally considered the language’s lowest point. To his credit, however, it was at least in keeping with his adopted Gallagher tone.

And if you haven’t already guessed it, a Google search, at least with the Safe Filter on, returns a dissertation on the word’s cultural history.

****: A Cultural History

English Tea

"What happens when you leave tea in a cup overnight?" My Gran asks - in Punjabi - while I sip on a good English cuppa.
I reply the best I can - in English. "Er, Santa Claus drinks it?"
"The cup stains black."
"Right."
"So, what do you think happens to your insides when you drink tea?"
Surely not, I think to myself. Overwhelmed by this, I take one last breath of fresh air before the stale lecture about what I should and should not be drinking begins.

Water, milk and orange juice are all good apparently. (One can only imagine the colours swilling inside my gran's belly.)
"Do you drink water?" She asks.
"In my tea I do." It's a good job I didn't mention all the Guinness that was had last night.

She actually believes this stuff though, that's the funny thing. She actually thinks, as I write this, that I'm staining my soul, or what remains of it, black. You see, she thinks it's despicable that I speak so little Punjabi, though I can understand most. I would like to defend myself by saying that she's been in England for fifty years, while I've seen the occasional Bollywood movie, and still my Punjabi is streets ahead of her English, but a) it's a bit disrespectful and b) my command of the language is not yet that great.

I'm now fearing for my insides as she shoves a large and brightly coloured Indian dried milk pudding under my nose. I try some.
"You like?" That's the most English she can manage. That, and "you no like?" depending on the situation.
"Yes Gran," I say. But, like brightly coloured, saccharine Bollywood movies, it's definitely one for small doses. And so I decline a second helping - or forcing, rather.
"You either like it or you don't. I don't understand." We're back to Punjabi now and then, in a shock move, she unleashes a torrent of English. "You like it? You no like it?"
I swear to God, or rather many many limbed Gods, if my family weren't Hindu they'd be Jewish. And so I open my mouth, though not to speak, take another bite and think this would all taste a lot better with some good English tea.

Lost in Transmission

You may remember the story of Dana, the girl from Ohio, the bunch of roses I sent and the ‘thank you’ that never was: an episode we at sansharma.com are calling ‘flowergate’ (conjures a lovely image, doesn’t it?). I had just as soon put the whole incident behind me when, late last night, my mobile beeped (or rather played a Bright Eyes song, as I have it set) with a message. It was Dana, clearly unfamiliar with the workings of the world clock, texting at what was already an unsociable hour in her time zone, and, evidently, the middle of night in mine.
“How are you doing” it read, sans punctuation. “Well I hope”

Having just woken up from a particularly harrowing dream (Vanessa Feltz again), my brain, booting in Safe Mode, struggled with the syntax of the short and punctuation-free message. I remembered how texting is far less of a common thing in America and assumed that, being unfamiliar with the system altogether, Dana had sent the message prematurely, failing to finish her sentence.
“Well I hope,” she may have intended to write, “you might forgive me for not thanking you sooner…”

And so in my semi-slumber I replied with what, in retrospect, might seem a remarkably rude message.
“If there was anything interesting in that message,” I wrote. “I didn’t get it,” thinking, of course, that something was lost in transmission. Then, alluding to the bunch of roses, “did you get a delivery recently?”

No sooner was my message delivered when hers suddenly made sense. “How are you doing?” it should have read, question mark and all. “Well, I hope.” Full stop. “Well, I hope.” Not, “well I hope...Liverpool win the bloody Champions League tomorrow night.” Needless to say, she did not reply to my message. I doubt even that she got my flowers. She would have said thanks, wouldn’t she? Well one would hope so…

Love, In Actual Fact

Driving to the airport tonight at top speed and with the Bridget Jones soundtrack ablaring, I had the odd feeling that I was on some romantic quest to halt the departure of an unrequited loved one. Odd especially since I am in, actual fact, collecting my parents, whom I love...requitedly (though unromantically), on return from their holiday. Even now, sitting in arrivals I’m tempted to run at someone and say, “Stop! I bloody love you!” In fact, I’m actually considering the redhead in the knee-high boots. Imagine how that would go…
“Pardon?”
“I said ‘I love you’…what’s your name?”
“What?!”
“That doesn’t matter to me. So, I don’t know your name…” A crowd is now forming around us. A security guard puts down his scanning device and listens in. An air hostess stops in her tracks. “I don’t even know if you have a boyfriend - ”
“I’m married.”
“Right.” Just then hubby walks over. “I didn’t know that. But I do know – what is your name?”
“Diane.”
“Right. I do know, Diana –”
“It’s Diane.”
“Sorry – Diane. I do know that I love you.” With that female members of the audience swoon. “And you mustn’t get on that plane.”
“What’s going on here, Diane?” Diane’s husband is a remarkably large man, and I begin to wish that I'd picked on the minger in the tracksuit. She’s obviously single. “Is this bloke bothering you?”
“He says I mustn’t get on the plane.” The audience awakes from the slumber of their swooning and gasps in fear.
“Nobody board the plane!” The husband shouts to the crowd. And then quieter but with no less urgency, to me. “Especially not you.” Then everything goes dark.

Awaking from this thought I’m relieved to find that I am not covered in blood and reconsider the whole romantic terrorism thing altogether. Instead, I watch returnees wheel their luggage from the carousel to the crowd, appearing from behind a screen, looking tanned and tired and for family and friends. As I stand with them and behind the barrier that separates the tanned from the untanned (which I am, I’m not sure), I think to myself that it’s an arrangement not unfamiliar to celebrities the world over. The security, the barricades, the adoring fans. Throw in some red carpet, supermodel Caprice and a Star Wars prequel (not much, I know) and we’ve got ourselves a movie premiere.

The old man approaching is there already, waving at nobody in particular but enjoying his moment all the same. Hey, I know the next couple...It’s R2D2 and C3PO – my mum and dad, back from a Balearic Island, far, far away.

Sorry for the Delay

Sorry for the delay…Man, I start a lot of sentences that way.
“Sorry for the delay in replying…”
“Sorry for the delay getting here…”
“Sorry for the delay in child support, Little Jimmy (which is what we’ve called him)...”

I am sorry for not having written sooner. Although, to be fair, I have been writing – but it’s been so sub-standard that I’ve had to lock it away in a safe. Perhaps one day it’ll appear as a bootleg at a book fair. (Do authors have bootlegs? This is how much I read.)

This lack of anything interesting to write about, I’m sure, comes from a lack of doing anything interesting. You don’t want to know what I’ve been doing. Although, now I feel obliged to tell you, before you draw your own – very sinister – conclusions.

I’m currently fifteen miles (and five years) from my flat, and in the town where I spent my formative years, house-sitting for my parents while they sit on a Balearic Island, soaking up the sun. And since I’m unable to compromise the life of comfort and convenience that I have become accustomed to at the flat, I find myself driving between my two residences several times a day.

All this is very tiring. So much so that I’m getting my chores all mixed up and have started watering the dog and walking the plants. This is one reason for my delay in writing. Another is that things are particularly busy at work. I don’t imagine if I worked day and night that I’d get everything done. And so, when I’m wide awake, and less busy, I’ll write more. I am really sorry for the delay.

Thank you, please

I hold doors open for people all the time. Sometimes it’s an inconvenience. You know, when you’ve already walked quite some way but see someone coming and hang back in a sort of limbo, holding the door with just a few fingers and an act of balance. But they say “thanks.” And I let people out at junctions when I’m driving. I can be there for a while, just waving people through. They nod. Sometimes they mouth the words. But it’s usually “thank you”. (Once it I think it was, “what are you doing? I saw you here an hour ago!”) And you know, if you’re in my office, and I’m making a cup of tea, I’ll make you one. And you’ll probably say thanks. But these are minor gestures really. Small acts of kindness. Nothing a little appreciation doesn’t make worthwhile. So imagine, if one day, you do all those things – those little things – and add to them one grand gesture. And then no “thank you”.

You see, I met this girl...And so many stories start this way, but this one doesn’t end in tears, or a fleeing to America, or a restraining order. This girl, and I think I’ve mentioned her already, I met in Miami (so we were already in America – no fleeing necessary) and, frankly, we hooked up for the time I was there. Nothing serious. I mean, we did get on (and ‘it on’), and exchanged contact details and all that, but, of course, had no realistic plan to see each other again. She did however ask me to call her some time for a chat, but I got the impression that she didn’t really think that I would. And, in fairness, I didn’t.

But, last week, when Cinco de Maya struck (if you don’t know, a sort of Mexican holiday where there’s lots of beer and Gringos are killed and eaten), I thought to send a case of Corona to her home in Ohio. I thought it’d be a kind gesture. Like a ‘I-had-a-great-time-haven’t-forgotten-you-the-results-were-negative-from-the-clinic’ type thing. But it turns out, such are the laws in Ohio, that it’s incredibly difficult, if illegal, to order alcohol online. And so, with the determination to send something, I ordered flowers, albeit roses, but not red and not with a note worth noting. I didn’t mention the clinic, but did allude to the great time we had together and my original, though unhatched, plan to send her a case of beer. It was kind of funny actually and, at least I thought, sweet. And certainly deserving of a “thank you”.

But here we are. Not a phone call. Not an e-mail. Not even a nod. No “thanks” whatsoever. But it’s not like I’m going to ask for one. (If I did, I would probably say “please.”) And so, as my good friend Beth kindly calculates the ludicrous cost per rose of this grand gesture, and I wonder if I might get a refund, I ask you, dear reader: when did a “thank you” require a “please”?

The Company I Keep

It’s not unusual in my line of work to find myself in the company of “grown-ups”. At 22, a director of a company, and a darling of local press, I am the Doogie Howser of the Shropshire business network. I expect at least a ten year gap either side whenever I sit at a business dinner. Imagine my surprise then tonight, when I found myself sandwiched between two high school girls.

Emma Jordan from Bridgnorth and Lucy Fairweather from Shrewsbury were tonight representing their schools at a Shropshire Young Enterprise Awards dinner and I, the middle-man, was there to lend a hand – or two, actually - applauding the names in envelopes.

Having only been in television audiences for the Oscars, Grammies and Randies (the Porn Awards), I hadn’t realised what long and laborious things they can be. Obviously, I don’t applaud the winners from my sofa at home (I may have cheered at Ron Jeremy’s Lifetime Achievement Award), but tonight I was pretty exhausted from all the clapping. I decided mid-way to clap only once per winner, which others at my table thought was sort of rude, and otherwise reserved my energy for the girls either side.

Conversation however, was no less laborious.

“So…do you have any nicknames, Emma?”
“Yes,” she said, rather timidly. “HP.”
“Ah…big fan of brown sauce?”
“No.”
“IT solutions company?” I scratched my head. “Harry Potter?”
I never did find out. Instead I turned to Lucy. “So…do you like brown sauce?”

When I come to think of it, I don’t think I got more than one word responses from either the entire night. And so it dragged on, one syllable at a time. And I thought to myself how rarely I sit beside someone my own age. It’s either one word or long words. If I could take the average age of the company I keep I might find someone who speaks with the right amount of syllables – someone my own age, at least.

“Now for the award we’ve all been waiting for,” the compare announced. “The award for best written report.”

And then it dawned on me, I’m looking for them in all the wrong places.

Domestic Bliss

My friend, Pete, and I use the term loosely, has expressed his doubt in my ability to not sound “like a complete wanker” (as I feared in the post below) and actually write altogether.

Perhaps the very nature of having a blog, a web site and a short-run of sansharma.com t-shirts, is, in itself, rather wankerish, but before I move on from that awful word, its variations (wankerisms, if you will), and the subject altogether, I’d like to assure you that my delay in writing is due to nothing more sinister than the my recent indulgence in domestic bliss.

What’s this? Has our lanky hero finally settled down and made an honest man of…himself? Not quite. I mean ‘domestic’ as in appliances. Though my reckless spending is usually reserved for the type of gizmo and gadgetry of a teenage boy’s dry dreams, I recently made the snowy trek from the black to the white goods section at the local electrical superstore and came home with an object of desire that is ultimately a treat for the nose, rather than the eyes or the ears.

Before you think that I’m this excited about a plug-in air freshener (though some are indeed very exciting) let me say that I bought a new washer and dryer and am smelling so fresh and so clean.

Is it weird to be this excited about laundry? Maybe it is. But bear in mind that, since November, I have fortnightly carried my soiled clothing through the streets of Shrewsbury to a colleague’s washing machine and back, damp and steaming, through a similarly hot and sweaty crowd of pubbers and clubbers.

Now, as I write, the machine spins just behind me, its 1200rpm vibrating my chair in a way that is not entirely unpleasant. Things are, in fact, getting quite hot and steamy. This is the worst kind of domestic bliss.

Sounds Like...

I'm sure, blog readers, that you've noticed a decline in quality since my editor-in-chief, Beth, up and left me, her post, and the long arm of the law, for a future of fugitivity in the US.

My most recent post, short of upsetting the friends, family and colleagues to whom I have recently returned, elicited a phone call from the Beth and some suggestions on my writing style.

"Before you post an entry," she began. "Just think, 'does this make me sound like a complete wanker?'"

And so with Beth's simple yet effective test in mind I hope you'll notice an improvement of sorts. Or at least a blogger, sounding less like a wanker.

These Boots

If I flirted with happiness in America, it's certainly been given the boot today. And it took a severe kicking when I found myself violently thrust into life – or something like it – in Cruel Britannia.

I’m staying with my parents in Telford, Shropshire this weekend, my sisters in tow, and suddenly my post-vacation blues have been given a harmonica and a bottle of Southern Comfort. My family, though usually served on the rocks, have been pretty neat and, at least, have appeared interested in my travels.

There was a moment however, shopping with my sister and my mum, when I thought I might become irrational. We went to a fabric shop, a garden centre and a car accessory store, none of which stocked anything that I could use: I don’t have a car; I don’t have a garden; and I have little or no interest in buying fabric.

Worse still, immersed as I was in Telford's Saturday shopper crowd, I thought what a generally unattractive people the British public are. Sure, there are the occasional gems – Kiera Knightly, Catherine Zeta Jones, Princess Diana – but it’s always the same old story: they move to America, or they marry a Douglas...or they die.

Still, I shouldn't judge England by Telford's standards. It’s not like its streets are flooded with talent scouts, looking for England’s next top model. The attractive people, they’ve realised, have fled to the cities, or at least, a little north, to Shropshire's county town, Shrewsbury.

With this thought, and some (northern) comfort, I wandered the garden centre and resisted the temptation of irrationality. I did not smash the terracotta pots that I held for my sister, but instead subjected her and the rest of my family to a rather thorough (though not wholly comprehensive) slideshow of my travels.

Swigging on our memories, happiness and I flirted again, and I thought to myself, with all the rationality of a drunk, about taking another trip. This time however, I'll be heading north and back home, to Shrewsbury. And though these boots were made for walking, and maybe one of these days that's what they'll do, tonight I'm looking forward to taking them off, putting my feet up and having a drink, perhaps a Corona, to the future.

Postcard from grey skies

What was I thinking? After a seven hour flight with the shutters down and only English people to see I'm eating my words and paltry English food. In my last post I waxed lyrical about England and its people and about seeing them differently and can only deduce that between catching all those trains, planes and Greyhound buses, I caught the great American love bug - the Oprahtics, the bloody heart sleeves, and now, back in England, I'm filled with grey skies, faces and frowns. I've seen the English people, from the airport to the train station, paraded before me like a grotesque theatre of the macabre and will have to look much harder to the find the beauty between the beasts. Hello dire customer service, hello England.

Postcard from the Last Day: Atlanta, GA

It's an image some might associate with "real America": Two cops are sitting in a road side diner, sipping coffee and actually eating donuts.

But they're not overweight, as you might imagine, nor are they male; hell, they're not even White! What's going on? you might ask.

Before they rush off to fight crime (they've actually just ordered more coffee), I think to myself, on the final day of my trip, of the lessons that I've learned. Have I learned about myself? Sure. I've learned that I have very sensitive teeth; that I'm a chocoholic (but for Corona); and that I'm not so bad with women (and that having a British accent, though only incidental back home, is pretty valuable here).

I've also learned that the pursuit of "real America", which I suggested was the point of this trip, is pointless in nature. "Real America" is not what I imagined. It's the people that have constantly altered my perception. It's the slim, Black policewomen; the Cubans in Miami; the girl from Dayton, Ohio (who I know for sure does not have a tattoo on the small of her back); the gamblers and the drunks in Las Vegas; the hopeful of Hollywood; Michael Jackson; the ex-girlfriends; the trendy and spendy of San Francisco; the Jazz; the Bostonians.

On the train to the airport at the very outset of this trip I peered into the gardens of suburbia and deduced, like a shitty Dr Watson, that people's lives were roughly the same. I saw paddling pools, rock gardens and patios. But I didn't see the people.

And though I don't expect to see slim, Black policwomen, or Michael Jackson, for that matter (not until he gets his passport returned, at least), I might look at England and its people through different eyes and, at least until those two weeks in July we Brits call summer, a different light. Goodbye sunshine, goodbye America.

Postcard from South Beach, Miami

In his 1997 hit, 'Miami', West Philidephia (born and raised) Will Smith offered an insightful and comprehensive introduction to the Sunshine State's very own Sin City. And as I near the end of my stay here on South Beach I find truth in the former Fresh Prince of Bel Air's lyrics. True dat, you might say.

Miami is an intoxicatingly beautiful place, awash with sunlight intensified natural colours and, at night, aglow under a neon lit skyline. Looking out at palm trees swaying in the breeze and, with some guilt, a topless beach, it is hard to imagine a better looking city.

Half of its two million population is Hispanic, the vast majority Cuban; all, it seems, beautiful.

Postcard from the small of a back

Is it just me, or is anybody else beginning to find girls who don't have tatoos on the small of their backs exotic?

Postcard from Ohio. That's right. Ohio.

Cincinnati, Ohio is probably the best place to write about Las Vegas, and as I await my connecting flight to Miami, a sobering respite from the two notorious party towns on my itinerary.

And although I made a deal with myself that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, I can tell you this: Never before have the relative creative powers of man and nature inspired and appalled me with such veracity than yesterday. It is a story of love and hate. Two houses, both alike in magnitude, the first the Vegas Strip, painted in broad, neon brush strokes; the second, the Grand Canyon, in a much gentler orange hue, are built on and into the neighbouring states of Nevada and Arizona.

It took but a short, and albeit expensive, helicopter trip to realise that Vegas, the glowing and glamourous lady of the night was a gaudy and vulgar thing by day. And, as is so often the case the "morning after", I was hungover, a few bob short and filled with regret.

But flying into the Canyon last night I fell in love. Perhaps because, sitting as I was, awkwardly between two Honeymooning couples, there was a lot of love in the air. Nevertheless, this gaping 18 mile wide hole in the lunar-like landscape is a thing of magnificent beauty. And although I spent a lot money getting there it was certainly well spent. And a much safer bet than Vegas.

Postcard from Hollywood

They say that LA can be described as 19 suburbs in search of a city. And tonight, sitting in one just two blocks from Hollywood boulevard, I imagine that the 19 or so people at the bar are in search of something no less imaginary.

Whereas other bars have looked upon my spectacle wearing, coffee sipping, notebook scribbling self with some suspicion, in Hollywood I'm just another writer, and looking around I wonder if I'll ever see these people in the movies or on television.

Tonight, I highly doubt it. Statistically speaking the odds are very slim. Perhaps only one of the 19 at the bar will find what they're looking for - fame, fortune, a fan-base. But for the 18 others, like suburbs in search of a city, those dreams will remain undiscovered. Here, like nowhere else, the stars light the pavements and not the sky. "Are you a writer?" the barman asks. And since everybody else here is acting, I nod. "Welcome to Hollywood."

Postcard from Neverland

Fumbling in my blazer pocket, which hangs noticeably on non-Michael Jackson t-shirt clad shoulders, I feel my way through Granola bars and candy for a non-perishable to give to the King of Pop. Everybody else here has fluffy toys, books and banners. All I find is a 30c postcard from Santa Cruz, actually intended for another aficionado of small boys, my mate Steve from Essex. It shows a freshly caught shark, blood dripping from its mouth. Not the most appropriate gift for a self-professed lover of animals (and indeed proponent of violence towards), but nevertheless I scrawl on the back:

Dear Michael Jackson,
Look what I caught fishing! If you get a chance visit my website, sansharma.com
Love,
San (from England)

I added the "from England" in case he knew another San in the area. Almost as soon as I do a black SUV drives up to the gates. Michael Jackson is back, after a day in court, to what he calls home and what we, this side of the gate, call Neverland.

Like shabbily dressed G8 delegates the crowd here have come from major industrialised nations: the US, France, Germany, Spain, Japan, Australia and, as represented by yours truly (and regrettably one other guy from Blackpool) the UK. And what with all the Jesus Juice we've been sipping I desperately need to pee. And while the others here are wriggling with excitement, I am only to keep it in.

But when his window winds down and an enormous white hand with alabaster fingers extends to net the gifts thrust before him I nearly let it out. Instead, and after 15 years of fan worship and adulation, face to gaunt, ghostlike face with my idol, I ask him if I can use his bathroom, laugh nervously and hand him a postcard of a bloody fish.

Postcard from Court

"Welcome to Santa Maria," he says. And then with the blatant disregard for accuracy that we have come to expect from Fox News reporters, "It´s a million miles from England!"

And that´s where I am. Well, more precisely, I´m sitting in the media camp just outside the small courthouse where Michael Jackson is currently fighting multiple charges of abduction, false imprisonment and child molestation.

Here, from a shanty town of satellite dishes and news vans, the media provide daily updates on the court proceeding. But news reports that Santa Maria is a quant and charming place does little to endorse its credibility.

Tomorrow morning however it will become an altogether more glamorous place, albeit under dismal circumstances, when Michael Jackson walks from his blacked-out SUV to the white washed walls of the Santa Maria courthouse.

In the words of two infamous Californians, one the leader of the state, originally from Europe, the other former frontman of the Jackson Five, seemingly from outer space, I'm going to "Beat It" but "I´ll be back."

Postcard from the Camel's Mouth

"Oh, I'll never stroke a camel again."
"Did he bite you?"
"He had my whole hand in his mouth."
"Gosh." The old woman is shaking her head.
"And do you know what his name was?" The woman clearly has no idea. "Saddam."

And so the conversation goes. The man is seated opposite me on a train from Davis to San Jose and wearing a t-shirt with an American flag and the word "Freedom" emblazoned across it. And although I think his shirt is a bit of a joke, I respect the man's logic. Had I heard his camel stories (there were actually two) I might not have visited my ex-girlfriend Amanda, nearly had a hand bitten and a foot in my mouth.

Why I did see her exactly I don't know. But I have just read the novel, High Fidelity (there was also a film). In it, Rob Fleming, avid music fan, lists his all-time top five worst breakups and visits those ex-girlfriends in an effort to understand why his relationships have since followed a template for failure.

I lost interest in the book when the shallow, immature and self-obsessed Rob, with whom I found great kinship, began to grow up. But my travels unwittingly followed a similar course when I visited the two ex-girlfriends of my relationships past.

The first, Beth, lives in Berkeley with her boyfriend; the second, Amanda, with hers in Sacramento. Beth and I remain close friends – best friends, in fact – and meeting with her was nothing but pleasant.

Seeing Mandy however was an altogether different story, and not one penned by Nick Hornby, with a happy ending, or a forthcoming film adaptation starring John Cusack, or anybody anywhere near as suave.

Should I have more than five break-ups from which to choose, mine with Mandy would definitely make the chart. Since I don't, it enters by default. It was nevertheless the sort of breakup that lovelorn Emo songs are made of.

I broke up with her (let's make that clear) in January 2004. (You have to strike between the holidays and certainly before Valentine's Day.) And in the year that has passed, I imagine as most men would, that she never quite got over me. There were actually e-mails to that effect and then a silence that I took to mean that a severe bout of depression had ensued.

My meeting with her last night however proved that not to be the case. On the contrary, she's not turned to the bottle, or a nunnery; nor has she recorded a heartbreak album in the vein of Leonard Cohen. She is in fact doing fine. And after a brief moment of disappointment at this I was too. We enjoyed a mostly pleasant evening: dinner, a moonlit stroll, great conversation. And then suddenly the realization that we were barely strangers. Having shared showers, now sharing a bottle of water seemed somehow inappropriate. It dawned on me that I would probably never see this stranger that I used to know so well ever again. And so I postponed the farewell and arranged to meet before my train out of town the following day.

The train was soon approaching and there was no sign of Amanda. While I waited, the annual Picnic Day parade passed through downtown – a marching band, jugglers, clowns – and I realized that I didn't recognize a single face, painted or otherwise. There is nothing for me here, I thought. Everybody has moved on. And I suddenly looked forward to being back in England, to immersing myself in a world I had thought only temporary, and to grasping with both hands the opportunities and relationships that make a life less ordinary.

I wanted to tell Amanda all this but time was closing in. With just minutes to go before my train showed up she did. With her boyfriend. And, saving my grasping hand for England, I gave her a hug, let go and said goodbye. And suddenly, not seeing this stranger ever again didn't seem so bad after all.

Postcard from the Past

It didn't take a fluxcapacitor and a souped up Delorean to go back in time last night. It took just a train from the Bay Area and some fading memories to give the impression that time has stood still in the Californian college town I left in 2003.

Nothing here has changed very much. Perhaps there are more iPods per head than before, but save for the dangling white cables those heads are the same pretty young things, more often than not, shrouded in blonde hair or baseball caps and not much mystery.

The University of California-Davis is tucked in the Central Valley, just an hour from both snow and sand and about 50 miles north of San Francisco. The campus is a tad more conservative than its big sister in the Bay and has never quite shaken its agricultural roots. Students here still call themselves "Aggies" and a quick glance at the course catalogue tells you that Tractor Driving 101 still runs in fall quarter.

The college does however now offer a broader curriculum, with strong bio-science and engineering departments. It's nightlife department however is rather weak. And without classes to go to (or even classes that I should be going to), I've little to do besides write, remember and move on.

Postcard from 111 Minna Street, San Francisco

Positioning myself equidistant between the bar and the gallery I lean over to the woman admiring the art on display and, in my best impression of a pretentious modern artist, say, "If you have any questions..."
"Oh," she smiles. "What's your name?"
And so we shake hands, I tell her about texture and tone, she tells me about the desert and the flowers and we both pretend to know what we're talking about. But it doesn't matter. I get the impression that everybody on 111 Minna Street is pretending.

It's only 6:30pm but the DJ is already on and playing the kind of house music at the kind of volume that makes any kind of conversation, not least that about modern art, very difficult to conduct. And so for the hour or so that I wait for my late date I sit, look and listen, while Mickey Mouse drills for oil and the 'common man' hangs his head in shame. I overhear a white guy with dreadlocks deciphering the painting's latent symbolism as if he's breaking the Da Vinci Code.

It's no wonder the trendy and spendy of San Francisco hang ideological dilemmas on their walls and trouble themselves with meaning. They are some of the luckiest people in the world - and the most content.

"I have absolutely no reason to leave," Bay Area resident AJ said Tuesday. "And when I do I am ultimately unhappy. There is really no place better."

AJ wakes up, for much of the year, to cloudless blue skies; there are always palm trees; and the Bay and Golden Gate bridges form a right angle at the north east corner of the city.

And when the DJ finishes tonight, quite bizarrely at 10pm (early is the new late apparently), folks will most likely spill into some of the finest restaurants in the country for a decidedly Mediterranean late dinner. Saint Francis would certainly approve. (Though he was homeless and would appreciate any meal, I imagine.)

Postcard from New York City

It is with a touch of jazz that I write this morning's postcard. I'm sitting in the Jazz on the Park hostel on Duke Ellington Boulevard where I spent the night (in the hostel, not on the street).

I was drinking in Chelsea when I met some Danish guys who were on their way to a jazz gig in Greenwich Village. Where abouts exactly, they were not sure, but using the New York City street layout as our rhythm foundation we meandered - improvised, no less - our way to the bar in question.

The jazz was amazing. And in my pursuit of "real America", which I've sort of decided is the purpose of this trip, it dawned on me that this is America's classical music, and as the instruments each played their turn before coming together, democracy in action.

Postcard from Newbury Street, Boston

Bugger. Bugger. Bugger.

My laid back attitude, though endearing to some, has just cost me a date, at least a weekend's worth of sex, and potentially, marriage, babies and a home in Cape Cod.

By the time I got to the restaurant she had gone and without her phone number, surname or any specific address details I'm stuffed.

I know three things. Her name is Cheryl; she works in mortgage; she lives in Cape Cod. And, if I can't find her on Newbury Street where we arranged to meet, or in the narrow Boston bar where we met last night, then that's where I'm heading. Cape Cod, with the little information I have and a blatant disregard for sense and sensibility.

Postcard from Nine Zero, Boston

After having lured Mike from his teaching post in New Hampshire to my hotel room at Nine Zero and a seafood dinner I stood arguing with him in a remarkably narrow Boston bar.

"She's totally checking me out man."
"Sure."
"I'm telling you. It's everytime you look away," I said. "That was a sustained, three second glare."

This went on for some time until the five or so men surrounding her began staring too. At one point they all laughed (inbetween buying her drinks and shoving their cards under her nose). She was frankly the most popular woman in the bar: a cross between Andie Macdowell (and roughly the same age) and Elaine from Seinfeld (you're getting big hair, right?).

With my ears burning (and my loins - I need to see a doctor about that), and not feeling quite brave enough to break the business man barrier surrounding her, I made my exit, touching her arm on my way, and wished her a good night. Soon after she followed me outside, revealed her height (pretty tall) and put her arm in mine.

"Are you coming?" she asked.
A little bit, I thought, and followed her to the next bar.

More alcohol flowed and slowly so too did the unsettling admissions. She wants babies, soon, and - so it transpired - with me. The former swimwear model, it turns out, had spent the evening defending me from the discouragement of the men surrounding her who said that I was a geek. And, in the most backhanded compliment I've ever received, she told them that while I was a geek I was "adorable".

She then asked me to lunch for the following day, which is now. So better run. Those babies won't make themselves.

Postcard from the University of New Hampshire

As we sit under a perfect blue sky, eating ice-cream, drinking beer, smoking cigars and watching the beautiful and scantily clad people of New Hampshire walk by, my university mate Mike assures me that I have an atypical impression of his life as a teaching assistant at UNH. It is a Friday afternoon and the first day of Spring, and whilst it is lovely and warm there are still traces of snow on the hillside, a reminder of a time less hedonsitic.

Postcard from the Days Inn Motel, Atlanta

I can't recommend the Days Inn Motel enough. I can't recommend it at all, in fact. My night was trecherous and while you might blame jet lag I'm pretty sure that it was because every crossing plane (and there were many - Atlanta is the largest airport in the country) sounded as though it were targeting my bed in a pointless act of terror.

And now that I'm sitting in its modest dining room for breakfast I'm trying to work out which of its guests overcame the roar of jet engines last night to express their love for one another. I really hope it's not the couple that have just sat down beside me. They're holding hands across the table. Oh God. It is them.

Postcard from a bar, Atlanta

Leaning over from his personal space to mine the American business man asks, "are you here for the windows and blinds convention?"

When that is a plausible question, I think, it's about time I reconsidered my image.

Postcard from a buffet, Atlanta

Americans can eat. More specifically, Americans can buffet. And they know exactly what they're doing. I'm sitting here at the Mariott Hotel in Atlanta (not because I'm staying here but because I've walked the half-mile, sidewalk-less strip from my Days Inn Motel) with a plate of what looks like canteen food: a lumpy pile of carbs.

The American on the table opposite has very calmly made himself a salad (with just the one dressing) and is now helping himself to a chicken marsala with a side of vegetables while I watch, with a slight pained expression, having ignored the advice of my parents, friends and indeed a nation, and filled up on bread.

Postcard from 27D

I'm sitting in seat 27D, probably the worst seat on the plane, in the middle of the middle isle where neither arm wrest is yours. (You don't realise how much you need them until they take them away.) Writing this is therefore uncomfortable, not least because I suspect the guy to my left is reading this over my shoulder.

I know that I am already in the company of Americans. Obesity is suddenly more common, some have already applauded the pilot and there is a young man in the adjacent isle with a slightly overgrown moustache that's not unlike a ferret. I imagine his name is Dwayne.

The guy sitting to my right is a professor of computer animation who has worked on Ren & Stimpy and The Simpsons and lived for a time in Hollywood. Of course, he could be completely lying - I'll never see him again. He has nevertheless spent considerable time (we're talking hours) proving that he really is that intelligent. And cultured.

"I only watch Art House or foreign language films," he says. And then (honestly) browses the in-flight magazine and says, with some excitement, "ooh, Spanglish is on."

Postcard from the departures lounge

Whenever I get to an airport I have a sudden sinking feeling that I've had a moment of madness and got the day completely wrong. Or the time. Or the whole darn thing. And just before the check-in clerk prints the boarding pass I imagine she'll say, "excuse me sir, you're in the wrong airport," or the MI5 will swoop down from the ceiling (a la Mission Impossible Tom Cruise), declare me a terrorist and subject me to unspeakable acts of torture. Since 9/11 (or what is technically 11/9 here) I imagine that every brown man suspects even himself of being a terrorist - like he just didn't realise he was, or he forgot. And though I've packed nothing more sinister than an excessive number of hair styling products I am convinced that I'll by flying to Atlanta via Guantanamo Bay.

Postcard from the train

There's a strange feeling of Godliness (is that a word?) riding a train over suburbia, looking down at the tiny houses, and the tiny people, cleaning their tiny cars. And it doesn't seem real somehow. More like Legoland, or those miniture model villages (which are incidentally popular amongst megalomaniacs).

It also allows a rare viewing into the lives that people close away. Fences that keep neighbours from peering in are, from this height, redundant and look more like a grid, or a repeat pattern, that suggests that people's lives are roughly the same. Some have inflatible paddling pools, some rock gardens, some, for the idle green fingered, fence to fence concrete patio. But they all share the same postcode and look up at the same patch of sky.

My excitement, the reason I am shaking my leg, is because I am about to embark on a tour of North America and, periodically, look up at different skies, roam 'zip code' zones (oh yeah) and, if only for three weeks, live a life less ordinary.

Bebo Be Gone

If, like me, you shy from junk mail, avoid 'keep me informed' tick boxes, and savour actual human contact above all else, then you may have noted with annoyance, Bebo, the new online service that promises to keep you connected by synchronising address books and essentially replacing a basic procedure – and indeed, the smallest effort – with an automated process.

Bebo sends an e-mail on your behalf, asking the recipient to register for the service in order to notify the sender of your address, which by definition sounds rather pointless. That is until you realise the snowball effect of its marketing. The good people at Bebo make a simple website with plenty of ads, offer a basic service that people have thus far coped without, and use its members' contacts, whom are given freely, to target with relevant advertising.

You'll have noticed something untoward about the e-mail itself. The subject line is always "Updating my address book", and the message continues in the first person, assuming the identity of the sender, but fails to convey any sense of personality. Consider the tone of this e-mail from Piers Thompson, a guy I've not since high school:

Hi

Can you please enter your contact details in my address book. Click on the link below:

http://www.bebo.com/friends/8873160a734712708b21

After we are connected, in the future, any changes you make in your contact details will be sent to me.

Thanks for your help.

Piers

That's alright Piers. But it seems hardly necessary to synchronise our contact details when we've not spoken for what is approaching four years. I wonder if, when certain we have the correct addresses, we'll be more likely to write. And the same goes for the ex-girlfriends, colleagues, someone I met once in Liverpool and even my sister, whom I see often anyway, who have all BeBo'd me recently. To all of you I say 'no.' I will not join your cult.

Worse still is the service provided by www.sms.ac, who continually bully you into joining their mobile phone community, resorting to guilt by the third attempt:

"This is the third request. Should Ed Batlle give up on having you as a friend in his mobile friends network?"

That was actually a shame. I lost a good friend there.

My 5 'til 9

I am lucky, I realise, to have a career that never quite rears off into the cold shoulder of predictability. The daily commute into the fast lane however is made more comfortable with some on board snacks, as I tend to sandwich my work day with hours of bread and butter and banality, enjoying the reliability of my morning, noon and nightly routine.

In the morning before heading to the office I listen to Radio 1, have a bowl of Choco Hoops and watch one half of Will & Grace (meaning the first 15 minutes – not just Debra Messing). At lunchtime I come back to the flat, make myself a cheese and pickle sandwich and watch Neighbours. It's all very mundane. And then something special happens.

Some time after 5pm I leave the world of work for a galaxy far, far removed from reality, an indoor shopping centre named after Charles Darwin, in which only the fittest survive the January sales. Now, in March, I'm certainly in good company and every weeknight trip for my microwave meal is as pleasant as it is necessary.

Marks & Spencers, I've noticed, is something of a hotbed for attractive, affluent, middle-aged women, and the security guard has noticed it too. He stands by the automatic doors, leering in his mock militaristic outfit of authority, more Village People than city cop, and occasionally radios his colleague – over and out – when the hotbed heat up.

I pass them both and sneer before making my way to the food hall, only accessible by way of the women's underwear section. In a store layout designed by someone who, one can only imagine, is having a laugh, the frozen foods section is just beyond the g-strings and d-cups. Occasionally the thoroughfare is blocked and I make a face, the best I can, of a man buying for his wife. It is always my fear that in that situation a clerk might offer her assistance, in which case my course of action would be to, a) say that I was "only looking," b) ask for something in my size, or c) buy the lingerie and find a wife.

Luckily tonight that didn't happen, and I'm comforted by the thought that it probably never will. And so I picked up my microwave meal, as I always do, and thought to myself that while my 9 'til 5 might never be the same there are some things in life I can always rely on. I headed for the automatic doors and the leering guards, now watching the lingerie section with vigilance, and smiled.

Me, myself and i

There have been grumblings from those bastions of integrity, the Op-Ed columnists of the broadsheets, that, as Andrew Sullivan of The Times writes, "society is dead." We have all, with the aid of those pretty, white things, "retreated into the iWorld." Sullivan is not referring to the attractive WASP community of The O.C. but, with his clever inference of the lower case ‘I’, the Apple iPod – friend of the music lover; enemy, as the article suggests, of the regular human being. Yes, the portable music player, capable of storing 15,000 songs, has usurped the mobile phone, cable television and indeed the pocket watch of yesteryear to become the feared slayer of society.

"What was once an occasional musical diversion became a compulsive obsession," writes Sullivan. "Now I have my iTunes in my iMac for my iPod in my iWorld. It's Narcissus heaven: we've finally put the 'i' into Me." What would happen, you might wander, if we tried to take the 'i' out of me. Well, partial blindness, you might say. But just yesterday I became an accidental guinea pig in one such social experiment, when my iPod, damaged under the heavy foot of drunkenness, slept quiet in its dock, while I, in upper case, went about my day - not a wire from my ears, a hard drive in my pocket or a song in my heart. This is my story. iStory, if you will.

9:02am Walk from my flat to the office without the usual spring in my step. Feels less like a music video than usual. I sense a draught in my inner ears and the discordant music of a town waking up. Am also reminded that traffic lights make noise. This makes me laugh.

9:05am Arrive at the office and immediately say hi to co-worker, Pat, without having to fumble around for the pause button on my iPod. With nothing to do with my hands, and not wanting to grope Pat, I fumble all the same, and comment on how great her new hair looks. I do not start up iTunes and instead turn on the radio. It's the news. An Italian intelligence agent has died under US fire while escorting a freed hostage.

11:15am Leave office for meeting. Overhear what I suspect is a conversation about anal sex. Am tempted at this point to walk the rest of the way with my fingers in my ears. The conversation however recalls the Backstreet Boys' song, 'I Want it That Way', which plays in my head. Ordinarily, I would replace it with something more sophisticated. *Nsync perhaps. Instead, I enjoy the catchy hook and eyebrow raising lyrics. I attempt to raise an eyebrow, but can't, and board the train.

2:15pm Arrive in Leeds. The outward journey was pretty horrific. ('Silent Coach' my arse.) And with no music my mind wanders to food. Time however only allows for the purchase of lunch but not its consumption and so, rushing off to my meeting, I push the snack into my jacket. Its plastic packaging rustles whenever I shake hands and introductions are made all the more uncomfortable with a hummus wrap peering out from my pocket.

3:15pm Stomach rumbles throughout meeting. Someone asks what South Yorkshire will do when EU funding runs out. I think of the David Gray lyric, "what we gonna do/when the money runs out," but can't name the song or recall any other lyrics. I begin to dread the train journey back, and the frustration of being unable to locate the track in my iPod music library. Grrr...

4:45pm Train changes at Manchester Picadilly. With the few minutes that I have I cave and visit the Apple Store. The song is 'Nightblindness' from the album, White Ladder. And the daydeafness, finally, is lifted. I turn on, tune in and cop out. If society is dead, I think to myself, then this is its funeral music. Rest in peace, I say, and turn up the volume. Loud.

My Belated Valentine

I sleep beside the banisters of my stairs, so getting out of the wrong side of bed would result in serious injury, if not death. I was therefore pleased just now to land unscathed, on my feet, and to clear blue skies well before the alarm, as it routinely does, scares the bejesus out of me. Fear, I've decided, is not a good way to start the day, so with the extra few minutes afforded me I replaced that buzzer sound with the sound of birdsong: not so loud, but no less scary.

My attempts to rid fear from my daily routine were soon proven futile however as my sleepy eyes wandered over to my desk calendar, which read, 'Monday, February 14'. Has the week since Valentine's been a loveless dream? No, it turns out. I've just been away on business (see The San Also Rises). After joyfully tearing seven sheets from the calendar my confusion nevertheless continued as I found amongst the morning mail, and exactly a week late, a scented pink envelope postmarked February 12 and a card, distinctly resembling a Valentine, signed, "your SY1 admirer" - SY1 being my post code area and, to confuse matters further, the name of my hairdressers.

The clue in the card leads me either to my foxy, but nevertheless married, hairdresser Rachel, or - let's face it - any one of the 28,000 women in the SY1 catchment area. The walk to work this morning will certainly be interesting. And I'm thinking my hair needs a trim.

The San Also Rises

Hemmingway's The Sun Also Rises, known in this country as Fiesta, was written, or at least I’d like to believe, in Parisian cafés and bars with its author, a voice of a Lost Generation, penning his acute post-wartime observations in a Moleskin Notebook. Similarly, I write this, with handwriting recognition software and an HP PocketPC, in a greasy spoon café at Barrow Railway Station. I'm in the glamorous North West, or at least for the next 37 minutes until my train arrives, on business and spending company money (so sue me – actually, please don't) on breakfast.

It's one of those cafés where if there were music playing rather than regional talk radio it would stop at my entrance. Nevertheless greasy spoons and heads dropped and turned as I walked in, holding a red leather briefcase in one hand and quickly unfastening a white flower brooch from my lapel with the other. During my brief stay in Barrow I'd met one other person of colour, who incidentally had been bottled when out the night before. (And by bottled I don't mean scooped up lovingly and packaged for consumption.)

I felt eyes on my back as I walked to the counter and, holding a Microsoft Publisher produced menu, asked for a Big Breakfast. "American?" The lady asked. "Um...I spent a year in California." I replied, wondering what she meant. "Er no," she sighed. "Do you want Black Pudding with that or sausage?" "Oh right! American then." I laughed. "I assume the sausage is American." Then, realising that I sounded completely stupid, and as though I expected imported sausage, stopped talking, settled the bill and thought twice about asking for a Grande Café Mocha.