A little while ago, I stopped being a nice person. I stopped being generous and kind and giving and I cast aside old notions of selflessness and compassion. Instead, I began taking from life and those around me. I don't now give time or attention, I just take them. I'm no longer considerate or compassionate, because I know others will be those things - both for me and for those who need them. I've gone from being a charitable, forgiving spirit to a mean, hostile, spiteful arsehole.

The change wasn't a totally conscious one, nor was it forced upon me. It just happened, really. And, to be fair, there's been some benefits. I have a lot more free time and I no longer feel like the one who's running around for everybody else. I feel more personally confident, because I no longer give so much of a shit what anyone thinks. I've had more sex with more people in the last year than I ever had before.

But I've had enough. It's getting to the stage where I can't look myself in the eye. Everywhere I go in London that has memories for me seems now tainted with one guilt or another. I've alienated some people to the extent that I've lost (or am losing) other friends who don't want to compromise their network of friends by association with me. It's all well and good being selfish, until it gets to the point where you really only have yourself to look after, and I feel like I'm heading that way.

So, a change, and each journey starts with a single step. This week, every day, I'm going to do something decent and kind and good. I'm not talking about 'going to the gym' good, or 'not leaving the light on when I leave the room' good. I mean an instant, decent action that has a positive effect on someone's self-worth or view of the world. An action that makes someone smile, or feel better, or just feel less bad. An action that, in its performance, takes me one step away from the person I'm becoming and one step back towards the person I used to be, albeit with a higher regard for who that person was.

And, needless to say, I'll tell you all about it.

Oh ho, I am a genius, me.

Rather than fall into line with all of you chumps and start British Summer Time today, I'm sticking with Greenwich Mean Time until I go back to work. That way, I get to enjoy the full 96 hour holiday weekend, and get to lose an hour of my first day back in the office. All I've got to do is go in an hour early on Tuesday.

You see? Genius.

Today, I had an interview. Let me tell you how it went.

It was for a job I wouldn't mind in a company I wouldn't mind working for for a salary I wouldn't mind working in a team I wouldn't mind working in.

I went on a bit.

I'll know soon.

"One can imagine Brown submitting his first draft in crayon."

"Today, I had an interview. Let me tell you how it went."

"Am I a lapdog? Occasionally."

"There are so many reasons why it's is a bad thing. Here are just a few:"

"I owe someone an apology, so here goes."



These are all sentences which will be appearing here soon.

With only a whiff of scandal, the truth is out. My CDs are all out of order, and this is not cricket.

So, I begin the big reorganisation. Why is a necessity. How to is very personal.

Some days, this is my life. Stop when you're bored.

To start, I like genre. I have a number of genres I break my precarious plastic towers down into - UK indie, Britpop, Shoegaze, US alt, North-West guitar tradition (UK), North-West guitar tradition (US), Belgian rock, Funk, Hip hop and so on. Labels are far from groovy, but I do need to find things. Genre helps me to search according to my mood.

Next, a sub-file. This is dependent upon genre. For instance, Hip hop I organise alphabetically, given my lack of depthy knowledge, whereas the North-West guitar tradition (UK) is best organised chronologically, from The Beatles to The Coral.

A point here about chronological filing: I have a method, and I would urge you to have one to. Consistency is they key, being eminently practical, excellent for the purpose and deeply satisfying when done correctly. For me, I'll file each artist by the point of release of their first album. Within each artist's section, albums come first, in order of release, then singles, also chronologically. I also have a penchant for grouping spin-offs and solo projects together with the original root artist, hence Black Grape's debut album, It's Great When You're Straight...Yeah (released in 1995) comes before The Stone Roses' eponymous debut (released in 1989) because Black Grape fall into The Happy Mondays section (whose first album, Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out), first saw daylight in 1987).

Oh, it's not perfect. Country-specific genres are deeply unsatisfying - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, for instance, are a US band, but couldn't sound more British if they were Scottish and called themselves The Jesus and Mary Chain. But you try filing them under UK indie, or possibly Shoegaze - I have. It feels like a token effort and threatens to destabilise the whole delicate affair, so they sit in the US alt section and try not to be a sore thumb. Next to them, Tanya Donnelly's solo work follows Belly, but would live much more comfortably in the Introspective for when I feel a little blue section, along with the Red House Painters and Low. But again, I remain a slave to consistency.

I have a few day' work ahead, people. Tweaking, shuffling, swapping, moving along - until I can at last find that balance once more. So precarious.

Today saw a return to the Repiratory Registrar's heavenly presence.

I have glandular fever. Or at least I had glandular fever. The first blood test I had failed to pick it up as it takes a little while for the antibodies to get their arses in gear and become detectable. The second blood test showed this, the same unusual white cell activity as well as the lymphatic something or other and a settling down of those breasts and that flawless skin and sweet lord you have beautiful eyes.

So I'm fine, or something.

"You should go for it."

"Oh, I don't know."

"Seriously. You'd be perfect."

"Yeah, but... oh, I don't know. I fancied a proper change. Something completely different."

"It's much better money."

"Wellllllll..."

I sit here preparing a CV, my first in well over a year. It's funny, it is only times like these that I remember that one really ought to keep an up-to-date CV ready - although, to be fair, it's really just too much trouble not to lose it, forget about it, who cares anyway, too busy, life's too short etc.

As I boil it down to a series of academic and professional achievements, it becomes more painfully obvious than usual that I have spent the best part of my adult life doing absolutely nothing of value, in a bold and successful attempt to go nowhere in particular.

Except into debt, obviously.

On Thursday I see the cute Respiratory Registrar again. Last time I saw her, she mistook me for a student as she picked up the thirty or so little bits of scribbly paper I'd dropped in her surgery before sticking her fingers into my mouth. She was extremely attractive and very interesting and I shall spend the next three days hacking sputum into pots to hand to her.

At least she's married so I simply don't have to bother trying.

This blog rambles.

This week, I've been told I'm arrogant. Twice.

Which means either:

a) I am arrogant;
b) my self-defense mechanisms are running at too high a rate.

I think it's b).

I'm fucked off - I thought I'd got this balance (give or take a bit either way) sorted out years ago. What on Earth have I got to prove?

Around and around we go once more, then. Let's be honest, we've done this before, you and I: you duck, I duck; you step, I step; you lead, I follow. The reasons are simple - I like cute things. This is well-documented and requires no explanation.

Is it different this time? I think you think you need me more. I hope you think you need me more. I know you don't: I'll stand and I'll stumble and I'll give in and give up; it won't change a thing. I know that I know nothing about anything. I know that I'll make all the same mistakes as if they are new ones. And I know that the reason I think with my cock is because my brain has given up bothering trying to change anything.

Your friendship endures only through (genuinely) heartfelt remembrance and points easily won or cheaply bought a long, long time ago. But what to do?

Persist? A charade. I feel cheated.

Drift? Five years now.

Change? Fear, fear, fear. Now paying the price of my own secret deference.

I hate who I was and wonder who I've become.

I've become a little addicted. It's a guilty, dirty secret I don't often share. I don't seem to be able to stop. I don't even enjoy it anymore, it's just habit and, without it, my day feels empty - I'm only half there.

I can't leave this alone.

All day, I sit. Refresh. Laugh. Scoff. Become outraged. Refresh. Copy, paste, send, laugh. Refresh.

I should know better.

In other news, trust me when I tell you that you should avoid trying to mop up the remains of any Uncle Ben's chicken sauce using Jelly Babies.

[cough]...my consumption...[hack]...[splutter]...grows ever worse...

Actually, no it doesn't:

"Well, somehow you've ended up at a TB clinic, although I'm not sure why," said the cute Respirator Registrar. Let's call her Dr. Chesty.

"Okay."

"I need blood, gob, and I'm going to poke around in your mouth," she went on.

"Okay."

"Open wide. Wisdom teeth?"

"Ug glug."

"It's probably your teeth."

"Okay."

"Come back in a fortnight."

"Okay."

Apparently, I have a perfect chest x-ray. Go team.

All good, then. Oeillade - officially TB-free since 2005.

Tomorrow:



All full of cold again today. Getting rather bored of not being well. It's been about six weeks on and off, and it'll be good to get to the bottom of it.