Category: Other

For the last couple of months I’ve been working on a book of short stories, the following is the opening of the story that gives the collection its title:

It’s a question asked of me far too often, and one that I don’t really have a particular answer for, but in the impossible style that I was taught in my three years of higher education I will attempt to make a statement, give evidence, and then follow that all up with an explanation because four years since I graduated I’m still making monthly payments just to pay off the two student overdrafts I managed to completely rack up in my time as a student. In many ways it was the most reckless I have ever been, and I don’t just mean financially. I did things I never would have done, I took risks I never would have taken, I got hurt and I hurt others and I got drunk and I got high and I laughed and I cried… what an afternoon that was. The important thing to remember is that you shouldn’t judge students ever, or group them, because everyone has a different journey, and everyone has different adventures and deep down, you know if you are tutting at a group in a coffee shop or an individual dragging their coat in the dirt as they head to the library that really, deep down, underneath it all, you’re just jealous, or at least highly interested in how they conduct themselves, and that’s why you’re interested, and that’s why you’re still reading. There is a lot to be taken from it, but this is by no means a definitive recollection, this is just mine, all mine and I hope there’s some kind of mirroring aspect for you, because you should enjoy yourself sometimes.

This is going to be my last post for a couple of days, I’m going to get some fresh air, space and exercise. If I don’t then I worry I’m just going to disappear off in a different and horrible way. Do you ever reach that point where you just feel like you’re burning yourself completely? I’ve got there. I put too much pressure on myself and unless I’m able to just stand up and walk away from it all then I know it’s got too much.

What I really need is to just not have to deal with everything. It’s sort of like running away from a part of myself, I just hope I can drive fast enough.

I’m going to schedule some posts to pop up for your amusement while I’m away, just to make sure you don’t forget about me, I know it’s easily done.

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother to work when every month I struggle to make the money last. It isn’t even as if I’m living a lavish lifestyle, I’m a man of very simple means and very few wants, I just have too many outgoings at the moment.

Last night I had to embarrassingly tell my girlfriend that I didn’t have £2 to get the bus home, and that we would have to walk. Stuff like that pisses me off but there’s no way around it. In other ways I like being the poor oppressed writer though so I can’t really say anything. It feels like everything I own is coming apart at the seams, nothing really works in the way it should, and I always have to double think any purchases I do want to make. In a way this frugal lifestyle will be good for me when I do strike it rich because I’ll truly appreciate what I do have.

In the meantime I should probably just shut up, it could be a lot worse.

Goddamn money, it always ends up making you blue as hell

What business of yours is it how I choose to conduct myself. Maybe you should just take a good hard look in the mirror you little TOWIE haired cunt. Go about your day and leave me to mine. What’s the problem here?

I really need to quit smoking in any capacity. Last night I ended up trapped in a dumb fog when I should have used the time to write, write, write. I made a promise to myself that if I wanted to be a writer I had to commit to it entirely, and let a lot of things fall by the wayside to do that. It looks like we’ve got another item for the bonfire.

I’ve made my choice, I need to push myself into that square hole with all my might if I’m ever going to manage it. I still need a couple of days away from all this to think it through, hopefully this weekend will give me that.

Last night I went out for cocktails with friends, I am aware that is an extremely wanky London commuter type thing to do but I am an extremely wanky London commuter type. They’re friends I’ve known since school, which means up to twenty years ago, and it’s an amazing thing to do, it’s like the Child Of Our Time documentary series, I honestly feel like I’m Robert Winston, but without the ability to even fathom a moustache.

It’s interesting to see what guys you’ve known for so long have become, how we have all found love, we have all found careers (or at the very least jobs), we have all learnt so much and come so far together and yet we are still very close as people. We don’t just sit and talk about when a year seven was thrown in a bin or how we would set off fire extinguishers down the halls, we talk about current affairs, and music, and what we are all doing now, and our plans for the future, and it’s good to know that only one of them is married, and that only one of them has a baby on the way and that there is nothing wrong with being twenty-five years old and not really knowing exactly where your place is in the world, we can just be, and we are slowly getting our shit together but the age of being married and having a career and a home at eighteen/nineteen are dead and gone to us, we are the continuing teenagers, we are not quite there yet, but we are all working very hard, we were just coiled ready to attack for a lot longer than our predecessors.

Peace.

Last night was the second in a new season of the Improvised Comedy Workshop I attend. For those out of the loop improvised comedy is where you get up with no script, no characters, no idea and your audience give you the setup and you derive humour from it – like Whose Line Is It Anyway?

It’s been a couple of months since I felt that energised, that ready to just commit myself to dashing about and acting stupid and it is so much fun. Once you get over the hurdle of any embarrassment you realise that nine times out of ten you are performing to people who are with you, they want to be entertained, they’re on your side. It’s a wonderful feeling to have when your self esteem tends to wain for no reason at all.

Sitting in the pub with them afterwards I realised what a good group I get to perform with, and how really it’s a shame that we only have those few hours together on a Thursday night, they’re all so funny, all such characters and so supportive of whatever each other have going on, it’s a brilliant environment to operate in and I feel privileged to be a part of it.

Detective Frank Horowitz entered the room like he owned it, and for all anyone else knew he may well have done, he wasn’t one for photos of family on his desk or requesting days off for school plays, that is, if he even had a family.
Holloway walked over to the desk, pulled out his Parker and dug it into the mouth of Martin Yale (recently deceased).
‘This is foul play’ he declared.

I am overwhelmed by the response so far to my fundraising. I hoped people would catch on quickly but the generosity and messages have been lovely.

I would like to personally thank Kate, Emily, Terri, Mex, Luke, Antony, Jade, John and Stephanie for their donations. I won’t forget where that first £120 came from and I hope there’s more to come from others.

I’ve set the ball rolling on a couple of ideas to organise different things to raise funds, one of which I am particularly excited about but it’ll have to wait for confirmation.

In the mean time go here to get in on the action.