Waking up this morning and seeing a lovely bit of sunshine has definitely got me off to a great start to the weekend.
I got up at eight and took the dog for a walk – the first time I’ve been out of the house for two days and now I’m  getting some writing done. I don’t know what it is about a bit of blue sky and warmth that makes me so much happier and more productive. It’s like emerging from a cocoon.

While Seasonal Affective Disorder is often shunned as being a yuppie excuse for laziness there is a lot to be said for it, some even citing it as a form of hibernation to limit our movements during the Winter when previously there would have been scarce amounts of food which does make a lot of sense. While we have the comforts of the modern age it doesn’t change the fact that we are still animals, and have very primal urges – just spend a Saturday night out in Southend to see a perfect example of this. I see no reason that we should ignore our bodies in this way, I am a firm believer in listening to my body – only eating when I’m actually hungry, sleeping when I’m tired – which may sound like the most obvious thing in the world but there are far too many people who eat just because it’s their preset ‘lunchtime’ or ‘dinnertime’.

I think what I’m getting at is throw the curtains wide, get the hell out of bed and go and do something. These days are precious.

This is the big one. I have such a mancrush on Johnny Depp that my girlfriend has to accept that there is a very real chance that I will give up on a normal life to just follow him until the restraining order prevents me from doing so.

I think the first Johnny Depp film I saw was Ed Wood. It probably wasn’t the best place to start and I don’t remember being that concerned about either the actor or the film. That was easily a decade ago and I tried watching it again recently and it still doesn’t really grab me that much as a story.

The thing about Depp isn’t just that he’s an incredibly beautiful man. It also stems from the fact that he is a very gifted actor and an outsider. I love an outsider, people who don’t fit in are the most interesting people, everyone knows that. Those that are left out work harder to be something worthwhile and that’s just what Depp has managed to achieve. He only started acting to subsidise his band and look where it has taken him. I was watching footage of him playing with Alice Cooper at the Dark Shadows premiere and at the 100 Club in London a couple of months ago, the guy just oozes cool constantly. There’s almost a parallel to Jack White (who I wrote about for Mancrush Friday last week). You get the impression that there is nothing false about the way they conduct themselves, and that they are entirely confident in what they do, and how they do it, and that shines through to me as being confidence.

I think that’s probably where my affection for these men stems from, it’s not that I want to be with them (ed: that’s a lie, I do) but it’s that I want to be like them, to be as sure of myself in what I do. The men that appeal to me are the ones who cut their own path, it’s something I admire greatly.

Today my little brother is twenty. I have two brothers (both younger) and today is Edward’s birthday. It makes me feel really old, possibly older than my own birthday did because I remember him being born, I remember carting him down the stairs before he could talk or piss standing up and making him breakfast. In a way I fathered him, which is weird because we had a perfectly brilliant dad (and still do). I took that responsibility on of my own accord and seeing him now, with a chinstrap beard, about twelve tattoos and flesh tunnels makes me realise that I did something right in taking him under my wing.

Our relationship as brothers has always been brilliant, we’ve had our moments; I recently threw a mug at him and he grappled me to the floor choking off my air, but that’s nothing compared to the amount of good time we share together. Edward has always been a rebel, always pushed the boundaries and that’s what makes him different to me (the safe bet) or Robb (the funny one), he will keep pushing and pushing and it is something I have come to greatly admire him for it, I wish I’d had the audacity to act the way he did and does in a number of different situations. People (my parents) get annoyed at him for not settling down, for being quite up in the air all the time, for not really knowing what he wants but the fact of the matter is that he’s still very young, and we all are, and at twenty I was running around Buckinghamshire with my trousers down. He’s only twenty and it takes a little later than that to prepare yourself for the world, it’s not the same as it was twenty/thirty years ago. We don’t have to get a job at sixteen and graft, we can afford the luxury of fucking about a bit, and that is largely down to the our parents, the generation who knew the feel of a hard day’s work when they were still minors. We’ll get there too, it’s a generational thing.

This morning (and I’m sure my brother will mind me telling you this but it’s doubtful he’ll ever read it and by the end of this paragraph you’ll understand why) Edward came into my room at seven and got in bed with me. There are very few people who can do that, and seem legitimate about it. I made him a cup of tea and he set about opening his presents. I got him a copy of the Sh*t My Dad Says book, based on our enjoyment of the Twitter page of the same name and as soon as he saw it he said: ‘Wahhh, a book’. Anyone else would get a smack round the head for that kind of insolence and disrespect but I can’t do it to him, he’s under my wing now whether we like it or not.

Happy birthday Edward you little punk.

So I haven’t posted in a couple of days, and the truth is that it is physically hurting me to do so now. My head is spinning, and I feel sick as long as I’m upright. I don’t know what it is exactly, or what it means, but it has given me a good opportunity to take stock of what is going on. Before I continue I feel that I should tell you that I am booked in to see a doctor this afternoon so you don’t need to worry that I’m going to drop dead, I will receive proper NHS-grade medical care at 2:40 today. In family news my brother is suffering from a similar ailment but has taken it that extra step (as if to show me up) by promptly vomiting for the last 24 hours, little show off.

The joy of being off ill is that it gives you a chance to regress, I haven’t eaten this much chicken soup since I was a child and it got me to thinking about the wonders of being off school when you’re ill. It was always that magic of having a lay in, then realising that there is nothing worth watching on television and finally at around the two pm mark wondering what you missed out on at school. Being off work is very similar to that. Once you wake up (in my case because the office are calling to make sure I’m not dead) then it all becomes very unassuming. I don’t really know what to do with myself. Yesterday I insisted my brother make flapjacks just so I had a smell to enjoy. I watched the whole series of Snuffbox (which I had been putting off for the past three months). I think the important thing to remember; and this was taught to me by a very knowledgable woman, is that when you are ill it is your body’s way of saying that you need to take better care of yourself, that you have been running yourself into the ground and you just need to stop what you’re doing and lay down in the dark for a couple of days. I don’t know how that sits with anyone else but I am perfectly happy with it. I have made minimal movements from my room (mostly due to the nausea that motion currently carries) and have been in and out of consciousness as Border Patrol and Anything To Declare play on repeat on my teevee and it’s quite nice. I’ve always got something going on, or somewhere to be, so being able to check out for a couple of days is wholly enjoyable. Is it wrong that I favour this to a holiday?

I’ve been up since seven, that’s just how I roll. I know I harp on about it all the time but lets go there again. It’s not even half ten yet and I’ve redrafted ten pages of my novel, sorted through a bunch of stuff I’m going to give away to charity, been for a two mile run, did fifteen minutes of yoga to warm down, showered, dressed and had breakfast.

Now I’m taking a break, watching Bored To Death and then I’m going to keep writing.

Hope your hangovers are worth it.

I don’t know what it is about having three days off of work instead of the standard two but it just feels like you can do so much more with that extra day. This weekend I am going to try and redraft a fat chunk of my novel because it’s getting on my nerves being sat there unfinished. Also I know the sooner I finish that and send it off the sooner it can get published (note my heavy optimism) and I can get working on my other projects; which are my book of short stories, the five novels outlined in my head, the EP I have promised myself I will write and record this year, and anything else I choose to do.

I feel a little bit stuck in limbo not being able to write, it’s different to having writers block, I class redrafting as just being a big load of admin, it’s not particularly fulfilling but I know it’s necessary. I just want to get on with it but it’s hard to commit to it. Enough of that shop talk.

The important thing to note is that I have three days to get on with it and then I can do everything else, switch focus, stop bitching.

Whenever I see footage of White playing live I’m taken in the same way people are in Red Dwarf when they see Ace Rimmer – I sigh and say ‘what a guy!’

There’s something sexy about guitarists as standard, god knows that’s one of the many reasons I stuck with it but Jack is a guitar hero. It’s the look and the moves and the squealing solos and his utter disrespect for his instrument yet his love of the craft, he’s a very cleverly put together guitarist. I’ve been listening to his first solo album Blunderbuss a lot this week (having followed him from De Stijl onwards avidly) and am just amazed at the way he puts a song together, the man is absolutely relentless. When you can count Jimmy Page and Dave Grohl as fans you know you’re doing something right (I’m not sure if they also fancy him a bit, and it’s not really my place to say).

I nearly came to blows with my girlfriend over Jack (this is metaphorical blows because she would beat me if it ever came down to fisticuffs) because she says she isn’t a fan. I don’t know how you can like rock music of any ilk and not be taken in by Jack, and what he did with Meg or The Raconteurs, or The Dead Weather, to some degree. It feels wholly recognisable in the most positive way. He has brought a lot of the elements of old blues records to a new audience, and while I can say he’s not the only person to do this there is no denying that he has been one of the most successful in that particular task.

So here we go, raise a glass (or cup of tea) and salute him, in all his rabbit glare, ghost skinned, Sweeney Todd coiffed glory. Jack White, do me on a wahwah pedal.