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Don’t you just hate it when you wake up at 4am all excited about an idea, spend an hour working it up, decide to email people about it and then, at the last minute, you decide to google it and you discover that someone has stolen the name you want to use….

And don’t you just hate sentences with lots of ‘ands’ in them? I mean, it’s not like they are ampersands or something posh. Simple, plain old conjunctions. You don’t see many of them nowadays. It’s all fields of commas and parentheses where I live nowadays.

Sigh. I never thought I’d see the day. I was attempting to make a joke about punctuation. Oh how the mighty (colons) have fallen. I also caught myself earlier today laughing at a math-geek flame-war on Slashdot. Which probably means it’s time for a holiday. Or at least an ellipsis.

There has been an influx of readers lately from Fetcheveryone, and I can’t figure out why. And the can’t being able to figure out why actually outweighs the small satisfaction of more people reading this bilge. Which again, probably says something about me.

And that something is that it is 5.20 am and I can have another 70 mins sleep if I stop typi

So the wheels have started turning again. I feel the itch to connect with my fictional chums who sit waiting like old toys in boxes for me to re-discover my inner chiddler. I put part of the blame down to Martin O’Brien and his Jacquot novels, plus An Interpretation of Murder, by Jed Rubenfeld. And part down to stuff going on at work that I really don’t want to blog about.

I’ve been having really strange dreams. I’m used to having ultra-realistic dreams, whereas recently I’ve been having ‘odd’ dreams that are directly related to day to day stuff going on. A new member of staff, naked except for tiger tattoos; exploring a new house – discovering water damage everywhere a la Dark Water, mitigated by discovering a cinema screen and horror pinball arcade; dreams in cartoon, a la Family Guy; escaping the Nazis; the list goes on. Thinking about it, I frequently dream of my youngest brother when exploring new houses. Although the reference point is a building site, and gorillas. Hmm. Curiouser and curiouser.

It is just beginning to feel like the time. You know. After all, Jonathan Ross won’t be around to interview me forever. One has to update the Commitments every now and again.

Been quiet. Apologies to my reader.

A very odd week. Involved in filming, reporting, attending, criticising and reviewing things around mass collaboration, web technologies, ex-somethings, people, philosophies, running and cava. I have perhaps been an island too long and too often, yet some behaviours simply can’t be unlearnt overnight, no matter how much of a super-social ape one may be, and no matter how much of a shit-eating grin one may have (I don’t, for the record. I have the grump that keeps on giving, instead). And I ain’t no ape. I’m a badger.

Anyhoo. Funny how scale affects everyone. I’ve been running to and from work recently – not every day, but often enough for it to become a ‘thing’. It feels strangely liberating to be exercising for a purpose other than rote, for once. I even like the fact that I have yet to run past anyone else with a rucksack (I get passed at least once per trip) and that I’m constantly on the verge of pavement rage in the more populated parts of my run. It feels a bit like belonging to a different species. I run for a little over an hour. Some people think this is admirable – mad even – but I am acutely aware, thanks to Fetcheveryone, how puny my efforts really are. Which naturally, appeals to the side of me addicted to futility.

Which brings me to belonging. There are some social constructs that I now see as vital to my happiness, and to an indeterminate effect, my future ‘success’ in life. But increasingly I find myself at odds with what I perceive to be the philosophy of many aspects of my ‘work’. Or more accurately I guess, the application of that philosopy. Inherently, I like the idea of connectivity, networks, meta-spheres and any number of social aspects of the digital age. And to a lesser extent, innovation. But I find it difficult to engage with the relative importance placed on them.

No man is an island. I like the idea that bridges can be built between my island and your island. Or the world. Or a world. Or Mars. But I don’t like the idea that building them should be any sort of focus. Perhaps I’m being Cnutian. Or, I don’t know, Mohammedan. But I’ve always been at ease with my own company. I may be missing out on endless riches or opportunities (emotional or otherwise) but….

But.

My isolation, in some regards, keeps me innocent. And I really value innocence. I measure importance in very specific ways. I’m as naive as I am arrogant. Wistfully, he recognises they may be related. But. You see. I look at things and I am Yosser Hughes. I can do that. Or, occasionally, Eyeore. Or Marvin.

I will always be an outsider. Not in a bad way. Or a good way. Just in an ‘is’ way. The world will always be as I see it. And, thankfully, that will change on an almost daily basis. Which helps me in some ways and makes other (achievement) things more troublesome.

It’s a question of scale. And my very own, characteristic, idealistic, non-virtual, bona-fide island.

Making faces at the bus-stop.  I like to burble at the sparrows and tell jokes to the neighbourhood cats.  They feign disinterest but I know they’re cracking up inside.  Poker-faces.  That’s what cats have.  Yet they’re no good at cards as they’re too easily distracted by making your hand into a tunnel, or spinning your chips so they shine in the light.

The Cortina doors are rusty and creak when they’re opened.  I think Elvis should have oiled them when he did his first post-humous tour of Basildon in ’78.  Cortinas were big then.  As were the neighbourhood cats.  It was tougher in the seventies.  There hadn’t been years of Garfield to acclimitase people to obese pets.

There’s an old tape machine that likes to chew up tapes.  Some people say it’s because it’s an old heap of junk.  I like to think it’s exercising its musical conscience.  Supertramp and Dana are chewed,  the funny compilation tape my uncle made of Polynesian folk music for my christmas present once is not.

The Cortina has a body in the trunk.  It is not mine.  I do not know how it got there.  But it has made a new home inside the spare tyre, and talks to me on long trips.  It talks about highways it could have been on.  And fishing.  And where ghosts go when they’re tired.

I’m sitting alone in a Ford Cortina.  Waiting for my mojo to turn up.

The Susan Hill book turned out ok, even if there was a sudden ‘oh shit, I better introduce who the murderer is’ a bit too soon for my liking (I’m a big fan of the old Scooby Doo / Agatha Christie style of un-masking). It was also one of those annoying thrillers that the publisher pads at the end with the first chapter(s) of their next installment. It’s something I hate more than celery and as any fule should already know from this blog, celery is not so much the devil’s own vegetable, as a vegetable designed to perform oral torture on oneself. In. Oh. So. Many. Ways.

Life is in a bit of a holding pattern, prior to all kinds of mentalism. Change has been a near constant for the past decade. Which brings its ups and its downs. And its ramaladingdongs. I don’t think denial figures greatly in the catholic ouevre. In terms of being explained. Not experienced.

Anyhoo. One of my last Saturdays in Cambridge. For who knows how long. And my abiding memory will be of change. Of Eastern Europeans – one of the girls from AMT coffee riding around on her bike, two russian Hiltons arguing over a swiss roll in Marks and Spanks; kids playing football in the playground outside, screaming and swearing at each other; CB4 ‘tourists’ fighting each other on the late night train home to Bury/Newmarket; an Asian guy watching telly through an open window; Spanish girl on a bike gibbering away on her mobile; one of the neighbours vacuuming his car for over an hour; a new block of flats on my route to my local gym; kids on mopeds racing each other; Co-ops; organic butchers selling frozen rainbow trout; gay couple trying to get the other to wear the sunglasses; brutalist hairdresser.

Work is…. well. One of the beauties of t’internet is I can’t really talk about work. It’s like Fight Club. But with more salty snacks.

Needless to say, Monk Quixote is buried at the moment. I feel confident that some interesting stuff is ahead, perhaps once my ‘home’ ‘working’ environment is finally sorted. When all is said and done, there are a lot of Reasons and Stuff as to why Shit Happens. And more often, why Not a Lot Really Happens.

I started reading a Susan Hill novel today. Now. She may be a lovely human bean. And talented. And kind to animals. And possibly, just possibly, a fan of 1930s motorcycle goatboy fanfic. But. There is simply no excuse for the words ‘ectoplasmic fog’ and ‘dreicht night’ in the opening three paragraphs. Not enough to make me burn the book. But oh so close.

The last few days have been weird. I keep persuading myself I have no focus, which is my main excuse for never finishing a . Sentence. I mean, novel. Writing, that is. Not reading. I’ve read an appalling number of novels I should have stopped. But what I forget is that I’m stubborn. You don’t run marathons unless you’ve got a mule gene. And yet I’m easily bored. All the running paraphenalia (kit, logs, spreadsheets) induce a state of hypnosis / euphoria / disengagement. Which combine to create small periods of OCD-intensity activity. Sadly (well, for my literary career) most of this energy is currently entwined in lycra. Well, not mine, but I digress.

Running. To run. To gambol. To pootle. To sprint until one is sick. It’s just glorious. As are my legs. Shame about the rest of me. But anyway. Running. It’s brilliant. And despite all appearances to the contrary, easier to do than writing. For me, at least.

And yet. When it goes well. It’s better than running. Putting words together is the best high. Words put a grin on my face. Running hurts shins at my pace. Sigh, that was a reach. I even enjoy the corporate writing I do. It’s like acting – putting on a voice. Obviously I don’t get to swear, or do the. Short. Sharp. Self-reflexive difficult to read shit that I do on here. With or without puns. But it’s just fun. The flow of words. Feeling them whistle past your ears. The an-a-to-mical source of the sound (to quote my favourite lyric ever. Although the irony is I can’t remember it properly).

Which leads me to the conclusion that Marks and Spencers Vintage Cava is the new absinthe. I can’t account for the short sentences otherwise.

I’ve just finished reading Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, which, disappointingly, is nothing to with the history of secrets or flan or the Da Vinci Code, but is instead about Gregory Peck. I kept reading the character Henry as Peck’s performance as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mocking Bird, although they are moral polar bears apart.

Anyhoo. As usual, none of that is relevant. Except that the chilli-induced dreams I had last night featured a death. The death of my youngest brother. And in my dream I was suddenly overcome with all the emotion that I have big-brotherly shielded from him all this time and howled like a banshee. The grief I was experiencing in the dream was simply incredible. When I woke up it took a few moments to return to my usual flatline state. And realise that he wasn’t, in fact, dead.

Which leads to duende, the gypsy curse. Spanish lore has it that it’s the struggle with the duende within oneself that brings out la pasion – in bullfighting, flamenco, firework throwing (probably). My brother has it. Dogs have it. Cats don’t. I don’t. I guess it’s the mischief gene, crossed with selfishness and vanity. Fires the soul.

I feel a bit flat at the moment. I haven’t written anything all week. Plans that seem so firm from one day seem somewhat less firm after days of inaction. Decisions are smudged. Which can only mean one thing. Breakfast.

Tired. Feeling a bit drained. I haven’t spotted a single Womble or talking bear for ages. Otherwise, I’ve had a good week, ideas-wise, but not a great deal of output word-wise. I know you’re all devastated to hear this.

I often wonder whether there’s a limit to how creative you can be – in a day, a week etc. I appreciate that it takes a certain amount of energy to run your brain at that kind of level and so on a basic physiological level you can’t fire the neurons at the same rate for extended periods, but is it really true that you have a finite number of (good) ideas per week? I guess it’s re-stating writer’s block as ‘units of creativity’ or something.

Some days I know I’m on a roll, and to an extent I was on one earlier, but I can’t help feeling that I tend to get to a point and think ‘there, I’ve banked my ideas for the day’ and switch off. Like I do in so many things (running, particularly) I don’t always push myself as much as I should do, relying on external influences (guilt triggers mainly) to get me to ‘perform’.

Sigh. On the fun side, the chiddlers playing in the park outside the flat have been tormenting each other with made up versions of the Harry Potter ending. Which amuses me. And on occasions, disturbs me (Ron marries Harry?). But not as much as the pre-tween (girl) voice singing ‘My humps’ that never ceases to amuse me. Life ‘s so much simpler without post-modernism. Or the post. Or, in fact, the word ‘or’. That’s surely one of the beauties of childhood – the reduction of choice.

Oh. My. God. I’ve turned tweed. And twee. Mourning the fact that I’ve got choices and I haven’t written as much tiddlypoms as I should have. Idiot.

But still. What does a unit of creativity look like? And does it have a glycemic index?

Some days the mojo simply isn’t there. I’ve been writing a lot (of pantaloons and felafel-based metaphors) and it’s getting to me. I feel a bit like a performing seal. And yet it’s me who put me here. In my own small way I’ve been reaching out a bit further than usual to try and get non-friends to read. React. Respond. I know how hard it is to read some of my words sometimes (hell, how do you think it feels writing them) – too many backflips and dead ends and pun-nerisms.

Tcha. Beans. I’ve been trying to get my headspace into gear. It seems that people generally like the nonsense more than the emo-lit, so I’ve been quietly shelving Tom I and trying to summon up enthusiasm for Tom II. But I don’t know if I’m simply doing a Lucas and shooting things out of sequence. I’ve got the basic stories for Toms I through VII. I just lack the discipline to get past 0 at the moment. Tom II is also my homage to Kafka and Gibson, which is somewhat harder to live up to than Tom I, which is just my dad. Tcha, indeed.

I’m probably just tired. I was contacted today by the guitarist in the best band I was in (Endless Drone, yes, we were marketing genuises) – someone I’ve heard from twice in thirteen years. Which was pretty cool. Sometimes you should really focus on cool. And not on targets.

Anyway. I dare say normal service will be restored tomorrow. Hell, I may even do something about the sidebar. Or the other hundred chores I have to do around this place. Tomorrow is another day.

In other news, I wrote my own version of Little Fluffy Clouds today. I’m very pleased. Particularly with the malevolent tape spool noise. Sometimes life is all about the malevolent. Or is it the magnificent? I forget….

There were umpteen things wrong with Lady Bonjela today:

• Item: Lady in purple. Now. Let’s see. I’m going to go to all the effort of wearing a purple dress, accessorise with purple glasses, a rather funky purple bag and YES! PRAISE JAYSUS! I will die my hair a delicate shade of purple. But. I will wear black shoes. Why? Surely the easiest thing to have in purple is shoes. Why even I, Lord of Unfashion, have a pair of purple shoes. Ok. DMs. Ok, I don’t anymore because they squeaked or something that I can’t remember now. I used to dislike the soles. The oil and water resistant soles. Ugly. But I digress.
• Item: No fliers please. Which was so nearly, nearly ‘No pliers, fleas’. Which is a really easy to follow instruction for pet owners with a particularly poor understanding of veterinary science.
• Item: that lastminute ad on the tube and bus shelters that talks about making new friends in the sea. And then eating them. What is WRONG with you people? And as if the text wasn’t bad enough, they’ve kebabbed some sea-horses. Now I may be an evil omnivore, but I am fairly clear that I have never, ever, eaten sea-horsey. And the seahorses are all looking at different things. Evil. Evil.
• Item: David Lynch should be back on the television.
• Item: There is no ‘i’ in team. But there is one in mayonnaise. Let that be a lesson to you. And before you get all smarty, there is no ‘u’ in mayonnaise. But there is one in ‘but’.

It’s quite hard work writing all this random rhubarb. I might return to shallow vapidity tomorrow. As ever, if you’re passing through, feel free to suggest some nonsense for me to riff off….