THE ANXIOUS EQUILIBRIUM OF POLITICS

I switched on the radio this morning.

"Look, just answer a straight question," said the interviewer. The politician proceeded to answer a different question, attack his opponents and talk about something else. We get a lot of this. In fact, we don't get much else, especially during an election campaign.

"Can we expect it to be a good natured campaign?" asked the interviewer, wrapping it up. I could hear the upturned corners of his mouth.

"Oh of course," replied the politician, smarmily. Neither of them really believed it and nor did they believe that the rest of us would believe it - unless by 'good natured' they meant not resorting to fisticuffs.

I can't bear all this flannel. It feels like a control mechanism we're all being forced to believe is the best possible way to do it. The politicians are polished and primed to toe the party line - they're all required to defend the indefensible, to twist themselves out of difficult questions and convince all of us that they're on our side and not their own. Their job depends on their ability to do this. The interviewers and journalists and radio presenters know that they have to keep asking the questions that we ought to be asking them, continually opposing their guests and skewering them with a hand-picked list of awkward topics. They know too, that despite the fact that they're required to ask those questions, they are not going to get the answers. Not really.

This results in a sort of anxious equilibrium in most political interviews. While the politicians obfuscate and their interrogators poke them, we all have to sit at home, trying to decipher which particular group of squirming public servants are the least despicable and will represent us the least badly in the House of Commons.

I turned the radio off shortly after all of that.

By the way, I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't vote at all. We have a democratic right to contribute to our governance yes, but we also have a democratic responsibility to vote. Personally I think you forego your right to complain, comment or criticise those in government for the duration of the next parliament, if you fail this responsibility.

I guess I'm just a bit fed up with the system, if anything.

Another thing that I'm fed up with is products which pretend to be a bit more than they actually are. There's a whole load of them out there, pretending to be your buddy or continually telling you how amazing you are. Louise had a box of 'Detox' teabags today and she showed me what was written on the side:

The preciousness of time - there are only a few occasions in modern history that have changed time such as the sixties. Yogi Tea was a pioneer in the west when it was first served in 1969. Yogi Tea began with the purpose to build a conscious relationship with oneself and the goodness within and by that became part of a new world renaissance where cultures opened up to exchange and share wisdoms to support the new rhythm of life.

Teabags. Forget Flower Power, 'Free Love' and The Beatles. It was all down to teabags, man; teabags that can 'build a conscious relationship' with you and usher in world peace while they're at it.

Maybe those politicians could do with a cup or two.

CLOSE PROXIMI

I came into close proximity with a cup of tea today. It was a near thing. With just a few days to go, I feel like I've done really well to make it this far without going completely loopy.

I gave up tea for Lent.

I've had various reactions to this over the last month or so. Jack's was probably my favourite. Jack is a guy who comes to our group at Calcot sometimes. To say he wears his heart on his sleeve would be a bit like saying Antarctica gets a bit nippy in the winter.

"You what??" he exploded.

"Yeah, I've given up tea."

"How could you give up.. tea?" He was outraged. It was as though I'd said I were fasting from oxygen.

"Well, it ought to be something difficult to give up," I said. "I think that's the point of it; well, part of the point of it - so you're more focused and you've proven that there is something... well, more important in your life."

"Yeah Matt," he flustered, "But tea, I mean... come on? You seriously gave up tea?"

I seriously did - and it's been great actually. I've felt a lot lighter without it and it hasn't really crossed my mind too much. On the day we went to London, I got back with sore feet and collapsed on the sofa - that was a moment for a cuppa if ever there had been one, but apart from that... I've coped alright.

I'm looking forward to Sunday though.

As I've said before, there is a huge power in giving up stuff - especially when it's important to you. I think it's sort of sewn into the way we work - it's counterintuitive and crazy to do such difficult things, to sacrifice something that hurts.

Megan, a friend of mine, is raising money at the moment by shaving off her hair - well, at least she will when she's raised enough. It's in aid of cancer research, I think. I'm not sure I would do that - and it's much easier for guys to get the clipper-treatment. She is crazybrave is Megan. I take my hat off to her... but then, I can put it straight back on again I suppose. Here is the link to her Just Giving page if you want to find out more.

I think I might go for a darjeeling on Sunday. Maybe with a jaffa cake, perched on the saucer.

HOME HUNTING PART 2: THE MERRY-GO-ROUND

It seems the housing market in Newbury and Thatcham is just as stressful.

"It's a seller's market," said Ant, matter of factly. He's trying to find a two bedroom house in Newbury. Unlike me though, he has two incomes and quite probably a bit of an inheritance. From the overheard conversations he has with estate agents most mornings, I'm assuming that properties are being sold quickly, above the asking price and without too much reference to other people who've registered an interest in viewing them.

This doesn't make it much easier on my own emotions. It's a game of high numbers it seems, where your entire future seems to depend on whether you can grip hold of the ladder before other people.

Shelter, the homeless charity tweeted today that their figures show that "Renting for life leaves your family half a million pounds worse off compared to buyers."

It's ruthless, quick and cut-throat - three things I am not.

Come on, losers! Jump on the merry-go-round! What do you mean it's spinning too quickly? This is nothing! Get on quick before we speed it up.

Actually, that seems like a pretty good metaphor to me. Eventually the carousel spins so quickly that bits of it start breaking off and people get thrown off their horses. Then it slows down horribly and nobody can get off at all. It's a horrid game, really isn't it? Round and round we go.

My friend Paul says I shouldn't settle for anything less than a miracle. I feel like I don't have the ability to settle for anything other than a miracle sometimes - the merry-go-round is spinning faster than I can run. If it were a year ago, it would be easy. If it were seven years ago, it would be unbelievably straightforward. If I had two incomes, if I had ...

The chasm is far too wide
I never thought I'd reach the other side

I have to hold on to something.

FORWARD AN HOUR

On go the clocks then, in the great annual cycle of daylight saving changes. Spring forwards, fall back, is how I choose to remember it, ever since one day at university when I went the wrong way and annoyed my housemates.

The Intrepids are always well prepared for the change. Dad went round and did the clocks one by one at 9pm last night, even pushing round the ancient hands of the grandmother clock behind the sofa. It clunked and whirred as though not impressed by being tampered with at its ripe old age.

This hastening of the hour of course, results in all of us now living in British Summer Time, one hour into the future, and with longer evenings in which to enjoy the rainclouds shifting across the murky skies, slowly fading from turbulent grey to purple and black.

Well that's what happened tonight anyway. I went on an evening walk after supper, just to take in the air. It was breezy. The sky was flecked with rain and I thrust my hands into my pockets as I strolled out to the field. The wind whipped my hair about and shouted in my ears.

I have been feeling incredibly sleepy today. My eyes can't seem to stay open and I've got a sort of lack of energy. It's not the weakness you get when you're still recovering from flu; it's a sort of lethargic sense that I ought to be slumbering - itchy eyes, twitching muscles and the sinking sensation of not really listening to what's going on around you. I hate to think what jet lag will do to me, if this is what a little one hour shift does.

It's Palm Sunday today as well. I tried to start a new tradition yesterday by having what I called Palm Saturday Pancakes. My Mum said it didn't really count as a tradition as Palm Saturday isn't really a thing and it was just me having a pancake. Watch out next year though, Mumsy.

I rather like a Palm Sunday, even if we didn't exactly remember it at our church this morning. It's all about the arrival of Jesus, entering the city gates to the sound of a party and the impromptu waving of palm-leaves. It marks the beginning of the bittersweet time known as Holy Week. The way I see it, it stands out as a sort of marker - it says: everything is about to change; maybe not in the way you think, perhaps not even in quite the way you expect, but this is the moment when history is made.

I like the idea that a new sense of hope is breezing into our world and blowing away the cobwebs of winter. The sky might be cold and dark, the air might still carry the chill of the old season, but listen, put your clocks forwards, get your palm-leaves ready - summer's coming.

CRICKET AND DELEGATION

The other day I accidentally volunteered to organise a cricket match.

What was I thinking? I don't know anything about cricket... or organisation for that matter. In fact, I often feel totally hopeless when it comes to getting things done.

I think cricket works like this:

Two men stand at either end of a strip of grass holding bats made out of wood. Another man throws a leather ball at one of them, trying to knock over a pile of sticks behind the man with the bat. The batsman tries to whack the ball with the bat as far away as possible and then runs away. Then people in deckchairs start applauding just before it rains and everyone has to go indoors. For some inexplicable reason, this goes on for five days, or maybe one day, or maybe however long it is until the cucumber sandwiches come round.

It was my own fault really, for remembering the work event, two summers ago. It had been Rob (an avid cricket fan) who'd organised that particular do. He seemed to know about cricket, about nudging and nurdling and silly mid-off and overs and run rates. He'd worked out how to organise the teams and how to fit a whole game into a summer's evening. He'd made it happen.

I turned up as a spectator, hoping to figure it all out. I was flustered when Rob thrust the score sheet into my hand and asked me to do the scoring while he captained a team. I've had fewer more stressful evenings. As I say, I know next to nothing about cricket. I enjoyed flipping over the numbers on the huge board, but it was really difficult to keep up with what was happening. I had a pencil, the A4 scoresheet, flapping about in the breeze and nothing to write on. One of the Finance Guys (who'd dressed in his pads and whites) got really confused when I miscounted his runs. He looked over to me with a sort of shrug of disbelief and then went back to the crease, shaking his head. I didn't really know people all that well and I couldn't see the umpire.

Since that summer's evening somewhere on the Englefield estate, Rob has left. In a meeting the other day, I foolishly said, "Oh, are we doing a cricket match this year?" at which point, the general agreement was yes and good idea Matt, get on with it.

So, I think I need to find someone who knows more about cricket than I do - which shouldn't be that difficult. In fact, I probably need to delegate the whole thing somehow to a team of people with skills I don't possess. It might be a good opportunity to practice that forgotten art. My own experiences of delegation usually turn into a complicated mess where you're not sure who's really in charge. Then you make a decision based on an assumption and there's trouble afoot.

Actually, that might be a key to success. I need a well-chosen team, a clearly communicated vision and an appropriate and achievable task list, perhaps? Also, it strikes me that delegation actually means sort of untying yourself from something. You become de-legated from it - which is freedom by any other name. That's how CEOs can go off and play golf, isn't it? I've got a lot to learn.

Especially about cricket.

A TALE OF MISFORTUNE WITH THE VENDING MACHINE

I reached into my back pocket and fished out a handful of coins: a couple of 20ps, a 5p, a bus ticket and (unusually) two shiny £2 coins.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered that the vending machine took £2 coins, so I happily rolled one into the slot and listened for the satisfying clunk.

Credit 2.00 Please make your selection, said the flashing screen. I smiled and punched in the numbers. 42. A Yorkie bar got released from its spiralling cage and tumbled noisily to the bottom of the machine. Some coins clattered into the change tray.

Some coins.

Turned out to be 35p.

"Oi!" I said out loud. I pushed the release button. Nothing happened. It just said, Credit 0.00.

Maybe it's stuck, I thought. So I put 20p in. I can always get it back if I push the release button.

Credit 0.20 Please make your selection, said the screen.

I pushed the release button.

Credit 0.20 Please make your selection.

Grrr. I've been robbed by the Vending Machine to the tune of £1.20. I rocked it back and forth a bit before realising that that made me look like a rogue and a scoundrel. So I pushed the button again, held it in, and hoped for the best.

Credit 0.20 Please make your selection.

Nothing. I walked off in a huff, back to my desk muttering to myself.

A short while later, I sat there feeling miffed, like the victim of some great outrage. It's probably just my pride, said my conscience annoyingly. More like me missing £1.20, I thought. Grrr.

It was only after a few minutes that I realised I'd left my Yorkie in the bottom of the vending machine.

Unbelievable.

TEAM LUNCH

We had a team lunch at The Swan today. The Swan is a popular watering hole - Sammy's favourite, not to mention that of others. I've sat in there many times myself, with a flickering candle, The Big Book of Everything and the company of good friends.

In the summer, the sun dips over the horizon and the River Thames shimmers by like a glistening ribbon. On long winter's nights, the fire crackles happily in the grate and you settle back into a comfortable chair with all the satisfaction a glass of something hearty can bring.

So it was weird to be in there on a Wednesday lunchtime. With work people.

What are you supposed to talk about on a team lunch? Chatting about work seemed to steer the clumsy conversation towards a meeting. That's not ideal is it? We may as well have a meeting! But taking it too far outside the confines of work swung the pendulum into a whole world of uncomfortable possibilities.

It wasn't long before we were talking GM crops. I sat quietly expecting it to turn into an anti-capitalist rant. The rant chugged in, predictably on time. GM crop corporations, it seems, sell farmers their super-engineered seeds but charge them for their use, including any further produce generated from those seeds. That means your whole crop is a sort of product, rented out from a corporate megalith which rakes in profit for your hard work and will sue your wellies off if you alter the deal. Despite the initial R&D costs, somebody, somewhere, I thought, is making a fortune.

There was an uncomfortable silence. I expected most people around the table (colleagues thrown together in the pursuit of international profits for people that none of us have ever met) were all thinking the same thing.

A little while later, when the bill came round, Nathan (who is a student) produced a fifty pound note.

"Where did you get that?" asked someone. I was fascinated; I've never seen one before. I'm not even sure how you end up with one - cash machines in the UK (ATMs) only ever produce 10s and 20s. It was a thing of great beauty and exquisite rarity - a real UK fifty pound note, worth fifty actual pounds. I asked if I could take a photo of it for posterity and held it aloft like a rare flower. Nathan found it all rather amusing. He wouldn't tell us where he got it though.

It's funny how money works isn't it?

THE POWER OF A SIMPLE SONG

I sighed, patted my jacket pocket to make sure I had my security pass with me and then pushed open the glass door that leads to the outside world.

The outside world was raining. The car park was glistening and puddles were popping with raindrops. It summed everything up. I shook open the umbrella and set off into the murky twilight.

It had been a pretty low day, to be fair. Messing up the quote had had a sort of domino effect, rippling around the department, email by email. I think we got it sorted by the end of the day but for a while I didn't know whether I was about to get blasted with accusations of incompetence, peppered with big questions from the big cheeses (and I do mean the big cheeses) or just quietly rescued by managers who talk in hushed voices out of earshot. Rain pattered onto my umbrella, reminding me of what I'd said earlier.

It was then that I remembered something. I believe that sometimes God just nudges us to remember things at perfect moments, and out of the randomness of the air, I suddenly found myself thinking about an old song we used to sing at church. It's really simple - so simple in fact that it seems quite boring compared to the latest Hillsong epics or the polished sound of Bethel Music. It bounced straight out of the 1990s, skipped through the intervening decades and landed full square in my head on a rainy walk home from work. So, I started to sing it.

To be in Your Presence
To sit at Your feet

It's in D this, said my brain, mentally thinking through the notes.

Where Your love surrounds me
And makes me complete

There are people at the bus stop looking at you, you lunatic.

This is my desire, O Lord
This is my desire
This is my desire, O Lord
This is my desire

It's such a simple song. It's got six notes in it. By the time I got home I was feeling much better about myself; it was as though a light had suddenly switched on - a light that helped me see everything much more clearly than the stress of work had allowed. That's what worship does - it moves the focus away from you, like a magnifying glass; it re-images what you can see so that the only thing that matters, the only person that's in focus, is Jesus. When that happens, everything seems much better. His strength looks better than my weakness, his beauty obscures my failures and his authority eclipses anyone I could choose to fear. I got home laughing at my work-based worries, knowing that however it turns out, it will be OK.

Sometimes as worship musicians you know, we get a bit tired of playing the same old chord progressions and the same old songs. If it were all about music I'd have given up a long time ago. Thank the heavens it isn't.

As I reached the front door, squelching happily in my shoes and collapsing the famous gentleman's-umbrella, I chuckled at the irony - it had taken a boring old song from the 1990s to teach me that lesson.

ALWAYS CARRY AN UMBRELLA

You know what, the hardest things to write about are the times when I mess up. I find myself pointing to just about everything else, anything other than myself in fact: circumstances, people, tiredness, television, society, work, the government, the media, my Dad's lemony soup, the presenters on The One Show or even the good old British weather.

It wasn't any of those things that miscalculated a translation request though. It was me. I just wasn't thinking. I've spent the morning so far, picking over the numbers, trying to work out a way to sort it out.

"Well, we are where we are," said the Chief Architect. He's taking a pragmatic approach to the situation rather than shouting at me, which is great. It's just that I've heard that statement, 'we are where we are' before. It always comes with a sigh and a look of dismay in the eyes as if to say, I'm not cross, I'm just very disappointed. 

Yeah, me too.

To be honest I think I'd pick cross over disappointed. Crossness is horrible but it doesn't last long - it's like a thunderstorm: a few lightning bolts, a lot of rumbling and crashing and it's over. Disappointment is the fine rain that sets in in October; it's the pervading gloom of a damp wintry day and the grim greyness of an overcast sky. It is drizzle.

But  even drizzle doesn't last forever. Today the sky is rolling with gigantic fluffy clouds, puffing through a blue Spring sky. The air's fresh and clear and the trees are lit by weak sunshine - it's rather like being inside a Monet. There's always hope around the corner.

I did mess up. I messed up by 10,000 words and jeopardised the whole release cycle. But it would be another mistake to go on wallowing about it - like pouring water over yourself when you're already out in the rain: you might not get any wetter but you certainly won't get any dryer either.

Anyway, time for lunch. Would you believe it: at the exact moment I wrote that, it started hailing outside. Good job I've got my umbrella.

Always carry an umbrella. It's great for drizzle.

ALAN'S MARVELLOUS MEDICINE

My Dad's still going with this soup-making fad then. He's bought himself an electronic soup-maker.

I've no idea. I'd guess it's like a heated blender?

The trouble is, he just can't seem to resist experimentation! It must be a chemistry thing - he's a retired scientist, living out a sort of pensioner's version of George's Marvellous Medicine.

I got home for lunch today to find a Perspex measuring jug simmering with an orange-coloured liquid, covered with an upturned plate.

"Soup for lunch is it?" I asked, warming my hands on the radiator.

"Yep. Potato, leek and er, lemon."

Oh. Lemon. That's... different... in a soup, I thought.

It certainly was. My Mum said it was alright if you dipped in a cracker, as long as the cracker was plastered with butter... and carried a chunk of cheddar. And maybe some ham.

Now I couldn't knock the texture. It was super-smooth, like wallpaper paste. The soup slid beautifully onto the spoon and delicately onto the tongue. Had it been simply potato and leek, I'd probably be downloading applications for Masterchef. Though I'm still confused about how it came out orange.

As it is, I'm sitting at my desk with lemony hiccups.

Is this what happens in retirement? Jigsaws and weird soup and repetitive chat about the weather?

Thankfully, the 'unusual isn't it' conversation was interrupted by the sound of mail tumbling through the letter box.

My Mum's blue badge has arrived. She's excited  - it makes life a little easier if you can park closer to the doors. Soon, when she's able to drive again, I expect I'll be lunching alone while the Intrepids are gallivanting.

"I wonder where we can go first?" she said, twinkling.

"Ooh. Maybe we can get some ingredients from Aldi," said my Dad, shooting a sideways look at the soup maker.

I might have lunch in the office tomorrow.

HOME HUNTING PART 1: THE IN-BETWEENERS

I felt like I started a huge story arc in my life today. You get these moments: meeting someone and knowing your lives will be forever intertwined; starting a job that opens into exciting new opportunities; finding a hobby that clicks into your personality like a neatly cut jigsaw piece. You get to the end of those days and you realise that life might not ever be the same.

I've started looking for a house. It's been daunting, depressing, exciting and fun... all at once. Emmie, who specialises in proactivity and taking the bull by the horns, took me round to eight different properties today (each with their own delightful estate agent) just so that I'd get a feel of what it is that I'm looking for. We had a lot of poignant fun, zipping across Tilehurst, poking our noses into other people's old-fashioned houses and figuring out what could be done.

"How are you going to write about this?" she said at the end of the day. I'm still not sure I know. At certain points this afternoon, I felt quite scared and yes, more than a little bit sad. I can't help it: see, I'd always imagined this moment in my life; I'd always imagined I'd be sitting in an estate agent's office with, well, with my fiancée; that we'd be dreaming and planning together about the kind of home that we wanted to create, the kind of place that we would fill with love and hope and family. That is how it's supposed to go isn't it? We're supposed to leave our parents and cleave to our wives and our husbands... aren't we? There's no in-between.

Only there is an in-between for some of us and it's a gaping chasm of uncertainty. You know that you have to leave, but there's no-one to cleave to. There's only you, standing alone at the edge of the grand canyon with no-one to hold on to. And if I may be honest, that makes me feel like a massive failure.

My friend Emmie was awesome today. She herself is in the process of buying a place and seems to have worked out exactly what to do before fearlessly going and doing it. She helped me decipher what I needed and I got a few good ideas about what I'm looking for. I hadn't really appreciated, for example, that I need a lot of sunlight and a garden. I need a great spot to put a piano too, and a quiet street for the cat who will one day keep me company.

So, with a melancholy mixture of past failures, present worries and future hope, I guess I got the ball rolling; the story arc that will one day see me at my own housewarming party has begun. What's more, you're all welcome round mine for a cuppa. When the time comes.
 

FRIDAY NIGHT AT THE FOX & HOUNDS

I went for a drink with Winners tonight. He talked about conspiracy theories; I talked about the difference between revolving and revolting. We both drank coke, much to the scornful looks of the pool sharks in the corner of The Fox & Hounds.

It's an interesting place, The Fox & Hounds. It sort of combines everything you'd expect from every other pub. At one end, it's a restaurant where classy middle-aged people deftly chink into their candle-lit meals and chat about house prices. At the other, where we were, the young pool sharks lounged across the comfy chairs in their tight t-shirts and tracksuit bottoms, passing the cue between them and periodically slipping outside for a fag. Boy bands warbled across the stereo, and over our heads a giant screen rolled the silent but distracting BBC News Channel. Pretty barmaids navigated the tables, their arms piled with glasses for the dishwasher.

I looked across at the bar and saw a grey-bearded man, studying the menu.

"Hey Winners," I said, whispering, "Do you think that guy looks like Rowan Williams?"

"What, Blackadder?" said Winners.

"No, you're thinking of Rowan Atkinson," I said. "No, you know Rowan Williams the old..."

"Genie in Aladdin?"

"...Archbishop of Canterbury."

"Oh. No, not really."

It would be a bit of a turn up, I noted, if it was the former Archbishop of Canterbury out for a Friday night drink at The Fox & Hounds. It would be even more of a turn-up, noted Winners, if it turned out to be Robin Williams. It's a fair point, that.

It was a really nice way to end the week. Winners always has something to talk about. As I took him home, he expounded some great advice about relationships while I tried to forget that I was desperate for the toilet. I should have used the loo at the pub, I thought to myself as we steamed up Sulham Hill. Twenty minutes later, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel and tapping my foot on the car mat, I was still listening to his top tips on romance, wondering how to bring up the fact that I was busting and whether it was too late to ask him if I could use their bathroom.

"So Matt," he said, "Should we pray about that, do you think?"

I smiled weakly.

ECLIPSE

Have you ever considered how remarkable it is that the Moon is exactly the right size, and exactly the right distance away to cover the Sun perfectly, during a solar eclipse?

Not that any of us could see it today. As ever when there's something cool to see, the clouds rolled over and blocked out the sky.

What did happen though, was that it got a bit murky for a while, then it brightened up.

"That happens every day in Ireland," said Louise.

Indeed. Here too.

It is remarkable though that every now and then, these three massive objects line up in a perfect syzygy. In ancient times it was a sign of bad fortune to come, though I think most people were just afraid of astronomical phenomena. Halley's Comet even appears in the Bayeux Tapestry as a kind of symbol of the forthcoming Norman invasion of 1066. Though, to be fair it was sewn in by Normans long after the event.

The point was that these things were so unusual, so bizarre and possibly frightening, that they could only have been interpreted as great and terrible omens. In truth, the Moon always casts a shadow - it's just that every now and then, that shadow hits the Earth.

The Engineers ran a live feed of the eclipse today on the Big Telly. From where I could see it, it looked like they were all watching a huge, grinning Cheshire Cat.

EXCEPT IN HOLLYWOOD

The Finance Guys beat me and David from HR easily. In fact, they were almost nonchalant about it. It's no surprise really, given that they play every lunchtime. Time and time again, the ball smashed into the goal, we fished it out, span it in and watched it ricochet through our players as though they weren't even there. 10-3 in the first game, 10-0 in the second. Oh well.

The table-football competition seems to have captured everyone's imagination. I overheard someone the other day chatting to his team-mate about tactics, about how they needed to practice, even though they'd be OK against 'ordinary teams'. I chortled to myself at the seriousness of it. Meanwhile, there's worry etched into the faces of certain other people as their matches crop up.

So, my duty making up the numbers is done. The Finance Guys zip into the second round while the plucky underdogs retire defeated. It's not the way Hollywood would have done it.

I was thinking earlier about that, actually. How come dogs in Hollywood always know who the bad guys are, long before the main characters have figured it out? You want to know who's going to turn the gun on you in the stand-off? Ask your poodle - they have a way of working it out.

It must be the same sixth sense that enables Hollywood dogs to somehow survive any natural disaster. From floods to alien invasions, tornadoes to CGI apocalypses, Hollywood dogs have been surviving the end of the world somehow, for years. The President gets crushed by an upturned battle-cruiser, but hey it's alright, that nice lady's dawg jumped out of the way in time. What's that, Lassie? The kids are stuck in old man Smithers's well and the water's filling up and they might drown? How did you get out? And how is your coat dry? There's an explosion ripping through a tunnel? Will Boomer make it out OK? What's that? Boomer's in a chick-flick with Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson? Ah...

No, in Hollywood, the story would have been much more David and Goliath than David and Matt and the Finance Goliaths. 9-9 in the deciding game, the whole company crowd round the table-football table in a hushed silence. Slow motion, the sound of hearts pounding as the Finance Guys spin the ball in. It bounces around, off the sides and trickles along the goal line until with one swift motion, David from HR flicks a wrist and the goalkeeper spins the ball upfield. Matt's forwards bounce it off each other, the ball bounces into the air, and down and then on the volley... boom... into the back of the Finance Guys' goal!

Cue the cheering crowd, high-fiving each other in delight. Cue the disgruntled Finance Guys slinking off under the cheesy eighties music. Roll credits.

Yeah, it didn't happen like that. It never does.

Except in Hollywood.

THE WATER IN TORONTO

"Hey Matt, Beer Fest? You up for it?"

"Oh," I replied, trying not to sound relieved, "I'll be in Canada."

It's fair to say that the Reading Beer Festival isn't exactly my thing. I don't like beer for a start. I know you're not supposed to say things like that. All hail to the ale? No thanks. Spending a day drinking it with inebriated colleagues talking about the only thing we all have in common... well, it's not for me. There are better ways to spend a day off.

"Whereabouts?" asked Nell, sounding interested. Louise came in and started washing her cup under the tap.

"I'll be in Toronto," I went on, "My friend lives there; I think we're going to go to Niagara, see the lakes, hang out in the city, that kind of thing. I'm really looking forward to it."

"Nice," said Ant, twiddling his coffee cop on the counter.

"Oh God, Toronto," said Louise. "My friend went there when she was eighteen, met a guy within a month and came back pregnant. I think there's something in the water."

There was a pause.

"So um... be careful, Matt," she said. Funny.

THE POWER OF FLOWERS

In case you're wondering, I got my Mum flowers for Mother's Day. She was pleased. I'm not sure I'll ever fully understand the power of flowers - they seem to have a deep and mysterious emotional effect on ladies that the rest of us find... baffling. They are only flowers, after all.

Back in the old days, I hypothesise, a gentleman would stroll into the countryside and pick a bouquet by hand. Each flower (I imagine) would carry a beauty or a scent which reminded him of his sweetheart. Wrapped up in that glorious bunch of wild posies was everything he thought about her, as well as his time and his thoughtfulness, his effort and imagination. As he skipped romantically through the meadow, he cared not how he looked, or what other men might say, but only for the lady he loved.

These days, supermarkets and florists have done all of that for us. I must admit though, I did still have to find a bunch that I knew my Mum would like. She loves lots of colour and big flower-heads, so even though the selections were all neatly arranged for me (and not out in the wild) I knew what I was looking for.

To be honest, I don't know whether I could do enough for my Mum, especially given that we all felt we nearly lost her at Christmas. A bunch of flowers seems such a small and worthless token compared to all that she really means - and especially to a guy like me, who doesn't particularly understand them as a gift anyway. But that's the thing about mums (and dads while we're at it) isn't it? You can't ever pay them back for everything they've done; you can only pay it forward and promise to do the same for your own children when the time comes.

In the meantime, if there's any way to fill someone's life with colour, to be the fragrance of love in the midst of a dreary world, or to tie it all together with a token of how much they mean to you, then we should definitely do it. Even if we don't fully understand the power of flowers.

HEADPHONES

Headphones on, clasped to the side of my head and squeezing tight. Click play. It's Holst - The Planet Suite, Mars the Bringer of War.

The drums pound, the brass section swells and the strings swoop in in that famous irregular fanfare until the timpani thunder and the cymbals crash. I purse my lips and narrow my eyes as my heart thumps in 5/4. It's fist-clenching determination for a Friday.

Plus, it keeps the rest of the world out. It's like having the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra sitting in the cans either side of my head, shielding me from the earthbound troubles of everyday life. There they all are, tiny musicians playing loud music, whisking me away to the stars, to Venus, to Neptune and to Pluto.

I guess we're used it to now, having access to music everywhere. I remember slotting a cassette tape into a Sony Walkman, clunking down the play button and zipping round the park on my BMX, listening to Bon Jovi. There was something very special about being in my own little world, flying through Prospect Park with the wind ruffling my curls.

"Ooh, we're halfway there," I'd sing to the trees.

Thankfully, in an office full of software engineers anyway, you can't sing along to Holst.

MAKING UP THE NUMBERS

"Matt, do you fancy being in the doubles?"

"The what, sorry?"

"Doubles - table football competition. We need an extra player to go in the random pot."

Oh the random pot! I remember the random pot. It meant being picked last for football in the playground. It meant being not very good and being there simply to make up the numbers.

"We've got three," said Ant, counting on his fingers. "A fourth would make life a hell of a lot easier."

I haven't played table football since Steve left. In those little afternoon games when we both kept backheeling the ball into our own goals, I realised that we wordy tech authors would probably never be a match for The Finance Guys. They are like Olympians of the sport, twisting and flicking the ball around with skills the rest of us can only dream of.

"Yes, alright," I said, "If it helps you out."

Thirty years ago, my unhappy playground team mates would have said something like, "Look, if you get the ball, just boot it upfield or pass it to Shinyboots*" And I, like a small child in clogs would probably have toe-punted the ball straight over the wall and into the caretaker's garden with my first effortless touch. The unnaturally brilliant Shinyboots would scowl with thunder at me.

That'd be me back in the random pot then.

So, with fifteen teams in the hat, me with someone picked at random and the tension rising, I went along to the live draw at lunchtime.

First out of the hat, me and David from HR... against The Finance Guys.

Brilliant.


*Not anybody's real name. I'd like to think that Shinyboots went on to have trials with some famous club but he probably got fat through smoking behind the bike racks.

CAPITAL ADVENTURING

10:16 On the train. The sunlight flickers rapidly through the houses as they spin past. I'm standing with my feet shoulder-width apart as the train bounces around. Something squeaks and rattles, the wind rushes in through a tiny gap at the top of the push-up window. It's all a bit uncomfortable.

It's my day off today. Emmie, Nick, their Canadian friend Elaura and I are off to London to do a bit of sight-seeing. 'The Big Smoke' they used to call it, back in the days when it was grimy, industrial murky old London. In those days, the pea-soupers would roll off the Thames and fill the streets with lamplit clouds of fog.

It couldn't be more different today. Monstrous gleaming spires rise up past those blackened old buildings. Smart shoes and briefcases hurry down busy streets and the Thames glistens in the million dollar sunshine.

Who knows what we'll see today. The train rumbles on...

11:09 Standing outside a shop I *ahem* really don't want go in. We're in Oxford Street, a long strip of commercialised fancy. I like looking up at the old facades, high above the plastic shop fronts. They whisper about old times, above the shiny fronted fashionable outlets and relentless hubbub.

11:40 Hamleys. This is a ridiculous place, a kind of nauseously huge orange toy box. I think you can only get a job here if you're an extrovert or a bit of an oddball. Some of these people are dancing to the Spice Girls on heelies, others are bopping and singing and going up to customers with impromptu magic tricks. It's a weird place, this. I can't help wondering how it can exist in a world where some children live in mud without food or clean water. There are expensive fluffy toys everywhere.

12:13 Piccadilly Circus. We're in a shop called Cool Britannia. There are mugs with Prince George's face on them, Union Jack key rings, fluffy beefeaters, little red postboxes and a full-size classic red, white and blue mini. Outside, the famously large screen flashes adverts for Coca-Cola, TDK and Samsung. Why is this one of the classic views of London? Do you know what, it doesn't even really look like itself.

12:52 Well this is nice. Trafalgar Square in the warm spring sunshine. There are people everywhere, spilling out of the national gallery and round the Landseer lions. It's selfie city central here. Someone has propped a small child between the bronze paws of one of these things. I'm not sure Nelson approves.

Elaura's taught me how to take panoramic pictures! Amazing!

13:15 The Houses of Parliament look hazy today, sort of silhouetted on the banks of the Thames. Every now and then the sun catches the glinting Zimbabwean gold and the wind ruffles a flag. Funny to think how much of our lives is dictated here, within these grand old walls and windows.

Nick told me he thinks the national lottery might be fixed to make sure that the shareholders get high interest rates on money they haven't had to pay out.

We've walked round the back and over the bridge. The river is a queasy green, lapping at the concrete grey embankment. The heart of London, flowing and tumbling through the grand old city, always changing, always the same. In the shadow of a hazy Westminster palace, it seems like a good metaphor for politics somehow.

14:20 St George's Tavern. I have no idea where we are, somewhere in SW1 in the corner of a dark pub, waiting for a tray of drinks to saunter over to the table, and for Nick to get back from the passport office. The waitress seems vaguely disinterested.

15:49 Still in this dark corner. The guys are going on to the Natural History Museum and Buckingham Palace, which I love, but my Mum's not well and I need to get home.

16:18 On the circle line, returning to Paddington. Nick and Emmie and Elaura have said their goodbyes and have gone on to look at dinosaurs. I love dinosaurs; they appeal to the natural boyishness in all our species - giant monsters roaming the earth, devouring, chomping and hooting into the prehistoric skies. What's not to love?

Meanwhile the circle line is a rich source of people-watching-material. The ladies next to me are comparing coke and diet coke in over-abundant detail. I start wondering what future palaeontologists would make of a fossilised tube train - would they capture the sounds, smells, subtle nuances of our society, preserved in silent bones? I don't like thinking about that. Paddington next stop.

16:50 

"Excuse me, can you tell me how to get to Theale on an off-peak ticket?"

"Yes mate, five-o-six, platform 3."

"Yes but it won't let me through the b..."

"There you go."

"Cheers."

I'm still not convinced this is the right train.

Buckingham Palace would have been nice. I haven't stood outside those gates for a long time. We used to watch for twitching curtains, the royal standard fluttering majestically in the breeze, you know those little signs that someone might be in. Surrounded by people from almost every conceivable tongue, I'd get a little bubbling pride that this was our noble Queen, our symbol of monarchy and our great palace at the heart of our beautiful country.

As it is I'm on the 5:06 to Bradford-on-Avon.

18:14 Home. I'm quite exhausted actually. Great day though.

POSITIVE THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

The people who look after health and wellbeing are doing a great job. We've had free health-checks, links to help us stop smoking, positive thoughts, motivational quotes of the week and all sorts.

Although, I did think they might have run out of ideas yesterday when  HR's Positive Thought For The Week was... (and I'm not making this up):

"Uuuuuuuuuur Ahhhhhrrrrrr Uhrrr Ahhhhrrrrr Aaaargh"  - Chewbacca.

Boy, you said it Chewie.

It's nice that they're looking after us. We even got an invite to a talk with Sharon from Slimming World about healthy eating. It occurred to me that if we all took up healthy eating, Sharon from Slimming World would probably be out of a job. I guessed that her presentation might be a thinly disguised sales pitch for new customers.

I went to one of those once (not Slimming World I should add). It was a thrill-ride of a guilt trip. Look at these lovely doughnuts, mmmm, glazed icing, sugary perfection coating a deliciously soft interior with succulent strawberry jam oozing deliciously from within, floating you away into a taste sensa...POISON! POISON CAKES! THEY'LL KILL YOU, THEY'LL KILL YOU ALL!

To be fair, she was probably right - doughnuts are like little hand-grenades for your insides, but there was no need for that.

My friend Tom once wanted to produce a nutrition booklet. It was a sheet of plain A4 paper folded in two. On the front he'd written "How Not To Get Fat" and on the inside, printed in Arial bold 18 pt font, it simply said: "Burn up more calories than you take in."

He's grown up a bit nowadays has Tom.

So I didn't go along to the talk with Sharon from Slimming World. I did notice however that Slimming World's logo includes the phrase "Slimming World: Because you are amazing"

Well, I agree there, Slimming World, but I'm not sure that's a suitable reason to go along. Surely people go to things like that because they recognise that they're not quite as amazing as they'd like to be?

In fact, even if they're trying to say it's because you could feel amazing about yourself if you looked after yourself, it's still suggesting that you're not actually that amazing and you need the help of Sharon from Slimming World to see it.

Listen, your amazingness has absolutely nothing to do with your weight and you shouldn't let anyone tell you otherwise - not the sex-obsessed media, not your friends, not your family, and especially not Sharon from Slimming World.

You're amazing because you're designed perfectly to be you, the only one of you there will ever be. You're amazing because nobody else thinks quite like you, no-one has that unique combination of characteristics that make you you and no-one else can be a better you than you can. If that means getting fit, awesome - join a gym. If that means learning stuff and discovering new things - fantastic - get reading! Do fun stuff, hang out with awesome people and make a difference!

You can be amazing because you are amazing.

Or as Chewbacca might put it: "Uuuuuuuuuur Ahhhhhrrrrrr Uhrrr Ahhhhrrrrr Aaaargh"

DO POEMS HAVE TO RHYME?

I haven't written much poetry recently. I'm not sure why that is. It can be quite time consuming I suppose, and I haven't been really inspired by anything. I do still love the art form though. In fact, the other day, I read my friend Sarah's poem about The Galleon, and the gentle rhythm of it had me swaying with delight.

Writing poetry's quite time-consuming though. The rhythm and the tone, the selection of words and the flow of a poem don't always just tumble out of your fingers after all, not to mention that frantic search for rhyming words at the end of each line.

And that got me thinking. What if you could break all those rules? What if there were a way to craft a poem which obviously flouts the rule book but still retains its 'poem-ness'?

So, I had a go. The only thing is, it had to be a poem about writing poetry for it to make any sense at all. It's odd but I quite like it:


Do Poems Have To Rhyme?

Do poems have to rhyme?
I wonder, staring at my pen.
Perhaps they don't
Perhaps they won't
I tell myself a- second time.

Do poems have to scan?
I ponder, counting out each line
Each syllable
A finger tip
That helps me count in, um, pulses

Do poems have to be about
A thing that made me think?
I think a lot
of pointless rot
And sometimes let
My thinking get
Diverted by
The things that I
Have seen go by
Which caught my eye
And made me sure
The world is mad
And even more
Am I
impacted

Often though

I'm just distracted
Do poems have to flow?
I question, guessing that they could
But why did rules
We learned at school
Convince us that they should?

Do poems have to make (I ask)
The slightest bit of sense?
Do hippos wander through the woods
In search of fifty pence?

Do poems have to have
A clever end to make you think?
Or can I leave it unresolved
And hanging on.

SOUP AND A 9/8 SLIP JIG

The Bishop's Waltham Twinners make a right-hand star

Sunday night. My Dad's making soup (it's his latest thing) and my Mum's watching Poldark, a sort of swash-buckling period drama. The kitchen smells of raw onions and stewing vegetables, which seems strangely fitting.

I don't know where the soup thing started. I think he grew too many leeks on the allotment and wondered what to do with them. Plus, his background is in chemistry, and that always leads to dangerous experimentation in the kitchen, sooner or later.

Not like us physicists. We end up as keyboard players in folk bands who play at barn dances for small town twinning associations, don't we? No? Just me then?

Last night's gig was in a place called Bishop's Waltham. Even my sat nav wasn't quite sure I was in the right place. The venue seemed to be a sort of town-hall/gymnasium with a stage, much like a school assembly hall... in the middle of nowhere. I imagined it to be the kind of place where they count the votes on election night.

It went alright, I suppose. People enjoyed it and nobody fell over trying to 'thread the needle' or 'strip the willow'. I had an odd conversation with a man about trains and I almost messed up the timing of the 9/8 slip-jig, but to be fair, dancing to a 9/8 slip-jig is always going to be a little... irregular.

As an added bonus, I didn't have to drive home through central London. This time, the sat nav dragged me through the wilds of Hampshire, my headlamps illuminating hedges and trees in the darkness. If you want to get lost in the middle of nowhere, take a sat nav, that's my advice. As the orange petrol light flashed up from the dashboard, I started to wonder whether I'd also be spending the night wrapped up in an anorak on the back seat of my car. Thankfully not.

The soup is pervading the house now, in a way that would be charming and appetising to anyone who hadn't eaten for a few days. I don't know what he's hoping to do with it, he's made enough to feed the village. Meanwhile, Poldark is swishing around Cornwall on his horse while the women of the nation swoon at their televisions. If I close my eyes, I could almost be in an eighteenth century farmhouse.

I won't though. Work tomorrow - with actual computers and emails and people who get stressed about them. And anyway, he's just a fictional character, right, old Ross Poldark?

Plus, I bet he couldn't play a 9/8 slip-jig.

LATENT FIRE AND POIGNANT PIECES

I made a fort out of Lego tonight.

I know. I am that busy. Actually, that's not a joke, I've got tons of stuff I need to do. My to-do list is a chronicle of unticked boxes. Sorry, unselected... check boxes... for all you technical authors who can't switch it off on a Friday night.

Not that I'm exactly a Friday night party animal. I made a fort out of Lego... on my own... from a box of old Lego. My... nostalgic Lego that the niblings play with whenever they come round.

I don't know how it happened. I sort of got distracted and started rummaging through the wooden box, looking for pieces. I used to have lots of Lego: castles and spaceships, windmills and airports, knights and racing drivers... there was a time when it fired my imagination, filled me with excitement and stoked the latent fires of creativity in the corners of my sensitive soul.

About 8:30 tonight apparently.

No, I mean when I was about 9. That's probably the right age for Lego, rather than 37. Still, it did bring back a few memories. I found a few tattered old pieces I once loved - angled bricks and hinged lids, those little two-ers that flip up like headlamps, and the windscreens of vehicles long since lost or dismantled. Some of those old pieces had been bent out of shape by time it seemed, which was rather poignant and more than a little sad. Others had clearly been trodden on by an angry foot. Forget broken glass or hot coals - every parent knows the real challenge for one of those eastern fakirs would be to walk on a path of assorted Lego bricks.

Someone wise once said:

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."

That's what I said to my Mum when she saw me sprawling across the floor, making a fort from a sea of multicoloured plastic pieces.

"Who are you then, Peter Pan?" she smiled.

The latent fires of creativity. I'll be honest, I think I need those fires to be stoked - especially at the end of an exhausting (and frankly, difficult) week. Maybe I'll factor in Lego time a bit more often. 

I'm having a rare moment of clear-thinking, straight-talking assertiveness.

Phone the papers. This, my friends, is unusual. I've already said no to two people today. Not 'I'm awfully sorry but I don't think that will be possible,' not 'Maybe later' and not 'Yes, erm probably,' ... but full on 'no' in all its two-letter, one-syllable glory.

What a wonderful word. It's like a sword, cutting through the fog of ambiguity, glinting with truth as it slices open the cake of doubt. Listen to its swish of short, sharp authority. No. No. No. Beautiful.

The problem with 'no' is that we all learnt it in connection with  negative experiences. Can I put my hand in the fire? Can I eat this pile of broken glass? Can I play with the stair-gate? Can I open the front door?

Every time we heard it it reinforced a boundary. There was suddenly a strong dividing line between the thing we wanted to do and the unseen danger it put us in. No came to represent someone in authority, arbitrarily deciding to spoil our fun, whether it was parents, teachers, grownups or just bullies who wouldn't let us play football.

Each time, it hurt and each time it became an unpleasant rejection. What's more, these negative experiences have connected an emotional response to the word which makes us want to avoid it altogether.

However, I think that 'no' is actually a positive word and not just the heartsinking negative admonition we've all grown up with.

We're adults now - we operate through rational perspective, seeing the bigger picture, knowing the pain of broken glass, burning flames and unhealthy relationships. We know that it's no that often keeps us safe from those things, even when it establishes an unspoken hierarchy between the sender and the recipient.

In fact, those painful things have actually taught us how to wield that sword wisely and well. It's just that sometimes we don't want other people to feel as crushed by it as we would be.

At least, that's what it is for me. Maybe it's exhaustion today, maybe my diplomacy filter is clogged up and I just can't be bothered, or maybe I'm fed up with being walked over and burnt out all the time.

Either way, I feel much more determined to be frank, concise and honest with everyone at the moment - and I'm not overly bothered about the consequences.

Ah, the consequences. Look out, he's got a sword! Yes, well actually I have a feeling that being more assertive, using the word no positively and just saying it how it is, might actually have an equally positive effect on those around me. After all, nobody really trusts a yes-man, even if they're sat next to the Power Chair. It is always much better to be honest... isn't it?

I hope it lasts. I quite like a bit of swordsmanship.

WHERE TO SIT IN A MEETING

I read an article this morning about where you should sit in a meeting. Closest to the window? Distracting. Closest to the door? Paranoid. Closest to the person in the power chair? Sycophant. At home in your pyjamas on Skype? Perfect.

The Power Chair. Whose idea was that? In western-style meetings, this is the seat at the end of the table, facing the projector. The Power Chair sits looking down the suit-lined avenue of faces on either side, much like an emperor, resting his (or her) noble chin on a pyramid of fingers.

Well, the article suggested sitting at the other end of one of those rows, closest to the screen and as far away from the emperor (or empress) as the table allows, preferably on the right hand side.

The theory is that the boss's obsequiants will probably sit closest to him, the talkative people who like to hold court will probably want to do so from the middle and the quiet ones who don't really want to be there at all will sit nearest to the escape route... or the food.

Over there in the corner, the idea goes, you can keep quiet for as long as possible while the wolves thrash out their concerns. The jesters perform for the king who nods impassively, until you, like a wise old sage get a moment to inject your quiet, confident brilliance into the proceedings - proceedings which have so far, forgotten that you're even in the room.

I reckon this is why King Arthur had a round table. Well, so the legend says anyway - so that none of the knights assumed precedence over the other - it was a table of men, of brothers, of equals. Oh and one of them was wearing a massive crown, like a power hat. I can imagine Arthur just sort of pointing at it to remind everyone who was boss.

I'm not quite sure I agree with the article. Popping up at the end of the meeting like Merlin with a great pearl of wisdom isn't always a good idea, especially if you keep doing it. People are complex - and meetings, even the ones that are focused around a particular decision or discussion, are always about people and the way we interact with each other. It seems to me that sitting hidden away in the corner without contributing, actually prevents you from doing so. In fact, my own theory is that the longer you stay silent in a meeting, the less likely it is that you'll say anything at all, let alone anything eye-poppingly prescient.

Meetings are complex enough, without getting paranoid about which chair you're sitting in. If you've got something to say, you should probably just come out and say it, rather than holding it back until you can launch it like an exocet missile. It's great to listen and analyse, it's great to figure out what's really going on in the subtext and it's even great to think carefully about what you're about to say. It's probably not great though, to sit quietly hidden by the squabbling knights and the jesters, out of sight of the chin-stroking emperor and invisible to the powers-that-be.

Unless you're on Skype in your pyjamas of course.

THE ART OF COMPARTMENTALISATION

I've arrived at the end of the day with a sort of post-run glow. I haven't been running... or posting, for that matter, but I definitely feel the kind of exhaustion you get when you've been out on a sprint.

It's my feet mostly. They feel like they're enormous. It's like they're pulsing scarlet with every thump of my heavy heartbeat, growing and contracting, swelling and deflating like red, sore balloons attached the end of my legs.

My legs are tired too, while we're at it. I'm not certain I can stand up for long before the weight of the rest of me collapses on top of them. Oh, I'm a heap of exhaustion tonight.

The thing is, there's no real reason why. I've had a packed day for sure - getting to work early and then filling my diary with more stuff than it could hold. That's tiring but it was mostly done sitting down. Chances are, some of you with children would probably relish a bit of a sit-down during the day. Hmmm. I sat down at about 7:30 this morning.

My manager doesn't like me doing that. (Getting in early I mean. He's fine with me being sat down - if anything he'd encourage it.)

"Morning Matt. Is there a problem?" he asked, as he swung his coat over his chair at 8am. I didn't think there was so I told him that, no, I didn't think there was. Sometimes managers ask questions they already know the answer to, but I wasn't sure it was one of those moments. It turned out he was wondering whether I was getting stressed about things... and not saying anything (which to be fair, is probable for me) and told me again that I should ask for help. He's right - it's just sometimes I don't know how to string those words together.

After a technical lunch, I went on a little lunchtime walk around the lake. I should do that more often. Fluffy clouds skipped through the bright blue sky and between the freezing gusts of wind, the sun broke into little bursts of warmth. The fountains exploded with rainbow-tinted foam and trickled into the glittering waters.

The geese were strutting about too. I avoided them.

The afternoon was packed with stuff - install guides and demos and all kinds of conversations about things that won't matter to anyone at all in a hundred years' time. I came home early, caught my breath, had dinner and had to go out to band practice - and that raced by until I came home, carrying with me the feeling that my feet were about to blow up.

I don't like this living-up-against-the-margin thing I keep doing. I don't really understand how it happens. Is it just bad planning? Is it sort of cultural? After all, my friends who live abroad say things like:

"Oh the pace of life is different, it's all more relaxed over there..."

... and they all live on three (currently four) different continents. How come we're all stressing out then, here in Blighty? We call it 'the treadmill', or 'the merry-go-round', not because it's hard work, going against the flow all the time, but because someone else is pushing the buttons which make us all speed up, whether we like it or not. There must be some sort of cultural metronome driving us all at the same velocity everyone else thinks they have to travel. Slow down people! Take a little breather!

Yes, well, Stubbsy. Lead by example eh?

So, here's my plan. I'm going to do a little bit of creative planning - you know, ring fence those days to stay wrapped up in a duvet, set aside those nights for switching off the phone and reading - and importantly, work flipping hard when I've planned to.

This is the power of compartmentalisation. I know right, compart-ment-alisation - the art of breaking stuff down into boxes, figuring out what goes away where and being OCD about keeping the system. Some of us grew up thinking that compartmentalising everything was a terrible mistake, but I think it has great power if used well. I've come up with five golden rules:

1. Plan and estimate well
2. Stick to the system
3. Be open about what's in the boxes
4. Don't let anyone move what's in the boxes, except you
5. Review the system

On the whole, my life has three big boxes and lots of little ones that fit inside them. That's OK I think, as long as I concentrate on one at a time... which is tricky in a world where things move so quickly, but not impossible. If you can't see the wood for the trees, you're probably a bit too close to the forest.

It's OK to take a step backwards, have a little lake time and survey the boxes.

By the way, does anyone know if you can get Marmite in Australia?