HOME HUNTING PART 6: GAZUMPERY

It's a miserable little word isn't it? Gazumped. It's the sound of a small elephant collapsing under its own weight in the corner, flumping and flailing with a tiny whimper onto the carpet, while the posh dinner guests chink their glasses and laugh obliviously in the firelight.

I'm alright about it. The dictionary defines 'gazumping' as 'the act of raising the price of something (especially property) after previously agreeing to a lower one'. In actuality, the owners of the property I made an offer on, had also advertised it with a different estate agency at a higher price, and had kept it open to higher offers, despite having accepted mine. Of course, when a higher offer came in, they greedily snaffled it up.

"It's not really about the numbers," I told the estate agent on the phone, "It's much more about the fact that they've been dishonest; I just can't deal with dishonest people."

So ends that little chapter then. Weirdly, it's actually alright. I even feel a sense of relief about it, which doesn't make any sense - there's nothing else out there that's affordable at the moment and with every day, house prices are climbing out of my reach. I just look at that though, as the conditions required for a miracle - and if I'm going to live anywhere, I'd love living inside a miracle.

"So you're going to carry on selling it then?" I asked the estate agent. The seller has broken their contract by putting the property on the market twice, but somehow, this didn't seem to matter quite as much to the agency as I thought it should. Of course they're going to sell it. For more than its worth? Of course for more than its worth! Virtually every house these days, sells for more than its worth - that's how the system works, how people make money and how economies bubble and spin from boom to recession. Houses are worth literally, whatever someone is willing to pay for them - and at the moment, that's quite a lot. The posh dinner guests are having a whale of a time.

Someone once said that 'peace that passes understanding' is the peace you get when you really shouldn't have peace at all. That's how I feel about all this - really peaceful, as though actually, despite the sly, underhanded, murky world of greedy property barons and their snivelling minions, I can walk right through it, laugh it off and trust that there really is something amazing just around the corner. You might not know or believe in God at all, but I tell you what, this is the best feeling there is, knowing you're in the hand of someone far greater than posh people at a dinner party.  

LUNCHTIME WANDERINGS

I walked around the lake at lunchtime today; I haven't done that for a while.

It was really pleasant. There were dragonflies buzzing through the shade, ducks shaking themselves dry as they hopped out of the water and bumblebees sniffing at flowers in the sunshine.

The Intrepids are at the beach today. It's my Dad's birthday and they've decided to hit the sand and the sea, sitting by the English Channel, talking about the weather, the state of the family, whether or not you can see France, who puts the dustbins out or the Northern Lights, or whatever else it is they talk about when they're on their own.

I got him a pot of chutney for his birthday. I tell you what, he loved it as well! He said it would go really well with the cheese my sister got him. My Mum rolled her eyes, knowing that practically every dinner-time for the next few weeks, he'll pick up his cutlery and then stop to say, "Ooh, you know what'd go well with this?" and we'd be into that whole Things-You-Shouldn't-Eat-With-Chutney conversation again.

There were also a lot of people around the lake today - the usual crowd of number-crunchers and suited sunglasses. It has always amazed me how frantically busy some people have allowed themselves to become. Sometimes it's great just to forget about work and watch the way the insects chase each other across the lillies or the red kite circles above the trees.

Then again, I've managed to double-book my evening again, so maybe it is good to also pay attention and stop day dreaming sometimes.

HEATWAVE

Big conversations about the weather this week. That's because 1) we're at the start of a heatwave, and 2) we all work in an office, which is a place where even the smallest thing gets magnified to seem much bigger and much more of a talking point than it actually is.

I'm sure this happens in most offices. I worked in one, where they threw you a little party if you got given a laptop. In others, people have developed whole feuds and vendettas just because somebody looked at someone else 'a bit funny'. Somehow, throwing a whole load of strangers together and forcing them to get along puts all of their behaviour under the microscope and amplifies absolutely everything.

This heatwave will not help. I just went through the kitchen to find the Finance Guys taking table football too seriously again. This time though, they were sweating like four beetroots gathered round a table, shouting madly at a tiny plastic ball. I filled my water bottle and grabbed a couple of tea bags.

I'm not a massive fan of the heat. It seems to stop me thinking straight. I read somewhere that David Letterman used to keep his studio ice-cold so that he and his guests would be that little bit sharper and maybe even wittier. It's a good idea, that. There's something about the heat that slows us right down to a lazy, unintelligent slump.

And that's it, I guess. The heat's great for holidays - but sitting in an office, sweat beading across your brow and your clothes sticking to you - that's no-one's idea of fun. Even the sun-worshippers who sprawl white-limbed across the grass at lunchtime must despise going back to work in the hot and stuffy world of corporate finance or marketing or whatever it is those people do.

I think, to cope a little better, I'm going to start walking in earlier, before the morning sun pokes its head over the lake. I might get more done if I can concentrate in the quiet and in the cool of the day.

"Matt, why are you wearing a jumper?" asked someone as I navigated my way out of the kitchen with two tea bags and a re-filled Volvic bottle.

"Oh," I said, not really sure of the answer. It's a fair point - not wearing it will probably help a lot too.

LOST ON THE WAY TO PORTSMOUTH

"Did Tom text you the postcode?" asked The Other Matt. The Other Matt is the melodion player in the folk band.

"Um no," I said, "Can't I just follow you down?"

"Well, it's a long way," replied The Other Matt, "Here, let me find it for you. Basically, just head down the M3..."

I knew then, long before I packed the piano into my car, hopped in and strapped on the seatbelt that I would definitely get lost.

-

"What happened to you?" asked Tom, screwing up the cymbals on his Jalapeno drum kit.

"I got a bit lost," I said. The Other Matt chuckled. I didn't join in.

We were in Portsmouth, well, Havant actually, for our latest barn dance folky gig. I've been doing this for over a year now, plonking away with my left hand and improvising in the twin keys of G and D major (the melodion is a fixed-key instrument) with my right. I did manage to resist the temptation to slip into blues this time, much to my bandmates' relief. Plus, now that I'm getting much more familiar with the likes of Cumberland Square Eight and Planxty Irwin, I can actually look up and see what's going on in the room.

Last night was a sweltering night for throwing your partner round the circle. It was the traditional collection of smiling elderly relatives and young children having a great time, while everyone else manages the natural embarrassment. I was reminded that years ago, this was probably the best way to meet someone, swing them by the hand and promenade into the sunset. There were a couple of teenagers stuck to their smartphones in the corner, just to remind me which century I live in.

-

Of course, the thing with driving all the way there, is that you also then have to drive all the way back. I got home at about 1:30am, by which time the callers on the radio had grown increasingly eccentric and I had gotten incrementally more sleepy. What's more, part of the M3 was closed, which meant I had to take a diversion through Eastleigh. I sighed as the cones filtered me off onto the slip road.

I wish I could be better at directions. This morning, when I told my friends about getting lost on the way to Portsmouth, they laughed and said they weren't surprised. No, me neither.

BE PREPARED

Well it's turning out to be a great week for self-awareness. I've learned something else:

Choir is much more enjoyable when I'm well prepared for it.

Yes folks it's true - you can't underestimate the value of good preparation. This week I was ready - I'd memorised all the parts and I was pretty confident I'd got the entry points correct. Conducting is all about building confidence in the musicians around you, and that's hard to do when you don't have a lot of confidence in yourself. In other words, I'm simply not good enough to do it on the fly, and a lack of confidence exposes that weakness, whereas good preparation plugs the gap long beforehand.

There are some things, however, that nothing can prepare you for.

"Thanks Matt, lovely evening," said Betty, perching on her zimmer frame.

"Oh that's alright. This is the thing I do that's most fun. Anyway, how are you?"

"Oh I'm alright you know, plodding along. Got to keep my curtains closed this week..."

"Really?" I said, intrigued, "Why's that?"

"Oh, I'm a naturist and I don't want the builders to see me in the nod," she said with a twinkle in her eye.

I'm not entirely sure she was joking.

HOME HUNTING PART 5: PLANET GOGETTER

Remember the debate about Planet GoGetter and the Ketchup People?

The Ketchup People believe wholeheartedly that the 'best things come to those who wait'. They're very patient, the Ketchup People, always looking forward to that moment that their hard work and long-service is recognised and rewarded. In the meantime, they don't do anything, knowing and believing that the general karma of the universe, or a divine blueprint will somehow work out good things for them.

Meanwhile, over on Planet GoGetter, they're busy looking at the stars and building space rockets. They know that the world owes them nothing, that life is out there for their exploration and their adventure, and that the only way to succeed is to chase your dreams. The GoGetters are the entrepreneurs, the visionaries, the makers, the movers and the shakers. They make things happen and they don't let anybody stand in the way of their very reachable success.

I made an offer on a flat yesterday. I prayed about it and genuinely felt like it was the right thing to do. As a Ketchup Person, I've always been really reluctant to move quickly - I like data, analysis, feeling, time to make a decision. I am a measurer, institutionally conditioned to believe that God in his wisdom, makes things happen and we just have to roll along with the tide.

But in the property market, the current is quick and it's complicated. It's run by, dominated by and saturated with GoGetters and between them they've designed the rules. To say I feel out of my depth is an understatement.

So, impulsively, I found myself moving like a GoGetter. See, like, think, make an offer - boom!

I've been thinking about this all night and so far, all morning. Have I done the right thing? Have I jumped the gun, missed something that I could only have heard from God if I'd taken a bit more time? Have I missed out on something far better? Am I a massive impulsive idiot - a dyed-in-the-wool Ketchupper trying to fit in on a planet that's not my own? Am I going to... regret this?

"If it's not right, shut the door," I said, strolling into work. "I'll let it go, I'll not be bothered if I get gazumped or outbid or anything like that - I'll know you're in charge."

A few moments later, the estate agent rang me and told me that my offer had been accepted. It's like being in a whirlwind this. Everything changes, everything moves all at once. The clock is ticking fast, and probably by the end of September I'll be moving in.

So I wonder, is it better to move wrongly than to move nowhere at all? I mean, I think God can do anything, especially when he has such nifty ways of working out a plan. Some things are up to us, some things he orchestrates elegantly and beautifully behind the scenes, even when we mess it up. But which is this?

I suppose the folks on Planet GoGetter have that lesson to learn - that listening is really important, that ultimately our own strength is really only loaned to us by one who is stronger and that in his hand, that combined strength is so much more powerful.

Similarly, us Ketchup People, we need to learn how to move, how to recognise when to be quick, how to reach for the stars and see where a dream could take us. We need to know who we need to help us get there - and ask them. We aren't wrong, the best things really do come to those who wait, it's just that waiting is a bit more proactive than we thought it was.

HOME HUNTING PART 4: IMAGINATION

Back on the trail then. Emmie (who is brilliant at this) came with me to look at two properties today.

I've discovered something. I know things early. I mean, I know things within seconds - no processing, no calculation, no working it out. I get a sense sometimes of something, and it's quite often correct.

Gosh, that sounds ever so arrogant doesn't it? I don't mean it to, and to be fair it's not always the case. I've been let down by misjudging situations, atmospheres and people many times, which is why I'm not always as confident as I probably could be about my discernment.

However, every now and again, I can pick up things very quickly, like a Geiger Counter. I don't always let on, but it does happen. It's very useful when poking around places I might one day live in. It's quite good when I meet people for the first time too, though I never say anything, and amuse myself watching it unfold.

My problem is explaining it - and sometimes people need a bit more of an explanation than 'um, it just doesn't feel right' or 'Hmmm can't put my finger on it'. Also, that sort of unfathomable esoteric detection makes it feel a bit hokey and a bit mystical - and I'm not really into that. I don't think I am, but I could of course, be imagining it.

Nonetheless, Emmie and I visited two places today and I knew knew knew, what both would be like before the front door clicked shut behind us. The first one felt weirdly like home. The second one was nice, but cold and lifeless - which is weird on a summer's day.

Click.

Another thing about home hunting is that it is actually a lot of fun. You get to use your imagination in a way where it's actually helpful to let it run away: there were roomfuls of pianos, arranged in different configurations along the walls; the garden was alive with the sound of friends chinking glasses and the smell of a barbecue; the walls were changing colour in my head too, and the leaves were turning outside the window, falling away and blowing across the front garden, then re-budding and blossoming in the blue sky of an Easter day.

It was a necessary distraction today as well, after a bit of a tricky day yesterday. Sometimes you have to try fast-forwarding, letting your imagination fly you to happier times in the future, when ancient promises are fulfilled and laughter falls softly on the breeze.

Sometimes that's all you need to find a little hope.

MORE MUG DYNAMICS

"Well why don't you bring your own mug in?" said someone, cleverly holding theirs up so that I could see it.

I'd been boring the team again about my 29% heat loss theory from the new mugs.

"Um...good idea," I said, and sat down.

You know sometimes I can be really negative when the simplest of solutions is just one thought around the corner.

Why is that? It's like a bit of common sense is missing from my brain. Is it an engineering thing? I mean you hear stories of science boffins who can solve complex differential equations but can't do up their shoelaces. Then there was the story of the NASA geniuses who designed a ball-point pen that would work perfectly in zero gravity, while the Russians just took pencils. It's fair to say I'm not a NASA genius... but then I'm no cosmonaut either.

Maybe I just like a whinge sometimes? I hope it's not that, I don't want to be that guy - and actually, on the whole, I think I let a whole lot of things just pass me by that other people get furious about.

Sometimes though, the problem clouds over the solution and we completely forget that there is an answer, hiding away in the fog.

This is another reason why I really love teamwork. When all I can see is a problem, I need people around me who are problem solvers - and they need me to... well, do whatever it is that I do, write about it... I guess.

"It lasts for three hours," said Dimitrios, stirring a tea bag into his very own gleaming flask of hot water. My eyes were wide. I shook my head in wonder and took a sip of the tea that I'd made shortly before launching into my science-based heat-loss-calculation-mug-dynamics rant.

It was cold.

THE DAY I DIDN'T GET STUCK IN THE LIFT

For the first time today, I wished the lift would get stuck with me in it.

I don't normally take the lift, just on Mondays when I've got to carry my laptop. This morning, I ran a very boring meeting and at the end of it, when everyone else had quickly scarpered, I was carrying my laptop, notebook and propelling pencil back to my desk... via the lift.

The doors slid shut, daylight blinked out and I was left in the quiet metal box, waiting for it to whir into action. Nothing happened.

I'm tired I think. My subconscious mind wants me to sleep and getting stuck in a quiet metal box seemed ideal. Lifts are a bit like magic, I reckon - you get in somewhere, the doors close and then when they open again, you're somewhere completely different. Mind you, the same thing happens sometimes when I close my eyes.

Actually, it's more than subconscious: I'm really tired. I think I was actually asleep after I woke up this morning. I've got very little memory of how I got to work, got ready to leave or even how I got out of bed.*

I do remember seeing a sheet tied to a lamp post though as I ambled down the road. Someone had painted the words "Happy 21st Birthday Leanne" on it.

I don't know who Leanne is. However, it didn't take me long to work out that she would have been a toddler when I was at university. Time is gloopy.

As it happened, I didn't get stuck in the lift. It jolted to a stop on the ground floor and I went back to my desk, where everyone else had rushed out to the coffee van.



*I'd imagine that last one is the usual method: deep breath, throw off the duvet and jump straight to my feet growling 'I am a tiger' at my reflection in the mirror.

MUG DYNAMICS

We've got new mugs in the kitchen. Marketing re-branding or something I suppose, means we can't be drinking tea out of cups with last year's logo on them, so it was out with the old (I saved one from extermination) and in with the new.

The only trouble is, we quickly realised, Louise and I, that the new mugs are not quite as good at keeping tea hot. In fact, tea seems to go cold impossibly quickly in these new-shape fancy receptacles.

I did a little physics and a little maths, and it turns out that there are probably three reasons:

1. The new mugs are wider. In fact, they're one centimetre wider, which might not sound much but it results in an increase of 29% in the surface area. That means that there's 29% more tea facing the atmosphere, evaporating from the surface, producing a much quicker cooling effect.

2. Although the new mugs are wider, they're also the same height as the old ones. This means that you get more tea - in fact you get an increase of 113 cubic centimetres, which is about 28% more tea than before. It takes longer to drink it, resulting in a higher possibility of cold tea.

3. They're not very well insulated. As you know, I use the kettle, and boiling water in one of these doozers makes the outside of the mug way too hot to touch. In fact, I'm not even sure they're made of porcelain any more. That means heat escapes much more quickly from the sides of the mug.

So more tea, but its heat gets dissipated faster through the sides and the top.

There must be an optimum shape for a mug. I mean, drinking tea from a pipe or a kind of porcelain straw would be unbearably hot (literally piping), but the opposite, a kind of wide, flat dish would also be ridiculous. And your puddle of tea would go cold before you could lap it up.

Good job then, that I saved one with last year's logo. I'll hide it from marketing though. Man looks on the outside, I chuckled to myself... but corporate executives will just have to get used to cold tea.

THE SUPER AUBERGINE

The other day, my friend Sammy challenged me to write a poem about an aubergine. This is it.

THE SUPER AUBERGINE

My Mum's friend Jean
Had a vision and a dream
That she would one day be the grower
Of a super aubergine

So she went to the shop
With a skip and hop
Bought a pack of purple seeds
And a purple flower pot

To the garden hurried Jean
With a plan with a scheme
Took a pole, dug a hole
For the super aubergine

Then somehow overnight
In the dark in the light
She drifted off to sleep
In the purple of the night

Till the sun rose high
In the early morning sky
And she threw the curtains open
With a gasp and a cry

There, enormously obscene
Was the super aubergine
Like a giant purple pimple
Where the garden should have been

Thirty, forty, fifty feet
And still growing incomplete
Still inflating and oblating
It was bulging in the street

Fences shattered either side
As the aubergine grew wide
Squashing gnomes and trampolines
In a swelling purple tide

Then as Jean ran out to see, the
Super aubergine broke free
And it cracked up from the earth
And it floated silently

Up and up, and up away
Went the aubergine that day
Drifting gently on the breeze
Till it vanished far away

My Mum's friend Jean
Had a vision and a dream
That she would one day be the grower
Of a super aubergine

But super aubergines
Are the stuff of purple dreams
And her neighbours aren't so keen
On my Mum's friend Jean

ALMOST TOO LATE

I power-walked to work this morning. You know that feeling where you're pacing so quickly that it feels like your shins are about to snap off? That was it - pounding the streets and checking my watch at every feasible interval.

I was racing to get to a meeting. It seems I still have some work to do on that whole super-punctuality thing - I've not quite nailed it just yet. Anyway, this morning (still a bit tired from Jurassic World actually) I was power-walking, to make it to work on-time.

I arrived, sweating. As the second hand ticked over the 12, I poked my head around the door of the meeting room.

The meeting room was empty.

Five minutes later, with a cup of chamomile tea, my notebook and a propelling pencil, I went back in to find one person chatting away to his laptop. It had started then - but what I'd failed to realise is that most people had Skyped in and were joining the meeting remotely.

I could have Skyped in! The person chatting looked up at me, annoyed. I just smiled and shut the door behind me.

A short while later, I realised that all the meeting participants were Skyping in... but not in their pyjamas from home...  from the actual office, just metres away, where they were sitting at their desks with their headsets on! Now I'm all for technology, but that's ridiculous isn't it?

-

I've decided not to answer emails after 9pm. This is another guardrail in the battle against stress and frustration. In fact, it might even be better if I don't even check my emails after 9pm but in the world where all your devices poke you the moment anything happens, that might be a bit unrealistic.

I wanted to, last night. I wanted to type out a stern response to something that was sent to me, but I quickly realised that my attitude was affecting every key-stroke. As I held down the delete key, I shook my head dolefully and thought about the chain-reaction of hurt I could have caused.

It's not the Way of the Cool, thumping out irascible responses late at night. You can be wiser than that. Plus, it flat-out failed the THINK test and that's always a red flag.

Also, it's pretty odd to be OK typing something to someone that you would never dream of saying to their face. Keyboard warriors, like road-ragers, are trapped inside their own quiet bubble where the insularity of their perfect world makes them immune to everything outside of the window. The most dangerous places are often the most comfortable.

Maybe that's why I don't like Skype meetings?

JURASSIC WORLD

At the end of the movie, one of the main characters and probably the de facto boss of the theme park asks, "And what do we do now?"

To which some bright spark sitting near me said, "A shedload of paperwork, probably."

I hope that's not a spoiler.

Winners and I went to see the film, Jurassic World tonight. I was quite excited, Winners wanted to debate creationism, and the rest of the cinema just wanted to see massive dinosaurs tearing up the screen and roaring like there's no yesterday. They wouldn't have been disappointed.

It occurs to me now though, that all of the Jurassic Park films are about the same thing - the question of who is in control. Do we have control over nature? Does nature have control over us? What does it feel like to be in control? What does it feel like when we realise we're not? The plot formula's then pretty simple, in all four films: try to wrestle for control of the situation, you get eaten limb from limb; believe you've got control, you get hunted by velociraptors who, guess what, rip you to pieces. Stand in wonder at the colossal scale and appreciate the power with gentle respect, get the pecking order right (without stealing embryos, eggs or baby tyrannosaurs) and you might just be alright when the thing with big teeth blinks at you through the leaves. Either that or make sure you're under sixteen - that makes you pretty much invincible in a 12A movie.

The control question is reflected in the lives of the characters too. Once you see it, it's difficult to see anything else. Jeff Goldblum loses control of Julianne Moore who's rushed off to take photos of stegosaurus in The Lost World. John Hammond loses control of the company to his nephew, Vince Vaughn loses control of his bolt cutters and Sam Neill has seemingly no control at all over his dream on the Kirbys' plane, when a velociraptor actually turns to him and says "Alan."

Jurassic World cleverly interwove a lot of homages to those films into this one. In fact, it's clearly a film made with the greatest respect, love and nostalgia towards the first one, which even after twenty two years is still the greatest dinosaur movie ever made. I won't give you any spoilers, you know, just in case you want to go and see it. There are laugh-out-loud moments of utter daftness, and there are other moments when you genuinely get carried away with the effects. There are other moments still when you wonder - "Why on Earth do they keep building these theme parks?" or "Whose bright idea was that?"

But that's it, isn't it? That's the control question right there. Is it us? Or are we just carried away with the illusion of control, just as Ellie Sattler protested across the restaurant table in 1993. Is it 65 million years of evolution; is it nature, continually finding a way to show us who's boss? Or is it that awesome T-Rex? Will life find a way?

Winners wasn't really in the mood to discuss much of the film as I drove him home. I was thinking about that line in Jurassic Park where Goldblum says, "God creates dinosaurs, God destroys dinosaurs, God creates man, man destroys God, man creates dinosaurs..." and then Laura Dern says, "Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth."

All Winners said was, "I hope we never find a way to clone dinosaurs."

I could not have agreed more.

POLLEN DIARIES: PART 5

I read somewhere that if you coat your nose in Vaseline, it traps pollen before you inhale it and prevents some of the symptoms of hay fever.

I can tell you with some degree of certainty... that it doesn't work. Oh it does help to prevent a pollen-powdered windpipe. However, what it generously replaces it with, is a slippery, shiny red hooter that would out-glint Rudolph - and critically, is still blocked... only this time, with Vaseline.

Oh I despise hay fever. The most annoying thing is that so far this year, I've actually been doing quite well with the old grass seed. In fact, really well. April and May went by relatively sneezy-free, and you know what, even June was doing alright until the last 24 hours kicked in.

"Have you got a cold, Matt?" asked Lindsay at the choir team meeting last night. My heart sank.

"Oh no," I said, calmly. "It's just grass trying to beat me up."

"Yeah, you do look a bit puffy," she laughed. Since then I've been sneezing in the middle of most of my sentences and clutching tissues in my fists as though they were security blankets. I look like a shiny-nosed, red-faced in-patient who's developed an obsession with a box of Kleenex and a packet of chamomile tea bags.

I really don't like hay fever.

THE BASKET-TEA PROBLEM

After putting her foot down and declaring to the world that she absolutely, positively, irrefutably does not want a baby shower, my sister has... changed her mind.

"I realised," she said, looking resigned, "That it actually isn't for my benefit at all."

I knew it. I totally knew it. Another theory proved right! I thought to myself.

"Well, why not call it something else? Maybe a kitchen tea or something?" I said. "And you don't have to do all that baby-food tasting and eating chocolates out of nappies and all that..."

"That's for weddings," pointed out someone else.

"What? Eating chocolate out of n..."

"No. A kitchen tea. That's for weddings. You mean a basket tea."

"Oh well, whatever. You could still invite all your mumsy friends over to coo and cluck, but you don't have to go overboard."

"Well why don't you come then?" asked my sister, calmly and yes, seriously. "That would send the message that it's not a baby shower, wouldn't it?"

And I said... "OK then."

Gulp. I've dropped myself right in it, haven't I? I just know that all her mumsy pals will turn up with bibs and nappy cakes and I'll look like a right chump. They'll give me the look as well, oh you just know I'll get the 'what's he doing here' eyes from across the room...

Then, when the Mr Kipling's fondant fancy wrappers are left with a plate of crumbs, there'll be talk of stitches and dilation and epidurals and bodily fluids.

Deep breath, I thought to myself. You got out of the cricket match, you can get out of a baby shower.

Or maybe I should brave it out and take on the mumsies? Yeah mumsies. My little sister wants me here, I'm here, and yes, I'm a bloke, so you're just going to have to deal with it, sisters.

I asked my Mum for advice but she just laughed, made some comment about the 'scrapes' I get into and called me Jimper.

Unbelievable.

THE SPARE HOUR

I've driven all the way out to Burghfield for a meeting but I got the time wrong and I'm an hour early. No matter, I've found a quiet spot to look at some countryside and listen to the birds.

It's really quiet out here. The wind is tickling the trees and the occasional car whooshes by every now and then. These are proper chill-out minutes.

It's been quite the weekend. Harp and Bowl on Friday (it's a church thing, not a pub name) followed by The Swan (OK, that is a pub) and then looking after the Niblings on Saturday morning. That involved a game of Star Wars Top Trumps, hiding in the cupboard and being shot with plastic canons.

I flooded the kitchen in the afternoon when I trapped a shirt sleeve in the door of the washing machine. So, the rest of the afternoon involved standing in my socks, squeezing a mop out and pushing waves of water across the linoleum.

That's Reading over there, catching the summer sun between the hills of the Thames Valley. It always looks nicer farther away.

Games night with Sammy and Emmie rescued me from further housework. I ate two fondant fancies before they pointed out that they were girly cakes. I protested but I was outfoxed in the end, by the swirly writing and the pink packaging.

Then church this morning (my day off from playing piano) was really good. I followed it up by doing some writing in Starbucks but I was soon distracted by a party of people at the next table, who were using selfie sticks to capture the moment.

How have we got to a point where selfie sticks are a thing? It's an over-elaborate way to take a photograph of yourself isn't it? Back in the old days, you'd find a nice looking person and say, 'Excuse me, would you mind taking a photo of us? You just push that button... yes, until it clicks....' and that was it. Either that or you'd set up a timer. Nowadays the selfie stick lets you do it all yourself. Rather than actually speaking to strangers, now you can just accidentally poke them in the eye.

And so I've got to Sunday evening, chilling out in the warm June sunshine, waiting for a meeting. Actually I'd better get to it. I don't want to be late.

SO LONG, KING DAVID

It's David's last day today so naturally he's come in wearing an ermine cloak and a crown.

"As a generous man," he writes in his goodbye email, "I have left some carrot and chocolate cake in the kitchen."

Well, so long King David. I will miss the epic table-football playing and it looks like we'll never hear your famous Dictators' Christmas Carol (he wrote two more verses featuring Saddam Hussein and, weirdly, OJ Simpson).

You know how some people are 'characters'? You get them everywhere - madcap figures of fun who just make everyone laugh, sometimes when they really didn't want to. They're more jesters than kings, I suppose, yet they command the court better than many a monarch. I really like those people - mostly because they can do a thing that I can't do.

But it's also because in a serious environment, where grey-faced suits mope through the day and the colour is being washed out of people while they stare at their inboxes, it's great to see someone burst into all of that with life, humour, friendship and a reminder of the things that matter.

FRABJOUS IRRESPONSIBILITY

'O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' For I no longer have to organise the cricket match!

It's now a game of softball, and thanks to a lucky meeting that happened without me, I don't have to do anything to organise it. Not a thing!

While I might have just lost the only chance I might have of being Hero of the Month, I still consider that a fair price for not having to organise a cricket evening. I am experiencing... relief.

It's paying off, this chilled-out coolness! A younger version of me would have been quietly upset at what's happened, even though he wouldn't have really wanted to do it in the first place. He'd have been... undermined, offended... but I'm not. I haven't got time for all that any more. I'm happily quoting the end of Jabberwocky* like a child who's just got out of doing the washing up.

This is sort of what I mean when I talk about the freedom that comes from giving up stuff. I mean giving up caring about stuff, relinquishing the control it has on your heart and your personality. It's so easy for the things we do to shape our identity - and then for us to spiral into breakdown when those things are taken away from us. So give it up, and guess what? Its power over you goes with it.

Not that I ever wanted to be known as the Cricket Match Organiser. I'm very happy to give that up and let someone else do it much better than I could. It turns out it'll be on a night I can't go to anyway...

... 'he chortled in his joy'.



*Jabberwocky is a nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll. Not only is it awesome but it also is the origin of the words frumious, gallumphing, and chortle.

UNEXPECTED WUNDERBLITZ

Where do good ideas come from? I mean in cartoons, they just sort of pop into life about an inch over your head in the form of a lightbulb. Is that how it happens? Ping and I've got it?

Famously (and that means it probably didn't happen at all) Archimedes shouted 'Eureka!' and jumped out of the bath when he realised that the displacement of the water was related to the volume of him, sitting in it. In that little outburst of a single Greek word (as apocryphal as it may be) we catch a glimpse of sudden, unexpected genius striking someone like lightning in the bathtub.

Unexpected wunderblitz or carefully and scientifically-tested principle, it still led to the idea of buoyancy and ship-building (though in all honesty, it probably didn't did it?) and the idea must have started somewhere - even if it wasn't actually an old philosopher leaping out of an overflowing bathtub.

But where? And how do good ideas form? Are there things we can do to create the right environment for good ideas to click together in our minds?

I've got no real idea why I'm thinking about this now. It's gone midnight and I should be asleep, dreaming of playing the piano for the Queen or something. I'm entirely aware that these conditions create the potential for questionable ideas rather than notably good ones.

To get struck by lightning you have to be at the right place at the right time. The storm must be overhead and you must be in the open. Similarly with inspiration, you have to cultivate being in the mood to wonder, to think, to dream, pray, write or listen. Then maybe the heavens will open for your Eureka moment.

I think too, you have to be prepared to do what comes next - the hard graft of working it out, thinking it through, developing and shaping the idea. Good ideas can ping into your head but it's useless unless you know how to wire up the lightbulb. Even Archimedes ran a few more baths before he could really shout 'I've got it!' (I imagine)

It's properly late. I ought to try creating the right conditions for recharging the old thinking engine, and drop off to sleep. Plus that Steinway won't play itself will it? No Ma'am...

SUMMER-HOLIDAY WEATHER GETS ME DAYDREAMING

It's Summer-Holiday weather. Not the kind of blistering skies that got Cliff singing from the driving seat of a 1960s Routemaster bus. Neither is it the torrential downpour of days gone by, where we'd sit munching sandwiches in the car, watching rain hammer into the concrete of a seaside car park.

Nope, it's somewhere in between the two - bright and cold, overcast and sunny, flecks of rain in the air... but not really enough to shout about. It is summer-holiday weather... the kind of day when you were just at home, the cricket was on and there was very little to do, other than annoy your little sister by balancing a row of her My Little Ponies on top of the video-bookcase.

This rather nostalgic weather has got me thinking about holidays. Cuba is off, now that that same little sister is having a baby this Autumn, instead of jetting across the Atlantic. Plus, I can't really afford to go to Cuba anyway.

So instead, I think I'm going to book a city break to Edinburgh and spend two days exploring the city.

Then it occurred to me - I could do a grand tour of all the capitals! Edinburgh first, then Cardiff and Belfast and Dublin and... oh... yeah, London. Hmmm. Maybe London last. Oh and not all at once! Golly. No, through the course of a year or so. What a way to see the British Isles! What a way to have a sort of national... international... adventure!

I can certainly daydream, sitting here by the window, watching the green trees sway in the gentlest of breezes. In fact, sometimes I think daydreaming is pretty much all I do.

APPARENTLY A CAT PERSON

"You're a cat person, I can just tell," said Marie, stirring her tea.

"Oh really?" I said. I wanted to ask her how she could tell, what a 'cat person' looks like, and how you can spot one in an office kitchen on a Tuesday morning. But then, she'd just told me that her own cat had died and I didn't think she'd be up for explaining her off-the-cuff deduction.

Not growing up with pets has left me quite puzzled by the connection between owner and animal. I mean I actually get Christmas cards from other people's dogs. It's not a problem - just confusing to be wished a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year by someone who tries to attack me every time I ring their front door bell.

Having said that, I do understand the grief, especially if your cat is your only source of company. I switched up my empathy and told Marie how sorry I was to hear that. And I am sorry to hear it, even though I draw a much wider line between people and pets. They are not your children.

Maybe though, when I've got a cat of my own, I'll be different. Maybe I'll be a coochy-cooing cutesy cat person, just as Marie seemed to predict.

I tell you something though - my cat won't be sending you a Christmas card.

I DON'T WANT TO GO TO LONDON

"Matt, you never did that training course did you?"

Uh oh. This is the two-day course I missed in London that time when Peter was ill and I was supposed to replace him. Looks like I might have to do it after all.

"Do I really need to do it?" I asked. I've kind of been doing the role it's aimed at for a while. Plus, from what the other engineers have told me, the course seems to be two days of playing with Lego bricks in teams. Between you and me, I have Lego at home...

"It would be helpful to say you've done it. Plus you get certified," said my manager.

Certified eh? Two days in London for a piece of freshly printed A4 paper with my name on it. I'll tell you who needs a certificate for going in to London - everyone who does it every day - every single poor soul who has to get up ludicrously early, stand at a bus stop and then on a crowded platform, muscling into a stuffy tin tube for forty minutes, wobbling about to the n'cha tsks of someone else's headphones while the train jolts across the country, and putting up with the grim claustrophobia of the capital day in, day out. They need certificates, those people; hand-rolled parchments with gold frames and personalised calligraphy which has been painstakingly penned by the CEO of First Great Western himself. On his day off.

I've developed a new game on my walk in to work - predicting the exact point at which I should start eating a banana so that when I finish it I'm next to the rubbish bin and I can slip the skin straight in. It's somewhere between the junction box and the cherry tree by the lake.

"There's no chance I could do the training... in-house... is there?" I asked, tentatively. He looked quite pleased at that suggestion, as though he thought I might be altruistically thinking about how to save the company a couple of train fares. Yeah that too, I thought, but mostly it was just me being selfish. If I'm going to London I want to go for dinosaurs, history, music or food - and definitely not at rush hour.  

"I'll look into it," he said.

DOES ART HAVE TO BE INTENTIONAL?

"You look like you've caught the sun," said Malcolm, grinning. Brilliant.

I took the Intrepids to the beach yesterday for a birthday treat. The wind had been blustery and the air cold enough for a jumper, a coat and a hat. Somehow through all those layers, the sun had snuck through and had tickled me pink.

We had a good day though, there on the rough sand at Mudeford, overlooking the Isle of Wight. I love looking at the sea, watching it roar and change and crash and spray. It's one of my favourite things to do. As the wind blew sand about and the sun arced across the bay, I found myself relaxing, just listening to the ocean and taking in the sea air. Everything was perfect for a while.

"You've got a penalty notice," said my Dad, returning from the car with my keys and a small plastic envelope he'd found wedged under my windscreen wipers.

What a picture of life - just when everything is organised for maximum relaxation, along comes something to mess it all up. I've only ever got a parking ticket once before - in Lincoln about eight years ago. I'd parked at a creative angle between the white lines and a traffic warden hadn't appreciated the artistic nature of it. I guess some people just don't get art, do they?

That reminds me. Jo, one of the artists in our church, came and sat next to me today. We have artists who paint during the service and today, apparently, it was Jo's turn. She was dressed in overalls and was carrying a small square palette, which she put down on the carpet in front of her. It was covered in paint: thick colours mingling - blue and white, brown and black swirling and dancing where she'd mixed them. It was actually quite beautiful. I couldn't help staring at it.

"It's not supposed to be a work of art!" she whispered, chuckling as I leaned forward to get a closer look. I thought about that for a moment.

"No? I really like it," I said, after a little pause.

It got me thinking though. Does art have to be intentional? I mean does it have to have a purpose, a meaning, a thing that it does? Jo had accidentally created something that she didn't consider to be art at all. Actually, I think she thought I was really odd for appreciating it - it wasn't supposed to be art, but it sort of was. I know we could talk about what's art and what's not for weeks but this struck me as an interesting spoke in the wheel of that question.

Most art is intentional, I suppose. Artists create for love, passion, politics, hunger, food, religion, news, vanity, money, appreciation, exhibition, boredom, humour or identity. But is it possible to create something accidentally that's amazing? I think it is - though I appreciate that Jo could have been a bit offended at me being blown away by her palette, when her actual canvas, the thing she'd set out to do, was several feet away, glistening on an easel for all to see. In fact, it was for that exact reason that I decided not to ask her whether I could take a photo of it to show you.

Plus, that would have been me intentionally creating a piece of art from a very unintentional one and then distributing it for your discussion - which would in itself be art (I think (I also think discussing artwork is part of the artwork itself)) and it would have totally undermined my point.

Mind you, I've discussed it anyway haven't I? It's suddenly got a bit meta-confusing, all this. Anyway, the tale is: I thought it was a beautiful palette of colours and Jo the artist thought I was a bit weird for mentioning it.

My parking ticket isn't a work of art. It's £70 of unjustified paperwork which almost ruined a day out at the beach with the Intrepids. I'm going to sound like one of the inmates at Wormwood Scrubs in a minute, but the rum truth of it is that it I'm an innocent man m'lud and I've been stitched up a wrong'un. No, seriously, the ticket said I had an out-dated tax disc.

31-7-15 it says, my tax disc. I took photos of the car exactly as it was parked so I can appeal and they can discuss it. I might tone the photos all to sepia, give them a frame and then sign them with a flourish when I send them in.

EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR

The book people have been back and this time, they've left some real gems for our perusal and potential purchase.

The first book that caught my eye was How to Teach Your Dog New Tricks. It seemed to be a glossy collection of ways to show off to your friends by making your dog balance things on its nose, or bury its head under the rug when you say 'Who's a naughty boy then?' and so on. All that did was make me feel sorry for dogs.

Beyond a glossy cookbook and Carol Vorderman's Coding For Kids... there was only really one other book, or rather set of books, that caught my eye. It was a box set of Shakespeare stories for children. What a great idea! The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, a Midsummer Night's Dream, written out really simply and illustrated a la Quentin Blake.

What I particularly loved was that the author had included actual quotes, taken straight from the bard to recreate the dialogue. There was a curly-haired Shylock asking, "Hath not a Jew eyes?" and Portia claiming that "The quality of mercy is not strain'd..." Marvellous.

So while the kettle was boiling, I started reading a play that I've never read before. You might have read it and know what happens, but for me, gently flicking through the pages of The Winter's Tale, I felt like a child, encountering Leontes' furious jealousy and Hermione's confusion about it, for the first time.

The Winter's Tale is famous for the inclusion of one particular stage direction, where Shakespeare simply writes: Exit, pursued by a bear. No-one knows whether he intended an actual bear, someone dressed up as a bear, or whether it was included ambiguously to keep us guessing. I rather think it was the latter, the old cove.

The kettle clicked and I returned the thin volume to the box. I might go home and read it properly to find out what happens.

I guess that was always the writer's intention though.

BLUE BEARD

Here we go then. The sun is warm and the weather is summery sweet. I walked in today to the tune of birds happily singing in the dappled green shade and the gentle trickle of the fountain.

This is perfect for maintaining the chill-factor. After all, being cool is literally more desirable on hot days isn't it? On go the sunglasses, out come the headphones, back goes the music and everything is super sweet.

Time for a little 'cool' poetry then. This one's kind of layered, but essentially it's about hipsters - the coolest among us perhaps. Actually, as Q pointed out the other day, you measure style individually - and therefore coolness as an objective thing? Well, it doesn't really exist, and consequently, you are the coolest person you know - because only you can be you. Similarly, limericks are out of fashion, which is kind of why I used them...


BLUE BEARD

There was a young hipster I knew
Whose beard turned a vigorous blue
He wondered if shaving
Was better than braving
The world with unusual hue?

He put on his boots and his scarf
And didn't consider it daft
To walk, not so far
To the Cereal Bar
Where his chums could all see him and laugh

But his friends were all strangely polite
To the blue-bearded hipster's delight
They all went inside and
Immediately dyed
Their beards to a blue, bold and bright!

But the hipster returned to his flat
(and immediately frightened the cat)
He knew that his beard
Was no longer... weird
And he couldn't be doing with that!

So he took off his specs with a sigh
And he reached for a bottle of dye
But a moment or two
Of removing the blue
And his beard was as white as the sky

So now the young hipster looks old
And his friends leave him out in the cold
For the cool of the crowd
Is young, blue and loud
Or so I'm reliably told

CONVERGENCE OF DEVICES

Problems with Outlook today. I suggested writing everything down and running around the office with bits of paper but the IT Student wasn't keen on humour.

Plus (and of course I should have known this) he won't remember a time before email existed. For him, the Internet has always been a constant force in the galaxy, uniting us, binding us, surrounding us...

Sorry, went a bit Yoda there. It is a point though - there was a time when it was much more difficult to get in touch with people. I know I've written about this before, but technology has driven the connections between us for hundreds of years - from pigeon-post to Periscope, from telegrams to Twitter. A lot of invention has gone into helping us meet, talk and share together, wherever and whomever we are.

All of us have grown up with some of those inventions, and all of us have seen more things invented and adopted to make the whole thing easier, faster... just better, I suppose.

It makes me wonder what's next. Clearly phones aren't really phones any more and for years now, the personal assistant, the iPod, the sat nav, the home computer and the telephone have all been converging around the Internet into a single device that does everything, knows everything, helps with just about anything you can ask it.

Perhaps that convergence will continue? Like lines reaching a vanishing point... maybe there'll come a day when all the systems in our houses and cars and offices are controlled online by some wearable device? Maybe that device will eventually end up being embedded under the skin, controlled by the mind, and will actually become part of us - like a sort of cybernetic passport...

It doesn't take long before this train of thought steams into a scary tunnel, does it?

'It's because you're connected to the wrong Exchange server,' said the IT Student, happily. 'I can soon sort that out.'

I chuckled to myself, still imagining Yoda racing round the office with piles of hand-written notes for the Jedi.

'Sort it, you can?' I said without thinking.

He looked at me weirdly. I could hardly blame him.

PAPER PLATES IN THE DUSK

I've been invited to a 'bar b q'. I'm not complaining; I am not complaining - who doesn't love a 'bar b q'? And to be invited to a 'bar b q' at the beginning of the 'bar b q' season is a real thrill, isn't it?

No, what I'm wondering is, why we can't just all agree on how to spell it. My vote is a little traditional: I'd go for 'barbecue' which just seems right, given that the word came from 'barbacoa' - a sort of outdoor arrangement of sticks for cooking meat in the Caribbean. Oh and the fact that it's spelled like that in the 'ahem' dictionary 'ahem'...

Here's what I think happened: at some point, many moons ago, someone couldn't remember what kind of 'cue' it was. They probably toyed with 'barbequeue' or even 'barbeque' but realised that it didn't look quite right.

So they just stuck a Q on the end. Why not? It makes the same sound? What does it matter?

Meanwhile the Australians just avoided the tricky problem altogether and decided they'd all call it a 'barbie'. Fair enough - seems like a sensible solution, now crack open the tinnies. Even better in South Africa, where they simply upturned an oil drum, set it alight and called it a braai.

The rest of us just went along with the Q idea until someone took it further, abbreviating the entire word to three gigantic letters on posters. Everyone knows what that means. BBQ. Though it's a bit trickier when kids (as I did) ask what it stands for, and then look confused when it turns out to stand for just one single word and not three.

Ah, but perhaps that's why the invite was split into three distinct parts! That would make sense. Think BBQ, write bar.. um...b...q!

It'll be fun though, I hope. I quite like the smell of sizzling meat floating across a garden, the cloud of spicy smoke and the chatter of friends holding paper plates in the dusk. It could have been worse, I could have been invited to a Barbie Queue.

FOUR WEEKS I'VE FORGOTTEN

About fifteen years ago... no, exactly fifteen years ago... I finished my exams. I can't remember what my last one was - Thermodynamics probably; I ached through the entire thing.

To say that that feels like a world and a half ago, is a bit of an understatement. My friend Mark and I decided that at the end of all those epic months of revision and horrible early mornings in the library, we deserved to take the whole month of June off.

And so we did. Term ended the next day (June 2nd) and Mark and I embarked on our four week tour of hanging around Bath, doing absolutely nothing until Graduation.

The funny thing is, I actually can't remember it. Oh I remember little snapshots - ciabattas at the Adventure Cafe, those frozen juice things at the Parade Bar and my one and only trip to the Roman Baths. Other than that I've got no idea at all how Mark and I filled those four weeks. And it's not what you're thinking - we were sober the entire time thank you very much.

Additionally, with my June 2015 diary bulging like a broken suitcase, I'm finding it almost impossible even to imagine taking a month off to do entirely nothing.

Impossible. Not just impossible though - it seems somehow irresponsible now. Well it would, wouldn't it? There were fewer things depending on me in the year 2000. These days, everything seems a little more cloudy. I wouldn't begrudge students doing the same thing, given the chance.

I guess Mark is in the same boat. He lives in Manchester now and works for BBC Sport, doing something much cleverer and more important than me, no doubt. Those sunny June days all those years ago must seem like another life to him, just as they do to me.

Yet one thing I do know is that all of life is connected. My present becomes my past and ripples into the future. Everything I am is because of everything I chose to be, and everything I will be is connected to everything that I am.

And that means that in a tiny microscopic way, those forgotten four weeks in June 2000... are actually having an impact on these four busy ones in 2015.

That's quite a thought. I tell you what though, I'll bet Mark's got better things to think about.