AN ODE TO CHEESE

My friend Sarah suggested today that all rhyming is a little bit cheesy. Now, she's a fabulous poet and often lands upon a kind of phrasing and flow that I can only admire. I'm yet to work out how she does that.

Anyway, I found myself thinking about it. Is Sarah right? Is there an inherent cheesiness to rhyming poetry? Do we overlook it when we grind though poems like Thomas Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard or Wilfred Owen or Kipling or Keats or any of those rather serious chaps?

Are the nonsense poems that I love so much, the Lears and the Carrolls and the Bellocs, actually an acknowledgment of the cheesiness of poetry, swinging wildly to the ridiculous to cover their cheesy tracks?

I don't know.

What I did think though, is that it might be fun to take the idea of cheesy poetry and write a poem about cheese itself - subverting the question of whether rhyming is cheesy altogether by contrasting it with about as serious a thing as I can think of.

So I did. This is it, and it's really short and really silly and hopefully...


AN ODE TO CHEESE

If the sun should ever stop
And all the world should freeze
You'll find me at my local shop
Devouring all the cheese

If the Earth should slow its pace
And gravity, despair
You'll find me floating out to space
With unwrapped Camembert

If a comet hurtled in
And life had ceased to be
I hope I'd make it long enough
To taste my final Brie

And if I make it through today
I'll be a lucky fella
So long as there is Wensleydale
And good old Mozzarella

CHRISTMAS LISTS

The older I get, the further left in the Argos catalogue I find myself getting stuck in. There was a time when I couldn't care less about towel rails and dining room chairs.

"Look at the back, Uncle Matthew," said Sam as I twiddled a Sharpie. I'd been trying to work out what to put on my Christmas list for the Secret Santa. He grabbed a whole load of pages and flapped the book to the toys section at the back.

"I want that one, and that one!" he said, poking the open catalogue with six year-old fingers. He was pointing at two massive NERF guns. One of them was £59.99! Seems like a lot for a plastic tube with darts that end up stuck up the hoover, wedged in a hedge, or lost down the sofa.

It occurred to me (perhaps for the first time) that the value of a thing like that might be those moments of joy and laughter when a NERF dart knocks off a party hat, or you roll about hilariously trying to be a ninja. He won't be getting one of those from me though; I think there are cheaper ways of creating memory-making fun.

In the end, like Sam, I put two things on my list. Whoever draws me out of the hat will have the thrilling choice of gifting me with a large wicker laundry basket or some kitchen scales.

And as old as I am, either of those things will make me beam with happiness.

BLACK FRIDAY

"I just don't understand," said Robert, sniffling, "How bad things can happen to good people."

I heard myself softly explaining what it means to live in a fallen world. Through some degree of heartache, my words came tumbling out like tears, uncontrollable and true. I felt as though I were holding on to everything I was saying, preaching it to myself, grasping it, trying to believe it. For I don't understand it either.

THE CASE OF THE FOOD THIEF

Holmes was in no mood for jollity as he tightened the clasp on his webcam.

"Ah Watson!" he cried, "You will no doubt be wondering precisely why I am engaged in the connection of this surveillance device to my writing desk! Unquestionably your finely tuned technical authoring eyes will have fixed on the semi-consumed pot of squeezable honey in the left pocket of my smoking jacket, the empty packet of Skittles and the trail of tiny biscuit crumbs leading inexorably to the kitchen, and you will have deduced the simple truth of the matter?"

"Actually Holmes," I replied, "I was wondering why Tracy the Receptionist is furiously pacing up and down outside as though the world is reaching impending peril."

"Ah," said the eminent detective. "That will be the Food Thief."

"The Food Thief?"

"Yes Watson, it's perfectly obvious. We have a food thief - and one with a sweet tooth if I'm not mistaken."

Holmes rested his chin upon his steepled fingers and tapped as he gazed from the window. He rarely was mistaken.

"It is a most intriguing case," he continued, "And clearly one in which the perpetrator is clever enough to cover his tracks. But he must be caught Watson, he must be... apprehended. We cannot have an office where Skittles go missing and receptionists are livid."

"And hence the webcam," I noted, observantly.

Holmes nodded with a wistful smile, then returned to his diligence. I noted a bottle of Frijj milkshake perched on the desk by his replica Persian envelope scimitar.

"And this?" I enquired, picking it up.

"Don't touch that Watson!" he exclaimed, spinning on his chair. It is three months out of date and positioned perfectly!"

I put it back.

"I probably ought to get back to the technical authoring," I said to no reply.

MORE ON TINY MOMENTS

I poured water over the Placement Student today. I didn't mean to - I was asking him a question about reports. I pointed to his screen then moved my index finger down quickly, catching a glass on the way. It wobbled and fell, glugging water everywhere.

Another tiny moment where nothing happens. It lasted maybe half a second. Half a second of disbelief, of silence and shock.

Water seeped along his desk as I instinctively righted the glass before I blurted out, "I am SO sorry."

It was OK though. Because we're British, we both said something like: "Good job it was only water, eh?" to ease the tension, then I went off to the kitchen to get paper towels and I returned knowing full well that we would say no more about it.

Lots of things happen in half a second. Soundwaves travel 115m through the air, electricty shoots round 700 miles of circuit and light can travel a whopping 150,000km. That's halfway to the Moon.

That ocean of time is all it takes for me to realise I've accidentally poured water over someone.

What is it with these tiny moments? Do most people just forget about them? I seem fascinated by what happens, what doesn't happen when you're in one, and how you resolve it.

So much is down to how you react in a tiny moment - so much history is affected by which way the drawing pin lands, how the coin tumbles or which direction the water runs. One tiny change and everything could be different.

The Placement Student didn't seem to be in the mood for discussing the philosophy of tiny moments. He was a bit distracted I think, by his wet trousers.

HOME HUNTING PART 17: HOME STRAIGHT

Nelson Mandela once said, "It always seems impossible until it is done." It's hard to argue with the man who took on apartheid and beat it firmly and gently into history. All I'm doing is buying a maisonette.

Still, nonetheless, that's how I feel, in this final week of the process. Me, disorganised, unable to make big decisions, frightened of legal documents and hopelessly awkward at talking to strangers on the phone - I have nearly done it! I have very nearly done something massive, which frightened me silly.

I don't want to pull the party poppers just yet though. There are a few days left to navigate, and this last stretch of water needs some focus. It is literally the home straight.

What Nelson Mandela knew was that sometimes fear gets right in the way of something that is wholly achievable. Like a fog, it clouds your judgement, convinces you of your inability to see it, to grasp it and to make it. Fear shrouds the mountaintop and whispers doubt upon the wind. And you always have a choice to make about whether you're going to listen to it, or like Mandela, hacking rocks in the blinding white sun of Robben Island, ignore it and believe that you can make a difference.

I'm not saying that buying a little flat compares to being in prison for twenty seven years. I'm just saying that a while ago, five years ago perhaps, this point would have seemed impossible to me, but somehow... miraculously, it is done. Well, almost done, anyway. I've got documents to scan and upload tomorrow and those unsociable solicitors have to do some chin-wagging. I'll let you know when you can pull those party poppers.

The result of all of this is that I feel much more confident in taking on bigger battles. There is a warrior in me who is waking up. If I can do this, if I can I overcome my terrible admin skills and irrational fears, what can I do next? What can't I do? What great impossible challenge is still on the old self-improvement to-do list? What's next on Planet Gogetter for this Ketchuppy old soul? What excitement lies round the corner? What's not possible? 

I almost can't wait to find out.

OUT IN THE COLD

Winter arrived overnight. Everything was cold and sparkly this morning, as though the Earth had been sprinkled with tiny diamonds.

So, some updates. The car's fixed. I had to watch an episode of Jeremy Kyle to get there, but the car is fixed nonetheless.

Talk about trash telly: a pretty young lady came out, convinced that her partner had been drugging her at night times so that he could cheat on her without her knowing.

Jeremy Kyle sat down in the empty chair and tried hard at not being patronising. Then, to the great boos of the audience, out lolloped the defendant, pulling up his trousers and running a hand nervously through his greasy black hair.

He kissed her once on the cheek and slumped into his seat. The jury had decided whether or not he was guilty, long before Jeremy Kyle ripped open the polygraph test results and called him a liar.

"Your car's ready sir," said a man in a white shirt and a coloured tie, jangling keys at me in the real world.

While my windscreen wipers now work better than ever, my ear does not. The doctor gave me drops but I'm not certain that they're working. I'm still going round with a bit of tissue wedged in my earhole, hearing the world as though my head is stuck in a bucket.

Secret Santa's back as well. I was thinking last night about how we always go through the same cycle organising the family secret santa: excitement, tears, confusion and relief. Excitement because Christmas is on its inexorable trajectory again; tears because someone doesn't want to be part of it; confusion because that person actually does want to be part of it after all, and relief because the kettle's on.

Meanwhile lots of phone conversations with people I've never met. I sorted contents and buildings insurance today and heard the guy on the other end of the phone say,

"Is that your card, or did you pinch it?"

I laughed and told him I wasn't in the habit of nicking cards, then marvelled at how he'd taken the awkwardness out of paying for a thing, using some well-calculated humour. It was all I could do but smile as I read out the long number imprinted on my bank card. Clever.

It is chilly. Winter really nibbles at you sometimes, biting your fingers and chewing your toes, whistling in your ears (which is painful, but I won't go on about it) and freezing your bones.

I wonder what happened to the greasy, unshaven cheater and his pretty girlfriend. Did she take him back? Did the audience boo him off, or has he learned how to choose respect and honour over selfishness? Are there things to learn when you're out in the cold?

I think so.

AND WHETHER PIGS HAVE WINGS

So, I'm working from home, unexpectedly. My car's in the garage getting its windscreen wipers fixed and I think I might have an ear infection.

"Is there any pain?" asked the doctors' receptionist, on the phone.

"Not really," I said.

"Alright. Well, it's probably not an infection then. We can do an appointment... some time next week?"

I tried to hide my disappointment, and resolved that I would call again later, despite being completely deaf in one ear.

Did I tell you I've gone deaf in one ear? I think I might have an ear infection.

I'm not going to go on about it.

So, I'm working from home. Unexpectedly. And after the blustering of the Barney Storm, the sky is a crisp wintry blue and the sun is shining. It's really quite pleasant.

What's more, today marks two years of writing this blog! Yep, two years, 556 posts and over 300,000 words. Thank you for sticking with it, if you have.

Like Lewis Carroll, I like the idea of not being too serious, not being too whimsical and not being too self-absorbed.

Stuck in the middle of that triangle is the world of Nonsense, where the sea might well be boiling hot, where the sun can shine brightly in the middle of the night on an unsweepable beach, and where a Walrus and a Carpenter can debate whether or not pigs have wings, thereby introducing the notion of flying pigs into the language as a construct of the impossible, thus making it, well, sort of possible.

Since when have doctors' receptionists been able to diagnose medical conditions on the phone? How long has that been going on?

I'm sure it's an ear infection.

I'm not going to go on about it.

STORM BARNEY

I don't know why, but I think they ought to name storms the other way round. Hurricanes are alright: Hurricane Bob is gathering pace over the Atlantic. Hurricane Iris is on the move... just sounds right.

This year, on this side of the ocean, the meteorologists have decided to give names to storms lashing the UK, using the same alphabetical system - only we don't get 'hurricanes', we get storms. And for that reason, Storm Barney is currently whistling through the trees and rumbling down the chimney.

Storm Barney. Like I say, I don't know why but I think it should be the other way around. I think it ought to be: Barney (the) Storm.

There is a chance I'm personalising a weather system a bit too much. In the Storm family, there's Abigail Storm, the feisty Scottish maelstrom who blustered through the Highlands and flooded Cumbria, and then there's Barney Storm, the raucous maverick who's throwing my Dad's wind chimes around. This is not a children's book though, I do understand.

On the other hand I sometimes feel quite like having a 'storm barney' of my own. That's where you breeze in, have a funny five minutes getting as mad as a tornado and then slump down exhausted and slightly disappointed that you stil have to tidy up. Thankfully, I can mostly control my personal storm barneys. And I'm way too tired for that kind of thing anyway.

I like the sound of the wind out there. It's wild and free, unfettered and strong. There is something raw and powerful about it, like the pounding of the sea or the booming of thunder. It's restless and discontent, and it can only thump and roar and throw things about. I find that quite relaxing.

A BOOK ABOUT TELESCOPES

More 'sharp rain' today as my Dad would say... and probably is saying right now, back home.

I forgot my umbrella (again) and didn't really fancy sploshing my way back across the A4 to the village. So it is that I've ended up eating my lunch in the kitchen, listening to the Finance Guys throwing themselves round the table football table. It's not exactly quiet.

I'm less upside-down today, which is a good thing, I suppose.

I had some thinking time on the way in. Well, I did... but it was slightly interrupted by Tom the IT Student who cycled up next to me and told me how he'd almost joined the Hells Angels by accident.

I've moved now. I left the hullabaloo of table football and wandered round to the sofas by the lending library. I don't want to read about tax, C# or 'The Right Way to Write Reports'. I've found a book about telescopes.

It recommends:

... Remember that the bigger the aperture the more you will see, so get the largest aperture you can afford.

No advice in here about what to do when it's raining though.

THE TRAIN DRIVER AND THE LITTLE BALL OF WORRY

I felt really sick this morning. I'm not ill, just feeling upside-down.

The meeting was a shambles. I lost the plot of what I was supposed to be doing, got flustered by an IT issue and couldn't calculate 29 x 0.75 even with a calculator staring up at me from the desktop. My mind was a chasm.

I've rarely felt so baffled. I'm learning a lot about myself though. Here's a thing:

I don't like it when my train of thought is interrupted.

I don't like it. The signals switch, the tracks change and I'm off at high speed in the wrong direction.

The worst of it is that it's always very helpful people who do the point-switching. They're not being malicious or trying to show me up, or anything devious at all; they're just trying to get to where I'm going. And I'm snapping at those nice people in the echoing chamber inside my head.

Unfortunately, the longer the meeting went on (and it overran by thirty minutes) the more hopeless at running it I was becoming. In the end I was just racing to get to the end, no matter how much of a disaster it was turning out to be to get there.

"Right, are we done?" said someone as I lost connection to the network for the fifth time. My heart sank with the corners of my mouth as everyone trooped dolefully out. I was left alone with a disconnected laptop, a notebook and a pile of unused post-its.

That's another thing I don't enjoy much - mechanical things that go wrong for no reason.

I can't drive at the moment because I found out the other day that my wiper blades don't work. I phoned up the garage this morning.

"Hang on I'll just check," said the pleasant-sounding lady at the other end. She was using cockney vowels but trying to hide it. There was a muffled silence while she asked someone, presumably a mechanic, about whether or not he wanted to fix my car. It turned out that he did - but not until Wednesday.

I think it's a case of control issues.

Somewhere deep within, I must believe myself to be a train-driver - in complete control of engine, carriages, steam-box and track; I can't bear the fact that sometimes there's a person about to switch the line up ahead, sending me swerving off-course.

Similarly, when little things go wrong, I'm utterly disappointed with myself for being unable to fix them. I look at my windscreen wipers stuck half-way up my windscreen and twiddle the lever, pointlessly. They taunt me by doing absolutely nothing other than collecting crunchy leaves along the blades. For some reason, this makes me disproportionately sad.

I need to learn how to let go of these things and take some positive action. After all, there are lots more things, bigger things, to get upset about.

It occurs to me then, that this is all part of the ongoing quest of learning how to rest. I spend a lot of time carrying around a little ball of worry deep inside me. The little ball of worry won't let me rest until it's fully untangled; it won't allow me to relax until it has unwound itself and all is just a long strand of simplicity. But computers go wrong, meetings disintegrate and there are always going to be leaves on the line and knots in the wool.

I flicked the laptop shut and shuffled the post-its into my rucksack, ready to head back to my desk and get on with some work.

There has to be a way to rest, ignoring the little ball of worry and ignoring the train track, and ignoring those mechanical faults I can't do anything about. Maybe I need to hand the driving over to Someone Else.

CAROLLING EVERYWHERE

So the Christmas ads are out. The Sainsbury's one is clever, but I watched it with the sound muted and got terrified.

The pressure is really on with the big stores isn't it? Every year they have to make it just that little bit more beautiful, that little bit more nostalgic and that little bit more likely to get you shedding a tear or two.

I constantly feel like adding the sub-heading: 'It's a shop' to the end credits of these things while I remember what it's like queuing up in those overheating department stores every December. They never show that, do they?

Anyhow, in the spirit of pre-advent-anticipation-excitement, Peter, Geoff and I started practising carols today: Peter on clarinet, Geoff (playing his swansong) on a trumpet, and me poking a piano app on my iPad.

As with anything like this, the simpler it is, the easier it is.

"When do you want to get people along to sing?" asked Geoff.

"As late as possible," I said, remembering how difficult it is to get your colleagues to take it seriously. I had a little smile to myself, remembering how last year, David from HR had modified the words of the carols to include famous dictators. Definitely as late as possible.

So, it really does feel like the annual wind-up to carolling everywhere, has begun. For the next six weeks, I'll be thinking of those tricky chord progressions and odd words I need to remember. Most of all though, I'll need to generate some of that magical Christmas spirit myself, and sustain it all the way through. That's always the hardest part.

Maybe I should watch the Sainsbury's ad with the sound turned up, as a starter? I probably ought not to poke holes in the astrophysics of the John Lewis tearjerker either.

Adeste Fideles, everybody, adeste fideles.

CHEAPO SUPERCOLA

Even the sky is gloomy today. Behind the clouds, the sun's sinking and the rolling grey is slowly fading into a purply black.

I'm a little bit at-sea because I got up and out of the house in seven minutes this morning.

My phone buzzed next to my head and woke me up:


Morning. Just checking you're still on for Breakfast? Can I order for you? Q


My friend Q and I meet for breakfast every now and again at the golden arches, just to catch up. He's changing the world; I'm muddling along changing spelling and punctuation.

Anyway, I'd forgotten that it was this morning. I leapt out of bed as though electrocuted, and bolted into the bathroom. Seven minutes later I was in the car, reminding myself what day it was and which arm goes in which coat-sleeve.

Life is busy. Q tells me he works fourteen or fifteen hour days, at which I raise my eyebrows.

"I just think that we should learn how to find rest," I heard myself saying, "Times when we're not thinking about doing any work at all."

I waited for the bolt of lightning, you know the type that's especially reserved for hypocrites. I was alright. I just stared into my porridge. Q nodded along, agreeing with me.

"What do you do when you rest?" he asked, "I can't lie in, I have to get up and go for a run."

I wish I knew what I liked to do for a rest. It suddenly feels like a long time since I had one of those. I guess there's always Screen-Free Saturdays - they're good, it's just that the last few seem to have been stacked with other stuff. They've been different, but I don't know about restful.

So, the challenge is on. How do you rest? How do you plan to rest? How do you ring-fence your resting moments and how do you deal with people who want to steal them away from you?

I think I need to learn. As I was setting up for choir last night, I felt as though all the energy I had, had been drained out through the top of my head and all that was left was a limping bag of bones and withering muscle.

In fact, it wasn't until I had a cup of Cheapo SuperCola that I felt like I could do anything at all.

I don't know what magic they put in that stuff but for a few minutes I was like the Hulk, lifting those chairs and setting up the 32kg piano in a flourish of unbridled strength.

It didn't last though. By the end I was back to Mr Wimpy.

But, you know what the Bible says: 'Man can not live on Cheapo SuperCola alone...'

Anyway, Q and I didn't reach any grand conclusions about what resting actually looks like. He went off to do whatever it is he does and I drove off to work.

I'll figure it out. So long as it's not too much hard work to do so, I'll figure it out.

HOME HUNTING PART 16: SOLICITORS' WORLD

For a long time the process has been stuck. In my naive mind, I think I had imagined a Victorian dining club with mahogany panels and a vast library of legal books, leather bound and stacked to the ceiling. I'd pictured cigar smoke and twirling moustaches, a roaring fire and a globe that opens up into a drinks cabinet.

It turns out the world of solicitors is a bit more modern, and a bit less sociable. I'm only inferring this of course, because they seem to have quite the difficulty talking to each other. From my observation in fact, it must be a very lonely profession indeed, conveyancing - estate agents grit their teeth when having to deal with them ("bane of my life!" exclaimed mine today on the phone) and even their own clients seem to get 'twitchy' (or so I hear anyway) from time-to-time. I'd have thought a glass of brandy and a chat at the club would have been just the thing for getting down to business. Instead they seem to prefer only talking to each other when they absolutely have to.

Despite hermitic solicitors, it turns out that my estate agent is fairly confident that contracts will be exchanged next week and that I will be a homeowner by the end of November! I had a feeling the end of the process would be the swiftest bit. I was suddenly thrown into a whole series of complex emotions - I'm actually close to moving, to leaving the Intrepids and to figuring out what living alone looks like. Is there a word for scared-and-exhilarated? If there is, I could use it a lot.

How do you spin one of those globes if it has drinks inside it? I've never thought about that before, but it's just occurred to me. It wouldn't be much use as a globe if you couldn't rotate it and stick a bony finger on Uzbekistan for a wager with a chum in a leather wing-backed chair. Similarly, a lazy susan with a patterned map for a lid would be a terrible place for six bottles of sherry and a carafe of Beaujolais Nouveau.

Anyway, I guess I should leave things like that for the solicitors to figure out. But only once they've got on with my paperwork.

HEAVY THINGS TO CARRY

Do you know what it's like to carry something very heavy?

I feel like I'm always lugging heavy things around. My piano is annoyingly weighty, all 32kg of it, back and forth from the car, through doorways and up flights of stairs. I keep complaining how it's getting heavier, but no-one seems to believe it.

My rucksack too, is accumulating stuff - usually my work laptop (they make us take them home every night). I think I've pulled a muscle in my left arm, just through hoisting it up and over my shoulders.

How does this happen? How does life get so... heavy?

There are other things weighing me down as well - some I just can't talk about at the moment: fears, dashed-hopes, thoughts and anxieties. Some things are awfully heavy to carry, and unlike a massive bulging rucksack or a gigantic digital piano, these ponderous burdens are sadly invisible.

Plus, I still haven't moved house. The Vendors are getting 'twitchy' apparently. And who could blame them?

One thing I don't have to carry though is the thought that today could be my last, or that this land on which my shadow falls might no longer be my own.

There are no tyrannical dictators threatening the immediate invasion of our shores, there is no distant sound of jackboots or the clicking of rifle bolts from across the ocean. We live in a relative amount of freedom, where all of us have a voice and none of us have to live in fear of such things.

But you don't need me to tell you that we have that because someone else carried the weight of it for us. When it mattered, our grandfathers and our great grandfathers stood up and were counted among the brave. Through the disease-ridden trenches of one world war and the fiery skies of the other, they pulled us into freedom, wound by wound, battle by battle, knowing that many of them would never realise whether it was all worth it. It is hard to imagine anything heavier.

Perhaps the only thing that comes close is the weight carried by those they left behind; those who waited, and those who wait today... every day, half-expecting the knock at the door and the pendulous dread of pride and sorrow.

It's bravery like that that puts my 'heavy' life into perspective. And today, on the day when we remember those who fell for our freedom, I think it's OK to carry the tiny weight of a poppy and lift two minutes of silence in honour of them and the values they fought for.

Because I don't know what it's like to carry something that heavy, but I know how to say thank you to those who do.

THE MOON IS A BISCUIT

I just read a fascinating piece on how the Moon might have formed in two distinct phases - one, where the volatile elements were crunched into a ball as it was flung round a fiery proto-Earth, and two, where all the other stuff steadily accreted to its surface.

This means that the Moon is technically a biscuit - a bis-cuit (twice cooked).

I made biscuits the other day. I put cinnamon and ginger in, and a plethora of raisins. I have to ration them so that the Intrepids don't eat them while I'm at work.

Originally of course, you would bake a biscuit twice - you'd cook it and then you'd dry it out in a second oven. Famously, this is how you define a biscuit - it gets harder as it cools, whereas a cake gets softer.

I just let mine cool on a rack and then sprinkled them with icing sugar. Then I hid them away in a tin.

Having read that article, I wondered how much fun it would be to think up a way of making Moon Biscuits. I don't just mean cutting them into waning crescents - I mean something that makes them look like the actual Moon. How cool would that be? I wonder whether it can be done.

What with the news that the word 'pyramid' originally referred to a type of cake, it occurred to me that there might be all sorts of cool things you could make out of cakes and biscuits. How do you make a pyramid-shaped cake? That'd be amazing!

Of course, I find it hard to look up at the Moon and imagine its fiery, volatile past. These days it's almost the epitome of serenity, silently hanging like a paper lantern in the deepening sky.

It reminds me that even those of us with difficult histories can settle into unbelievable peace, given time to cool and settle. And somewhere there's a Master Baker who knew what he was doing right from the beginning of the recipe.

I could really do with one of those biscuits. I hope the Intrepids haven't found the tin.

EDWARD, THE SEVENTH

So, there is a seventh Nibling. Edward his name is (though I think they want him to be called 'Ned') and he was born on November 3rd. I haven't said anything because he hasn't had a name for the first five days of his life, and I think that's rather important.

"I think I shall still call him Edward," said my Dad, floating the table cloth onto the table. "It's traditional, classic." My Mum rolled her eyes.

It's great news isn't it? The arrival of a brand new person, living and breathing and... experiencing this crazy world along with the rest of us. 

One night in my garden, he'll look up at the stars with me through my telescope and we'll chat about dust clouds and galaxies and pulsars and hydrostatic equilibrium. One day, he'll laugh like a shallow brook on a spring day, when I turn him upside down and threaten to put him in the wheelie bin. One day, he'll beam with pride as he waits so smartly at the front of a pretty church for the wife he has chosen. And one day he'll hold a baby of his own in his arms and marvel at that tiny miracle of life.

So, the important news then. He's five days old and he weighed 7lbs 4oz and he is as close to perfect as a person ever was. Everyone is safe and well and I think he's gone home, which is happy news for everyone involved, with the possible exception of my sister's neighbours.

It's a beautiful thing, life, isn't it?

CHRISTMAS HIT

I think I've got it. I think I've worked out the formula for a Christmas hit.

Right, what you need is an old song that most people will have forgotten - maybe from one of those bands we all loved in the 90s.

Then, take a ukulele, or maybe an old sounding electric piano. You're half-way there! All you need now is a girl with a quirky, folky type voice (it's vital that she's too young to remember the original) to sing it over the top of some simple chords or strum patterns.

Boom! Pack it up and sell it to the bigwigs at John Lewis...

Wait, what? What do you mean, they've already...

Oh well, there's always next year.

THE SUN'S GONNA SHINE ON EVERYTHING YOU DO

I stood out in the rain this morning. It was that really fine invisible rain, fizzling out of the atmosphere and soaking everything.

I sipped my tea thoughtfully and went back inside the house.

I'm not sure I like days like this. The sky seems oppressive and overbearing, as though it's trying to squash everything. There's a pervasive dampness that gets under your skin and down into your bones.

So... I thought I'd cheer myself up by listening to Verdi's Rigoletto.

I thought it would remind me of the warm sunshine, the taste of a gelato limone or the perfect sparkling blue of the Amalfi Coast. What could be better?

It turns out to be a bit more baffling than that. I've got no clue what Rigoletto is about - and I only picked it because I quite like La Donna é Mobile. It fascinates me how it's somehow become a football chant.

Anyway, Rigoletto turned out to be typical Verdi - dark mahogany, distant horns and pacing marches with twirling and twiddling flutes as the pompous strings swell and fade - it's like listening to two hours of the Italian national anthem.

It didn't cheer me up or remind me of the Amalfi coast.

So, I put on Ocean Drive by the Lighthouse Family and pretended it was 1996.

SIMPLICITY AND THE FOG

Well I got some sleep and woke up with a jolt, on what appeared to be a very foggy November morning.

And it certainly was: the station, the road, the tarmac and the cars were all hidden by a thick swirling blanket of mist.

A Ferrari roared past me and swerved into a car park. A guy of about my age got out and tucked his sunglasses into his t-shirt.

It made me think, that did, as I wrapped my fingerless gloves inside my jacket pockets and strode into the chilly fog...

Why does he need sunglasses?

I'm feeling a bit better today. I'm certainly a bit more balanced. I think I'm learning to love simplicity.

In a way, fog simplifies everything - it removes the detail, the complexities of things you don't really need to be worried about. For a little while, we're all short-sighted in the fog, as though we've somehow gotten lost inside an impressionist painting.

For most of my life I've been a bit of a details-nerd. I peer into the fractal, dive straight into the intricate twists and turns and find exquisite and exotic beauty in the way things are constructed.

That's why when I was young, I'd start drawing details before sketching out where everything was going to go.

Fog doesn't let you do that. It clouds out the detail, it levels everything, reducing it all to wavering shapes hidden in the mist. There is a lot of beauty in a simpler world.

And I think I'm starting to recognise that about life too. I certainly want to; I want to simplify the way I think about everything - starting with the bigger picture, seeing what's going on before letting myself get annoyed by the microscopic differences I'm naturally drawn to.

As exquisite as they are, those subtle nuances are part of something much grander and simpler sometimes - and it's that world that I want to see, that I want to belong to.

In a way, that's where my quest to listen better is taking me too. I'm finding that when my ears are open, I'm not hearing just the grammatical dips and curls that people use without realising, but also, something much more obvious that those things are illuminating.

The detail is still there, it's just that all of it is painting a much fuller picture.

I scrunched over the yellow leaves by the Pepsico building and walked through the frosty looking park, carefully avoiding the geese by the lake. The office came looming into view through the fog.

I hope today is a simple one, I said to myself.

THE TIREDNESS CALCULATOR FAILS

So it's eight o'clock and I have gone to bed, exhausted. I'm not really sure what's wrong with me, only that I feel tired all the time at the moment. It's affected my brain too.

"Um, Matt?" said Rob, looking at me, puzzled. I slipped the keys into my pocket and moved away from the cupboard. There were only a few minutes before the Calcot service was supposed to begin and I'd managed to stash all the instrument cases and cable boxes away, just in time, neatly turning the key and locking the large walk-in storage area with a flick of the wrist and a jangle of keys.

"Yep?" I said, happily, turning to Rob.

"I think you've..."

He didn't need to finish his sentence. Lesley was gently calling my name... from inside the cupboard.

I suppose it might be exhaustion catching up with me. Is it possible to be more tired than you actually realise? I mean what if the part of your brain that calculates how tired you are, is so tired that it can't do any calculating? Like a faulty oil light on the dashboard it just sort of flickers off until your engine crunches to a halt in the middle of nowhere.

Actually, that did happen to me once - on the M40, in a Vauxhall Nova. Paul and I pushed it up a slip road. I still think about it whenever I drive past Warwick Services. I never go in though.

"Oh it's alright, dear," said Lesley, peering up from her Bible, over her reading glasses. It turned out that she was getting some quiet time before leading the service. I apologised like you wouldn't believe.

"I guess when it says to go into a locked room to pray, it doesn't mention who's supposed to do the locking," I said, trying to be funny. I backed out of the cupboard. Rob was chuckling to himself.

I think I need some sleep.