EXPRESSIONLESS

I went in to a meeting today with every intention of looking completely expressionless so that I could hide how annoyed I was.

Here's how it goes: straight face, eyes fixed ahead, no curling of the lips and frozen eyebrows. I did it all. I took some deep breaths, gritted my teeth and relaxed my shoulders.

Just as I was imagining myself on a desert island, where the cool breeze ripples through the palm leaves and the sunlit clouds sail calmly over the turquoise sea, I realised it was time to go into the meeting.

Calm, cool, neutral, expressionless and relaxed, and definitely definitely not annoyed in any way at all, I pushed my chair back and headed for the meeting room. I had done it! I had mastered my crankiness and conquered my hacked-off face, replacing it with the neutral, inscrutable look of someone steadily cruising happily in the middle of the ocean of emotions.

"Okay Matt, you look perplexed, what's wrong?" said my manager before I'd sat down.

Unbelievable.

CRANKY

Well I'm cranky. And the thing about being cranky is that when you realise you're cranky, you just get crankier. It's like a loop - your brain says, 'Hey, you're really cranky' and you don't like it because you already know you're really cranky and that you shouldn't be. Cranky, cranky, cranky.

I know what I need; I've been here before you see. I also know the environmental conditions that have made me cranky: the heat, the tiredness, the pain in my foot and my inability to type.

What happens is that my cranky-tank gets close to full because of all these things. Then a few little annoyances happen.

Oh ordinarily, they'd be laughable - someone looking at me weirdly, the lift taking slightly longer than expected, a red light when you need the loo; I can cope with all of these things most of the time but when my cranky-tank is near the top, I'm constantly close to saturation point and those irritations are enough to boil me from the inside out.

I know what I need. I need someone who can make me laugh. There's just something about that kind of person - they come along and say things like:

"Ooh, Microsoft" for no reason at all and then wander off.

I once had a friend who would randomly say "I R A man" in a Belfast accent in the middle of a conversation. He wasn't Irish - he just did it to make me laugh. And it always did. It shouldn't be funny at all that, but somehow in the middle of a serious conversation, or after an awkward pause, it really was.

See, those kind of people know how to punch a hole in the bottom of the cranky tank and let it all out with a belly laugh. I wish I were more like that.

I tend to get locked in, rather than think of the way out.

Of course, the lesson from all of that is that crankiness is pretty fragile. Anything you can destroy by laughing at, is no match for you. All you've got to do is figure out how to belittle it - how to shift out of one fragile mood and into another.

I say, 'you', really I mean me of course. I have to figure out how to shift out of one fragile mood and into another.

Away with you then, crankiness, you old rogue. I R A man.

AN EARLY START FOR MARCO POLO

I was going to walk this morning. As it happened, my foot didn't feel quite strong enough to take on a 70-minute hike down the hill.

So I swung my rucksack over my shoulder, locked the front door behind me and headed for the car.

I love early mornings but they're so difficult to get up for - especially after a sleepless night.

This morning the sky was a rich, fresh blue and the air was ice cold. Bright white contrails stretched in neat lines over the world, from the golden horizon to the slowly fading stars above my head. The air was silent, except for a wood pigeon cooing in the distance.

It's the time of day when anything feels possible. The whole world is a blank canvas. I really like it.

What would be great is if the world could look like that at 8:45 instead of 6:20. Perhaps then I could love the duvet and the sunrise in equal measure.

Alternatively, I could just start going to bed earlier, going to sleep at a normal time and waking up early without feeling like I've had a brush with the grim reaper.

Additionally, it's worth pointing out that what makes that time of day so beautiful might be the effort required to see it. In fact (and I don't want to seem antisocial at all) it could have something to do with the fact that nobody else is up.

I have similar feelings about tourism. The Eiffel Tower is great, but these days you have to factor two hours of queuing into the experience. The Grand Canyon must be really peaceful and dramatic but the more accessible it gets, the more likely you are to share that peace with coachloads of chattering, camera-flashing, hamburgers in Hawaiian shirts.

I've got nothing against tourists; there are some things I'd want to see on my own. In fact, there are lots of things - and maybe one day I'll get the opportunity to explore the world and adventure across the globe like Marco Polo, or Vespucci, or Lewis and Clark.

I threw the rucksack into the boot and clicked it shut.

I'd have to get up early, I thought to myself.

HOUSEBOUND

I don't want to sound over-dramatic but I'm housebound, incapacitated and slowly descending into hunger-driven starvation.

Don't panic. The slow cooker's on. It's making a sort of pork stew with some leftovers. I had to use sweet potato instead of leek, beer instead of cider and gravy instead of chicken stock. It is taking ages. It is a slow cooker.

I'm housebound because I've hurt my right foot and I can't get my shoes on. I don't know how I did it - it's possible my laces were too tight when I did up my walking boots the other day on the way to work. Mind you it's also possible that I kicked the doorframe on one of my somnambulant walks to the bathroom.

I've thought about ordering a pizza. I can't use my card until Thursday though. Plus, it always arrives with a portion of guilt at the bottom of the greasy cardboard box. Last time I did that I sprawled across the sofa with a tight stomach and the indigestion of a Roman emperor.

So I'm hobbling around, doing washing and peering into the slow cooker.

Is this how the Apostle Paul felt when he was under house arrest, I wonder? Maybe I should start crafting a letter with long, overflowing sentences you have to think about halfway through.

I did some research on American presidents. Then I ordered my shirts and sorted out the recycling. I cut up some cardboard boxes (an ongoing project) and then listened to some ex-footballers talk about football in the same way they always do, until I fell asleep.

I'm not going to go on about my foot. If it balloons up overnight though, like a kind of inflatable shoe, I am definitely going to the doctor about it... if I can figure out how to get there.

In the meantime, I might watch a few survival clips on YouTube, just in case I'm here for a while.

SORRENTO DIARIES: PART 3

I'm having a lazy old rest day today. My legs ache and I'm not inclined to leave the blissful silence of my flat.

I ran a bath, found some classical music and sank into the deep, hot water.

I closed my eyes. 

Then, as though timed deliberately to annoy me, Reading Festival started. Some miles away, carried on the wind like the sound of a loud car stereo, the crunching guitars and echoing feedback swept across the valley. It's been going ever since. Thud, thud, boop bop, crunch, woot, thud, thud. Someone shouts something indiscernible into a microphone, there's a roar like the sea and then off it goes again. I'm going away for this weekend next year.

Speaking of holidays, it's a good opportunity to catch up with 2013-me, who, last time was complaining about being on his own in Sorrento, despite a nice hotel with excellent views and jolly good wine. Did he cheer up? Did he stop whining? Did he get kidnapped by the mafia? What happened next?

--

September 7th, 2013

I'm feeling a little brighter today. It's 12:35 and the sun is bright and round over the terrace. There's a typical Italian haze over the horizon. The rich blue sea fades into the hot azzuro sky, where a row of distant cumulus clouds hang perfectly over the bay. Even Vesuvius is lost in the haze.

"Una limonata!" I said to the bronzed man in a white t-shirt behind the bar. The pool reflected in his cool-looking sunglasses.

"Lemonade," he replied, translating for no-one's benefit.

It's always struck me how hopeless it is to study a language when the whole world speaks English - except those places where nobody does, and the language of which we were never taught at school. It was all about French in those days. Every last one of us was instructed in the language of our old foes until we were sixteen. I got an A. It's been of no use to me.

I got an A in Italian as well. I had hoped that a hotel in Italy would be a great opportunity to try it out. It turns out that the lingua franca here though, is English. And even the staff prefer it.

Swimming looks quite boring. I can't swim. All people in this pool seem to do is wander in at the shallow end, swim to the deep end, rest their arms on the edge and then swim back. Old ladies it seems, whether German, French, British or from Venus, do the breast stroke without getting their hair wet. There was even a lady earlier who did lengths with a neatly coiffured bob and a pair of spectacles.

There are a few older people here. The men are bald and copper-coloured, the women neatly tanned. There are younger people too - flip-flop wearing, bronzed and beautiful with spiky hair and gym-toned figures. Everyone is here with someone, it seems.

Then there's me: sitting on a deck chair, observing and writing in an A5-size red notebook, wearing a t-shirt, shorts and a baseball cap, alone and odd. Ha! It matters not. If anyone asked me, I'd be grateful for the conversation, more than anything. Even if it had to be in English.

-

I thought I'd get the free shuttle bus down to Sorrento today. So, late afternoon, I did. A whole bunch of Germans were on their way to the airport. They chatted among themselves about, well, who knows what; I heard the words 'swimming pool' and 'weekend' so I guessed they were congratulating each other on what a lovely time they'd had.

They carried on as the bus scraped its way down the steep hill. Sorrento is built on the slopes of volcanic rock that plummet down to the sea. Further along the bay, the hotels tip at the edge of what looks like a hundred feet of sheer drop into the Mediterranean. Ours, the Gran Paradiso, is at the top of a steep incline with a single track road that twists and winds down in a very Italian way, all the way to the Via Corso Italia, which is about right. The departing Germans took a collective breath as the shuttle bus flew round the tight, narrow corners.

I got off where they got off and wandered into the little suburb of Sant Agnello. I should have stayed on the bus I think. After a pleasant stroll through the warm and shady streets, I headed back to the station where I believed the bus would pick up its passengers. I was in the wrong place. I had to walk back up that winding, olive-tree lined Italian hill to get back. Not that that wasn't an adventure. I suspect walking most places in Italy is a bit of an adventure - I remember this from last time.

I was thinking about last time quite a lot today. Perhaps it was the taste of lemon ice cream which rushed back to me outside a gelateria. That had been my favourite thing in Perugia; I was seventeen and studying Italian at the Universita Per Stranieri. I didn't eat a lot, but I did eat a lot of gelati limoni.

By the way, the food is spectacular here. That is one thing to be said for the Gran Paradiso; I've only ever had food this succulent and tasty at posh people's weddings. The portions are small and delicate but honestly, it is cooked to perfection. It certainly beats the canteen at the Universita in Perugia anyway. As I recall, they served pasta and watermelons.

I was different then - impossibly young and unaware of the world. I'd not been to uni, never lived in a stranger's house and had no experience of a foreign country. The only people I knew were two girls from my school who were staying on the other side of Perugia and were more interested in kissing Italian boys than going to lectures with me.

I was forced to immerse myself in the culture. I bought stamps, bus tickets, train tickets, burgers and postcards. I went to Florence and I found my way to Pisa somehow. I had a lot of confidence.

I'm twice as old now, and somehow only half as confident. I found myself wanting to stop people in the street today, just for a conversation. "Excuse me," I imagined myself saying in flowing Italian, "Could you tell me the way to Piazzo Tasso? By the way, do you have any thoughts on the European Union?"

I didn't though. I imagined Italians telling me to find the Piazzo Tasso myself, in magnificently structured vernacular English.

CORPORATE WACKINESS AND AN ALMOST-FULL CAN

I really like the weight of an almost-full 330ml can of 7Up.

Okay, it doesn't have to be 7Up specifically. But there's something very pleasant about the feel of a can of whatever, just after you take the first sip.

Not full, mind you. No, I'm not so placated by all 330 millilitres. In any case, you skoosh open the can and take a swig before you have a chance to think about it most of the time.

It's the second sip that's the sweetest. And it's largely down to that pendulous can, reminding you that the best is yet to come.

I was enjoying that very specific weight, outside, at lunchtime today. The sun was warm; the breeze was pleasant. Even the geese were happily sleeping in the shade of the tall poplars by the lake. I cracked open a 7Up (a Friday treat) and glugged it.

"Wahey!" came a shout from across the water. I looked over. The people who run the park have put on activities for the people who work here. A group of guys in their thirties were having a tug-of-war.

Soon, there were more people. Wheelbarrows flashed in the sun as the racing kicked off. One person lolloped in it, another person awkwardly pushed it over the bobbly grass.

Nearby, some women cackled as their colleagues did an egg and spoon race.

What was unfolding... was clearly a primary school sports day... for people who work in offices.

They were having fun at least. I watched from the other side of the lake, surveying the action. I think I might be an old curmudgeon.

Someone was setting up a swing-ball. Another group of office types were launching basketballs toward a makeshift hoop.

I don't have a problem with people having fun. I think, if I'm honest, what I have a problem with is me, not having fun. I don't enjoy corporate wackiness, and clearly a lot of my own colleagues had quietly disappeared off to the pub to avoid it. I missed the invite again.

Corporate wackiness only ever works if everyone takes part - and of course, because that togetherness seems to be the aim of corporate wackiness, rather than the (actual) prerequisite, it makes it mostly embarrassing for people like me who like a quiet lunch and a perfectly weighted can of 7Up.

What I mean is, you can't take part in that kind of thing on your own. That would have been weird and sad. And in the great equation, I think I worked out that it was actually slightly less weird and sad to sit across the lake and curiously observe it.

I don't like it when the can gets down to the last sip. It rattles around, reminding you that it's only just a little bit thicker than tin-foil.

I like it to be more than half-full, a thing of substance, heavy and deep. I've always liked things that are substantial, heavy and deep.

It's probably why I'm no fan of corporate wackiness.

RESULTS ABOVE THE CLOUDS

Well, another Thursday, another results day. GCSEs this time.

I'm experiencing this through a whole new set of lenses today.

The first time I met this day was twenty-two years ago. I went to school (25th August, 1994), and I was unbelievably blown away as I opened my envelope. There were As and A*s on every bit of paper - ten in total. No-one from my school had done that before. I could hardly believe that I had, either.

So, Reading Festival? a big blow out? a massive party?

Nah. Me and my boffin-buddies went ten-pin bowling at Megabowl and then I walked home, all the way along the Bath Road in the dusty sunshine. That was it.

The second lens I saw this day through was as a youth worker in my mid-twenties. It's kind of a strange one that, because you're much older with a refined view of things. You see it a bit better.

By the way, isn't it funny how easy things are to see when you can soar above the emotional fog? When you're in the thick of it, it's much more difficult to view it all in perspective.

Anyway, I remember saying things like:

"It doesn't have to define you."

... which is true, and...

"It's not the end of the world," which is also (obviously) true.

We can laugh about that from up here above the clouds - there is a lot of pressure down there though, and it's worth remembering that.

And then, through today's lenses, grown-up and surrounded by people who are brave enough to actually take on the parenting of teenagers...

This seems the most nerve-racking time of all! The fog reaches up and grabs you, envelopes you and magnifies it in a way that your children won't understand and you won't be able to explain to them.

Someone told me about a massive argument that's just erupted between her and her husband because of today's GCSE results. I listened but said very little (what's the wise thing to do?) and in the end tried to re-iterate the point that it's usually hard-work that gets you where you need to be.

When someone else goes through this kind of day, and you feel almost totally responsible for the direction and success-path their lives might take, that's the hardest, isn't it?

I was in the Evening Post. The photographer got me to pose with a stack of encyclopedia, looking smart, square and super-smug - the Straight A student.

My Grandma kept the clipping in her piano stool for years after that. I never could tell her how the article got me bullied in the Sixth Form, or how the unachievable expectation it created around me (Oxford? Cambridge?) shaped my life. That little journey of discovery ended of course, in Mrs Thatcher's office two years later with my A Level results.

But, as I pointed out before, life is way more than a set of letters on a piece of paper, and you are never out of different doors to try or places to go. It is of course, what you make it.

And even now, tapping away here, pretending to be a technical author and a musician and a writer, that's still applicable. And twenty-two years later, I am still determined to make it a good one.

THE WISE THING TO DO AND THE HYPOTHALAMUS

I drove to work. I know, I know. It's just that my legs were tired, it was going to be 30 degrees today and I have too much to do to spend the first hour of the evening walking home - as pleasant a thing as that would have been.

Sometimes you have to ask yourself what the wise thing to do is.

--

And sometimes the wisest thing to do is to get out of the office kitchen when the conversation goes from: "And they had to drill holes in his back with a Black & Decker..." to "I've got a friend who's a midwife and she's told me all sorts of stories ab..."

"See ya later," I said. I can't cope with that. I'm not in the mood for the fascinated-terrified paradox today.

The wise thing to do eh? It's probably different for all of us. We all lead different lives (not all of us are squeamish, for example) and we all have different struggles. Wisdom's a bit subjective like that, I think.

It is hot today - super hot. The air is baking. I find the heat sometimes saps all the energy out of me, and my body reroutes power from the sensible bit of my brain to the bit that controls my temperature - the hypothalamus I guess. It's like a survival switch.

"Think? You don't need to think! You need to be cool. No, I mean properly cool. Get sweating."

While it relays messages to the farthest reaches of me, my brain is left desperately trying to remember how to be clever and somehow still run on empty.

Today there's not enough juice in the tank.

And, like being frugal sort of forces you to be more organised, I think having less energy to budget with forces you to be a bit more wise. The brain has to learn how to do it without the flexibility it normally has.

What would I have done today if I hadn't had a car? What if I couldn't afford one at all? Would I find a way? I don't think the hypothalamus would have liked it very much. But the context would have changed the answer to the question: what's the wise thing to do?

By the way, hypothalamus, where are you when my brain needs to go to sleep, eh? You can have all the energy you want then.

THE VALUE OF THINGS

I'm attempting not to use my debit card for the rest of the month. I don't have any credit cards (I don't like debt) which means of course that I'm down to using just plain old cash.

How jolly old-fashioned.

The reason for all of this is that I don't want to lose sight of how much things cost. It's an experiment.

It's so easy to tap at the contactless payment thing, or slide a card into a machine, sometimes none-the-wiser as to whether or not you've paid over the odds. When it's just numbers, it's difficult to quantify - but when you have to count out notes or coins, you get a much better sense.

So far I've realised I can do a lot better than I have been doing. The first challenge was food shopping. Somehow, with a keen sense of frugality, I managed to supplement things I already had in the cupboard and found a way to get everything I needed for not very much at all. Why can't I do that every week?

The rest is just choosing the wise thing - no visits to the coffee van, no trips to Starbucks, and no KitKats from the old vending machine.

In addition, I walked to work this morning. It was so nice - sun flicking through the trees, cool summer breeze under the bluest of skies. My intention is to do the same again tomorrow if I can. As you know it takes an hour and a quarter to walk in, these days. But I've got a quarter of a tank of petrol to last until September.

I think it's okay to remind yourself of the value of things. Living in the West desensitizes us to the real cost of items we take for granted. I don't want to be like that. I want to remember that money is more than just numbers.

Another interesting side-effect of course, is that living off a really tight budget forces you to be more organised. This is a great skill, and one I need to be better at.

This morning, rather than throwing on clothes and stumbling to the car, I had to carefully plan my work clothes, load them into my rucksack, find a bottle of water, make sure I had shorts and t-shirt ready, along with my hiking boots, and then carefully pack everything so that it wasn't too heavy. I had to leave much earlier of course, and I had to make sure the bins were out long before leaving the house.

Luxury gives us the freedom to be lazy. It introduces flexibility into our lives which lets us get fat, eating crisps from the sofa. Or in other words, a billionaire is never all that far away from a penthouse suite in a top hotel and has no earthly need to know how to pitch a tent or perhaps, pay a gas bill.

It's a slightly peculiar analogy but you get my meaning. I'm not loaded but my life normally allows me to slip into bad habits because my resources make it possible.

This is a good experiment for me then. Will I make it to the end of the month with the few pounds I've got left in my pocket? Will I plan when to use the car and when to walk? Will I avoid the snacking temptations? I hope so. But above all, I hope I learn something.

DO LIONS USE KALEIDOSCOPES?

It's a very quiet Monday night. I've been arranging new music for choir.

I embarrassed myself in front of my boss today. I didn't mean to: it just slipped out.

"Are you wanting to get off home?" he asked, glancing at the clock. We were mid-discussion and it was already twenty-five to six.

"No it's okay," I said, glumly, "I actually don't have anybody to go home to."

"Aw Matt!" he exclaimed, as though I'd said something wrong. I was suddenly red-faced. 

"Gosh," I said quickly, "I didn't mean it to come out in so melancholy a way!"

It had though! It had been melancholy; I'm really trying to watch out for that. Melancholy leads to sad and sad leads to depressed and depressed leads to sick. For all its rain-washed romance, melancholy is the path to the dark side.

So, I have really enjoyed arranging Can You Feel the Love Tonight? tonight. It's a great tune and I think the choir will enjoy singing it. Although the men won't thank me for giving them oohs and aahs again; I just don't think it can be helped.

It's nice to sit down at the piano and work out something that you can do really well. It fends off that melancholy streak. What's more, it's the kind of thing that doesn't thrive in a world of interruption but loves a world of silence. I still remember having to sandwich the headphones tightly to my ears to drown out the TV, when I was arranging in the next room to the Intrepids.

I like the use of the word kaleidoscope. Do lions use kaleidoscopes? Does it work? Do kaleidoscopes move us? I don't know. Actually, I'm not sure I'm all that bothered.

There's a time for everyone

If they only learn

That the twisting kaleidoscope

Moves us all in turn

It's just a nice rhythmic phrase. Tim Rice does this a lot. A little later he uses the phrase Star-Crossed-Voyager and somehow squeezes it in to four syllables. It doesn't mean anything. And yet it carries a little echo of Romeo and Juliet, a half-a-nod to Mufasa gazing down from the night sky while Simba and Nala fall in love below. It's clever. And it's ever so slightly melancholy.

But I'm not going down that road.

THE COFFEE-WAVE

I'm in Starbucks and an extraordinary phenomenon is taking place.

Every hour or so, the queue stretches out of the door and the tables are packed. Then, some half an hour later, there's nobody here.

It's almost like a wave, peaking in amplitude and then dipping to zero at a fixed frequency of 1/60 cycles per minute.

What causes this coffee-wave? What generates it? Where do these people come from? Who are they?

Well, there's the grumpy teenager on her phone next to her grandma; there's the dishevelled couple talking about money. There's the single Mum whose favourite and least favourite word is apparently 'shush' - it isn't working. There's the young couple eating toast, and the even younger couple who seem to be unable to remain out of physical contact with each other.

There's the tattooed man busily scratching a lottery card with a two-pence piece and there's the well-spoken coiffured lady who's just ordered a 'hot babycino' and a 'cold babycino' at the same time. She seems to be alone; presumably she's conducting a science experiment.

Then there's the older lady with a sad  expression, a walking stick and a bunch of flowers. A burly man in an England tracksuit top has pulled up a chair next to her with two slurping mugs.

"How much did that cost?" she asked.

And then there's the queue, the snaking chain of arrivals to the coffee-wave: a row of gold-clasped handbags slung over the shoulders of exasperated-looking women with sunglasses pushed up over their pinned, shiny hair. A tall man in glasses peers into the gleaming cabinet of cakes and pastries in the same way I imagine a meerkat examines an anthill.

A pretty girl with long blonde hair taps her fingers at a table alone, waiting to be joined so that she can pretend not to look at her phone. Meanwhile, the baristas rush around with green aprons and tongs shouting things like 'cappuccino?' and 'grande latte?' over the sound of the swooshing coffee machine behind them.

This is the coffee-wave. In a few minutes, the tables will be clear and the green aprons will be wiping them with ineffective cloths, grabbing the remains of lattes and americanos between their fingers and carrying the detritus to the bin, waiting for the next peak.

I wonder whether people work on thirty-minute cycles with this kind of thing. Perhaps we accidentally synchronise? Perhaps thirty minutes is the optimum time for purchasing coffee, finding a table, having a chat and then going off to do the next thing?

Clearly not me then. For one thing, I'm drinking tea. And for another, I've been here long enough to observe two cycles of the coffee-wave.

USELESS BOX

One of the developers has a box on his desk.

It's black, shiny, and about 6 inches by 3 inches, maybe around 2 inches tall. On the front, emblazoned in glittering gold lettering, are the words:

Useless Box

On the top is a small old-fashioned silver radio switch, marked either side with 'On' and 'Off'. It was set to 'Off'.

"Oh," I said, casually, "What, um, what does that do?"

"Why don't you find out?" he said, cryptically.

"Really?" I said.

"Yep. It's not dangerous or anything."

So I pushed it. I gently flicked the switch to 'On'.

The box whirred. A panel opened like the lid of a music box. Then a tiny arm popped out and pushed the switch back to 'Off'. The panel closed and the box fell silent.

'That really is a useless box,' I said. He laughed.

It wasn't until I got back to my desk, that it occurred to me that it might be some sort of metaphor.

I sighed and got on with my work.

SORRENTO DIARIES: PART 2

It's another rest day today so I'm going to carry on with the next instalment from my 2013 diary, and my uneventful trip to Italy. In the last episode I'd made it to the Gatwick Travelodge with my copy of The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes and I was going to sleep, ready to fly the next day and leave a rainy old England behind me.

Well, I did that (leaving a phone charger in Room 139 unfortunately) and crammed myself onto the plane with rows of holidaymakers. Here's what happened next...

---

September 6th, 2013

I guess you'd call this Day 1. Kind of. It's 3:45pm and I am in Italy at the Gran Paradiso and I'm not sure I like it.

I'd forgotten all the little awkwardnesses of being on holiday on your own.

The travelling was fine: I enjoyed watching the clouds lazily hanging in the air beneath us, the dark alpine mountains and the shadows moving massively over the terrain. The people next to me were asleep and not awkwardly arguing or trying to peer out of the window, so that was a plus.

I had that thrill of being in another country as the heat swelled from the tarmac at Napoli airport. It's 31 degrees here and it feels great. The Bay of Naples stretches out, vast and perfect blue, the sun is bright and warm and there's a glass of wine right here on the table in front of me. But I am alone. I can organise myself to get here and fly back next week. But I can't organise for the three other chairs around this table to be occupied by people I love. I can't fix that.

And the three chairs are a great reminder to me. Perhaps then I should treat this as an opportunity to chill out, relax and take in some sun, not think too much about my solitude.

It's tough though. Everybody goes on holiday with somebody, even single people must - it's the rules, right?

--

It's nearly 10pm now. The air outside is still quite pleasant, much like one of those balmy nights we get at the end of July in England. Most people are out on the terrace, swarmed around slender bottles of wine that just catch the light. They chatter happily in groups, relaxed and free with their families and their friends.

I don't belong.

But why should I be denied a holiday, simply because I have no-one to go with? How has society done this to us? We are the misfits, the oddballs, the weirdos. If I go home and tell everyone I was lonely and a little depressed, they might all cheer in a chorus of "Well what did you expect?" as though I'm the only person alive who couldn't understand the system.

This dissatisfaction is at the heart of my mood. I'm dissatisfied with a culture that has made it difficult to enjoy a holiday by yourself.

--

The bay is stunning by night. Naples gleams across the sea in a pretty array of fairy lights skirting the dark, silhouette of Vesuvius, which looms behind the city, invisible and foreboding. The water itself is inky black, stretching under the lights and out to the Mediterranean, the Great Ocean; the mystery of it in the darkness makes me want to row across it.

This hotel has a luminous sign above reception. It contains no punctuation. It simply says: WHEN YOU COME HERE WHAT HEAR HERE WHAT YOU SEE HERE WHEN YOU LEAVE HERE LEAVE IT HERE. I've got no idea what it means other than maybe 'don't steal our stuff' or 'What happens at the Gran Paradiso stays at the Gran Paradiso'. Otherwise it's quite threatening.

If it is that, like some sort of message from the mafia, you didn't hear it from me.

FULCRUM MOMENTS

I'm working from home today, which so far means washing pillowcases and eating crisps.

I am doing some work as well, in case you're worried that I'm 'shirking from home' (boom) or anything: plenty of Japanese characters to move around a screen.

There are lots of benefits to the arrangement. I can talk to myself without my colleagues thinking I'm descending into lunacy. I can't be easily interrupted, and I can keep an eye on all the news around A Level Results Day.

Oh mercy. It's that day isn't it.

Mrs Thatcher closed the door behind her and left me alone in her office. The clock was ticking quietly and the air was still. In front of me, there on the desk of my Head of Sixth Form, was a brown envelope, already opened, and a yellow post-it note with a telephone number scribbled on it.

It felt like a fulcrum - the swinging point around which my whole life could change. There in the brown envelope were the results of the past: B,D and E. And there on the post-it was the future: the phone number for the University of Bath, where, in a few moments, the admissions director would tell me what was next and whether I had really needed three Cs to get in to study Physics. It felt enormous.

That was a fairly unbelievable twenty years ago. The children opening their results today were not even thought of then.

I wonder what it's like now. Is there still the same pressure? Does it still feel like your whole life depends on that fulcrum moment? Do you still experience that rapid succession of relief, joy, fear, shame, resilience, or whatever, as you pull those papers out of that envelope?

You know what, your life depends on a lot more than those letters and numbers. And there are hundreds of fulcrum moments ahead that you're not even going to know are that important - at least until much later.

They're things like the way someone smiles at you across the room - a simple act of kindness that cements a life-long friendship - deciding to do the right thing when everyone around you makes a different choice.

All of your life is connected. What you choose to do now will one day be your past and will one day form part of your story.

That's why I think, learning wisdom while you're young is probably better than learning politics, sociology, maths or physics.

Wisdom helps you choose well in the fulcrum-moments.

In the end of course, the physics department at the University of Bath let me in to study. I'm glad they did, but not because of physics.

I'm glad they did because of everything else I learned there through fulcrum-moments of my own.

And now, twenty years later, that beautiful city forms a key part of my past, and my memories are as pretty as the autumn leaves in Alexandra Park or the golden sunset over the Royal Crescent.

I think I'm saying that actually, life is what you make it. And even if the results of some arbitrary examinations don't open the doors you'd hoped for, that definitely does not mean that you're out of doors. This could be your fulcrum moment to build a life you'll be proud of.

And actually, even now, the same is true for me, sitting here in front of Japanese screenshots while the washing machine spins and the kettle chips crunch.

I guess we could all do with a bit of wisdom sometimes.

I have got to stop eating these crisps.

HOLD ON, LET GO

So it's back to the thin world of insomnia then is it? Okay then. 

I feel like writing an open letter to my brain.

Dear Brain. Stop it. We need you tomorrow, sincerely, the Rest of Me.

Have you ever wondered where your mind is? I mean, does the brain download stuff remotely from a server somewhere else, I mean outside of you? Is this crazy talk?

It is a thin world, insomnia. The air is still, the duvet is warm and the eyes are heavy. It doesn't feel like there's quite enough air. I'm caught between dreams and worry. Do I hold on or let go? Will the deep envelop me like a blanket or swallow me like a sea-monster?

Meanwhile, my whirring brain has written back to me with a ridiculous poem, trying to capture that thought. Seriously brain, go to sleep now, yeah?

Hold On, Let Go

Hold on

Wait a mo

Shouldn't you be letting go?

Hang about

Stick around

Get them feet back on the ground

Dream on?

Leave it out.

Figure what it's all about

Keep it real

Listen son

Keep an eye on number one

Hold up

Wait for me

Some things are just meant to be

Clear off

Let it go

Somehow when you know you know

Look out

Let it fly

Tell me should I laugh or cry?

Hold on

Don't let go

And never say I told you so

LENSES

I woke up this morning feeling a bit sick. Not ill, not even lazy, just a bit upside-down.

I'm okay. I'm in work anyway, trying to move Japanese characters around so that I can 'cheat' at making a screenshot. It is fiddly and it is tedious. And I don't understand Japanese.

I had a long Skype chat with Winners and Teebs yesterday. They seem really happy in Zimbabwe - in fact, today they're off to Hwange National Park for a holiday, somewhere near Victoria Falls.

Afterwards, Winners sent me a message:

"Thankyou for your time. Today it was awesome to see your face."

It was awesome to see my face. That's a friend, right there. I thought I'd looked like a kind of exhausted vagrant... or of course, the spectre who's taken to wandering around the office. The window of me in the corner of the screen was like a portrait I didn't want to see.

Anyway, this morning I woke up not quite feeling like myself. I think I'm bored. I'm kind of fed up with the status quo and I feel like changing, well, everything.

That same face looked at me from the bathroom mirror. He smiled weakly, lips curling across the unshaven grey of his chin, squeezing his cheeks into a forced, thin expression. Hair shot out in all directions like uncoiled springs.

Maybe I should try contacts again? I thought to myself. It did seem as though the light was catching my eyes today - they weren't sparkling but it did look a bit like a fire had been lit behind each pupil. How often, I wondered, has that fire been hidden by spectacles?

There it is. Sometimes the lenses we think we need to see the world, prevent the world from seeing us.

I've been sitting here thinking about that sentence for twenty minutes.

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT MONOPOLY

"Uncle Matthew, play Monopoly!"

I fished the top hat out of the plastic bag and my niece counted out a pile of notes for me.

How many games of Monopoly actually make it right to the end? I mean when you play it properly, most people get bored, tired, or upset long before one person has anything like a 'monopoly'.

In addition to that, the full-blown zero-sum version of the game eliminates players as you go, rather than crowning a champion. It means the balance of interest changes when people are out.

What I mean is that the bankrupters go off and have a stress-free chat and a cup of tea, while the finalists thrash it out around the board.

The balance shifts when there are more people who lost than are still playing.

My guess is that even at that point, the game is likely to be cut short - unless you've got extremely competitive people after several hours of course. Even then, the possibility of the board being flipped up and the pieces scattered across the carpet has not been completely eradicated.

Anyway, with children (and the Niblings are definitely children) the only way to play Monopoly is to set the oven pinger to go off about an hour after you started.

Then you count the money. And in the capitalist microcosm of the world of Monopoly of course, the person with the most cash always wins.

There weren't too many tears this time. We'd gone for the strategy of making up a song about things we'd landed on, which I thought would take some of the aggression out of them shouting: "I own that!" before demanding to be paid immediately. Maybe there's a future for 'karaokeopoly'?

There ought to be a game where you're rewarded for how much you give away. In this day and age, I'm not sure we should be teaching ourselves to snaffle up everything we land on and then demand rent from everyone who gets there after us.

In truth, it isn't the person with the most money who wins, is it?

Anyway, I suppose I would say that. When the pinger went off, I had £500 left and a lonely looking Old Kent Road.

SORRENTO DIARIES: PART 1

I'm not so ghostly today. A good sleep always helps remove that gothic, other-worldy look.

It's a rest day, so I've been tidying up, planning a menu and thinking about holidays. In the same way that the tidying up meant I couldn't leave the house, the planning-a-menu has resulted in me coming to Sainsbury's, where I'm currently avoiding the skimming-round-the-aisles-wondering-where-everything-is.

I know where Starbucks is though, so I'm sitting here with a cup of tea and a copy of my 2013 diary. I thought it would be good fun to read back over old adventures, so I can figure out new ones. I also thought that maybe you'd like to do a bit of time-travelling with me, and see what was going through my head on my trip to Italy three years ago. So while I procrastinate about finding a trolley and zipping around Sainsbury's, here's a jaunty adventure through time, copied straight from the pages of my diary. Bon viaggio!

---

September 5th, 2013

The Travelodge. A place to lodge while travelling I suppose. On this first stage of my journey to Sorrento, the 'travel lodge' is apt and welcome. I'm in Room 139 in a large white bed with crisp, fresh sheets that smell of lemon.

It's the typical room - perfectly calculated to provide the most minimal sense of comfort at the lowest possible price. One picture hangs above my head like a large abstract window into a world of unfocused, amorphous circles. On the plain wall opposite, a small flat-screen TV is bracketed to a wooden backing board and a full-length mirror is bolted to the wall opposite the pod-like bathroom.

I'm not complaining. It is after all, a world away from the sweltering train journey from Reading to Gatwick. I was reading my way through The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes as the roasting bucket of a train powered through the Surrey countryside. It was uncomfortably hot - the type of heat that drenches you slowly in sweat until your face is red and your clothes are dripping.

They say England is in for a powerful reminder of Autumn tomorrow though. At 8:25 I'm hoping to watch as the rain lashing past the window turns to thick wispy fog, white impenetrable sky, and then the blue serenity of 30,000 feet. I'm a little nervous about tomorrow actually. As soon as I get to that hotel room, unpack my stuff and find a nice glass of something cool, I'll be alright.

THE GHOST WRITER

I just caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection from the vending machine.

No, I wasn't using it. I was walking next to it.

And yes, the same vending machine that once spoke to me. It's next to the Nestle 3000.

Anyway, I look like a ghost.

Pale, drawn, fuzzy outline, kind of haggard-looking and grey - walking the office, looking for eternal rest, that kind of thing.

The fuzzy outline might be because my image was reflected from two panes of glass. Quite why the Mars Bars, Bountys and packets of nuts need to double-glazed I don't know. Presumably, they're insulated at a suitable temperature. They were superimposed over the woeful image of me, staring back at me with bags under the eyes. I looked like a kind of forlorn Robinson Crusoe, whitened by the sun and weather-beaten.

-

"Where is everyone?" I asked Marie, as I wandered back into the office with a tea.

"Well, it's um, it's James's last day so..."

"Ah," I interrupted, saving her embarrassment, "Say no more. They're at the pub!"

"I guess so," she said.

"You didn't feel like going?" I asked.

"No, it's a bit laddy. And anyway, I have stuff I need to fix."

"Fair enough," I said, as if it were.

I sat down and logged on to my computer. You know I'm sure there was a time when I used to get invited to these things.

Presumably that was before I turned into an apparition of a technical author.

THE TRAVELLERS RETURN

The travellers are back. I haven't seen any ropey horses or kids washing their clothes in the lake, but we're reliably informed that our periodic band of nomadic invaders have returned.

"For today the main revolving door will be locked so if you are expecting visitors please ask them to telephone reception, or you, to get access to the building," said a panicky email.

It occurred to me today that these people might be the closest model we have today to compare how the Jews felt about the Samaritans, or perhaps the tax collectors.

You see where I'm going with this. The disciples find Jesus actually laughing and chatting with a romany palm-reader at the well, and he doesn't seem at all worried about how that looks. Later, he tells them the story of how a man got left for dead, then ignored by middle-class Christians and a vicar who were hurrying to a Bible study, but woke up in a caravan, being looked after by travellers.

"Come off it, Jesus, that'd never happen."

"Wouldn't it?"

"Course not. Look at the way them pikeys leave all that rubbish about. They're only concerned about themselves..."

"Yeah boss, they're thieves the lot of 'em. They only help 'emselves! And it's our gardens they're messin' up, and it's our house prices that suffer, and it's our views from our windows..."

The story was never about the good Samaritan was it? It was always about what goes on inside of us, in the shadowy recesses we'd really rather not think about.

Well, anyway, the travellers are indeed back and the revolving door is indeed locked as a 'precaution'.

It's kind of sad, isn't it?

A SMART-MAN TEACHES ME THREE NEW WORDS

I caught a train yesterday, and as is the way of things, that meant waiting for it on a station platform.

They're odd places, platforms: brightly lit pavements between rivers of railway tracks, sometimes crowded with silent people, sometimes bleak and empty.

It was definitely the latter last night. The board flashed orange numbers, a porter in a luminous GWR jacket pushed a broom round the concrete, and the night breeze blew softly in my ears.

In the end, a man with smart boot-length brogues sat down next to me and flipped open an iPad. One brogue slipped over the other and he sighed as he opened his Scrabble app.

Now, tell me this: when is it okay to sneakily peek? My trouble is that I love Scrabble and I couldn't resist watching the drama unfold - and drama there was.

Fair enough, reading people's texts would be too much wouldn't it? Maybe even having a sly corner-of-the-eye glance at someone scrolling through flippybook... I reasoned with myself that this smart man playing Scrabble with his iPad was okay.

And so I watched.

The CPU played 'AWAY'.

The smart-man slid his fingers across the screen and played the word, 'QAT' for a gazillion points.

I looked it up. Qat is a type of Arabian tea. Impressive.

The CPU, which was obviously set to TOWIE-level difficulty, played 'YO' and the smart-man shook his head.

After a few moments (and it really wasn't long) he smugly played the word 'FAITOUR' and sat there grinning at himself.

What in the world is faitour? I asked myself. It wasn't in my dictionary. That (like so many sad stories) went straight from faithlessness to fait accomplis.

No 'faitour'. What does it even mean? Who is this smart-man?

The next word he played was 'APORIA' which my dictionary told me is a sort of helplessness in what to say or which course of action to take.

Discovering a kind of aporia of my own, I said to myself, I'm not going to watch any more. The smart-man would thrash me at Scrabble as though I had only just started reading and were still getting the hang of it.

I went back to staring at the clock and counting down the seconds until my train arrived.

At least I had learned three new words, I suppose. I doubt I'll get to use them though, at least without sounding like some sort of wordy... faitour.

Ha.

WEIGHT LOSS

So, I'm losing weight.

Alright, alright, I mean mass. I'm losing mass. The trouble is, when you say it like that it makes it sound like chunks of you are dropping off - and that's not what's happening. What's happening is that my jeans are now too big for me.

It's not necessarily good news.

My Mum's already worried about me not being able to look after myself. What with the sleepless nights and the hectic lifestyle, a report of me slimming into malnutrition is the last thing she needs to hear. The Intrepids will be stocking up the freezer and making up the spare bed before I've had a chance to do anything about it.

Anyway, it does mean I have to change a few things. And no, I don't mean wearing a belt.

For one thing, I can't afford days like yesterday when I was out of the house for sixteen straight hours. I've got to find time to start cooking and eating well.

Next, I think I've got to up the exercise. It seems so weird to be tired all the time and yet unable to sleep when it matters. And you quickly start thinking about the definition of a vicious circle when you don't have time to do anything else at home.

Anyway, all of this means an honest assessment of my resources and then a redistribution of time - something that hasn't really been modelled for me. How do you redistribute time when everything you do feels important?

I think I'll start by examining that paradox, and being honest about what important means. That will take some courage. There'll be some difficult conversations in there in which I'll hear myself say,

"No!"

and then have to deal with how I feel about that.

It will also involve another talent which I don't have - organisation. Quite where I'm going to get that from I don't know, but it's turning out to look more and more like an actual survival skill.

So, I'm losing weight. Mass, whatever. Oh hey you know what, the two things are actually related - I'm just going to call it weight and if you want to be pedantic about Newtons and Kilograms you can do it in your own time. Obviously I'm not going into space, so the only other possibility for weight-loss is mass-loss... oh this is so tedious. I'm not saying anything else about it.

Sorry Mum.

LESS MECHANICAL

It's been occurring to me recently that I don't talk a lot about worship. It's strange, now that I think about it, because it has always been my passion.

"If you listen for long enough to somebody talking..." I said, the other day to a roomful of people, "...you'll be able to hear what's on their heart because it will overflow in their words."

Hmm. 784 posts, over 300,000 words, almost three years - not a lot about my passion.

There is a sort-of reason. When I started this, it was supposed to be light relief, a kind of journal of thoughts and events - I wanted to keep it from getting deep, personal or even controversial, and I was conscious that not all of you are even close to being believers. I wasn't sure you would understand how or why my heart beats and breaks the way it does. I was being over-sensitive.

There was no need really. I think you'll get it.

I went to the early morning prayer meeting this morning. It's every Tuesday at 6:30am, and sometimes I get asked to lead some worship from the piano.

In fact, I'd been feeling guilty today because I mostly go when I'm supposed to play and I'm never quite sure whether the regulars have spotted the correlation.

Anyway, I got over that and sat down and switched on the piano.

My fingers quickly found a G major shape. I played something soft, trickling over the F#.

Then I opened my mouth to sing... and nothing came out.

I've been doing this a long time. This is unusual. It wasn't hay fever, or a broken voice; it wasn't me forgetting the words (that has happened lots of times) and it wasn't just a mental block. I just couldn't sing. And I think it was because I was realising something about how mechanical it has all become.

So in-between the chords, while tears formed in my eyes and my fingers fluttered over the keys, I started to say sorry for letting it get that way. No song, no words, just heartbeats.

Relationship should never be mechanical. It should be real, flowing, in and of the moment, and raw with intensity.

I did sing something in the end, and for the first time in a long time I completely forgot that there was anyone else in the room.

This, this is how it used to be - all for an audience of One. How did I lose sight of it?

After all of that, I prayed with Adam and then drove through the early morning sunshine to work, promising that I would do my best to keep it real.

I think, whatever your relationships are like, it's important not to let them get mechanical and to keep them real.

I'm talking about a personal relationship with God of course, but it applies to every relationship, I suppose. It's important to take a little moment between the moments and let it flow. Somewhere between the chords, between the music and in among the words that trip off your tongue, there is bound to be a moment - a moment to make it real.

And that's what I want. I want it to be real.

HUGH GRANT, AN AVALANCHE AND A SUNSET

I'm back in the park. Tonight's sunset is gentle: orange and purple and a holiday blue. The sun has already winked between the trees and has sunk into the horizon. A night breeze whispers in my ears with the faintest of chills.

This is my place. Out here I'm free to think, pray, unwind, shout into the wind and watch the day fade out. I can breathe slower, hear my heart beating and listen to the rustling leaves. I can remind myself of all the things that I've achieved and all the things that have brought me joy. I can sing softly on the breeze and thank God that I'm alive.

A pile of boxes fell on my head today.

I was playing the piano when I stopped to hear a faint creaking sound. It was like the timbers of an old ship, coming from somewhere deep within the pile of cardboard boxes I keep in my spare room.

I was quizzical for about two seconds. Then the whole thing collapsed and rained down on me. Egg boxes, the box for the slow cooker, pizza boxes I was hoping to use as soundproofing, a load of those polystyrene S-shaped bean things and the manual for assembling the sofa bed formed a sort of cardboard avalanche and toppled with a crash, onto me, the chair and a couple of the low notes on the piano.

I sat there for a moment in shock. Then I realised I probably only have myself to blame.

The clouds change quickly. The orange is fading and the blue is turning purple. It's really quite beautiful.

"Excuse me," said a dark figure just now, "You don't mind me playing guitar do you? I mean it won't disturb you?"

"Not at all," I said. He's now sitting on the next bench strumming away. He's a young guy I think, looks a bit like Hugh Grant - blue jeans, floppy hair and a sports jacket. I think he might be writing a song for a girl and he's come out here for a little sunset inspiration.

I don't blame him.

WITH APOLOGIES TO THE CONCIERGE

I feel like I ought to point out that I don't think of single people as a 'pathetic bunch of losers' even though earlier, I did project that view onto people who run hotels by assuming that they thought it.

Actually, I don't think that they think that either, and I've certainly got no evidence to back it up, even if I did. That is just how the single-supplement comes across to us singletons who feel as though society is somehow punishing us for a thing which is largely not our fault.

Apologies then if I caused offence. I have tiny moments of outburst and this issue is of course, one of my soapboxes. My last post probably failed the THINK test by being a bit unnecessary.

I do so want to remain soft-hearted. I don't mean being a pushover, I just mean sensitive enough to notice when I'm being obnoxious or proud or just a twit. I live alone and I don't have a partner so it's not always easy to see those things in the mirror.

Anyway, being a concierge must be a difficult job: spinning a million things at once across hundreds of rooms, figuring out timings and keys, co-ordinating cleaners and luggage, not to mention having to be nice to irritating people like me. While you could probably pretend to be a technical author (like I do most days) I doubt I'd be even half as successful at running a hotel.

Listen singletons, we are amazing, just like everyone else. Our situation is chance, it's past mistakes or it's just that beautiful time of waiting for something awesome but it's no reflection on our identities. Sure hotels cost more, let them! There are a lot of things I bet we can be thankful for right now. And what's more, only you know your story, only you know what baggage you're free from and only you know the hopes you carry with you. And those things even the concierge can't take away from us.

TRAVELS WITH TED

So, I looked up city breaks to Edinburgh: a couple of nights, a beautiful city to explore, a proper adventure, good food and very pleasant end-of-September weather.

Step 1. TripAdvisor. All looks good. Nope, too fancy, scroll down, hmm, looks okay. Too expensive, wait... £178 including the flight? That actually seems... reasonable...

Step 2. Wait though! Ah...that's for two people - great, it could be even cheaper. Just change that to 1, click and refresh and...

Step 3. Oh.

Same room, same flight, same weekend... it's now £273.

How does that work? How?

I'll tell you. To the tourist industry, two people are better than one.

Yep, they're looking for couples, people who've got friends, people who are cloudy-eyed with romance, or just cloudy enough, to actually want to travel and stay, with each other. Couples take up two spaces on a square table in the restaurant, they spend twice as much in the city on museums, on entry-fees and on everything else they want to do. These are the people they want in their hotels, not you.

Two are better than one. Got it? Got the message?

Yeah that's right. They're better than you, all you singletons. They've succeeded, or at least half-succeeded in finding love and fulfilling their genetic responsibility to the human race. These are the grownups, the mature people who know how life ought to be lived and have been successful at it so far. Oh and if you want to do what they do, guess what, it's going to cost you. Ha! And that's the price you pay for not finding anybody who likes you, you pathetic bunch of losers.

Ahem.

Excuse me.

Not sure where all that came from. Of course, it does seem highly unfair. It's a bit like picking up a 60p loaf of bread in the supermarket and then finding out it costs you £1.60 because you're wearing a hat. It is a discriminatory tax system that reinforces a message which single people are already all too aware of, and it sucks. I understand why they do it of course.

There is another solution...

I could just take a teddy bear with me.

"Excuse me sir, is this seat taken?"

"Yep."

"O... kay then."

"So, that's a room for two then sir, and will you both be requiring breakfast?"

"Oh I expect so. There is honey on the menu isn't there?"

Don't worry, I'm not going to Scotland with a teddy, although the photo-montage that follows would be hilarious. I haven't completely flipped. I am going to look for alternatives though - who knows - AirBnB? Youth hostel?

I just resent the single-supplement reminding me that the world doesn't think of me as a grownup.

Perhaps in an ironic way, Travels with Ted would illuminate this whole point to a string of concierges, managers and hotel receptionists?

Or maybe I'll just keep looking.

NOT THE COSTA-DEL-SOLERO

I just looked at an album of 'Underwhelming British Holiday Photos'.

Unhappy dads in rainmacs hugged their soaking children on the beach. The camera lens blobbed with raindrops in front of a grey campsite and an even greyer sky. A young girl with wellingtons and an umbrella stood behind a chalkboard advertising a 'sunny beer garden'.

I was overcome with a wave of nostalgia.

Oh you can keep your sun-soaked costa-del-soleros. This is proper holidaying: traipsing through the drizzly hills with a soggy sandwich, dripping into the dinosaur museum and standing there shaking your umbrella while your glasses steam up.

Hmm. Nostalgia eh? Nostalgia for a few weeks ago perhaps, when I was sheltering under a tree in Dorset with the Emergency Biscuit Tin, thinking about my friends having a lovely time in Morocco.

I'm not ruling out the costa-del-solero completely.

In fact, I am trying to think about what kind of holiday I would like next and where and when. Italy and the lakes? The sparkling Mediterranean and the South of France? Scotland? Dublin? Rolling round Cornwall?

I suppose the graph of how-much-you-think-you-need-a-holiday peaks just before you take one, and quite probably for a few weeks after. I'm exhausted.

BATMAN V SUPERMAN

Well this week's bombastic soundtrack appears to be Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

It sounds like two people punching dustbins in front of a large choir and a kettle drum.

I'm in Starbucks again for my end-of-the-day wind-down. Quite why I need one today though, is beyond me; this afternoon was our company jolly, I ought to be thoroughly wound-down already.

It occurs to me that I work with two types of people: professionals with growing families, and post-uni-somethings who haven't worked out that you shouldn't swear in front of children. This left me with the unenviable choice of sitting with people who sprinkle the F-word over their bottles of Cidre, and being awkward and weird around other people's families.

Eloi and Andrea rescued me with a game of Fluxx, which they had cunningly brought along with them for people who had fallen out of love with the bouncy castle. Fluxx is a complicated card game, and as we sat round discussing the nuances of the rules, we were constantly passed by people who didn't understand.

"Who's winning?" asked the Big Cheese with a pearly grin.

"Hard to say," came the predictable reply.

The Big Cheese shrugged his shoulders and strode off to the gents.

I don't mind Batman. He's innovative and dark. I don't mind Superman either - he's noble and strong. But why do they have to fight each other? I don't want to see the movie: when it came out I remember saying: it'll be two thirds buildup, one third teamup - these films always are. From the soundtrack as well, it seems to me like it's another case of saving the city by smashing it to pieces. Well done fellas.

I'd have gone for a film about Clark and Bruce on a road trip, going to great (and hilarious) lengths to keep their identities secret from each other in the Mid West. Maybe they'd even play a complicated card game without noticing that Clark's using X-ray vision and Bruce has rigged the deck.

It's a wonder I'm not living in Hollywood, isn't it?

MY FRIEND IN RIO

So, it turns out my old uni flatmate is now the person responsible for keeping the BBC on air during the Olympics.

No exaggeration. He oversees the team behind the broadcast tech, and he's currently in Rio de Janeiro, wiring cables. And to think, he once wedged my milk behind a radiator before putting it back in the fridge.

It's weird where life takes us. He's in Rio: successful, important and impossibly clever; I'm here... eating a biscuit.

I remember we'd roam around in his K-reg VW Polo. It was his pride and joy; he had a portable CD player he'd wired up to the tape deck. We'd talk about the future and what we'd like to do when we graduated. I was determined to go back to Reading and make a difference to young people; he was intent on being an engineer. It was like a different world that, now that I think about it.

Maybe it was. Maybe it was just the other side of a wormhole, and when university finished, we all fell through into this one without realising. Some days, I really wish I could go back.

I don't really wish that. I don't even think I'd go to Rio and be a big-shot engineer if I had the chance. I think life is so unique and so precious that wherever we are right now there are things to be thankful for, and there are hopes to aim for, and there is life to be lived that no-one else can live.

By the way, it costs about as much as a deposit on a house to learn how to fly a helicopter. I looked it up.

And this is a nice biscuit.

HELICOPTER PILOT

Back to it then. And by 'it' I of course mean work.

Um, what is it I do again? Changing the world? Saving lives? Making a difference? The other day, while we were all in Emmie's caravan, someone asked me what my job is and without blinking I looked across the table and said:

"I'm a helicopter pilot."

... which surprised me and made Katie laugh. Then she told me not to overthink the fact that I hadn't quite told the truth.

I wish I were a helicopter pilot. That would be so cool! Buzzing over a sparkling London with its criss-cross network of glittering streets and skyscrapers, or skimming up the coastline, seeing the waves crash silently against the rocks and cliffs and beaches, would be awesome.

I don't think they let speccy kids fly aircraft though. If my glasses flew off, I'd be in a whole world of trouble.

What I actually do (and explained across the table) is think about the best way to communicate simple instructions. I am an unadventurous technical author in a world of source control, program code and office politics. You can see, can't you, why some people have midlife crises.

Of course the real truth is that you don't have to have a job or a title to change the world. All you need is a little opportunity, and wherever there are people, there's the chance to make a difference to their world.

I'd still like to fly a helicopter though. I could get contact lenses and wear aviators like Stringfellow Hawk. I could pretend to be Arnie and say things like "Get to the chopper" and pretend I'm in Airwolf or something.

Anyway, back to it. These bullet lists and indented paragraphs won't sort themselves out.

MEATBALLS AND DAIM CAKE

"Have fun in Stockholm Village or whatever it is you call it," said Sammy yesterday.

"Stockholmhaven," I corrected, although I was secretly annoyed that her name for it was much better.

"I expect you'll blog about it anyway," she said. I grinned.

"You know me too well."

I'm in Stockholmhaven, eating meatballs and a slice of Daim cake, which is making my teeth hurt. You know, everyone goes on about the meatballs, as though they had been fashioned by Odin himself, deep in the hall of the mountain king. They're pretty average, I think. And for some reason, they come with a sort of jam, which adds an unexpected sweetness to the Swedish gravy.

Anyway, this isn't a restaurant review. Here I am, milling around the village of furnishings, muttering to myself things like:

Who's going to buy that? What kind of house would that go in? and Haven't I seen this bit before; am I going round in a loop?

I have poor directional sense sometimes. I ended up in lighting three times before I realised I had completely lost the exit. This happens to me in a lot of shops.

On the plus side, I have found a mirror I like, and a floor lamp, which are after all, the things I came for. I just have to go back down and find them again.

There are lots of people here for a Monday. I'd say the queue for food currently has 90-100 people in it. I got my meatballs and Daim cake just in time I'd wager. Stockholmhavenvillage is filling up.

Hopefully I won't get lost again. I'm not sure I can survive on meatballs and Daim cake.