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.