TWO TEA BAGS

I finished work early today so as a treat, I thought I'd stop off at Starbucks for a cuppa and a cheese toastie.

A treat. I'd forgotten how bleak and dreary it is. Currently I'm being serenaded by a music track that sounds like someone randomly thumping a pillow and then falling awkwardly into a Casio keyboard. Plus there's the background roar of Sainsbury's and a lady loudly showing her friend her holiday snaps on a MacBook.

You'd be forgiven for wondering how you 'loudly show someone your holiday snaps'. Well she's championing at it, with all the descriptive flare of a raconteur on Jackanory. A picture in her book it seems, actually requires a thousand words.

Anyway, none of that is even the most remarkable bit. That happened in the queue, and it happened like this:

"Eating in?" asked the barista, sliding the packeted toastie towards herself across the counter.

"Yes please," I said, tapping my card on the shiny surface. She unwrapped the packet and slid the unappealing sandwich into the toasting kiln.

"Any drinks with that?"

"Sure. Regular tea."

"This size?" she held up a cup.

"Yup."

And then she said something so incredible, so outrageously unbelievable... that I'm sitting here, truly wondering whether or not it actually happened.

I've been made a lot of cups of tea in my life, and not once in my short history of imbibing the sinewed blend of camellia sinensis in all its varieties and flavours, has anyone ever asked me such an astonishing, brain-bending or obscurely astounding a question as:

"Two tea bags or just the one?"

I think I felt the cogs of time grind to a halt. It was as though the universe was on pause while every fibre of its vast uncharted matter was bending in to listen.

She stared at me, cup in hand, dangling from her finger.

"Um, just the one," I stammered. I think I half-smiled with incredulity, and half-wondered whether she would misinterpret that altogether.

Behind my motionless gaze, my mind was racing, processing the indisputable fact that I now live in a world where people, ordinary folk in Starbucks, are asking for, and indeed making, cups of tea with two tea bags. It is literally unbelievable.

The universe resumed. She span round and swooshed hot water into the cup.

You know, I thought it was odd to re-use tea bags; I don't mean to come across as snobbish or anything, but the first time I saw someone fish a bag out of a steaming mug and squish it onto the draining board for 'later' I was horrified. I am sorry if you do that, by the way - if you like it, good for you I guess, but honestly, there is a better way...

But using half a tea bag per cuppa is nowhere near as peculiar as using two! You might as well drink a mug of tangy soup. It's a decadent way to create a taste experience that you will almost certainly regret while your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth as the thick strong tea fizzes down the back of your inflamed throat.

Then, there's another question isn't there: would she have charged me extra if I had said yes?

What would she have asked me to pay for just hot water? And if the total cost of a cup of tea here is W+T+R where W=water, T=teabag and R=resources used to make it, then what am I actually paying for if T is so negligible that it can be doubled at no extra cost?

Either that's expensive W, or I'm being massively ripped off to sit at this dreary table with thumping music and the thrilling narrative of this lady's holiday photographs.

I'm not sure I like the implication either way. So what in the world of wonder am I doing here?

Two tea bags indeed. Okay, maybe I have become a tea snob. But let it be known would you, that it's places like this that have driven me to it.

My cheese toastie's gone cold while I've been sitting here stewing about all of that.

"You drove yourself here, Matthew," says a still, small voice. I could be wrong but I think there's a hint of a chuckle in it, reverberating from the other side of the universe.

EXTENSION CABLE STORY

The other day I was lamenting my troubles at a barbecue. The night grew dark, the chiminea flickered in the purple dusk, and I was warbling about gardening.

"I don't have electricity in my garden," I protested, "So I can't cut the grass."

"Oh you can," said Mike, "You just need a long extension... or a petrol lawn mower."

Gareth nodded to his twenty-metre orange cable, trailing out of his dining room window into the garden.

"I don't think twenty metres will be long enough," I mused, imagining the flex running down the stairs, out of the front door, down my neighbour's drive, past her wheelie bins, under my fence and into the middle of my garden.

"You can probably find longer," said Gareth. "Maybe somewhere like B&Q?"

"I can't go in there!" I reflexed brusquely. Mike and Gareth immediately leapt to the conclusion that I had been 'barred' from the DIY store, and that my picture was behind every till like some sort of do-it-yourself-criminal. They laughed about that for a full three minutes.

"I mean I have a phobia about tall shelves and high ceilings!" said I, emphatically and eventually.

They were right though (about it being the place, not about me being barred from it), so this weekend I decided to man up, go to B&Q, overcome the fear of being crushed by tins of paint and desktop-air-conditioners, and find a suitable extension cord.

Imagine my joy then, when within five minutes in B&Q I laid eyes on a 45m roll-up extension cable. Forty five metres! Forty five glorious metres! That's almost a twentieth of a kilometre! I immediately took a picture and sent it to Gareth. Then I bought it.

"I could mow the park with this!" I beamed to myself, imagining plugging my Dad's lawnmower in and pushing it out through the back gate to the park with a cheery wave to all the dog walkers and single Mums. Gareth messaged me back. "45," he said, "That's just showing off."

So today, I used it. Well sort of.

Now, a bit of description might help here: the extension cable is one of those ones that's on a wheel. You unwind it and then the wheel bit has the sockets on it. This one, unlike Gareth's orange cable, is bright blue, presumably so that it shows up well enough just before you accidentally hacksaw through it and blow yourself into next door's garden.

I plugged it in, then unwound it backwards down the stairs. Textbook. Then I trailed it under the front door, and, exactly as I had imagined, took it down my neighbour's drive (she wasn't in), past her wheelie bins, under my garden gate, and right into the middle of the jungle.

The sun was baking. I pushed my sun hat to the back of my head and wiped the sweat from my brow. Standing there in the tall grass, I felt a bit like l belonged in a Steinbeck novel, or a chapter of Tom Sawyer.

Out came my Dad's never-used (spare) lawnmower from the shed. Click went the plug in one of the sockets, and I clutched the handles ready for action.

And... nothing happened. I pushed the button again.

No power, no whizzing blades, no finely sprayed fountain of grass - nothing.

I trudged back upstairs. The extension cable was switched on and plugged in. I thundered back out to the garden. Still nothing. I pushed the mower over the grass and it silently flattened it. But cut the grass was not, nor would be.

"I'll have to ask my Dad about that," I said to myself, wearily. So I unplugged the mower and put it back in the shed.

Now at this point, what I'd like to tell you is that I simply wound the extension cable up, neatly unplugged it from the kitchen and put it back in the cupboard. But that isn't what happened.

What happened was that the 45m of long blue flex suddenly turned into a sort of uncontrollable snake, and started wrapping itself around the wheel in about as convoluted a way as could be imagined.

You know how it is with headphones? You wrap them neatly and then stash them in a pouch or a pocket or a pencil case or something, then when you unravel them, they've mysteriously formed a kind of plastic spaghetti that is knottier than a Shakespeare plot? Well imagine that - but forty five metres of it!

For the next hour I was poking that blue cable through loops of itself, pulling tightly and trying to figure out why the wheel was stuck, looping and unlooping fistfuls of flex around the handles with absolutely no idea of whether I was close to either solving the puzzle, or accidentally whacking myself in the face with the plug.

It's up there in my list of infuriating things, that. And forty five metres is so long! Why did I get one that is so ridiculously long?

I managed it in the end, by unwinding the entire length and then rewinding it round the wheel. But man was that annoying! My arms ached, my brain hurt and I was sweating like Huckleberry Finn.

Meanwhile, the grass is as long as ever. Looks like my feel-like-a-man-overcoming-the-garden-day will have to wait.

I didn't text Gareth or Mike about it. I have a feeling at least one of them will ask me though. And my Dad definitely will; I've still got his spare lawnmower.

EMINEM'S SLIPPERS

Cheese sandwiches, a pot of pineapple chunks, a Twirl and a can of limonata. That's my lunch today, in the park, on the only bench that's left in the shade, accompanied by the thudding music of Some-Band-You've-Never-Heard-Of at Reading Festival, just over the river.

Whom I have heard of though, is everyone's third favourite marshall (behind Tommie Lee Jones's character in The Fugitive, and the small group of Pacific Islands slightly west of the International Date Line), noughties-street-rapper, Eminem. I've heard of him alright. In fact I heard him loud and clear last night, while my head was squashed between two pillows and he thumped indecipherable lyrics into a microphone two miles away.

Oh well. I'm in the park now. I'm in the park and it's surprisingly quiet. I feel like doing something daring, something outrageous and socially unusual.

I've done it. I've taken my boots off. I just unzipped, and then wriggled my toes out of them. I know. Hottest bank holiday weekend for years and I'm crazy enough to sit out on a park bench with a packed lunch and stockinged feet. Madness.

I wonder whether Eminem enjoys his life. He always seems a bit serious and slightly preachy. Is he happy, I wonder. He's talented, certainly, and supremely rewarded for filling teenagers bedrooms with potentially explicit lyrics, but is he happy? Does he go home to California (I'm guessing) and put his slippers on, listen to a nice bit of Cosi Fan Tutti or something and do the LA Times crossword? Does he drink milk from the fridge and watch a football game behind a super sized bag of Doritos?

Does he go to his local park, chomp through a tub of pineapple chunks and kick his boots off just to feel the summer breeze on his toes? I doubt it. I think he'd like it if we swapped lives.

I'm not sure I would though.

THE PQT LIST: PART 2

I was praying through the PQT list on the way to work this morning. I was driving. The trees on Langley Hill looked golden, and the valley gleamed under the brilliant blue sky. I found myself thanking God for the slow cooker, and naturally, the Spanish chicken.

I suddenly remembered that I'd left the timer on! Without the crockpot in it, the slow cooker would click on at 11:30 and gradually cook itself until 6:30 this evening!

I swung the car round in Yew Tree Rise and headed home. It might have been alright, but I didn't want to take the risk, or waste the electricity.

So the PQT list is changing my life already! I've taken to thinking of, and writing down, at least ten things every day - five specifics I'm thankful for (t), and five requests (q). Then, as I did this morning, I'm simply talking to God about all of them (p). This, in case you missed it, is the PQT list.

What should have been obvious the other day though, is that the list actually starts rebuilding itself after a while. Yesterday's requests are tomorrow's thank-yous. What's more, it has two more incredible benefits: one, it reminds you that God actually does answer prayer and lets you track how, and two, it succeeds in letting you take your eyes off you! No wonder, it makes you less anxious!

What's also great is that thankfulness seems to open pathways to even more things to be thankful for. What I mean is, it's a lot easier to be thankful for more things, when you start being thankful for a few. Your brain somehow remembers or locks on to thank-yous that you would otherwise have forgotten. I've no idea how that works, but it's a great thing - especially when your short term memory is as bad as mine is!

Ah! Hence the timer on the slow cooker!

Anyway, that's enough preaching from me. My brain likes to explore thoughts and think through avenues, and I often spout the results as though it's some great new discovery, despite being peculiarly obvious for, oh say, the last two thousand years...

So I will stop talking. And hey, maybe you could add that to your PQT list?

BE A CATALYST, MUBBS

Well, apologies. Some poetry will be alright; some will be terrible. But we all learn how to make a pot of tea one way or the other, I suppose.

I cooked Spanish chicken in the slow cooker today. It was ready when I got home, filling the stairs with a succulent aroma. As you know, everything I cook in the slow cooker comes out sloppy, so I scooped out the hot chicken thighs from the slop and sploshed them onto a pile of rice. It looked good: olives and peppers glistening in the kitchen-light, steaming with heat around the tender chunks of browned, off-the-bone meat.

I fell asleep after I'd eaten the Spanish chicken. It might have been the white wine, lulling me into dreamland. More than likely though it was because I'd walked over 21,000 steps today and my body was falling into a sort of involuntary standby.

I woke up in the dark.

I washed up and ran a bath. What better way to end, I silently processed, than with a hot, muscle-relaxing bubble-bath? I did my usual - twenty minutes of hot tap, four minutes of cold. It's a tried-and-tested old formula and it does work.

Meanwhile, I scrolled through Twitter and thought about chemistry. Then I fixed the capo to the fourth fret of the acoustic and played a little blues guitar as though I knew what I was doing. The neighbours must be so tired of me.

I think you can either be a catalyst for change or a reactor when it happens. It occurs to me that I can be incredibly reactive sometimes, where it would be better if I just made chemistry happen by being myself in the right place at the right time. That's what catalysts do. Be a catalyst, Mubbs. Be a catalyst.

I put down the guitar, unfixed the capo, and refilled the wine glass. I read somewhere that every bottle of wine that's under £5 has about 37p of wine in it. This glass of crisp white was the last of the cooking wine; I worked out that I was drinking about 6p. I could probably have just swigged from the vinegar bottle for much the same effect. I thought about my recent attempt to go aquatotal and smiled to myself.

Oh well, at least the bath was ready. I screwed the taps tightly shut and tentatively stuck a hand in through the cloud of bubbles. Into the water it went. And out it came again straight away.

The bath was freezing cold.

RED BULL

Okay, maybe every third day.

Golly. I have such little will-power. It's a good job I never took up smoking! Of course, when Kelvin and Ryan and Chris were puffing away by the school wheelie bins, I was hiding in the Chess Club. Thankfully.

So my attempts to drink only water this week have lasted a pathetic record of one day.

I could still drink more water though, rather than going completely aquatotal; maybe reach some sort of balance. My kidneys would be thankful. I could cut out anything with bubbles in it, for example.

Especially this stuff...

Red Bull

I'mawakeandI'maliveand
Iamsparklingandfull
AndI'vedrunkanawfullotof
Red Bull

I'mawakeandIamfast
Andmybrainisspinningquick
AndIfeellikeIcouldrununtilI'm
Sick

Ohtheysayitgivesyouwings
Andsendsyouenergytokeep
ButnowI'vedrunkthisredbullallIwanttodois
Sleep

THE PQT LIST

I'm thinking maybe I'll go aquatotal every other day. Yesterday was horrible. Thanks a bunch, Cheery American.

What better way to follow an insipid day though, than with a troublesome one?

Yep. The doctor's worried about my ear. I might well have to be referred to the hospital.

Pesky ear drum. It got damaged in Cardiff and now apparently, has 'no features'. The doctor was amazed that my hearing is as good as it is, though to be honest I do sometimes struggle with some frequencies.

So, time for a bit of ancient wisdom. Here it is:

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Philippians 4:6-7

It's quite a good algorithm this, even if you don't believe in the Bible (as I do). The logic is sound: don't [x] but [y] and wait for [z].

So, given that this definitely counts as a 'situation' in the 'every' set, I guess it's time to do some presenting of requests [y] by praying (let's say, p), petitioning (q) and with thanksgiving (t).

I guess this means: [z] = [y] x [p+q+t]

What occurs to me though, as I think this through, is that petitioning (q) is usually always done by creating a physical list. I'm not proposing to gather hundreds of signatures, but maybe I need to present something on paper - perhaps (given that it's a combination of p,q and t) it should be a composite list of:

- things to be thankful for (t)
- things to request (q)

which can then be prayed through (p)...

What do you think? Attach it to the bathroom mirror? List it on my phone? I guess if you're not a believer, you probably think this is a crazy, hippie thing to do. Fair enough - it doesn't make sense in the world of physics, but thankfully the real universe is a bit deeper than that. At least, I believe so.

Oh, and it's worth noting too, that [z] = peace that replaces anxiety, not necessarily the answers to the [pqt] list. And right now, given that I can't do anything other than start writing that list, I'd take peace [z] over worry [x] any day of the week.

I might start with a cup of tea though, if that's okay, Mr Cheery American? Well. It's tough luck anyway, cause that's what I'm doing.

A CHEERY AMERICAN GIVES ME AN IDEA

I saw an article this morning about the awesome benefits of only drinking water.

Better skin, more energy, weight-loss, higher brain-function. It turns out the water of life, is really just good old water. At least, according to the Cheery American anyway.

So I've been giving it a go today. No tea, no juice, no lunchtime limonata, nip nada niente - just acqua naturale from the holy spring that is the tap in the kitchen.

Man alive.

Where is that Cheery American? I'd like a swift word, sunshine. What he didn't tell me through his infographics and his glittering smile, was that the first day sucks. Neither did he mention that the signals controlling hunger and thirst get completely mixed up until you don't know whether to eat the entire fruit basket or gaze longingly at the box of tea-bags!

Nor did he give any clue, and I mean any clue at all, as to the unbelievable frequency with which water-drinkers need to... well, visit the... porcelain.

I'm chalking all this up to de-tox, which can only be a good thing, right? But still, tough. I feel weak. And I need tea!

Oh the lovely glugging sound of the teapot splashing hot Darjeeling into a cup! That rich, scented aroma wafting up from the blend! That delightful Jaffa Cake waiting for a total eclipse!

Water it is - at least for today. I wonder how long you have to do this before you start to notice any difference? And is it like fasting? Does it get easier? I hope so. Or I'll be tracking down that Cheery American, faster than you can say, 'Sorry, where's the bathroom again?'

THE DAY WE HAD TWO FIRE ALARMS

We've had two fire alarms today. You'll remember of course, a couple of months ago I was given a yellow jacket and told I could be a deputy fire warden. Yippedy doo.

So this morning, at 8:15, the first fire alarm happened. The other fire wardens hadn't arrived. I panicked.

For a few seconds, while everyone filed neatly out of the fire exit, I pondered whether to put on that yellow jacket at all. No-one would know - or remember, I supposed. There's hardly anyone in yet anyway, I could just slip out the back with everyone else and pretend...

I didn't do that. I did the responsible thing, slipping into the jacket and staying behind to make sure all the rooms were empty. I figured that that was the right thing to do.

It's so strange to be inside a building that everyone else has evacuated. The sirens swirled into my head, louder than loud, while I pushed open doors and strolled between the desks. Part of me wondered what I would do if toxic smoke billowed out of a meeting room and I heard someone shouting for help.

That didn't happen. I eventually marched outside and joined everyone else in the car park.

"Did you check the toilets?" asked Jamie. My heart fell through my stomach. Silence. Someone else said, "Jamie!" and then Jamie said:

"What? Someone might be asleep on the bog! It could happen!"

Needless to say, I had forgotten to check the toilets.

I quickly reasoned that there was nobody asleep 'on the bog', though the weight of being wrong about that was suddenly enormous. Mind you, I don't particularly like the idea of having to wake up a slumbering colleague who's passed out far enough to not be able to hear the ear-piercing sound of the fire alarms either. In the unlikely event that that had happened to someone at 8:15 in the morning, I suspected that such a person would have already 'gone the way of Elvis'.

Oh my! Am I bad person? Did I just let someone perish in a hypothetical inferno? Did I accidentally gamble with someone's life?

Well, there's no going back in when you're out, even if you're a deputy fire warden. After a while, the engineer arrived to fix the fault in the alarm system and then everyone (all present and accounted for) was waved back inside.

-

The second fire alarm happened just after 12pm. Peter was in by then, so we checked the floor together, including the toilets.

Then I went out and stood in the car park with the crowd of smoking, chatting, phone-checking people.

For the first time in a while, I suddenly felt small. I guess it was the jacket - I felt like I ought to have been doing something, like telling people not to stand in the road, but somehow I couldn't quite do that. All I could do was just sort of fade in to the crowd of six-footers. It seems the jacket had a gravitas which did not match my stature.

Then people kept coming up to me and asking whether or not they could go to lunch. That made me laugh - as if I could stop anyone going to lunch! The system is that once you're accounted for outside the building, you're clearly okay to do whatever you like - as long as whatever you like isn't nipping back inside the burning office block for a hot pastie and some chargrilled chicken.

After a few minutes, the sirens stopped and an official-looking security guard waved us all back in again... again.

With relief, I slipped the yellow jacket back into the drawer where it belongs. I kind of hope I don't have to use it any time soon.

I suddenly remembered that when Peter had given me that jacket, I had joked,

"Well, with great power comes great responsibility."

It certainly does.

AN ANALYSIS OF LOVE HEARTS

For reasons I don't understand, we've been given a load of free retro sweets. This kind of thing happens in offices. In between worrying about us all being sedentary-potatoes for six hours a day, the Powers That Be tend to shower us in cakes, biscuits and sometimes, like today, sweets.

I agree - it makes no sense. But it is what it is: a kind of perpetual motion machine designed by HR to keep us in a constant state of flux.

I got a packet of parma violets (think 1980s air-freshener that's somehow been squeezed into a sugary coating) and some 'Love Hearts'.

We used to see this kind of thing all the time when we were kids: Sherbert dabs, Refreshers, Dweebs and Nerds, those ones that looked like cigarettes that you could pretend to smoke with on cold days in the playground... erm... yes, really... and Love Hearts.

I think the idea was that you could give them to people you 'fancied' as a silent token of affection. They had sweet messages printed on them inside a heart-shape - kind of old-fashioned things that you'd never be brave enough to say: "I love you." or "Be my beau" or "You're my favourite".

How times change. I wasn't going to give mine away today, so I ate them, but not without analysing them first. Here's how the pack unfolded:

Wicked

Er, what? That's just a word, an adjective of dubious meaning. Traditionally of course, reserved for evil activity or object. Sure, these days it can be used to describe anything that's unexpectedly brilliant in a postmodern kind of 'so awesome it's terrible, which also means awesome' kind of way - but even that use is kind of ageing isn't it? Do kids still click their fingers and say 'Wicked!' like we did in the 90s? I can't see it.

That leaves 'wicked' in a kind of no-man's-land between evil and brilliant. Hardly suitable for sweets, wouldn't you say?

My Ideal

Okay, this is a bit more like it. But could you really give that to someone without heaping a load of pressure on them?

"Hey you're perfect for me," seems a little heavy, especially if you're too afraid to talk to the person - and, as if that person never needs to change! I may be off-beam here, but part of the secret of long-lasting relationships is change itself, and how you grow and adapt together around it. That's beauty that you can't imagine. You don't start at perfection! And even if you could, it's all got to be all down-hill from there, hasn't it?

The only thing I think I would give that love-heart to is a cup of Russian Caravan tea, with a Jaffa Cake on the saucer. But of course, the introduction of a tiny sugar-bomb to that equation would spoil the whole thing and render the sentiment worthless.

Tweet Me

How very Twenty First Century. Are tweets romantic though? The last few I've sent were a caustic reply to a funny radio presenter, a quip at a TV personality, and a short missive to a lady whose parcel fell through my letterbox on Saturday morning.

Plus, tweets are very public aren't they? The last thing I need is someone giving me a lovely Public Display of Affection. That kind of thing makes me shudder with embarrassment.

All I can imagine is that back in the old days, the equivalent Love Heart said 'phone me' or something, and an over-eager executive at Love-Hearts-HQ had a brainwave.

Grow Up

The wind whispers through the trees as the moon paints the rustling leaves in silver. An owl hoots a melody and the distant ocean gently laps the white sand in the distance, under the sparkling night of a thousand glittering stars. You lean in for the kiss, cheek touching warm cheek in the soft-edged lamplight. Then gently, she leans to your ear and softly whispers...

"Grow up."

Wait, what?

Grow Up

And again - two in a row. What does it mean? How is it in the least bit romantic?

Spoil Me

Okay. I'll buy you loads of stuff you don't really want or need until you expect the entire world to treat you the same way, as though you were the sun in a universe that was always designed to revolve around you and only you. That'll make for a great relationship. Watch me as I spin forever in your beautiful shadow.

Sweet Heart

Ah finally! It took me until the end of the packet to find something suitable for a Love Heart. In fact, you might even have found one of these 'sweet heart' Love Hearts back in the 70s or 80s.

I guess the Love-Heart-HQ executives around the table just couldn't let go of this one. And who could blame them? It reminds us all that what we're actually doing is exchanging sweets, not gigantic tokens of burgeoning infatuation - just sweets, which you'll agree, like an overwhelming romance of flowers, teddies, violins and PDAs, are probably not very good for us in the long run. Not very good at all.

Mind you, I can talk. I just ate the whole pack myself.

UNPACKING THE CUPBOARD

It occurred to me today that sometimes you have to unpack a cupboard to sort it out.

It seems obvious, really. But it doesn't just apply to cupboards - it applies to thoughts and ideas and attitudes as well. Sometimes you have to take everything out of your head, lay it out in order and ask yourself whether it belongs in the cupboard at all.

Some of us don't like doing this very much. The cupboard is a safe place for our thoughts, especially the ones that hide at the back behind the chilli-sauce and the tin of emergency spam. We haven't thought about those things in a long time. Why now?

Then there are others who don't like the whole process at all because they don't understand what we're doing, and they're a bit afraid of it.

"Why is the kitchen full of old cans of tuna steaks and half-used tomato ketchups?" they wonder. It makes no sense - those things belong in the cupboard. What is this brave new world where you empty out everything and leave it all over the place?

Now true, when you empty a cupboard, it is quite likely that most of it will go back, and largely in exactly the same place it came from. It's good to know though, that it's in the right place. It's also good to know that you've got rid of things you no longer need that were just taking up space.

I've come to realise that I do this a lot, and it seems to frustrate some people. It must appear like such a waste of time to talk about things we know we all agree on; yet it's invaluable to me to use that as context for the problem we're trying to discuss. I'm afraid I'm not clever enough to process the subject in the short amount of time it takes for us to talk about the detail. I frequently need a bigger picture. I need an empty cupboard.

SMOKING SHELTER

I'm stuck in the smoking shelter. Don't worry, I haven't taken up smoking.

I'm not having a communal chat with the vapers either, about how awful everything is or how terribly unfair our bosses are; I'm on my own, waiting for a thunderstorm to pass.

It came out of nowhere. The wind kicked up, the sky grew black, some people on the other side of the lake started running for some reason, and then I was suddenly getting drenched.

I sprinted. The sky erupted with light, and almost a half-second later, the thunder cracked above my head. So I darted in here. Now it's monsooning off the concrete and the cars.

I am dryer than a person in the rain should be, but I'm stuck between the smoking shelter and the revolving doors until it eases up. Thunder rolls above. I will probably have to make a run for it.

It reeks of cigarettes in here. Cigarettes and gossip. I feel like praying just to change the atmosphere. And there is clearly a lot of atmosphere to undo.

Ironically, one of the vapers just emerged out of the revolving doors, took one look at the sky and then at me. I smiled and waved, a non-smoker in the smoking shelter, stuck and waving at a smoker trapped in the building, each of us wanting to trade places without getting wet.

I feel there is some sort of metaphor in there, but the rain's stopping now so I'm going to run.

THE TETCH STANDOFF

I'm tetchy today. Unfortunately, I'm not exactly skilled in the blunt-speaking, take-no-prisoners approach, and, rather than being shocked or quietly impressed, the rest of the world is reacting by being tetchy with me too. And who could blame them?

Years ago, I shouted at someone down the phone out of pure frustration. It ended with me being told off (in no uncertain terms) for getting 'emotional'. And that was weird because the whole thing had been about tablecloths.

So my solution to this tetch-based standoff, is to say as little possible to anyone. Isolation, I guess: sealing myself off like a nuclear reactor, quietly seething in the corner.

But that doesn't really help. It just creates a surly atmosphere. And people are sensitive to that, as though we've all got built in Geiger-counters. Anyone who's walked into a room after an argument knows exactly what I'm talking about.

So how do you de-tetchify yourself? How do you crack open a seal and safely vent your radioactive waste without risking a Fukushima in your own vicinity?

I don't know. I took my niece to McDonald's (as a treat for her doing something nice) and wound her up a bit by pretending to be a vicar. Then I went home and walked through the park before the sun set. It helped a bit but I still feel irascible. I am a hedgehog tonight, if I am anything, scuffling through the long grass.

It hasn't escaped my notice that this is mostly about my own insecurity again. Everything feels like an attack so I defend. But I don't need to; I need to let go, I need to release it, and chill out about who I am and who I'm not. 

Ah sorry, world. I need to be more thankful I reckon. And probably hold things much more lightly.

HOME TRUTHS

Chris came round last night and told me how to tidy up. I very much appreciated it.

In fact I had sort of asked him to do it. I need that after all.

"There's nothing to be ashamed about," he said, reassuringly. I said I knew, though I still felt a bit disappointed with myself for being so disorganised.

That feeling is at the heart of one of life's toughest tensions - when a home truth hits you and you have no time to respond. Thankfully, Chris is kind, considerate and knows me very well. As he left he said,

"Hey no worries, little bro. I know what it's like."

And he gave me a hug at the top of the stairs. I never had a brother growing up, so these moments - whether it's Paul, Chris, Winners, or whoever, are really important, and I would trust those men until the end of time to deliver them.

Part of the problem is that social media encourages us to present a version of ourselves that has it all together. Everyone is an expert, everyone is a journalist, everyone is a comedian, everyone is wise. And yet, we aren't are we? Not really.

I live in a mess. I struggle with my identity. I get jealous and petty and lonely and mad and afraid, and I'm refusing to believe that everyone I know solved all of those things for themselves before they logged on to fakebook or instagram or Twitter. And I'm a bit fed up of feeling as though I have to hide it all the time.

I don't have any witty sign-off or call back today. I'm just trying to be real, bobbing along in an ocean of online pretending.

And in the middle of that sea, I'm grateful for friends like Chris who will always tell it as they see it, won't ever pander to my ego and will always fight for the best of me, as I would for them.

After all, home truths will always point you home. And that's a great place to be.

LE BONFEU AND THE GOODFIRE TALES

My friend Emmie had a fire yesterday. Oh. Wait. What I mean is she had a bonfire, not a house fire. Though, she does live about four hundred metres away from the local fire station.

By the way, shouldn't it be a 'bonfeu' or even a 'goodfire'? What's with all this mixed-up squishing of languages? And why has it taken me thirty nine years to notice?

Anyway, etymology aside, I went round and sat by it. Her parents were there too, listening to Miles Davis between the flickering of candles and the crackling flames in the firepit.

"Are you going on holiday soon, Matt?" asked Emmie's Mum.

It suddenly leaped into my memory like a dancing flame. Yes! I'm going to Dublin!

"Yes," I replied, "I'm going to Dublin in September."

I had forgotten it. I'd booked it months and months ago and it hadn't occurred until that moment, how close September is. I checked the details this morning, and now I am properly excited.

My third Capital City Break is on the horizon - and Dublin looks amazing. Even better, I seem to have paid for all of it in January, and booked the time off. Past me was wise.

So that potential adventure has brightened my Monday.

It got dark imperceptibly in the bright glow of the fire. In the end, Emmie and I were like flickering islands, our illuminated faces floating on either side of the flames. I drifted into dreams while the hypnotic dance bedazzled me. Through the wisps of smoke and the crackling embers, it whispered to me, almost, telling me of ancient stories it had heard - Vikings and cowboys and raiders and outlaws, explorers and adventurers and lovers and dreamers, or perhaps just someone who fell out of luck on a winter's night.

I think I would like to live a life of stories that I could tell in front of a fire. I'm not sure there'd be many wide eyes though, at the story of how I configured automated builds and planned a branching strategy that meant mutliple technical authors couldn't overwrite their changes. Ooh. Tell us more.

Anyway, at least I'm going to Dublin. Maybe I'll find a pub with a roaring fire and sit by it.

I LEAVE A LEAVING DO

"I'm cool, I'm calm, I'm confident, I'm awesome," I whispered to myself, over and over. A summery breeze whistled down the street and ruffled my shirt sleeves. "I'm cool, I'm calm, I'm confident, I'm awesome..."

"I've only seen you in the pub once before," had said Nell earlier, "and you were really uncomfortable." She laughed. I couldn't disagree - that was the lunchtime that the 'banter' had looped out of control and I had had to leave. For some reason, I thought Joe's leaving do would be a bit different.

"I'm cool, I'm calm, I'm confident, I'm awes.... hey Ant!" Ant crossed the road and we arrived at The Oakford just in time to see a crowd of children fish ID cards out of their pockets.

What Joe's leaving do actually turned out to be (and it was nothing less than predictable) was a kind of experiment in social awkwardness, and not just for me. I arrived at the point where tipsy is just on the turn, and the fog of group-inebriation is slowly settling. You can always tell this because it's when people are still normal enough to realise that what they just said was a little too loose. I stood next to Mischa, coke in hand, chatting about writing.

"Do you like blogging?" he asked.

"Sure!" I said, smiling.

"What do you blog about?"

"Me, mostly!" I said above the background chatter. A neat-haired young man with bronzed muscles under a crisp white shirt pushed between us with two tall Peronis.

"Yes, it's more of a personal diary," I went on.

Is Peronis the plural of Peroni? I was wondering silently. Should it be Peronie? Peronii?

"Oh, I wouldn't be interested in that," said Mischa, sipping his drink and looking away.

Fair enough, I thought.

Social awkwardness. I looked around me, and all I saw was insecurity. It was written behind the plastered smiles and the make-up: the entire place was packed with kids looking like grown-ups, desperately trying to fit into the world of pretend adulthood. It made me sad for a moment.

Oz arrived and dragged everyone off to O'Neill's so he could watch the Arsenal match. There, I talked to Dimitrios for a while about football as though I knew at least something about it, then got myself out of another tricky and embarrassing drunken conversation.

'WHY DO I GO TO THESE THINGS?' I messaged Sammy.

Everyone else was transfixed by the match, so I decided to wish Joe the best of adventures in his new job (he won't remember that conversation) and then I slipped out the back of O'Neill's, and headed for the train station. I doubt anyone else even saw me go.

'Just leave if you don't like it,' replied Sammy. Good plan, I thought, strolling into the station.

Then Emmie told me that Sammy was on the way to hers... so I planned out how to get there, intending to at least round-off my evening with people I'm genuinely close to.

Work is a funny collection of people. I can't say I'd choose to be friends with lots of them - nor they with the novel-writing, quiet, unfunny weirdo who writes documentation for them. I think next time I will skip the leaving do and stick to scribing a platitude in the Card of Many Signatures.

After the train home and the car to Emmie's, I arrived feeling over-tired but also relieved I was somewhere comfortable, friendly and familiar. I smiled as I climbed the steps to Emmie's flat.

"I'm cool, I'm calm, I'm confident, I'm awesome," I chuckled to myself.

NOT MOVING VERY FAST

"I tell you what," said my Mum, "Come in after work and I'll do sausage, chips and beans before we go."

That sounded excellent, and so as ever when something sounds excellent, I said okay and that was that.

Where we were 'going' of course, was the Family Festival my cousin Walty had organised for the children.

It's becoming an annual thing - games in the garden, some fun activities (pin the badge on the super-hero, race about with an old t-shirt for a cape, and jump on any uncles who might have just turned up) plus overnight camping with a campfire. The kids love it, and will remember it all their lives... which is why she does it, I suppose. I said I'd go for an hour or so.

Anyway, my Mum was worried about me not-eating beforehand so she produced an army of sizzling sausages, spoonfuls of baked beans and some crunchy chips by magic, and my Dad and I happily wolfed it all down with a swig of tea.

-

"Uncle Matthew's here!" cried a little voice from the garden. A horde of stomping miniature super-heroes rushed towards me with sonic screwdrivers and light sabers.

"Do have some pizza," said Aunty Mary. "There's lots of food, here, let me show you."

"Oh I..." I started to say. "Okay." Politeness was taking over.

Before long, I was holding a plastic plate with a pyramid of food weighing it down like the hanging gardens of Babylon. Pizza, cheese, bread, grapes - a cornucopia of snackery that would have made Henry Tudor's eyes pop out.

"Are you seriously having fruit with pizza?" asked my niece. She's fifteen and, as has been widely noted, knows everything.

"Erm... they're grapes," I said.

"Erm... that's still a fruit," she sassily replied. I told her it was no different to a Hawaiian pizza and she wandered off.

"Are you okay there?" asked my Mum, raising an eyebrow, "Got enough?"

"Yes thanks!" I beamed, cheekily.

-

My phoned buzzed. "Mubbs!" it said. It was my friend Luke.

"Come to Simon's house! Ladz social"

I had forgotten about that. So, I let that ridiculous Z go uncommented-upon and replied:

"Cool."

... before saying my goodbyes, slinking out of the Family Festival, and getting in the car on my way to Simon's.

The sun was low in the sky, bouncing brightly off the concrete as I turned down the hill towards Purley. Trees glimmered in the golden light, happily waving against the still blue sky.

I knocked the door.

"That was quick!" said Luke, beckoning me in. "Come on in Mubbs, we're just about to order."

I did a slow blink and an inward sigh. Adam, Henry and Simon were perched on the sofa, peering into a Chinese takeaway menu. There was athletics on the television. I flicked off my shoes. A few moments later...

"Matt, what are you having?"

Yep. There it is. "Oh count me out," I said. "I just ate."

"Aw come on, you've got to eat!" said Luke, "It's the ladz!" I groaned inwardly and mentally scrolled through all my experiences with Chinese food - a mouthful of crispy seaweed, a slurping bellyfull of slimy vegetables and spicy noodles, a stringy duck in a sickly plum sauce stuck between my teeth. I felt more than a little bit sick.

Yet somehow, through some mysterious process I still don't understand, thirty five minutes later, I was tucking into lemon chicken and special fried rice with the best of them.

Later, the conversation worked its way round to athletics.

"Tell you what Henry, I'm currently trying to run a mile in six minutes," I said, nodding at the 1500m runners powering round the track on the TV. I chomped into a bit of chilli beef.

"You're not moving very fast," replied Henry. Luke burst out laughing.

I just looked down at my hard-working shirt buttons and the enormous stomach bulging beneath them. He's not wrong.

UP SUPER EARLY

Well. It is early. Super early. Through the window I can see the dawn is creeping over the trees above the park. The air is cold and I'm wrapped in my duvet, wondering why on Earth I'm awake.

I know why though. It's because I fell asleep before 9pm last night and my body has decided that seven hours is quite enough of that.

It rained all day yesterday. From early gym to lights out, it chucked it down. It felt like October - leaves swilling about in the gutter, the sound of umbrellas popping and the earthy smell of rain and soil. The sky grew so dark at lunchtime that my manager flicked open Firefox and booked a holiday to the Italian Lakes to cheer herself up.

Even now, in the super early morning, it feels unseasonably chilly. It's university-weather: the fading summer and the drizzling autumn. Only we've somehow missed the long shadows of September.

What should I do? It's too late to go back to sleep, too early to get up and go. For logistical reasons (I might explain later) my car is on the other side of town, so I can't drive anywhere. Maybe I'll read something, or follow my pastor's example and do some praying.

A train rattles somewhere, the clock ticks loudly through the dark silence and I shiver in the cool morning air until my body drags me deeper into the warm duvet.

Maybe I'll google Italian Lake holidays. 

TL;DR

So, another day, another bit of self-awareness. I've uncovered another annoyance I don't like very much about the modern world.

No, wait. It's not really the modern world's fault; it's more mine. But it is exposed and so I have noticed it. Here it is:

I can't bear it when people don't read my emails.

Okay, stop. Let me get this out there first of all - this not a subtle dig at anyone reading this who needs to reply to an email I sent them. As it stands, that has not happened, and I'm not expecting anything from anyone out there! So don't be reading anything into this that isn't there.

But do be reading my emails when I send them! Here's how it normally goes:

I send an email with some information or a question, perhaps to one person, perhaps to a group. Nothing happens. No reply, no acknowledgement, no quick winky face or thank yous - nothing. And that's okay. Actually, I've spent twenty years working out that that can be alright - quite probably a reply will make its way to me eventually, or when I next see one of those non-responders, something will fire their synapses and we'll go through the...

"Rats, forgot to reply to your email. Hey listen, it's [cool/not great with/for me]. Actually I think you're [right/wrong/insane/deluded] and we should chat sometime."

"Oh hey, no worries! It's [fine/not fine/boring into my soul like an icy dagger]."

... conversation.

And that's great! What really gets my goat and crumbles my biscuit though, is the thing that happens when they do reply (or take another action) which absolutely proves to me that they didn't read it.

That pushes my button. Like a steam turbine I gather heat and fume inwardly as though I've swallowed a volcano. I am being deliberately ignored, and I hate that.

STOP! says my brain.

This is a moment of revelation, and there's always a thing you can do when you realise things like this. So, here's my questioning and uncomfortable internal reasoning...

Q. Why do you feel like this?
A. It's disrespectful!

Q. Why is it disrespectful?
A. I deserve more respect.

Q. Do you?
A. Yes, I think so!

Q. So you're offended?
A. Um

Q. Yes?
A. I guess so.

Ouch. There might be a million reasons why someone didn't read my email. It's quite possible that I've even done this myself, when faced with the difficult task of reading a complicated message. In fact, it's almost a certainty that I've failed to listen to someone and done my own thing anyway... isn't it?

So, time for a few actions:

1. Don't react.

I'm resolving to chalk it up to TL;DR* whenever this happens. In fact, this might even encourage me to be more concise. Whatever, I could be less infuriated, if I think about it.

2. Repeat.

I think I'll very calmly just start repeating myself. I guess sometimes information takes a little while to go in, and the best teachers are always the most patient. I'm not aspiring to be a teacher by the way, but I think patience is helpful

3. Be joyful.

Yes. While I'm thinking about patience, it's probably worth throwing in a few of the other fruits too - and joy is best served fresh.

That's a good start, I reckon.

And anyway... why in the world should anybody read right to the end of what I have to say in the first place, as though I were somehow the most interesting, cleverest, most perceptive and entertaining person they know, right?

Right?

Hello?

Anyone there?





*Too long; didn't read.

PLANET OF THE APES

It's more than two years ago now since I went to the gym in Toronto. I came back from that experience, feeling relieved that that world (the world of workouts and weights) wasn't the jungle of gorillas, the planet of the apes, I had imagined it would be.

Oh there are gyms like that, I'm sure, where the silver-backs preen themselves in the mirror while curling their enormous muscles around their tiny dumb bells. But it's not most places - not these days, thankfully.

It's strange then, that it's taken me this long to join a gym.

Let's call it what it is: laziness. Two years of lazy procrastination. So, this weekend I finally did something about it.

"So what do you want to get out of your workouts?" asked Kelly the Trainer on my induction the other day. I thought about it for less than a second.

"I just want to feel alive," I said, "... and not bloated like a fat couch potato all the time."

And so it is. I went this morning for my first proper workout.

It occurred to me afterwards, as I drove to work, that I totally understand why people obsess over it. The rush of endorphins could easily be addictive! I felt really good! No wonder, I reasoned to myself, people post sweaty selfies and maps of their runs, or photographs of the cross-trainer with indecipherable (but supposedly impressive) numbers on it.

Don't worry. I will resist the temptation to do the same - though I do think there's something to be said for feeling proud of yourself for making your life better.

My only hope is that I can keep it going! I think it'll be a little-and-often thing, interspersed with walking to work and an occasional run. I'm hoping that a routine will really help me feel a bit more human and alive.

It does seem odd, now, just sitting in a chair all day, tapping away at a keyboard for the gratification of others, eating cake and chattering in the kitchen.

I guess that's the great myth isn't it? It wasn't the gym that was the planet of the apes at all! One thing's for sure though: I'm growing a bit tired of sitting around like a slowly ballooning orangutan.

I've had enough of that.

RADIO MUBBS

A lady came up to me today and told me I had a nice voice. I had been speaking and reading a poem at the front of church.

"There's just something about it."

I don't often think about it. Sometimes it cracks like an old pot, sometimes it's whiny and nasal. Often the words tumble out in the wrong order and I mumble in half-sentences. Most of the time though, it's just plain old Home-Counties English, with a handful of words that are pronounced straight out of Berkshire, where I live. There is nothing interesting about it. But perhaps it has tones I can't hear.

"Maybe I should be on the radio," I said, joking. I'm not sure about that - I also struggle to talk at all in an environment full of lions and otters. And radio (I think) is probably full of those people.

She nodded in agreement. "Well yes, maybe you should." 

If I had interesting things to say, I suppose I could do a podcast. The Canadians would like it - when I was there, they wanted me to read to them out of the phone book, or better, passages from the Bible.

What I will probably do, is nothing at all, other than enunciate into the microphone the next time I'm afforded the chance. Unless I think up something hilarious or original to talk about on the radio.

MOT TIME

It's MOT time. I'm waiting in a lonely car park, ready for the garage to rattle open its shutters and switch on the greasy radio. Then I can drop off the keys and walk round the corner to work.

This is one of the bits of motoring I really don't like - the is-your-car-roadworthy-exam. Hopefully it is, but there's always the chance that later they'll phone me up and take a sharp inhalation of breath before telling me that I've been driving around in a death trap.

But that's the point isn't it? It's all about preventing me and everyone I drive with or near to, from death or injury. And so that can't be a bad thing.

It's just that if my car is falling apart it always feels like it's somehow my fault. In a curious way, this might be the closest I get to knowing what it's like to be a parent - heavy dread attached to the uninfluencable performance of another. Alright, it's not quite the same but I do sort of get it.

A burly man in shorts has just arrived. One day I'll find a garage that plays Vivaldi and lets you wait in leather wing back chairs. A mechanic in a pristine boiler suit and bow-tie will emerge with a white wine spritzer on a silver tray, hand me my keys and tell me that my vehicle is sparkling like a futuristic vision from the 50s.

Today is not that day. I'm deliberately chewing gum to come across as confident and casual in the oily reception.

Some days I think I'd quite happily just walk everywhere.

THE ROYAL ONE

Prince Phillip retires today. I'd like to say thank you for serving our country, our monarchy and our Queen so dutifully, and for so long. He's 96. I doubt I'll get to do that any other way, so this will have to do. Thank you, sir.

Naturally, the media is packed with a combination of gushing tributes, and reminders of some his gaffes. Yes, well: whatever serves as talking points I suppose. I still think on the whole, he is something of a quiet hero.

Meanwhile on social media, one account that I follow seemed to celebrate by talking about themselves with the third person pronoun 'one' instead of the first person 'I'. Perhaps in parody? Well, at least, almost...

"Like Prince Philip, I have made quite a few gaffes in my time when meeting important people, yet always found time to laugh at oneself."

Oneself? Unless you're Boromir... or directly related to Her Majesty, I'd like to propose that you and I are restricted from use of the royal 'one'. In fact, even Boromir was sort of royalty, so perhaps even he's okay simply walking into Mordor. Or not.

Anyway, it's an interesting thing this. The 'one' is an off-shoot from old kings using 'we' to indicate that everything they did was in accordance with God. The 'we' was literally the monarch and the deity.

"We" said Henry V "shall march on Agincourt" (I imagine) meaning not just him and his armies, but also him and the Lord.

"We are not amused," muttered Queen Victoria, indicating that, of course, the Almighty was just as Victorian as she was. I doubt that he was.

Over time, kings and queens gradually saw themselves as less entwined with the Divine and split the pronouns back into the first person. But not quite the common me, myself and I that the rest of us are so familiar with.  At least not yet anyway. One had to do.

Hence the Queen still refers to herself as 'one' - and God bless her for it. But for the rest of us? Probably best to genuflect our pronouns to where it's comfortable, without sounding like pompous obnoxiants.

You're okay though, Your Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh. You've done such a wonderful job helping the Queen know the power of 'we' while she stands as 'one', you can refer to yourself however you would like, sir. We salute you.

THE INTERDIMENSIONAL OMNIBUS

"Where does this bus stop?" I asked, politely. The bus driver rotated his head like the Terminator and stared through his sunglasses.

"You tell me..." he said. It suddenly occurred to me that he was built like an oversized suitcase.

I looked puzzled and (probably) a little frightened. I haven't caught a bus for a while but I'm pretty sure that this is not how public transport works. I didn't say that though; you don't get smart with a bus driver who could easily be a Terminator in his spare time.

"You tell me... where you want to get off," he said, matter-of-factly. I told him, though I was wondering at the same time whether I'd just climbed on to a massive bus-shaped taxi by accident. This is definitely not how buses work, right?

This is what happens when you walk to work and get too tired to face walking home again. You end up outside Stockholmhaven, catching a dusty bus driven by an enigmatic Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Come to think of it, this does seem to be a bit of a mystical bus route. There is no real certainty where it ends - the website says one place, but also another on the equivalent return journey. None of the bus stops mentioned on the site have any indication that this bus goes past them - I know because I checked on my way this morning.

So if the driver seems weirdly vague about where we're going, and so does the bus company, you'll forgive me for wondering whether we get there through some cosmic wormhole or other. I could just be sitting in the second row of seats on the lower deck of the world's first interdimensional omnibus...

... driven by a Terminator. Gulp. See you later. Hopefully.

TAKE A SEAT

It was challenging before I'd even sat down.

Let's leave out the fact that I chose to walk to work, just for a moment. And let's leave out how long it took and how far it was.

But let's leave in the fact that my chair was missing after me being away for a week! Vanished.

Monitor? Check. Docking station for my laptop? Check. Mouse mat and pile of previously-referenced assorted stuff? Check. But no chair. And no sign of chair. Oh and no-one in to ask what happened to it either.

Okay Matt. It's just a chair. Don't get grumpy. You can overcome this.

I wheeled over a spare one from an empty desk. I slotted it into place, then plumped my tired old self into the seat.

The seat gave way and plummeted my tired old self to the carpet.

No-one in to see that, thankfully. I pumped it up and tried again. It sank me back down with a characteristic swoosh of hydraulic air.

Sigh. Okay, it's not the end of the world. I grabbed the edge of the desk, pulled myself back up to normal height, and went in search of my actual chair.

It turns out that someone had borrowed it for a meeting and simply had forgotten to put it back.

For some reason, in offices, this kind of terrible crime is way up there with 'using someone else's favourite coffee mug' and 'CCing a VIP instead of putting them first in the To field of an email'. You can almost hear the guillotine being sharpened and the audible gasps of horror when these heinous things happen.

So the temptation was there for me too, to join in with the culture this morning. Should I rant against this great and terrible injustice? Should I go on an angry warpath, looking for an item to which I'm mildly more attached than many other similar items in the building?

Well... no. It. Is. A. Chair.

I took a deep breath and got over it. Then I wheeled another one over, sat down (reasonably comfortably) and switched on my laptop.

It was about then that I realised that my mug was missing.