And...collapse

So, the first day back at work after a busy and vee-enjoyable bank-holiday weekend, and don't I know it.  I slept like a corpse last night.  Usually, it takes me at least three hours to drop off, but last night I genuinely don't remember a thing between kicking off the memory-foam slippers en route to the mattress and the alarm clock screaming its tits off at 7.20 this morning.  The bedside lamp was still on when I woke up, implying that I must have fainted rather than fallen asleep in the traditional manner.

Despite all the shut-eye, I was super knackered right from the bully-off.  I managed to get through the rituals of breakfast and dressing myself on instinct and caffeine alone, but quickly ran out of juice.  I even had to have a lie down before leaving the house.  I'm no general practitioner, but that cannot be right, can it?  I really should have 'phoned work and told them to sod off, but that's not the kind of attitude that gets you on the Apollo Program, is it?

I am no stranger to chronic fatigue.  I blame my bio-rhythms, which are all-to-cock when compared with polite society.  When they're preparing for bed, I'm settling down in front of an episode of Kenneth Clark's "Civilisation" with a half a bottle of rioja and a bag of monkey nuts for company.  I've always been like this.

When I was boy, we had a cat called Tibby.  I remember heading-off for school one morning.  There was snow on the ground, and as I mooched forlornly off I spotted the Tibster curled-up in front of the gas fire in the front room, utterly oblivious.  "You jammy get," I remember thinking.  I could have wept.

 In fact cats have a rare old time of matters generally, don't they?  The favourable shift-patterns notwithstanding, they are the masters of their own ships in every conceivable way.  I sometimes look at dogs, and feel sorry for them.  They're like children: they go out when they're told to; they're always accompanied by an adult, and they can't feed themselves.  I often look at my friends' chocolate Labrador and sense her thinking "I could absolutely murder a sausage."  She's got more chance of flapping her ears and taking off, the poor cow.

Your cat, on the other hand, is like an undergraduate: he comes and goes as he pleases, sleeps 14 hours a day and eats when and what he wants.  If a cat wakes up hungry and it's several hours before the Whiskas gets an airing, he simply leaps out window and bags himself a pigeon or a tit.

I'll Be Back

I've been away for a long weekend. It was the August bank holiday here in the UK yesterday - the traditional end of the Summer. We spent the weekend under canvas as is our wont at this time of year. The weather, for once, was tremendous.

We spent the weekend pursuing very low-impact pastimes: croquet, crabbing, eating and drinking, and a bit of camp football. I don't mean we were mincing up the wing à la Quentin Crisp. I mean we were playing on the campsite, which necessitates careful reining in of the male instinct to twat the leather off the ball irrespective of the tactical advantage to be gained. We did quite well in this regard.

Back to the Grind

I've been rather slack of late. Sorry about that, but I do have heavyweight mitigating circs. I've been on holiday, and I have a new job.

The holiday was lovely, thank you for asking - a week in genuinely sunny Cornwall followed by a few days camping it up in north Norfolk. The job, however, is proving to be more of a challenge.

I suffer from a condition known as impostor syndrome. I've had periodic bouts of this my whole life, but it's particularly acute when changing jobs. I've been at the new post for four days now, and I think it safe to say that I don't know what the phuck I'm doing. Worse still - I've been given an underling to tutor. What I'm supposed to say to him is anyone's guess. Still onwards and upwards. What's the worst that could happen? Public humiliation swiftly followed by the right royal sack. It's not like I'm in Guantanamo Bay or anything. I rock myself to sleep each night repeating those words like a sacred mantra. I honestly thought adult life would be a walk in the park compared with childhood. It appears I misjudged the situation hugely. Still, we'll always have Paris.

Camp as Christmas

There's a bank holiday weekend looming here in merry England, and that means we're off camping. Camping's got a lot more popular now due to people having no disposable income and an exchange rate that makes Europe as expensive to get to as geo-stationary orbit. Despite the fact that it's all over the weekend lifestyle supplements, a lot of people still have misguided notions of what camping involves. They baulk when you tell them you're proposing to spend a couple of nights under the stars. They clearly picture you marooned on a shear cliff face, drinking boiled urine and eating lichen. I suppose there are some hardcore Northerners who spend their downtime like this, but they're definitely in the minority. Yes, there are many shades of camper in New Labour's Britain, and I'm firmly in the airbed, disposable barbecue and plenty of stiff drink category.

We went to see "Oliver" last week. It's effortlessly brilliant. When the opening number of a musical is as good as "Food Glorious Food", you know you're in for a rare treat.

I read somewhere that one of Lionel Bart's teachers recognised his talent and wrote to the boy's parents suggesting that they might have sired a genius. I was initially mightily impressed by this. Then I thought again. How insightful does one need to be to recognise genius, particularly musical genius? Not very is the conclusion I came to.

"Sir, Sir, I've written a song."

(wearily) "Very well, Bart, let's hear it."

Two bars in and the bottom lip would have been trembling and the foot tapping like a good un. You don't need five years at the Royal Academy to recognise genius like that. You just need two good ears with a brain slung between them.

Swine flu update: it's spreading like wild garlic. Between this and the economy imploding, it's not been a vintage year, has it? I'm going to build an ark.