I leave a trail of loose hair wherever I go. I don’t need to buy blankets, because it only takes ten minutes lying down to achieve full three-inch coverage. Cleaning up after a shower is a nightmare – tiled floors like, whose idea was that? My first house is going to have a black shag carpet in the bathroom. And I am never, ever going to look at it.

(Do you know, incidentally, how awkward it is picking up strands of hair off a men’s room floor? Because you know that when people see them they’ll know straight away whose head it came off, and they’ll be all “Ugh, that guy has a body, with things on it”. I personally have no idea how awkward that would be, but I imagine fairly. It’s probably almost as awkward as having someone come into a men’s room while you’re standing there in the middle of the floor, whistling, with your hands in your pockets and a bunch of god damn hair all around your feet.)

I would worry that I’m going bald, but this has been happening since I was 13 with no sign of any thinning. I tell you what, I’m not even sure I have a scalp under there. There’s an expedition going in this Saturday to see what they can dig up. Pray for them, internet. Pray for them.

1. Saw her the other day actually. I was like, Check her out, all reintegrated into normal human society! It was nice to see, you know?

In Regards to a recent Termination – Cancellation on your Chorus/NTL account please be advised that despite numinous attempts we have been unable to contact you to collect our equipment.

Man, whatever. I mean, let’s not get into who tried to contact who, and who got through first time and arranged to pick up the equipment, and who nevertheless didn’t bother to turn up. Let’s not get into how maybe you’re coming off a little pissy right now, NTL. No. There are much more interesting things we could talk about.

When I first glanced over the message I read it as “despite numerous attempts”. But that ain’t what it says.

From Wikipedia: “Numinous (from the Classical Latin numen) is an English adjective describing the power or presence of a divinity.” Dear Mary. So that itch I’ve been getting on and off just behind my ear, is that them deploying their mighty powers to try to communicate with me? Perhaps my rock-solid rationalism has prevented them getting a clear signal. I shall clear my mind and meditate, and we shall see if we can sort this matter out once and for all.

… nope, still just trying to flog me a landline. Dammit NTL. Such a waste.

Naturally, I got in touch with my publisher tout de suite.

Axel, baby,

Has The Tau-Upsilon Procedure gone to print yet? Don’t answer that, there’s no time. Pulp them if necessary. We have a new cover. Print the following, 18pt:

A MOST EXCELLENT NOVEL. SO EXCITING MY EYES HAVE MELTED. FIVE STARS. NO: ELEVEN STARS!

Is that cocky? Print FIVE STARS in Comic Sans so as to create ambiguity. Title and my name can go on the spine. Omit title if necessary.

Won’t keep you any longer. Get to it.

yrs in sport,

E.

PS: I think the boy has been drinking my sherry. Have him fired.

PPS: Working on a new series, The Continuing Escapades of Selfish Gene. Send advance pls. Will forward manuscript on my return from Ecuador.

PPPS: Will be in Ecuador for the foreseeable. Have the boy take care of my post.

1. As an aside, wouldn’t Selfish Gene be a great name for a character in a children’s story? If you even think about considering stealing that, I’ll Berne Convention you so hard your teeth will spin.

Somewhere in Cork, right now, there is a man with 2.6 gigabytes of Van Halen on his laptop. Did Van Halen even record 2.6 gigabytes of material? Who knows! This man has it anyway.

Secondly, thanks to the hosting ninjas at Blacknight for helping me sort this out. Hey, looking for a hosting plan? Try Blacknight! They’re ninjas.

Finally, I actually had stuff I wanted to post in that time. I know! So keep an eye out for that.

1. Of which full details here.

If you could live in any century, what century would that be?

Three people are standing in a line, facing forward. Like so: A -> B -> C ->. Person A can see Person B and Person C. Person B can see Person C. Person C is kind of staring off into space, perhaps pondering the merits of dogs vs. cats as household pets, or idly doing some mental arithmetic.¹

Now then: hats. Each of them is wearing a hat, which has been distributed from a pool of two white hats and three black hats. They don’t know what hat they’ve been given, although of course they can see the hats of those in front of them. They are asked to say, without guessing, what colour hat they’re wearing.

A says nothing. B says nothing. C says, “I know what colour hat I’m wearing.”

What colour hat does he have, and how does he know?

1. They all do this. They’re very logical people, you understand, and that’s how they get their jollies. Even that bit about the dogs and cats is just a mental exercise. Do you think Person C would ever actually want to have a pet? You fool.

And though that may sound like the most brutal of chimeras to someone in your delicate position, the diamond core of your brain holds off on the retching long enough to force a thoughtful nod and a counter-offer, and said counter-offer must be ridiculous enough to further cement the impression of precocity that apparently landed you there in the first place because while there’s an audible intake of breath there is no discernable frantic tapping on sub-deskular buttons and no sudden rush of thick-necked security, and the diamond core presses forward and starts dictating terms and before you know it your brain is seizing your hand and you’re watching your fingers start to dribble out what looks for all the world like your signature on a piece of paper.

… but the diamond core takes a fatal moment to congratulate itself, which lets the more mushy and belligerent hinterlands of your brain out for the party, and the kinetic energy of the fingers somehow transfers into the lips. And you hear things like, how about we go for a bit more specificity here, how about we not take verbal shortcuts? Let’s not patronise the viewer, and when you think about it wouldn’t it be more accurate to ask Are You More Knowledgeable About Certain Things Than These Particular Privately-Educated Ten-Year-Olds? And let’s make some bold leaps re: merchandising/promotion; let’s, for instance, up the punchability of both t-y-o’s and contestants, up the irritation and baffling illogicality and sheer lack of thought by all parties and make a show that will if there is any sense in the world be well and truly buried inside the first season? But hear me out not without attracting the goggle-eyed attention of a certain sub-section of the college-aged demographic, such attention as may be enhanced through the airing of re-runs in the post-2am witching/insomniac/ironic appreciation window, and which may be capitalised upon in any number of ways by a savvy production/marketing team.

… which is a discussion that no doubt seems lucid and excellent at the outset, but which if you think about it will probably end up being something the diamond core will be vocal about later on. Something about which it will, in fact, take pains to communicate an almost viscous displeasure. And maybe yeah when people start to cough and stand up and avoid eye contact you kind of regret, to some degree, what has pretty evidently become a lost opportunity.

But on the other hand, you walk out and realise it’s not even past lunchtime yet, and the sun is out, and there are licenced premises every way you look, and to be honest who ever listens to that part of their brain anyway.

1. Or, I suppose, more kind of lurking at the edges of a beer garden. Perhaps reclining in some bushes. And to clarify, there’s only beer in this garden because it happened to be in your hand when you got lost coming off the N11 at 7 in the morning.

Aha, though. Because it would appear it can. As soon as it finished the DJ jumped in with a remark about her “tales of woe,” and I wonder if a man released a song like would he get away with it, hmm I don’t think so somehow ha ha, but sure aren’t we men useless at everything anyway, and it’s 11 o’clock and here’s the news.

Right.

Let’s, for a moment, ignore all the squabbly noncefights about who gets to be the equalest, and concentrate on what a colossal sackbag you have to be to make comments like that. And not just to make them, but to be so horrendously glib and passive-aggressive while you’re at it. I get that you’re insecure. I get that you grew up in the midst of a lot of change and uncertainty. But surely you realise how you’re coming off? Surely you could think things through a bit more? Because I would respectfully submit that if in order for you to see a personal insult in those lyrics, your knee has to possessed of a jerkiness rarely seen outside of late-stage Parkinson’s.

So and anyway. I guess if there’s a wider point to be made, it’s that it’s pretty embarrassing to be a man sometimes. There’s a line to be skated between  victim and apologist¹, and it’s easy enough to fall off. But seriously fellas, could we at least refrain from taking a dive?

1. Cheerfully, some people have nailed it.

But then I read Andrew’s facts, and it occurred to me that they were awful familiar. Awful familiar indeed… for you see, I know this man – or rather, I knew him. We were a team, Andrew and I, before an unpleasantness forced us apart. Then a while later we were a team again, before a misunderstanding put paid to our relationship. Then after a couple of years we were a team again, and then we kind of got really really drunk, and I guess there might have been some psychotropics in the mix, and basically we haven’t seen each other since.

Many fine histories of our exploits have been written¹, but here’s a few choice “behind the scenes” nuggets that tend to get left out:

1. While my favourite pen is a Bic biro, Andrew is a die-hard fan of Staedtlers. In order to minimise arguments and avoid needless destruction of property, we tend to write in pencil when in each other’s company.

2. You know where at the start of those Pepé le Pew cartoons the cat would squeeze under like a freshly-painted fence or something and then the skunk would chase her for ages looking to do the deed on her? Well, [excised at the request of the British Royal Family]

3. In the space of three minutes during a late-night/early-morning singalong in a Munich pub in the 1860s, we inadvertently invented the Eurovision, paracetamol and Cambodia.

4. Pork, as a meat, was much less delicious before we started hanging out together. We’re not sure why.

5. We wrote the preliminary code for Auto-Tune in 1971. It’s taken 38 years for someone to find a proper use for it.

6. The seven-day-week thing is one of Andrew’s most common boasts  but, as usual, he was only partly responsible. I recall it was a balmy Blurnsday evening back in the sixteenth century: myself and himself were pretty heavily into peyote at the time, as were the rest of the Tibetan aristocracy², and in the middle of one of our lengthier binges I happened to make an offhand comment about there being seven celestial bodies visible to the naked eye. Well, things got somewhat hazy, but when we came to several days later Andrew was clutching a sheaf of paperwork from the US Patent Office³. After several months on the road, and some characteristic mountebankery, we’d convinced the rest of the world to adopt the new system.

1. q.v. particularly the following paragraph on Wikipedia: “In the course of history, men with facial hair have been ascribed various attributes such as wisdom and knowledge, sexual virility, or high social status; and, conversely, filthiness, crudeness, or an eccentric disposition, such as in the case of a bum, hobo or vagrant.”
2. Long story.
3. which office, ironically, we ourselves had founded less than two weeks earlier.