I am Mike. Here me roar.

So, back at Castle Anderson, and never a better time for an extended metaphor.

London is fast receding in the rearview mirror as I drive inexorably toward that vast horizon: the future, and all the bounteous joys it doubtless holds. I am on cruise control. In fact, I am being chauffeur driven. I am reclining in the passenger seat, my feet on the dashboard, and I've got my MP3 player plugged into the hi-fi using an adaptor I found at the market for a fiver. I'm listening to the first two minutes of lots of very good songs. A few friends are asleep in the back and there's a wodge of twenty pound notes in the glove compartment, along with a bottle of whiskey and a bag of Cheese and Onion McCoys with lots of bits of flavour collected between the ridges. We stop to pick up a hitcher. It's Billie Piper. She turns out to be a complete bitch so we kick her out at the next exit, while the car is still in motion. My friends laugh and go back to sleep. The adaptor breaks, and the crisps turn out to be a multipack bag, 15g lighter than I had first thought. No ice for the whiskey. My chauffeur has started telling bad jokes, and we're running low on petrol.

I kinda lost control over it after the cruise control bit, but you get the general idea. Or maybe you don't. I've just re-read it and I don't really get it, and it's supposed to be my metaphor. Hmmmm. As far as I can work out it fits together like this: my MP3 player is all my wordly possessions, my adaptor is the useful but basically quite cheap part of me that allows me to define myself by them, Billie is the unattainable, idealised femme, the chauffeur is my id, and the whiskey is booze and drugs. My friends are my friends, and I'm 99% sure that the crisps are crisps.

That sorts that out, then.

(My adaptor isn't really broken by the way, I really love all my things.)
(No I don't, I hate them.)
(No, I love them.)
(No, I hate them.)

Join me next time when I climb the hill of great expectation to drink from the well of unfulfilled potential. And then roll back down the hill laughing.

I just don't really feel the need to post anymore. Like I said back in the beginning, this is a diary, and diaries (of mine at least) rarely live beyond a 6 to 8 month lifespan.... basically, until whatever prompted my starting the diary has disappeared, been solved, stopped causing me transcribable grief or pleasure. I started this thing with the last year of uni hanging over me, all manner of issues to be resolved.... not that I can think of any now, mind. Maybe I should go back and check..... but, y'know, uni is finished, and this would surely be the point where I put the diary under my bed and forget about it for a year or so.

I reckon over the course of the next year or so I will feel like getting on here and writing again - if I do my masters next year then I could effectively write some sort of sequel, I don't know. But until January at least I am going to be a bit of a pleb with nothing much to write about, and little time or desire to do so anyhow. I don't want to use my blog to write about how fucking menial day-to-day working life is... not yet, anyway.

So this is goodbye, dear diary, for the time being at least.

... or that's what Sky insisted on calling it - the Sports News channel wouldn't shut up about it all week. The clash of the titans! North vs South x 2! Championship deciders in September! Etc etc...

I made it through work without finding out any of the scores, which I was pretty proud of. Then headed straight over to K/H/R's flat for a cracking Sunday roast of three courses: Hawys's justifiably famed tomato soup; lots of gorgeous roast vegetables and stuffing and gravy you could drink and chicken and everything; and the crumbliest crumble I've ever had. Absolutely lovely meal, and hit the spot perfectly after a weekend on my feet cleaning up after kids and their shithead parents. But, despite its magnificance, 'twas but the preamble to the evening's main course: Match of the Day 2.

Hansen in the studio with Chiles, always a good sight - and while Alan's "A Beautiful Mind" quip was painfully preordained (acting as a cunning advert for BBC1), he showed Lee up as the painted-eyebrows amateur he is. And the football! Well, neither of the big matches were amazing - but two results I wanted, so not really complaining. Arsenal played very very well (because, as Joel and Hansen pointed out, they were allowed to) although it looked as though they were going to really miss Henry before the excellent Fabregas played in Adebeyor. And it was Ronaldo's fault too, the bell-end.

Then Didier Drogba scored the best goal I've ever seen him score - no contest, really, it really was a brilliant finish - to win the next match 1-0 to Chelski. Ballack sent off! Apparently for the first time in his career... I thought he was something of a bad-boy? Guess not. Anyway Jose wasn't too pissed off because he knows this means he doesn't have to fit Ballack and Lampard into his team for the next three league games, and can give the team some WIDTH again as a result - which will no doubt help.

Oh shit look at the time. I am meant to be at the bus stop soon to go to the cinema with Katie. But first, Blackburn's David Bentley as you've never seen him before:

Yes, I always said he belonged in a ruff, and now I've finally taken the two minutes out of my life to make it clear. I can rest easy tonight.

Been a good week, I reckon.

Baz - me old mucker from high school - came down to visit from Liverpool from Saturday until today, so when I wasn't at work then we were invariably in the pub or a park or playing Pro Evo and catching up. It was really good to see him, it had been a while, and he was on good form. Monday was my day off, and also a day of glorious weather here in the capital, a day which saw summer kicking and screaming on its way out of the door... so we headed to Hampstead Heath with Joel and Rory and took a dip in the pond. Fucking cold, and no one had the bollocks to properly undertake a diving-board dive, but great fun - sitting in a ring in a pond and relaxing in the sun, it felt like anywhere but the middle of a huge city. And that was a good thing.

Back to the pub in Stokey last night for the pub quiz again - this time Film and Entertainment. Hopes high, we raced through the opening photo round with a flawless score.... and 'twas all downhill from there. We just scraped into the prize rankings, winning a Fosters t-shirt to split five ways. Not exactly 90 quid but once again, you know, taking part that counts, as long as we had fun along the way, etc etc.

Also managed to keep an eye on the Liverpool game out of the corner of my eye - what the hell was Rafa thinking, leaving Gerrard out? Chelsea on Sunday? That's not til Sunday! He's a professional footballer for fuck's sake, he can play twice in six days! Mental decision. Pennant looked alright but Fabio Aurelio looks a bit pish. I've been sticking up for Benitez against Joel's anti-Liverpool diatribes but maybe he really doesn't know what he's doing. Pepe Reina throwing the ball onto Johnson's head on Saturday didn't help... their newfound defensive foibles are purely grounded in the fact that Reina is in my fantasy football team and is thus not allowed to keep a clean sheet before I substitute him.

Going to apply for a few jobs from the Media section this week but my heart's not really in it. Dunno why. Borders remains alright, but I am beginning to think that the fact that time goes quickly should not be the best thing about a job. Which, um, it is - except for the attendant 5-a-side matches, of course. Last week was great fun, although I almost vomited all over the pitch. Tonight I aim to pace myself a bit more so I can still be running around after 15 whole minutes have elapsed.

Oh yeah and one more thing. On Monday night, for the first time in ages and ages, I was unable to sleep a single second of the night. I was on an early shift on Tuesday morning so went to bed at around midnight - I'd had neither drink nor spliff, and was ready for a good long sleep.

So.

My watch beeped for 1am, and I thought "hmmmmm".

Soon afterwards it beeped for 2am, and I thought "shit I need some sleep".

Then it beeped for 3am and I got really angry with myself for essentially forgetting how to fall asleep - I really did not know how to do it, and started working out what the transition is like. Is it just awake and then sleep, or what? On certain occasions when I'm really tired but can't let myself fall asleep for whatever reason - at work, on a bus, whatever - I can consciously feel my mind begin to wander from my own train of thought and into something else, before I do a classic dropping-off-on-public-transport full-body spasm (did anyone see? have I drooled all over myself again?) and am fully awake. On Monday night not once did I experience this! For fuck's sake.

So - 3am, I was angry, but it started really pissing it down. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, I thought - I can fall asleep to the rain. Instead, I lay in bed listening to rain, tossing and turning, until I heard Dan get up and have a bath. Then my alarm went off and it was one of the most horrible sounds I've ever heard - even worse than when I'm actually asleep. Like a confirmation of failure, or something.

Anyway, somehow I made it through yesterday at work and the pub, and slept like a baby through the night. Thank fuck. Off back to the flat now for a quick power-nap to recharge my batteries before footy later. Yes indeed.

I think I've hit my comfort zone at work before a full week has elapsed. Today was an early shift (half 7 - the morning was gorgeous, really clear and crisp - as, indeed, all mornings are when I happen to be up that early) and after the store opened at 9 I just zoned out, without really meaning too... stared at the carpet, at my bottle of water, at the Gruffalo. Just stared.

However, I have made a colon-inducing deduction: time goes quicker at this job than at other full-time things I've had in the past. I mean, this afternoon really properly flew by - I finished lunch, and then suddenly I was going home. Weird. Like that bit in the Jerk where Steve Martin talks to his girlfriend while she lies asleep next to him. In fact, just thinking about that speech is making me giggle like a lunatic so I shall visit IMDB and copy and paste the whole thing for posterity. If you've seen the film then it should make you laugh. If not then, well, you should really see the film: it's freakin' funny.

"I know we've only known each other four weeks and three days, but to me it seems like nine weeks and five days. The first day seemed like a week and the second day seemed like five days. And the third day seemed like a week again and the fourth day seemed like eight days. And the fifth day you went to see your mother and that seemed just like a day, and then you came back and later on the sixth day, in the evening, when we saw each other, that started seeming like two days, so in the evening it seemed like two days spilling over into the next day and that started seeming like four days, so at the end of the sixth day on into the seventh day, it seemed like a total of five days. And the sixth day seemed like a week and a half. I have it written down, but I can show it to you tomorrow if you want to see it."

Gareth is back in Britain, and the country is a better place for it. He bravely fought the jet-lag on Tuesday as we traipsed around London (I making full use of my day off) - from Kentish Town to Leicester Square, a nice walk. We went to the Photographer's Gallery to check out the London Firefighter's exhibition and it was really good - check it out if you're down in the West End sometime. I'm basically a sucker for any old picture of London, really, and some of these were great - from the funny to the slightly disturbing. Also a few of the famous 7/7 photos as you enter, mainly from the guy who took a load on his phone... citizen journalism, etc. All duly noted. Apparently one of the major photos used was mediated by the BBC and newspapers to remove body and gore, which is plain stupid on their part. If you want a gore-less photo then choose one - no need to mess with one. Like photoshopping Kate Winslet's ass for that magazine that time (Vanity Fair? can't remember), only a bit more insulting, I think. Oh well.

Then in the evening me and G and Joel and Katie went to a pub quiz up in Stoke Newington. I thought it was just film and entertainment when in fact it was general knowledge.... needless to say, it didn't go too well. In fact in my mind it's just a blur of wrong answers and minor arguments. Anyway, about four teams were called The Stingrays or something along those lines (pub quizzers are clearly tapped into the zeitgeist) and we all got a bit drunk so everything turned out alright. Then we continued the tradition of drinking Gareth's bottle of duty free whiskey on his first day back in the country. A good day, and an excellent day off for myself.

Other than that..... just work, really.

Well, at last I have found something which truly pisses me off about my job at Borders: James fucking Morrison, one of the several albums on rotation. Twice a day, I hear that. Twice. A. Day.

Music execs were clearly sitting around a penthouse doing copious amounts of cocaine, verbally masturbating and pontificating about the musical success stories of the past year, ever vigilant in their quest for the Next Big Thing. One name stood out above all else; a man with hit singles, a hit album and - gasp! - subsequent success in the uncrackable US market: James Blunt.
"What we need to do" said one filthy rich bigwig "is take the essential inherent blandness of Blunt's records and multiply it by itself; we need to create Blunt squared".
"Great idea" said another "I know this lad who knows how to play guitar and can sing in tune. And his name doesn't rhyme with cunt!"
"Get him in here yesterday."
[sniiifffff]

And thus, James Morrison came to be (pictured above).

Truly, a singer so offensively, mind-numbingly bland that he makes James Blunt sound.... well, I was gonna say Marvin Gaye, but that ain't true. I'll settle with this: he makes James Blunt sound marginally more charismatic than he is - which I always thought was impossible. If this trend continues then by around 2009 the public will be buying music so bland that it technically doesn't exist, and this cannot be a good thing, either for the public or for the very fabric of reality.

Morrison's album is called Undiscovered. Please, for God's sake, help it stay that way.

......when you're also working a full-time job; this is the lesson I have learned this week. How the hell do so many of you people do it?! I've been finishing work this week at 7 and have been knackered. Just knackered. I s'pose not having t'internet at home doesn't help... but still. I can see that entries are going to become few and far between now. Perhaps this will lead to an upturn in the general quality? Or perhaps not. Probably not.

As it is, I am truly knackered now and have got work tomorrow morning again. Borders is turning out ok, to be truthful. People are nice - and most of the time not nice in the Uniformly Nice So You'll Please Love Our Shop way, which is a bonus - and the banter is of a higher quality than I have been used to in previous retail jobs; always a crucial factor. I'm working in the kids section, although I haven't started because training doesn't finish til tomorrow - looking forward to it, kids are nice enough, and the other two members of the kids section both seem sound as a dollarpound. Also, the boss has let me book my holiday to Wales at the end of September, and there's a weekly 5-a-side, so it all seems good.... if a bit, I don't know, soulless. But maybe that will improve with time.

I really want to go on about my weekend at Greenbelt, where I attended numerous seminars and discussions, both religious and non-religious. In fact the better talks were the latter, which appealed massively to the remnants of my lefty/liberal student values (which I suppose will be eroded by the day once ensconced in Borders's corporate bosom) - e.g. is Fairtrade really fair or is it now just a booster for brands? And some interesting talks on the death penalty worldwide, including an interview with a guy who was wrongly placed on Death Row from 1981 to 2004 - fucking insane, man. He escaped in 1985, almost by accident, but handed himself in after 25 days on the FBI most wanted list. And then went through another 19 years! Eventually new DNA technology led to a retrial and he was exonerated... but what a way to spend 23 years. He didn't seem too bitter which I find incredibly hard to believe. I'd be fucking livid, all the time...... but then I guess I can't say that til I've been there. Anyway, I digress: the weekend was great, just what I wanted/needed. I am now all stoked up in an altruistic kinda way and want to find Nice Helpful Things to do for people I don't know in the near future - be it weekly, or in the form of a big trip away somewhere. I dunno... at the moment I've got a lot of nice sentiments floating around my head, a vague desire to do something I'd call good, but it's in no way focused. Time will tell; hopefully this feeling won't just evaporate (see "corporate bosom").

Football: Tevez and Mascherano - weeeeeeee-ird. Very very weird, even. Something fishy. Nothing fishy about Sibierski to Newcastle; that's just plain odd.

Tennis: well, Henman did better against the Fed than he did at Wimbledon. Scant consolation, but, well, it's something....... Murray, meanwhile. What a guy! 6-0, 6-1, 6-1 - when Henman and Rusedski were in their pomp, I do not recollect them ever winning so comprehensively, be it in a slam or in some lesser event. Murray lost 7 points in the first set. Seven points! Wow, bloody hell. He's up against Fernando Gonzalez next, who if I remember correctly tends to hit the ball bloody hard - so I'd expect our Andy to use his sliced backhand a lot, slow the points down, hope Gonzalez fucks up... maybe come to the net and see how he is at passing. I'm sure Brad Gilbert has 101 clever things up his sleeve. Anyway, Gonzalez is seeded 10th and Murray only 17th, so this is technically as far as he's 'supposed' to progress. Not sure if that'll stop him, however, as he seems to be shit-hot at the moment. I never did place that fiver bet so if he wins the whole shebang I'm going to be crying through my joy.

Right. I am tired and I want a PINT really badly. I have lagged recently in my correspondance with other people on here, sorry - I'll make amends soon. But not now. Now, I want a pint...

Well I feel like I should write something mainly because I haven't done for a few days, and I won't be able to until Tuesday after this afternoon.

My job situation has sorted itself out; the dust settled on several interviews, a few voicemail messages, and the odd rambling conversation/monologue with/to various friends, and I decided to take the job at Borders in Islington rather than the one at 6am every morning down at Waterloo. Convenience won out over some romanticised notion that wearing a fluorescent jacket and brandishing a walkie-talkie would be, like, totally real, man - an idea that probably would not have lasted beyond the first week of 5am alaram calls. So...... Borders it is. Books! People have told me that working in a bookshop is great, great fun. These people have, to a man, never worked in any such establishment, and on what evidence they base such deductions I have no idea. I am guessing that it's along the lines of "all you do is sit around and read books". Well, bollocks to that idea. This is Borders. The Starbucks of the book world. Do people working at Starbucks sit around and drink coffee all day? Do they bollocks.

I am consoling myself with the fact that previous experiences on the shop floor have been relatively enjoyable, until I remember said experiences and realise that, in fact, they haven't been; Gap was one of the more depressing three months of my life, and Party Bizniz led to helium-induced headaches and far too many 'dust the stock-room' shifts, probably to stop me dressing up as Gladiator and talking to customers via an awful Russell Crowe impression. (Well, not that awful. But pretty bad.) (No, who am I kidding, it was shit.) (Really, really shit.)

So...... that job starts on Tuesday. That freed up the rest of my week and my bank holiday weekend. I decided that my spiritual batteries have been empty for too long and that, to continue the metaphor, they need recharging. Luckily, Christian/liberal/spiritual types (I do not tick every box) are recharging en masse this weekend at Greenbelt festival in Cheltenham. Ah, Greenbelt. Unheard of music acts (often with one or two 'names', of the Polyphonic Spree or Lambchop variety) along with seminar upon seminar of either a Christian or non-denominational but decidedly left-wing theme, and all the usual festival stalls and eateries and tiny tea tents. Always a great weekend, and although it will not be the same this year as it was when I was a teenager and there were 25 of us camping together every year from the church youth group, it will still be an excellent place to relax and do very little, while occasionally getting all deep and meaningful. I am going with only one mate, but my mum will be around somewhere doing her volunteering thing, and I think other old friends will be around somewhere, a text message away...

So, I have been in Worcester for a few days, desperately avoiding spending any money. I have been watching a lot of Sky TV, as is my wont on such journeys home. Quantum Leap has been of a high quality this week on ITV3. First of all there was the Lee Harvey Oswald two-parter; then the one where he's on the island with the heiress; and then yesterday the one with Jennifer Aniston in, where he is the Vietnam vet stuck in hospital having had his legs amputated. Around these episodes I have been watching the ever-endearing That 70's Show, which seems to be on about seven different Sky channels at various points of the day. For those of you with a passing interest in both Premiership strikers and That 70's Show/high-profile Hollywood relationships, here is a lookalike somewhat hindered by the lack of decent photos on googleimage; rest assured that they look alike. This has been bugging me for a while as no one agrees with me whenever I bring it up (possibly because I'm never with someone who knows who both of them are)

Yeah? Alright, no. Anyway.
And on top of QL and T70'sS, I've been watching old episodes of The Wonder Years. Yes, surrounded by all my old books and clothes and whatever, I've been immersed in three shows almost wholly predicated on nostalgia. With Quantum Leap and The Wonder Years it's effectively been nostalgia squared, since I've been nostalgising about watching the shows back in the early-90s, when I was first caught up in their misty-eyed nostalgia for simpler times... I see QL has recently made the leap to DVD and hope The Wonder Years follows suit sooner rather than later.

Yesterday I went to see Snakes On A Plane. There has been so much written about this film all over t'internet that it is literally impossible for me to add anything new. It was pretty good. The best bit was, er, when the snakes first got on the plane and it's chaos for about ten minutes. Lots of snakes. Everywhere. Also saw a trailer for the new Jason Statham film, Clunk (or is it Clank? I can't remeber. It may be Crank actually) - I wish they'd drop the 'Jason' from his ads and just go with 'Statham'. Like 'Schwarzenegger' or 'Stallone', he just doesn't need a first name.

Ok, when I start talking about Jason Statham it's time to go. I don't feel I've really done much here so I am going to paste in a link - http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329561464-103390,00.html - which is really quite funny, if you didn't happen to read the back of G2 this morning.

Hope everyone enjoys the last bank holiday of the year. (Except for Boxing Day and Christmas but they don't count, do they? I don't think so.)

Not much time.

I just really wanted to convey my excitement at the start of the Premiership season today, and the concomitant return to our (well, my) Saturday evening schedule of Match of the Day. I am very, very excited. Almost unspeakably so. About as excited as I was for the beginning of the second series of Dr. Who - and, unless they've replaced Gary 'Eccleston' Lineker with Ray 'Tennant' Stubbs, my expectations of greatness are sure to be realised. (Possibly unfair on Tennant, that. At least I didn't say Mark Pougatch.) The pundit line-up will doubtless represent the BBC's strongest possible pairing to send out a message of intent for the season ahead... this will propably be Hansen and Lawrenson, although maybe Mark's morose meanderings over the course of the summer will have seen him deposed by... er... no, it'll definitely be those two. Lee Dixon's stock dropped considerably after he couldn't name the capital of Germany while reporting there for the World Cup, O'Neill teases us all with his greatness every two years but will never be a permanent fixture, Ian Wright is a one-trick pony... that said, I look forward to seeing the return of Lee Sharpe and, hopefully, Brad Friedel on Match of the Day 2 - which will, after all, generally feature matches of a higher ilk than its Saturday counterpart.

So: yes, I am excited excited excited. Like a wee lad on Christmas morning who knows exactly what he's getting from Santa and likes the sound of it very very much. Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh roll on 10.30.

My week of cinema-going to conserve money finished yesterday with the rather good A Scanner Darkly. Sadly I had Match of the Day-like expectations but it was hardly a bad film. Not one of Linklater's best. I find Robert Downey Jr almost unspeakably irritating although, as Joel said, that's probably the point. (But does that make it alright? Does it? Does it?) This week I've also seen Miami Vice, The Notorious Bettie Page (confused, although it looked great), Little Fish (relentless drab with a shit ending), Innocent Voices (good performance, great moments, but violently sentimental) and then A Scanner Darkly. I still have a list of things I wish to see and, since it saves me money, I expect a few more double-bills next week. Free films and football.... simple, simple pleasures.

Murray vs the Fed: come on Murray! At least win a set, man - then I'll put a fiver on you for the US Open and you can win me a few weeks' rent.

My Big Interview today, 2pm sharp down in Clapham, for a position as a customer services rep for Southwestern Trains or whatever that Waterloo company is called... Made it just in time, despite giving myself a half-hour cushion - the bus took freakin' ages, I read loads of The Corrections on the top deck of a 35. Alighted, and it promptly started chucking it down, so I arrived at the interview feeling both dry and smug (at having brought an umbrella despite it being sunny when I left the flat). It all went well, I filled in the forms, crossed the ts, dotted the lower case js, had a brief interview with a man with prematurely gray hair who insisted on using the word "dude" at least once or twice every sentence, to everyone in the room. 'Dude' this and 'dude' that. Like an uncle trying really hard. Bugged the hell out of me. Anyway, the interview bit went well and he said that I've Got The Job (not officially; I get the official call this week sometime).

So, huzzah. However, soon after leaving I was called by Borders requesting an interview this weekend, which I duly granted. The customer services beins 6am in the morning if I want to have any part of my day free, which is a bit shit - and Borders is just down the road. It really looks like I'm prepared to be paid £1.25-ish less per hour in order to have a much smaller distance to travel, and to work sociable hours. Which, now I've written it down, makes perfect sense - especially as this isn't a long-term job search but merely a stop-gap until the end of September... so I figure I only stand to lose (or rather, not gain) about, er, £200. Hmmmmmmmmm. Would I pay £200 for six weeks of lie-ins and the odd night in the pub? Rhetorical, that.

Ah, today my life of thriftiness drifted ever-so-close to a life of crime. First of all, my lurking on the bendy 149 paid dividends as I swiped my Oyster card just prior to a ticket inspector, visible through the door, boarding - saved myself a hefty fine there, and had a brief surge of adrelinaline, before receiving a few dirty looks from some rather pious 149 patrons (incidentally, it's officially the 7th most dangerous route in London).

Then later on I transgressed consumer societal norms in a way I haven't since my brother and I got hammered in Munich and nicked a few postcards. Wandering central London listening to music, wondering whether or not to catch a film, and I waited a few moments by the Starbucks inside the Trocadero, idly flicking through some albums looking for a fresh soundtrack to my life. To my left stood the drinks counter, where green-aproned servants leave all finished drinks to be collected by the customer. No one was anywhere near said counter, and in the middle stood a large iced chocolate frappucino with oodles of whipped cream, net value maybe about 3 quid, looking all forlorn - in need of a friend, a consumer. I waited for about twenty seconds, and nobody came to collect it - no one was even looking at it - while the staff were busy doing whatever it is Starbucks staff do... so I settled on Saturday Looks Good To Me, picked the drink up and walked off quickly. More adrenaline! Aaaahhhhhh, the adrenaline was far more satisfying than the 149 evasion, and somewhat ironically far more satisfying the drink itself.

Now I see why whenever My Anonymous Kleptomaniac Friend steals something, he can't wait to tell people about it afterwards; it actually felt quite good, I briefly felt powerful - once my heart-rate had resumed normal speed, at least. My residual guilt is minimal to say the least (Starbucks can probably afford it) but, somehow, I feel a little... unclean. Like the bit in Home Alone where Macauley Culkin steals a toothbrush and walks home with his head bowed and spirits deflated. I think I like to paint a self-image of a guy who's pretty set in his values of right/wrong - e.g. stealing = wrong - and today I completely blew those away. I don't like blowing away pieces of my self-image when other people do it anyway. Luckily for me, my values are backed up by a relatively strong fear of being caught doing anything wrong (which I today just about circumvented by checking two or three times that the coast was as clear as day) and an even stronger fear of confrontations... so, that is my crime gene sated for another few years. (Um, except for the fare dodging.)

In fact transcribing my wrong-doings make me feel stupid. I don't like feeling stupid. In fact I hate it. So, I am going to buy a few beers and relax by watching England's Bright New Dawn splutter towards a rather soggy mid-morning via a dull and dreary 0-0 draw. (Poor Dean Ashton.)